"Hello," I ventured. "Is that Rodney Allen, please?"
"Yes!" he snapped. "Why you not leave me alone?"
"My name's Charlie," I told him. "Do you think we could have a little talk?"
"What about?" he asked, his voice wavering with fear. I could imagine him, quailing in a corner of his little room.
"Oh, this and that, Rodney. Are the policemen still outside your house?"
"Yes, they are. Lots of policemen."
"Well, I'm not with them, Rodney. I was, about an hour ago, but I'm fifty miles away, now. I've decided to go home for my tea and leave you in peace. Tell me this: do you have a gun?"
"Not a real gun. Don't have a real gun. Real guns dangerous."
"Very dangerous, Rodney. I'm glad you don't have a real gun. Did you make it yourself?"
"Yes. Rodney made it."
"What with?"
"Some pipe and a piece of wood."
"That sounds very clever. All those policemen are fooled by it. Why did you make a gun, Rodney? What did you want it for?"
"To scare lads and lasses."
"What lads and lasses, Rodney?"
"Lads and lasses that come round and throw stones at windows. Say Rodney's not all there. Bad people."
"They gave you a bad time."
"Yes."
"Did you point your gun at them?"
"Yes. Rodney point gun at them."
"Did they run away?"
"Yes."
"And did they stop coming round?"
"Yes, but tell police."
"I see." The local youths had given him some hassle, and then we had.
My contribution hadn't helped at all. "Listen, Rodney," I said.
"Listen very carefully to what I say. Can you hear me?"
"Yes. Rodney hear you."
"Where are you sitting?"
"On floor, in corner."
"Right. Are you sitting in the dark, in there?"
"Yes. Not put light on. They shoot me if I put light on."
"No they won't. Nobody will shoot you unless you start pointing your gun at people. Have you got your gun with you?"
"Yes. Is here."
"Good. Do you want me to help you get out of this, Rodney? If you do as I tell you the policeman and the lady doctor from North Bay House will look after you. Are you listening?"
"Rodney frightened."
"I know you are. I'm frightened, too. Will you promise to do exactly as I tell you? Then you'll be OK."
"Promise to do as you tell me."
"Good man. I want you to unwrap the gun, Rodney, and throw it to the other side of the room. Have you done that?"
There was a pause, then: "Done that."
"OK. Now this is the bit where you have to be brave. I want you to stand up and put the light on. Then I want you to put your hands above your head and walk very slowly to the window and stand there, so they can see you. Do you understand what I'm saying, Rodney?"
"Surrender. You want me surrender."
"I want you to give yourself up. You've made your point, Rodney, and we don't want anyone else to be hurt, do we?"
"Rodney not want to hurt anyone."
"Good man. When they come to get you they will shout at you, but they won't hurt you. Some policemen like shouting, but they don't mean it.
I promise that. They'll tell you to lie on the floor. Just do as they say, very slowly. Nobody will hurt you. Understand?"
"Rodney know what you mean. See it on telly."
"OK, Rodney, this is what you do. Stand up. Put the light on. Walk very slowly to the window and stand there with your hands above your head. Understand?"
"I understand."
"There's a good man, Rodney. Do it. Do it now."
I heard a rumble and a scrape as he laid the handset on the floor, leaving the line open. I thought I heard the click of the light switch, but it may have been my imagination. A trickle of sweat ran down my spine, zigging and zagging an inch at a time, like the raindrops on the windows.
"Just pray that one of those trigger-happy bastards doesn't open fire,"
I whispered, holding the phone at arm's length.
"Keep still!" we heard someone bellow, quite distinctly, followed by what might have been a Heckler and Koch's rifle stock being slammed into the extended position.
"Put your hands on your head!" They had a very loud voice.
"Now! Slowly. Kneel down."
"Face down on the floor."
"Stretch your arms out."
I counted to ten, to give them time to put the cuffs on, and shouted:
"Hello! Hello! Anyone there?" into the phone.
More rumbles and scrapes, before a voice demanded: "Who is this?"
