We decided to stay put, rather than go outside and risk getting caught up in any amateur dramatics Lionel might have decided to put on. Plus, I had a feeling my legs might be embarrassingly wobbly. When Dave turned up at the garage, looking weary but triumphant, he gave my arm a dirty look. “Didn’t I tell you hanging around with Phil Morrison would be bad for your health?”
“Hey, if it wasn’t for him, I’d probably be dead,” I protested. “He pulled me out of the way of the blast—I hadn’t even realised Lionel was about to shoot.”
“Like you’d even have been here if it hadn’t been for Morrison.”
Okay, maybe he had a point. “You’ve got him, right?” I asked. “He’s not still running around somewhere, pointing guns at people—”
“Pushing them into swimming pools,” Phil put in.
“That’s what happened to you?” I asked, twisting round to look at him. Now he mentioned it, I could smell the chlorine on him.
Phil nodded. “Caught me by surprise—pushed me in, then whacked me over the head when I was trying to climb out. Suppose I should be grateful he didn’t leave me in there to drown.”
“Too risky,” Dave commented. “They’d have got chlorinated water out of your lungs. He was probably still hoping to pin it all on Graham Carter, and last time I looked, flats on the Dyke Hill estate didn’t come with their own swimming pools.”
“Didn’t think about the clothes, though, did he?” Phil said, sounding amused.
Dave shared a smile with him. “Amateurs, eh? But just as well your skull’s a bit thicker than Melanie Porter’s. Right, we’ve got an ambulance waiting for you, Tom—and you’d better get checked out too, Morrison. If you drop dead from hypothermia, it’ll make a right mare’s nest of my paperwork.” He turned to grin at me. “Come on, Tom. You can’t tell me you’re not gagging to get him out of those wet clothes.”
Bloody hell—Dave, joking about my poofy sex life? As I stared at his retreating back, Phil leaned closer to whisper in my ear. “Close your mouth. Much as I’d like to take advantage, I doubt I’ll be up for any of that tonight.”
He wasn’t joking, I realised, as we staggered out to the waiting ambulance together. Phil leaned on me heavily, and his steps were stiff and jerky. The paramedics took one look at him and broke out the shock blankets. Then they whisked us off to hospital, and that was the last I saw of Phil for a while.
By the time I’d been through the system—shot tweezered out of me; stitches; police statement—it was beyond late and well into early. Dave came over personally to tell me they were letting me go, which I appreciated. “Want a lift home?” he offered.
I hesitated. “I might wait for Phil . . .” I stifled a yawn.
“You’ll have to wait a long time. They’re keeping him in overnight. Just for observation. Come on, you look dead on your feet. You’d be no use to him anyhow.” He laughed.
“Are you always this cheerful when you catch a murderer?”
“Much as I’d like to think so, no, probably not.” Dave paused for a moment, then burst out with, “Jen’s back. Turned up this evening—last night, now. Said she realised she still loves me and asked if I’d take her back.”
“Yeah? That’s great! I mean, you do want her back, right?”
He nodded. “Yeah, in spite of everything—I do.” There was a big grin on his face. “Now, let’s get you home so you can get some sleep, because I’m bloody well not planning to.” He winked, presumably in case I hadn’t quite grasped what he was intending to do instead.
“Cheers, Dave,” I muttered. “Give me nightmares, why don’t you?”
Once we got in Dave’s BMW and set off, I couldn’t stop yawning. It would’ve been easy enough just to drop off in the passenger seat, lulled by the purr of a finely tuned engine, but something was still bugging me. “How . . . ’scuse me . . . How did Lionel know Merry needed murdering? I mean, I get there was some kind of blackmail situation going on there, and that must have been one of the things Merry was going to sort out—but how did Lionel know?”
