Trowchester Blues

by Alex Beecroft

  “Are you okay?” Michael decided to leave the interrogation until they got home. He fished a Tracker bar out of his coat pocket—they were Jenny’s favourite, and he hadn’t got out of the habit of carrying them yet. He handed it over and turned the heat up to maximum.

  Finn opened his eyes to frown at the chocolate-covered thing in his hand as though he wasn’t sure how it related to him. Michael took his hand off the gear lever for long enough to push the food towards Finn’s mouth. “Eat it. Sugar—it’s good for the shock.”

  That raised a very weary smile. Finn’s mossy eyes in their bruised sockets slid sideways to regard him with fond amusement. “Muesli coated in chocolate. Someone can’t make up their mind.”

  But he opened it and took a bite, then a larger one, and wolfed the rest down on the third.

  “I didn’t think you were coming for me.” He kept on smiling, but his gaze returned to the window. “When you drove away. I thought everything was over between us. That you’d decided I was too much trouble.”

  Michael turned over all the things he could say, should say. We might well be over being the chief and hardest one of all. No, not until Finn was in his own home, washed, fed, and warm.

  “Well, you’re certainly that. Doesn’t mean I’m going to swan off in the middle of a kidnapping and leave you. I just wanted to make sure that guy with the shotgun didn’t take out one of the wheels so I couldn’t follow you. And it was difficult coming down that drive on your tail without being spotted. I had to wait for them to get a long way ahead and then roll down quietly with my lights out.”

  He came off the ring road, swinging onto Jasper Avenue, where the superstores and garden centres clustered around the outside of the Roman wall. Through the gate, and as always it felt like the air had changed, like they’d come in from the cold, as the style of the buildings switched abruptly from modern bunkers to Georgian chic.

  “I guess you don’t have any reason to think I’d come through for you, after the fire,” he said, the satisfaction of heroism dimming as he remembered how he’d failed. “You going to tell me about that too?”

  “Honesty is the best policy?” Finn pulled his feet up onto the seat, laid his cheek on his knees, and closed his eyes, and it occurred to Michael that Finn really wasn’t faking his exhaustion, wasn’t quite as tough as he seemed. Or he might just have reached the limit of his tolerance for bearing with arson and armed abduction. Who could blame him if he had?

  “Don’t go to sleep,” he warned. “We’ll be there in a minute, and you’ll feel like shit if I have to wake you up after you’ve been asleep.”

  “Mmm.”

  He shook the man by his slender shoulder. “I mean it.”

  “Gobshite.”

  Laughing, Michael pulled up outside the bookshop and parked. He pushed the hair off Finn’s forehead and stroked his face with the back of his hand, continuing the caress across his cheekbone and down to the gilt bristles on his chin. “Wakey, wakey.”

  “Bastard.”

  He got out, opened Finn’s door, and shoved his hands in the man’s damp pockets, looking for his keys. Finn grinned at him, not entirely with it. Michael unlocked the shop, pocketed the keys, and lifted Finn out of his seat, carrying him indoors bridal style. Finn lolled his head against Michael’s shoulder, shut his eye, and smiled.

  It was the sweetest thing. Michael hadn’t had time or inclination to try to figure out Finn’s odd combination of sex and viciousness, but this cuddly version, quiet and trusting and utterly relaxed in his arms was something he was going to miss. He smiled down as Finn looked up at him with sleepy affection, settled the guy on the couch, and went to run a bath.

  Finn held up his arms imploringly when the bath was ready. “Carry me?”

  “You’re not injured anywhere? You looked like you were walking well enough before I stepped in.”

  Finn sighed. “My feet hurt, but that’s not the point. I want you to carry me. You do it so well. So easily. It’s very affecting—makes me want to forgive you for everything.”

  Well, that made for an easy enough absolution. Michael went to his knees beside the sofa so that he could undo the knot of Finn’s tie, unbutton his rain-soaked shirt, and pull all the layers of damp clothing off at once.

  “I dream of you ripping me out of those,” Finn said, still worryingly undefensive, softer and more straightforward than Michael was used to from him. “But this will do for a start.”

