Kate Owen, in skin-tight jeans twinned with a sweater in a lighter blue, was coming down the slope with her magnificent Alsatian guards. Her hair was up, serving to emphasize her jawline and a long, slender neck. Men continued to stare, but she had eyes only for him. ‘Hello,’ she yelled. ‘Glad you made it.’
Alex held up leads, treats and a bundle of bags for dog waste. ‘I’m armed,’ he warned.
Kate released her dogs. They turned right and made for the river.
‘Go,’ Alex ordered, and his four dogs ran in pursuit of Kate’s two. He stood up, but Kate was having none of it. She sat and pulled his hand until he joined her. ‘They’ll be fine, Alex. My dogs know the scent of yours from Friday, from your clothes, and you took the smell of Castor and Lucky home to your lot.’
‘Pollux,’ he said, retrieving his tingling hand.
‘Same to you. May I press you to a chicken salad sandwich?’
The dogs came and went, came and went, keen to have treats of chicken and dog biscuits. Their significant humans talked of matters mundane – the cost of a new clutch for her car, the weather, the Viking settlements of Great Crosby, Little Crosby, Thornton and Blundellsands.
She swallowed. ‘Over there, I saw thousands of bricks worn down by the tides. Why? They run parallel with the golf course.’
‘Houses fell into the river.’
‘No!’
He grinned, unable to look at her, yet not wanting to take his eyes off her. ‘That’s why these steps were built. The river is a hungry animal, very invasive. At one time, there was a theory that Blundellsands would be under water in a hundred years. This is called the erosion with good reason. We’re literally holding back the tide.’
‘Oh dear.’ She paused. ‘Alex?’
He still couldn’t look at her directly.
‘Are you afraid of me?’
He was. ‘Not at all,’ he lied.
‘Back in a moment. I’m going dolloping.’ She grabbed a pile of dog bags and ran off to clean up after their canine charges. Ah, so ‘dolloping’ was her word for scooping up dog muck. The unsavoury task seemed not to faze her in the least – she even chatted to other walkers while she cleaned patches of the beach and shoved her finds into a Tesco carrier bag before tying it. It seemed as if the whole world followed in her footsteps, though few females took part in what looked rather like a casual bridal procession, except for the absence of flowers.
On her return, she placed her burden in a larger bin liner, whipped a packet of Simple wipes from her bag, scrubbed her hands, returned to her bag and smeared both hands with antiseptic from a plastic bottle.
‘Are you sure that you picked up after just our dogs and not a whole zoo?’ he asked.
With no hesitation, she put him in his place. ‘Dog faeces can blind a child. I didn’t stop to measure the items to assess which breed they came from. Now’ – she smiled broadly – ‘tell me about your clubs. They will be my next adventure.’
Alex shrugged. Her next adventure? Oh, hell on toast. ‘I have five.’
‘Exciting.’
‘And they all begin with C-h.’
‘Why?’
‘Why not? They are Charm, Cheers, Checkmate, Chillex and Champs aux Fraises. That last one means Strawberry Fields.’
‘I know. I have A-level French.’
Of course she did. She was probably proficient in many disciplines. ‘A woman of many talents, then.’
‘Charm?’ she prompted.
‘It’s a dance club with a good sprung floor, ballroom lessons two nights a week, salsa night, jive night. It’s busy. Patrons tend to be on the mature side, though salsa and jive both attract some younger people. Charm’s doing well. They have tea dances in the afternoons for retired people. Most clubs are for younger folk, so I plugged a gap in the market.’
‘Your face lit up just now,’ she observed. ‘That means you enjoy your clubs. What about Cheers, then?’
Alex grinned. ‘I share ownership with an American who has a passion for Liverpool, for Texas and for the TV show. He puts a joke across the counter with most drinks, runs quiz nights, and hires very pretty Scouse girls. Calls himself Bobby Ray Carson, though his Southern accent is dodgy – he’s from New York. Cheers has regulars, just like the TV show. It also attracts alcoholics and binge drinkers, so security is tight.’
Simultaneously, they realized that they were being stared at by six very bedraggled animals.
