17
SALLY ONLY kept me waiting for fifteen minutes, which wasn’t bad for her, judging by how late she always turned up for work dos. I stood outside, enjoying the late evening sunlight and checked my reflection in the large restaurant windows for the fifteenth time. I’d chosen a grey pinstripe shirt with loose black trousers and no jacket or tie. The shirt had been a gift from Jimmy, who swore that I’d go to weddings in a t-shirt if I had my way. He was probably right. My thinking on the matter was that the way someone was dressed didn’t matter as much as the person themselves and being scruffy was at least a talking point, but I took that all back as Sally walked into view.
She was wearing a light cotton summer dress with a floral pattern, and I reckoned that a light breeze would tell me what she was wearing underneath, it was so short. She was also wearing heels, which she never did at work, and had just enough makeup on to enhance her looks without detracting from her natural beauty.
I’d never seen her looking so good – and neither had every bloke she walked past as she came towards me. I was glad the road was quiet or there would have been an accident.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said, leaning over and kissing me on the cheek. ‘Damn taxi took ages to arrive.’
I smiled, still slightly dazed by her being here with me. ‘That’s fine. I booked the table earlier, so they can wait. You look amazing by the way.’
She blushed. ‘Really?’ she asked, and I honestly think she didn’t know.
‘Well put it this way, if I had a choice of you, Kate Moss and Jessica Alba I’d still be going in here with you.’
She laughed and batted the back of my head with one hand, but slipped the other through my arm and we walked in together to the envious looks of every other man in the restaurant.
The waiter who seated us seemed equally taken by my date and all but dribbled on her as he spread the napkin on her lap. He caught my warning look though and remembered his manners, offering us the wine list and then moving a discreet distance away.
‘And what would madam care to drink?’ I asked in a posh voice.
She giggled. ‘Um, I think madam would like a nice white wine, but not too much or I’ll get tiddly.’
I ordered an expensive bottle of white then tried to make intelligent conversation, which I’ve never been particularly good at with pretty women. ‘So, how was work for you today?’ I asked, not finding anything else to say despite the inanity of the question.
‘Yeah, it was okay. I get a bit bored sometimes though, I wish I could come out with you lot instead!’
‘I wish you could too, we could do with another pair of hands. You should have been at this search we were on this morning. My God, we found some…’
I stopped, realising that I was sounding job-pissed. Too many officers are – and all they ever talk about is work. I would never come across as interesting, funny and intelligent if I kept talking about work, and I badly wanted to seem all three. ‘Sorry, here I am, talking about work. So where are you from originally?’ I asked, realising that we never actually talked that much at work, and apart from her terrible taste in men (myself excluded, of course) I knew next to nothing about her.
She looked pleased that I was asking about her. ‘Well my dad is from London, but my mum is Russian,’ she began, explaining her looks. ‘But I was born in Northampton. We moved to London when I was ten, and when I was nineteen I moved to Brighton to go to university.’
‘Oh really, what did you study?’
She looked a little shy as she spoke, peering up at me from beneath her eyelashes. ‘Architecture – but I never finished the degree, I got bored. Besides, it’s not what I really wanted to do.’
‘Oh really, what was that?’
Her look went from shy to defiant. ‘If you laugh, I’ll hit you.’
I held my hands up in mock surrender. ‘Okay, no laughing, I promise.’
‘I wanted to play the tuba professionally.’
I laughed; she hit me and then joined in with the laughter.
‘Can you imagine me, with a tuba? I must have been mad!’
I took a sip of the excellent wine, noticing that her first glass was already almost gone. ‘Why the tuba? It’s not the most glamorous of professions.’
‘And being a drug researcher for Sussex Police is?’
‘No, that’s fair,’ I answered, refilling our glasses from the bottle.
‘Anyway, that’s enough about me. What about you? You’re an intelligent bloke, why did you decide to join the police?’
I swallowed my instant retort about the intelligence comment, knowing that she wasn’t being rude about my colleagues. ‘Really? It’s a long story, are you sure you want to hear it?’
