by Ian Mayfield
‘What?’
‘All I want to know,’ Nina said, ‘two things. Why you did it, and who she is.’
He looked around. ‘Can we move somewhere?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘You’ve got something to say, say it here.’
‘Why are you doing this?’
‘Oh, you want me to spare your feelings? Like you spared mine?’
‘I can’t talk with that lot earwigging,’ he pleaded, looking round at the team, some of whom were already casting odd glances in their direction. ‘It’s none of their business.’
‘How do you know?’ she said. ‘Come to that, how do I know? How do I know it’s not one of them you’ve been fucking behind my back?’
He recoiled as if from an electric shock and for a brief instant something sparked. She realised she’d never before used an obscenity to his face.
‘Answer me,’ she said, pressing it home.
‘Nina, do credit me with a bit of common sense.’
‘Common sense!’ Her eyes shone and her lips puckered in indignation.
‘It’s not one of your precious team, all right?’
‘But I know her.’
‘Honey...’
‘I know her,’ Nina insisted.
‘Doesn’t matter who she is.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that.’
‘No, listen,’ he said. ‘You want to know why, I’ll tell you.’
‘Aha. It speaks.’
‘Look, Nina,’ he began. Her acid jibe dissolved his response. He tried again. ‘Look, it wasn’t fair the way it was. That’s why I went back to my parents’.’ It was coming out in a rush. ‘I just couldn’t face you, you hear? I was ashamed; I couldn’t bring myself to phone, in case - ’
‘No, I bet you bloody couldn’t.’
‘Keep your voice down.’
‘Off screwing your bimbo while I’m holed up at Sandra’s like a fugitive from my own fucking home!’
Paul leapt up, his face a deep red. ‘Shut up,’ he hissed, ‘and listen.’ Angrily he sat down again and turned her round so she was facing him, so the others couldn’t see her face. It was a pointless exercise; it would do nothing to distract attention, but he had hers now, undivided. He said, heavily, ‘Now you listen. I’ve ditched her.’
‘Ditched her,’ she echoed.
‘That’s right. Given her the elbow. Told her to sling her hook. I am not seeing her any more,’ he enunciated with petulant clarity.
Nina said, ‘That’s supposed to make me feel better, is it?’
‘Well...’
‘Wipe away the past, let’s forget it ever happened?’
‘Well, look, I didn’t - ’
‘You clueless patronising bastard,’ she said, shaking with fury. ‘I bet the moment you heard me slam the door you told her to get dressed, you couldn’t see her any more. Have I got that right?’
‘About, yeah.’
‘Oh, what a saint. So it takes being caught in the act before you realise I’m suddenly too precious for you to lose and it’s not right for you to be knocking off some tart on the side!’
‘She’s not a tart,’ he retorted, wishing he hadn’t said it as soon as the words were out of his mouth.
‘That’s right, defend the fucking bitch! Not seeing her, my arse.’
‘I’m not.’
Her cheeks were wet with angry tears. ‘You’re going straight to her, aren’t you? Tonight? Straight fucking to her and bury your face in her tits and tell her what a nasty frigid bitch I am.’ She couldn’t stop. Hurling missile after missile, forcing him away.
‘You’re talking nonsense.’
‘Am I?’
‘Yes, you are.’ Paul glared at his wife. ‘I haven’t been out all week, OK? Only place I’ve been is back to my parents’. Ask your mum or dad or your precious sister if you don’t believe me.’
Nina sighed, heavily, the sigh turning into a whimper of misery. She said, ‘You still don’t get it, do you?’
‘Look!’ he said, slamming the side of the seat with his fist. ‘I know. It was wrong. If I could make it not have happened I would. OK? But you were never bloody there. And when you were, all you wanted to do was sleep.’
‘Oh, so sex is all this boils down to, is it?’
‘I give up.’ He sprang to his feet, not caring who overheard now. ‘I just bloody well give up. I came here, sackcloth and ashes, to try and build some bridges. D’you know how much bottle it took just to ring the doorbell tonight? I came here to eat humble pie and grovel because I wanted to make it up to you. How, I don’t know. I was hoping maybe you could tell me. But fine: if you feel our marriage isn’t worth saving because of one... mistake, then fine. I might as well be in somebody else’s bed. It’s your loss.’
