by JL Merrow
I groaned. “Great. So not only have I lost the love of my life, I’m about to lose a few teeth and all.”
Not that Phil was, you know, actually the love of my life.
Probably.
Shit. How did my life get this fucked up?
“But look on the bright side, darling,” Gary put in, leaning forward and unerringly grabbing the largest cake. “When it comes to blowjobs, the fewer teeth the better, I’ve always found.”
“Don’t be silly, Tom,” Cherry said briskly, pretending she was far too well brought up to have heard what Gary had said. “I’m sure it’s all just a misunderstanding.” She bustled out and returned a moment later with three mugs of tea. “There you are, Gary. Tom. Now, what’s all this nonsense about breaking up with Phil?”
I didn’t want to tell them. I just sat there with my hands wrapped around my mug—not that I needed any extra heat, but Cherry had put about half a pint of milk in so it was barely even warm—and struggled to think what to say.
“You said, well, you said he’d beaten someone up. When he was in the police force,” Cherry prompted, leaning forward with an earnest look on her face to match the one Gary was wearing. With them lined up on the sofa opposite me, it felt like interrogation by committee. “Tom, he hasn’t been, well, violent towards you, has he?”
“Course he hasn’t!” I took a sip of tea, managed not to gag too visibly, and put my mug down on the coffee table. I ran a hand through my hair. It felt sweaty and horrible.
“So what’s the problem?” Gary asked, beaming as he took another cupcake. How he could pack them away like that I had no idea. I felt queasy just watching.
Well, maybe it was from the tea.
“It’s, well… Fuck it. We had a bit of a row about it, all right? About him keeping secrets—”
“But, darling, everyone has secrets,” Gary interrupted. “It’s how we preserve our mystique.”
Not helping, ta very much. And since when was Gary on Phil’s side, anyhow? I was starting to think Darren was a bad influence in more ways than one.
“And he lied about why he left the Force. Made it out to be some big career plan, when they actually gave him the heave-ho. And he called Dave Southgate a sad, fat old tosser.”
“Well, that wasn’t very nice,” Cherry said primly.
“Sticks and stones, darling, sticks and stones.” Gary took a delicate slurp of his tea.
“And then, then he had the nerve to get the hump with me about it all.”
Cherry nibbled thoughtfully on a cupcake. “Are you sure you didn’t overreact?” Something in my face must have tipped her off to what I thought about that, as she went on in a hurry. “Not that I think you would. It’s just, well, Phil always seems so civilised, these days. And I realise that doesn’t mean anything in terms of domestic violence, but you just said there hadn’t been any of that.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be on my side here? Strikes me this tea-and-sympathy party is a bit lacking in one of the essential ingredients.” And that was being charitable about the so-called tea.
“Of course we’re on your side, Tommy,” Gary answered for her. “We just want you to be happy, don’t we, Cherry Pop?”
Cherry Pop? This was getting worse and worse.
“Absolutely. And, well, Phil’s been making you happy, hasn’t he?” Cherry leaned forward to pat my knee. “And if he was disposed towards violence, I’m sure we’d have seen some sign of it by now. Not that I’m saying you get on people’s nerves, obviously, but, well…”
She trailed off. “Well, what?” I demanded, narked.
“There’s that thing you do with your hands when you’re stressed.”
“What thing?”
“Oh, you know. You know, don’t you, Gary?”
Gary nodded sagely. “Look, he’s doing it now.”
“I’m not…” I stood up and shoved both hands in my jeans pockets.
“And there’s the…” Gary made a vague hand-wavy gesture towards his right ear, for God’s sake.
“Oh God, yes,” Cherry said and laughed. “Every time… Tom? Tom? What’s the matter? Oh, come on. It’s not that bad. We’re just saying maybe your friend Dave is being a little overprotective. I mean, it’s understandable Phil wouldn’t have wanted to tell you about leaving the police under a cloud. If it even happened.”
“It happened. He admitted it.”
