Lock Nut

by JL Merrow

  Phil spun and slapped the wall, openhanded. “I know, all right? Christ, I know.”

  He looked wrecked.

  Shit. All my frustration, my anger, fizzled and died. “It wasn’t . . . I’m not blaming you,” I said weakly.

  “No? Because I sodding well am.”

  There wasn’t a lot I could say to him. Not and have him believe me, anyway. I pulled him in for a hug. “Call it a joint effort, shall we?”

  Because okay, he’d talked me into going round to Oliver’s later rather than sooner. But it wasn’t like I’d put up much of a fight.

  “Do you think it’s a coincidence—the timing, that is?” I asked later, when we were sitting on the sofa with a couple of beers, exhausted but too wired to sleep yet. “We talk to Brian, he drops his heavy hints about Oliver, and a few hours later, the bloke turns up in pieces?”

  “Has to be. How would anyone else know what Tarbox told us?” Phil was silent a moment. “For all we know, he’s been telling everyone about Parrot and Oliver since day one.”

  “I s’pose Axel could’ve overheard us talking . . . Nah, it doesn’t make sense. That kid, go round to Oliver’s and shove him over a wall?”

  “They were pretty evenly matched for weight, I’d say. And he wouldn’t have needed much force. Not with the height of that wall. If he hit the bloke just right, gravity would do most of the work for him.”

  “That’s not what I mean. Axel’s just a kid, yeah? But if he killed Oliver, that means he must’ve killed Jonathan as well, doesn’t it? A bit cold-blooded for a fifteen-year-old.” I frowned. “Unless . . . he killed Oliver because he found out Oliver killed Jonathan? Wouldn’t he go to the police, though, instead of doing the whole vigilante-vengeance thing?”

  “Kelvin Reid didn’t.”

  I stared at him. “Fuck. What happened to him, anyway? They charged him with assault, didn’t they?”

  “Out on police bail.”

  Merlin poked his head into the room, decided he didn’t like the atmosphere, and sodded off again. Arthur, made of sterner stuff, padded in and jumped up on Phil’s lap. Phil stroked his head absently.

  “And we already know he knows his way around Pluck’s End.” My aching abs reminded me Reid would be easily capable of tipping Oliver over a hip-high brick wall. Hell, he could probably chuck him over one twice as high.

  Phil was frowning. “Why would Oliver let Reid into his house, though? Especially if he had a guilty conscience?”

  I gave him the old eye roll, because seriously? “Like Reid couldn’t have barged in anywhere he wanted?”

  “Without waking the flatmate?” Phil pointed out.

  “Shit. S’pose not.”

  “Whoever killed Oliver, it was someone he trusted. Or at least knew well enough to let in when they knocked on the door.” Phil’s face was grim.

  “Think whoever killed him knew there was a bloke asleep upstairs?” I thought about it. “I mean, that’d be the first thing you’d say, right? ‘Keep your voice down, the roomie’s on nights.’ It’d make it bloody risky, though. All Pete would’ve had to do would be to take a look out the window, and it’d all be over.”

  “First, you’re forgetting it was dark. And second, the back bedroom was Oliver’s. Pete had the one that overlooked the street.” Phil huffed. “Could’ve used that as an excuse to take it outside, out the back.”

  That made a nasty kind of sense. “You don’t reckon he was in on it, do you? Pete? Or did it himself, even?”

  Phil shook his head decisively. “Nobody’s that good an actor. And it doesn’t make sense. If it was him, he’d want to make it look like an accident, so why deny all knowledge?”

  “I dunno. Maybe he thought it’d be less suspicious if he claimed he’d slept through the whole thing and Oliver was out there on his own? Like people would think he’d, I dunno, leaned over the wall too far while trainspotting?” I grimaced, because even I could tell how daft that sounded. “Pete was hiding stuff. Uh, information. I don’t mean actual physical stuff.”

  “Trying to protect Oliver. Not that it matters now.”

  “Do you think whoever did it went there planning to kill him?” I took a hefty swig of beer. My head was aching from all the crap going round and round in it. “They must have, mustn’t they? Or why bother going out in the back garden in the dark? Come to that, why would Oliver go with them?”