‘That’s right,’ she heard herself yell. ‘Check out.’
‘Why not?’ He whirled round. ‘You did.’
She sat stunned, open-mouthed, gaze hovering at his chest as he stood over her.
‘Actually I’m not gonna check out or go away,’ he said. ‘You asked me to come, and I’m staying. If you don’t want to talk to me, maybe some of your mates might.’ He cast his eye around the assembled group, who were all suddenly deep in conversations of their own. He said, ‘I’m going for another dance.’
He strode off without looking back. Several pairs of eyes followed his every step until he disappeared in the crowd.
Suspended conversations resumed where they had been broken off, the effect like the spell cast on soap opera addicts, lifted as the episode credits roll. As Nina, stranded, hastily began a conversation with Kim, who sat nearest and slipped into supportive sergeant mode, those out of earshot released held breath.
‘Well,’ Zoltan said, ‘that’s got that out of the way. Not sure what was more painful, the row or his mixed metaphors.’
‘Brace for more,’ Marie said. ‘Balloon’s well and truly up.’
‘So who is the other woman, exactly?’
Sandra cut in. ‘Does it matter?’
Zoltan shrugged.
‘Fucking lousy thing to happen to a marriage,’ Sandra said. ‘I mean can you imagine?’
‘The worst,’ Anne agreed.
‘What she must be feeling. What he must.’
‘Oh, I dunno,’ Neil Jones said, sounding mildly perplexed. ‘How about when I shagged that girl in Corfu?’
Everyone looked at the Joneses. Sandra came as near as she ever did to blushing. ‘That’s different.’
‘How different?’ Anne couldn’t resist asking.
‘Never you bloody mind.’
‘She was there at the time,’ Neil said cheerfully. ‘That’s how different.’
Sandra glared at her husband. He’d already had a bit too much to drink, and she knew from experience what fun the canteen cowboys would have if they got hold of this. Some of the faces close by wore grins that bordered on the predatory. ‘Shut it now,’ she babbled, ‘if you want to ever have sex again.’
‘Oops.’
‘You can’t compare that,’ she railed at him. ‘You just can’t.’
Jeff moved closer to Jasmin, who to his dismay had lapsed back into gloom. ‘Not quite what we expected, so far,’ he remarked.
She made a noise with her tongue. ‘I’m sure they do not mean to spoil things.’
‘Course not.’ He reflected for a moment. ‘Everybody seems to be having some sort of crisis.’
She shot him what he took to be an enquiring frown.
‘Lucky.’ He peered towards the bar, but couldn’t see her.
‘She is?’
‘Well, she’s obviously not happy.’
‘PMS.’
He didn’t look convinced. ‘What about you?’
She looked into his eyes full of modest concern, and mustered a smile. ‘We are meant to be having fun,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to get people down. Anne will think she is at a funeral.’
She laughed, and her eyes sparkled like gemstones. Jeff started to speak, but
thought better of it and ran a pensive finger up and down the bridge of his nose. Something. None of his business, though, he realised with a pang of despair. A reminder, yet again, of how little time was left to him for the impossible pursuit of his feelings.
Lucky was causing light-hearted concern. Although the dancefloor was full of people her age, she’d so far seemed disinclined to join them. She preferred to stay in the booth, launching into energetic chats with whoever was left sitting. Several clubbers, including Neil, had asked, but had been declined with the same polite smile. Though Neil’s offer was made at his wife’s prompting - he’d been giving her the eye all evening - Sandra put her wary response down to the effect of the three-in-a-bed story. But even Juliet, of whom there’d been precious little sign anyway except when she came in for brief refreshment pitstops, seemed to lack the power of persuasion. Finally, dropping by with Lucky’s rum and black, she slapped down the change, said, ‘I give up on you, Larissa, I really do,’ and was gone into the gyrating multitudes.
‘Really, though,’ Jeff tried, motivated by an unwelcome compulsion that it was his turn, ‘you can’t come to a club and not have at least one dance.’
