Pressure Head

by JL Merrow

  “You’ve changed, Paretski,” he said, and this time the tone was clearly disapproving. His impressive bulk loomed even larger in the narrow confines of my kitchen, and it didn’t help that I was only in my socks. One of which had a hole in the toe, I noticed. “I’d never have thought you’d leave an old mate in the lurch like this.”

  I whirled, droplets of water flying onto his tan leather jacket from the mug still in my hand. I hastily put it in the sink before I could ruin his entire wardrobe. “‘An old mate’? For fuck’s sake, Morrison, we hated each other’s guts!”

  There was an odd look on his face. “Not me. Graham Carter.”

  For a moment, I couldn’t place the name. It’d been so long since I’d heard it. Then it hit me.

  We’d been friends at school, of a sort, me and Graham. He’d distanced himself from me after the Poofski thing broke, but I hadn’t blamed him really. The poor sod had had a hard enough time already, without being tarred with the same brush as me. He was a kids’ home boy, shy, nerdy, and crap at games. He really didn’t need to hand the bullies any more ammunition.

  Now I thought about it, I couldn’t actually remember Morrison being a git to Graham. He’d saved that for me, the bastard.

  “What the hell has Graham Carter go to do with all this?”

  “Melanie Porter was his girlfriend. They lived together, up on Dyke Hill. He was the one who gave the Porters my number, back when Melanie first went missing.”

  “You and Graham are friends?” I couldn’t keep the scepticism out of my voice. It was like hearing Tweety Pie and Sylvester had suddenly become BFFs. “How the hell did that happen?”

  “That’s not important. What is important is that he’s being set up for this.”

  I folded my arms and leant against the draining board. “I thought you were working for Melanie’s parents, not for Graham.”

  “I am. They don’t believe he did it—and they want to find the bastard who did.”

  It didn’t seem to add up to the picture I’d formed in my head. “Dave Southgate said Melanie’s boyfriend was a junkie.”

  “He was. Past tense.” Morrison sighed. “Look, he went through a bad patch after leaving school. A lot of us did,” he added, but went on before I could ask him about it. Not that he’d have told me anything, I thought sourly. “He was living on the streets for a while, doing smack, petty crime, that sort of thing—but he’d started to sort his life out even before he met Melanie.”

  “So at which point did you and he become friends? The junkie bit, or after?” I persisted.

  Morrison folded his arms, mirroring my posture. I couldn’t help noticing he had a lot more trouble than I had getting his beefy forearms in position. “I help out at Crisis, all right? Saw Graham there and got talking to him.”

  “Crisis?” My flabber was well and truly ghasted.

  “The homelessness charity,” he supplied impatiently.

  “I know what it is, all right? I just wouldn’t have imagined you playing the Good Samaritan to a bunch of tramps.” Then again, I’d never have imagined anyone telling me Phil Morrison was queer either.

  “There’s a lot about me you don’t know, Paretski.”

  Not as much as you think. I found myself giving him an appraising look and wondering what kind of bloke he liked, and if he was seeing someone at the moment. Then I gave myself a mental shake. Still perving over Phil Morrison after all these years, for God’s sake?

  Trouble was, he was just the sort of bloke I go for. Always had been. He’d filled out a bit since his school days, but then so had my image of the perfect man. Physically, obviously, because personality-wise, I still couldn’t stand the git.

  At least, that was what I’d thought. In the light of all these revelations, I wondered if I ought to revise my opinion.

  He heaved a heavy sigh, his arms rising and falling with his chest. “Look, can we focus on what’s important here? Graham’s in trouble. Are you going to help, or not?”

  “I . . .” I had to look away. “It’s not that I won’t help. I just don’t see how I can, that’s all.”

  “Fine.” His jaw set, Morrison unfolded his arms and marched towards the door.

  “Oh, for— Hang on a minute, okay?” I found myself chasing after him and grabbing hold of one granite forearm, only to drop it like a ton of, well, granite when he turned and glared at me. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t go and see them. I just don’t see how it can help. I don’t know anything. I just find stuff.”

