Joseph Huss looked sympathetically at Enver Demirel standing in his muddy farmyard, obviously ill at ease and out of place. He’d met his daughter’s London colleague several times before and had quite liked him. In some respects the two of them were not dissimilar, big men, powerfully built, placid by nature with a tendency to worry about things. Joseph Huss had a farmer’s natural pessimism nurtured by a fear of DEFRA, bad weather and government/EU regulations, while Enver’s gloom was fed by police hierarchy, crime and government/ EU regulations.
They were both naturally shy too, a similarity that led to a lot of foot shuffling and verbal awkwardness when they met as they both devoutly wished they were elsewhere. Huss, happy with animals, cows in particular; Enver content with criminals. Huss Senior was in a faded blue boilersuit and steel-toed, rubber work boots. A fine drizzle fell from the grey, Oxfordshire heavens that to Enver seemed huge and unfriendly after the more restricted London skyline. His cheap, dark polyester suit was sodden with moisture and his highly polished black shoes were caked with mud. He hadn’t given much consideration to his clothes. Footwear just wasn’t a city problem, other than style. He hardly ever left the capital and he’d given no thought
to the practicalities of walking around the farm.
The silence prolonged itself. Enver stroked his thick, dark drooping moustache, Joseph Huss scratched his grey one. He knew that Melinda, his daughter, and Enver had been seeing each other and there’d been a break-up. Shame, he’d thought. He’d liked the quiet policeman. He had pushed the matter away. He had every faith in his daughter’s abilities; boyfriends were not his field of expertise. Joseph Huss was not given to dwelling on his daughter’s love life. That was nothing to do with him. Well, anyway, here Enver was again. Not dressed for the occasion either.
‘She’s in the workshop,’ he said, pointing across the farmyard. ‘What’s she doing?’ asked Enver. It didn’t really matter,
of course, but he felt he should say something. Are the cows well? would have sounded inane. He never knew what to say to Joseph Huss.
‘Fixing the clutch on the Freelander,’ said her father. Enver nodded. He knew nothing about cars. He knew a clutch changed gears when depressed, or something like that. He knew a Freelander was a kind of Land Rover. There were another two parked in the yard, a Defender and its precursor, a 1964 Series Two, looking like a prim old lady on its narrow wheels. They were both army olive-green drab. Joseph Huss said thoughtfully, ‘They’re pigs to work on, Freelanders.’ Enver made a noncommittal noise, nodded again and squelched his way across the mud covering the cobbles of the yard.
More mud. More mud on his shoes.
Joseph Huss watched him go, a wry smile on his face. His daughter had painted her nails that morning over breakfast. I thought you were fixing the clutch. I am, she’d said. He had shrugged, baffled; now all was explained.
Enver walked into the workshop through the open door and looked around him. He shivered. The Husses, like most country
people, were outdoor types. Doors and windows tended to be left open; draughts predominated. He was always cold when he visited Huss at her home. The air in the workshop was chilly and heavy with the smell of engine oil. A black SUV was in front of him, like a dead animal, rearing up at a thirty-degree angle, held in the air by two trolley jacks, one on each side. The bonnet was open; there was no sign of Huss.
He walked to the rear of the car. His shoulders brushed a board devoted to spanners, arranged in order of size. Silhouettes had been drawn round every one of them so they wouldn’t be misplaced when they were returned after use. There were three metal toolboxes on the floor, one containing a huge array of sockets, and various other tools neatly attached to the wall. His gaze travelled over a workbench with a vice that you could fit a man’s head in, a generator and then, rounding the rear of the car, he saw DI Melinda Huss, crouched so far inside the near-side rear arch she was practically invisible. Most of her seemed to be under the car apart from her backside encased in a boilersuit, although hers was a faded green as opposed to her father’s blue one, that jutted out from beneath the curve of the car.