  “Could have been to avoid waking Pete up. Or maybe Oliver was killed first, or incapacitated somehow, and then dragged out the back.”

  “That’ll show up when the forensics team do their stuff on the body, won’t it?”

  Phil gave me a look. “You reckon?” His tone was grim.

  I swallowed. “Right. Jigsaw puzzle. Christ, I need my bed.”

  “Agreed.” Phil stood up, much to Arthur’s yowled disgust as he was tipped onto the floor.

  We stumbled upstairs and into bed, leaving our clothes scattered on the floor, both way too tired for any life-affirming hanky-panky.

  You can probably guess how well I slept, and what I dreamed about.

  Sunday morning being traditionally a day of rest, we were of course woken up at eight by the phone ringing. Given the night I’d had, I wasn’t too pleased about having to roll out of bed and root around in the heap of clothes on the floor until I finally located my phone in my jeans pocket.

  It was Lilah. “All right, love?” I greeted her, trying not to let my lack of enthusiasm show in my voice.

  “What the bleedin’ hell’s going on?”

  I held the phone further from my ear, her voice being a little louder and more piercing than I was feeling up to at that hour of the morning. “What?” Was she calling to complain about our abortive attempt to corner her beloved son without her to act as chaperone?

  “That lad from the Smithy. Oliver. He’s brown bread!”

  Dead, my knowledge of little-used cockney rhyming slang provided, the fact I’d been the one to discover the body adding a helpful hint my sleep-fogged brain sorely needed. “Uh. Yeah. How do you know?”

  “Pete called my little girl and told her about it this morning. She’s in a right state.”

  Huh, so Hazel and Pete were friends. And it sounded like Pete hadn’t slept any better than I had.

  “She said you found him. With your whatsit.” There was a touch of awe underlying her The world’s gone mad tone.

  “Yeah . . .” I glanced over at Phil, who was sitting up in bed looking unfairly with-it, not to mention gorgeous. “Hang on a mo.” I covered the bit you speak into with my thumb. “It’s Lilah. She’s heard about Oliver.”

  “Tell her we’ll be over in an hour.”

  I relayed the message and hung up. Then I slumped back onto the bed. “An hour? Great. Just time to bung some clothes on and shove down a slice of toast.”

  “Shower first.”

  “Have we got time?” I asked wearily, staring up at the ceiling.

  “If we do it together.” Phil’s face appeared in my field of vision wearing a hint of a smirk, and although thirty seconds ago I’d have said I hadn’t got the energy for anything like that, suddenly all I wanted was to forget about this bloody case for five minutes.

  “You’re on.” I held out my hand.

  Phil pulled me up and kept on pulling so I landed smack against his hard, naked body. It wasn’t the only thing that was hard, either. I shivered, either from the chill of the room or from the feel of his skin on mine, and he grabbed hold of a buttock and squeezed.

  “Shower,” he reminded me, and kissed me roughly, sending a jolt of desire straight down to my groin.

  It’s not exactly huge, my shower. Well, not when you’ve got a bloke in there with you with shoulders the size of my Phil’s. We had to get really close. Not that I was complaining. I buried my head in Phil’s neck as he jerked us off, both our dicks together in one big hand. “Christ, that’s good,” I moaned. “Want me to—”

  I didn’t get to finish offering to blow him, much less go through
with the act, because he stopped my mouth with a kiss. It was forceful and hungry like his grip on my dick, just the right side of pain. His other hand was on the back of my head, stopping me breaking the kiss—not that I wanted to.

  Maybe I wasn’t the only one who’d had bad dreams last night. With the water cascading down on us, it was difficult to breathe and our chests were heaving.

  Light-headed, I dug my fingers into the slippery mounds of his arse, not bothering to worry about leaving marks. I wanted to leave marks. I wanted everything. I ran my hand down his crack, my fingers teasing his hole, letting him know what I intended in case he had a problem with that.

  Phil grunted into my mouth as he shoved his arse back against my touch. Nope, no problems there. I circled his hole once with my middle finger and then pushed it deep inside him, owning him. I felt it in my dick as his inner muscles gripped me tight, pulling me inside—and then spasmed as he came, shooting hot jets of spunk up between us.

