While I wasn’t watching Marc. Shit.
My phone rang and I looked at the display. My parents’ house. “Do you mind if I answer this?”
She gestured to the door and I went into the outer office to take the call.
“Hey, Mum.”
“Hello, love. You were off early yesterday.”
It didn’t take a genius to see where this was going. It had probably taken a whole day for her to work out how to approach the subject.
“Yeah. Like I said. I was doing overtime.”
“Well, so long as they’re paying. Luke’s a nice lad, isn’t he?”
Nice lad? He’d probably shudder if he heard that.
“Er, yeah,” I said. “He’s great. Look, I hope you don’t mind that—”
“Of course not!” My mother, who prides herself on being very liberal, wouldn’t have got married if my parents hadn’t made me, free to do whatever you like, etc., laughed. “He’s nice.”
Again with the nice. “He wasn’t too much trouble, was he? It’s just he’d been working really late and he came to see me and he was too tired to drive home and…”
“Well, he was very polite. I’ve washed your bedding.”
That wasn’t what I needed to hear.
“Thanks,” I said uncertainly.
“And I’ve got some strawberry jam in.”
What planet was she on?
“That’s nice.”
“Because he likes it. The two of you can stay whenever you like,” my mother explained.
“Oh. Right. Thanks.” That would be never, then.
“Are you coming for tea tonight?”
What was it with my mother? I didn’t see her for weeks and then it was “Come over” every night. Because I had a boyfriend now. And she could hardly believe it.
Come to think of it, neither could I.
“I’m going out. Work thing.” Not strictly a lie.
“Tomorrow?”
“Erm. No. I have to work.” Well, I might.
“You spend too much time at that airport.”
If only she knew.
“Bye, Mum.”
I had hardly finished putting that phone away when my Nokia rang. God, what was this?
“Piccadilly Circus,” I snapped.
“Sophie?” Luke sounded confused.
“Sorry. What’s up?”
“Got an invite for you.”
Now it was my turn to be confused.
“Come again?”
“On Saturday. Mrs. Shapiro and her son have been invited to a garden party.”
“How lovely. Can’t you go?”
“Well, that’s the thing.” Luke sounded like he was half laughing, half exasperated. “I’m invited too.”
This time I was at a total loss. “What?”
“My great aunt is holding the party. Some charity thing. I’ve been trying to get out of it for years.”
“Well, that’s great. You can go and I’ll recover.”
“What?”
See, that’s what it’s like to be in on only half of the conversation. “I’ll tell you later. Where are you?”
“Home. Want to come over?”
Karen released me and I drove on back to Luke’s. The air was very still and thick, like there was going to be a storm or something. Ted’s version of air-conditioning is driving with the windows down, which wasn’t much help to me.
Inside, Luke was sitting with all the windows open, drinking water that was mostly ice, sticking to the leather of his sofa.
“Hey.” I greeted him with a kiss then went through to the bathroom.
“Hello to you too.” He sounded bemused.
I peeled off my tights (I’d forgotten how lovely it was to not have to wear synthetic fibres on hot days), splashed cold water on my wrists, and went back out. Almost as soon as I hit the living room, my phone rang. Again.
“What?” I snapped.
It was Harvey. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay. It’s just people keep phoning me up and making no sense.”
“Ah. Well, in this case it’s me who’s confused. Why did you want to know where Xander was yesterday?”
“Because Luke and Karen think he killed Maretti.”
Luke handed me some cold water, frowning and mouthing, “No I don’t.”
“That’s insane,” Harvey said.
“Well, I think so too. It’s just…”
“
What
?”
“Well, what they said about the gun that killed Shapiro. And Doyle and Maretti were both killed by ordinary kitchen knives.”
“It could have been anyone.”
“Yes—look, Harvey, I don’t think Xander did it. He couldn’t kill a bug.”
“He could. Just because he’s gay doesn’t mean he’s a wuss—”
“Okay, all right!” God, men. “All I’m saying is you better talk to him. Get an alibi.”
“I’m pretty sure he’s been at home the whole time,” Harvey said, sounding calmer.
“Okay. I just need to
know
all this. Tell Karen. I’m just warning you.”
“All right. Thanks. Sophie, I heard about Maretti. Are you okay?”
I sighed. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve come home to a dead body.”
“Let’s hope it’s the last.”
“Yeah.” Somehow, I thought dispiritedly, I doubt it.
