Chapter Nine

Even though Joe wasn’t in the Firehouse as Sergeant Wenlock, CPO, he couldn’t turn off his watchfulness. Peanut might be safe within Buckingham Palace, with soldiers marching back and forth all day outside the front door, but Joe was re-entering the venue where Paloma had performed. There was a strong chance that Leviticus might be drawn to the place, and Joe really didn’t relish having to dive to the floor twice in under twenty-four hours.

Joe went up to the maître d’ near the door. He stood at an angle, so he could keep an eye on the street behind him.

“I’m here to meet Wendy Clarke. I assume she’s booked a table?”

“Of course, sir, follow me.” The maître d’ turned away and led him across the restaurant, past elegant diners, under low lights and through hushed conversations. It was so different to last night. Boring, almost.

And Wendy wasn’t alone, Joe realised as he saw her blonde bob. She was sitting with her back to him, straight-backed in a grey suit, and opposite her was Barnaby.

Barnaby of the Tokyo merger.

So much for a lunch date with his wife.

Joe leaned over her shoulder and kissed her cheek. “Wendy, hi.” Then he sat down, stuck between Wendy and her colleague. “Barnaby. Didn’t realise you’d be joining us?”

“We have some good news.” Wendy looked first at Barnaby, then back at Joe. “It’s taken months of very delicate work and some rather careful greasing of palms, but Clarke, Jolliffe and Kumar are finally in a position to expand into Japan, and we have a client list straining at the leash already!”

“So I’m gatecrashing your celebratory lunch?” Joe said. For all that their marriage was a disaster, he was pleased for Wendy. “That’s brilliant. And, Barnaby, isn’t it your brainchild?”

“For my sins.” He nodded, blushing.

“Which is why Clarke Kumar is now Clarke, Jolliffe and Kumar,” Wendy announced. “As of an hour or so ago. Barnaby has earned a celebratory drink but he won’t be staying. This is our romantic dinner, after all. Besides, we’ll be throwing a proper bash for the firm this weekend.”

“I’m… I don’t know what to say! I’m really impressed.” Joe took the menu. Before looking at it, he asked, “So you’ll have to go to Japan at some point?”

“We’ll talk about that over dinner.” Ominous. A waiter appeared at their table, saving anyone from making any further conversation as he opened a bottle of champagne and poured three glasses. Wendy took up her glass and raised it. “Here’s to conquering Japan!”

Joe raised his glass too, but he glanced from Wendy to Barnaby as he did so. “I didn’t get to see much of Japan when I went on that flying visit with you-know-who. But it’s an interesting place.”

“Well, you’re the talk of the internet,” Wendy laughed. He was clearly forgiven then, because how could a man as straight as Joe possibly find anything arousing about the presence of a drag queen in his lap? “The queen’s grandson is a drag queen? Honestly? I wonder what Philip makes of it!”

“He was in the Navy. I’m sure he’s used to the sight of a man in a dress,” Joe quipped. He of course couldn’t reveal that at this very moment, Alejandro was visiting his step-grandparents. The subject of his drag career was probably high on the agenda.

“How does he…” Barnaby pointed downwards. “Where does it go?”

“His…?” Joe looked down the menu. Suddenly the sausage didn’t seem very appealing. “You don’t mean… I haven’t asked him, to be honest! None of my business.”

“He looked cosy on your knee last night!” Wendy laughed then screwed up her face. “I don’t know, it seems a bit— He’s royal. I bet you hated him perching on you, Joe!”

Joe laid the menu aside. “It’s just a bit of fun! He’s such a good performer. You’d love it if you saw him. The audience loved it, men and women! He did all these Bond theme songs. Such a diva—like his mum!”

“I just can’t get past the whole…” Barnaby lowered his voice, “penis thing. We’ve all thrown on a dress for rag week but it seems odd. To look so feminine, I mean. And to put it somewhere.”

Joe, in the middle of sipping his champagne, nearly swallowed it the wrong way. He raised an eyebrow at Barnaby. Discussing his principal’s genitalia over lunch didn’t sit well with Joe. “Well, I suppose he has some way of…dealing with that side of thing. He wears a corset and padding too. I’m just amazed by his makeup. I barely recognise him as Paloma. The transformation is just… Wow!”

