by J. L. Merrow
“Mr. Mortimer—” Phil started, but there was a sudden commotion out in the direction of the hallway. Mortimer jumped a mile, slopping tea everywhere, and we heard the front door open followed by high-pitched calls of “Daddy! Daddy!”
Two little kiddies in school uniform scrambled into the front room and clustered around Mortimer, ignoring me and Phil totally. “Daddy, Daddy, George hurt his knee and it bled and he cried.” That was the biggest one, a gawky girl in bunches wearing big plasticky-looking glasses held on by a band around her head.
“No, I didn’t! It really hurt, Daddy, and Mummy said it needs a plaster, and we had to come home and get one.” The little lad, who was still chubby-cheeked from toddlerhood, gave a big sniff. To be fair, that was a nasty cut on his knee. The blood had trickled down all the way to one tumbled-down sock.
They were followed in by a pinched-looking woman with flat hair and no makeup to hide the deep, dark troughs under her eyes. “Julia, George, leave Daddy in peace. You’ll give him one of his headaches. I’m sorry, Alan. I’ll take them into the kitchen.” She gave me and Phil a tired glance that held more than a hint of worry.
“I told you not to come back until five. I told you.” The mug in Mortimer’s hands was shaking. I hoped the carpet wasn’t new. I also hoped this wasn’t the way domestic life usually went in the Mortimer household, but the way Mrs. M. had blanched and the kiddies had gone quiet and slunk back around their mum’s legs, like puppies in fear of a kick, didn’t bode well.
I gave Mrs. M. a cheery smile. She looked like she could use one—in fact, she looked like she could use a nice long holiday, and not the sort her husband had just been on. “No harm done. Me and Phil were just on our way out anyway.” I crouched down to turn the charm on Mortimer junior, and sucked in my lips. “Nasty graze you got there. Bet you were well brave about it though, yeah?”
George nodded, wide-eyed.
“He was standing on the swings, and he fell off,” Julia chipped in, her eyes saucer-huge behind the thick glasses.
“Ah, well, a lad’s gotta do what a lad’s gotta do, right?”
I straightened and glanced over at Phil a bit guiltily, thinking I might have overstepped the mark with the we’re just going bit, but he nodded. “Thanks for your time, Mr. Mortimer. If you change your mind, give me a call. Here’s my card.” He held one out, but Mortimer looked at it in horror as if it was about to slap the cuffs on him and drag him back to prison.
“I don’t want it. You need to go. I can’t help you.” One of the kiddies made a noise, and Mortimer turned on Mrs. M., stepping forward with an ugly look on his face. “For God’s sake, get them out of here!”
She went pink this time, and turned to us with a barely audible “I’m so sorry.” George started to cry again as she grabbed the kiddies by an arm each and hurried them out of the room.
I frowned. “Oi, take it easy on the family, yeah?”
Phil grabbed my arm. “Leave it alone,” he muttered. “You’re not helping.” He raised his voice as he turned back to Mortimer. “Sorry to have taken up your time.” Then he frog-marched me out of there, slowing down to leave his card on the little table in the hall—lucky Mortimer didn’t come to see us out, or I reckoned we’d be leaving in a shower of confetti—and then hustling me back to the car.
I pulled on the seat belt and rubbed my arm where he’d held it. “I can take a hint, you know. You didn’t have to pull my arm out of the bloody socket.”
“Stop whinging. I hardly touched you.” Phil put the car in gear and whacked up the air-con to combat the greenhouse effect. “And nobody needed you going all vigilante back there.”
“He’d better not be getting violent with her or the kiddies,” I said grimly.
“They’ll be fine. We were the problem there, not them. That poor bastard’s on the knife edge of a nervous breakdown, not domestic violence.”
“What, so suddenly you’re the bloody expert?”
“Six years a copper, remember? I’ve seen my fair share of wife beaters.” Phil stared straight ahead as he pulled out onto the main road, his jaw set. “The real sort, the ones you have to worry about, it’s not about violence, not for its own sake. It’s about control—where she goes, who she talks to, what she bloody wears, for Christ’s sake. That poor bastard’s barely in control of himself, let alone anyone else.”