“I don’t think Xander did it,” Luke said when I put the phone down.
“Yes, you do.” I looked at my water and tried to decide whether to drink it or chuck it over my head. When had it got so hot? Bloody English weather. One day it chucks it down, the next the air is like soup. Whatever happened to those fine English summer days people used to write poems about?
“No, I don’t. Don’t you get the feeling he’d scream at the sight of blood?”
I downed the water and opened the fridge for more. Aahh, cold air. Damn Luke for having such a small fridge. I wanted to live in it.
One of my phones chirruped and I stuck them both in the fridge until they calmed down. When I stood up Luke was regarding me with amusement.
“You okay?”
“I’m hot.”
“I second that.”
“I mean—you know what I mean. And I have to go clubbing tonight. I hate clubbing.”
“Is Marc going?”
I did a palms-up. “Who knows? He never speaks a damn word to anyone.”
“Are you coming to the garden party tomorrow?”
I gave him a wary look. “I thought you were going.”
“Yeah, but you could come too. Professional assignment.” He drained his water and came over for some more. “And you could meet my great aunt.”
Yeah. I thought that bit might come up.
“Luke, do you like this great aunt?”
He shrugged. “I don’t really like any of my family.”
“Oh, that’s nice. So you’re taking me as an offensive weapon.”
“Well, you have to admit you can be pretty offensive.” He took my cold phone out of the fridge. “You have a message.”
Still annoyed with him for the offensive thing, I snatched the phone up. The message was from Amber’s number and said,
Hi!!! :-) Stil on 4 2nite? Can u pik us up from clas house at 8 pls? Also pik up marc b4 u cum. U no where he livs rite? Amber xxx.
Clas? Oh. Clara’s. I texted Amber back for Clara’s address and leaned against the counter.
“Luke,” I said thoughtfully, and he looked up nervously.
“What?”
“If I was hurt and you had to do a work thing, would you do it?”
He gave me a look like I’d just got off a spaceship.
“What kind of hurt?” he asked carefully. “And what kind of work thing?”
“Something, I don’t know, urgent. On both counts.”
“You’re asking me whether I’d choose between you or work?”
I nodded. I must be crazy.
He blew out a sigh. “That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No, it bloody isn’t.” He looked angry as he sloshed some more water into his glass and stomped back over to the chesterfield. He slammed at the remote control until he found some Spanish football and stared determinedly at the screen.
I think I touched a nerve.
“I won’t be offended,” I said gently, and Luke all but snarled, “Can we not talk about this?”
“Fine.” I put up my hands. “I have to go home anyway. I have homework to do.”
I drained my water, retrieved my Nokia from the fridge and made to go. Luke caught me at the door, barring my way.
“Are you mad at me?”
I blinked. “Why would I be mad?” If anything, I was reassured that Luke hadn’t had a total personality transplant and suddenly decided that his job
wasn’t
the most important thing in the world. As jobs went, it was a pretty important one.
It was a little…well, upsetting, I guess, but only what I expected.
“I don’t know,” Luke said. “It’s just the sort of thing girls get mad about.”
Now
that
annoyed me. “What, you not telling me if you value your job more than me? Yeah. I guess
girls
might get annoyed by that.”
Luke looked frustrated. “I don’t—look, you know I—it’s just I—”
“I understand,” I said. “You’re emotionally incompetent. It’s okay. It’s a guy thing.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I am as emotionally competent as you.”
“Oh, yeah? Let me tell you something, Mr. Cool Hand Luke, right now, at any given moment, there are millions of emotions running right through me. So many I don’t even know the names for some of them. Some of them don’t even have names. How many emotions that are not to do with sports do you get through in one day?”
“That’s not fair,” he said again.
“No. It’s not. Why do we get all the turmoil and you go through life completely calm? It’s not fair.”
“Do I look bloody calm to you?” Luke said, and I had to admit, he did look frightening. “I have emotions. I have lots of emotions. And most of them are centred on you.”
I was a little taken aback by that. But not as taken aback as I was when Luke grabbed me and kissed me, hard, with passion.
“See?” he said, a little triumphantly.
“That wasn’t emotion,” I said, breathless. “That was a primitive reaction.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Luke said, and kissed me again, getting his hands involved in the action too.
“That’s still—” another kiss, I was arching into him now, “a primitive—” and another, getting sweeter, “reaction—God, Luke, fuck me.”
He grinned. “And that’s not primitive?”