  He drew in a breath as if about to say something, then stopped and shook his head. “Okay, then. I’ll pick you up here at seven o’clock tonight, all right?”

  “Okay,” I said, regretting it already. What would it do except raise hopes I couldn’t fulfil?

  I felt in dire need of someone to talk to after that, but work came first, seeing as mortgage companies tend to get a bit nasty if you don’t cough up each month. But I called my mate Gary and asked him to meet me for lunch up the Dyke between jobs.

  The Devil’s Dyke pub in Brock’s Hollow is actually named after the Iron Age earthworks still visible nearby, but you could be forgiven for thinking the place took its name from its landlady. Henrietta “Harry” Shire is over six feet tall and built like the proverbial outhouse. She might have hung up her boxing gloves, following not inconsiderable success on the amateur ladies’ circuit, but it’d still be a brave man who dared cause trouble in her pub. The place is staffed by a gaggle of pretty young girls who all seem to live in and never, ever have boyfriends. They’re referred to locally as Harry’s harem, but only when the speaker is one hundred and ten percent certain the Devil’s Dyke herself isn’t listening.

  Anyway, they do decent pub grub up there. It’s down a quiet country lane, and there’s a large garden on one side of it, so summer weekends it gets pretty busy with kiddies playing football while their parents enjoy a pint. On a Wednesday lunchtime in November, there was still a respectable crowd, although we were all over school age and we stayed in the public bar and kept warm by the fire. The Devil’s Dyke is an old-fashioned country pub and still has two bars: the public bar and the lounge bar, only the latter of which they let the kiddies into. As is usual in these places, it’s the nicest one that’s adults only. It’s a shame, really, as Harry’s border collie Flossie makes her home in the public bar, whereas all the lounge bar has to recommend it is a secret passageway in the walk-in fireplace which is, in any case, locked and marked Private.

  Flossie likes to lie down on top of the covered-up well. What a pub wants with an in-house well is beyond me—personally, I’d have thought they’d want to discourage the drinking of water—but maybe they had their reasons back in Ye Olde Times. Anyway, all that’s left now is a circular plinth about two feet high, with a glass cover you can look down to see that yes, it really does go all the way down. It keeps Flossie’s tail safe from being trodden on and gives her a vantage point from which to fix a beady eye on anyone daring to eat meat in the place. I generally go for fish when I have a meal there.

  There are plenty of low beams, none of which I have to duck for, and the walls are tobacco-coloured, maybe to compensate for the fact you’re not allowed to smoke inside any longer. Pride of place on the walls is given to Harry’s collection of exotic beer bottles, with a few horse brasses tucked in apologetically here and there.

  Gary was currently ruffling Julian’s neck fur as we waited for the food to arrive—Julian being his big Saint Bernard that’s as soft as he is, and who he treats like a furry baby. “Who’s Daddy’s sweetie, then?” he cooed.

  “That’s a good question,” I said, leaning back in my chair. “What happened to that bloke you met in London?”

  Gary made a face. He’s one of those blokes who are not exactly fat but still soft all over, like an overstuffed teddy bear, although in his case it conceals a quite respectably muscled upper body. He works from his house in Brock’s Hollow, doing something in IT—or as the website has it, “implementing software sol
utions for the forward-looking business.”

  “Turned out to be a total cow. We shall not speak of him. No we won’t.” The last bit was to the dog. “And how’s your love life, darling?” That was to me, Julian’s love life having long been consigned to the vet’s dustbin.

  “Dead as a dodo,” I admitted sadly. “Just don’t seem to meet any decent blokes these days.”

  “Well, that’s a disappointment. I thought you’d dragged me up here to tell me all about your latest conquest.”

  No one pouts like Gary, and I had to smile. “If only. Although I did have breakfast with a tall, well-built blond this morning . . .”

  “Tom! I am agog!” He was too. His eyes were practically popping out on stalks. Even Julian was looking up at me, his tongue hanging out like a slice of Spam as he panted out bone-breath. “Tell me more. At once.”

  I laughed. “Not nearly as good as it sounds. Sorry. He turned up on my doorstep before eight.”

