4.
“The gang’s all here,” said Superintendent Ball as Brough and Miller ambled into the briefing room.
Detective Constable Pattimore waved sweetly at Brough, who ignored both the wave and the gestured invitation to sit beside the young man. Jason, Brough fumed inwardly, I’ve told you repeatedly: not in the workplace. Brough feared they would have to have that talk yet again.
“Right, then,” Ball clapped his hands. “Let’s get started. Who knows what?”
“Dead bloke’s turned up again, ain’t he?” said Stevens, picking flecks of sausage roll from his teeth but choosing to leave those that had nestled in his moustache unmolested.
“Has he?” said Harry Henry, pushing his loose spectacles back up his nose. “Alive and well, I hope?”
“No, mate,” The downward curve of Stevens’s moustache became more pronounced. “Dead as a dead dodo’s doornail.”
“Ah. Disappointing,” Harry Henry nodded. He looked at the others for support in this view.
“Miller and I attended the scene,” Brough jumped in, “He seems to have got there of his own volition, broke into the park keeper’s shed and therein expired.”
“Hold up, Dave.” Stevens put a hand on Harry Henry’s arm as if the mild-mannered detective was about to do something rash. “This is the same bloke from the autopsy? How do you explain it?”
“The dead don’t just get up and walk,” added Harry Henry. “Do they?”
They looked to Superintendant Ball for reassurance.
“Well?” Superintendant Ball invited Brough to elucidate. “Detective Inspector?”
Brough sat back on the sofa and made expansive gestures. “It’s quite simple, gentlemen, Miller. The man wasn’t dead at first. He escaped from the mortuary, sought refuge in the park where he subsequently died. For the first time.”
Pattimore winked at Brough, who ducked it like a thrown brickbat. Not at work, Jason, fuck’s sake!
“A minute, please!” Harry Henry raised a tentative hand as though asking permission to go for a wee-wee. “They don’t do autopsies on people who aren’t dead. Do they?”
“We all make mistakes,” said Stevens philosophically. “Shit happens.”
“My!” Harry Henry pushed his glasses up his nose again. It was too nightmarish for him to contemplate.
“Here,” said Ball. He pointed a remote control at a projector suspended above their heads. A photograph of a man in his thirties appeared on the white board behind him.
“It’s upside down,” observed Pattimore.
“I can see you have the makings of a fine detective,” said Ball. He stared helplessly at the remote in his hand. Brough got up and took it from him. Two clicks later, the image was the right way up and Brough was back in his seat wearing a smug smile.
“Teacher’s pet,” muttered Pattimore. Another wink. Brough was incensed. He would definitely have to have it out with Jason when they got home.
“Dental records reveal this is Lawrence Pickett, 34, of Flat 216, The Mansions, Dedley. Someone go over there, find out some more.”
Everyone nodded but no one volunteered.
“And now this.” Ball clicked the remote again. Lawrence Pickett’s face dissolved in an unnecessary display of computer wizardry and was replaced by that of another man of similar age. This one had neck tattoos and one of those things in his septum that made it look like his nose was permanently dripping.
“Timothy Trent,” Ball continued, reciting the facts as he knew them in a flat, expressionless manner. “Hit by a van just an hour or so ago Driver didn’t have a chance; he just walked into oncoming traffic.”
“Vehicular suicide...” said Brough. “What’s that got to do with our other man, the Pickett fellow?”
“That’s just it, you see.” Ball’s lip quivered and his eyebrow twitched. “By all accounts, as of last Tuesday, our Timothy Trent here was already dead.”
He waited a moment for that news to sink in before bringing them up-to-speed with the sudden and unexpected death of the apparently healthy and vital Timothy Trent. Brough and Pattimore were seemingly trying to outdo each other with pertinent questions.
What did it say on the death certificate?
Who was the doctor who pronounced him dead and what did he say?
Hadn’t the undertaker noticed anything?
Had he begun the embalming process?
The answers, as far as Ball could provide, were: heart failure; the family’s general practitioner says there’s no history of such demises in the Trent family; and no, the deceased’s will had stipulated no embalming or preservation of any kind was to be, um, undertaken, and he was to be cremated in one of those environmentally friendly cardboard jobbies.
“So,” said Harry Henry, “he turns up at his parents’ place, dies, the family arranges a funeral director, but he gets up and walks out and gets himself run over.”