And that was an understatement.

And might just possibly have sounded a bit camp.

“Wow!” Wendy mimicked, dropping her wrist limply. “I shouldn’t do that, you know I’m only teasing. We had the longest morning waiting to hear what Tokyo thought though so… Well, we couldn’t stand doing nothing.”

“Don’t ever Google tucking,” Barnaby warned. “Or do, but not over morning bagels.”

Joe had heard of the term, but what drag queens chose to do with their bodies was really none of his business. “Why were you Googling tucking over breakfast, Barnaby?”

“Because you had a drag queen on your knee!” Wendy hooted, her wrist still limp. “And I’m not quite sure I agree with men dressing up as women for a tawdry laugh. It doesn’t sit well with me.”

That limp wrist.

One of the reasons he’d grown up scared to come out was down to stupid stereotypes like that. Joe had some more champagne. He wasn’t meant to be drinking, but it’d been a while, and he wasn’t on duty at the moment. He’d be sober by the time he picked up Alejandro. “It’s not a tawdry laugh, though. Paloma Picante is fantastic. Such a great voice. And in a way, the whole drag thing takes the pee of gender roles anyway. Of men and women.”

“It’s a bit Widow Twankey,” she informed him. “Does he really think he can be a better woman than an actual woman? Are we failing at being women so much that we need a man to step in and tell us how to do it? Odd though, because while that fake woman’s sitting on your knee trilling love songs, I’m opening a new law office in Tokyo.”

“Bang on,” said Barnaby. “And without a single sequin.”

“But it’s an art form, practised by a man who grew up on film sets, with a famous movie star mum. He’s grown up seeing people around him transform themselves with costumes and make-up.” Joe began to regret the champagne, but he wasn’t going to sit there listening to Wendy and Barnaby insult Alejandro. “We’re all dressing up all the time. Look at me in this suit. It’s like a CPO costume. Wendy in your grey suit and your hair that looks like a helmet. You deliberately look like that so that everyone knows you’re a hard-edged solicitor. And Barnaby in his tailor-made togs, he’s saying, I’m a solicitor and an English gent. Drag’s just sort of…exaggerating it. It doesn’t take away from what any of us do. I mean, everyone expects me to go about looking macho, and there’s drag kings who do a much better job of it than me. And with more convincing facial hair too!”

But her face was stone. “A helmet?”

Whoops.

Joe reached out and gingerly patted Wendy’s hair. It was crisp with product. He could hear Alejandro tutting in horror. “Yeah. You know. Like armour. Don’t mess with Wendy Clarke!”

“Right.” She looked at Barnaby. “We’ll celebrate later, Barnaby, I think Joe and I need to be alone.”

“Right-o!” He stood, beaming afresh. “See you this afternoon, partner! Enjoy lunch, Joe.”

Not much chance of that.

“I’m certain I will,” Joe said through gritted teeth. “Bye, Barnaby! And congrats again on the Japan thing.”

He passed the waiter as he left, but at least ordering lunch brought more time before the storm.

And Leviticus could be here with us.

Joe scanned the room. Was anyone paying him undue attention? Not really. Everyone was getting on with their lunch. Joe returned to the menu and made his choice. “There’s a teriyaki dish on the menu. I’ll have that, Wens, to celebrate your Japanese news.”

“I’ll have the same,” she decided. Only when the waiter had departed did she say, “Japan’s a long way from London.”

“Definitely is. I felt like I was on that plane for ages when I flew out there!” Joe rested his hand on Wendy’s. She smiled, looking down at their joined hands.

“I’ll need to spend a lot of time out there.”

“I bet you will!” So was this the chat that Wendy wanted to have? “That’s what FaceTime was invented for.”

“Our marriage hasn’t been working for a long time, Joe. I couldn’t go after—what happened. But I wanted to. A friend talked me out of it.” She lifted her gaze to him again. “Do you want us to work?”