“Yeah, well, I bow to your superior experience and all that bollocks, but Mortimer looked pretty desperate to me. Desperate men do desperate stuff. Stuff they wouldn’t normally.”
“Trust me. He’s not a danger to his family. He’s more worried about everyone else being a danger to them.”
I wasn’t convinced, but I let it slide. “Yeah, well, anyway. We still wasted an afternoon there with nothing to show for it.”
Phil shrugged. “Wouldn’t be too sure about that.”
“No? You got nothing, I got nothing, and we didn’t even get to drink our tea. Don’t mean to be a party pooper, but it strikes me we got bugger all out of that.”
“Wait and see, wait and see.”
Just as I was about to open my mouth and ask what the smug git thought he was waiting for, his phone rang. Phil drove one-handed and pulled it out of his pocket. “Phil Morrison.”
Seeing as he probably didn’t need anything else distracting him from the road right now, I restrained myself from pointing out it was illegal to drive and phone.
“Yes, that’s right.” Pause. “Uh, no. That’s my partner. Tom Paretski.” He handed me the phone. “Sarah Mortimer. She wants to talk to you.”
Me? I gave him a startled look but took the phone. At least this way we were less likely to have an accident and/or get stopped by the police. “Hello?”
“Mr. Paretski?” Her voice was low and anxious.
“Call me Tom. What can I do for you, love?”
“I want to talk to you.”
“Yeah? No problem.”
“Can we meet?” She sounded breathy, like she was looking over her shoulder all the time. “Not . . . not now. Tomorrow. After school. I can tell Alan I’m taking the children to the swings again.”
“Yeah, no problem. We’ll be there.” I’d actually been thinking about ringing a customer or two and saying I’d be able to do the work after all, but I reckoned she’d bolt if I didn’t make it easy for her.
“Can it be just you?”
“Er . . . Phil’s really the senior partner.” I meant in the detective business. Obviously. And he’d better not get any funny ideas about it carrying over into our love life.
“Please?”
Shit. “Just a minute, love.” I covered the bit you speak into and stage-whispered at Phil, “She wants to meet with just me.”
He rolled his eyes. “So? Say yes, for God’s sake.”
I uncovered the phone. “Mrs. M.? Yeah, that’s fine. No problem. So where are these swings, then?”
She gave me the where and when, and we hung up.
I looked up at Phil to find him grinning like the cat who’d just mounted a hostile takeover of United Dairies. And got them to throw in a catnip plantation for free. “What did I tell you?” he said, still smirking. “Still reckon we wasted our time?”
“Eff off,” I said, glaring at him. “For all you know, she just fancies the pants off me. You’ll be sorry when she uses her evil feminine wiles on my latent hetero tendencies and persuades me to run off with her and the kiddies.”
“If I worried about that every time you worked your charm on a woman, I’d be a bloody nervous wreck. Besides, she’s not your type.”
I laughed, startled. “What, so I’ve got a type in women, have I? Go on, then. Let’s hear it.”
Phil tapped his nose. “That’d be telling. But she’s not it.”
I tried to get him to talk, but he wouldn’t budge. In the end, I gave up—my head was a bit too fragile right now to go on banging it against the brick wall formerly known as Phil Morrison. “So how are we playing this tomorrow? You coming along to
o in case Mrs. M. changes her mind?”
“You mean, in case she wants to speak to the organ grinder, and not the monkey?”
“Oi, watch it or I’ll be doing a bit of organ grinding myself.”
“Promises, promises. No, you can go and hold Sarah Mortimer’s hand on your own. You might want to wear something better, though. Make it look like you’ve made an effort.”
“Want me to take her flowers and all? Seeing as this is apparently a date.”
Phil gave me a look, but before I could work out what it meant, it was gone, and he was eyes front on the road ahead as we reached the junction for the M25.
When we got off the motorway and were back in St. Albans, I found myself looking at women on the street, trying to work out what Phil had meant by my type. Did he mean, like, a physical type? Or was it supposed to be a personality thing? And what had made him say that, anyway? Did he think I’d been getting too friendly with someone of the female persuasion lately? Who?