"This is DI Priest of Heckley CID," I told him. "Who are you, please?"
"Oh, er, Sergeant Todd, sir. Tactical firearms unit."
"Good evening, Sergeant. Rodney is a friend of mine, so treat him kindly. Remember, he did give himself up. Please tell the superintendent that I'm glad to have been of assistance. Goodnight." I clicked the phone off and clenched my fists in a gesture of triumph.
Nigel was grinning like a fireplace.
"You jam my so-and-so!" he said.
I rang Annabelle, the long way, and told her we were running late but homing in on a fair wind and a wide throttle.
"You sound happy," she said. "Have you been drinking?"
"Nothing stronger than tea has passed these lips," I told her. "Coming to see you always fills me with the joy of life."
Nigel tutted and looked away.
Guns have a language all their own. You cock a single-action revolver by pulling the hammer back with your thumb. Pawls mesh into gears and rotate the chamber one sixth of a turn, bringing the next cartridge in line with the barrel. The resulting c-click has been used in a thousand westerns to terrorise goody, baddy and audience alike as the gun was pressed against someone's head.
It's different with an automatic. You slide the mechanism back to bring the first cartridge from the clip into the breech, with aka-chink that is as familiar to armchair fans of gangster films as the smell of a smoke-filled speakeasy or the tinkling of a honky-tonk.
A sawn-down repeater shotgun says chunk-chunk as the next round is jacked into the chamber, and you know that death or serious bleeding is coming to someone.
But the Heckler and Koch is a disappointment. There's nothing like that with the Heckler. You put the safety to fire and you're away. The gun comes with an extending rifle stock and they usually snap it into position silently, in the privacy of the van, before moving into position. For more intimate situations a few officers have invented a little strategy that's not in the manual. They will have the stock loosely extended but not locked. At the right moment they will bark their instructions at the target and yank the stock home, hard. The resulting chuck of catches snapping into place is mundane and meaningless, but in the psychology of brinkmanship it strikes terror in the already sweaty palms of the hearer.
Annabelle had cooked one of my favourites trout and almonds for me, followed by home-made cheesecake. We'd called at the Granada services on the M62 and I'd bought a bunch of carnations, to put me in the good books, and the JFK video, to save time collecting Sparky's copy from home. Only trouble was, I was wearing the clothes I'd been sitting and standing about in all day and was unshaven. I apologised for my appearance and told her about Rodney, which was a mistake. All her sympathy immediately transferred to him.
"So," I said, after I'd topped up her glass with the last of the Spanish red we both like, 'how did the trip go?"
"Very well," she replied. "I'll show you my ideas." She stood up and left the room. We'd eaten off the large refectory table in her kitchen. I cleared our crockery away and when she returned we spread the drawings out.
"Unfortunately the fabrics have already been ordered," she said, 'so we have to work around them. Actually, it makes it easier, I suppose."
They were architects' impressions of the interiors, and Annabelle had coloured them in. Her schemes looked good, although her skills with the pencils required polishing. "Use the edge, like this," I said, and coloured a wall on a spare drawing. "And make the end of the wall that is nearer to you a little bolder. If you're doing it quickly, for an immediate impression, use big zigzags, full of confidence. Don't be faint-hearted. Like this."
I handed her the pencil and made her show me. We were talking about drawing, which I know about, and avoiding discussing her trip to London, which I didn't. She was grateful for the diversion, I accepted it.
"These are very good," I told her, pointing, meaning it. "You have brilliant colour sense, and you're prepared to be adventurous. Zorba should be delighted."
"He's called Xavier," she reminded me.
"Sorry. So when is your next expenses-paid jaunt?"
"I have to go to the new site, near West Midlands Airport, to meet the architects, sometime on Thursday."
"Will you stay down there?"
"I think so. It's called market research. If it's a morning meeting it might be easier for me to go down tomorrow night. I'll stay at the Post Chase our big rivals to see what I can learn, and consider ways of improving upon same."
"It sounds fun," I admitted.
"Mmm, it is. I'm enjoying myself."
