by Liz Evans
Luke handled the car with easy movements, giving me plenty of chance to notice how the muscles rippled under all that smooth brown skin. He plainly took his own advice and worked out regularly.
‘You can drop me off anywhere along here, thanks.’
‘This where you live?’
‘Closeish. Over there will do.’
He glided to a stop in one of the many roads of small private B&Bs that run at ninety degree angles to the sea front and came round to help me unlash the bike. As I kicked the pedals into position, Luke handed me a pen. ‘Got something to write on?’ I hadn’t, apart from the inside of the photo wallet.
He spelt out the address and gave me his mobile number. ‘Drop by, or give me a ring if you fancy that drink sometime.’ I added his name (as if I might not be able to place the address amongst the dozens that eligible blokes regularly pressed into my hands) and thrust it in my pocket.
He was looking expectant. ‘No reciprocity?’
I dodged the question. ‘That’s OK. I’m not into these foreign beers. Thanks for the lift.’
I free-wheeled down the small street to the front. As I paused to take a right turn, I glanced back. He was still standing by the driver’s door, watching me. He looked like an advert for masculine fragrances straight out of a monthly glossy. I wondered briefly why on earth I hadn’t tattooed my phone number on his bare flesh before he got away.
Seeing me looking, he raised one hand in salute. I waved back. It was the last time I saw him alive.
11
I kicked off my thirty-first year by nearly killing someone.
They say a summer’s morning has an appeal that no other time or season can match. And they’re right. The air is fresher, the light is clearer, the colours of the flowers are brighter, and the birdsong sounds sweet and melodic.
That said - take my tip - it’s not worth losing a couple of hours’ sleep over: buy yourself stronger spectacles and a cd of bird calls - and snuggle down until a civilised hour.
I’d set the alarm for six thirty, since I had to be in St Biddy’s in time to catch the seven forty-five bus. But I woke up at half four to a feathered barber’s-shop quartet harmonising on the basement rail outside, and after a futile half-hour of twisting and turning I decided to give up and find out if the early hours had improved since I’d pounded the late shift in my PC uniform.
Firstly I took out Auntie Gertie’s card and set it on the ‘mantelpiece’. In the days when this had been yet another one of the ubiquitous Edwardian boarding houses, my little kingdom in the basement had formed the original kitchens and pantries. This main room where I largely lived had been the kitchen and still had the gap where the cooking range had stood. Along the wall above was a thick strip of wood, so solid and weathered that it looked like it might have started life as a ship’s timber. I stood Auntie’s card in the middle. It looked a bit pathetic at present, but the next few hours would soon fix that.
It was, I realised, crunch time. Either I entered my thirties with a coffee and a slump in front of the early-morning news, or I hit the ground running.
Pulling on a tracksuit and shoes, I strolled down to the front nursing that smug, self-satisfied glow that comes from knowing you’re going to suffer when the other bed slugs are still cosied up beneath the duvets.
There were already a dozen dawn swimmers out on the main beach, leaping and crashing into the rollers of the outgoing tide. I jogged my way along the promenade until I reached a smaller beach around the next bay but one. As I’d hoped, I had it all to myself at this time of day.
Making my way down to the water’s edge beside one of the wooden groynes, I left my clothes folded on the large black boulders that piled against the slimy, algae-covered struts, and plunged in.
The first shock of the water hitting my face knocked the breath from my lungs. It was freezing! Gasping with shock, I duck-dived under the waves, swimming parallel with the shore until my body adjusted to the temperature. It was a long time since I’d swum in the sea. I’d forgotten how buoyant it was and how great it felt when the roll picked you up and swept you along with a roar that filled your ears with water and sent a lacy crest of creamy froth slapping into your eyes and nose.
Turning on my back, I swam with lazy overarm sweeps, watching the sky above losing the milky pearl-greyness of dawn as the sun grew stronger, and turning a pale blue that would deepen to the colour of cornflowers if the heat wave held. And by the looks of it, it would, I decided, rolling over again and powering back with a vigorous crawl. Once you got used to the hypothermia, the water was great. I did a diving turn, plunged down towards the sandy bottom, and powered up and out of the waves in a butterfly leap.