‘Oh, God,’ Kate exclaimed. ‘They look like filthy strays.’
‘It’s not God, it’s the river,’ Alex replied. ‘It’s a sight cleaner than it used to be, but it still serves up some crap.’
She jumped to her feet. ‘Let’s walk them round to my place. I have a doggy wet room just inside the back door.’
‘I came in the dog van, Kate. It will take six in the back, so I’ll drive you home, and you can take Castor and Pollux inside while I get my four back to my house.’
‘Nonsense. I’ll clean all the dogs. Oh, and I made scouse for later, thought it might help you feel at home. I got the recipe from a Liverpool group on Facebook. Very helpful people, these Scousers.’
Alex nodded, acknowledging the truth of that. ‘All right, it’s a deal. I have to warn you, though, my lot have an allergy to legal water. I can take them into a dry field and they’ll find one small puddle and cover themselves in mud, and then refuse to be washed by me. They love only naturally occurring waters.’ It was becoming clear that she would go to any lengths to keep him by her side. She had planned all this in the full knowledge that the animals would get filthy. He had been selected, so he owned no choice in the matter, because she’d stolen his free will. So who was he to disagree? ‘As long as you’re OK with that, it sounds like a good plan.’
He spent the first half hour in her house lighting a fire in the living-sleeping-eating-study room and spreading old towels on the rug.
Finally she entered with six drip-dry dogs and more towels. The scent of washed fur filled the air; both were used to the smell of wet dogs.
‘They were very well-behaved,’ she said. ‘There’s not a lot of choice, because there are side jets as well as the overhead ones.’ She threw a towel at him. ‘Here. Catch a dog and dry it.’ She began to rub Churchill’s fur. Looking up from her task, she asked, ‘What?’ He was staring hard at her. ‘What, Alex?’
‘Did you go into the shower with them?’
Kate glanced down at her fluffy white bathrobe. ‘Just for a while, yes.’
‘But—’
‘But what? I cleaned them two at a time.’
‘I may hire you as a dog-washer.’ His tone was dry.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.
Alex inhaled deeply. She had short, loosely curled brunette hair. ‘Did you dye and cut your hair while you were cleaning dogs?’ She blushed, and he felt guilty. Feeling again. Her embarrassment is affecting me, and I know now that this woman is a part of my danger zone, the place I try not to visit.
A hand flew to her head. ‘Oh, hell,’ she snapped.
Nothing further was said until the animals lay in a slightly tangled row in front of the log fire. Kate walked to the door. ‘I’ll be five minutes at the most,’ she promised.
It was a long five minutes. She was in disguise, on the run from something or other, or from someone. Was Kate Owen a criminal? Surely not. But she’d left London and a job she had clearly loved, had turned her back on friends and on a way of life offered only by the greatest city in the country. What was going on?
She returned sporting a dress and the dark blonde/light brown wig, the loose one she’d worn on Friday. ‘Sorry,’ was the single word she offered.
‘Why?’ he asked. She had looked even prettier as a gamine brunette.
‘I can’t talk about it, Alex.’
‘May I ask whether Kate Owen is your true name?’
‘No.’
He allowed a few beats of time to pass. ‘No, I mustn’t ask, or no it isn’t your real name?’
‘It isn’t my name. I am Katherine, but not Owen.’
He stood up.
‘Please stay,’ she begged. ‘I’ve made too much of that Liverpool stew, and dogs can’t digest potatoes.’
‘I have to change the cover on the floor of the van. It will need washing. I always carry a spare.’ It was there in her eyes, the need, the desire, the hunger. ‘I can’t do this . . . stuff, Kate. Like you, I have issues, things, events in my life I can’t talk about. We’re damaged people.’
‘So? Everybody suffers damage of one sort or another – that’s life.’
‘But I don’t want to talk about my history, and you clearly don’t want to talk about yours. So what do you need from me, Kate? Straight answer.’
