by JL Merrow
Phil shook his head. “Someone’s lying to us. I just wish I knew who.”
“Pete,” I said suddenly. “Him and Hazel—he wouldn’t want to drop her mum in it, would he? So maybe he did know about Oliver and Jonathan all along, and didn’t want to admit it as that’d make it look like Lilah was the murderer?”
Phil was nodding, like he was way ahead of me. Again. “Doesn’t help us, though, does it?”
“S’pose not. Bugger. So what are you up to today, then?”
“Need to get my head round it all. I can’t help thinking we’re missing something.”
“Uh, like, a clue what we’re doing? Don’t answer that.”
As it turned out, even after I’d placated the cats, showered, and changed my clothes, I was still on time for Mrs. W. So I suppose there was something to be said for that early wake-up call courtesy of Pete Steadman. Sod’s law, though, the job overran, so I was still late for Mum and Dad.
“We were beginning to think you weren’t coming,” was Mum’s friendly greeting when she opened the door to me. “And you have got a key, you know. You don’t have to ring the doorbell.”
I hefted my tool kit over the threshold, wiped my feet, and kicked off my shoes. “Yeah, but it seems rude barging in without warning. Who knows what you and Dad might be up to?”
“Very funny,” Mum said, in the tone that humour forgot. Dad, who’d just wandered into the hall to say hello, coughed to hide a smirk.
I got the leak fixed in a jiffy, but it didn’t save me from an earbashing. Not about my plumbing skills and general lack of punctuality this time. This one was about the wedding.
“I’ve made a list of people you have to invite,” Mum said as I was packing away my kit, having left them with a shiny new section of copper pipe I wasn’t going to be seeing a penny for. “Have you had the invitations printed yet? You shouldn’t leave it too late.”
Bloody hell, not that again. I frowned. “Hold on. What do you mean, people we have to invite?”
“Family, obviously.”
“Yeah, well, I was kind of assuming you and Dad would be coming. And Cherry and Greg, and I guess Richard and Agatha.” I didn’t mention the Novaks, because I’m not a git.
“There are the aunts and uncles you need to consider too. And your cousins.”
Most of them were a decade or several older than me, and I wouldn’t recognise them if they ran me over on the street. “What, like Aunty Sandra, who got all snotty when she saw me and Phil at Cherry’s do and said she’d hoped I’d grow out of it?”
“You can’t just ignore her. If you don’t invite Sandra, your Aunty Marion won’t come either.”
“And the downside is?”
Mum tutted. “Aunty Marion used to send you presents when you were little.”
“Yeah, but she doesn’t even send me back a Christmas card now I’ve got big. I want people at the wedding who actually mean something to me and Phil.”
“You can’t turn your back on your family. Blood’s thicker than water.” Then she went red, as well she might. Aunty Marion was from Dad’s side of the family. “Oh, you know what I mean.”
“Look, I don’t want the place filled out with people who couldn’t care less about us.”
“Just because they never see you doesn’t mean they don’t care. And has it occurred to you that your father and I might want to see them?”
I was getting fed up with this. “So hop in the car and go and see them, then.”
“You know your father doesn’t like to drive too far these days. And I think you’re being very self-centred about this.”
And so on, and so on.
The icing on the cake was when Dad caught me as I was trying to sneak out the front door, Mum having finally let me go. He shuffled his feet, asked how the work was going, asked how Phil was, said “Good, good,” to my replies, and then coughed and asked if I realised how important the upcoming occasion was to my mother.
I bit back a sarcastic question as to whose bloody wedding it was anyway, and left.
To cheer myself up, I gave Phil a bell and asked if he was (a) anywhere in the vicinity and (b) fancied meeting up for lunch.
There was an amused huff down the phone. “I’m home, as it happens. Just about to do beans on toast. Want me to put a couple of extra slices on?”
Finally, things were looking up. “Yeah, why not? Tell you what, why don’t you bung those sausages I bought under the grill and all. Let’s really push the boat out.” I grinned, feeling better already.