"Will you drive down?"
"Yes, I'll have to. I can manage the West Midlands."
"You know you've only to say the word and I'd gladly take you."
When she smiles at me like she did I know there is nothing I wouldn't do for her. I almost wished some great catastrophe would overtake us, some suffering we could rise above that would hold us together for ever. But all I had was a lopsided grin and a few stumbling phrases.
"I know you would, Charles," she said. "You're very kind to me. Shall we take our tea in the other room and watch the video?"
I was a child of the Kennedy era. We believed we were poised on the brink of a new age, when war would be waged against poverty and ignorance, and not against our fellow men. "Let us begin," he told us.
Those shots at Dallas didn't just kill a president, they blew out the dreams of a generation. I'd never known that a prosecution had been brought against factions of the mafia and their Cuban connections. New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison pursued his case until it almost destroyed his family, but in the end he lost the trial and saved his marriage. I'd call that success.
Annabelle's head was on my shoulder as we watched it, my arm around her. I had cramp for the last hour, but bore it stoically. "Do you think we'll ever know the truth?" she asked, as we washed the supper dishes.
"Not really," I replied. "Where does this go?"
"In there, please."
"We'll know it, but not recognise it. It's there, somewhere, along with all the other stuff."
"Do you believe there was a conspiracy?"
"Yes," I replied. "I'm a pathological believer in conspiracies."
I stayed the night. We went to bed and made love, because that's what grown-ups do when they go to bed together. Afterwards, I lay awake for hours, wondering what might have been. I think Annabelle did, too. She was snuffling in her dreams when I sneaked away at about six thirty, my car engine rattling like a clarion call in the stillness of the vicarage close.
I was close-shaved and clean-shirted when I took the morning meeting.
The petty criminals of Heckley hadn't taken a day off while I went to the seaside, so there was plenty to talk about. After that the first team met in my office for an update on the doc's murder. I let Nigel tell Sparky and Maggie all about the Siege of Scarborough.
"And the psychiatrist is calling in the local nick this morning to make a statement," he finished with. Sparky put a number three in the appropriate box on his chart and looked glum.
Nigel had a report to write and the computer to update. Sparky and Maggie were investigating ways of breaking the confidentiality rules around the abortions at the clinic. Barraclough was the obvious approach, or perhaps their counsellor might be helpful. He'd told us that all the potential mothers were given counselling. We didn't want copies of all the records a nudge towards someone they'd had concerns about would do nicely.
I rang Les Isles with the bad news and spent the rest of the morning on paperwork. Les said not to worry, it had been worth a try, which was seven orders of support away from what he'd claimed yesterday. In the afternoon I went to the regional inspectors' meeting. We're supposed to talk about trends, developments and tactics. As usual we discussed pay, tenure of office and the precarious nature of the chief inspector rank. I didn't hear a word of it. My mind was elsewhere. Before I left Annabelle's, earlier that morning, I'd written her a letter and left it propped against the electric kettle. Now she knew exactly how I felt, and what my plans were.
I called in the office on my way home, in case there was anything brewing that I needed to know about. It could all wait. I had the place to myself, so I rang the force medical officer. He's an old pal of mine. We wished each other a happy New Year and had a long chat. He complained that he and his wife hadn't seen me for a long time and, pleasantries over, confirmed what he'd told me a few years earlier about the state of my health. I promised to go for Sunday lunch in the near future and dialled my next number.
Our divisional chief inspector (personnel) was still at Ms desk. "No," he said, as soon as he recognised my voice.
"You don't know the question," I argued.
"The answer's still no."
"So, if my question was… oh… "Are there any disadvantages if I retire at the weekend?" the answer is still no?"
"Bugger!" he exclaimed. "It's no wonder you've got to where you are.
Happy New Year, Charlie. What can I do for you?"
"Happy New Year, Bob. I've just rung Doc Evans and he's confirmed that I can still go on ill health, if I so desire. I've had a word with pay section and they're calculating my terms. All I want now is the go-ahead from you."
"You're wanting out?"
"I think so."