  “You want me to ruin your clothes?” Michael removed Finn’s shoes and socks, peeled the clinging trousers down his legs, taking a moment to admire his body—not quite boyish, but lithe and slender, just muscular enough for beauty. He should never really have thought that anything this lovely could belong to him.

  Tenderly he pushed his arm beneath Finn’s knees, wound the other around his back, and lifted him. Finn snuggled into the embrace like a child, and it made him wish the walk to the bathroom wasn’t so short. He lowered him into the hot water reluctantly, helping Finn hook his bandaged feet over the side to keep them dry, smiling as Finn closed his eyes and sighed with bliss.

  “I want you to tear my clothes off me,” Finn murmured, his voice somnolent with pleasure. “As you hold me down. While I’m squirming and laughing and trying to get away, and bursting out of my skin with excitement. You’re so . . .” He opened an eye and focused it on Michael, his mouth still smiling but his gaze serious. “Strong. Angry. Overwhelming. I don’t think you’ve made your peace with that part of yourself, but I love it. I want to help you let it out in a way that’ll make us both happy.”

  Abruptly, Michael had to look away, press his fist against his mouth to stop himself making a noise of anguish. He hated the anger. He hated it. He’d worked so hard all his life to keep a lid on it, loathed himself every time it came out. It had lost him his job and his self-respect, and he despised himself for it. He didn’t know what to do about finding someone who accepted it. Who loved him for it.

  “You’re a ridiculous man, Fintan Hulme,” he said in a thick voice, crouching by the side of the bath in a cloud of steam that smelled of samphire and cinnamon. “But I think I love you.”

  “Oh, we’re in trouble now.” Finn smiled back. “For I think I might return the sentiment. What will we do, the pair of us?”

  What Michael wanted to do was peel off his own clothes and get in the bath with him, wrap himself entirely around those narrow limbs and hide his face in Finn’s shoulder. That was somewhat counterproductive if this was still going to have to be good-bye. He rubbed his hands over his face, shoved his cuffs further up his arms to keep them dry, and as he did, Finn reached out and brushed his fingertips lightly over the purple welts that stood up along his forearms where Sarah had smacked him with the tiller bar.

  “Acushla,” whispered Finn, the warmth in his voice deepening into concern. “You’re hurt.”

  The bruises throbbed a little, but he’d put some ibuprofen gel on, and they were no problem really. “It’s nothing.” Guilty and embarrassed, he tugged his sleeves back down again to cover them. “A misunderstanding. I’m fine. I’m not the issue here. I want to find out what’s been going on with you.” He traced the path of a water droplet down the slope of Finn’s arm. “My partner in the Met tells me you’re a fence. What made you decide it was a good idea to go out with an ex-cop?”

  “This—” Finn’s tone sharpened, leaving him sounding more alert, more like himself “—is not a conversation I can have naked. There are pyjamas in the chest of drawers in my bedroom. Top drawer. Get me some?”

  Michael had risen to his feet before it occurred to him that he should not still be taking orders from Finn. He had a bizarre flash of mythology, the thought that if he was a fucking animal at times, maybe together, with Finn’s controlling hand on the reins, they could be a centaur.

  If they could only get past this whole crime thing. If only. How he wished . . .

  He ducked his head and went to find the pj’s, and to make them both a cup o
f tea. A few minutes later found them curled up together on the couch, Finn still boneless and warm against Michael’s chest, a handwoven woollen throw wrapped around them both, mugs of tea in hand. The curtains were drawn and the room seemed a million miles from anywhere, a whole world of its own.

  “So,” Michael tried again, “are you a fence?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  He should probably be happy that Finn’s evasiveness was returning. It meant he was feeling better, more like himself. It was also as irritating as hell. He put his tea down on the floor, dug his fingers into Finn’s shoulders, and shook him to make him pay attention. He didn’t want to have to say this, but he saw no alternative, no way to overstep this fundamental line.