I managed another six laps before lack of breath and the retreating tide forced me towards the beach again. The edge of the water had receded several yards beyond the final pile of boulders, forcing me to pad across the wet ridges of khaki sand and soft worm casts to reach my clothes.
Out here, with the sun barely up yet, my skin erupted in goose-bumps. Swiftly I wriggled into the tracksuit and patted myself dampish dry on its fleecy inside. Sauntering back up the powdery sand, I found myself staring at the soles of two pairs of worn trainers. I followed the legs, up the creased jeans - over blankets draped round their shoulders - to two heads resting against the battered knapsacks they’d been using as pillows. They must have been sleeping rough up against the retaining wall. I’d missed them in the deep shadows at the land end of the beach.
The older one was an odd shade of maggot white and his mouth was hanging open wide enough to show a collection of nicotine-stained teeth.
‘Is he OK?’ I asked.
‘He is now,’ the other said, holding up a brown off-licence bag with the top scrunched to form a breathing mouthpiece. ‘I thought his ticker was going to explode for sure there. Blimey, darling, that’s the best alarm call Oi’ve ever had. Are yer coming back tomorrow?’
‘Afraid not.’
‘Ah well, have a happy life.’ He toasted me with the remains of the bottle that had come out of his mate’s improvised breathing aid. He wasn’t bad looking, in a battered sort of way, with his deeply tanned skin, iron-grey hair cropped close to his head and a roguish twinkle in his brown eyes. He dropped one in a wink as he wished me happiness.
I winked back. ‘And you too.’
I skipped up the stone stairs to the promenade. There was no big deal about being thirty. I still had a lot of living to look forward to. Bring on the world - I could handle it!
It was a mood that not even seeing a police patrol car free-wheeling down the pedestrian ramp could affect. My least favourite copper in the entire world stepped out from the driver’s side and ran across to the metallic promenade rails, using his linked fingers as a sun-shade while he scanned the glinting grey swell.
‘Hello, Rosco. Looking for mermaids?’
‘Eh? No.’ He dragged his gaze back reluctantly. ‘What are you doing here this early, Smithie?’
‘I rose with the dawn, Terry.’
‘Yeah? Who’s she? You batting for the other side now, or can’t you find a fellah - now you’re getting a bit past it. Tell you what, I don’t mind sorting you out.’
A smug smile spread over his face, whilst he flexed the body he was convinced was God’s gift to the opposite sex.
‘That’s very generous, Terry. But how do I know you’re up to it?’
‘I’ve never had any complaints.’
‘No? You should read the walls in the ladies’ loos more often. Byeee ...’
I started up the slope to the road above. As I got higher, I could see another police car pulling into the kerb and a blue Vauxhall — which I recognised as an unmarked CID vehicle - parking up behind them. Two officers leapt out and ran to the edge of the wide grass verge on top of the cliff. One called down to Rosco to ask if he’d got anything yet.
‘No. Maybe we’re in the wrong area,’ Terry bawled back.
‘Can’t be, the informant lives
just over there ...’ He pointed back to the detached houses that lined the opposite side of the road, their large balconied windows facing the sea.
One of the CID men had taken out a pair of binoculars and was sweeping them back and forth over the horizon.
‘What’s up?’ I yelled to Terry. ‘Invasion fleet of drug-smugglers expected?’
‘Someone reckons they saw a naked blonde in the sea. You see anything?’
I was spared having to answer by the CID officer with the binoculars, who shouted he thought he’d spotted something.
‘Where? Let’s see.’ His colleague half choked him grabbing the glasses away.
I left them to it and strolled home. Well, how else is a girl to celebrate her thirtieth birthday but with a spot of skinny-dipping?
12
The postman had been by the time I got back to the flat. I wondered if the postal strike was on again. The small pile of coloured envelopes seemed strangely ... small.
