Morrison knocked on my door on the dot of seven that evening, which meant that, as a job had overrun, I was still shovelling pasta into my gob at the time. I answered the door, plate in hand, and gazed up at his bulky figure, still chewing. He’d dressed up to go and see the Porters, even put a jacket and tie on. He looked good—but it made him seem more remote, more dangerous, without his hard lines softened by cashmere. I jerked my head to indicate he should come in. It’s rude to talk with your mouth full.
“Do you ever stop eating?” he asked, once again following me into the kitchen like he owned the place.
I was stung and swallowed my mouthful a bit more quickly than I really wanted to. “Do you ever stop to consider it might be someone’s mealtime before you start beating down their door?”
He went to fold his arms, then obviously remembered it’d crumple his expensive jacket, and put his hands on his hips instead. The gesture could have looked camp but somehow, on him, it really didn’t. “First, do you think you could stop being so sodding touchy about everything? And second, we had an appointment.”
“Oh, excuse me. I suppose I should have left the lady with water dripping through her ceiling and told her I’d come back tomorrow, because sorry, I’ve got an appointment.” I rolled my eyes, shoving the plate back on the kitchen counter. I’d had enough anyway.
Morrison sort of huffed. “Does everything have to be such a bloody production with you?”
“Comes of being queer, I expect. Wouldn’t you say?” I put a bit of emphasis on the you, narked he was making me out to be such a drama queen. Anyway, it was about time we got it all out in the open.
He stilled. “Who told you?”
I wasn’t about to drop Dave in it, even though he probably couldn’t give a monkey’s if Morrison was pissed off with him. “Maybe I read your mind,” I joked weakly. “Maybe there’s no end to my psychic powers.”
For a split second, he actually looked worried. Then his expression relaxed. “Stop trying to mess with my head, Poof— Shit.” He looked away and didn’t say anything more.
I took a couple of deep breaths. I was about to say, Look, let’s just leave it, okay—but he beat me to it. “Sorry,” he said, like it caused him physical pain to say it. “That wasn’t— I didn’t mean anything by it.”
There was a short silence. I didn’t know what to say, so I just nodded curtly. Acknowledging his apology, although not necessarily accepting it.
Morrison spoke again. “I checked up on you today. Apparently you’ve got previous, on the finding-things front. Doesn’t mean I believe in all this mumbo jumbo.”
Bloody fantastic. He’d checked up on me—so now he knew which porn I watched and had read all the rubbish I’d posted on Facebook after a few beers too many. “If you’re not going to believe what I say,” I said slowly, to make sure he was really listening, “then what’s the point of asking me questions?”
“Are you going to come with me to the Porters or not?” he asked, sidestepping the issue.
I sighed. “Let’s get this over with.”
This being late November, it was dark and beginning to get a bit nippy as we drove off in Morrison’s silver VW Golf. The car wasn’t new, but the interior was impersonal, devoid of any touches of personality like the “ironic” retro furry dice I had swinging from the rearview mirror of my Ford Fiesta like a couple of cubist bollocks. As we passed under a streetlamp, something glinted, and I noticed for the first time that Morrison was wearing a wedding ring.
“You’re married?” I blurted out, just managing to stop myself carrying on with, To a man?
Morrison’s gaze flickered over at me. For a moment, I thought there was something like hurt in his eyes, but it was gone before I could tell for sure, and he turned his attention back to the road. “No.”
“But you wear a ring.”
There was a pause before he answered. “People are more ready to trust a married man.”
God, and here I’d been thinking . . . I don’t know what I’d been thinking. But not this. “So it’s just a prop? For fuck’s sake, that’s so bloody cynical.” Disappointment sharpened my tone. “I suppose you’d do anything, say anything to get what you want.”
“And you’ve never told a customer work needs doing when it doesn’t, or got them to pay for fancy copper pipes when plastic would do?”
“No, actually, I haven’t. And I fucking well resent you even suggesting it.” I folded my arms and glared out of the window. I could see this being a very long evening. Why the hell hadn’t I brought my own car?
“Look,” Morrison said after a painful silence. “If I’m going to do my job—the job my clients pay me to do—sometimes I need to get people to trust me. So maybe some of it’s an act—but don’t go telling me you don’t do the same thing in your line of work.”
“What, lie to people? No, I don’t.”