Dave’s smile disappeared. “The stupid sod told him. Rang him up at 6 a.m. and asked him to come to the vicarage to discuss it. Lionel said he just flipped out, though not in so many words. Strangled the Reverend with the curtain tie, then strung him up so it’d look like suicide. Except he hadn’t realised the bruising would be in the wrong place. See, when you strangle someone—”
“Leave out the details, all right?” I said, making a face. “That really is going to give me nightmares.” I didn’t want to think about poor old Merry with his face all red, his neck bruised— Nope, didn’t want to think about it. “Was it quick?” I couldn’t help asking.
“There’s worse ways to go, believe me.” Dave’s face was grim as he said it, and I decided I was bloody glad I didn’t have his job.
“And it was all about him ‘borrowing’ church funds?”
Dave nodded. “Seems his construction company hasn’t been doing too well lately. Treadgood started out just steering all the church work their way—breach of trust in itself—but it wasn’t enough. Turns out that posh house of his is mortgaged up to the hilt, and the only way he could see to save it all was by taking a hammer to the church piggy bank.”
“Was it worth it? I mean, how much money do churches have?” I was thinking of Merry’s frayed cuffs.
“This one, apparently, had three-quarters of a million quid. Emphasis on had.”
“Bloody hell! What did they do—win the lottery?”
“In a manner of speaking. Get a lot of old people in churches, don’t you? Round here, rich old people. You only need one or two of ’em to leave their money to the church when they pop their pious little clogs, and you’re laughing.”
“Lionel must have been,” I muttered.
“Gift from the bloody gods, wasn’t it? Of course, the way he tells it, he wasn’t even doing anything wrong. Says he’s authorised to make investments on the church’s behalf. Trouble was, while he could bully the Reverend and the old parish administrator, Judith Reece, into going along with it, signing off on stuff, Melanie Porter was a whole different kettle of fish. She told him she’d report him if he didn’t pay back the money—which of course, he couldn’t do, ’cause he’d already spent it on keeping the business afloat and the wife in foreign holidays.”
“Do you think she knew about it?” I didn’t like to think of Patricia going along with stealing from the church.
“No—at least, that’s what old Lionel says, and I reckon he’s telling the truth. If you ask me, that’s the worst part of all this sodding mess, for him—having her find out what a god-awful pig’s arse he’d made of it all. Bit of an old-fashioned marriage, that—don’t you worry your pretty little head about money, that sort of thing.”
I nodded. “That’s what he said in the garage—why did you have to tell her?” God, I wondered how she was coping, now she knew the worst. Maybe I’d email her, tomorrow. Seeing as I was indirectly responsible for her husband ending up behind bars, I thought turning up in person might not be the best idea, at least until I’d tested the waters.
“Has he told you how he was planning to frame Graham for Phil’s, you know, death?” I couldn’t say the word without wincing. “I’ve been trying to think what motive Graham was supposed to have, but I’m coming up blank.”
“Yeah, well, it looks like you’re not the only one. Guess whose business card Lionel had on him?”
I yawned again. We were getting near Fleetville, and my bed was calling me. “Not a clue. Surprise me.”
“Some Polish cowboy by the name of Paretski. Apparently, your boyfriend’s untimely death was supposed to have been the result of a lovers’ tiff, and the body was going to turn up in the close vicinity of your house.”
Suddenly, I was a lot less sleepy. “What? He was going to frame me for it? Hang on a minute, how did he know me and Phil were seeing each other, anyway?”
Dave laughed. “Sunshine, everyone knows you and Morrison are seeing each other.”
“Wish they’d bloody told me a bit sooner, then,” I muttered, huddling down in the seat. We drove on in silence for a few minutes as I thought about it all—Phil dead, and me arrested for it. I’d almost been feeling a bit sorry for Lionel until now. Then again, that wasn’t exactly fair on Melanie and Merry either.
“How did Lionel dig up the dirt on Merry in the first place?” I asked as we drew into my road.