I identified the handwriting as I slit the backs open. My parents’ card was in my mum’s handwriting. Daddy sends his love and kisses, she’d written. Only if his saliva was infected with rabies.
Ever since I’d been invited to resign from the police a few years back rather than face an inquiry regarding my supplying a false alibi for a local piece of nastiness who’d seriously injured another officer, the relationship between me and my dad had been strained, to say the least.
Mum had enclosed a fifty-pound note with instructions to buy yourself something nice, darling. I was tempted to send it back. In the end I tucked it in the back of Barbra’s photo wallet.
My sister’s card included love and inky fingerprint signatures from my nieces, plus a scrawled instruction that my present would need regular feeding. I just hoped she wasn’t sending me her kids’ hamster - although I wouldn’t put it past her if the price of sunflower seeds had gone up again. She and her husband have always lived so far beyond their means that they need satellite tracking to get back to the original budget.
Nick’s card was signed from Nick and Simone. My brother’s cards are always from Nick and someone. But never the same someone. (I send my own cards addressed to Nick and whom-it- may-concern.)
The other two cards were from a distant cousin I wouldn’t recognise if I fell over her in the street, and my mum’s sister.
The indignation I felt at finding none of my so-called friends had bothered to send me anything festered whilst I towelled myself dry so vigorously I raised friction burns. Then I calmed down. Given the recent trouble with the post, they’d probably decided it was safer to hand them over personally.
Cheered that I hadn’t been forgotten, I dressed, cleaned my teeth, threw a few things in my shoulder bag, tucked the photos safely into the inner pocket of my jacket and, on an impulse, added my lock-picking kit before bumping the metal monster up the iron steps from my basement.
I didn’t really expect to find anyone at Vetch’s at this hour. However, the door was on a single lock and the alarm was switched off. My dropping the bike on the hall floor brought Vetch to the door of his office.
‘You’re not thinking of leaving that there, are you, sweet thing?’
‘Two seconds while I check my office. You’re in early.’
‘Needs must. I’ve a meeting. In Southampton. So I must love you and leave you.’ He kissed the tips of his fingers to me and headed for the front door.
‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’
‘I don’t think so.’ He patted down the swanky tailored overcoat he always wore when he wanted to impress clients. ‘Give me a clue.’
I hummed ‘Happy Birthday’.
Vetch frowned. ‘Dear me. Is that today? I didn’t realise. Well, let me wish you many happy returns. Thirty of them, I believe. Now I must fly.’
There was no sign of anything remotely resembling a birthday card in my office. Thirty was beginning to lose its attraction already. Stepping out and locking up again, I was surprised to hear the sounds of a printer in Annie’s office. It appeared that everyone at Vetch’s was suddenly suffering from insomnia.
‘Meeting,’ she said crisply when I invited myself in. ‘I need to get through the rush-hour traffic.’
‘Where you heading?’
‘Heathrow. My client has a forty-minute window between flights.’
‘Flash.’
‘Flush. It’s my Pasdirp. I might need some help on surveillance later if you’re interested.’ Her fingers flashed, switching off the computer icons and snatching up the sheets spewing from the printer.
‘What are you doing later?’ I asked. ‘This evening, for instance?’
‘I’m not sure yet. Why?’
‘I thought if Tom Cruise doesn’t ring in the meantime, I might have a few birthday drinks.’
‘Oh, hell, is that today? Sorry, it just went clean out of my head. Yes, sure, if I’m around we’ll get a bottle of wine or something. See you.’
The echo of her high heels had faded by the time I slouched back to the hall. And discovered Jan had completed our quartet of insomniacs. Unmissable in orange leggings and a knee-length cardigan in broad stripes of tangerine and lime, she stalked the reception area like an animated stick of seaside rock.
‘I can’t work,’ she said.
‘I know. I’ve seen your attempts at it.’
‘Ha bloody ha. I meant, I’m not starting at me desk until nine. I’m only here to help Ifor with his decorating.’
‘I thought you couldn’t stand the Welsh whinger?’
