her eyes playing over the weary Henry, now slightly dishevelled after another long day. There was a glass of red wine on the table and Henry asked her if she wanted another, finding his voice sticking in his closed throat and unable to form any coherent words.
Seeing his discomfort, she said, ‘JD on the rocks?’
‘Coming up,’ he declared after a cough. He made to turn to the bar, but Alison rose to her feet and touched his arm.
‘In my room,’ she said huskily. ‘It’s all prepared.’
They looked at each other.
‘The time for talking’s over, Henry.’
And he realized it probably was. When they had met the other night for a drink in the same location, he had poured out, for the first time to anyone, his grief about losing Kate. Alison had listened, allowed him to download, and for him it had been an incredible release. For the first time he had told someone about Kate, their ups and downs, the bad way he’d treated her, the fact that although they had divorced she stuck with him through it all and eventually they had remarried. And been happy. Then she had been struck down by something evil and ferocious which was more than a match for her grim determination to stay alive. He spoke for almost an hour, non-stop, then had suddenly looked into Alison’s eyes before melting into her arms and holding her tightly. After that they talked about her husband, Robert, the soldier killed in Afghanistan.
‘So I kind of know what you’re going through,’ she’d said gently. ‘I know everyone’s different, everyone reacts differently to the unexpected, or expected, death of a loved one… but I do know what it’s like.’
They parted with a hug that night.
Henry could not get her off his mind, even though he fought grimly with the guilt, the recentness of Kate’s death, and about how others would react, his daughters in particular. In the end, he knew he had to be true to himself.
He took her hand as they walked out of the bar. His legs were dithery. His whole being was trembling. They rode the lift in silence, Henry just holding Alison’s little finger as they stood side by side.
Moments later they were in her room.
Then they kissed and the JD on the rocks had to wait for a while.
She lay tucked into him, her arm across his chest, fingertips touching his left shoulder and the raised scars where he’d been blasted by the shotgun, now well over a year ago. Six inches to the right and his heart would have been shredded, and he would have been the first to die, not Kate. But he had survived and the wounds healed.
It had been through Alison’s nursing skills that he’d come away from the incident so well.
She raised her eyes. ‘That was lovely.’
‘Short and sweet,’ he admitted.
‘Just right under the circumstances.’
His head moved down and he kissed her mouth, loving the taste and texture of her very soft lips. A surge of blood gushed through him and her hand left his shoulder and slid silkily down his body to grasp him, causing a moan to emerge from the back of his throat, then from hers.
‘Gorgeous,’ he whispered.
With amazing dexterity she was suddenly on top of him, moving gently, and he was entranced by her looks.
His mobile phone rang at half past midnight. Henry grunted, carefully extracted his right arm from under Alison’s neck, and sat on the edge of the bed. He had been on the verge of a deep sleep. He glanced at Alison, who muttered something, but kept her eyes closed. Henry sifted through his clothing which was discarded across the floor. It had been ripped off with abandon, as had Alison’s, and he grinned like a juvenile at the memory, especially when he picked up her bra. That had been one of the great moments.
The phone continued to ring — still Miss You by the Stones. Have to change that, he thought. Maybe Mixed Emotions.
Finally he found the infernal device, plucked it out of his inner jacket pocket, and it stopped ringing. He muttered a curse.
The display said, ‘Unknown number’.
‘Bugger,’ he said, laid it on the bedside cabinet. He needed the toilet, but was reluctant to go, particularly when Alison reached out and scraped her fingernails gently down his back.
‘Who was it?’
‘No idea.’
‘Kiss me,’ she ordered him. He twisted around and she had a lovely crooked smile on her face. ‘I need kissing.’
Henry thought about saying something witty, but decided against it. He needed kissing, too, so he lay down next to her, cupped her face and lowered his mouth to hers and they explored, teeth, tongues, lips and wetness. It wasn’t just a lust-driven mashing, which it had been initially. It was slow and slithery and Henry, amazing himself, found that he was responding yet again.
And then the phone rang. Miss You.
He snatched it up, dropped back on to the pillow and answered it. Alison propped herself up on an elbow and bit into his nipple.
‘Christie,’ he hissed through clenched teeth, and Alison suppressed a wicked giggle.
‘It’s me, your prime suspect.’
Henry held the phone away from his ear and squinted angrily at it. He put it back. ‘Mark — it’s way past midnight. This better be good.’
‘It’s about Natalie.’
‘What about her?’
‘I was going to tell you stuff about her — until that twat annoyed me.’
‘DI Dean?’
‘Yeah, him.’
‘OK — what were you going to say?’
Alison continued to suck and lick his nipple like it was a mini lollipop.
‘Her likes, her preferences.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘She liked Asians, Pakistanis… well, she’d started liking them recently.’
‘And?’
‘I’ve seen the picture of the guy who was shot on the motorway, yeah?’
‘OK.’ Henry sat up. Alison backed off as he held up a hand to keep her at bay.
‘And the picture of the lad locked up in London now, the suicide bomber guy.’
‘Yeah?’
‘They were the ones she liked.’
ELEVEN
After just two hours’ deep sleep, Henry stirred at six o’clock, detached himself from Alison’s grip — she rolled over with a disgusted grunt — and padded into the bathroom, picking up his discarded clothing on the way. He dressed, then left without disturbing her, his mind still zinging with confused thoughts about the relationship.
He needed to get home, shower, shave and change into fresh clothing, then get into the MIR before anyone else landed. This, he thought, as he climbed into the Mercedes, was going to be a long day.
He arrived home less than ten minutes later, the streets of Blackpool virtually traffic-free at that time of day. Karl Donaldson’s huge Jeep was parked on the driveway alongside Leanne’s Fiat 500. This car had belonged to Kate and Leanne had inherited it. Henry swallowed a fresh gulp of guilt at the sight of the Fiat, and just for a moment he wondered how the hell he was going to explain himself to Kate, arriving home at this time of day, bedraggled and with bloodshot eyes. Then he remembered. He shook his head, but the gulp stuck in his throat as he let himself quietly into the house.