“Bright side,” Stevens piped up, “Funeral’s already booked.”
“Someone needs to get down to the funeral parlour,” said Ball. “And,” he cast a meaningful look in Stevens’s direction, “- someone tactful needs to approach the parents. Why did he go to their place and not back to his own flat? We’m looking for anything that links these two men apart from age, build and the fact that they’m dead but they won’t lie down. Yes, Harry?”
Harry Henry had raised a worried finger. “They won’t get up again, will they? Do you think?”
Ball blew out his lips like air escaping from the neck of a balloon. “I hope we can rule out that eventuality,” he said. “But I don’t know anything anymore.”
“Zombies!” Stevens enthused.
“You’ll be all right then,” said Miller. “They only go after people for their brains.”
Her remark brought laughter to what had been a bizarre and macabre briefing but the team’s enjoyment was cut short when the briefing room door swung open. There in the doorway was the diminutive but formidable figure of the head of Serious, Chief Inspector Karen Wheeler.
“K - Karen!” Ball gasped. “We weren’t expecting you until next week. Course finish early, did it?”
Wheeler looked at each face in turn before entering the room. Ball backed away, ceding her the floor. Any second now the air would be blue with gratuitous invective; Wheeler was someone who exuded profanities from every pore. Her team eyed her warily, waiting for the shoe to drop and the balloon to go up. No one wanted to be the fan that got hit with the shit.
Chief Inspector Karen Wheeler took in a deep breath. Batting her eyelashes, she smiled her sweetest smile.
“Good afternoon, everybody,” she said in a voice that was uncharacteristically soft and pleasant. “It’s good to be back.”
***
The man with the lopsided smile was waiting in the car park of the Oddfellows Arms. He was smartly dressed and the back of his neck was itching from his new haircut. No matter how you try to prevent it, some of the smaller clippings always work their way under your shirt collar. It was an irritant but the man with the lopsided smile hoped the prickliness was worth it. He hoped his encounter with the seemingly elusive Dickon would be more than compensation for his current discomfort.
The barmaid he had spoken to earlier had left. She had spent twenty minutes at the bus stop opposite the pub before being transported away by a grimy single decker to fuck-knows-where and who-the-fuck-cares.
The man with the lopsided smile watched two snake-hipped young men mince their way indoors. They had accessorised the lavender polo shirts that gave away their status as members of staff with badges and brooches. The evening crew, the man reckoned. Double the staff. Dickon must be expecting double the custom. The man would have to try to sideline him before the pub got too busy and gave Dickon the excuse not to leave the bar.
The man with the lopsided smile had set his sights on Dickon, the flamboyant bar manager of Dedley’s only gay pub.
He didn’t want to let him get away.
***
“Do you know,” Pattimore was rubbing his chin as he contemplated the projected face of Timothy Trent, “I’ve seen him before. Does he look familiar to you, Davey?”
Brough coloured visibly, as though stung by the nomenclature.
“He does a bit, Detective Constable,” he replied with special emphasis. “Can’t quite place him.”
“Easy,” said Stevens. “You’ve both probably bummed him.”
Brough and Pattimore gave him looks of outrage and amusement respectively.
“Our friend Stevens might be onto something here,” Chief Inspector Wheeler interjected.
“I can assure you -” Brough began but a raised hand from his superior cut him off.
“Cast your minds back, gentlemen,” Wheeler smiled, “Perhaps you encountered the deceased at some watering hole that you frequent.” She smiled beatifically, with the patience of Buddha, and waited for the penny to drop.
A light seemed to come on behind Pattimore’s eyes.
“That’s it! Davey, do you remember? A few weeks back in the Oddfellows. We were mocking his cowboy shirt.”
Brough looked daggers at his boyfriend.
“Well, Detective Inspector?” Chief Inspector Wheeler arched a perfectly appointed eyebrow.
“I think you’re right,” Brough conceded.
“I knew it!” Stevens was triumphant. “The bugger’s a bumlord!”
“I’d be willing to wager,” Wheeler brought up the picture of Lawrence Pickett alongside that of Trent, “that our other walking corpse was also of the homosexual variety. Detective Constable?”
Pattimore looked intently at the face of Pickett. “I dunno... He might have been in; I can’t say for certain, like.”
“And you think it’s significant, their homosexualitiness?” chimed in Harry Henry.
