Going to the pub was a mistake.
I sat squeezed on the middle of a long bench, surrounded by junior officers and admin staff. All young, all female. They’d let their hair down from tight buns and, by the time I’d arrived, were all on their second or third glass of wine. I’d ordered a small one. Down to the dregs, I was looking for a natural opportunity to leave.
I squirmed, hot thighs pressing alongside mine. It wasn’t that I considered these women below me, but I didn’t fit in. I didn’t switch off easily. My aim wasn’t to be alone, but my inability to speak openly about myself eventually drove most people away.
My association with Juliet didn’t help. I had a standing invitation to the pub Paul and the others on our floor moored in at most Friday nights, but I’d clocked the way conversations stumbled around me. Juliet was the butt of too many jokes. They couldn’t be sure where my allegiances lay.
Invitations out were too infrequent to be sneered at. This night was a bust, but next time I might meet people who I could form friendships with. Of a sort.
I took a sip of my dwindling wine, conversation about children and partners soaring around me. Maddy sat at one end of the table, swilling her glass. The last time I’d seen her this subdued was after her ex-girlfriend tried to storm the station and had to be escorted off the premises.
‘Another?’ Alice leant across the table, her straight, black hair grazing her shoulders. She was a lot more confident than when we’d met in the forest. After thanking me over and over for being so kind, she’d sat me down between two of our colleagues and promptly dominated conversations around the table.
‘I can’t stay long.’ I laid the groundwork for a premature exit.
Everyone else had settled in for the long haul. Their faces shiny from the moist air inside the pub, they’d strewn their coats over the benches in a mismatched jumble. I’d kept mine on.
‘Before you go, you have to tell me something.’ Alice rested her elbows on the table and cradled her wine glass in both hands. They were small, like mine. In another situation, I would have asked how hard she had to work to get her colleagues to take her seriously as a petite woman. ‘I’ve heard some strange things about Detective Stern around the station.’
‘We don’t need to talk about that,’ Maddy piped up, her face turning pink.
Alice waved a hand at her. ‘This one won’t tell us anything, but you work with Juliet every day. You know what she’s really like.’
Maddy stared down at her drink. I wished I could communicate how proud I was that she’d withstood the doubtless onslaught of questions about Juliet from Alice and her cronies. Apparently, we didn’t gossip together. She actually was only sharing what she knew to help me do a good job.
‘I heard she keeps clothes in her desk,’ one of the other women piled on. We’d been introduced, but I’d been too concerned her boobs would break free of her glittering top as she lunged forward to shake my hand that I’d not retained her name. ‘Heard she barely goes home, works non-stop even when she doesn’t have a case.’
That might have been true before I arrived. Juliet had seemed bemused when I’d insisted, a couple of weeks after I’d started working with her, that we leave the office together each night. I ended up working longer hours, waiting for her to check one last detail, but I made sure she went home with at least enough hours left in the day to get a decent night’s sleep before she returned to the station outrageously early the next morning.
‘What does she have to go home for?’ Alice crowed. ‘Do you know, it took her three days to even notice her husband had left her? He took the kids too.’
This was why I’d been invited out. Not because Alice wanted to thank me or to be friendly, but because she wanted to know the truth about Juliet. That made me feel less guilty about making a swift exit.
Juliet would be utterly confused by the amount of attention she elicited around the station. She was interested in colleagues only so long as they had something to contribute to a case. I counted it as her making an extra special effort any time she enquired about my plans for the weekend.
I necked the rest of my wine and slid the glass to the middle of the table. ‘I’ve worked with Juliet for about eight months now. There can’t be many rumours I haven’t heard about her but, I can assure you, few of them are true.’
Pressing my hands on the table and trying not to kick anyone, I made my awkward dismount off the bench. Alice’s smile curdled until I added, ‘Let me get another round in before I go.’
I ordered a couple of bottles of wine at the bar. There was a cheer as I brought them to the table, some half-hearted attempts from Alice to get me to stay during which I avoided looking at Maddy, and then I was free. I pushed through the pub doors and breathed in the chill night air.
I didn’t consider myself a good actor or liar, but I’d gotten adept at denying accusations thrown at me about Juliet. A lot of the rumours were based on truth, but I couldn’t see why that was anyone’s business. I wasn’t about to use her secrets to curry favour.
There was no doubt in my mind that Juliet had more than one change of clothing squirrelled away in our office. Some nights, there was no budging her and she would work on cold cases rather than go home to her lonely flat. There were more Mondays I saw evidence of her working through the weekend than not.
Drizzle blasted me as I turned a corner. The bus was already at the stop. I jogged over to board at the back of the queue, then sat down and watched rivulets of water snake across the glass as the rain picked up. I’d left my car at the station, optimistic I might be over the limit when I left the pub.
Some rumours I could neither confirm nor deny. I’d never asked Juliet what had happened when her husband moved out of the city. It could have been planned. Or she could have walked into her home and found her family gone.
I wrapped my coat tighter around me. I liked solving puzzles, but I’d resigned myself to Juliet being a mystery I would never get to the bottom of. I could protect her from gossips and make sure she went home at a reasonable hour. I couldn’t control what she did at home or make her talk to me about her personal life.
I had to trust she was an adult and would ask for help if she needed it. Time and time again, I’d made it clear I was willing to lend a listening ear.
Still, as the bus trundled along busy streets and other passengers murmured sleepily, I worried for Juliet. There had to be something going on for her to be so averse to spending time with her husband and children.