She nodded and I was about to tell her when the waiter came over to take our order. I knew what I wanted and ordered the peppered steak rare enough that it still might moo, but Sally wasn’t sure and took a good few minutes to choose. Once she had finally picked a duck dish that I could barely even pronounce, she reminded me that I had been about to tell my story.
‘Okay, well my dad always wanted to join the police and he gave me a very firm idea of right and wrong when I was a kid. Both me and my brother in fact.’
‘I didn’t know you had a brother!’ she interrupted.
‘I don’t talk about him much; I’ll tell you why in a minute. Anyway, so I went away to university to study English and Mum got ill. It turned out to be cancer, a particularly aggressive form, and she died while I was away. They hadn’t told me how bad it was at the time because they didn’t want it to ruin my studies.’ I tried not to let the bitterness I still felt come out in my voice.
‘So, Dad calls me and I come back for the funeral and take a couple of weeks out, staying with Dad and Jake, my brother. I hadn’t seen Jake for ages and when I came back I noticed that he was different. He looked thinner and ill and he was acting strangely. He kept borrowing money off Dad to go into Brighton, even though he had a job at a local garage as a mechanic. When I asked him about the money, he got aggressive and we had the first proper fight we’d ever had. He nearly knocked me out, but during the fight one of his sleeves got pulled up and I saw track marks all over his arm.’
I stopped for a moment, uncomfortable with the subject. It wasn’t something that I liked to talk about but Sally was obviously hooked on the story, her head tilted slightly to the left as she listened intently, so I continued. ‘As soon as he knew I’d seen them, he got all funny, started apologising and said that he’d been cut by a chain at work, even though they clearly weren’t chain marks. I went back up to university the next day and didn’t think anything more about it for a while, other than occasionally asking Dad how Jake was when I phoned.
‘Then one day I got a call from Dad saying that Jake had gone missing, and that he’d been burgled as well. He phoned the police, worried that Jake had been kidnapped trying to defend the house or something and they investigated, but the only fingerprints they could find, even inside Dad’s safe, were Jake’s. So I left university and came back to stay with Dad. Of course, he wouldn’t believe that one of his sons would steal from him, so he kept badgering the police and one day they turned up with some pictures of Jake, taken during a heroin deal that they’d caught on CCTV. Even from a distance you could tell it was Jake and what he was doing. Dad was beside himself but he still spent the next few years looking for Jake, posting his picture on the internet and offering a reward. I still don’t think he’s really given up hope that Jake will appear on the doorstep one day to beg forgiveness.’
I paused and took another sip of wine to wet my mouth. ‘And I joined the police so that I could stop more families being torn apart by heroin. Bit of a sob story, huh?’ I laughed, but Sally just looked at me seriously over the top of her wineglass. ‘I don’t think it’s a sob story, I think it’s a terrible thing. Do you know how he got started on it?’ she asked, her eyes shining with unshed tears.
‘No, I’ve got no idea, but if I eve
r find the bastard that got him hooked I’m going to rip his lungs out with my bare hands!’
I stopped talking as the main course arrived; realising that my revenge daydreams weren’t exactly polite dinner conversation. My steak was perfect; the sauce creamy and spicy at the same time and Sally’s duck was just as well cooked. We chatted about inconsequential stuff after that and I have to say that we got on better than I ever thought we would. Sally turned out to have a wicked sense of humour and a sharp intellect that she only allowed a little of to show at work. Yet again I was amazed that a woman this rare allowed herself to be treated like shit by wide boys and wannabe gangsters.
We polished off another bottle of wine over dessert and subsequently we were both quite tipsy as we left the restaurant, strolling arm in arm towards the taxi rank at East Street by the old Hannington’s store. Sally smelled almost as good as she looked and I enjoyed the cool evening breeze wafting her scent towards me as we walked. When we got to the rank there were several taxis but no queue, so I prepared myself for a quick goodbye, wishing that things were otherwise. ‘Right, you’re up towards Lewes Road aren’t you?’ I asked, trying not to sound disappointed.