“Do you?” Joe held her gaze. He wasn’t going to shoulder the entire blame for their marriage ending. He was married to a solicitor, after all. He might end up with less than nothing if she could prove their marriage’s failure was all down to him. Besides, being married to Wendy was a useful way to hide. But that didn’t wash, did it? Because what had he decided only the other day? That he was going to ask Alejandro if he knew Paloma. And as it turned out, he knew him only too well. “Do you, Wendy? If it took a friend to talk you out of leaving me, instead of…instead of you actually wanting us to stay together, then…I dunno. Is there an us?”

“Come to Japan, Joe. In Japan there could be.” She held his gaze, waiting. “We could at least try.”

The champagne in his stomach seemed to curdle. “You mean, move to Japan? I don’t know any Japanese, other than sumimasen and konichiwa.”

“Do you want to know if there’s someone else?”

Jesus. Do I?

Joe lowered his voice. “Is this really the place to talk about our marriage? You want me to give everything up, give up the job I’m actually pretty bloody good at, move to the other side of the world with you after you said months ago that you wanted us to split up, then—then—you’re wondering if I’m sat here trying to decide if you’re having an affair? Isn’t that a bit late?”

Overwhelmed with bitterness, Joe watched the bubbles in his champagne rush to surface and vanish. “Why, are you having an affair, Wendy? With wonder boy Barnaby?”

“Your precious job nearly killed you.” She just looked at him, impassive, as though they were discussing carpets or curtains. “There’d be nobody else in Japan, Joe.”

Joe picked up his fork, poking at the weave of his napkin with the prongs without looking at Wendy. “But there is here, is that it?”

“Come with me, Joe.” She reached out and closed her hand over his. “This job isn’t for you anymore.”

Joe laid down the fork and stared at their hands. Wasn’t that more or less what he’d told Patrick? That he wasn’t well enough, shouldn’t be back at work yet. Were his shortcomings only down to him still finding his feet after months recuperating, or was Wendy right? Was it time for him to do something else?

But what?

And what the hell would he do in Japan?

“I can’t imagine myself doing anything else. I don’t want to go to Japan.”

“I make your salary in a few months.” She squeezed his hand. “And now I’m going to be a very wealthy woman with this new office. Joe, I’m going to Japan. Are you coming with me?”

‘There’d be nobody else in Japan.’

“So I’d be some sort of house-husband?” Joe snatched his hand away from under hers. “You’re my wife. I-I’m surprised. Don’t couples normally discuss this sort of thing, before signing up to it? Well, you’ve just sort of decided that you’re going there. I had no idea this was even on the cards.”

Joe thought of Alejandro in his bright-red tartan suit. He thought of Paloma sitting on his knee. He thought of the Greenhouse and his workmates. He thought of everything that he would lose if he said yes. It was too much. Far too much to give up for Wendy, who only a few months before had wanted to end their marriage. “I would never ask you to give up your career for me, or your friends, or anything else. Wendy, I don’t want to leave.”

“They’ve given you the family freak, Joe. You must see that?” She frowned and shook her head. “He’s not even really royal, is he? He’s the weird kid at school that we all feel sorry for!”

Joe shook his head. “I’ve been given a principal who is in a lot of danger. I wouldn’t be given a case like this if they didn’t think I was good at what I do. I can’t tell you any details about it, but don’t call him a freak. You’re better than that.”

She shook her head again, no longer listening. Then she looked up at the approaching waiter and hissed, “Don’t make a scene.”

And for some reason he thought of Alejandro again. Today he should’ve been sitting in the studio being painted and instead he was in a sterile room with his wife, being forced to make an impossible choice.

The plates were set before them and Wendy watched the young man depart, then said, “I’ll be honest, Joe, I find your job…awkward. I need a man who’s present, who’s heading in the same direction as me. I need a man who can stand beside me and give the right image for Clarke, Jolliffe and Kumar. I don’t need a meathead. Maybe if you could get a better royal or…I don’t know, maybe ask Patrick about something more strategic? He loves desk work!”

