Relief Valve: The Plumber's Mate, Book 2

by JL Merrow

It was an old biscuit tin, one of those family assortment ones I remembered from when I was a kid that never had enough of the chocolate fingers in. Probably because Richard and Cherry always got there first. The lid was spotted with rust. It’d been sealed up with Sellotape that was now all brittle with age and peeled away practically with a look.

  The contents had stayed dry.

  It wasn’t like in the movies, where you find a bundle of love letters all tied up with ribbon, scented with lavender. These were just shoved inside a brown paper bag, and they smelled a bit musty.

  They really were love letters, though. Well, there were a couple of them in there. One or two postcards that had been written and never posted. Maybe they’d been brought back and delivered by hand? All were from some bloke called Mike and addressed to “Sweetheart”. And there were photographs. Not many, but they all showed the same two people. A dark-haired bloke, not over-tall, who looked a bit familiar. And my mum, looking younger than I’d ever known her—but still older than the pictures I’d seen of her when Cherry and Richard were little.

  I sat back on my heels, my head hurting and my chest tight. I didn’t get it. I wasn’t sure I wanted to either. Why would Auntie Lol have done this? Why set this all up, make a game of it, almost—just so’s I could find out Mum had cheated on Dad? Why would anyone do that? Let alone someone I always thought had, well, loved me?

  Then I worked it out.

  Christ.

  I felt it physically, like a punch in the gut. Or maybe to the heart. Whatever it was, it left me sickened, and my hands shook as I put the letters back in the bag and then levered myself to my feet.

  Don’t know what I said to old Wood. Probably just something like, “Found it,” and waved the paper bag at him. I don’t think I even remembered to close up the attic, take down the ladder or shut the front door on the way out, for that matter. I should probably give him a ring and apologise for that, I thought, as I climbed into the driver’s seat of my van and sat down. Cherry probably had his number. Or should I ring Mr. M? He was the one who’d have to clear stuff up after me. Probably. Christ, did I leave the attic light on? That was bad. Old people got uptight about stuff like that. I should definitely apologise. Maybe both of them, just to make sure.

  My heart was still racing, but at least the cold air outside had helped with the queasiness. Wasn’t sure I was really up for driving yet, though.

  “You got it, then?” Phil asked. I could feel him staring at me.

  I waved the codi-thingy at him, then leaned back in the seat and closed my eyes. “I’m a bastard,” I said bleakly.

  “Why? What’ve you done?” Phil sounded startled.

  I opened my eyes. Yeah, he had an expression to match. “Not that kind of bastard. I mean, my dad’s not my dad. Probably.”

  “What, your mum was playing away from home? Your mum?”

  “Yeah.” I laughed. It wasn’t a good sound. “She was what, early forties? It’s like Dave says, I guess. Dangerous age for a woman.”

  Phil laid a hand on my thigh and gave it a quick squeeze. “You got evidence for this?”

  I handed over the paper bag. Phil took his time. I wondered if I should feel bad, letting him read my mum’s old love letters, but sod it, she was the one who’d started all this.

  “Dates are right,” he said at last, his tone neutral. “And the bloke in the pictures looks like you. Doesn’t prove anything.”

  “No.” I scrubbed my hands over my face. “Think I should ask my dad for some DNA?”

  “Probably not. But you could ask your mum for an explanation.”

  “I can’t just ask my mum about her sex life!” I cringed at the thought. “God, it’s bad enough I read her bloody letters. I let you read her letters.”

  “It’s ancient history now. Not like she got them last week.” Phil hesitated. “He seems like an all right bloke, this Mike. You know, from his letters and the photos.”

  “You mean, apart from the bit where he was messing around with a married woman?”

  “Well, there’s that.” Phil’s hand was rubbing my thigh, moving rhythmically up and down, up and down. Any other time, I’d have been wanting to take things somewhere more private, but right now it was just a warm, solid comfort. “What I don’t get is, how come your Auntie Lol had these letters? Why not your mum? There any clue in the codicil?”

  “I haven’t even looked at that.” Funny, after I’d been getting butterflies over it earlier. Didn’t seem half so important now.

