by Ripley Hayes
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you need to take your clothes off and have a shower. I’ll wash them, and lend you some of mine til they’re dry.” Kent showed Daniel into his bedroom and produced sweatpants, boxers, a T shirt and a sweatshirt. He pointed the way to the bathroom and gave Daniel a towel.
“Can you manage?”
“I’ll be fine. I’ll take my time.”
Getting out of his clothes was hard work, but the shower was blissful. He looked with disgust at the mud and bits of vegetation streaming towards the drain, and soaped up again to wash the dried blood off his injured leg. When he turned the shower off, there was a knock at the door.
“Give me your clothes and I’ll stick them in the machine,” Kent said, “Don’t worry, your virtue is safe.”
“Hang on,” Daniel said, wrapping himself in the towel and opening the door. Then he heard himself say, “What if I don’t want my virtue to be safe?”
And there it was, out in the open. He hadn’t meant to say it, but he did mean the words. If he was honest, he’d wanted Kent from the first time he’d seen him. Kent’s bad temper just kept the desire under control, but the concern, the thoughtfulness, the sheer physical power undid every scowl and snarky comment.
Please tell me that I haven’t misread this.
He hadn’t misread it. Kent pulled Daniel into his arms and kissed him. Kent was tender, careful, as if he wasn’t expecting Daniel to respond. Daniel pressed his body against Kent, wanting him to know just how little he wanted to protect his virtue. His hands slid round Kent’s waist, pulling the shirt from out of Kent’a trousers, running his fingers over hard muscle covered in delicious soft hair. He ran his tongue over Kent’s lips, teasing them open until he got what he wanted and then he started to melt as Kent took control.
“You shouldn’t be standing on that leg,” Kent muttered as he lifted Daniel onto the bed as easily as he would have lifted a kitten. He looked down at Daniel as if he was looking at an ice cream sundae and wasn’t sure where to start. Daniel was naked, but for the towel, the excruciating nakedness you feel in dreams and he loved it. Loved being watched, assessed, appraised.
“See anything you like?”
“You,” said Kent, and then, “I wasn’t expecting the ink.” He sat down next to Daniel, pulled the towel away and dropped it on the floor. Daniel couldn’t remember ever having been so turned on, or so desperate to be touched. Kent didn’t speak as he removed his own clothes, then slid onto the bed next to Daniel, looking into his eyes until Daniel felt that he was drowning. Kent ran his fingers over the tattoos on Daniel’s shoulders and arms, tracing the tree branches and leaves, making Daniel shiver.
The fingers moved down Daniel’s body, over his nipples, tickling the swirl of damp hair below his navel, onto his hip and then over his arse and between his thighs, carefully avoiding the places where Daniel was desperate to be touched.
“Tease,” said Daniel.
“You are fucking gorgeous Daniel Owen.”
Daniel wanted to purr. “And I found Roy Edwards,” he said grinning.
“Yes you bloody did. But forgive me if I’m a bit distracted from thinking about work just now,” and kissed Daniel again.
“Always willing to be a distraction.”
Daniel loved that Kent was so hairy. And he had a nipple ring. Daniel sighed with contentment and buried his hands in all that lovely soft chest hair, tweaking the nipple ring. Then he slid down the bed until he could take the ring in his mouth and put his hand round Kent’s cock. He wanted that cock in his mouth badly, but sucking the nipple ring was doing great things for Kent and Daniel could wait.
It seemed Kent couldn’t. He rolled Daniel onto his back and pinned him there effortlessly. Daniel wriggled experimentally, getting harder as Kent smiled and didn’t let him move.
“I really, really want to fuck you,” he said, “but do you want that?”
Daniel’s flush covered the whole of his body - an intense wave of heat that was almost painful.
“Do I look like I’d say no?”
“Only if you’re sure.”
Daniel wriggled again. “Maldwyn, trust me, I’ve never been more sure of anything.”
