‘I’ve fed him. He’s outside.’
Jason brushed his teeth while Jenna watched his broad back bend and flex over the sink. The hollow in it, just above the belt of his jeans, cried out to be touched, but she kept off, mindful of her sore and overused condition.
‘What are you up to today then?’ he asked. ‘More detective work?’
‘No,’ she said, feeling a little guilty for in fact she was thinking of trying to smoke Mia out of hiding.
‘I hope not. The quicker people forget about me, the better. Don’t mention my name, whatever you do.’
‘I wouldn’t. Anyway, I’m only going shopping for technology. Need a decent computer. It’s killing me, only having my phone.’
‘Poor princess,’ he said, making a comedy sad face at the mirror.
‘Oh, come on. The information age has made it as far as Bledburn, surely.’
‘Yeah. But, you know, people have to choose between broadband and breakfast round here.’
‘Not this person,’ said Jenna briskly. She stepped forward and kissed his bristly cheek. ‘Shave and hide yourself. I’m off to Web World. See you later.’
But Web World was only reached after a diversion to the estate, specifically the low, flat-roofed, extravagantly graffitied building that hosted the local youth club. These days it was surrounded by a barbed wire fence, and accessible only through a triple-padlocked gate. It looked as forlorn as Jenna felt, and she was about to turn away, when a youngish woman in a parka hurried across the car park of the neighbouring pub, waving to her.
‘Hullo. Did you want me?’
‘Sorry, I just dropped in on the off-chance … Kayley!’
‘Oh my God, Jenna! Oh my God. I heard you were back but … Oh my God!’
They laughed at each other for a few moments, then Kayley unlocked the gate and led Jenna to the bunker, unlocking several more padlocks on the way.
‘I’m gasping for a cuppa – do you want one? So, what brings you here?’ Kayley set about boiling a kettle in a little kitchen corner of a room full of pool tables, gaming machines, computers and bookshelves.
‘Just a thought that I might start giving something back to the place that made me,’ said Jenna. ‘I want to make a donation to the youth club, maybe you’d like me to come in and give a talk, that kind of thing. Perhaps pay for recording equipment.’
Kayley turned around, beaming. ‘Seriously? Give us your hand, love. So I can bite it off.’
They laughed again.
‘This is like a dream,’ said Kayley. ‘We’ve been drained dry by successive local council budget cuts. We can only keep going because people volunteer their time and donate their old gear now and again. Seriously, hand to mouth stuff. A recording studio, wow! I can’t tell you how much that would mean to the kids we serve here.’
‘I want to help. I used to come here, when it first opened. It didn’t have all that amazing artwork on the walls then, though.’
Jenna looked around her, detecting the hand of Jason in at least some of it.
‘Yeah, we’ve got some talented artists.’
‘That one there – of the big foot coming down on the little antlike people …’
‘It’s brilliant, isn’t it? Lad who used to come here a few years back. Jason. He could’ve gone all the way, if he hadn’t got sucked into estate low life.’ She sighed and reached into a cupboard for a box of teabags.
‘Serious talent,’ said Jenna, almost to herself. ‘It can’t go to waste.’
‘Tell me about it. Crying shame. We’ve got a girl who comes here now, could be a professional dancer if she wanted, but she’s met some lad and she’s started going round to his place to smoke puff all night instead of coming here to rehearse like she used to. I don’t know. What can we do? We do our best. That’s about all we can.’
She brightened.
‘But hey, now you’re here, perhaps you’ll inspire her.’
‘I hope so. God, Kayley, I haven’t seen you in, what, seventeen years?’
‘Must be about that. Shit, shut up. I sound really old.’
‘If you’re old, what does that make me? I used to babysit you.’
‘You’d think working in a youth club would keep me young, wouldn’t you? The opposite. Look at this.’ She plucked at a silver hair growing amongst the brown.
‘Oh, I couldn’t even guess what colour my hair is now. It’s so long since I saw its natural colour. How’s your mum? And your crazy brothers? Thanks.’