  “You what? Come on, hand it over, then.”

  “Bugger off. We can read it together, all right?” I pulled out the envelope and hesitated, my brain finally juddering back into action. “Do you think we need to do this in front of a solicitor or something? I mean, is it legal if we just open it?”

  “Don’t see why not. But if you’re worried, we can take it round to your sister’s. She’s the executor, so she’s going to have to see it anyway.”

  “Ah, sod that. I’m opening it.” I stuck a finger under the flap and tore it open.

  There were two smaller envelopes inside. One of them had written on it, “Read this first.” I had half a mind to stick a metaphorical two fingers up and open the other, but I decided to be a good boy.

  It was a letter from Auntie Lol, of course.

  Dear Tom

  So funny to write this now and not know when you’ll get it. I’d like to think it’ll be a long time from now, but I have to be realistic. By now you should have found your mother’s letters. As you’ve probably guessed, she gave them to me for safe keeping, as she couldn’t bear to destroy them. Perhaps I should have taken them with me, when Raz and I left, but there was only so much we could carry. But I’m so sorry you had to find out about your father this way.

  I looked up. “Shit. So it is true.”

  Phil gave my thigh another squeeze. “Keep reading.”

  I’ve kept trying, through the years since you grew up, to persuade your mother to tell you herself. And you mustn’t blame her for not telling you—she’s just as convinced it’s the right thing to do as I am that it isn’t. She made me promise, all those years ago, not to tell you, so I never did. But I think we should face uncomfortable truths. I have to face the fact that this cancer is almost certainly going to kill me. And I think that makes me stronger. Far better to face my death and meet it on my terms. I like to think the Tom I knew would feel the same.

  I’m so sorry I haven’t seen you these last years. I’m afraid your mother’s secret came between us, in the end. But from your cards and the photos you’ve sent me, I think you’ve grown up, as my Heather used to say, a fine, bonny young man. I hope you find someone to love you as you deserve. Don’t be afraid to use your talents.

  If I can ask one last thing of you (and I know you may be feeling I’ve got a bit of a cheek!) could you, perhaps, keep in touch with Raz? He’s had a difficult journey, and if you could make sure he’s all right, that would ease my mind. You’ve probably guessed he’s who I’ve asked to hide this for me.

  I think you two could be friends, you know.

  With love

  Auntie Lol.

  That was it.

  Phil pursed his lips. “Why don’t you open the other envelope?”

  “You’re bloody desperate to find out what this legacy is, aren’t you?” It didn’t seem all that important to me anymore. It was just…stuff.

  “Might as well.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Let’s find out what this codicil’s got to say for itself.” I ripped open the second envelope.

  There were a lot of long words, aforementioneds and other legalese. But the upshot of it was, as far as I could gather, that she’d left me a bequest of £500 and my mother’s letters. Her part of the house had been left to her stepson, Raz Nair. She’d even put in all the details of his former name, just to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s.

  I huffed out a breath. “That’s going to put the cat among the pigeons, innit? Him ownin
g half of his dad’s house. Think she meant it as a final screw you to the old bloke?”

  “Well, you knew her best.”

  I thought about it, staring out through the windscreen. Down the road, a mum was pushing triplets in one of those modern stacker-system buggies, and an old lady walking two Yorkshire Terriers stopped to coo over the cuteness. To be honest, it was a relief to think about something other than what was in those letters. “Nah,” I said in the end. “She wasn’t like that. She’d have just wanted him to have what he was due. Raz, I mean. His dad might have cut him off, but she wasn’t going to stand for it. You never know, she might even have thought it’d get them speaking again.” Was that what she’d wanted to happen by telling me about my real dad? Me and him getting to know each other? I wondered what he was like, this Mike bloke. Was he even still alive after all this time?

  “Right. Because arguments over property are well-known for leading to reconciliations.” Phil was obviously still thinking about Raz.

  “Yeah, well, hope over experience and all that bollocks. You know, I can’t believe I never realised he was trans. I just thought he was gay.”

  “He still might be. Doesn’t matter, does it?” Phil grabbed my thigh, hard. “You’re taken, and don’t you forget it, all right?”