“He didn’t. That’s the sad part about it. I mean, yes, he was blackmailing the Reverend—but he didn’t have a bloody thing on him.” Dave shook his head. “Poor bastard—God knows what he thought Treadgood had found—apart from the gay thing, but let’s face it, you could tell that just by looking at him. Seems all Lionel had to do was just hint about secrets Lewis might not want spread about, and the Reverend was bending over backwards to do anything Lionel wanted. Guess we’ll never know what it was really all about, now.”
I swallowed. “No. Guess not.”
Oh, Merry, Merry, Merry. I didn’t like to speak ill of the dead—or even think it—but Christ, what a fucking car crash of a life.
At least he’d seemed a bit happier after we’d spoken. Maybe now he’d finally found some peace.
I slept like the dead for what was left of the night and woke up late to the sound of someone banging on my front door. The cats were milling around in the hallway when I went downstairs, Merlin peeking nervously out from behind Arthur’s solid form. From the general size and shape of the figure behind the frosted glass, I had a pretty good idea who was out there. My heart gave a little jump, like Merlin at his most skittish, as I went to open the door.
“About bloody time,” Phil grumbled. He was still looking a bit pale, or maybe it was just the contrast with the dark circles under his eyes.
I couldn’t seem to stop smiling at him. “Well? Are you coming in or what?”
“See you put on some trousers to come downstairs today,” he said, stomping through the hallway. It sounded like he disapproved.
“You might have been the postman. Or the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Course, that’d have been one way to scare them off,” I added, thinking about it.
“Or get yourself into even more trouble than usual,” Phil groused.
“Hey, it wasn’t me who was tied up in the boot of his own car,” I reminded him.
Without warning, he spun around and pulled me to him, crushing my bare chest against the soft warmth of yet another cashmere sweater. Maybe he had his own herd of goats. “Do you want to be?” he growled.
“Have you seen the boot space in a Fiesta? I might not be large, but even I wouldn’t find that a lot of fun.” I pretended to think. “The back of my van, on the other hand . . .”
“Kinky little sod.”
“I do my best.”
“That a promise?”
“Hey, are you really up for any of that sort of thing? When did they let you out of hospital?”
“I let myself out. Nothing wrong with me a bit of bed rest won’t cure.”
“I didn’t think it was rest you had on your mind. Bed, yeah, but—” The end of my sentence was swallowed as he kissed me.
Soon things were getting nicely out of hand. Phil’s sweater lay crumpled on the hall carpet, and my jeans were undone and with one of his hands shoved inside. But just about then, my brain finally woke up and reminded me I had a couple of unanswered questions.
“Wait a minute,” I said, pushing Phil off me—or trying to; it was like trying to move a mountain. A big, blond, horny mountain. “Oi, gerroff, will you?”
“What?” He backed off about a millimetre and stood there, face flushed, breathing hard.
Gazing into those darkened eyes, it was a bit of a struggle to remember what I’d wanted to ask him. “I just— What is all this, all right? You and me. Is it about me being able to find stuff for you, or you feeling guilty about my hip, or what?”
“Does it matter right now?”
I had to look away. “Yeah. Yeah, I think it does.”
Strong fingers took hold of my chin and gently turned my face back towards him. “I’m not going to lie to you. The way I feel about you—it’s complicated.” His thumb stroked my cheek in a soothing rhythm, and he smiled suddenly. “Doesn’t help when you go around saving my life either.”
“Why didn’t you call me before you went out there?” I asked, because that had been bugging me worst of all. “Decided you didn’t need me anymore?”
“No, you twat. I was going to confront a bloody murderer, wasn’t I? Why the hell would I want you putting yourself in danger?” Phil’s gaze darted down to my bandaged arm. “Christ, when I saw he was about to shoot you, and you just bloody stood there . . .” He broke off and took a couple of deep breaths.
I slid my arms around his waist and pulled him close to me again. Someday soon, we were going to have to have words about this obsession of his with protecting me.
But for now, I reckoned I had all the answers I needed.