“No, I’m all right,” she told him, blushing ever so slightly.
He walked in the wrong direction, away from his car, for a few yards, then turned in time to see her cross the road and walk up a street on the right. Her feet were walking, but her arse was doing the samba. She vanished into a development of houses built at the height of the boom: all Elizabethan gables, Georgian windows and Thatcherite mortgages.
Back in the car he wound the window down and lit another B and H. They were shorter than they used to be, he thought. Once they were a luxury cigarette, the epitome of coolness, but now they were just a device for getting nicotine into your system as economically as possible. He held it outside in a half-hearted attempt to stop the car’s interior smelling like a public bar.
It had been a long time. He inhaled deeply, wrapping his tongue around the smoke like a grazing cow, and felt it fill his lungs, inflating every little bronchiole and alveolus, finding its way into corners where oxygen had never ventured. Distillations of nicotine were absorbed into his bloodstream and transported to the brain, where receptors, lying redundant for millions of years until Sir Walter Raleigh brought tobacco from the New World, eagerly latched on to them and converted them into an electro-chemical signal. A signal that said: “Ah! That’s good.”
Yes sir, it had been a long time. But the urge never left you. Once tasted, you were hooked. He remembered the date and did a quick calculation. Fifteen years and six months, almost to the day, since the last time. It hadn’t been easy, for the yearning, the hunger, was always there, waiting to catch you out. And lately it was stronger than ever. He’d allowed the genie out of its bottle, and once on the loose he knew it had to be obeyed. The thought scared and excited him. He flicked the smouldering stub on to the car-park and started the engine.
Home was a four-bedroomed detached house built with just six others on a spare patch of land between a farm and the canal. The service road was block-paved, with speed humps, and the gardens were open plan. There was a paddock to the rear, but his neighbour had jumped in first and bought that, much to his annoyance. Each house had a double garage but they all left their vehicles outside. It’s not conspicuous consumption if you hide it away. On a Sunday morning, when everyone was at home, the development resembled a four-wheel-drive regatta, just before the judging of the concourse d’elegance.
His wife’s Suzuki Vitara was on the drive, with a Citroen Xantia behind it. “What’s he doing here?” he wondered, parking in the street and swinging his legs wearily out. He collected his jacket from the Armani hanger behind the driving seat and his briefcase from the boot.
The wind chimes welcomed him as if he were entering a Buddhist monastery, but he broke the illusion by shouting: “I’m here. Cut it out, whatever you’re doing,” as he moved through the kitchen and hallway, towards the parlour.
His wife was sitting on the settee and the visitor in an easy chair, an empty cup and saucer perched demurely on his knees. A compilation CD of music from television adverts was playing in the background, very softly. The track was Bailero, from the Songs of the Auvergne, but he only knew it as the Kenco coffee tune.
“Hello, darling,” his wife said. “You’re home early.”
He stooped to give her a peck on the cheek and turned to the visitor. “So this is what you get up to while the boss is working his butt off, eh?”
“Oh, not every week,” the visitor replied with a grin.
He placed his briefcase on the floor and draped his jacket over it. “Will you excuse me,” he asked them, moving back towards the door he’d just entered through, “but I’m bursting for a piss.”
They listened to his footsteps climb the stairs, looking at each other. She with an expression of relief, he guiltily. The bathroom door closed and he opened his mouth to speak, but she silenced him by putting a finger to her lips. It was possible, she knew, that her husband had closed the door but remained outside it. It wasn’t until she heard the sound of flushing that she dared to whisper: “Phew! That was close.”
“What are we going to do?” he hissed.
“I’ll ring you,” she replied.
He placed the cup and saucer on a low table and rose to his feet as footfalls sounded on the stairs again. The husband went straight into the kitchen and was looking in the refrigerator as the visitor passed through. “I’m off,” he said.
“Why not stay and eat with us, Peter,” the husband offered.
“Thanks all the same, but no,” he replied. “I’ve things to do. I was in the vicinity so I thought I’d come and have a cuppa with the little woman.”
“OK. See you tomorrow, then.”
“God willing. Bye Margaret,” he called. “Thanks for the coffee.”
“You’re welcome,” she called back.
When he’d gone the husband poured himself an orange juice and rejoined his wife. “What did he want?” he asked.
“You’ve been smoking,” she accused, ignoring the question.
“Just the one,” he replied. “A client…you know how it is.”
“Good God, you’re pathetic,” she told him.
“I asked you what he wanted.”
“Nothing,” she replied. “Like he said, he was just passing.”
“Does he make a habit of just passing?”
“That’s about the second time this year, but Peter’s welcome any time. He’s a good friend.”
“He’s a bloody awful salesman. What time’s supper?”
“I haven’t thought about it. I wasn’t expecting you for another two hours.”
He resisted the temptation to say: “Evidently.” Scoring meaningless points wasn’t his style. “Let’s eat out, then,” he suggested.
“We can’t afford it.”
“It’s two for one at the Anglers before six.”
“The Anglers!” she sniffed.
“Well bloody-well cook something. I’m starving.”
“Oh, very well,” she said, standing up. “Let’s go to the Anglers.”
Chapter Three
Nine o’clock Wednesday morning somebody mugged a Big Issue seller in Heckley town centre. He’d never get rich that way but he made four pounds — enough for a heroin wrap or a few tueys; or some bush, bute, bhang, boy, blow, Bolivian or B-bombs to see him through the day. I ticked the report and slid it into my You’ll be Lucky tray.
I was reading the list of overnight car thefts when there was a knock at the door of my partitioned-off domain in the corner of the CID office and big Dave “Sparky” Sparkington walked in. He’s a DC and my best pal.
“It looks lovely out,” he announced.
“Well leave it out, then,” I told him. We’d lost a Fiesta XR3 and an elderly Montego to enemy action. Both crashed and burned, both somebody’s pride and joy. Two more people would be braving the rigors of public transport this morning, or arranging for neighbours to take the kids to school and grandma to her appointment at the hospital, while they sorted the insurance.
“Somebody mugged a Big Issue seller,” he said.
“I know. I’ve seen the report from downstairs. Any ideas?”
“No, but I could borrow a couple of bags and a dog, and we could have a day in the field, undercover, while the weather’s nice.”
I looked down at my jeans and check shirt. I dress the same nowadays as I did when I was an art student, before the Flood. “I wouldn’t have to borrow any clothes,” I said, before he could.
“That’s true,” he confirmed, adding: “or have a haircut.”
I changed the subject. “Where’s young Jamie Walker these days?”
“Ah,” Dave began. “You’ve noticed the small blip in the stolen vehicles chart, with the emphasis on older cars with low-tech ignition systems.”