“We can’t rule it out. Not at this stage.” Wheeler awarded Harry Henry her most toothsome smile so far. The poor man was quite unsettled and shrank from her attention.
“Somebody’s targeting the gays?” said Stevens. “Or am they all getting up and walking around dead because it’s something else they can add to their list of unnatural practices?”
“Steady on, Stevens!” Superintendant Ball admonished in accordance with some policy document somewhere. Pattimore had to struggle not to laugh out loud.
“Detective Inspector Stevens,” Wheeler’s smile honed in on him like a laser beam, “We shall have an exchange of words in my office when this meeting is over.”
Stevens made a face like a child unjustly served a school detention. He sat back and crossed his arms, scowling.
The rest of Serious swapped glances, glances that asked what the fuck was going on? Where were Wheeler’s volcanic temper and her navvy-shaming invective? It was all decidedly odd.
The lady in question received a phone call and left the room to answer it in peace and privacy. The team rounded on Superintendent Ball.
“What’s happened to the chief?” asked Brough.
“She’s like a fuckin’ pod person,” said Stevens. “Why ain’t she swearing and cursing like normal?”
Ball waved down their outburst. “As you may have been aware, Chief Inspector Wheeler has been on a training course. Manners and Management.”
“Sounds like a Jane Austen,” said Brough.
“It’s made her into a fucking zombie,” said Stevens. Then he thought about what he had said. He pointed wildly at the screen. “You don’t think her’s one of them, do you? The restless dead?”
“Gulp,” said Harry Henry.
“I can assure you,” Superintendant Ball shook his head, “Chief Inspector Wheeler is very much alive and well. She’s adopting a new managerial style, that’s all. I ask you to bear with her and be supportive. I’m sure it’s pinching her like a pair of new shoes so do try not to be provocative.”
“What you looking at me for?” Stevens was indignant. He addressed the room, “What’s he looking at me for?”
Everyone ignored him.
Chief Inspector Wheeler came back in and soon became aware that all eyes were upon her.
“Is there something on my face?” She touched her cheek.
“No, Chief!” the Serious team chorused as one.
“Let’s crack on, shall we? Pattimore -”
“Yes, Chief?”
“You think there’s a connection between both our dead men and this pub?”
“Possible, Chief.”
“I think you ought to get yourself down there undercover and do some poking around - Stop sniggering, Stevens. And Brough, why are you wrinkling your nose up?”
“Well, it’s just that Pattimore and I are known there, Chief. We’ve been there quite a bit.”
“Birds of a feather boa...”
“Shut up, Stevens! So, you’m saying there’s no point Pattimore going undercover? He should just question people directly?”
“No, no; I’m all for undercover,” said Brough. “If it’s known that the police are interested in the pub then all sorts of people will stay away. People who might have seen something or know something.”
Wheeler nodded.
“Agreed. So, Brough and Pattimore am on the bench for this one. Miller? Are you all right, Miller?”
Miller was far from all right. Her face was sickly pale and drenched in sweat. Her blonde hair was dark and sticking to her brow.
“Fancy lezzing up, do you, Miller?” Stevens gave her a wink. “Hey! You and the chief could go in as a couple: Starsky and Butch!”
“That’s quite enough, Stevens. Miller -”
But Miller sprang to her feet and with both hands cupped to her mouth tried to leave the room as fast as possible.
“I suppose that’s Miller out, then,” Wheeler surveyed the room. “Leaving...”
Stevens glanced around. “Oh, no!” he quailed.
“Oh, yes!” said Wheeler.
“Oh, yes!” said Brough and Pattimore.
“What?” said Harry Henry.
“Stevens, Henry, you are to go undercover. As a couple, if you like, or as two lone wolves or whatever it is.”
“Fuck that shit,” said Stevens.
“If that helps you to stay in character,” Wheeler laughed. “I’m sure Brough and Pattimore will give you their tips.”
Stevens scrambled away and put a chair between himself and his colleagues. “Keep away from me!” he roared.
“I want you in there tomorrow,” Wheeler switched off the projector. “The rest of you have plenty of people to see and questions to ask.”
No one moved. They all looked at Wheeler with the expectant faces of dogs begging for treats. It dawned on Wheeler that they were awaiting dismissal.
“Go on, then,” she jerked her thumb towards the door. “Go home.”