She moved in close to me, holding her face inches away from mine as a tension began to develop that couldn’t just be coming from me. ‘Do you really want me to go home alone?’ she asked, her voice low and throaty.
I looked into her eyes, losing myself in them for a moment as I discovered little gold flecks I had never seen before. Not that I’d ever been this close to her. ‘Um, well, that would be rude of me, wouldn’t it? And I do pride myself on being a gentleman.’
She leaned forwards and touched her lips to mine, keeping eye contact all the while. My body rose to the occasion and she giggled as she snuggled in against me, gyrating her hips ever so slightly. ‘It’s a shame I don’t screw on a first date then, isn’t it?’
She pulled away slightly as she spoke and I tried my best to hide the disappointment that must have been written all over my face. ‘Um, yeah, I mean, look, it’s not a problem. Part of being a gentleman is being able to wait. It’s not like sex is the be-all and end-all, is it?’ I could tell by the smile flickering about her lips that she was playing me for laughs, pretending to be awkward, but I couldn’t bring myself to play the game.
I think she saw that and relented a little. ‘Well, if you really are a gentleman, you won’t mind opening the cab door for me, then escorting me home.’ I’ve never moved so fast in my life. I almost yanked the door off its hinges then slowed down to offer her my arm as she stepped into the back. I joined her and we snuggled together as we headed back to her house on Brading Road, still unable to believe my luck.
The journey seemed to take about thirty years and I honestly don’t remember what we talked about on the way there, but I do remember paying the cab driver generously and letting her lead me up the steps to the house she shared with a friend whose name I couldn’t remember and didn’t particularly care about right then.
As soon as the door closed, Sally slammed me up against it and did her best to devour me (despite my protests, of course). We were undressing each other as we went up the stairs and I nearly tripped and spoiled the moment as she undid my trousers before I had reached the top.
I managed to waddle into the bedroom after her and we both fell on her bed in a giggling heap. By now she was down to her underwear, black lacy items that showed more than they hid. With practised ease, I slipped one hand up her back and undid her bra. She shucked it off, and then disentangled herself to stand outlined against the lamplight like an angel sent to taunt me. ‘Do you like what you see?’ she asked, her voice suddenly shy.
My answer was to reach for her again and all sense of time fled as I buried myself in her warm curves.
18
THE NEXT morning, I woke up with that sudden surprise you get when you realise that you aren’t in your own bed. I rolled over, only to find Sally asleep on my arm with the covers thrown back so that I could admire her sleeping form. For a moment I thought I was dreaming, but the lingering taste of her was too real and I gently began kissing her neck and shoulders until she woke up and turned to kiss me properly.
‘Well, PC Bell,’ she said, unconcerned at the situation, ‘you certainly have a lot of stamina, I don’t think I’ll be able to walk for a week!’
I smiled and carried on kissing her, moving slowly down until I was over her again and we made love slowly, all the while looking into each other’s eyes. I hadn’t felt like this with somebody since I’d been sixteen and new to the game, and I saw an answering look in her eyes to the unspoken question in mine as we moved gently against each other, our breathing fast as sweat gathered on our bodies. The final release happened at the same time and the world shuddered as we collapsed against each other, almost laughing with the release.
‘You do know we’re going to be late for work?’ she asked some time later as she slid deftly out from under me.
‘Yeah, I don’t really care right now,’ I replied, admiring her body before it disappeared beneath the towel she took off the radiator.
‘Well I’m going to shower. Go and find the tea and put some toast on.’
I dug out my boxer shorts and did as I was told, padding down the stairs and into the kitchen at the back, whistling happily. I stopped dead in my tracks as I reached the kitchen, seeing a dark-haired girl in a skimpy shift that I could only assume was the nameless housemate, eating a bowl of cereal and reading a newspaper at the kitchen table. She looked up as I came in and waved me towards the kettle with a vague smile. ‘Tea and coffee over there. Hi, I’m Amy.’
‘Uh, hi, Gareth. I, uh, work with Sally.’