My way back took me through town, which jogged a memory. I managed to find a parking space not too far from the travel agent’s—all right, it maybe wasn’t technically a legal parking space—and more or less ran in, grabbed a bunch of brochures, and ran out again.
I was feeling pretty pleased with myself when I got back home. I was less pleased when I noticed the lack of a certain aroma filling the house.
“Oi, what happened to the sausages?”
Phil, starting to serve the food, didn’t quite meet my eye. “Oh. Didn’t think you were serious about that.”
“Do I ever joke about meat? Fine, dish out the beans and toast, then.” I managed not to sigh too loudly, which wasn’t easy. I’d been looking forward to those sausages. They were Tesco’s Finest and everything.
“How are your mum and dad?” Phil asked.
“You know. Banging on about how we’ve got to invite Uncle Tom Cobley and all to the wedding even if they don’t hold with two blokes getting hitched. How was your morning?”
“Unproductive.” He finished tipping the beans onto the toast and handed me a plate. “Let her invite who she wants. Family’s important.”
“Oi, don’t you start and all.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You sound like you could do with an early night tonight.”
“I’m fine,” I snapped, then ruined it with a yawn. “Maybe,” I conceded grudgingly, and carried the plate into the living room to get on with replenishing my energy stores.
When I took the plates out to the kitchen, I saw the travel brochures, which I’d tossed on a counter when I came in, and brought them back into the living room. “I picked these up on my way home. Thought we could have a read of ’em and sort something out.”
“Oh.”
“Oh what?”
“Nothing.” He didn’t meet my eye.
I gave him a suspicious look, but soldiered on anyhow in fake-hearty tones. “Okay, you mark up what you fancy, and I’ll do the same, and we can—”
Phil huffed. “It’s already booked, all right?”
I stared at him. I couldn’t believe it.
Wait a minute. Coming on top of him forcing the issue over moving in, yeah, I could totally believe it. The git. I narrowed my eyes. “And I s’pose I missed the part where we sat down and discussed what we both wanted?”
He had the grace to look shifty. “It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. I was walking past the travel agent’s, and I saw they had the new brochures in.”
“And what, they turned on the tractor beam and sucked you in? Hoovered the credit card straight out of your wallet? Tied you to your chair until you’d signed on the dotted line? When exactly were you planning on mentioning this?”
“I just did, didn’t I?” He threw up a hand. “Christ, I knew you’d be like this.”
“Like what? A bit pissed off you went ahead and made all the decisions without consulting me? What next—planning on selling the house out from under my feet? Adopting a couple of Romanian orphans? Getting the cats rehomed and buying a Rottweiler?”
“I thought you’d be happy.”
“Happy? What, that I apparently don’t get any say in my own life anymore?”
“This is about me moving in, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s about the bloody honeymoon.”
“We talked about moving in together. We agreed a timetable. But if I’d left it to you, you’d still be dragging your heels and coming up with excuses.”
<
br /> “Christ, are you even listening to me? It’s not about you moving in. I just don’t like you making all the decisions, all right? You know what? You were so bloody keen to live in this house, why don’t I get out and let you enjoy it?”
I slammed the door on my way out. And immediately regretted it—the glass rattled and the next-door neighbour looked at me funny—but what the hell. It was done now.
The phone rang a couple of hours later when I was halfway to Brock’s Hollow in the van—for a job, not to go and cry on Gary’s amply-padded shoulder, in case you were wondering. I was about to ignore it, but then I thought, maybe it was Phil, with an apology? If I didn’t answer, I’d have to ring him back. And, well, what if he hadn’t rung to apologise?
If I called him back, it’d seem like I was desperate for his attention. Which I wasn’t.
I pulled over at the next available spot and had a butcher’s. The call, as it happened, was from Darren. I managed to catch it before it went to voice mail. “Darren?”
He didn’t beat around the bush. “Oi, you heard from your other half lately? ’Cos he ain’t answering his phone.”
