“I thought if I could just get Zak into bed, he’d calm down and go to sleep but…he’s very…” Alejandro took a deep breath. “He’s demanding and he wanted me— God, all right.” He took another deep breath, ragged and shaky. “He wanted a blow job. Zak only ever wants blow jobs, we’ve never— I didn’t want to but I don’t usually say no. This time I did.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “So he hit me. I fell against the nightstand.”
Joe froze, the damp wad of cotton wool in his fingers dripping water onto the tiled floor. “Oh, God, no. Alejo, please, that’s wrong on so many levels. Let me take this further, please. He assaulted you tonight and you say he’s forced sexual acts on you before. I’ll help you, okay? I’ll help you get shot of him, I promise.”
“He won’t have sex with me. He behaves as if there’s something gross about it, but— I can’t get away from him, Joe.” He watched Joe closely as he spoke. “You know I said I’d tried coke once? Zak filmed it. He says he’ll sell the film if I don’t do what he wants. It’ll break Mamá’s heart and God, can you think of Abuelita seeing it? She’d hate me!”
“He’s not allowed to do that. He’ll go on trial.” Joe laid down the cotton wool and took Alejandro’s chin gently in his hand. “It’s blackmail. We might be able to get a gag on the media reporting it, too. But…” Joe parked his inner police officer. Alejandro didn’t need him quoting legislation at him. “Now I understand. You’re worth so much more than this, Alejo, please don’t let him rule your life like this. He’s an arsehole. His video was crap, and he’s so far up himself that he can’t see daylight. Don’t be frightened of him. We can deal with him, get shot of the stupid bastard once and for all.”
“It was once. I’m literally the only queen I know who’s only done it once and I’m the one who got filmed!” He drew in a long breath. “I feel like…like this can’t go on. Like I shouldn’t be questioning if the man I’m dating is the same man who’s threatening me and broke into my studio. He’s the one person who shouldn’t be a suspect, and from the start I thought, is it you? Can you help me, Osito? Please?”
“Of course I can. And please don’t worry about your mum and abuelita finding out about the video. I’m sure they’d be far more concerned about you feeling you can’t get away from an abusive dick like Zak than one regrettable indiscretion.” Joe dabbed at the wound again. “Do you want to report him for assault, for what he did to you tonight?”
He knew what the answer would be even before Alejandro shook his head.
No.
“I don’t know,” Alejandro said, much to Joe’s surprise. “I’ve never—it’s not such a big thing, is it?”
Compared to what? To whatever else he’s put you through?
“Do you remember what I told you, when we first met? Even spitting on someone is assault. You will be listened to, Alejo. For what he’s done tonight, for what he’s done before.”
Alejandro nodded, sitting quietly as Joe cleaned the wound on his shoulder. It was a small cut despite the blood, deep perhaps, but nothing that would require a stitch or worse. Paloma might need to keep her shoulders covered for a week or two but even Alejandro couldn’t find much to complain about in that.
Joe cleaned the wound with an antiseptic wipe, then gently put a plaster on it. “There you go! Now let’s have that hot chocolate.”
“Let me?” Alejandro reached up and caught Joe’s hand. “You can snuggle with the blanket and I’ll make you Mamá’s chocolate a la taza! You’ll thank me when you taste it.”
Joe gently squeezed Alejandro’s fingers. “I’d love to try it. But only if you’re sure you’re okay?”
“It’ll help me think.” He rose to his feet and pressed the blanket into Joe’s fingers. “Besides, I need to get the image of you crashing through my door wearing only your boxers out of my head or I’ll never get anything done. You’re very…fit.”
Joe tucked the blanket around himself. He stupidly hadn’t thought of the effect his near-naked body would have had on Alejandro. “Yeah, sorry. I didn’t stop to put my clothes on, which was pretty stupid of me. Still, don’t tell anyone but I hope I made Zak even half as frightened as he’d made you.”
“I thought… I’ve never seen him so out of control.” He put his hand on the fridge door, then paused. “I wish I’d never met him.”
Joe packed the cotton wool back into the first-aid kit. “So how did you meet?”
“I hadn’t performed as Paloma before Firehouse, but she’s been going out for a long time.” He glanced at Joe with a grin. “And when Zak met me in New York, he thought I was a girl! Imagine that, a straight like Zak falling for a boy in drag.”