Amy swung round to look at me properly, suddenly interested. ‘Gareth? Really? God, she never stops talking about you, it’s nice to finally meet you!’
I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so I made a non-committal noise and busied myself with making the tea. I felt more than a little self-conscious in just my underwear but I refused to retreat, so I made two cups of tea and four slices of toast before I left Amy and her inquisitive gaze to the newspaper.
Sally was back in the room by the time I returned and gently but forcefully refused my amorous advances as she dressed and threw me a towel. ‘You stink, go and wash.’
Once again I did as I was told and in remarkably short time we were out of the house and in her car, heading towards work. I kept a hand on her leg all the way in, enjoying the simple human comfort of just touching her and she kept throwing smiles at me as she drove. I still felt like a sixteen-year-old falling in love for the first time, and I was about to say something along those lines when something else occurred to me. ‘Sally, you know we have to keep this quiet at work, right?’
‘Why, are you embarrassed?’
I looked at her to see if she was joking, but she stared resolutely ahead and I couldn’t tell. ‘Of course not, far from it, but you know the rules on relationships in the office. We have to keep it professional and that’ll be easier if no one knows.’
She grinned suddenly and the shadow that had been hovering over my heart disappeared. ‘I know, you idiot, I was kidding. Can you imagine the piss-taking we’d have to endure if Kev found out?’
I rolled my eyes at the thought. I wouldn’t put it past him to somehow get a banner placed on the intranet homepage if he found out; he would think it was hilarious.
For the sake of appearances, Sally dropped me off a couple of streets away from work and I walked the distance trying to wipe the grin off my face. I finally got into the office about five minutes late but no one seemed to care as I sat down in the drugs pod, making sure to greet Sally just the same as everyone else. It would have been easier if flashbacks of her naked body writhing against mine hadn’t kept intruding.
It was a busy day and the time flew by as the team went out en masse to follow a new group of dealers that had recently come into town from London. By the time I got back to the office, it was nearing s
ix and Sally had already gone home.
I wrote my reports as fast as I could and went down to the car park to drive home before remembering that Sally had driven me in and my car was still outside my house. Cursing, I walked out through the car park and headed to the bus stop at the Old Steine, managing to jump on a number five just before it pulled off. I sat slumped in my seat, trying to work out what I was going to do that evening. I needed to visit Jimmy but afterwards I was torn between visiting Sally and leaving it a few days so that I didn’t seem too keen.
It should have been an easy decision, but this felt like the first time in a long while that something good had happened to me and I didn’t want to ruin it. Fate, however, seemed to know exactly what it wanted me to do and as the bus pulled into Norfolk Square I saw Gordon Edwards, a man who was reputed to be a fairly large-sized cog in Davey’s heroin machine, disappearing up a side road towards Montpelier Terrace while putting a set of car keys into his pocket as he went.
I jumped off the bus, annoying the queue of people trying to board, and followed him at a distance as he headed north. He was looking nervous, so I knew he was up to no good, and this was too good an opportunity to pass up. I pulled out my mobile and tried to call Kev to let him know what I had, but it just rang without being answered so I pocketed it again and concentrated on my quarry.
He turned left onto Montpelier, disappearing from sight, and I hurried to the end of the road and crossed to the far side as if I had intended to go that way all along. I found him again seconds later heading towards Furze Hill, still looking about to make sure he wasn’t being followed. I resisted the urge to pull out my phone and fake a conversation, instead trudging along with my hands in my pockets trying to think like I belonged.
He obviously didn’t find me suspicious and turned into Furze Hill itself, heading towards St Ann’s Well Gardens, one of the most pleasant parks in Brighton (Hove, actually). I turned into the road about thirty seconds behind him only to see him get into the back of a silver Vectra with an ‘08’ plate, a sure sign that it was a hire car. The car drove off before I could take down the full index but stopped fifty yards down the road to drop Edwards off again. I knew that the only reason he would be getting into and out of a car so quickly was to buy or sell drugs and quickly made the decision that with or without backup I was going to stop him and find out what he was up to.
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