She took the cup of tea and they sat down to discuss possible donations and projects for the club.
‘You know, those paintings are really brilliant,’ she said, looking around her at the evidence of Jason’s talent all over the walls. ‘It’s a real shame about that bloke you mentioned,’ she said, as casually as she could muster once the talk had lapsed a while. ‘Jason, was it? Isn’t there any way he could get back to his painting?’
‘Not now,’ said Kayley, briefly. ‘Unless they do art classes in prison. I think they do, actually.’
‘He’s inside?’
‘No, but if they get hold of him he will be.’
Jenna sighed. ‘Sad.’
‘Yeah.’
‘He’s AWOL, then?’
‘Uh huh. Nobody knows where.’
‘Somebody must know. His mum? His girlfriend?’
‘Mum neither knows nor cares. Girlfriend, ditto. Actually, nobody’s seen her in a while, but one of the kids said she was supposed to have moved to Manchester. I don’t know if it’s true.’
‘Right. Nobody’s in touch with her, then?’
Jenna sensed from Kayley’s slight hesitation that she was digging too deep. She needed to keep things more casual.
‘Not that I know of. You haven’t changed career and turned private eye, have you?’
Jenna laughed, hoping fiercely that she wasn’t caught in a blush.
‘Sorry. Just trying to get my head around Bledburn. It’s changed, you know. It was never this …’
‘Hopeless?’ suggested Kayley.
‘I hate to say it, but …’
‘Yeah. I hate to say it too.’
Jenna drained the last of her tea.
‘Listen, Kay, it’s been so good to see you again, but I have to get going. I’ll be in touch about that talk and I’ll call the council about that money for the recording studio, too. You know I’ve bought Harville Hall?’
Kayley put her mug down with a thump.
‘No. I didn’t know that.’
‘I’ve been thinking. Maybe I’ll start the Gala up again. Bledburn needs something like that – a celebration.’
‘Ah, the Gala. That used to be highlight of the year, didn’t it? Proper funfair, great music, like a festival. And you’re not wrong – we could all do with a celebration. Listen, thanks. This means a lot. So you’re sticking around then? Not hopping off to LA any time soon?’
‘Definitely not.’
‘You must have a screw loose.’
Kayley’s laughter echoed after Jenna as she left the club to cross the basketball court to where she had parked the car.
But there was a problem. The wheels were on bricks, and minus tyres.
‘Oh shit,’ she moaned, banging the bonnet and clutching her forehead. She had believed Kayley and Auntie Jean when they told her the estate had gone downhill, but not to this extent. She would need an emergency tyre fitter, but where the hell she would find one, she hadn’t a clue. She was about to turn around, and go back to ask Kayley’s advice, when a figure emerged from the back door of the pub over the road and crossed the forecourt, waving at her.
‘Fancy bumping into you here.’
‘I could say the same thing.’
It was Lawrence Harville, in a pinstriped suit, carrying a briefcase.
‘Business,’ he said briefly. ‘Listen, about the other night …’
‘You do look rather businesslike. And yes, you owe me an apology, a massive one.’
‘I’m sorry
. I behaved inexcusably. I don’t expect you can forgive me, but I’d like the chance to make amends.’
‘Well, I’ll have to think about it. No promises, though. Are you really involved with that pub?’
They both looked over their shoulders at the unlovely single-storey building with two of its windows boarded over.
‘It used to be called the Lord Harville, you know,’ he said with a weak grin.
‘Not any more.’ The faded sign swinging from a post in the car park proclaimed it to be the Stan Bowyer.
‘No, but I have some interest in the land, so I still have a foothold in the area. Just about.’ His smile had a fixed quality. ‘But we must do something about your car. Let me ring a chap I know.’
‘Oh, would you? That would save my life.’
‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ he said, but he seemed pleased with the idea, flipping out his phone and putting it to his ear.
‘I can’t believe you got all dressed up to go to the Accident and Emergency,’ said Jenna, using the old nickname for the pub that had prevailed in her schooldays.