Great. Now I was reduced to being my fiancé’s answerphone. Please leave a message after the expletive. “We had lunch together,” I said shortly. “We may have had words.”
“Oi, what you gone and done now?”
“Me? I haven’t done a bloody thing! He’s the one who—” I cut myself off before it got nasty, and also because a sneaking suspicion had raised its ugly head. “Did you know about the honeymoon?”
“He told you? Daft git. Supposed to be a surprise, that was. He was worried how you’d take it, but I told him you’d be dead chuffed.”
“Never mind that,” I said quickly, starting to wonder if I might, just possibly, have been a bit hasty with the whole storming-out thing. “He’s probably busy.”
“That’s what I’m worried about. See, me and Lola are on our way to visit Axel. Poor girl’s worried about her baby brother, ain’t she? Which, by the by, cheers for not mentioning that little incident before pissing off this morning.”
“Uh . . . we didn’t want to ruin the mood. Joyful reunion, and all that? So, uh, you’re going to the hospital, yeah?”
“Yeah. We’re going to meet Lilah there and all—you know they let her out this morning?”
“No, as it happens.”
“They haven’t charged her—not yet, anyhow—so they had to let her go. It’s your scabious corpus, innit?”
“What about that phone message?”
“She told them she didn’t send it.”
And they’d believed her? There had to be more to it than that.
“Anyhow, that ain’t what’s important here. I reckon Phil’s gonna want to be in on this, and it ain’t like they’d let him in to see the lad without family. So if you manage to get hold of him, tell him we’re at the Alban Croft Hospital. We’re on our way now.”
“Got it. Alban Croft.” It was a private hospital out near Pluck’s End. “That’s got to be costing Lilah a few bob.”
“Yeah, so? It’s family, innit? Right. Gotta go.”
We hung up. There was no point me calling Phil, as Darren had just tried that, but I did it anyway, on the grounds that the more people trying to get in touch, the more likely he’d be to actually bother calling one of us back. There was no answer, of course, so I left a message for him to give me a bell. I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel for a mo. Might as well head on over to the hospital myself. It’d mean putting off a job for a couple of hours, but the customer would understand if she knew it was about a young lad who’d tried to top himself. Not that I was planning to tell her, mind. The catch-all phrase family emergency is a wonderful thing.
One thing I’ve noticed about hospitals, private or NHS, is that there is never enough parking. It’s like it never occurs to whoever plans these things that people might actually want to visit their loved ones. Trying to find a space to wedge the van in the tiny car park was impossible. I finally had to leave it on the side of the road a hundred yards down from the entrance, where with my luck it’d be taken out by the next passing tractor.
I hurried into the hospital reception. The girl behind the desk, who looked eerily like one of Leanne’s colleagues at the salon—seriously, was there something in the water around here?—flashed me a perfect smile. “Can I help you?”
“Uh, I’m here to see Axel L-Tarbox.” I only just remembered in time he probably wasn’t a Lovett.
“Are you family?”
“Yes,” I lied. “Supposed to be meeting the rest of them here, but I got caught in traffic. His sister and her uncle? Tall girl, little bloke?” I held my hand out at approximately Darren’s height, and hoped she wouldn’t notice I hadn’t said Darren was Axel’s uncle.
My luck was in. “Down that corridor, turn right, through the doors and it’s room 153.”
“Cheers, love.” I headed down the corridor.
Private hospitals never seem quite . . . hospitally enough. There’s too much carpet, which you wouldn’t think would be hygienic, although I suppose they know best. And they don’t even smell like they ought to—more like a hotel room after the maid’s been than the usual bouquet of disinfectant and bodily fluids. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it isn’t an improvement, but it’s disconcerting. Gives you the constant nagging feeling you’ve come to the wrong place.
Still, it must be nice, having the money for it. Axel had his own room, rather than a bed in a ward, and I found Hazel sitting by his bed and Darren hovering nearby. “No Lilah?” I asked, instead of saying hello like a normal person.