“Awkward?” Joe’s appetite for Japanese cookery had dissipated and he looked down reluctantly at his plate. “You liked my job before. You liked it when we got married. When you thought, well, what did you think? That the Queen herself would become your client? I don’t give a flying one about the right image for your bloody law firm. I have a life too, but do you really care? I don’t think you ever have. And don’t call me a bloody meathead. I could snap Barnaby like a twig, but I’m too much of a gentleman to do it.”

“You’ve never done anything to recommend us to the royal household, Joe, and you could. They get divorced, they start businesses and every bloody time, it’s one of our rivals.” Wendy snatched up her fork. “You’re the only man in England with a sense of bloody honour, do you know that?”

And there it was. Plain as day. Every time Joe had lain awake at night after being booted out to sleep on the sofa, he had stared at the ceiling wondering why Wendy had wanted to marry him. Had pursued him and cajoled until Joe had thought, She’s keen, and at least my family will stop asking me about my love life. He was a networking opportunity.

“Conflict of interest. I can’t recommend my wife’s law firm to my principal. Can you imagine what would happen if the press found out?” Joe tried a mouthful of food. It wasn’t too bad, but it didn’t make him want to go to Japan.

“You didn’t even try. Even when you were in hospital, we have criminal lawyers at the firm, Joe, there couldn’t have been a better opportunity!” Wendy picked up her glass. “We could’ve gone after that nutter with the car. Did you ever mention our firm? No.”

“There wasn’t a trial. He was placed straight into a secure hospital for everyone’s safety. Did you want me to sue him?” Joe chewed another mouthful but it was flavourless now.

Did her eyes widen? Surely not. But they did, at the thought of a lawsuit, his wife’s gaze positively brightened.

“You’d have to retire first if we were going to make PTSD stick,” she mused thoughtfully. “But shouldn’t you get some justice, even if that comes in the form of compensation? It isn’t my area, but I could ask Dhriti to look into it if you’d like, she’s like a Rottweiler.”

“Stop being an ambulance-chaser, Wendy. It doesn’t suit you. I was doing my job. There’s no negligence anywhere. No one could’ve predicted that guy would’ve done it. There was no intel.” Joe winced as he remembered the sudden, violent slam of the car against his body. “I stared him in the face when I was the bonnet and no one was home.”

“Somebody somewhere got something wrong. And someone should have to pay for that.” She tapped her finger on the tablecloth. “That guy who crippled Patrick, Iraqi or something back of beyond like that? Exactly the same story. A nice comfy cell, three meals a day, Sky Sports.”

“Had to shit in front of his three cellmates, couldn’t go outside except into a yard once a day, scared to go into the showers in case he was beaten up by racists. Yeah, what a brilliant time he had up until the day he hanged himself!” Joe gritted his teeth and pushed his plate away. “You’ll love Japan, Wendy, they still have the death penalty there.”

“If he hadn’t come to our country and tried to blow up our cabinet ministers, he wouldn’t have been in a cell,” said Wendy, apparently missing the irony of her anti-immigration policy as she planned her move to Japan. “Perhaps that’s how they do things in Iran, I don’t know.”

“Iran, Iraq… That poor bloke got around a lot, didn’t he?” Joe slugged the remains of his champagne and put the glass back on the table. “I’m not hungry anymore, Wendy. It’s time for me to go.”

“You haven’t touched your food!” She refilled his glass. “Joe, you’d love it. At least say you’ll think about it?”

“I have thought about it, and I don’t want to go.” Joe pushed back his chair. “Sayonara. Oh, so that’s three words of Japanese I know.”

“There won’t be another chance.” Wendy speared a piece of chicken. “You’d better go. It might need someone to find the end of the Sellotape.”

Joe didn’t reply. He strode out of the restaurant and took a short cut down a side street.

A man wandered out from a shop wearing an extraordinary suit. The cut was smart but the fabric seemed to glow even though the side street was narrow and dark. Joe realised he’d just stepped out from a tailor’s that he’d never noticed before. He stood for a few minutes, admiring the different cuts and fabrics on display in the window.

Then he went inside.