Then I reminded myself he’d been talking out of his arse, and went back to checking out the blokes like I usually did.
It’s all right as long as you look and don’t touch.
Funny how getting hit on the head can take it out of you. By the time we got back to my place, I was ready to drop. And not to give anybody twenty. “Coming in?” I said, admittedly a bit flatly, as I unbuckled my seat belt.
“Try not to kill me with all that enthusiasm.” Phil leaned over and took hold of my chin. “You all right?”
“Yeah. Just tired. If you want dinner, you’re cooking it.”
“No worries. We’ll get a takeaway. Pizza okay?”
Pizza sounded bloody marvellous. “Yeah.”
“Come on. Let’s get you inside.”
I just about managed to keep my eyes open long enough to scarf down my half of an extra-large meat feast—Gary would have been all over the innuendo like lube on a condom—and slump on the sofa. Phil switched on the telly to watch the Grand Prix qualifying, and I snuggled in close.
Sometime later, I woke up to some bastard shaking my shoulder. “Buggroff,” I muttered.
“Come on, Sleeping Beauty,” Phil’s voice rumbled in my ear. “You’ll sleep better out of those jeans and in a proper bed.”
“Any ’scuse . . .” I yawned and let him ease me upright. The room was oddly quiet, and I realised after a mo it was because the soothing neeeow sounds of souped-up cars going round in big circles had all stopped. “T’get m’pants off.”
“Not that it’s going to be worth my while tonight,” Phil said in that warm tone he only uses when it’s just me and him. “I’d get more action out of a week-old corpse.”
“’S a word for that.” I blinked at the oncoming doorway. Somehow Phil managed to manoeuvre us both through without taking the frame with us, and then we were on the stairs, his arm wrapped firmly around my waist as I dragged my leaden feet up each step. “Gonna read me a story?”
“Once upon a time, there was a handsome plumber,” Phil started. “Mind your head on that doorway. Right. Where was I?”
I flopped down on the bed. I meant just to sit on the edge, but somehow I kept going until I was lying on the bed with my feet dangling off the end. I smiled up at Phil. “Handsome plumber,” I told him. “Is he about to get a prick?”
“He wishes.” Phil huffed a laugh and undid my jeans. “Shift your bum.”
I shifted, and he pulled them off. “S’what happens?” I asked, and yawned again.
“He got into bed properly,” Phil said and somehow managed to get me under the duvet and with my head on the pillow. “And went to sleep for eight hours solid.”
“What, still no prick?”
“You’ve got pricks on the brain, you have.” He bent over and kissed me softly.
I was about to say I could think of much better places to put pricks, but before I could get my mouth around the words—or anything else, for that matter—I fell asleep.
I woke up feeling better than I had in weeks. Phil hadn’t stayed—I suppose he’d thought I’d sleep better without him hogging the pillows and acting like an electric blanket. It was a bit of a shame, seeing as I was feeling so frisky. I had to content myself with an active imagination and an energetic shower.
I’d been advised by all and sundry to ease myself back to work after the head injury, so I only had a couple of jobs still booked in Friday morning—new tap down the road from me in Fleetville, and fixing a loo in Sandridge. The new tap was a bit of a faff—the old one was cemented in with a mountain of limescale I’d swear was older than the house itself—but I got the loo done in a jiffy. It felt good to be back into the swing of things, and I was whistling as I got back into the van.
Seeing as how Sandridge was only a couple of miles from Brock’s Hollow, and I’d be spending the afternoon in Ealing with Mrs. M. anyway, I thought I might as well swing by the Dyke for a quick drink to wash down my cheese sarnie with. Reassure Harry I was still alive, that sort of thing.
And all right, maybe to see if Carey might turn up like the bad penny he was, and ask him what he’d been up to Monday evening when I was getting my head bashed in. Not that I reckoned I’d get a straight answer, but then again, his sort might not be able to resist the temptation to gloat. At any rate, if he was up there making a nuisance of himself, I could give Marianne and Harry a bit of moral support.
Turned out there was someone else giving Marianne grief when I walked into the pub. This bloke was a thug, no two ways about it. Belligerent snarl, shaven head, knuckles down by his knees, the works. He was leaning on the bar, but not in a relaxed, God-I-need-a-pint sort of way. More in a looming-threateningly-over-the-barmaid sort of way.