Joe raised an eyebrow. “So Zak’s not gay?”
“Zak doesn’t know what he is. He’s been with boys, been with girls. I think he chooses whoever’s best for his career.” Alejandro began assembling ingredients on the worktop, chief among them a huge block of dark chocolate. “I didn’t realise when we got together how heavily he was into coke. When he’s not using, he’s still an arrogant bastard, but he’s funny too and he used to be sweet to me. Or maybe the being sweet was the act and this Zak I’ve got now is the real thing. I don’t know, Osito, but I know he wouldn’t want me if I wasn’t part of the firm.”
“I did wonder. There was something he said at the studio which made me think that he sees you as his…” Joe closed the first-aid kit with a click. It wasn’t a nice thing to say to someone about their boyfriend, but it was true. “He sees you as his meal ticket. It’s horrible seeing how rude he is to you. He’s not affectionate in the least. And your mate Mel, she doesn’t like him one bit. Your friends will rally round. And maybe he is Leviticus? Maybe it’s internalised homophobia, because he can’t accept his attraction to men?”
“Zak?” Alejandro turned to look at Joe, those extravagant fringes swishing around his narrow hips. “He’s a shit to my face, why would he do that?”
“Because he enjoys terrorising you.” Joe wanted at that moment to give Alejandro a hug, but he didn’t want to pester him. He wasn’t Zak. But Alejandro didn’t turn back to his task. Instead he kept his eyes on Joe, that dark gaze one he could happily drown in. “Alejo…”
Joe got up from his chair and stood in front of Alejandro. Not so closely that Alejandro couldn’t evade him if he didn’t want him that close to him.
“Hug?” Joe offered. Alejandro nodded and held out his arms.
“Yes, please, Sergeant.”
Joe wrapped him in his arms and held him tightly. Alejandro felt wonderful to hold, his heartbeat thudding against Joe’s chest. He was so alive, and Joe knew he would do whatever he had to protect Alejandro, the reluctant royal.
He would happily have held Alejandro for the rest of the night, but his headstrong principal was intent on recreating the famed chocolate of his mamá, clearly determined to end the evening on a high after the drama. A mug of that rich, luxuriant drink demanded comfort and together they settled onto the sitting room sofa beneath a vast poster for the South Bank retrospective in honour of Alejandro’s father, snuggled in the blanket, indulging in much-vaunted chocolate a la taza.
“Sad to say, she never made this for me when I worked for her. It’s amazing, like drinking custard.” Joe took another sip. He’d sent messages to Control and to the guards outside, only telling them that Zak had left. Anything else would follow, if Alejandro wanted it to. Joe could relax a bit now. The tension had left them both and if they happened to be sharing a blanket and wearing nothing but shorts, well, perhaps that still passed for platonic in Alejandro’s circles.
“I bet there’s nothing you don’t know about me.” Alejandro sat with his back against the sofa’s arm, holding the mug in both hands. It rested in his lap atop the blanket, curls of steam rising into the air. “Do I have a big fat file somewhere? How did James Bond or M or whoever put it together miss Paloma?”
“Who knows? But then again, it was compiled by someone like me who couldn’t even tell that you
were Paloma either—and I’d kissed Paloma!” Joe laughed. “But yes, you do have a file, and there is lot in there. Your escapes from Eton, a photo of you and Zak, your parents…” Joe glanced down at his drink. The death of Alejandro’s father really wasn’t a topic to discuss at that moment. “And at the party tonight, Control sent me information on Slim Frost. I nearly died trying not to laugh when I found out what his real name is. Do you know it?”
Alejandro shook his head. Then he narrowed his eyes and said, “I bet it’s something long and ridiculous though. All of Zak’s street friends went to the poshest schools and they didn’t escape through the window!”
“It’s the best name ever.” Joe spluttered with laughter as he read the name from his phone. “Henry Addlington-Thorpe! Went to Stowe, and enjoys punting. Punting!”
“No!” Beneath the blanket Alejandro nudged Joe’s knee with his bare foot. “I thought he came from a horrible tower block somewhere in London!”