  “So now would probably be a bad time to mention I had Greg in my bed the other night? Not in the biblical sense, obviously,” I added quickly as the storm clouds gathered on Phil’s brow. Obviously, me sleeping with other blokes wasn’t something he had much of a sense of humour about.

  “Right.” The weather forecast still wasn’t looking all that sunny. Oops.

  “We just shared a bed ’cos Cherry insisted on him staying. I didn’t want him in there. And it’s not like I even slept.” Too late, I realised that last bit wasn’t exactly helping my case. “He snores. Like a bloody foghorn.”

  “Does he.” There was a long silence. “It’s okay,” Phil said at last, “I trust you. Sometimes wonder why I put up with you, mind.” But there was a fond twist to his mouth, and his hand was stroking up and down my thigh in a way that promised… Well, I wasn’t sure exactly what it was promising, but I was looking forward to finding out when I got him home.

  “Love you too,” I said, and this time, I meant it.

  About the Author

  JL Merrow is that rare beast, an English person who refuses to drink tea. She read Natural Sciences at Cambridge, where she learned many things, chief amongst which was that she never wanted to see the inside of a lab ever again. Her one regret is that she never mastered the ability of punting one-handed whilst holding a glass of champagne.

  She writes across genres, with a preference for contemporary gay romance and the paranormal, and is frequently accused of humour. Her novella Muscling Through was a 2013 EPIC ebook Award finalist.

  JL Merrow is a member of the UK GLBTQ Fiction Meet organising team.

  Find JL Merrow online at: www.jlmerrow.com, on Twitter as @jlmerrow, and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jl.merrow

  Look for these titles by JL Merrow

  Now Available:

  Pricks and Pragmatism

  Camwolf

  Muscling Through

  Wight Mischief

  Midnight in Berlin

  Hard Tail

  Slam!

  Fall Hard

  The Plumber’s Mate

  Pressure Head

  Coming Soon:

  Tom and Phil will return in Heat Trap

  Some secrets are better left hidden…

  Pressure Head

  © 2012 JL Merrow

  To most of the world, Tom Paretski is just a plumber with a cheeky attitude and a dodgy hip, souvenir of a schoolboy accident. The local police keep his number on file for a different reason—his sixth sense for finding hidden things.

  When he’s called in to help locate the body of a missing woman up on Nomansland Common, he unexpectedly encounters someone who resurrects a host of complicated emotions. Phil Morrison, Tom’s old school crush, now a private investigator working the same case. And the former bully partly responsible for Tom’s injury.

  The shocks keep coming. Phil is now openly gay, and shows unmistakable signs of interest. Tom’s attraction to the big, blond investigator hasn’t changed—in fact, he’s even more desirable all grown up. But is Phil’s interest genuine, or does he only want to use Tom’s talent?

  As the pile of complicated evidence surrounding the woman’s murder grows higher, so does the heat between Tom and Phil. But opening himself to this degree exposes Tom’s heart in a way he’s not sure he’s ready for…while the murderer’s trigger finger is getting increasingly twitchy.

  Warning: Contains a flirtatious plumber with hidden talents, a cashmere-clad private investigator with hidden depths, and an English village chock full of colourful characters with plenty to hide.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Pressure Head:

  Whatever it was I was following, it was dead ahead. Calling to me, tugging at my mind. I fought my way through prickly hawthorn and incongruously festive holly, a minor annoyance as it clutched at my padded jacket. When I reached a clearing I broke into a run. Melanie’s face was seared in my mind, and I thought, please, God, let it not be her. Let it be some drunk’s alcohol stash…

  I already knew it wasn’t. There was the stench of guilt about this one, turning my stomach even as it dragged me nearer. Guilt and violence—and death.

  I reached a thicket, dropped to my hands and knees and crawled in. Twigs scratched my face, caught in my hair. Damp soaked through the knees of my jeans, the chill reaching to my bones, numbing my core. There was barely any light to see by, but I didn’t need any, my questing fingers meeting cold, waxy flesh. I fumbled to be certain and found I was holding her hand.

