Makes a change, I thought, but said, ‘Yes?’
‘Get a bath and make yourself look like a member of the human race, even if you’re not.’
Half an hour later, just as we were about to hop on a double-decker, Sharkey came through on my mobile. ‘Brave man, Mike. Great job! Sometimes gambling does pay! Ignore the brass, but you’ll always do that without any encouragement from me. Tina’s been informed about the outcome and sends her thanks. She said what a coincidence that Pope should have met his end in the Bahamas at the same time that her partner was there on risk management business for her company! She has no idea that you and Sarah were there too. Let’s keep it that way.’ Before I could conjure up a suitable riposte, he was gone.
‘Who was that?’ said Sarah.
‘Oh, nobody really,’ I replied, abstractly. ‘Just someone I once knew from what now seems a very distant past.’
Within five minutes of leaving Pomfrey we’d decided to take off for a few days away from the madding crowd. After packing a few essentials, such as toothbrushes and condoms, we were undecided whether to train it from Victoria to Brighton or Paddington to Torquay, both towns on the south coast.
‘Toss for it,’ suggested Sarah.
‘Heads Brighton, tails Torquay,’ I said.
Sarah tossed, caught the coin, and flipped it on to the back of her hand. ‘Heads,’ she said.
‘OK, Brighton it is,’ I confirmed. ‘I’ll make a reservation.’
I knew I ought to phone my estranged wife and ask after the kids, but my brain was too blitzed for any meaningful conversation and most definitely far too fragile for mental sparring.
That evening, having booked into a hotel on the seafront, we dined from Room Service and drowsily stretched out together on the bed, channel-hopping by remote to see if we could catch a soporific movie on TV.
We thought we had hit lucky, only to discover that the film just beginning was Jaws 1V.
‘No! No! No more sharks,’ decreed Sarah, snatching the remote from me and slaying the beast with one touch of the red button, a trick that had not been available to Richard Pope.
Sleep came easily, but, unfortunately, so did the nightmares.
By the Same Author
Nailed
Bullet for an Encore
Last Bus to the Grave
Deadline
Copyright
© Michael Litchfield 2012
First published in Great Britain 2012
This edition 2013
ISBN 978 0 7198 0948 4 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7198 0949 1 (mobi)
ISBN 978 0 7198 0950 7 (pdf)
ISBN 978 0 7198 0734 3 (print)
Robert Hale Limited
Clerkenwell House
Clerkenwell Green
London EC1R 0HT
www.halebooks.com
The right of Michael Litchfield to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
The One a Month Man Page 21