“Even so. He’d be hardly likely to go out of his way to tell you things that don’t reflect well on him.” She frowned, and put down her cupcake. “Tom, this isn’t about Mum and Dad not liking him, is it?”
“It’s…” I waved my hands expansively, then wondered if that was the thing she’d been on about and shoved them back in my pockets. “It’s got nothing to do with Mum and Dad, all right?”
Gary stood up and threw his arms around me. It was like being hugged by Winnie the Pooh. Well, if old Winnie had grown to six foot and had developed a slight case of wandering paws. “So what is it about, Tommy dear? You haven’t really said.”
I hadn’t? What the bloody hell had I been talking about all this time?
God, I was tired. I sagged against Gary’s soft, warm chest. He probably was stuffed with fluff. Cherry patted my shoulder awkwardly—at least, I hope it was Cherry. Otherwise one of the hands on my arse would have had to belong to her. “Dave thinks Phil did it.”
“Did what?” It came in stereo.
“The murder.”
“Whose murder?” Cherry asked, her voice shrill. Gary stiffened. And not in any way Darren would be after my nadgers for.
I lifted my head to stare at them in turn. Where had they been? “Carey’s murder.”
“Grant Carey’s been murdered?” Gary demanded, sounding shocked, at the same time as Cherry went, “Who’s Carey?”
I pushed away from them both and headed for the whisky. “Sod the tea and sympathy. I need a drink.”
Chapter Eighteen
I woke up with a headache next morning. Trust Cherry’s god-awful tea to be the one thing that could give me a hangover.
I popped up to the Dyke midmorning. Not for a hair of the dog, but to see how Harry and Marianne were doing. And, all right, maybe to reassure myself Marianne wasn’t the sort to lie to anyone. I grabbed a bacon roll from the baker’s in Brock’s Hollow on the way, seeing as pub grub was likely to be off the menu for the foreseeable. I’d already heard a couple of off-colour jokes en route about what might have gone into the Devil’s Dyke steak-and-ale pie.
I was expecting the pub to be closed, but I wasn’t expecting the whole place to be shut up and silent as an all-too-appropriate proverbial. There wasn’t any police sticky tape on the front door, so I banged on it, but got no answer. “Harry?” I called. “It’s me. Tom.”
Still no answer. Just as I was about to give it up for a bad job, Marianne’s crumpled curls stuck out of an upstairs window. “Tom?”
“Yeah. Everything all right, love?”
She didn’t answer, and the curls disappeared. I waited, and after half a minute or so, the door opened.
Marianne’s face was red, blotchy and bare of makeup. All her bubbles had gone flat. Seeing her like that, common sense chipped in and told me in no uncertain terms she was just the victim in all this. No question about it. She gave a loud sniff and just looked at me like she couldn’t trust herself to speak.
“How are you holding up, love?” I said and got an armful of barmaid for my trouble.
She felt very…soft. And fragile, like if I hugged her too hard she’d snap. The front of my T-shirt was rapidly getting wet. In between sobs, all I could make out were the words “Harry” and “My fault.”
“Hey,” I said, patting her hair and getting a waft of strawberry shampoo. “Come on. Let’s get you back inside, sit you down. Cup of tea, that’ll do the trick.”
“I’ll put the kettle on,” said a vaguely familiar voice, which nearly made me jump out of my skin.
I squinted into the relative darkness of the lounge bar, and was surprised to make out the motherly figure of the new vicar, dog collar and all. What was her name? Gillian? No—Lillian. “Oh—’ullo,” I said awkwardly. “Didn’t realise Marianne had company.” I hoped she hadn’t taken advantage of the situation to try to get Marianne to sign up for the God Squad. Seemed a bit calculating for a woman of the cloth.
Then I told myself to stop being such a suspicious git. Chances were she was just being supportive.
“I didn’t think Marianne should be here on her own,” Lillian said and bustled off kitchenwards while I wondered if I’d been too transparent with my suspicions, or if Him upstairs had given her a nod.
“All right, love?” I steered Marianne to a comfy chair and peeled her limp-spaghetti arms from my neck. “You sit yourself down. Got a tissue?”