"I don't blame you, Charlie. I've had enough, myself. It's a different game from when we joined. You haven't been sick, have you?"
"No, it's the old war wound. There's still a couple of shotgun pellets floating around inside me that could cause trouble anytime. The doc tried to persuade me to go when it happened, but I didn't want to leave, then. Now I want to sort out my private life, so it might be better to jump, before I'm kicked out."
"Are you still with the tall lady? Annabelle, was it?"
"Yeah. Maybe if I put as much effort into this relationship as I've put into the job we might make something of it."
"There's a lot of sense in that. You've over twenty-six and a half in, haven't you?"
"By a couple of years," I replied.
"OK, so you'll go on the full two-thirds, and your pension will start right away. How much leave have you left?"
"All of it."
"And your white card?"
That's our record of days owed for unpaid overtime and holidays worked, except that inspectors do not recognise overtime. "I've stopped filling it in," I replied.
"OK. So just send me your minute sheet, saying: "I hereby inform you that I wish to retire on such a date…" Give us a month, as required. Meanwhile, try to negotiate yourself some of the leave that's owed you. With two weeks leave you could be gone in a fortnight."
"As simple as that?"
"As simple as that."
"It's a bit frightening, all of a sudden."
"I know, but it'll overtake you, one day soon, if you don't take the plunge, Charlie."
"I'll think about it. Thanks, Bob. Keep your eye on the post."
"Invite me to the bash. See you."
A fortnight! I could be gone in a fortnight! On full terms! I had to tell someone. I rang Annabelle, but there was no answer. I stood up, walked round the office, sat down again. Gilbert wasn't in, either. I thought about treating myself to a meal at the Bamboo Curtain, but I wasn't hungry. I strolled round the main office, reading the papers on the desks, the notices on the walls. Jeff Caton's sweater was still over his chair back. One of the others had a framed picture of his motorbike on his desk. Two cartoons torn from newspapers, brown with age, were pinned on the board, both featuring someone called Charlie.
What was it Herbert Mathews said? "Once you leave, you're history."
It'd be a wrench, but I could do it.
It was drizzling outside, but it felt right. I unlocked the car and started the engine. Ideally, I'd have liked to have walked home, feeling the rain on my face. I'd have plenty of time for walking, unless I took the offer of a partnership from Eric Dobson. There were decisions to be made, discussions to be held, and fast. Two more weeks! I put the car in gear and eased out of the station yard. There was a strange feeling in my stomach, churning at my innards. I think it was fear.
I called in M and S for a few ready meals and some fruit. There'd be more time for shopping. The girl at the till gave me an extra special smile, as if she shared my secret. I called in the travel agent's again for some more brochures to go with the ones I still hadn't shown Annabelle. California, this time, and the Seychelles.
The ansa phone was beeping. I put the stuff in the freezer, hung up my jacket and changed my shoes. Annabelle didn't answer when I pressed her button, so I listened to the tape. It was her, message timed at 10.12 a.m.
"Oh, er, hello, Charles," she said, rather hesitantly. "It's Annabelle. I, er, I found your note, after you left. I don't know what to say. I'm driving down to the West Midlands Airport this afternoon. There's a meeting with the architect tomorrow, at the Post Chase. I'll be staying there overnight and will probably come home after the meeting. I'll talk to you then. "Bye."
So now she knew. We'd been cruising along quite nicely for all this time, in an eternal courtship. It's usually regarded as the happiest time of your life it was mine so why spoil it? But the human condition is not to be content with what we have. We need to consolidate, to constantly renew, to mark our territory, build a nest. Maybe Xav had done me a favour, galvanised me out of my state of happy lethargy.
Perhaps that's what Annabelle had in mind all along? I smiled at her unexpected guile. "I bet he's a four-foot Saddam Hussein with bad breath," I said to my reflection in the bathroom mirror.
I could make the West Midlands Airport in an hour and a half. That would make it about eight o'clock. I asked directory enquiries for the number of the Post Chase and dialled it.