Lawrence winked and was about to reply, but somebody answered his phone and he fell instead into a curt description of Jenna’s plight.
‘He should be here within twenty minutes,’ he said, snapping his phone case shut. ‘Perhaps we might wait in the bar?’
‘Are you sure?’ Jenna looked dubiously at the pub.
‘Oh, it’s not open yet. It’ll just be us and Tommy. He’ll sort us out with coffee.’
‘OK.’
The interior of the pub didn’t seem to have changed much since Jenna’s days of sitting in the ‘family room’ with a bag of crisps and bottle of Coke. The carpet was still sticky and, despite a smoking ban of many years’ standing, it still reeked of wet cigarette butts.
‘Tommy,’ hailed Lawrence, and Jenna recognised the landlord as Tommy Ross, who had joined the army at sixteen and come home from Bosnia with a bald head and arms full of tattoos. He was only a few years older than her, but you wouldn’t have known it.
‘Thought we were sorted?’ said Tommy with a frown.
‘I bumped into this young lady and rendered her a service,’ said Lawrence, smoothly. ‘Would you mind making us a coffee while we wait for somebody to come and fix her tyres?’
Tommy put down the bar towel he had been folding and disappeared without a word.
‘Perhaps he might have an idea who did it?’ suggested Jenna, but Lawrence shook his head.
‘I doubt it’s pub regulars – it’ll be kids.’
‘Kids of people who come here, though. When I used to live here, everybody knew everybody. You couldn’t get away with anything.’
‘Times change,’ said Lawrence lightly.
‘Not for the better, around here.’ She gave him a curious look. ‘I really am surprised to see you here. I thought your business interests were all in Nottingham these days.’
‘I still own property in Bledburn. Anyway, what are you doing here?’
Jenna almost replied that it was her home. The shock of it made her catch her breath.
‘Do you know, I was about to say, “I live here.” How quickly the years fall away when you come back to your childhood haunts. It’s extraordinary.’
Tommy came in with the tray, set it on the table in front of them, and went back to cleaning up the bar area.
‘Actually, I was visiting the youth club. Thought I’d like to get involved with it, you know, as a patron or something.’
‘Very public-spirited of you,’ said Lawrence, pouring cream into his cup. When he offered it to Jenna she declined.
‘Not really. I was one of these kids, running wild around the estate, once. Though I never stole anyone’s tyres! I suppose I’m doing it to help children like me, which isn’t that noble really.’
‘I think it is,’ said Lawrence, and he laid a hand on her forearm. ‘I think you’re amazing.’
A prickle of discomfort made her want to pull her arm away, but she was mindful of causing offence, and kept it there against her will.
‘Thanks, but I’m not. Where is this man? I hope he isn’t caught in traffic?’
She looked anxiously through the thick, not very clean, net curtains.
‘Is there somewhere you need to be? I can give you a ride, if you like. Leave the tyre man to tow your car to the garage.’
‘No, no. I was only going to the retail park to look at computers.’
‘Ah, well, I’m glad we met again. I’ve been meaning to call.’
‘Have you?’
‘I have a friend opening a new restaurant in town. I thought you might like to come to the Grand Opening with me. I know it’s hardly the Grammys or the kind of thing you’re used to but …’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’
‘Well, I expect you’re used to personal five-star chefs and valet parking. It was just a thought.’
‘No, that’s not what I’m saying. Do you think I’m a snob? You do, don’t you?’
‘Of course not. It’s just hardly surprising that the opening of a tuppenny-ha’penny restaurant in a grim little English town doesn’t exactly fire you up. Don’t worry about it. I’m sure I can find a cheaper date.’
‘Lawrence, stop it. I’ll go. I’d love to support local business.’
His smile over the rim of his coffee cup was wide and toothy.
‘I like the way you make me work for you, Jenna,’ he said. ‘You must know that.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’ But she did and she couldn’t help smiling along with the flirtation.
‘I just hope my hard work pays off. I think it will.’