  “I’m not getting involved with a criminal. I’m not going to end up your bodyguard or your hit man. Apparently I’ve already made an enemy of the laird, and if she’s doing something illegal, then she needs to watch herself, but I don’t—”

  “Oh, give over.” Finn’s voice was sharp, but he rested his cheek against Michael’s biceps and closed his eyes. “I’m not a fence anymore. I’m an ex-villain, just like you’re an ex-cop. You can shag me as much as you like without it troubling your conscience in the slightest.”

  Michael’s arms tightened around Finn almost by themselves. Inside, potent forces of hope and yearning and ground-in despair tried to fight it out, bare-knuckled. He squeezed his eyes shut and buried his face in Finn’s neck, breathing in the scent of him, acutely aware of how his lips grazed smooth skin.

  “I wish to hell I could believe you. But if that’s the case, then why would the local magistrate abduct you in the middle of the night? Why would someone set fire to your shop?”

  He wished he hadn’t spoken, hadn’t felt forced to think these things. Wished he could just let it go and for once do the thing that would make him happy. But that had never been who he was. Maybe he wasn’t the world’s brightest or quickest mind, but he observed stuff and thought and made connections, and he couldn’t make that process stop just because the connections ripped his heart out and stamped on it.

  “Something dodgy is going on, and you’re right in the middle of it. So yeah, I wish I could believe you. But I don’t.”

  “Well, that’s your problem isn’t it?” Finn said without thinking. It came out, as so many wild and fanciful things came out, partly as a big fuck you to the world, partly because the truth was so terrifying. When you told the truth, people knew how you really felt, and then they used that information to hurt you. Their jabs were always so much less accurate if they didn’t know what they were aiming for.

  “Yeah.” Michael’s voice hardened. His body tensed all around Finn, making him uncomfortable to sprawl on, and his arms loosened. He hadn’t moved, but he was suddenly very far away. “That’s my problem. So what’s it going to be? Am I important enough to you to tell me what’s really going on? I’m going to find out anyway, because I’m going to look into it now, but you can choose to trust me or not. If you don’t, this is over too.”

  He tried to shove Finn off his lap, already leaving. Finn clutched at his hair, torn between two different instincts. He couldn’t tell Michael about the psalter. He couldn’t, because then Michael would leave. But if he told him a lie, he would also leave.

  “Don’t!”

  Michael resisted for a moment, effortlessly stronger in that way that made Finn a little fuzzy inside. Finn twisted to gaze up into his face and found him looking down, his hazel eyes both fond and frightened. It occurred to Finn reluctantly that the guy was not in the best mental shape at the moment, that this conversation must be as hard for him as it was for Finn. Could he trust him? Did he dare?

  Well, it seemed he had nothing extra to lose by trying it. If Michael was going anyway, no matter what he did, he could at least try to be kind to the poor dumb sod in the end.

  “Don’t go. I’ll talk.” The phrase put him in mind of film noir, let him smile involuntarily and say, “Your interrogation technique is unusual. I’m not sure if I’d appreciate it from anyone else.”

  “Huh.” Michael shook him again, in what he thought was a combination of amusement and annoyance. “Yeah, let’s not get distracted. What’s going on, Finn?”

  “The evening after you came in the shop the first time,” Finn started, quickly so as to get it all out before his soul revolted from the bare nonfiction of it, “I had a visit from an old associate I thought I’d left behind in London.”

  Very well, there was the hook. Now some backstory. “You have to understand that the trial—you know about the trial, five years ago?”

  “Mm-hmm.” Michael rested his forehead on Finn’s shoulder, as though his thoughts were too heavy to hold up.

  “It scared me to death. And it prevented me from being there when Tom died. I couldn’t hold him, couldn’t tell him how much I loved him at the end. I was fucking devastated, Michael; you’ve no idea. I was unmade. Everything, everything was unmade without him in it . . .”

  His throat closed. The sobs piled up in his lungs and made his breastbone ache. Tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes, and he closed the door on those memories and put his back to it to keep it shut.

  “It was the end for me. The end of everything. I was finished, changed. I wanted to be someone else. So I decided to leave town, turn over a new leaf, and go straight.” He scoffed. “At least in that respect.”

