Artifact

by Bowes, K T

  Chapter 22

  Jayden stopped dead in the middle of the street, not a great idea when the afternoon shopping rush was in full flood. A woman laden down with straining carrier bags tutted loudly as she circumnavigated Jayden’s statuesque frame stopped rigidly in the walkway. “Get out t’bloody road!”

  Jayden’s calves were roughly banged with the contents of the bags, the hard corner of a cereal box and the clang of a tin on her ankle bone. Jayden hurried home, desperate to process her thoughts in peace.

  Alas, it was not meant to be. Raff appeared as she was letting herself in, pushing his way in behind her and holding both his hands palm upwards in front of him by way of apology. He was smartly dressed in a suit with a shirt and tie and looked dazzlingly handsome. He kicked off his patent shoes and slouched up the stairs with his hands in his pockets, throwing himself onto the sofa before Jayden had managed to get her boots off and crest the stairs to the living room. She laid her handbag on the glass table and then went to stand over Raff, still with her outdoor coat on. Jayden held her hand out. “Key!” she said sharply and Raff visibly quailed.

  “I just...” he began but Jayden raised her eyebrow and stared him down. Raff stood up and delved in his trouser pocket, where he retrieved the shiny silver key to Jayden’s sanctuary.

  “What are you playing at?” she demanded and he rubbed his hand across his face and looked pathetic.

  “I thought if I came round early and...well, I thought that if I could prove to you that it would work - that we could be a couple, then...”

  Jayden slipped her coat off and laid it over the back of the chair that she then slumped down in. “So explain to me how we went from a marriage of convenience to you trying to crawl into my bed at dawn! Have you any idea what that would have done to me? Can you imagine how horrifying it would be to wake up and find a sweaty guy climbing into bed with you?”

  Jayden knew that she was wasting her time as a faintly hopeful look crossed Raff’s face. It was a stupid question. He would probably enjoy it. “It’s not going to happen, Raff. You’re my friend - well, at least you were until you started trying to make it into something else. Just come clean with your family and have done with it, or live a life of celibacy and do something useful.”

  “What like my perfect brother?” Raff asked spitefully. “The perfect son. I can never match up to him.”

  “You aren’t expected to,” Jayden counselled him, hearing the previously hidden cry of his heart. “He loves you as you are. The only person making it into a competition is you.”

  Raff shook his head. “Na, you don’t get it. I saw my folks last week and all they could talk about was grandchildren. They kept asking about you and it kind of put this idea in my head. I felt so guilty. They would make amazing grandparents. It’s not their fault they ended up with a monk and a poofter.”

  “Raff!” Jayden felt exhausted all of a sudden. His deprecation of himself was pitiful, but part of her warned that in her tired state, she could be easily manipulated by someone as skilful as the man in front of her. It must have taken great talent to play act for as long as Raff had. She didn’t want to be part of the continuance of a thirty-year deception. The irony was that she might have considered it seriously only a matter of months ago but now, her senses had tasted love and weren’t prepared to settle for anything less.

  “So is it a definite no then?” Raff asked, always a man renowned for trying.

  Jayden shook her head and smiled at him. “No, Raff. I can’t marry you. We both deserve better than some sham marriage and children who don’t know which way is up. We probably both crave what our parents had and nothing less will satisfy either of us. One or both of us will end up finding our soul mate and detonate the whole thing. It would be devastating in the end.”

  Raff leaned his forearms on his thighs and sank forwards, not so much in disappointment but resignation. Jayden felt sorry for him but couldn’t forget his attempts to seduce her against her will. Raff had no idea what she had been through, but even so, it had been a stupid thing to do to a friendship built on shaky trust. “Don’t suppose you fancy going to the pub?” Jayden asked him with a smile.

  “Which one?” Raff perked up, naming a few of the higher end bars at the top of town. He was decidedly less keen when she mentioned the Irish pub south of the church. “Why would you want to go there?” he asked in amazement.

  “Because I do and because you owe me after this morning’s little...”

  “I don’t think it’s an Irish pub anymore. You won’t like it.”