“You bastard.”
“Yep.” He began to relieve me of my clothes. “I’m just an emotionless bastard. That’s me. Don’t give a damn about anything.”
“That’s right.”
He took me by the hand and led me over to the kitchen where he opened the fridge and took out the bottle of cold water.
“No,” I begged, “don’t waste it, I’ll die without that…”
He grinned evilly and opened the freezer instead, going for the ice tray. “Whatever you say…”
Makes a change.
“Okay,” I said, “but now I really have to go.”
It was getting late, and I was lying on the floor wearing nothing but some melting ice.
“Where?” Luke said, looking pouty. “Can’t you stay here?”
“I have to go clubbing,” I said, sitting up. “Marc’s going to be there.”
“You spend more time with him than you do with me.”
“He’s my job. There’s a slim chance he might be a serial killer.”
“You don’t really believe that?”
My heart said I didn’t, but my head said it was looking sinister.
I stood up. “Where are my clothes?”
“I threw them out.” Luke stretched out on the floor, like a big sinewy cat. “You won’t need them.”
“It’s not that sort of club.” I hoped.
“Can I come with you?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You’ll distract me.”
Luke caught my ankle and started kissing it. I nearly fainted.
“Okay, stop that,” I panted.
He didn’t stop.
“Luke, I really have to go. I have to go home and shower and change into something slutty—”
“
Please
can I come?”
“No.” I shook my foot free, nearly kicking him in the nose. “Be told.”
I don’t know what was wrong with him. Usually he was much more…I don’t know, maybe more professional. Still as horny as a rhino, but not as clingy. What was up with him today?
I eventually made it home and chucked myself in the shower. At least Luke had helped me burn off some calories. My clubbing outfit might fit.
I have one clubbing outfit. I go so rarely that it wasn’t likely to be remembered by anyone. I pulled it on—a minuscule black skirt with pink ribbons at the sides and a very tiny pink top that just about covered my bra, and not much else. I’m the sort of girl who can’t so much as stand up without some sort of architecture to stop me bouncing, so even with this backless top I had to put on a clear-strap bra. I jumped up and down a few times experimentally. Okay. Didn’t seem as if I was going to blind myself.
My feet were not as torturously painful as they had been, but I knew my shoes would put an end to the bliss. I put plasters on the vulnerable bits of my tootsies, then strapped on my favourite shoes: bright pink with heels that make me as tall as my brother and little pink flowers on the toes. Excellent.
I checked myself out in the mirror, and my face fell. There was the massive yellow bruise on my thigh, and the graze on my shoulder.
Dammit. Damn and bugger it to hell.
If I put on something that covered me up more, I might run the risk of melting in the heat. And I was so hot already—the sky was rumbling—that I couldn’t even bear to have my hair loose. I scrunched it up on the back of my head and started on my makeup. Nothing too scary, my outfit wouldn’t allow it. I smeared some concealer on the bruise and it looked okay. The graze would have to stay though.
I downed some popcorn by way of nourishment, fed Tammy (she looked like she wanted popcorn but she got Whiskas. I’m good to my baby) and clattered out of the house. Five minutes I was back for some trainers to drive in. And a shirt, in case it got cold later.
I picked up Marc, who was impassive about my outfit. He was still dressed in black, I noticed.
“You don't mind not drinking?” he asked.
“No. I’m okay. Need a night off every now and then.”
And that was it. That was our conversation for the ten miles to the suburbs of Chelmsford. I tried to rouse him by pointing out that we were passing the village of Shellow Bowells, and got no response.
Luke finds place names funny. So does Harvey.
I didn’t like Marc.
I found Clara’s house in a maze of identikit brand new streets, and opened up the back of the car for the three girls to climb in, trailing clouds of strong teen perfume, faces made up like strippers, flashing their knickers to the world as they scrambled up into Ted. Clara, I noticed, was wearing her hair in streaky dreadlocks finished off with clacking beads. Her outfit was a million colours and her shoes were four inch stacks of plastic.
Subtle, she was not.
“Wow, it’s like being on a farm,” Amber breathed (good for her—I was suffocating from lack of unperfumed air).
“Don’t be rude,” Lucy scolded. “Can we put the radio on?”
“He doesn’t have a radio,” I said, and there was silence so intense I half expected to see a dustball wheeling across the road.
“
No radio
?” Clara said in tones of utter denial.