"I believe you have a Mrs. Wilberforce staying with you," I said. "She checked in sometime today."
"Mrs. Wilberforce? Yes, that's right."
I asked to be put through to her room, but she didn't answer the phone.
Probably using the pool, I thought, wishing I were already there, with her.
"Would you like me to page her, sir?" the desk clerk asked.
"No, but I'd be grateful if you could take a message for her, leave it under her door, or whatever. Could you tell her that Mr. Priest is coming down, and will be there about eight o'clock?"
I dressed nonchalantly smart, with a tie from the flamboyant end of my range, and hit the streets. The M1 was busy, as usual, but there were no hold-ups. I stuffed Dylan's Before the Flood live concert tape into the cassette and sang the words of every song, tapping time on the steering wheel with my fingers. We were just starting the opening number, Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine, for the second time as I tried to decipher the jumble of signs on the approach to the airport, peering between the sweeps of the windscreen wipers. A Mercedes glided across my bows and turned in the direction I needed.
Nice car, I thought, pressing the eject control and swinging after it.
It had all changed since my last visit, when I picked up Sparky and family after a fortnight at one of the Costas. Somebody was investing a lot of money around here. I eased over the speed bumps, past the raised barrier into the Post Chase car park. The Merc stopped under the canopy at the entrance; I kept going, round to where the hoi polloi left their motors. It was nearly full. These places cater for businessmen on expenses. They are chock-a-block through the week and empty at weekends. Annabelle had been lucky to get a room.
I found a space and dashed towards the entrance, slowing to a walk as I reached the shelter of the canopy. The passenger from the Merc was having a last word with his chauffeur, probably telling him to beeswax his polo pony or rake the gravel in the wine cellar, as a flunky hovered nearby with a huge umbrella, shivering patiently in his bum-freezer jacket. I strolled to the desk and waited for some service.
An attractive girl in a burgundy cap smiled at me and asked if she could help.
"You have a Mrs. Wilberforce staying here," I said. "Could you please ring her room and tell her that Mr. Priest is at the desk?"
She consulted her VDU screen and dialled a number. I turned to scrutinise the place. Market research, Annabelle had called it. They hadn't skimped on the size it was immense. Three piece suites were dotted about like atolls in the Pacific, with copses of shrubs, real or otherwise, contributing to the feeling of space. First impressions were good, and most visitors wouldn't have a chance to form any others.
I nodded approvingly. It was an ideal place for pursuing two of my passions: sipping tea from a china service and people-watching.
"Mrs. Wilberforce doesn't appear to be in her room sir. Would you like me to page her?"
A silver-haired man in a silver suit came through the revolving door, adjusting his cuffs and taking a cursory glance around the foyer.
Judging by the lack of raindrops on his jacket he was from the Mercedes. He was about sixty and obviously knew where he was going, in more ways than one. He struck off across the hinterland of the foyer and I noticed a discreet sign pointing towards the restaurant.
"Shall I page her for you, sir?" the girl was repeating.
"Pardon," I replied.
A woman stood up. They faced each other for a moment, his arms held open. She moved into their embrace and he kissed her on both cheeks.
She returned the kiss, but on his lips. They exchanged a word or two and he gestured towards the restaurant. The last I saw of them they were walking towards it, his hand on the small of her back, she turning to speak to him, animated and lively.
"Sir?"
"Er, sorry?"
"Shall I page Mrs. Wilberforce for you?"
"No," I said. "It doesn't matter. Thank you."
I sat in the car for a long time. I don't remember how I got there, but I could feel the wetness striking through my clothes. Feel it as an observation, oblivious of the discomfort.
"It's Charlie," I said, when the duty sergeant answered the phone, when I felt coherent enough to speak. "Could you do me a PNC check, please?" I gave him the number.
"Are you all right, Boss?" he replied. "You don't sound your usual chirpy self."
"Tired, Arthur, just tired."
"Don't go away."
He was back on the line in a minute or so. "You don't mess about with nonentities, do you, Chas?" he said. "It's come back as a smoke silver Mercedes 420, keeper details: Audish Trading, at a London address. Do you need chassis and engine numbers?"