  “Fine!” Jayden said crossly, instantly withdrawing her proffered olive branch.

  “Ok, ok,” Raff conceded. “But if I get seduced or beaten up, it will be all your fault!”

  O’Shea’s was different to how Jayden remembered it. She walked into town with Raff, relieved that their former, easy companionship had been restored. Jayden had hidden her cast underneath a flowing top and long coat and walked arm in arm with her friend. Raff stayed dressed in his suit; the expensive blue striped shirt opened at the top. He had left his tie on Jayden’s dining table. “Oh, the Shea’s has fallen off!” she exclaimed in surprise as they turned to face the front doors. “It’s just O’s now. How funny.”

  Raff shook his head, humouring her and smirked slightly. Inside, it had clearly undergone a massive refurbishment. The comfortable green velveteen booths had been replaced by high tables and bar stools. Gone was the sawdust which had covered the wooden floors, piled high in the corners. It had gotten everywhere, in shoes, inside clothing and into drinks. But it had added a rustic effect and been student friendly and homely in a strange kind of way. It had also mopped up the beer spills from drunken collisions and probably other more distasteful bodily substances.

  Jayden stopped dead in the entrance, causing Raff to run into the back of her. She turned to him with a look of confusion as she took in the dark blue walls and designer wallpaper over the bar area. He rolled his eyes and dug his fingers into her back, to move her on as a large and impatient group of people bulged behind him looking for the reason for the bottleneck. “I wanted a Dancing Leprechaun,” she pouted crossly and Raff laughed openly at her.

  “I’d just settle for a Fit Irishman,” he chortled, making up his own drink on the spot.

  At the bar, Jayden peered at the drinks dangling temptingly from optics behind the barman. “A merlot please,” she conceded and the young blonde man leaped to do her bidding, skilfully tossing a glass one-handed and holding it under the red wine optic with a flourish. Raff smiled and nudged her with his elbow playfully.

  “I did try to tell you,” he said but Jayden looked away, tempted to tell him that he hadn’t tried hard enough.

  Some of the high tables had bar stools and some didn’t, encouraging drinkers to stand around their rounded surface and chat. Jayden pulled a face and hauled herself up onto a high seat. Raff plonked his vodka down on the table and pulled up a stool. “I used to love this pub,” Jayden sulked. “My psychology tutor group used to meet in here once a week to go over our essays and lecture notes. It was always lively and sometimes they had loud music.”

  “Sounds yum,” Raff breathed sarcastically and Jayden pouted more. “Come on,” he said kindly, reaching out and holding her hand, “we’re here now. Let’s just enjoy our drinks and leave. Why did you want to come here anyway?”

  Jayden leaned in close and conspiratorially. “I heard that the Reverend McLean’s curate drinks here most days and I have this horrid feeling that he knows more about the vicar’s murder than he’s making out.”

  Raff shook his head. “May the good Lord save us all from female amateur sleuths!”

  “Don’t be so rude. It was just a hunch. Anyway, he doesn’t seem to be here so it doesn’t matter.”

  “He wouldn’t be in here at all. He’s a clergyman for goodness sake. He shouldn’t be in here.”

  “Christians are allowed to drink, silly. They just aren’t allowed to get drunk.” Feeling
a little foolish, Jayden tried to change the subject as they sipped their drinks and listened to the melodic music piping out of the speaker above their head. The delicious scent of hot chips wafted out from a table nearby where a little knot of men shared bar snacks. Jayden put her hand to her stomach as she felt its agonised growl.

  Raff had paid for the drinks, so Jayden ordered the chips and handed over her card. A girl at the end of the bar smiled and waved to her and Jayden smiled back. Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad place after all. People certainly seemed friendly. “They’ve got a Queen tribute band on Saturday,” Jayden said conversationally, clambering back up onto the tall stool.

  “How appropriate,” Raff responded, sarcasm dripping from the sentence.

  “What’s Ed’s wife like?” Jayden pretended that she was attempting to change the subject but knew that really, she was just torturing herself.

  “Horrid. And she hates me!” he retorted.