Enver coughed discreetly. He didn’t want to startle her, not
with all that metal hanging over her. He had somehow managed to crush their relationship; he didn’t want to add her body under a ton or so of Land Rover to that unfortunate score.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said from inside the car. Her voice sounded unfriendly. For the thousandth time, Enver wondered what he’d done to upset her. They’d seen each other socially maybe a dozen or so times, things had even progressed as far as passionate kissing, which was fast work by Enver’s standards – he was a shy man by nature and had body-image problems. He would occasionally look back to photos of himself in his prime as a
boxer – had he so wanted he could have found some of his fights on YouTube – and compared himself unfavourably to what he had become in just a few short years. He hated seeing himself naked these days, and when he showered he’d avert his gaze from his flabby body like a prim Victorian.
He was unaware that Melinda Huss found him physically very desirable indeed, despite heavy hints on her part. Huss had no idea of Enver’s self-loathing. She assumed, correctly, he was either shy or, incorrectly, playing hard to get. Huss had reached the stage of actively planning to drag him bodily into her bedroom, if necessary, but then the fault lines had widened irrevocably.
He stood behind her now. He could see the blonde curls of her hair spilling over her frayed collar as she tightened something under the car. The wheel that was missing was propped against a workbench, Huss’s body pressed against the axle end.
‘Pass me the clutch, Enver,’ she said. He looked around him. He’d never knowingly seen a clutch. On the bench was a metal object the size and shape of a small dinner plate that looked a bit like a landmine. On the floor by his feet was a much larger object like Darth Vader’s helmet made of grey metal.
‘Um, what does it look like?’ he asked hesitantly.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Enver,’ said Huss. She manoeuvred herself out from under the car. Propped up at this weird angle on the jacks, its wheel off so you could see the silver steel of the axle, the large Freelander looked oddly vulnerable, pathetic, as if it was patiently undergoing surgery. Huss rose graciously from the floor, light on her feet despite her sturdy body shape. She stood in front of him. The sleeves of the boilersuit were rolled up over her powerful forearms. She was stocky in build and wore a beanie pulled over her blonde hair to protect it from engine grease and oil. The top buttons of the boilersuit
were undone and Enver could see she was wearing a white tee underneath, its fabric stretched taut by her upper body. Huss was a curvy woman. She was wearing latex gloves, which she snapped off. Her fingernails were red.
‘That,’ she pointed at the landmine-like thing, ‘is a clutch.’ ‘And what’s that then?’ said Enver, indicating the grey cowl
ing on the floor.
‘That’s a gearbox.’ Her tone was slightly sarcastic, her broad attractive face slightly hostile. ‘And what brings you all the way out here? Other than automotive curiosity?’
Enver thought, She obviously wants me to apologize but I don’t know what for. His gloom deepened. He’d been in this position once or twice before in his life. It was a conversation that went, Tell me what I’ve done to offend you, the answer to which was, If you have to ask there’s no point in me replying. An argument as circular as a clutch seemingly was. I’m no good with women, he thought. Or cars.
He scratched his moustache, trying to think of something to say.
‘Can I buy you lunch, then I’ll tell you,’ he said. Huss’s face brightened at the thought of lunch with Enver. She had meant to be severely unpleasant to him, but the sight of his slightly battered, mournful face and his powerfully muscled body outlined by the wet fabric of his rain-soaked shirt and jacket softened her heart. She liked Enver very much. She’d forgotten how much she actually wanted him until this moment.
‘Maybe,’ she said. She pointed at the gearbox. ‘Could you put that on the bench for me?’ she asked. Enver nodded, bent down and lifted the Freelander’s gearbox effortlessly from the floor and put it down on the workbench. That must weigh about fifty or sixty kilos, thought Huss. She breathed deeply, running her eyes over Enver’s shoulders, back and backside as
he experimentally inspected where he’d placed it to make sure it was secure. Desire, she thought. That’s what I’m feeling now. She glanced down at where she’d been working. ‘Well, I suppose the dual-mass flywheel can wait,’ she said. ‘Where
did you have in mind?’
Enver’s face brightened. Melinda Huss was almost smiling at him.
‘Wherever you want.’
Upstairs, my room, now, she thought. She wondered what he’d do if she said that. Faint probably.
‘There’s a new Lebanese in Woodstock.’
‘Fine,’ said Enver. Now she was smiling. It was all going better than expected.
‘I’ll get changed.’ As Huss crossed the yard to the back door of the farmhouse she thought savagely, If he so much as mentions that other bloody woman… DCI sodding Hanlon…