“Yeah. He—it’s a basic spec. Secondhand.”
“Can’t you put one in?”
“Well, yeah, but I don’t really have much cash at the mo.” I turned the key and Ted started up with a diesel rumble. “Ready to go?”
“We’re picking up Laurence too, right?” Clara said.
I looked back at them. “Are we?”
“Yeah. Did I forget to tell you that?” Amber said, giving me a look that would have worked a hell of a lot better if she’d been blonde.
“Yes,” I said. “Where does he live?”
In a hamlet twenty miles from anywhere, was the answer. I got lost several times, because the girls weren’t sure where they were going, and Marc forbore to comment on anything. When we arrived outside Laurence’s pretty little cottage, I got out and opened up the back for him wordlessly.
“Cool car,” he said.
“Yeah. Icy.”
I got back in and tried to figure out my way into Chelmsford. No wonder, I thought, turning round for the fourth time, girls have such a bad rep as navigators. These three were hopeless. Not that Laurence and Marc were helping much, either.
My phone rang when we halfway there. I half expected it to be Luke, announcing he was in my rear view mirror and was going to drag me off into the bushes to take advantage of my tiny little skirt, but in the few seconds before I answered it I saw that it wasn’t his number showing.
“Hello?” I held it to my ear. I have a hands free kit, but who ever remembers to plug that in when they get in the car?
“Are you driving?”
Deep and Irish. Docherty. “How can you tell?”
“Car noise. People noise.” He paused. “Sounds like a lot of teenagers.”
“There’s a reason for that.”
“Shouldn’t you be on hands free?”
“Piss off.”
“Now, that’s not a very nice way to treat someone who has important information for you, is it?”
I scowled at the road and switched the phone to my right hand so I could change gear. Beside me, Marc winced as I took my hand off the wheel.
“And what might that be?” I asked, trying to be as un-suspicious as I could.
“Are there people listening?”
“Yep.”
“The kids from school? Great, well, this BEEP BEEP BEEP so listen up.”
I frowned. “Docherty? I’m getting pips.”
“You’re
what
?”
“My phone’s bleeping, it’s BEEP BEEP BEEP…running out of battery,” I finished, eventually.
“You want me to BEEP BEEP BEEP.”
“No, I—shit.” I looked at the display “It’s pretty much BEEP BEEP BEEP.”
The phone gave one little flash, and died. I pressed the power button over and over, and nothing happened.
“Fucking phone,” I cursed, banging it on the steering wheel. Bad signal, empty battery. This shit never happens to James Bond.
“Who was that?” Amber asked nosily.
“Uh, boyfriend.”
“Someone called Docherty,” Clara said loudly.
“Thought your blokey was called Luke?” Lucy giggled. I glanced at her in the rear view. She’d been at the alcopops before she left the house.
“Um, yeah. Luke Docherty.”
“You call him by his last name?”
“Sometimes. In a Scully and Mulder sort of way. You know.”
“Oh my God, I love Mulder!” Clara wailed. “Why did they ever cancel the
X Files
?”
“Because it had been running for a decade and they’d run out of freaks to show,” Laurence said.
A hand touched my shoulder and I jumped, nearly running into the middle of the road.
“What happened to your arm?” Marc asked, his voice low behind the chatter of the girls in the back.
“Oh! I, er…” Shit, you’d think I could have come up with an excuse by now. “I fell over. On holiday.”
“In America?”
“No!” This time I nearly hit a tree. “How do you know I went to America?”
In my head, I crashed the car good and proper for being so bloody stupid. I should have asked what made him think I’d been to America. Stupid, stupid Sophie.
“Laurence said. Last month, right?”
“Yeah. With my dad.”
“You went to New York?”
If I said I’d been to Boston or Florida or LA, doubtless he’d call my bluff.
“Yeah. Just for a few days.”
“It’s cool. But you can’t drink there.”
Wanna bet?
“You can’t drink here,” I said. “Officially.”
“Oh, yeah,” Amber piped up. “Sophie, do you mind getting in all our drinks? Marc said you have a fake ID.”
“I thought you were eighteen,” Lucy said, sounding confused.
Dammit, I should be a better liar than this by now.
“Well, yeah,” I said, “but only just. I haven’t got my full licence through yet.”
This seemed to satisfy them and we drove the rest of the way in comparative peace. Every now and then the girls would break into a bad rendition of an even worse pop song, and Laurence and I exchanged suffering glances in the mirror.