Was this who Harry had been talking about Monday night, before my little trip to A&E? From what I could remember of her description of the man hanging around, this bloke fit the bill pretty well. The Devil’s Dyke herself was eyeing him from the other end of the bar with not a lot of gruntlement in her gaze, but not interfering, which wasn’t like her. Had Carey sent Rent-a-yob along to stir up trouble? I ambled over, figuring if he picked a fight with me instead of Harry, at least she wouldn’t lose her licence over it. And I’d probably survive it.
Probably. I ignored the prickling on the back of my neck caused by wondering just where he’d been when I’d been getting my little object lesson in the finer arts of cricket.
“All right, Marianne?” I asked breezily, interrupting their conversation with nary a qualm of conscience. This bloke didn’t seem to be the sort you’d waste manners on.
“All right, Tom,” she said, trying to smile. “You all mended now?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Well, it was my head I got bashed in, wasn’t it? Not like I keep anything important up there.”
Marianne laughed nervously, glancing up at the thug. Now I came to think of it, the bloke was giving me a very funny look. “This a mate of yours?” I asked her, making sure I kept one eye on him in case he didn’t like her answer.
“It’s just Kev. He’s my brother, see? Kev, Tom’s a friend. He’s one of our regulars here.”
Blimey. I stared at “Kev” and held out a hand before I could stop myself. It was hard to believe him and sweet little Marianne were the same species, let alone brother and sister. Kev was giving me the same sort of startled once-over I was giving him, though I wasn’t sure what his excuse was. He didn’t shake my hand, so at least I got out of that one with all fingers intact—good news for my income stream, seeing as it’s a bit hard to do a manual job well when you’re lacking one of the essentials. “Just over from Somerset, are you?”
He grunted, still eyeing me like I was the sort of bloke his mother had warned him a farm boy had to watch out for when he left the safety of the shires.
“Staying at the pub?” I went on.
Kev snorted, cast a glare in Harry’s direction, and said something under his breath. It definitely had the word “dyke” in there somewhere, but whether he was referring to the pub or t
he landlady was anyone’s guess.
“Kev,” Marianne said urgently, managing to sound hurt, reproving, and a bit scared all in one syllable. Apparently she was better at speaking gorilla than I was.
He turned his back on me in favour of looming over her a bit more. “It’s time you come ’ome,” he said, a lot more clearly this time. “Dad’s not ’appy, he ain’t.”
Marianne responded with a pointed phrase I was a bit taken aback to hear coming from her pastel-pink lips—especially about her old man. Kev wasn’t looking any too ’appy about it either. “You wash your mouth out. You don’t talk about Dad like that, see?” If he loomed any farther, he was going to topple over the bar.
Or just topple the bar. One of the two.
Marianne stood her ground like a My Little Pony squaring up to the hordes of Genghis Khan. “After what he called me? I’ll say what I like about ’im, and don’t you go telling me I can’t.”
Unbelievably, the hordes backed off a bit. “You can’t stay ’ere. It’s not right.”
“What, ’cos he’s got to do his own cooking and cleaning now that woman’s left?”
“You never used to mind doing your bit before Deborah come along. It’s living in that there London. It’s changed you, it has. And it ain’t just about Dad needin’ you. You gotta know what kind of place this is.”
“It’s a pub, Kev. And I ought to be working.” She turned to me with a pointed air. “What’re you having, Tom?”
“Just a Diet Coke, cheers, love, when you’ve got a mo.”
She got out a glass and was about to start pouring my drink, when Kev leaned forward and grabbed her arm. “It’s one of them there queer places,” he growled.
“So what if it is?” she snapped back. “Maybe I’m queer, you ever thought of that?”
His grip tightened visibly. The dark looks he’d been sending me took on a new significance, although I was a bit surprised a bloke like this had any sort of functioning gaydar. Or brain, come to that. “You was normal before you left ’ome. ’Ad a bloke and everything. Is it her?” He jerked his head in Harry’s direction. “She turned you queer?”