  He’d barely stopped shuddering before he pushed me away—and dropped to his knees.

  Christ. I nearly came from the sight. His blond hair was soaked several shades darker, and water was beaded on his muscular shoulders where they were outside the spray. The streaks of his spunk on my belly were disappearing as the water washed them away. I backed up about an inch to lean against the tiles. They chilled my shoulders to the bone, but I didn’t care. The rest of me was feverish with want.

  Both hands on my hips, he bent his head—but not to my dick, as I’d expected. Instead, he gently kissed my belly, right where Reid had punched me. Christ. Even after all the time we’d been together, his tenderness still blew me away. My heart melted—then he dipped his head further, and suddenly it wasn’t my heart that was uppermost in my mind.

  My knees trembled as Phil’s mouth enveloped me. Bloody hell, he was good at this. My world narrowed to the heat and pressure on my dick. God, I never wanted this to end. Phil’s head bobbed up and down as he rolled my balls in his hand, and I groaned wordlessly.

  Then he looked up, straight at me, still sucking on my cock, and that was all it took. Pleasure and release ripped through me. Possibly I shouted something. It was fucking glorious.

  And then the water went cold, my knees gave out, and I collapsed onto Phil. We were both laughing like a couple of sex-drunk hyenas as we staggered out of the shower to grab our towels.

  “Feeling better now?” Phil asked, rubbing his hair dry with a lot more than a hint of a smirk. His towel was an Egyptian cotton bath sheet personally hand-woven by Nefertiti and fluffed up by the breath of baby angels, while mine was the washed-out, cardboard-textured dishrag I’d got in a bargain-price bundle from Tesco. The bath sheet had moved in with my beloved, along with a load of other top-notch linens currently giving my airing cupboard ideas above its station.

  I might just possibly have developed a touch of towel envy. “Git.” It was the wittiest thing I could think of after that brain-shattering orgasm.

  “Your git,” he reminded me. “Coffee and toast?”

  “You’re a lifesaver.” I gave up trying to dry myself off with my sorry excuse for a towel, and nodded at Phil’s not-so-little bit of luxury. The towel, I meant, although obviously the description also applied to something else of his. “You finished with that?”

  Phil laughed and chucked it at me. “Why didn’t you grab one of these for yourself in the first place? It’s not like we’ve only got the one.”

  “Yeah, but they’re yours,” I said awkwardly, wrapping myself up in what felt like a very posh cloud that somehow managed to smell subtly of Phil even though he’d just showered.

  He gave me a look. “We’re getting married, remember? That means joint custody of the household linens. ‘With my worldly goods I thee endow.’ Sound familiar?”

  “Nope. Don’t remember that part at all. I never got past ‘With my body I thee honour.’” And don’t think it hadn’t been traumatic hearing Greg vow that to my sister in a packed-out cathedral. Trust him and Cherry to have the most archaic service possible that didn’t actually call for her to promise to obey him.

  “We’ve done that bit. Now do me a favour and take the towels. That one of yours isn’t fit for lining the cats’ baskets.”

  “They never sleep in their baskets. I’ve had the flippin’ things under the bed in the spare room for the last five years.”

  “That’s exactly what I mean. That towel isn’t fit to be a cat’s reject.”

  “Harsh, mate. Harsh.”

  Phil wrapped his arm around my be-towelled self and gave me a squeeze. “But fair.”

  We were later than we’d said, getting to Lilah’s house, but she didn’t call us on it. She opened the door looking less put-together and more like her actual age than I’d ever seen her, in jeans and a faded T-shirt with her hair scraped back and no makeup. The T-shirt had writing on it: Though she be but little, she is fierce. I had a vague idea that it was a quote from something, and I’d have asked her about it, but it wasn’t really that sort of visit. Phil would probably know, anyhow.

  “Come on in,” she told us, and led us straight to the kitchen again.

  Axel was sitting at the table with his hood up and his hands clamped around a mug of something steaming. He took one look at us and bolted, presumably for the womb-like security of his room.

  I hoped he didn’t spill his drink on the way. Those carpets weren’t cheap.

  Lilah made a sad face. “My poor baby. It’s brung it all back for him, this happening. Thank God his auntie’s coming round for him in an hour.”