Marianne gave a loud, hiccuppy sniff, which I took as a no. I scrabbled in my pockets and found a mostly clean handkerchief. “There you go. Have a good blow.”
She took the hanky but didn’t take my advice—just sat there holding it like a kiddie with a favourite bit of old blanket. Well, as long as it helped somehow.
Lillian was back with a trio of mugs a lot faster than I’d expected. She seemed to have found her way around the private areas here pretty quick. She popped a mug down on the table in front of Marianne, and then handed me one. “I hope white, two sugars is all right?”
I flashed her a smile. Can’t stand sweet tea, but it’s the thought that counts. “Lovely. Harry not here, then?” I was surprised she’d have left Marianne at a time like this.
The Rev’s face was grim. “She’s been taken in for questioning.”
Marianne burst out sobbing again.
I stared at Lillian. “Sh—sugar, they can’t think she did it. Seriously? Harry? She wouldn’t hurt a…” Fly-weight, my brain helpfully provided, as I remembered her boxing past.
“I’m sure it’s just routine,” Lillian said, but she didn’t look any more convinced than I felt.
I took a sip of tea, and another as well before the god-awful syrupy taste sank in.
“Was she actually arrested?”
“No, just asked politely to come and answer some questions down at the police station. But you know what that means.” Lillian sipped her own tea.
“Sh—sugar,” I said again, this time with feeling.
Lillian raised an eyebrow. “I do have a teenage son, you know. I think I can cope with the odd expletive.”
“Er, yeah. Sorry,” I said, then wondered why I was apologising for not swearing.
“Anyway,” she went on. “You needn’t worry about Marianne. I’ll stay with her until Harry gets back.”
“Don’t you have”—I stopped myself just in time before I said God-bothering—“vicar stuff to do?”
Lillian smiled. “Nothing that won’t keep. Our Lord told the parable of the lost sheep for a reason.” Somehow it didn’t sound as preachy as it would have if Greg, say, had said it.
“Right. Okay, then.” I turned to Marianne, who was holding her tea like a liquid security blanket and sniffling. “You going to be all right, then?”
She nodded bravely.
“I’ll just put my cup in the kitchen,” I said, standing up. At least I’d be able to chuck the vile stuff down the sink.
As I passed the steps down to the cellars, I was hit with a memory of the smell last time I’d been down there. It was so vivid, I shuddered and almost gagged. The cellars weren’t even taped off—apparently the police had decided they’d got all they could out of them. For a weird moment, I had a daft urge to go down the steps and take another look around, though what I’d have been looking for I had no idea.
I wondered if the clean-up people had been round yet, and how Marianne could stand to stay there if they hadn’t. God, maybe the smell hadn’t been just a memory…
“Going to take the quick way out, all right?” I yelled back to the ladies, and legged it through the kitchen door that led straight outside.
I managed to make it out and into the fresh air in time to stave off a reappearance of my bacon butty.
After I’d left the Dyke, I marched round to the cop shop like a one-man protest rally, barely holding my anger in check. The bloke on reception knew me by sight, luckily, or I’d have had to march straight back home again. “DI Southgate?” he asked before I got a word out. “I’ll see if he’s free.”
There was a short conversation on the internal phone, then I got ushered into Dave’s office. “Mr. Paretski to see you, sir.”
“Oi. I want a word with you.” It was probably a bit of a rude greeting, but I was narked.
Dave sighed. “Course you bleedin’ do. Cheers, Keith.”
Reception-bloke—Keith, presumably; I filed the name away for later—nodded and left.
“Come on, then, I haven’t got all day.” Dave rolled his shoulders and winced as something cracked. “What’s got your knickers in a twist? Let me guess—wouldn’t be one Harry Shire, now would it?”
“You can’t seriously think she did it. Harry?”
“Has she been charged? No, she has not. Which means we’re keeping an open mind, all right? Something you might want to think about trying. Think about it, sunshine. She’s a proud woman, Harry Shire. How’d you think she felt, a little turd like Carey having her over a barrel?”