“So he knows all about the popo and the Feds. Maybe the River Police, arresting him for punting too fast!” Joe shook his head. “What. A. Pillock. A’ite, blud?”
“I is punting,” Alejandro howled, his sing-song voice proving utterly unable to handle the London accent he was attempting. “Punting with ma bitches, innit?”
“Do you think he’s got a spoiler on his punt?” Joe was laughing so hard he could barely speak. “UV lights underneath? Chrome hubcaps? Gangja leaves painted along the side?”
“Do punts have hubs?” Alejandro took a sip of chocolate. “Drifting down the river, bass pounding from the woofer on the back!”
“Looking all cross at what a bad deal life has given him.” Joe shook his head. “I can’t stand people like that. Yeah, so I like listening to a bit of rap, but I don’t pretend I grew up on the twentieth floor of a council flat. And yeah, that rhymes. Don’t laugh!”
“Sergeant Joe, he’s in the know.” Alejandro, not a born rapper, paused to consider his next couplet. “He gave Zak the boot in shorts, not a generic suit! Bloody hell, I think I’ll stick to drag.”
“You are very good at drag.” Joe gazed at his friend, who at that moment looked very far from Paloma-esque. Well, apart from the shorts. “I’m impressed by how much effort goes into it. What exactly are you going to wear at Windsor?”
“I’m going to honour all those brave, hunky seamen,” he deadpanned. “And keep it totally classy.”
Joe considered this for a moment. Although he’d seen Alejandro at his sewing machine, he hadn’t a clue what all those reams of white fabric were in aid of. “Not a mermaid, though? Paloma would need a big, shimmery tail for that! Unless your costume is actually a ship, and you’ve been making sails?”
“I’m making a uniform, Osito,” Alejandro admitted. “But Paloma has been a mermaid. Go to my Insta, have a look at last New Year. My tail was the shimmeriest tail you’ve ever seen!”
“No way? I’ve got to see that.” He went onto Insta and scrolled through a stream of seemingly endless photos until he found it. “Wow, look at you!”
“A miracle of engineering!” Alejandro laughed, gesturing towards the phone and Paloma’s sparkling tail, and the remarkable seashell bra that made a sultry woman of the man she was. “And having a tail gives a girl a great excuse to sit on her bum drinking champers all night!”
“You look fantastic. I love your blue hair! And the spangly bra with the shells, and…” Joe stopped himself before he said anything more. He sounded like a fawning fan. Which he sort of was. But Alejandro didn’t look anything but delighted, his smile bright and his eyes sparkling. He stroked his toes along Joe’s thigh and blew him a sultry kiss.
“I could do red, white and blue victory rolls for Windsor, couldn’t I?” He chewed his lip thoughtfully. “Too much?”
Joe caught Alejandro’s foot and stroked his thumb along the sole. “Is Paloma capable of too much? I doubt it!”
“I’ve ordered the most exquisite shoes,” Alejandro went on, warming to his theme. “They’re covered in sweet sparkly fish and the heels are tiny little cute mermaids, mini Palomas! And they have a bit of a platform, so they’re kinder to Spanish feet.”
Joe went from a gentle stroke to a rub of Alejandro’s sole. “I did feel sorry for you earlier. Your poor feet! Is this better?”
“That’s lovely.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “You’re very gentle, Osito, despite the muscles.”
“Glad you think so.” Joe put down his cup and slid his now-free hand under the blanket. He wasn’t going to consider the fact that rubbing feet was verging on the non-platonic. “Would you like me to rub your other foot too?”
Alejandro nodded. “They get very sore sometimes.”
So Joe took Alejandro’s other foot and they somehow managed to stay completely platonic, until tiredness got the better of them both.
They said goodnight at the bedroom door, but as Joe sank back to sleep, even though he’d never given much thought to that part of the anatomy before, he was still thinking of Alejandro’s elegant feet.
Chapter Twelve
The next day, Joe was looking through Zak’s social media profiles to see if they shed any light on the theory that Zak could be Leviticus. In the middle of reading a pretty much impenetrable thread of comments between Zak and everyone’s favourite punting rapper, the guards outside sent Joe a message.
Commander Holloway has just parked further up the road.
Joe got to his feet to put the kettle on.