  “Now that’s just rude. Nobody’s got their face on at that hour.” Gary sat back in his seat, looking horrified on my behalf. Made me wonder just how much of a beauty routine he went through every morning.

  “Yeah, well, that’s him all over. Bloke I knew at school. Phil Morrison.” I half wondered if Gary might have heard something about him. I don’t often meet a gay bloke from around here who Gary doesn’t know.

  “Unlike yours truly, it doesn’t ring a bell.” Gary’s a campanologist. He likes to tell people he took up bell-ringing because he’s always up for anything with camp in the name. Some people even think he’s joking. “Old boyfriend?”

  I made a face. “Old school bully.”

  “And he’s knocking you up in the early hours of the morning because?”

  I sighed and lowered my voice. “I found a body yesterday.”

  Gary’s eyes widened to the size of the dinner plates the waitress chose that moment to put in front of us. “The girl from the estate agent’s—that was you?”

  “Thanks, love,” I said, smiling mechanically at the waitress. She just gave me a funny look, probably because she’d heard what Gary had said. Thanks, Gary. “Well, I found her, yeah.” I stared at my battered cod, suddenly not feeling half as hungry as I had when I’d ordered it. “I didn’t put her there.”

  “Well, go on.” Gary leaned forward over his lasagne. “Tell Uncle Gary all about it. Was she”—he lowered his voice—“naked?”

  Gary’s a good bloke, really he is. It’s just—nobody ever really gets it. You tell anyone you’ve found a body, and it’s just not real to them. They think it’s like being an extra on Midsomer Murders. “No. I probably shouldn’t be talking about it, and to be honest, I really don’t want to. It wasn’t exactly the highlight of my week.”

  “Sorry, sweetie. Poor you.” Gary laid a hand briefly on my arm, then chomped thoughtfully on his side salad for a minute. “To coin a phrase, if I had a gift like yours, I’d return it.”

  I shrugged and picked at my chips. “At least she’s been found now. That’s got to be better for her family than not knowing.” I reached for the ketchup bottle, then thought better of it, visions of poor Melanie dancing in my head and threatening to take away my appetite. “Trouble is, the old-school bully is a private investigator now, and he doesn’t believe in my so-called gift. Thinks I must know something about her death I’m not telling.”

  “But the police don’t think that, do they?” Gary patted my right knee, and Julian showed his concern by slobbering on the other.

  Knowing from experience just how unpleasant it would be when the drool soaked through the denim, I pushed his ton-weight head off gently—the dog’s that is, not Gary’s. “No—but I ended up agreeing to talk to the girl’s parents this evening. What the hell am I going to say?”

  “The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” Gary declaimed, one hand on his heart and the other thrust skywards. Heads turned, as they often do when Gary’s around.

  “It’s not going to be what they want to hear. Don’t s’pose you fancy meeting up for a drink afterwards, drown my sorrows and all that?”

  “Can’t, sweetie—Wednesday is practice night, remember?”

  I remembered. I hunched up one shoulder and did a passable imitation of Quasimodo lisping, “The bells! The bells!” Gary just smiled and gave me a V sign.

  Morrison knocked on my door on the dot of seven that evening, which meant that, as a job had overrun, I was still shovelling pasta into my gob at the time. I answered the door, plate in hand, and gazed up at his bulky figure, still chewing. He’d dressed up to go and see the Porters, even put a jacket and tie on. He looked good—but it made him seem more remote, more dangerous, without his hard lines softened by cashmere. I jerked my head to indicate he should come in. It’s rude to talk with your mouth full.

  “Do you ever stop eating?” he asked, once again following me into the kitchen like he owned the place.

  I was stung and swallowed my mouthful a bit more quickly than I really wanted to. “Do you ever stop to consider it might be someone’s mealtime before you start beating down their door?”

  He went to fold his arms, then obviously remembered it’d crumple his expensive jacket, and put his hands on his hips instead. The gesture could have looked camp but somehow, on him, it really didn’t. “First, do you think you could stop being so sodding touchy about everything? And second, we had an appointment.”