Beside him, Jasmin giggled. Lucky noticed and said, ‘Coming from you?’
‘I’m serious,’ he laboured. ‘Not natural.’
‘What, because I’m young and pretty?’ she retorted. ‘I should be out there pulling, not sat in a corner?’ He adopted the hangdog expression she’d got to know during their trip to Rye, and she softened. ‘No, I’m all right, thanks.’
She picked up her drink and took a deep swig. Casting his eye over the four empty glasses in front of her, Jeff said, ‘Can you afford all them on a PC’s salary?’
‘Asks DC Wetherby.’
‘Same rank, aye,’ he corrected. ‘But I get long service. And housing allowance.’
‘Picky, picky.’
She said this very loudly, and it attracted the attention of a passing tuxedoed young man who appeared, by dint of the name tag on his lapel, to be a member of the club’s staff. He stopped and leaned over the booth, looking her up and down with the unabashed nosiness of one used to authority. ‘Miss,’ he said solemnly, ‘how did you get in?’
‘I paid,’ Lucky said.
Zoltan guessed what was coming and called out, ‘It’s OK, mate.’
‘House policy, no jeans,’ the man said. ‘Men or women.’
‘Piss off,’ Lucky said.
‘Right.’ He made a move for her arm, which she yanked away. ‘You’re out of here.’
‘Mate,’ Zoltan said again, louder, ‘it’s all right.’
The man rounded on him. His scowl froze when he saw the DI’s warrant card, brandished in his face like a grenade with the pin out. Without a word he turned and walked slowly away. Several clubbers turned stares in the team’s direction.
‘Oh, God,’ Lucky moaned, head in hands. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘No problem,’ Zoltan shrugged, employing his version of a reassuring smile. From him it was a glare, such as a primary school teacher might use as a warning against future bad behaviour.
The scene was over, but a moment later Anne tapped him on the arm and drew him to one side. ‘Was that wise?’
He sighed, and put his arm round her. ‘Anything for a quiet life.’
‘A quiet life?’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Now everyone in the room thinks we’re here to make a bust.’
The quiet life was a philosophy Nina and Paul had adopted too. Against all odds, albeit influenced by alcohol, they’d agreed a truce. They were, after all, still husband and wife. The wife’s attitude to the husband had softened when he left the dancefloor a very few minutes after storming out onto it and crouched down beside her.
‘I can’t keep up with that lot,’ he yelled over the din. ‘One of them called me Dad.’ He grinned, relieved and delighted to see her laugh, even if it was at his expense rather than at the rudeness of the youth. ‘Will you save my ego and dance with me?’
‘You’ve got a fucking nerve.’ But the obstinate smile that had commandeered her face robbed the words of their venom. She relented. ‘Later. Let me think about it.’
She had thought about it, and decided the hell with it. With or without a husband, she was desperate for a good time, and it might as well be with.
They’d had four dances, and were almost friendly. The DJ had put on Moby, an artist Nina, even when she’d flirted with being a goth before joining the police, had always secretly adored. Moby’s music, she and Paul had found during their courtship and the early days of their marriage, had a sensuous effect. As the swirling chords washed over them they’d moved cheek to cheek, then lips to lips. Now Paul’s hands were on her bottom, stroking in that way of his that made her want to tear his trousers down on the spot. At that moment she would have done anything for her husband. Why didn’t they do this any more?
‘I’ve got to know,’ she said suddenly, as the record faded.
He paused in his caressing. ‘What?’
‘If we’re going to dig our way out of this, I need to know what I’ve been doing wrong.’
Paul began to protest.
‘No, look, I’ve had a think. There’s fault on both sides. I want to know who she is.’
‘Nina...’
‘I know, I know. Don’t worry, I’ll let her live. I just need to know, so...’
‘So what?’
‘So I know what I’m up against.’
‘Were up against.’
She studied his eyes, but they didn’t waver. She said, ‘All right. But whatever it is, maybe I can work on it.’
‘You really don’t want to know.’
‘I’ll be the judge.’