“What, so you reckon she snapped, and shoved him under a barrel?”
“Would you blame her?”
“Maybe not, but your lot sodding well would. And I don’t believe she’d do it. Not Harry.”
“Someone bloody well, did it, didn’t they? And if it wasn’t your Phil, who’s the obvious suspect? I’m not saying she meant to kill him. Like I said before, could have been an accident—maybe she hit him just that little bit too hard. Once a boxer… And there’s another thing.” Dave leaned forward and looked me right in the eye. “You ever think maybe she might have been the one who put you in hospital?”
“What?” I stared back at him. “Jesus, what? I don’t even know where to start with that. Why the bloody hell would she do anything to me?”
“Because, as has been pointed out to me, both you and Carey are dark-haired little squirts, and one shadowy figure looks a lot like another in the dark. You said yourself, you were staring up at Marianne’s window like a bleedin’ Peeping Tom. Why the bloody hell wouldn’t Ms. Shire assume it was her girlfriend’s stalker?” Dave gave me a sharp look. “Found you pretty soon after it happened, didn’t she?”
“No. I mean, yeah, she did, but no, it couldn’t have been her.”
“No? We know she’s got the strength to chuck a ball that hard. And Carey had been in that pub pissing her off all night. Everyone’s got their limits. Could’ve been the last straw, seeing him—as she thought—gawping at her girlfriend while she got her kit off for bed.”
Shit. What had Harry said about people on her premises after hours?
That they’d get what was coming to them, or words to that effect.
“No,” I said, and even I could hear it didn’t sound all that certain anymore. “Chucking a ball? That’s not her style. Punch a bloke in the face, maybe. But not chuck a ball at the back of his head.”
Dave sighed. “People do all kinds of bollocks. Especially for love. Maybe she had it in her hand—picked it up to put it away or something—and just gave in to the impulse. Obviously she regretted it when she realised it was you all along. And it would have made her even madder at Carey, so she’d be even more likely to snap next time he got in her face.”
“No.” I stood up. “It wasn’t her, all right? Harry wouldn’t do that.”
But all I could think of was her face when she’d talked about him. And how some i
diot had told her anyone wiping Carey off the face of the earth would be performing a public service.
“And all that business with Marianne getting you to check the cellar out? Fishier than a dolphin’s arse, if you ask me.” Dave clearly wasn’t as finished here as I was. “Wouldn’t surprise me if she had a pretty good idea already what you were going to find down there, her and Harry both.”
“For fuck’s sake, why would they hide a body in their own bloody cellar?”
“People do stupid stuff when they’re panicked.”
“Harry, panic? Seriously?”
Dave shrugged. “You ever seen her with a body to hide? People don’t always react how you’d expect them to. Maybe she needed to get him out of sight sharpish, so she bunged him down there for temporary safekeeping and then never got the chance to move the bastard? You know what it’s like up at the Dyke—always someone coming and going.” He gave a grim smile. “Maybe she didn’t reckon he’d go off so quick. Your average corpse doesn’t come with a best before date. So there she is, stuck with a body in the cellar that’s starting to stink the place out. Not to mention, isn’t quite as solid and easily portable as it used to be.”
Cheers for the mental image, Dave.
“She’s got to get rid of him somehow,” he carried on, “if for no other reason than he’s starting to put the punters off their pints. So what does she do? She knows nobody’d buy her getting a man to do her dirty work for her. So she buggers off for a bit and gets the girlfriend to call in our resident corpse-finder general, otherwise known as one Thomas Paretski. That way, Harry’s one step removed from the whole bloody palaver, she’s got a witness to her and Marianne not knowing what was down there—allegedly—and she gets someone else to cart away the late Grant Carey’s mouldering mortal remains for her. Peachy.”
“Peachy, my arse. So basically, what you’re saying is, either my bloke’s a murderer or Harry is. Hey, maybe they were in it together, ever think of that? Sure you don’t want to check out my alibi and all? Maybe I wanted to get back at Carey for chucking that ball at me?”
Dave just looked at me.