"No, that's fine thanks."
"Anything else?"
"No. I'll try not to bother you again. Goodnight."
"No bother. G'night, Boss."
So that was Xavier Audish. I didn't need telling who the woman was. We were old friends, or I thought we were.
Apart from the Gary Glitter CD, on which they had deliberately left the price tag showing that Woolworth's had sold it at a loss, Sophie and Daniel, Sparky's kids, had also given me Nigel Kennedy's Four Seasons.
It was totally inappropriate, so I put it on. I'd arrived home safely, after cruising up the motorway in the slow lane and having a long stop for supper at the Woodall services. I sat in front of the fire, my coat and shoes still on, nodding my head in time to the music and occasionally conducting with a raised finger. Love him or hate him, he plays like an angel. Each time it ended I pressed the replay button and heard it again, until the heat from the fire was burning my legs and stinging my eyes.
I crawled into bed with Vivaldi's frantic rhythms pulsating through my head, leaving no room for other thoughts. At two o'clock a cat started yowling in next door's garden; at three I heard a train pulling a heavy load up the gradient towards Manchester the wind must have been from the West; and at four thirty my central heating switched itself on with a clunk that reverberated through the house. I had a shower and found some clean clothes.
Unpredictability is a quality I've tried to cultivate over the years.
If I realise I've fallen into a habit, I change my behaviour. It wasn't habit that took me to work that morning, it was a determination not to do what anybody might have expected of me. I could have driven to Cape Wrath and studied the sequence of the waves. I could have put my boots on and hiked over Black Hill and Bleaklow until hunger drove me off the tops. More sensibly, I thought about ringing Sparky's wife and offering to take Sophie and Daniel off her hands for the day. Two films at the multi-screen, followed by a beefburger and chips, with all the fixings, would have been a handy diversion. But I went to work.
I cruised through the morning briefings, deployed the troops, feigned interest when answering the phone. I read reports and information sheets, made notes and generally created an impression of busyness. At ten to twelve I received a message from Scarborough saying that Rodney Allen had been granted bail on condition that he stayed at North Bay House. He was off my list of suspects. He couldn't possibly have shot Dr. Jordan. It was just the excuse I needed to dash over there to see him.
The home wasn't in the same league as the White Rose Clinic. It dated from early in the century and every attempt at modernisation had gone to the lowest tender. The walls were dirty above the easy reach of an underpaid cleaner and ribbons of electric cables for phones, power and monitoring were stapled on top of oak panelling that would have had the green lobby crying into their tofu. I saw Rodney but hardly spoke to him. He didn't remember our phone call the siege or hitting a policeman. There are stories about Yorkshiremen knowing when to be slow, but his condition had been encouraged by the application of certain class B substances. They'd doped him to make him docile. The doctor hadn't found time to make a statement, so I persuaded her to write me a brief assurance that Rodney had been at the home on the night of the crime, and I left. I had fish and chips in Scarborough and sat in the car for nearly an hour listening to the news and watching waves crash over the Marine Drive. A scientist in California was claiming to have identified a gene for homosexuality and an MP had been found dead in his Westminster flat with a plastic bag over his head and his trousers around his knees. Foul play was not suspected.
As my mother used to say, there's always someone worse off than yourself.
Sometimes, before an interview, I run through all the likely answers. I choose my questions carefully and consider as many responses as I'm capable of imagining. More often, these days, I just make it up as I go along. I ask a few sighting questions, to test the range and the direction of the wind, then let go with the big guns. This time I didn't know what to do, because I knew the outcome was already settled.
Annabelle's little car was on her drive as I reversed in behind it. I'd been home and shaved. I was going to change my clothes but decided not to. What you see is what you get. I switched off the engine, pulled the brake on and left the gear in neutral. It was ready for a smooth, unhurried getaway.
I pushed the doorbell, but didn't go in.
"Hello, Charles," she said, softly, when she saw me standing there. "I thought I heard a car. I wasn't expecting you."