Kent reached for the lube and Daniel felt the wave of heat roll through him again. He pulled a pillow under his arse and realised that he was shaking as he allowed Kent to open his legs and slip the very tip of his finger into him. He breathed out, relaxing into the moment, knowing that Kent was going to take his time, knowing that this wasn’t a means to an end, that this was part of the pleasure. Daniel lost track of time as Kent slid his fingers inside, finding his prostate and brushing it with the gentlest of touches as Daniel cried out and begged.
Kent rolled a condom and more lube over his cock and Daniel lifted himself higher as he felt Kent move into him.
“That feels so fucking good,” he said.
Kent began long, slow strokes and leaned in to kiss Daniel and look into his eyes. As the pressure started to build, Kent changed the rhythm and kept kissing Daniel until he lost all sense of time and place, existing only in this body and this moment. Daniel wasn’t moaning so much as yelling around the kisses. Kent drew back and laughed.
“Think of the neighbours...”
Daniel clenched his muscles and whispered “fuck the neighbours” as Kent cried out in his turn, and started moving again, harder and faster until Daniel felt the wave of heat begin. He grasped his cock and began to move his hand as he felt Kent’s orgasm begin. Then the wave crashed over him too, and they lay entwined, feeling the aftershocks as they subsided.
After a while, Kent went to the bathroom and returned with a warm cloth and cleaned them both. He threw it onto the floor, pulled the duvet over them both and switched the light off. Daniel moved into his arms and they both slept.
Daniel woke to the smell of coffee. His leg had stiffened up and hurt like hell, and there was an ache in his arse, but none of it compared to the feeling of wellbeing that underlay it all. He smiled as Kent put a tray of coffee on the floor next to the bed.
“You truly are a domestic god,” he said, and Kent smiled back.
“I am,” he said, pointing to a neat pile of Daniel’s clothes, “not that I want you to get dressed, but needs must. I need to talk to you.”
Here it comes, thought Daniel. That was fun, but don’t expect to do it again.
“Maldwyn,“ Daniel said. “You don’t have to say it.”
Kent looked confused. “Don’t have to say what?”
“That this was a mistake,” he waved a hand at himself naked in Kent’s bed, “just doing my usual acting before thinking. Sorry.”
I’m not sorry, but I’m not stupid enough to think he doesn’t regret it.
If Daniel had to analyse Kent’s expression he’d have said Kent looked hurt. Only that couldn’t be right.
Kent turned away. “Sure, if that’s the way you feel. I’ll let you get dressed in peace,” and left the room. Daniel got dressed and gulped his coffee. He could hear Kent in the shower. He needed a shower himself, and to brush his teeth and for that he needed to be back at his hotel. He couldn’t decide which was more awkward, calling a taxi to take him, or waiting for Kent and asking him for a lift. Kent solved the problem by appearing dressed and shaved.
“I’ll drop you at the hotel,” he said. The scowl was back. Daniel didn’t know whether to apologise again or just keep quiet. He kept quiet until they got to the hotel and then asked if Kent wanted him at the police station.
“Of course,” Kent said, and drove off.
Back in his room Daniel stripped off and got into the shower, brushed his teeth and shaved. Then he sat down on the bed and called his sister.
“I completely screwed up,” he said, “and now I don’t know what to do.”
Megan heard him out in silence.
“You don’t know that he was going to say it was a mistake. It doesn’t sound to me like he thought it was a mistake. But whatever, you have to work
with the guy, and he did pull you out of a hole in the ground.”
“I like him Meg, but everything here is so weird and he’s in the middle of the weirdness.”
“Just a suggestion Dan, why don’t you try telling him what you’re thinking?”
There was a crashing noise in the background. “Gotta go, the kids are smashing the house up.”
Daniel got a taxi to drop him off at the police station, and with a deep breath he went up to CID and knocked on Kent’s door. Tell him what I’m thinking. It’s worth a go I suppose.
He ignored the awkwardness between them and started.
“Sir, I’ve been thinking about Barbara. If Roy wanted to get money out of her business in Spain, she had a big motive to stop him. By the sound if it, it’s Barbara and Vanessa who have made the business a success, so she’s not going to want to hand any of it over to Roy and Suzanne.”