The Serious team was nonplussed. This was not the ‘fuck off’ they were used to. They filed from the room, subdued and deflated - all except Stevens whose features were alive with terror.
***
“Oh, there you are, Mel; I’ve been worried. “ Jerry’s statement was met with a derisive snort from Brough.
“Are you sure you’ll be all right, Miller?”
Miller gave the detective inspector a weak smile. “Yes, thank you, David.”
“Of course she’ll be all right,” Jerry pulled Miller over the threshold. “I’ll look after her.”
Brough looked him up and down. “Fine job you’ve made of that so far.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Boys, boys,” Miller managed a grin, “If you’re going to fight over me, please wait until I’m well enough to enjoy it.”
“You go and lie down, love.” Jerry put himself between his girlfriend and the stuck-up prig on the doorstep. “Thank you, David,” he snarled. “I’ve got her now.”
Brough didn’t move. At the kerb, Pattimore sounded his horn.
“We found her on the floor of the Ladies,” Brough said flatly. “She wouldn’t hear of the doctor. Wanted to come back to you.”
“Whatever my Mel wants...”
“Yes, well, you might want to make her reconsider the doctor.”
Jerry was about to tell the jumped-up Southern bastard to keep his nose out of his girlfriend’s business but another honk from Pattimore got Brough off the step.
Yeah, run along, Jerry watched him go. Your toy boy’s waiting.
He closed the door, shutting out the sounds of the street and filling his ears with the sounds of Miller in the bathroom, retching her guts up.
***
“Chinese?” Pattimore suggested as Brough strapped on his seat belt.
“It may as well be,” said Brough, keeping his eyes on the windscreen. “For all the notice you take of me speaking English.”
Pattimore pulled a face and raised his eyebrows to himself in the rear-view mirror. Yet again, Brough’s mood swings had caught him unawares. He was about to retort with something along the lines of “You’re as bad as my old girlfriend” but thought he’d better not. That was one can of worms he didn’t want Brough to know about never mind open. He started the engine and they drove off in stormy silence.
A quarter of an hour later, they pulled up outside Peking Tom’s. Pattimore kept the motor running.
“I’ll have that ginger and spring onion thing I like,” he said. “And chips. And before you don’t say anything (I’m assuming you’re not talking to me and so won’t tell me what you want) - therego, I’m telling you what I want. Besides which, I’m not supposed to stop here so I’ve got to be ready to tootle off around the corner any second.”
He punctuated all this with a curt smile. Brough, pursing his lips like a champion lemon sucker, unfastened his seat belt. Unable to contain himself, he said, “It’s therefore or ergo. Not therego, for fuck’s sake.”
“How pleasant to hear your voice again. I knew you’d rise to the bait.”
“As if you said it deliberately!”
“Maybe I did and maybe I didn’t.”
“Infuriating!” Brough pushed his way out of the car and slammed the door. A couple of seconds later he opened it again and peered in. “What was it you wanted?”
“- spring onion. Right.”
“With chips!”
“With chips.” He closed the door a little less violently this time and went into the takeaway, leaving Pattimore feeling a mixture of relief that Davey was thawing out a little bit and utter bewilderment over what had frozen him solid in the first place.
***
The man with the lopsided lips watched Dickon from across the car park of the Oddfellows Arms. A bit prissy, he assessed, minces when he walks but - he observed the way the bar manager heaved the wide cellar doors shut - evidently a frequent attendee of a gym. The fabric of Dickon’s purple shirt was taut across the shoulders and biceps. What do you call that colour? Magenta?
Dickon stooped. The whirring of an electric screwdriver filled the air like the drone of distant bees. The man with the wonky mouth used the noise to cover his approach. He stole across the tarmac as though playing Grandmother’s Footsteps and stood behind the crouching figure, listening to him grunt and curse as he fitted a new hasp to the lock.
The task finished, Dickon stood. He stepped back to admire his handiwork before his observer could move out of the way.
“Fuck me!” Dickon gasped. He placed the fingertips of one hand to his breastbone. “Shit me up next time.” He laughed.
“Are you Dickon?” said the man.
“Depends who’s asking.” Dickon tried not to stare at the stranger’s peculiar lips but they were so distinctive - like an F hole on a violin.
“Er...” the man produced some papers from his inside pocket, print-outs from a website. “It’s me. Keith. From He4Me.”