She studied him. He was a sight for anyone’s eyes, sore or not. And there was something else, something they had shared from the moment he’d picked her up after the shoe had broken. ‘I like you a lot,’ she murmured truthfully. Her tone grew more challenging. ‘And I think you like me, too. You’re fighting it, but you do like me.’
A heavy silence followed.
‘Why can’t we be reborn?’ Kate persisted. ‘It’s just a case of discarding the past and living in the moment. A person’s history is old clothing, isn’t it?’
At last, he spoke. ‘If we were able to do that, you wouldn’t be in therapy, and Tim would be short of money.’
Kate could find no direct answer to his statement. ‘You’re my only friend in Liverpool. I’m a refugee from London, and I seek asylum.’
They both burst out laughing. ‘We’ll end up in one,’ Alex managed.
‘We could share a cell,’ she suggested.
‘Kate – stop it. I can’t share, I can’t . . . commit.’
‘Phobic?’ she asked.
‘Yes. It’s a nurture rather than nature thing, or so I’m told on good authority. I can’t be half a couple. It’s also part of the stuff we don’t talk about. I’ll go and change the cover in the back of my van.’ He left her in the company of six drying dogs.
I am going to sit right here till he comes back. He can take his dogs and leave, because I have a plan. I’ve always had a plan; I’m here in Liverpool because I had a plan. OK, it was a bit drastic, but it saved me and my darling Amelia. Now, I’m moving too fast, plotting too quickly and too soon. I’ve frightened him off. Yet I know he’s a good man.
He cares for me – I’m not blind and not stupid. It crackles between us like static electricity, has done right from the start. Alex is the sort of man I need; he’s a dog-lover, a mover and shaker – he lights up the room and makes me smile. Feelings like this don’t travel in one direction only. I catch him looking at me, see him grinning to himself, head bent to one side because I’ve said something slightly outrageous. Ah, here he comes.
‘Right, all done. Come along, boys.’
The ‘boys’ obeyed him immediately.
‘Goodbye, Kate,’ he said. ‘Phone me if you need anything.’
She exhaled loudly. ‘Go, then.’ She tried to keep the petulance out of her tone, keen not to sound like the spoilt child she had been. ‘And I plan not to need anything from you, thanks.’ Now that had sounded petulant. Until her unfortunate marriage, she’d always had her own way with parents who still doted on their only child and her daughter. It was about time to grow up.
He shrugged, took his dogs and left.
Kate dragged one of her ‘killer’ dresses from a wardrobe. It was silver, corseted, and needed no bra. After choosing shoes and a clutch bag, she went into her own shower and thought through her plan. Oh, she would show him. She might not see him tonight, but she would make sure as hell that he would hear about her very, very soon. ‘Keep a low profile,’ the police had said, but she had no intention of planting herself permanently in the silent Viking village known as Blundellsands. She was smartly bewigged, made up like a film star and dressed like a rather naughty princess. ‘Watch this space, Alex Price,’ she muttered. Then she sat and waited for time to pass.
Although somewhat overdressed for Cheers, Kate was a woman who could carry herself no matter what the situation. With a wrap of silver-grey lace, she managed to conceal much of her upper body, so the sweetheart, corseted dress was immediately less revealing.
Cheers was impressive. A squarish bar imitated the layout of the TV show. Alongside Bobby Ray Carson, three pretty girls served drinks. Kate, very much aware of the crowd’s quietening mood, moved towards the co-owner of the club. She introduced herself. ‘I’m Kate Owen, a friend of your partner’s.’ Alex had never mentioned that his partner was black – and very handsome. These days, many people tended to be colour blind when it came to shades of skin, which was more than acceptable in Kate’s book.
Bobby Ray shook her proffered hand. ‘Welcome, Kate. Did security stamp your hand?’
‘Yes.’
‘Marked for life,’ he jested. ‘Name your favourite poison, and your first drink’s free.’
She ordered a diet lemonade spritzer and perched on a bar stool. On the opposite side of the large room, a jukebox played while a few couples jumped about to the music. Kate became aware of two or three people moving behind her. She sipped at her drink while males close by argued. When security removed them to a different area, her wig never turned a hair. ‘Another, please,’ she asked when her glass was empty. They had all probably wanted to dance with her, but she wanted just one man, and he wasn’t here. Yet. Ah well, she could wait. At last, she was learning patience. Wasn’t she?