Kent didn’t look convinced. He wasn’t totally convinced himself, but he did think it was worth following up.
“We don’t actually know when Barbara arrived in the country,” he said, “we’ve been taking her word for it, but we should check.”
“Barbara had no reason to kill Suzanne,” Kent said.
“Unless Barbara thought Suzanne was behind Roy’s plans to get money out of her business. Like everyone says, Suzanne did seem to like making trouble.”
“OK, so who tried to kill you?”
“Good question. But as we never asked for witnesses we may never know. I bet Sasha and Rhiannon have information.”
As soon as he mentioned the sisters, Kent’s frown reappeared.
“What is it about those two?” Daniel asked.
“It’s a long story, not relevant.”
“Things keep coming back to Cwmcoed. Did you know Barbara was originally from there?”
Kent nodded, “of course,”
“And you are too, aren’t you? That’s why everyone is so interested that you’ve been there. What I don’t understand is why you hate it so much, and if it matters. So maybe we’d better make time for the long story?”
Kent’s face clouded over again. He didn’t respond, just withdrew into himself, looking at the walls of his office as if there was something interesting about plain white emulsion painted over smooth plaster.
“I’m right aren’t I?” Daniel asked.
“You know you are. It’s one of your most irritating habits.
Everyone says how wonderful the close-knit Valleys communities are. All it means is that everyone is in your business, and they only like you as long as you are exactly like them.”
“You left when you realised you were gay?” Daniel lowered his voice even though the door to Kent’s office was closed.
Kent snorted and went back to his contemplation of the walls. Daniel wanted to reach over to offer some kind of support, but Kent’s face was set like stone.
“Maldwyn? Sir?”
“No one knows I’m gay, or if they do it’s not because I’ve told them. I’m not out at work. I haven’t seen anyone in my family for over twenty years. The reason I left was to join the police - the Met - and no one from Cwmcoed has spoken to me since.”
And Daniel understood. “You joined the police - the English police in London - only fifteen years after the end of the strike?”
“Thirteen years. I come from a long line of coal miners and Welsh nationalists, and I was sick to death of all of it. Still am, so for god’s sake let’s stop talking about it.”
That explained why Kent didn’t want to spend any time in Cwmcoed, but not what was going on within Glamorgan Police. Daniel decided to leave that one alone for the time being. He realised that the two of them had drawn close together to keep their conversation private, so he pulled his chair away.
“OK,” he said, “Let’s talk about inheritances instead. Because I’ve never lost money betting against greed as a motive for bad behaviour.”
“I looked at money while you were out looking for bodies yesterday,” said Kent, relaxing now they weren’t talking about him, “Roy Edwards still technically owned half the property in Spain.”
“So if they were still married when he died, Barbara gets the bar? And then she can pass it to Vanessa.”
“And if Roy was still married to Barbara who gets the building firm in Melin Tywyll?”
“And even more important, did Barbara know about Suzanne, and about Roy’s plans to go into business with her?”
“Believe me,” said Kent, with resignation in his voice, “someone in Cwmcoed would have told Barbara about Suzanne and her plans.”
“And Marian, let’s not forget about Marian,” said Daniel, “she’s got as much to lose as Barbara.”
“Maybe it’s time for a trip to Melin Tywyll and a word with both of them. Just a little diversion to the mortuary and we can be on our way.”
Kent smiled at Daniel and the awkwardness was gone.
The only thing that had changed since Daniel’s last trip to the autopsy suite was the shape of the body on the table. Roy Edwards hadn’t been an attractive man in life and his corpse was positively repellent. He’d had the same duct tape binding his hands and feet and across his mouth, but there the similarities with Suzanne’s death ended. The pathologist, an older man this time, pointed to some small abrasions on Roy’s feet and ankles.
“Post mortem,” he said, “he was dead before he was dumped. I think those marks are from being dragged along the ground, though if I’m right, I’m surprised there aren’t more.”