‘You are not,’ he tried desperately, ‘going to like it.’
‘I already don’t like it. Just tell me.’
In the split second before the next track began blasting out of the PA, the whole club heard it.
‘You bastard!’
Nina punched Paul hard in the face and ran off the dancefloor.
‘Gawd,’ Kim Oliver groaned, as the team watched her headlong flight. ‘Here we go again.’
‘’Scuse me,’ Sandra muttered, edging her way out of the booth.
She found Nina outside in the street, minus her jacket, looking wildly this way and that at the passing traffic as if searching for a taxi. At the touch of Sandra’s hand on her arm she started.
‘Come back inside, Nina.’
‘Too hot in there.’
‘One way of putting it,’ Sandra said.
‘I made him tell me,’ Nina said matter-of-factly, spotting a black cab and making a move towards the kerb. Sandra hauled her back.
‘You can’t get a taxi.’
‘I’ve got to.’
‘You can’t. You left your handbag inside. Come on.’
‘D’you think I was asking for it?’
‘I dunno,’ Sandra said, ushering her back up the steps. ‘I wasn’t privy to the conversation.’
‘I thought I could try and live up to whoever she was, what she had to offer that I didn’t,’ Nina said, half hysterically. ‘But this! This takes the fucking biscuit.’
‘Do I know her?’
‘How the hell am I meant to compete with...?’ She tripped on the top step in uncoordinated rage. ‘What is it? What’s missing?’
‘I dunno,’ Sandra said again, wishing Nina would make some sense. She pushed open the door and scowled at a doorman who moved to block their path. He stepped aside.
Back at the booth there was no sign of Paul. Somewhere, there was an irritating buzzing noise.
‘Well,’ Sandra said, ‘that one of us or not?’
‘It’s me,’ Nina said, calm again. ‘I’m on call.’
Helen picked up Nina’s bag and handed it to her. She took it with a cursory nod, rummaged inside, glanced at the mobile and scampered off to find somewhere quiet to talk.
‘Saved by the bell,’ Zoltan Schneider said.
<
br /> It took them a few minutes to realise she wasn’t coming back. Sandra was sent in search of her. She hadn’t checked her jacket out of the cloakroom, but the doorman took great satisfaction in informing her that he’d seen her go outside again. Sandra went out onto the pavement, but Nina wasn’t there. She must have found a cab after all.
Cursing, she went back in. Paul was with the team, holding a frosted beer glass to an eye that was well on the way to a world-class shiner. He said, ‘Did you find her?’
‘Gone,’ Sandra grumbled. ‘Buggered off in a cab or bus, most likely. Whatever that call was, looks like she’s wanted at the nick.’
Strictly speaking, Nina knew, it wasn’t her case. Sandra had been in on the original interview, and at the very least she should have rung Sophia at home. But the incident seemed so peripheral, so easily sorted, there was no point ruining Sandra’s evening, or disturbing the guv’nor’s beauty sleep and dragging her all the way over from Sevenoaks.
So she told herself. Not so deep down, she knew perfectly well why she’d left without a word. What Paul had told her had taken away her last hope of keeping the keel stable. Instead of a goal, she was left with the starkness of rejection.
The call was an opportunity to escape, to cast the ruins of her marriage to the back of her mind for a while. Most immediately, to devote her full attention to sobering up while the taxi drove her home so that she could change and take her own car. Before long she was in the charge room at Croydon nick. Drunken hollers echoed occasionally up from the cells, but apart from a young black man slumped on a bench the room itself was empty. The female custody sergeant was new, and looked up without recognition.
‘DC Tyminski,’ Nina told her. ‘You rang me.’
‘Fun night?’ The sergeant looked her up and down. Nina realized she must still look a lot more over the limit than she felt. Self-consciously she straightened up. The sergeant gestured towards the figure on the bench. ‘That there is Mr Luke Benton. Picked up outside Mayday burns unit.’
Nina frowned at the sleeping youth. ‘D and D?’
‘Right,’ the sergeant said. ‘The lads who brought him in thought it was probably the booze talking, but he kept shouting about having some information for DCI Beadle. Mean anything?’