Desmond Jordan had been stewing ever since the police officer had visited a couple of days earlier. He wasn’t used to having his integrity called into question. He’d always been a proud man; proud of his profession, proud of his work, proud of the way he conducted his life. He’d come a long way from humble beginnings, and he wasn’t going to forget that.
Besides which, that fucking tart from over the road will have seen what was going on. He might well have come in an unmarked car and parked it up the side of the house, but that bitch never missed a trick. And hell, you could spot a copper a mile off around these parts, plain clothes or not. She was one of those women who needed to know everything that was going on. He knew she would’ve been straight on the phone to her crusty old friends from the WI within minutes. You know that doctor who lives near me? The American one. Well it seems I was right all along. He’s only got plain clothes detectives knocking on his door!
It was purely routine, he’d said. They were trying to eliminate possible persons of interest, he said. But Desmond had seen enough police shows on the TV to know the routine.
They’d asked him for an alibi, for starters. How the hell was he meant to explain that? He’d had to settle for saying he’d been at home every night on his own. He’d just have to hope that the old bitch across the road didn’t get a visit from PC Plod, else that might be blown out the water. She’d surely have seen him coming and going.
In his opinion, the Grouse and Partridge wasn’t the best pub in town, but it was the closest, and right now he needed to get out of the house and have a drink. It was still the best part of a mile from his house on the edge of town, but the walk would probably do him good anyway.
Moving to the UK had been Bess’s idea. She’d been fascinated by the country ever since she was a kid, and Desmond had to admit he was pretty happy to escape the US and start a new life over here, especially after what happened. It had been a less than conventional move, but then again his life had always been less than conventional.
He pulled himself up onto a stool at the bar and selected one of the six real ales on offer. He’d not been particularly keen on the British style of ‘warm piss’ beer, as he’d put it when he first came here, but he’d gradually got used to it and then came to actually quite like it.
His life was one huge tangle of knots. The lack of simplicity and normality rankled within him, giving him this almost interminable rage which kept bubbling under the surface, always threatening to break through, but which mercifully did so only rarely. He knew he wouldn’t need much agitation today, though, and tried to keep himself to himself.
That was easier said than done. He’d barely been in the pub twenty minutes, his first pint finished, after which he’d waited patiently to be served. A rough, loud woman who he’d heard talking from the other side of the pub had sidled up to the bar and shouted her order across at the young bar manager who was doing his best to keep up.
‘Wait just a sec, love. I’ll do yours next,’ the barman replied, pacifying the woman.
‘Actually, I think you’ll find I was next,’ Desmond said, his voice sure and certain. If there was one thing he hated, it was people pushing into a line or having some sort of warped sense of entitlement.
‘Don’t think so, mate. Never seen you in here before so you can wait your turn, yeah?’ the woman replied, jabbing her finger in Desmond’s direction. He could smell the fug of booze and fags wafting in his direction.
‘So what if you’ve never seen me before? That gives you no right to push in. I waited my turn and it is my turn, so why don’t you fuck off back under the rock you crawled out from?’
‘You fucking what?’ the woman yelled, not even noticing that the nervous young barman had already served her vodka and tonic and plonked it on the bar in front of her. ‘Who the fuck do you think you are? In your posh suit and shoes. Think you’re the fucking Big I Am, do you?’
‘Don’t try to make yourself look stupid, sweetheart. You manage it easily enough as it is,’ Desmond replied, turning away from her.
‘That’s three-twenty, Lisa,’ the barman said, trying to defuse the atmosphere in the only way he knew how.
‘Get me another one,’ the woman said to the barman as she picked up the glass and tossed its contents over the back of Desmond’s head.
He had been trying so hard. So hard. Containing his rage had taken the ultimate effort from every fibre of his being, but that had pushed him over the edge. Without saying a word, he turned round, looked the woman in the eye and pummelled his fist into her eye socket.