“Oh!” Dickon’s fingertips left his sternum and touched Keith’s tie. “How... lovely.”
Keith looked downcast.
“You’re not - you’re not... disappointed, are you?”
“What? Oh, don’t be silly; we haven’t been to bed yet!” Dickon threw back his head and squawked. “Your face!”
“What’s the matter with my face?”
“Um - there’s nothing the matter with your face. I mean, well, let’s get you inside and get a nice stiff drink inside you.”
He linked his arm in Keith’s but Keith was looking at the newly-fitted padlock.
“You’ve done a good job there.”
“Oh?”
“That should keep them out.”
“Who?”
“That lock. Should keep people out of your cellar.”
“Oh! Ho, yes. That’s exactly what it’s for.” He steered his internet date around to the main entrance. “Keeping people out.”
***
Pattimore took away the empty takeaway containers and sank their used plates in the sink. Here goes, he thought. Time to grasp whichever nettle was stinging Davey’s arse this time.
He took fresh beers from the fridge and rejoined Brough at the dining table.
“Have I upset you, Davey? I mean, clearly I have upset you but honestly, I swear, I really didn’t mean to - however I managed it. I suppose that makes it worse, doesn’t it? Me not even knowing what it is I’m supposed to have done. Or is it something I haven’t done? Is that it?”
Brough played with the condensation on the neck of his beer bottle. Pattimore held his breath and was looking at Brough with such an imploring expression, Brough found he couldn’t give him the cold shoulder any longer. The time to talk had come.
“I’m sorry,” he began, “it’s just that you keep doing it when I’ve asked you repeatedly not to and -”
“Doing what?”
“Calling me Davey!”
“It’s your name!”
“No! It’s your name for me and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve asked you not to call me by it at work.”
“Oh... Did I?”
“Yes. Several times today.”
“Really? When?”
“At the briefing. In front of everyone.”
“Did I?”
“Yes!”
“And that’s what’s got your knickers in a twist?”
Brough stood. Pattimore reached for him but he was already halfway to the bedroom.
“Davey! Come back! David!”
The bedroom door slammed.
“I’m sorry!” Pattimore told the unforgiving wood. “Davey...”
He turned the doorknob. Brough hadn’t locked it - that was a good sign. He pushed the door open and entered the darkened room.
“Davey?”
***
“I thought we could have a bite here,” Dickon smiled at his rather nervous date. “Restaurant upstairs is not bad.”
“Here?” Keith glanced at the ceiling. “I thought we’d be eating out.”
“Well, I do declare!” Dickon screeched. “We’ve only just met!” He brayed like a hysterical donkey.
“I don’t normally do this, you see,” Keith studied the beer mats. “In fact, I never do.”
“What?”
“This. The website. Looking for men online.”
“Must be my lucky day,” Dickon muttered.
“What?”
“Look, I’ll top up your glass and we can go up and peek at the menu. How’s that sound?”
“Um...” Before Keith could formulate a more intelligible response, Dickon whisked their glasses back to the bar.
Edward and Luigi greeted their boss with rather suggestive hand gestures. Luigi tried to mimic Keith’s lopsided lips.
“Eat shit, the pair of you,” Dickon sang. “When did you bitches last have a date?” He poured fresh drinks and returned to his guest. So far the evening was working out exactly as planned.
***
Brough rolled over, taking most of the duvet with him. Pattimore, studying the darkness between himself and the ceiling, refrained from reclaiming some of the bedclothes for himself.
His penance: shivering in the dark.
“Davey, I’m sorry,” he whispered to the hump of Brough’s shoulder. All he got in return was the chill across his bare chest.
Brough’s eyes were open wide; he kept perfectly still. By rights he should be on the sofa - No! Pattimore should be on the sofa - No, again! Pattimore and all his belongings should be out the door. Let him see if his big buddy Stevens would take him in.
He felt the mattress move as Pattimore got out of bed. Has he read my mind, he wondered? Is he leaving?
Brough felt a curious mixture of disappointment and relief when it became apparent that Pattimore had only got up for a piss. Brough listened to the stream of urine hitting the water in the toilet bowl. What a noisy pisser! Then the flush. Then the tap.
He’s washing his hands - that’s something, Brough supposed.
If only it was just as easy to wash away what he had done.