  “Oh,” Jayden couldn’t imagine Ed married to someone like that. “Is he happy with her?”

  “Blissfully,” Raff snapped. “Please can we talk about something else?”

  Jayden was perplexed. “Yes, ok, but...why would she hate you?”

  Raff heaved an exaggerated sigh and answered through gritted teeth. “Because I’m gay, that’s why!”

  Jayden reacted as though she had been slapped. So somehow, Ed’s wife knew that his brother was gay, but Ed didn’t. It didn’t make sense, but Raff’s face told her to leave the subject well alone for now. Jayden’s eye was caught by a sudden movement over near the toilets that lay at the rear of the pub. A dark shape staggered down the narrow passageway and lurched out into the bar.

  The curate wore his black clothes, complete with dog-collar and he reeled from side to side, clearly inebriated. He weaved with difficulty through the knots of people, unsteady and precarious on his comfortable rubbery shoes. His puffy, flaccid face looked pale and sick and his eyes were unfocussed. He banged into Raff on the way past and then noticed Jayden, looking curiously at him as he swayed on his legs. Raff moved away, keen not to be part of any unnecessary trouble, but Brian pointed directly at Jayden and almost poked her companion in the eye. “Little Miss Perfect,” he drawled nastily. Then he said a string of swearwords that almost turned the air blue. “He thought you were bloody perfect, you prissy little bitch. God, if only he knew what you really are. I wish I could have told him. You’re nothing but a fraud!”

  Jayden’s swallow stopped dead in her throat and the drink slid uncomfortably down into her gullet. How could this man know anything about her? How could he know what she was? Her brain began to work overtime. Nick must have gone to the church and talked to the curate about her. He would have told him her real name, what had happened - everything. It was too awful to contemplate. A sane little voice in her head repeatedly asked her what Nick could hope to gain from doing that, but Jayden didn’t want to listen to reason and dismissed it easily. As the bouncers made their way over to the slavering Brian and bodily took him outside with a minimum of fuss, Jayden skulled her drink and asked if they could leave.

  “Don’t be worrying about him!” Raff said in annoyance. “Look, our chips are here now.”

  Jayden suddenly wasn’t hungry. The few chips that she managed to get down seemed to stick at every piece of cartilage in her gullet, before landing like a brick in her stomach. The girl over at the bar kept on staring at her and all feelings of safety and joviality had disappeared by the time Raff had wiped the last chip around the tomato sauce smudge in the bottom of the bowl. Pushing her stool back impatiently, Jayden felt it connect with something behind her and turned sharply.

  A congregation member from St Jude’s rubbed at his thigh where the stool edge had belted him.

  “Oh, sorry Barney,” Jayden apologised. “These are so high and hard to manage.”

  The man she had accidentally assaulted was tall and extremely handsome. He was blonde in a surf-bum kind of way and had the lithe body of one who kept himself extremely fit. Usually he was confident and self-assured but his manner now was almost shifty and furtive. He eyed Jayden nervously, as though she had unlimited power to destroy his world. His face had a slight dusting of blonde-end-of-the-day-stubble that still couldn’t cover the embarrassed flush which lit up his tanned skin. Instantly Jayden took responsibility for his reaction to her, fearing that she had offended him in some way and felt the strong fingers of Guilt on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” she said again, pushing her dark locks away from her pretty face discomfited, huge green eyes misting over with concern.

  Barney attempted to brush it off lightly, claiming that he was absolutely fine. Raff remained seated, having grown fond of the bar and not ready to leave. He didn’t understand Jayden’s hurry. “Barney,” the blonde man said, holding out his hand to Raff.

  Raff smiled nicely and shook hands with the other man, appraising him covertly and sizing up the well-toned body, clear skin, striking hazel eyes and silky, overlong hair.

  “This is my friend, Raff,” Jayden said, seeing her quick escape disappearing. Barney seemed happy to disconnect from the group of males he was standing with, retrieving his pint of lager from their table and pulling up a stool to sit with Raff. Jayden gave up and returned to the bar, getting three fresh drinks and struggling to carry them back to the table. She couldn’t do it and had to leave Raff’s on the bar and return for it separately.