Bobby Ray handed over her second drink. ‘You’re causing quite a stir,’ he said quietly. She glanced round the room. A few men in a huddle kept turning to look at her. ‘Am I in trouble?’ she asked innocently. She was good at innocence; she’d practised it for years when confronted by her parents. ‘It’s a pity Alex isn’t here,’ she told him. ‘If he were here, I think your security guards would be redundant. He seems to be a very determined man.’
Bobby Ray had been a bartender in New York, Boston and Chicago, and had become astute when it came to judging character. It was time for a break, anyway, so he nipped out for a cigarette, picking up his phone before leaving. She was a predator, and Bobby needed to talk to Alex about his huntress.
Kate smiled to herself. The American would have a conversation with his partner, thereby providing what her evening lacked. Alex would come, wouldn’t he? She needed to talk to him, to convince him that they might just move on together as a couple.
When the man in charge returned, he placed his phone under the bar and plugged in its charger. She awarded him the best smile in her collection, since he seemed to be fitting in very well with her latest plan. He gave her a brief nod before moving to the opposite side of the bar.
The night passed in a blur while she danced with at least a dozen men; Alex was not one of that number. At just before one in the morning, Bobby Ray cut in to dance with her. ‘You’re going home,’ he whispered into her ear. ‘And I mean right now.’
‘I’m not drunk—’
‘I know.’
‘I’ve had three spritzers all night.’
‘I know that, too. I’m leaving the bar to one security and three young women. These are my instructions from Alex, my partner and friend. I’m doing as he advised.’
Kate stopped dancing, standing with closed fists on her hips. ‘You’ll have to carry me, then.’
‘No problem.’ He walked to the bar and picked up Kate’s clutch bag from its place of safekeeping. Handing the item to its owner, he asked, ‘Are you going to leave under your own steam?’
Either way, this was a fight she couldn’t win. She was going to walk, or she would be lifted like a child. She walked.
When they reached Bobby Ray’s car, Kate clouted the six feet and four inches of solid man with her silver clutch. ‘Do not make the mistake of ordering me about – ever. Now, go away and let me be while I phone for a taxi.’
‘No.’
‘Then I’m going back into the club – j
ust as far as the entrance – and I’ll phone from there.’
A voice came from behind them.
‘Get in my fucking car, Kate. Thanks, Bob.’
She spun round and found herself face to face with Alex. ‘Get in the back seat. Now.’ His expression was grim. ‘Don’t mess about with my clubs, with me, or even with my dogs. Any more of your nonsense, and I’ll slap a restraining order on you before you can say knife. This smells suspiciously like harassment, and you will stop.’ He nodded at his partner. ‘Go inside, Bob. I’ll take this one home.’
‘This one’ was ushered into the rear of Alex’s Merc. She was shaking; he wouldn’t even allow her up front next to the driver’s seat. What had she done wrong? Her spine tingled. It had started with . . . she didn’t want to think his name. It had started with a man she’d grown to hate and, having dealt with him, she had taken charge of everything and everyone. ‘I don’t know how to stop.’
‘What did you say?’
‘Did I just speak out loud?’
‘You did.’
Kate sighed. ‘I don’t know how to stop being in charge; everything in rows, like soldiers. And I saw you, wanted you, planned how to get you.’ She waited in vain for a response, as Alex seemed buried beneath his vow of silence. ‘It’s a huge part of what’s wrong with me,’ she added. ‘I had to do something really big a few months ago. I gave away my daughter just to make her safe. You’ll have heard of the Kray twins, I presume. They’re still around, people like those two. And if you step, however accidentally, into their world, you are doomed. What you see now, the harassment, the needy woman, was created by other people. I shifted Amelia – my daughter – and I was placed in a safe house until the court case was over, then I bought wigs and fled north. I’m a pest, but I’m most definitely not a monster.’
For the Love of Liverpool Page 3