“And I suppose you’ve never flirted with a housewife? Just so she won’t argue about the bill, or to make sure it’ll be you she calls in next time some work needs doing?”
“That’s different, and you know it.”
“Is it? Didn’t notice any rainbow stickers on your van.”
“Yeah, well, for some reason, I thought it might be safer not to advertise I’m queer. Can’t imagine where I got that impression, can you?”
“For fuck’s sake, I never laid a finger on you! It was that prick in the Chelsea tractor who did the damage, not me.” He was breathing hard, and his knuckles were white on the steering wheel. I was starting to wonder just how safe I was in his car when he spoke again. “What the hell do you expect me to do? I tried to apologise, but— Fuck it.” Morrison clammed up, his jaw tense.
I wasn’t sure if I felt more angry at him—or guilty. Was my moral high ground really the boggy ditch he was making it out to be? Then again, did he think an apology was some kind of emotional Band-Aid? Stick it on, give the kid a kiss better, and all the pain goes away? “You can’t just turn up after a dozen years, say ‘Oh, sorry,’ and expect us to be best mates all of a sudden,” I said, softening my tone a bit. “It doesn’t work like that.” I wished I knew how it bloody well did work.
“Want me to go down on my knees, do you?” Phil asked wearily, and all of a sudden I got a picture of just that. Him in his posh suit and all. My throat closed up with desire, and things below the belt got a bit uncomfortable. I stared straight ahead at the pitch-black road lined with trees that loomed ominously over us, dark shadows against the cloudy sky. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Phil—Morrison—flashing me a strange look. Did he know? I wondered—could he tell he still got to me?
I cleared my throat. “So where’s this house, then?”
The Porters’ house, like Morrison’s suit, was big and posh, out in the well-kept rural wilds towards Kimpton. I wondered what they’d thought about their daughter moving in with an ex-junkie on a council estate. Morrison had said they believed Graham was innocent, but just because they didn’t think he was a murderer didn’t mean they necessarily thought he was a good prospect for a son-in-law.
I supposed I’d find out soon enough. Morrison rang the doorbell, which even sounded classy—old-fashioned and mellow, like something Gary might approve of, not a tinny little buzzer like the one that’d come with my house. The door was opened by a lady who looked to be in her sixties. She tried to raise a smile for us, but her mouth settled back into its haggard lines before the effort really got off the ground. Melanie’s mother, I guessed.
“Come in, please,” she said.
Morrison’s voice was gentler than I’d ever heard it as he introduced us. “Mrs. Porter, this is Tom Paretski.”
She nodded and held out a cold, dry hand for me to shake. “Please come in,” she said again, and led us to a largish sitting room. A man who must be Melanie’s father was sitting in an armchair, staring at the curtains. His gaze flickered to us briefly, then returned to the pale-pink damask.
I really, really didn’t want to be here.
“Howard, this is Tom Paretski,” Mrs. Porter said. “He’s the one who . . . who found Melanie.”
The man didn’t react. “Please sit down,” she told us, and we perched gingerly on the sofa while she sat in an uncomfortable-looking upright chair. “Would you like a cup of tea?”
I wished she’d offered something stronger. “No, I’m fine, thank you,” I said firmly. I wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible. What was the point of me even being here, intruding on their grief? “I’m really sorry about your daughter,” I said, the inadequacy of it a bitter taste in my mouth.
Morrison shook his head in his turn, and Mrs. Porter reached over to put her cold hand on mine. I tried not to shiver reflexively. “Thank you for finding her. I don’t like to think of her, all alone . . .” She sat back and blinked rapidly a few times, her face turned away from me.
“Tom,” Morrison said, my Christian name sounding strange in his voice, “if there’s anything you can tell us—anything at all that might help . . .”
I stood up convulsively and walked over to the fireplace. “I wish there was,” I said, looking at a photograph of Graham and Melanie on the mantelpiece. He’d hardly changed since I’d known him—still the same skinny, serious face and unruly dark hair. They both looked well and very happy together. “I really wish there was. I’m so sorry. I just—I just have this knack of finding things, that’s all. Or people,” I added, realising what I’d said.
“Philip told us you were a friend of Graham’s,” Mrs. Porter said. It sounded like she’d got up and followed me over here. “We know Graham could never have done this.”
How could she be so certain?
“He loved her too much. He worshipped her,” she went on, answering my unspoken question.