  For a moment, I was six years old again, with the little girl in the park.

  But when you’re twenty-nine and you find a body, you don’t get to go blubbing for your mother.

  It started with a phone call, as these things usually do. I haven’t exactly got an office, more like a stack of files in a cardboard box that I hand over to my accountant once a quarter, and the answer phone’s on the blink, so if anyone wants to get in touch with me, they have to call my mobile.

  I was out in one of the villages when he rang. There are a lot of villages around St Albans, most of them filled up with people who commute into London to work and keep the house prices sky-high. In between, you get the green belt made up of pony farms and golf courses, plus the odd actual working farm tucked in, with small herds of placid cows looking like refugees from the nineteenth century as they chomp on the grass and idly wonder what happened to the neighbourhood.

  I was fitting some new kitchen taps for Mrs. B., who made great coffee and liked to chat. I always had to be careful I didn’t go over time there. It wasn’t easy when I knew the next call was to Mrs. L., a sour-faced old biddy who always watched me like a hawk in case I made off with the teaspoons or did something unspeakable to her pet poodle.

  I put down my spanner and dug my mobile out of my pocket. “Paretski Plumbing,” I answered in my jaunty “trade” voice, flashing Mrs. B. an apologetic smile. She dimpled.

  “Tom? Dave Southgate. Got a little job for you.”

  “Oh, yeah? Blocked toilet down at the station? Must be all those doughnuts you lot eat.” I wasn’t talking about the place you catch a train from. Dave Southgate is one of our boys in blue—or he would be, if he still wore a uniform. And when he rang, the job was never all that little, though I lived in hope.

  “I wish. No—young lady by the name of Melanie Porter. Last seen going off to meet person or persons unknown three days ago—if you believe her useless yob of a hoodie boyfriend, who I personally wouldn’t trust as far as I could throw his drugs stash. We’ve received information suggesting we have a look for the young lady in the woods up by Brock’s Hollow.”

  “I do have a proper job to do, you know.” Even I could hear the resignati
on in my voice.

  “Cheers, Tom, I owe you. We’re up on Nomansland Common. Up past Devil’s Dyke—you know the area? Combing through the woodland, the usual drill. How soon can you get up here?”

  I looked at my watch. “About ten minutes—I’m only down the road, as it happens. Just need to finish up.” And I’d have to ring Mrs. L. and apologise for the no-show, but that’d be more a pleasure than a duty.

  I shoved my phone back in my pocket and finished tightening up the taps. Opened the supply pipes and turned the taps on and off to prove they worked. “There you go,” I said, wiping my hands on an old rag. “All sorted.”

  “That’s lovely. Sure you wouldn’t like to stay for another coffee?” She gave me a winning smile, and the dimples deepened. “I’ve got some Belgian chocolate biccies.”

  “Sorry, Mrs. B.,” I said regretfully. “Duty calls.”

  I first met Dave Southgate around three years ago. A kiddie went missing in Verulamium Park, and they put out an appeal on local radio for help finding the little lad. He was only three. I tracked him down under a bush right next to the main road, crying his little heart out and clutching a half-eaten loaf of bread he’d taken to feed the ducks.

  Obviously, me being a single gay man who’d managed to find a missing toddler, it wasn’t just as simple as handing the kid over and receiving the effusive thanks of a grateful police force. There were a lot of searching questions about just how I’d known where to look. Eventually, I managed to convince Sergeant Southgate, as he then was, I just had this knack of finding stuff. Or people, as it might be. Since then, he’s called me in a few times to look for things—burglars’ loot, hidden drugs—and bodies.

  It’s a bit hard to explain, but I can’t just find any old thing. I’m not some bloody database on the location of everything in the world. It’s only certain types of things. And usually, there has to be some strong emotion involved. So lost things are almost always impossible, because if you’d been feeling that strongly about the thing at the time, chances are you wouldn’t have lost it, would you? Hidden things, on the other hand, call out to me. All the guilt and shame and sneakiness involved in the hiding acts as a kind of beacon. And I can often tell from the feeling just what sort of thing it is that’s hidden.