“So what killed him?” asked Kent.
“Years of abusing his body. But the immediate cause was a heart attack. Stomach contents suggest he’d been drinking heavily, and I’ll be looking for the same sleeping tablets that we found in your last offering. I’m also thinking that someone hit him - there’s evidence of a nosebleed and a split lip. But he might have fallen.”
“It might not be murder then?”
“Depends if he was drugged.”
Daniel said, “but if he was with someone when he had the heart attack and they’d called for help...”
“Maybe,” said the pathologist, “but for sure dumping him in a hole in the woods wouldn’t bring him back to life.”
Roy’s phone had been in his pocket, and the pathologist handed it over in an evidence bag. When Kent tried to turn it on, it asked for a password.
“How quick are your technical staff?” Kent asked Daniel.
“They’ll do it straight away.”
“Then it’s coming with us. We need to know who Edwards was talking to, ideally before next week.”
Daniel saw the look of sympathy the pathologist flashed at Kent, but what it meant, he had no idea.
Chapter 6
Daniel knew there was no chance of his being able to drive the Land Rover, so they made the trip in together in Kent’s car. Bethan had arranged for them to meet Marian, Barbara and Vanessa, and one of Kent’s team was trying to find out exactly when Barbara arrived in the UK. Others were still following the money trail, looking at the financial health of all the players in the case. So Daniel had a time out, time to think about what was happening between him and Kent, if anything was happening at all.
Kent knocked him off balance, one minute warm and funny, the next cold and pulling rank. Then last night.
He was hyper-conscious of Kent next to him in the car, wanting to reach over and run his fingers up Kent’s leg, or take his hand. The man exuded heat and he warmed Daniel even when they weren’t touching. There had been other men, plenty of other men, but he liked talking to Kent as well as being in bed with him, and that was a rare combination.
He told himself not to read anything into any of Kent’s behaviour, to keep the relationship to one of colleagues. To protect himself. The guy helped a fellow officer when he was injured. They shared a sense of humour. Two gay men had sex. Nothing to see here.
It’s just sex. And that’s OK. Amazing sex though.
“What was the Met like?”
he asked, wanting to talk about something that wasn’t the case, “I’ve only ever worked for Clwyd.”
“It was great, until it wasn’t.”
“Huh?”
There was silence in the car. Kent had chosen the motorway route, going into England and then back again into north Wales. The road was busy, but Kent was calm, overtaking smoothly as the stream of trucks ground their ponderous ways to wherever they were going. Daniel was absently noting the number of European registered vehicles when Kent spoke again.
“I was seeing a guy,” there was a pause, “actually we lived together. He wanted to get married. I didn’t. Specifically I realised that I didn’t want to marry him. It seemed better to leave.”
“He was a copper?”
“Civilian staff. Someone I worked with.”
“So you came back to Wales.”
“And what a mistake that turned out to be.”
“So where now?”
Kent shrugged. Back to England probably. The Met if I can. Then he asked, “what about you? Is there someone waiting for you at home?”
Daniel smiled. “Does my sister count? Because there’s no one else. I mean, I’m not celibate, but there’s no one special. We’re twins, and she’s got twins of her own. She married a friend of ours from school. They’re the people I spend time with when I’m not working. But I’m mostly working.”
Kent nodded. “Yup, sounds familiar.”
“My DCI has been sick on and off for the last year. You were lucky he’s in this week or I wouldn’t have been able to leave. So most of the time, I’m it.”
Kent’s phone rang and he gestured for Daniel to answer it. Someone said, “Barbara Edwards arrived in Wales five days ago. Flew into Cardiff and hired a car from the airport.”
Kent raised his voice, “see if you can find out where the car has been.”
The answer was a grunt followed by the call ending.
Kent sighed.
“Um, your colleagues seem a bit unhelpful.” Daniel wanted ask what was going on, why people were getting away with undermining their boss, but he was afraid of losing the ease between them. He was pretty sure this would be something else Kent wouldn’t want to talk about. He was right.