"I won't keep you long," I said, following her in. She sat at one end of the settee, but I stayed on my feet. "About the note I left," I said.
She was wearing grey trousers in a silky material, with an emerald green blouse outside them. Her face looked pale against the bright green. "I… I was going to ring you," she began. "I don't know what to say…"
"I'll make it easy for you," I told her. "The note is withdrawn. I rang your hotel last night and left a message. Did you receive it?"
"A message? No. I received no message. What did you say?"
"I said I was coming down to the Post Chase, to take you to dinner."
She swallowed and looked shaken. "I was asking for you at the desk when Audish walked in. I saw you with him, Annabelle. I saw you kiss each other. I saw the way you tilted your head as you spoke to him, and watched the swing of your skirt as you walked away from me."
Her eyes were filling with tears. "I've got to say this," I went on, 'although I know the answer. We could start again. We had something special, Annabelle. You don't throw that away lightly. I don't know anything about Audish, except one thing: he's not for you." I left it at that. Slagging him off would be counter productive. "Come with me," I begged. "Now."
Tears were running down her cheeks. She sniffed and wiped them away with her fingertips. "I didn't want to hurt you, Charles," she sobbed.
"You've been so good to me. I didn't know what to do."
"I thought you loved me."
"I did love you. I still do."
"So come with me."
She shook her head.
"You love Audish more?"
"Yes," she sobbed.
"Right," I said. "Right. You can keep my things. Take them to the Oxfam shop, if you still remember where it is." At the door I turned back to her. "I always knew I'd lose you, Annabelle," I told her.
"Deep down, I knew that one day you'd hurt me, that I could never hold on to you. But I thought it would be the kind of hurt I'd cherish for the rest of my life. I thought you'd be in Africa or India or somewhere, maybe married again, but we'd always be friends. I'd get a card from you, at Christmas; that sort of thing. I knew you'd hurt me;
I never dreamed you'd… you'd… do this to me." I never dreamed you'd disappoint me. That's what I nearly said.
I opened the door. "You know where to find me," I told her. "But I won't be waiting."
I'd run out of things to do, places to go, dogs to kick. You can only drive up on to the tops so many times to watch the lights in the valley until they blur together in a yellow swamp. I was a big boy, now. I tuned-in to the country music station, because I can't stand country-fucking-music, and drove home.
The postman had been. Lying on my doormat was an envelope with a window, postmark and style of typing that told me exactly from where it came. It was the same as the ones my monthly salary statements come in, except the next one wasn't due for another three weeks. That was quick, I thought. Pay section had been on the ball, for once. Maybe they wanted rid of me. I put the envelope on the telephone table, unopened. If I didn't open it I could always swear I hadn't received it.
I love my shower. When I'm lost for something to do, or have twenty minutes to spare, or people in the office start giving me sideways glances and moving away, I have a shower. I do some of my best thinking with the hot jets impinging on my back and soap running into my eyes. Annabelle had given me some smelly stuff for my birthday. I finished it off with a lavish portion that had the plug hole struggling to cope with the foam. Tonight I'd smell nice, for nobody in particular, and one reminder of her would be consigned to the bin.
I pushed my thought processes in other directions. Rodney would be in a drugged sleep. Maybe he was the lucky one. I turned the temperature control up a few degrees and rinsed my hair. It was now too hot, but I left it at that. Tomorrow we'd have to start looking at the abortions, all five thousand of them. Most of the shampoo suds had gone. I slicked my hair back with my hands and turned my face into the hot jets. If there really was a gene for homosexuality, like the scientist in California was claiming the so-called gay gene surely they would all have died out by now, wouldn't they? I opened my mouth and let it fill with water, struggling to inhale through the storm. Autoerotic asphyxiation, that's what the MP died of, with his head in the plastic bag. They say it increases the intensity of the orgasm. I tipped my head forward so the water ran from my mouth, grabbed a breath and looked back into the spray. I reached up and swung the shower head to one side, keeping my face directly under it, and leaned back against the tiled wall. And I made a discovery.