You always hurt the one you love, I thought.
I steeled myself and turned round. As I’d suspected, she was standing right by me. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Porter,” I said. “If there was anything I could do to make sure the killer of your daughter is brought to justice, I would. But there’s nothing I can tell you. I’m sorry.”
We drove off in silence. After a while, Morrison spoke. “I believe you don’t know anything.”
“That’s nice of you.” It might have come out sounding a bit sarcastic. I certainly meant it to.
He sighed. “Look, put yourself in my position. The girl you’ve been hired to find turns up dead, and now her fiancé—a friend of yours—faces getting stitched up for murder. Wouldn’t you do anything you could think of to get a witness to open up?”
“They were engaged?” I flashed back to when I’d held her hand. God, yes, there had been a ring. I shivered. “Look, for God’s sake, I don’t want Graham going to jail for something he didn’t do any more than you do, but—”
“I told you, I believe you.” He cut me off impatiently.
“Have you seen him?”
“Earlier today. He’s a wreck—no surprise there. It doesn’t help, the police pulling him in for questioning every five minutes.”
“Maybe he should stay with the Porters,” I mused.
Morrison gave a derisive snort. “She may believe in him, but the husband’s not so sure. Didn’t you notice he didn’t say word one this evening?”
I’d taken his silence for simple grief—but yeah, thinking about it, there could have been hostility in there too. God, what a mess.
When we got back to my house, it wasn’t yet nine o’clock, but I felt like I’d been up for a week.
“Can I come in?” Morrison asked.
“Why?”
“To talk.”
“Fine. But that’s all you’re getting,” I quipped without a lot of humour.
The cats had come back in from wherever they spent their days and sent suspicious glares Morrison’s way before greeting me effusively. Probably because I hadn’t had time to put their food out earlier. I rectified this whilst waiting for the kettle to boil, then made a cafetière of coffee while they scarfed down their Fisherman’s Choice. It occurred to me I hadn’t asked Morrison if coffee was what he wanted, but then it further occurred to me that actually, if he was going to be fussy, he could make his own drinks. I was too bloody knackered. I sloshed in some milk and handed him the mug.
“Thanks,” he said.
“So talk,” I told him.
“Can’t we take this somewhere more comfortable?”
Grudgingly, I made my way into the living room and slumped into an armchair. Morrison parked his arse on the sofa without waiting for an invitation, leaning back and resting his ankle on the opposite knee. Making himself at home, and incidentally providing me with a view of his crotch I tried very hard not to stare at. Even if he did improve the look of my battered old sofa by several hundred percent.
“What did Southgate tell you about me?” he asked, his tone and expression neutral. I bet he practised that sort of thing in front of the mirror.
“All he said was that you’re an ex-copper and you’re queer. Oh, and a pain in the bum. But I knew that already.” I reached down to fondle Arthur, and he jumped up onto my lap and kneaded it into submission before graciously deigning to curl up and purr. Merlin, the little traitor, went over and rubbed his chin all over Morrison’s trousers. “So, this being a poof. How’s that working out for you?”
“Could be better,” he said frankly. “Look, Tom—all right if I call you Tom?”
“You did earlier. Phil,” I added pointedly.
“Right. Look, school wasn’t an easy time for any of us.”
“Yeah, being the leader of a gang of thugs can’t have been easy for a sensitive little flower like you.”
“Like we ever laid a finger on you. All right, maybe there was a bit of pushing and shoving—”
“It’s not all about the physical stuff!” I’d have stood up, but Arthur was restraining me. As it was, he opened one sleepy eye to reproach me for disturbing his rest. I lowered my voice. “Have you got any idea what it was like for me, everyone calling me names, laughing at me—to my face?”
“Water off a duck’s back,” he said, but he wasn’t sounding as certain as a moment ago.
“Oh, so now you’re the mind reader, are you? Let me tell you, you big bloody hypocrite—” I broke off as he stood and crossed the room to loom over me. His expression was unreadable, and I wondered if I’d pushed him too far. My heart was racing, and to my shame, my cock stirred, which, when you’ve got a cat on your lap, feels beyond wrong.
Morrison—Phil—bent down and reached out to cup my face with a hand. “Always did know how to wind me up, didn’t you, Tom?”
What? It was the other way round, wasn’t it?
Wasn’t it?
Phil straightened and walked out without so much as a good-night kiss.