Clara knew somewhere to park that was by this bar she knew, and it was free, so I said goodbye to Ted and hopped out, wondering how it was that I never knew any bars when I was seventeen. I left my Nokia in the car. It was useless now, and for once I didn’t have my wind-up charger with me. It simply wouldn’t fit in the booby bag.
Amber clocked me checking my Siemens phone, just to make sure it still had battery (although there were no useful numbers stored in it) and exclaimed, “How many phones do you have?”
“Oh,” I was used to this now, “this is my old one. I’m just running down the credit on it.”
Clara led us off to the wine bar, which was big and modern and soulless and expensive. I got money off them all and ordered a round of Smirnoff Ice, and a Diet Coke for myself, then watched the girls clatter off to greet a group of blokes enthusiastically.
“Amber didn’t want to bring her boyfriend?” I asked Laurence, who looked singularly unimpressed.
“Didn’t she tell you? They broke up on Monday night. She was stringing him along anyway,” he said with distaste.
“They broke up? How come?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. Think she has her eye on someone else.” But he wouldn’t say who.
“Who are those guys she’s with?” I asked.
“Rugby team. She trains with them.”
I stared. “Amber does rugby training?”
“Yeah. Clara, too. Not properly. They just do it for the boys.”
Why hadn’t I ever thought of that?
I was beginning to wonder how far away the club was, and if we were ever going to get there. My feet were already masses of pain, no matter how I stood, and enough people had bumped into my leg to make it throb patiently and consistently. The girls had disappeared upstairs, and so had Marc, and I was about to go and find them when Laurence said, “Not a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“Well, that skirt…and the steps are open…”
“I’m wearing very pretty knickers,” I told him, and he blanched.
“More than I needed to know.”
I hung around near the bar while I waited for him—or someone—to come back. If I’d made the knickers joke to Luke or Angel or Ella, they’d have grinned and said, “So show them off, then.” But not this lot. This lot didn’t get half of my jokes, or they thought my normal comments were hilarious.
Was I that sad when I was seventeen?
I watched the three girls clatter down the stairs in their minuscule outfits, big hair, glittery shoulders, drag queen makeup, shoes they couldn’t walk in, and thought, yeah, I was that sad. I thought I looked good in stuff like that. It’s only when you grow up and look back that you realise how Godawful you used to be, and you wonder how anyone who knew you then could still even speak to you.
But then I guess that’s the point of friends, or family or whatever. They’ve seen you at your worst and they still love you. People who have never seen you look bad or get paralytically drunk or cry until your face is a tomato are not your friends. They can’t be.
“Hey, what happened to your leg?” asked a drunk guy at the bar, pointing and nudging.
“Birth defect,” I said, smiling, and he dropped back. The girls came over and announced they wanted to go to the club now. Marc, Laurence and I didn’t seem to be included in the discussion.
The club seemed to be not only on the other side of Chelmsford, but the other side of the damn county. It wasn’t that I was cold walking around in my teeny tiny little outfit, far from it. For September it was suspiciously warm. It was just that I was wandering around in slightly less than I usually slept in.
Even when I was sleeping with Luke.
Amazingly, no one ID’d us at the door. I wondered why, until I saw Clara hugging the bouncer. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know, huh? And I had proper ID, too. Damn.
Inside, the club was dark, and cooler than the air outside, thanks to ferocious air-conditioning units that would probably have been deafening were it not for the ear-breakingly loud club beats thumping out. But I’ve been to a lot of Chalker’s gigs, where they play in clubs the size of my living room with a rig more suited to Shea Stadium. And I’ve been meeting 737s on stand for years. My ears can take a lot.
I was dispatched for more drinks and the irony of my choice of beverage was soundly laughed over. The man at the bar asked me if I had any ID and I thought, oh honey. If only you knew what kind of ID.
I checked my booby bag into the cloakroom and tucked the ticket in my bra and wandered off to find the main dance floor. The club was well into its own happy hour now and the floor was full of boys trying to dance and girls ignoring them. Up on podiums impossibly pretty girls with amazing legs were writhing about athletically, occasionally kicking out a hefty shoe at the guys trying to join them. I found a spot and lost myself in the beat for a couple of songs. It was cheesy time and I danced to S Club and Abba and Gloria Gaynor, revelling in the lyrics. I’d lost sight of the others as soon as I gave them their drinks. My usefulness was painfully obvious.