  “Oh, excuse me. I suppose I should have left the lady with water dripping through her ceiling and told her I’d come back tomorrow, because sorry, I’ve got an appointment.” I rolled my eyes, shoving the plate back on the kitchen counter. I’d had enough anyway.

  Morrison sort of huffed. “Does everything have to be such a bloody production with you?”

  “Comes of being queer, I expect. Wouldn’t you say?” I put a bit of emphasis on the you, narked he was making me out to be such a drama queen. Anyway, it was about time we got it all out in the open.

  He stilled. “Who told you?”

  I wasn’t about to drop Dave in it, even though he probably couldn’t give a monkey’s if Morrison was pissed off with him. “Maybe I read your mind,” I joked weakly. “Maybe there’s no end to my psychic powers.”

  For a split second, he actually looked worried. Then his expression relaxed. “Stop trying to mess with my head, Poof— Shit.” He looked away and didn’t say anything more.

  I took a couple of deep breaths. I was about to say, Look, let’s just leave it, okay—but he beat me to it. “Sorry,” he said, like it caused him physical pain to say it. “That wasn’t— I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  There was a short silence. I didn’t know what to say, so I just nodded curtly. Acknowledging his apology, although not necessarily accepting it.

  Morrison spoke again. “I checked up on you today. Apparently you’ve got previous, on the finding-things front. Doesn’t mean I believe in all this mumbo jumbo.”

  Bloody fantastic. He’d checked up on me—so now he knew which porn I watched and had read all the rubbish I’d posted on Facebook after a few beers too many. “If you’re not going to believe what I say,” I said slowly, to make sure he was really listening, “then what’s the point of asking me questions?”

  “Are you going to come with me to the Porters or not?” he asked, sidestepping the issue.

  I sighed. “Let’s get this over with.”

  This being late November, it was dark and beginning to get a bit nippy as we drove off in Morrison’s silver VW Golf. The car wasn’t new, but the interior was impersonal, devoid of any touches of personality like the “ironic” retro furry dice I had swinging from the rearview mirror of my Ford Fiesta like a couple of cubist bollocks. As we passed under a streetlamp, something glinted, and I noticed for the first time that Morrison was wearing a wedding ring.

  “You’re married?” I blurted out, just managing to stop myself carrying on with, To a man?

  Morrison’s gaze flickered over
at me. For a moment, I thought there was something like hurt in his eyes, but it was gone before I could tell for sure, and he turned his attention back to the road. “No.”

  “But you wear a ring.”

  There was a pause before he answered. “People are more ready to trust a married man.”

  God, and here I’d been thinking . . . I don’t know what I’d been thinking. But not this. “So it’s just a prop? For fuck’s sake, that’s so bloody cynical.” Disappointment sharpened my tone. “I suppose you’d do anything, say anything to get what you want.”

  “And you’ve never told a customer work needs doing when it doesn’t, or got them to pay for fancy copper pipes when plastic would do?”

  “No, actually, I haven’t. And I fucking well resent you even suggesting it.” I folded my arms and glared out of the window. I could see this being a very long evening. Why the hell hadn’t I brought my own car?

  “Look,” Morrison said after a painful silence. “If I’m going to do my job—the job my clients pay me to do—sometimes I need to get people to trust me. So maybe some of it’s an act—but don’t go telling me you don’t do the same thing in your line of work.”

  “What, lie to people? No, I don’t.”

  “And I suppose you’ve never flirted with a housewife? Just so she won’t argue about the bill, or to make sure it’ll be you she calls in next time some work needs doing?”

  “That’s different, and you know it.”

  “Is it? Didn’t notice any rainbow stickers on your van.”

  “Yeah, well, for some reason, I thought it might be safer not to advertise I’m queer. Can’t imagine where I got that impression, can you?”

  “For fuck’s sake, I never laid a finger on you! It was that prick in the Chelsea tractor who did the damage, not me.” He was breathing hard, and his knuckles were white on the steering wheel. I was starting to wonder just how safe I was in his car when he spoke again. “What the hell do you expect me to do? I tried to apologise, but— Fuck it.” Morrison clammed up, his jaw tense.