previous experience of their raucous lovemaking. Their relationship was in its infancy and energetic, noisy intercourse was high on the agenda.
Danny stirred the cornflakes in her bowl and sighed.
Geena and Alex, who was ten years her junior, were sitting at opposite ends of the dining table. They were visually engrossed in each other as they ate their cereal, although when Geena’s eyes were momentarily diverted, Alex took the opportunity to evil-eye Danny.
Danny looked away, feeling nauseous.
When the loving couple had finished eating, Geena began to clear away their dishes and Alex slid out of the room to get ready for work. He was employed as a manager at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. Danny collected her own crockery and joined Geena at the sink.
The two women had been friends for many years. Geena was a Detective Inspector on the Major Crime Unit and would probably rise to another rank at least. Danny had only comparatively recently achieved the rank of Detective Sergeant and was realistic enough to believe this was as far as she was likely to go. They were both the same age — thirty-eight — but Geena had been through two divorces. Danny had never married. Geena had been married to two cops and both divorces were put down to the stresses, strains and demands of the job. She had two sons from her first marriage whom she managed to see once a month if she was lucky.
Both women worked silently at the sink. Geena washed, Danny dried.
There was something in the air; both could sense it and both reached their decision to tell the other at the same time, breaking the silence simultaneously and also snapping the tense atmosphere with giggles.
‘ No, no — you first,’ Danny insisted, relieved.
‘ Shall we sit down?’
Geena poured them both a cup of tea and they gravitated into the lounge. They sat close together on the settee.
‘ Danny, I’m sorry about this,’ Geena started hesitantly. ‘You are my best friend and I love you. I’ve really, really enjoyed having you stay with me. It’s been fantastic.’ She sighed down her nose, lost for how to continue.
‘ But..?’ Danny probed gently.
‘ I want to make a go of things with Alex.’ She looked at Danny, a pleading, almost pitiful expression on her face, one which begged understanding. ‘He wants to move in and I would love him to. It’s just that, if you were here…’ She shrugged helplessly.
‘ Two’s company, I know.’ Danny made it easy.
Geena clasped Danny’s hands. ‘He’s my last chance of real happiness, Danny. I know we can make it work. I really love him.’
‘ Then that’s what matters,’ Danny said with a little grin.
‘ Oh, thanks, Dan.’ Geena put her arms around Danny and they hugged each other — and all Danny could think was, You poor cow, he’s nothing but a shit. She resolved to tell Geena immediately so that her best friend would not get involved in a relationship that would end in heartbreak and regret — like most of Danny’s had.
‘ You were going to say something, Danny?’
‘ No, no.’ Danny shook. her head. ‘It was nothing, nothing at all.’ She felt like a coward, but then justified it. What was the point in destroying someone else’s prospect of joy, or maybe even wrecking a friendship when she herself hadn’t put her own tragedy behind her, hadn’t even got her mind around the enormity of what had happened three months earlier when her married lover had taken his own life. In her house. In the kitchen. By blowing his head off with a shotgun into the refrigerator which he had thoughtfully opened to catch his skull, brains and blood. This was no time for Danny to risk losing a friend who had taken her in, looked after her, and almost brought her back on to an even keel.
‘ I’ll be out of here tonight, Geena. I need to get back home and kick my arse into gear. I can’t run away for ever.’
The catalogue of misbehaviour continued on the Tenerife-Manchester flight as soon as the plane levelled out at 37,000 feet.
Spencer’s Bacardi had disappeared fairly quickly down his throat. He then demanded bar service and a frightened stewardess actually gave him four Bacardi miniatures and a couple of mini-cans of Coke before she was warned not to serve any more alcohol to him. He drank the booze with his knee digging into the back of the seat ahead of him, aggravating the man sitting in it, who constantly pushed backwards against his knee-caps to demonstrate his displeasure. All to no avail.
Next to Spencer, Cheryl was feeling queasy. The indulgence of the previous night — drugs, oral sex and extremely greasy beef burgers — was starting to exact its toll on her slight frame. When the pre-cooked breakfast was placed in front of her on the tray, she retched, belched, but managed to retain control of her stomach contents. Undeterred by the message from her body, she peeled the tinfoil lid off the food tray, sniffed the bacon, sausage and beans. That did the trick. She was immediately sick all over the meal and also the knees of the poor unfortunate woman next to her.
The woman emitted a shriek of disgust, catapulted out of her seat and overturned her own breakfast.
Spencer, whose constitution was far stronger, munched a mouthful of sausage and shouted, ‘Yeah — way to go!’
DS Danny Furness looked despondently at the computer screen in the Custody Office at Blackpool Central police station. Nineteen prisoners were still in custody from overnight; forty had actually been locked up for one thing or another since six the previous evening, but twenty-one had been dealt with and sent on their way. Out of these remaining, about six were possible customers for the CID. However, Danny decided that only two of them would be processed by detectives. These were the two who had been arrested for serious assaults — unconnected — in a night club. One of the victims was critical and the other had been stitched up like a knitted quilt.
Sunday morning, she thought. Wonderful. Loads to do, hardly anybody to do it with.
She trudged wearily up the stairs, forsaking the lift for health reasons, and headed for the CID office. She was particularly ‘made up’ when she saw the note on her desk informing her that one of her detectives had reported sick. That meant she would have to deal with one of the prisoners now.
‘ Listen, you,’ the man said, twisting round in his seat and looking angrily over the headrest. ‘Get your knees out of my back. This is the last time of asking. Next time I’ll punch your dim lights out.’
Spencer eyed the man disdainfully. The guy looked handy but probably hadn’t had a fight since he was a kid. And he was at least forty now with a podgy wife sitting next to him. He probably didn’t really want to mix it. Spencer wasn’t in the least intimidated, yet he nodded and removed his knees as requested.
When the man had settled back down, Spencer jammed his knees back in the seat and wedged himself into such a position that the man in front could almost feel the knee-caps pressing into his spine.
The man shot up and pressed the button above his head to summon cabin staff.
The Chief Stewardess, accompanied by a rather effeminate male colleague, arrived within moments. Spencer had been kept under observation throughout the flight which was approaching the halfway stage. The man Spencer had annoyed was irate and bustling. ‘That person,’ he said through gritted teeth, pointing menacingly at Spencer, ‘refuses to keep his knees out of my back. I have asked him several times but he only does it worse then. I want something done about it.’
With placating gestures, the Chief Stewardess tried to calm the situation. The body language, coupled with soothing talk, did the trick. The man settled back down into his seat when she promised some action.
The aisle seat next to Cheryl was now unoccupied. The woman who had been sitting there, who had been vomited on, had been moved to a vacant seat further back — one of only four on the whole plane.
The stewardess sat down on it and addressed the couple.
‘ I have spoken to the Captain about your behaviour,’ she said firmly, but with a faint touch of nervousness in her voice, because she recognised the instability of the two. ‘If you continue, he has told me that there will be no alternative but to restrain you and ensure the police are waiting for you when we land at Manchester. I don’t want that to happen, and I’m sure you don’t either, so I suggest you start to behave now, otherwise you’ll leave us with no choice in the matter.’