  “Yeah? They going somewhere nice?”

  “Some gaming-exhibition oojamawotsit. Tallulah’s always been better with all that geek stuff than I have. I ain’t got the patience. Never did have.”

  “She spends a lot of time with him, does she?” Phil asked.

  “Oh, yeah. Since he was a baby. Well, I had the business to run, didn’t I? She was glad enough to have me pay her to mind him. I always say she brung him up more than I did, so any bad habits he’s got, they’re on her, not me.” Lilah cackled. “Coffee?”

  “Uh, yeah, ta.”

  We sat down at the table, me in the seat still warm from Axel’s bum and Phil on the opposite side, while Lilah bustled about with the kettle and stuff. Axel’s mug had left a ring of what looked like hot chocolate on the glass surface of the table, and I had to keep reminding myself not to put my elbows in it.

  Lilah didn’t ask how we took our coffee, just plonked a couple of mugs in front of us with plenty of milk and no sugar, which was what she was having. She didn’t bring out the biscuits this time either, but then it was a bit soon after breakfast.

  “So what the bloody hell’s it all about, then?” she asked, hopping onto the chair next to mine. “Are the filth all sitting around with their fingers up their bums? Why haven’t they locked that nutter up and chucked away the key?”

  Me and Phil exchanged glances.

  “There’s not a lot we can tell you,” Phil said, his tone sympathetic. “We haven’t even heard if the body’s been positively identified.”

  Lilah rolled her eyes. “What, and it’s all some big coincidence how Oliver went and disappeared last night? Pull the other one.” She turned to me. “No, what I want to know is, how was it you were the one to find him? What gave you the idea to go round there in the first place? Did you have, like, a premonition?”

  “It wasn’t like that.” I stopped, not sure how much I should tell her.

  “We actually went round to talk to Oliver about another matter,” Phil said cautiously.

  “You mean, about my Jonny?”

  “Yes.” Phil gave me a nudge.

  Great, so I got to be the bearer of bad tidings. Although on the other hand, telling her this might make her feel better about Mr. Proudfoot’s unfortunate demise. “Uh . . . I know this isn’t going to be easy for you to hear, but . . . there’s been a suggestion that your husband was, um, having an affair with Oliver.”

&
nbsp; I braced for an emotional outburst, but Lilah simply looked baffled. “Well, yeah. I knew all about that. Wasn’t an affair, though. They were just shagging.”

  I stared, gobsmacked.

  Phil leaned forward. “He told you about it?”

  “First off, it was that nosy cow at the café—couldn’t wait to tell me how she’d seen them around together, and wasn’t it nice how they were such good friends? Bloody shit-stirring, that’s what it was.” Lilah made a disgusted face.

  Sarah, I’d thought better of you. Although maybe she’d meant well.

  “Then my Axel came to me about it, bless him. Got himself all worked up and all. Spent weeks worrying how he was going to tell his mum, poor baby. I told him, ‘When you’re an adult, you’ll understand.’”

  He would? I was an adult, and I bloody well didn’t. Still, takes all sorts.

  Then I frowned. “How did Axel find out?”

  “Saw them in the stockroom at the Smithy. He was helping out on a Saturday when his sister had the flu.” Lilah cackled. “Gawd, if Tallulah had caught ’em at it, there’d have been hell to pay. She’s always had a stick right up her arse, ever since we was kids.

  “So I had a word with my Jonny,” Lilah went on. “I told him, if he wants to have his bit on the side, it’s no skin off my nose. Blokes have got their needs, ain’t they? You’re not going to stop them getting their end away, so why worry? Long as he still came home to me, that was the main thing.” She shrugged, a gesture almost as big as she was. Then she sighed. I guessed she was thinking about that time he hadn’t made it.

  Or maybe she was thinking about poor old Oliver. Who knew? It was like she was speaking a different language, except that the words made sense all right. It was just the sentences that didn’t. At least, not to me. I couldn’t imagine me having that attitude, if I found out Phil was screwing around. I certainly couldn’t imagine him being okay if it was me. It’s like Marmite, I s’pose. Lilah might find an open relationship tasty and good luck to her, but there’s no way it’d ever pass my lips.