‘He’s OK when you get to know him. He thinks I’m artistic.’ I looked from the tip of Jan’s green barnet to her emerald stilettos and realised Ifor had a handicap that made him totally unsuitable for running a print shop - daltonism (look it up!).
‘I just popped in to see if there was anything anyone had left for me. Is there?’
‘No.’
‘Well, you could look.’
‘Look yourself. I’m going downstairs.’
I sorted through the rubbish on Jan’s desk and - recalling her bizarre filing system - inside her waste-paper bin. She was right. There were definitely no cards there. There was one last stop to make before I headed for St Biddy’s.
My favourite cafe - Pepi’s - was lost in a fifties time warp of red and white formica, huge plastic squeezy tomatoes of ketchup, and a chrome and neon jukebox stocked with the hits that had had them rocking in the aisles fifty years ago. It was run by a man called Shane, who’d started life as Hubert before he’d turned himself into the greased-haired, lip-curling, snake-hipped rock star that sneered from the black-and-white stills pinned around the walls.
The hair had almost gone and the snake-hips were lost somewhere behind the elephant’s belly, but Shane still reckoned he had what it took. Just a lot more of it, as the straining jeans and white T-shirt proved.
But he was one of my mates. We shared an interest in cholesterol-laden fry-ups. He enjoyed cooking them and I enjoyed scrounging and eating them. It was a munch made in heaven. Surely he’d remember my birthday?
Shane was frying to the accompaniment of Chuck Berry blaring from the jukebox. I watched his rump jiggling and his knees swivelling for a minute whilst he twirled the frying utensils like a set of cheerleader’s batons and urged us all to twist again like we had last summer.
Eventually he swept the contents of the pans on to plates and swung round bawling, ‘Two full English! Morning, Smithie. What can I do you for?’
‘Coffee. And a bacon sandwich on brown. Make it a double. I’m celebrating.’
‘One double porker’s lament coming up.’ He poured a mug of coffee. ‘Two pounds seventy to you.’
‘Suppose you wouldn’t like to put it on the house? Seeing as it’s a special day?’
‘Sorry. No can do. You’ve had so much free nosh off me, the missus is beginning to think we’re an item.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘I know. I told her I’m saving myself for Michelle Pfeiff
er, but there’s no reasoning with the woman.’
‘Don’t you want to know why this is a special day?’
‘Go on then.’ A doorstep of rashers and wholemeal was plonked in front of me. ‘Help yourself to sauce.’
‘It’s my birthday.’
‘Really? You should have said.’
‘Why? It’s the same day every year. You’ve only got to count forward twelve months.’
‘Sorry. Life just keeps lapping me these days. Tell you what...’ He fished into the jar where he kept the pre-decimal shillings that fitted the jukebox and offered me one. ‘Here, stick yer favourite song on. My treat.’
‘My favourite song hadn’t been written when that lot was being recorded. In fact, the writer was probably a hopeful sperm practising its racing crawl. I’ll take this to go.’ Slapping two pound coins and a handful of silver on the counter, I sloshed the coffee into a polystyrene cup, gathered up my sarnie and departed with dignity - subtly disguised as a hair-tossing flounce.
There’s nothing like a bit of brooding resentment to improve your cycling skills. Steering one-handed whilst I ate from the wicker basket and my legs pumped the pedals in a furious up- down-stuff-the-lot-of-them motion, I soared along at a pace that intimidated any car in less than fourth gear.
Swinging right into the lane to St Biddy’s, the bike inclined at an angle of forty-five degrees to the road, I free-wheeled down the empty main street and arrived at the tiny bus stop with five minutes to spare.
My plan had been to check if Spencer was on duty, and if so, to catch the bus into town and subtly prise the information I needed from him during the journey. The drawback to this plan occurred to me as I balanced the bike. I was used to parking the car, if necessary, and retrieving it later. But I didn’t even have a chain for the bike.
I was going to need somewhere to leave the thing - fast. Standing on one pedal, I scooted down to the store in the hopes of finding Carter in residence, only to find a notice announcing they weren’t opening until eight o’clock this morning. Which left one possibility.