  “Hi,” the girl from the bar said, sounding confident. “I’m Lorna.”

  “Jayden,” the dark haired beauty replied, feeling suddenly self-conscious.

  “I haven’t seen you here before.”

  “No,” Jayden felt flustered. “I came to see my curate, but he’s a bit worse for wear and I think he’s left now.”

  “Oh yeah, Reverend Brian, he comes in here a lot.”

  Deciding that the conversation could be quite useful, Jayden hung around for a moment, trying to show willing by taking a sip of Raff’s horrid drink. “Yes I came looking for him last week. He had all his robes on and didn’t want to talk.”

  “I remember that!” Lorna giggled, tossing her red straightened hair like a model. She was very beautiful. “That was the night he got really wrecked and cut his face.”

  “Cut his face?” Jayden interrupted, wracking her brain. “I don’t remember seeing him with a cut on his face.”

  “Well, he did have,” the girl replied, suspicion creeping into her voice. “Are you a cop?”

  Jayden snorted and laughed. She obviously wasn’t very good at this sleuthing lark. “No way! He owes me some money actually.” It was the first thing that came into her head.

  “How much?” Lorna persisted. Jayden pondered an amount. It was a surprisingly difficult question. It had to be enough to make her go after him for it, but not too much to be unrealistic.

  “Four hundred and one pounds,” she said conspiratorially, adding, “and fifty pence.” For some reason, it was the shameful exactitude of the lie that clinched it and made her sound convincing.

  “Crikey, I’d be after him for that as well.” Lorna sipped a gin and tonic and Jayden took another unbearable swig of the vodka. Yuk. A glance over at Raff found him deep in conversation with Barney. She didn’t think he had even missed her. To her annoyance, she saw him take a deep swallow of her lovely red wine. She pulled a face.

  “I wonder how he cut his face,” Jayden mused out loud. She had seen him around the place repeatedly since the murder; sallow-faced and dour, but not displaying anything likely to have bled overly much.

  “He did it outside,” Lorna said factually. “He was in the bogs for ages throwing up and then he went out the front. He was gone for a while and came in with blood on his cheek. Then he slumped down in his usual seat over there,” she indicated a comfy sofa next to a fake wood burner that was throwing out orange light like an inferno. Pointing with her index finger, Lorna kept her glass in her hand. “He started shouting around midnight and the bouncers threw him out. End of.”
Lorna smiled at Jayden, a hint of something unreadable in her face. “I haven’t seen you in here before. Have you just come out?”

  Jayden nodded, trying not to grimace at the taste of the vodka, which now wouldn’t leave her palate.

  “It’s hard isn’t it?” Lorna scooted her stool over to where Jayden was stood and reached out for a lock of Jayden’s dark hair, shifting it tenderly behind the other woman’s ear. Jayden was rooted to the spot, feeling suddenly vulnerable.

  “I came out with my friend,” Jayden said in a small voice, aware that she hadn’t a clue what was going on, just that something was.

  “Oh, is he gay too?” Lorna looked over at Raff with real interest. “I’m bi as well. It’s nice to have people who know how you feel. Is he a really good friend?”

  Jayden felt unexpectedly very hot all over. She sensed the influx of sweat drip unpleasantly down from the small of her back into her knickers. Was there actually any point trying to explain that she thought Lorna meant ‘come out’ as in ‘come out to the pub’ or would it make her look an idiot? Summoning all her counselling resolve and personal pride, she drew herself up to her full height and smiled benevolently down on Lorna. “I should get back,” she said sweetly. “It’s been lovely to talk.”

  Waving over her shoulder and trying not to trip over, Jayden scurried over to the table, giving Raff eye signals of alarm that he completely ignored. “I think I might get a taxi home,” she said after another half an hour and a round of drinks, which she made Raff fetch. She had switched to lemonade.

  “That’s ok,” he said nicely. “I’ll walk you home and then get off. I’ve got an early shift tomorrow.”