“Alejo!” he called. “We’re going to have a visitor!”
He heard Alejandro’s feet pad along the landing from Paloma’s room, where he had been at the sewing machine since before breakfast. “Who’s that?” he called downstairs. “Do I need to put my face on?”
Joe stuck his head around the door into the hallway. “It’s Commander Holloway! One of his flying visits. Now, do you want to tell him about Zak, or have me mention it? You don’t have to report Zak, but…I can at least make Holloway aware that Zak could be Leviticus.”
Alejandro descended the staircase, a length of royal blue hair in one hand and a brush in the other. He paused on the bottom riser and held it up against his head, examining his reflection in the mirror. Then he said, “I don’t want to make anything official, but I think maybe we should tell him. What do you think?”
Relief flooded through Joe. As much as he’d like to see Zak properly charged for the violence he’d meted out, this was a start.
“Yes, we can do that. And, Alejo, I realise how difficult this is, but you’re being really brave.”
“If Zak finds out…” He winced, snapping his head round as Patrick’s knock sounded at the door. One day he wouldn’t be so jumpy at every little sound, Joe reminded himself. This would pass.
Joe checked the spyhole, even though he recognised Patrick’s knock, and saw the upright figure of his boss waiting on the step. Joe unlocked the door and let Patrick inside.
“Sir? I’ve just put the kettle on. Any news on Leviticus?”
“Good morning, Sergeant Wenlock, Mr Fuente.” Patrick greeted them both with a friendly nod. “And Mr Fuente’s…hair?”
“Part of it.” Alejandro grinned. “I’ll take Azul back to her room, don’t mind me.”
He trotted back upstairs and Patrick turned to Joe. For a moment he looked utterly perplexed, then he said, “One or two colourful messages on social media. They’re all on the system for you to look at. But all is worryingly quiet. Or happily quiet, if one prefers to be an optimist! Did I hear the mention of tea on this freezing November day?”
“You did indeed. Come on through.” Joe beckoned Patrick to follow him into the kitchen, too late realising that he was behaving like the host. But he was living here. “I’m glad there hasn’t been anything else from Leviticus, but there’s something we need to talk about. Or someone, at any rate.”
“I have the forensic results from the studio too,” Patrick said as he stood his cane against the worktop and removed his heavy coa
t. “It’s a bit of a nightmare, in all honesty, Joe. These are theatrical pieces, they’ve been worn, handled, altered. The only thing we can be sure of is that whoever went through that lock wasn’t exactly a master of his craft.”
“Yeah, it looked like a botched job.” Joe recalled Zak trying to force his way into the house last night and the smashed wood around the lock on the studio’s door made sense. “Remember I flagged up Zak Smythe-Unwin to you? Don’t suppose we’ve got a record of his DNA? Not that it’d make much difference as I saw him in the studio with my own eyes. Unless forensics have found anything on the rope?”
“It was cut from a length used in a rock concert that Mr Fuente provided makeup effects for. It was hanging on the studio wall.” Patrick took out a small notepad from his jacket pocket and consulted it with a frown. “Can’t read my own writing… Nobody I’ve heard of, but you might have. Essentially though, it’s been through dozens of hands. The boys are working on it but there’s little hope of turning anything up. As for Mr Su, his DNA is of little help since he has every reason to be there!”
“He’s never been charged with anything, has he? So we won’t have his DNA. Sod it.” The kettle clicked off and Joe made the tea. “Mr Fuente wants to talk to you about his boyfriend. He doesn’t want to press charges—yet—but what he’ll say might suggest that we have a suspect for Leviticus.”
“We have considered it,” Patrick replied, rather indulgently. “You won’t be surprised to know that he was right at the top of the list, Joe, and he’s still rather high on it!”
“You know he came round last night, then left not long afterwards?” Joe spoke slowly, hoping Zak hadn’t reported him for dangling him out of the window. If he’d even remembered. Patrick’s nod was utterly casual though and he settled at the kitchen table, clearly not at all concerned by the comings and goings of Alejandro’s personal life. Or the fact that his CPO had hung a man out of the bedroom window.
Joe put a mug down in front of Patrick. “I encouraged him to leave. He…he’s violent towards Peanut.”
The Reluctant Royal Page 17