Oh God, if you only knew, somebody else has been working harder …
Her guilty reflections were interrupted by the arrival of the tow truck.
Jenna banged down her coffee cup and ran outside.
‘It’s tomorrow night,’ Lawrence called after her. ‘I’ll pick you up at seven.’
The tyres were replaced, the new computer ordered and Jenna returned to the house with groceries and a large cheque for the kitchen fitters.
They left with all their equipment, leaving Jenna with a brand new but rather dusty kitchen. She was wiping down the Corian surfaces, marvelling at how the sparkle emerged from beneath the reddish patina of brick dust, when Jason emerged, half-naked and wrapped in the duvet.
‘Have you been in bed all day?’ Jenna was appalled.
‘Seemed like the best plan. You’ve drained all my creative juices, woman. Put the kettle on, eh?’
‘Put it on yourself. I’ve had a long day.’
She began emptying the grocery bags into the brand new, stainless steel American-style fridge, but she had only unpacked a few items before Jason wrapped her in the duvet from behind, resting his chin on her shoulder.
‘Get off,’ she said, laughing, trying to push him back, but this only resulted in a tumble on to the granite tiles. They scrambled and squirmed against each other until Jenna was on the floor, pinned beneath an exultant, still unshaven Jason.
‘Brand, spanking new kitchen, eh?’ he said. ‘You know what this means?’
‘I think I know but I daresay you’ve got some weird idea of your own.’ Jenna tried to push him off but he was impossible to dislodge.
‘Needs christening,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t it?’
‘Go and cook something then,’ she said, pushing her knee into his thigh. It was solid as rock.
‘You want me to heat something up, love? That can be done.’
He moved one of her wrists carefully beside the other so he could hold both in the pinion of one hand then, with his other, reached over to fumble in the nearest shopping bag.
‘Oh, strawberries,’ he guessed, fingering a package. ‘Yeah?’
‘Well, it is nearly time for Wimbledon.’
‘Seasonal. Did you get cream?’
He drew out the punnet of strawberries and broke the seal with his teeth.
‘What the hell ar
e you doing?’
‘You wanted me to sort out some dinner,’ he defended himself, putting the strawberries down beside him. ‘And I’m thinking of killing two birds with one stone. Well, not killing. Unless the massive orgasms I give you turn out to be fatal.’
‘Jason. I can’t. I’m so sore all over …’
‘So am I. I’m not going to fuck you. But a man needs to eat.’
He reached back into the bag and identified a carton of double cream.
‘Now are you going to lie there nice and quiet while I get this tea ready?’ he asked.
‘The duvet …’
‘Got a nice new washer, haven’t you? The duvet can be its first load. Are you going to, Jen? Or do I have to tie you up?’
She felt a twinge of delight at the thought and almost said ‘no’ to test this resolve, but there was time enough, in more comfortable circumstances, to take her first steps towards bondage, so she nodded acquiescence.
‘Good girl.’ He released her wrists and unsealed the lid of the cream.
He unbuttoned her shirt dress with sure fingers, then reached underneath to unclip and remove her bra. Her knickers soon disappeared too, leaving only her sandals, but he left them on. He slipped a hand between her thighs, easing them apart, then he took the carton, held it high over her ribs and began to pour.
It was cold and she gasped as the thick white liquid splashed on and between her breasts. Jason poured a trail down her belly, then angled her hips up so he could deposit the rest of the cream in and around her lower lips, coating them thickly. The chill of it felt deliciously soothing to the mild burn that had affected that area all day and Jenna lay back and let it all happen, caught in the luxuriant lasciviousness of it all.
‘You’re making me hungry,’ he said.
She felt the drips running down the curve of her bottom, pooling in all her creases and cracks.
Her nipples stood up, emerging from the cream-slick like pink lifebuoys.
‘When I look at you like that,’ he said, breathing heavily, ‘I’m imagining that cream didn’t come from a carton. You look too fucking hot to take.’
He sat back, panting and looking her up and down with a starved eye.
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