Darren gave me a considering once-over. “She’ll be along in a mo. Wanted to make herself look decent for her boy. Did you get hold of Phil?”
“Uh, no. Thought I’d come along instead.” I turned to Axel, who as the main attraction probably felt he was being unfairly ignored. “You all right, mate?”
Okay, so it wasn’t the most inspired question to come out with to a teenager who’d, however briefly, decided death was preferable to his current reality. Axel looked younger, lying in bed, his hair mussed up and his face even paler than usual. He’d have made a great anime character—he had that vulnerable, big-eyed beauty down pat. I hadn’t realised Hazel had been holding his hand until he wrenched it from her grasp, obviously embarrassed.
He darted a glance at me and then away again, and didn’t say anything.
“I’ve been trying to tell him it wasn’t his fault,” Hazel said.
Axel stared out of the window.
I sat down on the bed. “Listen, mate, I know everyone always says this, but things often seem worse than they are when you’re in your teens.”
He snorted, in a What the bleedin’ hell would you know about it? kind of way.
I swallowed. Because, as it happened, I did know something about it. “You’re not the only one, mate. I nearly did what you did, back when I was at school.”
Axel jerked his head round to stare at me, so I carried on.
“See, I had this crush on a bloke, and everyone knew about it. Him too.” Christ, even with all that’d happened since, this felt like ripping duct tape off an open wound. And then chucking in a shedload of salt. “And, well, he wasn’t interested. Which, you know, was putting it mildly. So I had a lot of problems with bullying, as well as the whole the-bloke-I-love-hates-me thing. And yeah, I, uh, got pretty close to doing what you did. Made all the preparations. Even wrote the flippin’ note.” I found I was rubbing my hip, and pulled my hand away quick. “But you know what? It turned out it wasn’t the end of the world. I got through it.” And ended up engaged to the bastard, but mentioning that now would just confuse the poor kid.
Axel was staring at me. Then he gave a choked-off sob. “I thought he liked me,” he said, so quiet and broken it tore my heart.
“Who? Oliver?”
He made a sound that could have been a laugh if it hadn’t been so despairing. “No. Jona
than.”
Bloody hell. “Uh . . . you don’t mean like a son?”
“No. He—he was always so nice to me.”
I nodded, my mind racing. “Teaching you pool and stuff?”
“Yeah. And one night . . .” He stopped.
Hazel and Darren were silent. I could feel the whole bloody room holding its breath. Any nurses barging in now to take Axel’s temperature would probably get lynched.
“We . . . you know.” Axel’s face was bright red.
I wasn’t sure I did know. And bloody hell. He was fifteen, for God’s sake. What the hell had old Jonny-boy been thinking of? “You . . . kissed?”
Axel nodded.
“Any, uh, any other stuff?” God, I hoped he wouldn’t ask me to spell it out. I wasn’t sure what I’d meant myself. A quick grope? Hands going where they shouldn’t? Whose hands, come to that? I couldn’t believe it’d been all that serious—but then, was I reading too much into one brief meeting with the bloke and the vibes I’d got at Kelvin Reid’s lockup? Surely that only proved that Jonathan hadn’t reckoned he had anything to feel guilty about?
“I wanted to . . . but he wouldn’t let me. Then the next day, he said he only kissed me because he was drunk.” A tear rolled down Axel’s cheek. “He said it couldn’t happen again.”
“Was he drunk?” I blurted out, because clearly that was the most important thing here.
Axel looked shifty. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
Yes, you bloody did. And I wasn’t sure what to think about old JP. If a drunk person can’t consent, can they commit sexual assault, if you can call a kiss that, on a willing—if underage—victim? Could anyone actually consent to anything, and would anyone really be guilty? It was doing my head in.
I tried to focus on what was key. “Did you tell anyone?”
He started to cry in earnest then, bringing up his knees and hugging them to himself as he sobbed.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I jumped a bloody mile when I heard Lilah’s voice. “Oh, my baby boy.”
We all spun to see her standing in the doorway, her face under the makeup almost as pale as her son’s.