  He turned his head so he could rest his cheek against Michael’s black curls and closed his eyes. Michael smelled of safety and warmth and some horrible orange-and-ginger shampoo that Finn was going to wean him off if he ever got the chance.

  “And though I say it myself”—he recovered a lighthearted tone—“I did very well. I doubt if I’ll ever be rich, but the bookshop is supporting me and keeping young Kevin out of the kind of trouble his family would otherwise get him into.” Strange, but still true: “I’m a pillar of the gay community in Trowchester. And happy.”

  When he thought back to the time before Michael, to dinners shared with ghosts and vagrants, to the empty upstairs and the empty bed, talking to himself or switching the radio on so his silences could be filled with a friendly voice, happy seemed an exaggeration.

  “Or content, at least. Then Briggs showed up, and he had a book to sell me. A priceless thing. Do you know the Lindisfarne Gospels?”

  Michael looked up, startled and interested. Of course he knew them, Finn rebuked himself. A man who knew how to treat an ancient manuscript couldn’t help but know of them.

  “Yeah.”

  “This was like that. Similar antiquity and beauty. Briggs said he would burn it if I didn’t buy it, and I couldn’t risk that. So I told myself ‘one last time.’ I bought it from him, and I sold it on to a collector I know of who treats her books impeccably. I told myself I was rescuing it, and I was, I think. At least it will be safe where it is.”

  “So you fell off the wagon.” Michael’s voice was dark, disappointed, but he didn’t repeat the attempt to leave.

  Finn breathed out slowly. Well, this was good. No immediate abandonment, and the rest of the story was an improvement.

  “What about the fire?”

  “Briggs obviously went away and told everyone else where I was and that I was back in business.” Finn’s turn to tense up, let anger and annoyance pierce the atmosphere of warm shared confidences that had spread like the mingled heat of their bodies from everywhere they touched.

  In response, Michael raised a hand to comb his fingers gently through Finn’s hair in a soft, petting stroke that made him want to purr like a cat. He stretched lazily, relishing the rub of his back against Michael’s chest, and settled again, hackles lowered.

  “A couple of lowlifes called Benny and Lisa turned up with a vase they’d liberated from somewhere, and tried to sell it to me. I had already realised the lapse was a mistake I didn’t intend to repeat, so I turned them away. They didn’t take kindly to that. Hence broken Pegasus followed by burnt bookshop
. And that, children, is the end of our tale. Now who can tell us the moral of the story?”

  The end of our tale. As they did so often, his words came back to mock him, flippant, light little words circling above a pit of dread. This time when Michael slid Finn forwards, moved to sit up, Finn didn’t stop him. They detangled themselves, ended sitting side by side, while Michael planted his elbows on his knees and lowered his face into his hands.

  “There’s no need for you to be so sad,” Finn told him, leaning forwards to put a palm gently down between Michael’s shoulder blades, because he’d somehow got to the stage where he needed to be touching Michael in order to feel fully himself. “I’m miserable enough for us both. I thought we had a good thing here. But if you can’t live with it, I’m not going to try to force you.”

  Michael lowered one hand and turned his face so he could look at Finn from the corner of one of his beautiful dark-lashed eyes. “Did you turn them down for me?”

  Finn gave a hollow laugh to cover his confusion about where this remark was coming from. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

  “I mean it.” Michael sat up fully, took both of Finn’s hands in his and pressed them with fierce strength, moving some of the ache that had been in Finn’s heart away to his fingers. He wasn’t sure what Michael was self-destructing about this time, but it didn’t seem to be the rejection Finn had expected. “Did they burn your shop because of me?”

  “Oh, bless your guilty conscience.” Finn had to laugh. “No. I turned them down because I don’t want to be sucked back into that life. I’m an honest man now, and I’ll be buggered if I let those weaselly little bastards bully me out of my new life. I did it for me, Michael. I would have done it even if you hadn’t been here.”

  Michael hung his head, his eyes screwed closed and a crease between his brows so deep it might have been put there by an axe. Finn freed his hands and bracketed Michael’s face with them, hurting for him—this sad Rottweiler of a man. “So don’t fret now, darling. If you have to go, go with my blessings. You don’t owe me anything.”