Relief Valve: The Plumber's Mate, Book 2 (21 page)

Apparently he could read my mind. “I assure you, I approached you with no malicious intent.” He took a step towards me, and I took one back before remembering that was a pretty risky manoeuvre up here. Greg folded his hands in front of him and looked at me sorrowfully, in a “You have made little baby Jesus cry” sort of way. I recognised that look from my old Sunday School teachers. “Tom, be reasonable. What possible grounds could I have for wishing you harm? After all, we’re soon to be family.”

Maybe. If I—or Cherry for that matter—lived that long.

Then again, hadn’t Dave Southgate told me most people were murdered by their nearest and dearest?

I’ve never been so glad in my life to see the bottom of a bloody staircase. I stepped out, blinking, into the flickering light of the cathedral and wondered if I should be thanking God for a lucky escape or making an official complaint about His staff. My hip was hurting like a bastard.

“Did you enjoy the tour?” Donations Lady asked with a smile that faltered when she got a good look at my face.

I flinched as the Dangerously Reverend Greg clapped a hand on my shoulder and answered for me. “I’m afraid Tom discovered a hitherto unsuspected dislike of heights.”

“Heights are fine,” I said shortly. “It’s just the hundred-foot drops I’m not so bl—not so keen on. Here you go, love.” I handed over a crumpled fiver. Not that she’d asked or anything, but I just felt like it, all right? “Right. Better get going.”

“You’ll come over to the Old Deanery for a coffee first, of course?” Greg said, his big hands scuttling over one another like baby gorillas having a play fight.

Over my dead body, I thought, but didn’t say, seeing there was a worrying chance he might have taken me literally. “Er, thanks, but I’d better be off. Work,” I added vaguely. He couldn’t argue with that one. Well, I might not have any jobs booked in, but there was always stuff I could be doing. Sorting out paperwork. Cleaning out the van. Putting an ad in Yellow Pages—not because anyone ever reads it these days, but just for nostalgia value. Changing the cats’ litter. Okay, maybe not
technically
part of my job, but you try telling the cats that.

I stalked off back to the car and maybe slammed the door a bit harder than I needed to.

Chapter Fifteen

Of course, halfway home, with some idiot babbling away on the radio about how Rooney hadn’t been playing half so well since the latest cosmetic touch-up, I started to feel a bit daft. Not to mention, embarrassed. Cherry was going to kill me—although not literally, I hoped—when she found out I’d all but accused her bit of reverend rough of trying to off me in a house of God.

And seriously, what had he actually done? Given me a bit of a fright and then saved me from splatting myself on the cathedral floor. If he’d wanted me dead, why bother grabbing me back from the brink?

Course, it was probably easier offing someone if they weren’t staring at you in abject horror. Maybe he just couldn’t do it, when push—
hah
—came to shove.

But I kept coming up against the question,
why?
What on earth had I ever done to the dubiously reverend Greg? I could just about see him trying to off Cherry in a crime of passion—although it was a stretch:
passion
wasn’t exactly the word that came to mind when I thought of her. Then again, that was probably just as well, her being my sister and all. But me? It just didn’t make sense.

I wasn’t sure whether to tell Phil about it or not. I felt a bit of a prat, to be honest. Either Phil was going to think I was being a total drama queen, or he’d go totally the other way and get in a huff with me for going up in the bloody roof with a possible murderer in the first place. Nah, it was better to play this one down. Keep mum about it for now, then laugh it off the next time we were all together.

Then again, I thought as I reached the outskirts of St Albans, seeing as I didn’t have a right lot else to do today, I might as well pop in and see if Phil had worked out who was trying to do my sister in yet. I was
not
just running off to see my bloke because I’d had a bit of a scare. This was practical stuff, all right? He might have had something he wanted me to check out. Or something. And anyway, this time of day, he’d be in his office, if he wasn’t out investigating, and it was on my way home.

I swung the Fiesta down Hatfield Road. Parking’s a bastard in town—all vouchers and permits and traffic wardens who’ll have your nads if you stay one second over time—but the big advantage of Phil’s little shoebox is it’s got a tiny car park out back of the building, with two designated spaces for Alban Investigations Ltd. Not, to be honest, that I couldn’t have parked at my house and walked there—Hatfield Road runs right through Fleetville, and Phil’s office was halfway back up towards St Albans centre, up above a gang of ambulance chasers. Well, lawyers who specialised in compensation claims. I wasn’t sure if they actually did any ambulance chasing. Probably couldn’t afford to, what with the price of petrol these days.

I parked next to Phil’s VW Golf, my little Fiesta looking a bit dingy next to its gleaming silver perfection. Still, at least my car’s got character. I rang the bell, and Phil buzzed me straight up to his office. It was up a steep flight of stairs carpeted in dusty pink—that was the colour, I mean, not that Phil had been a bit lax with the hoovering lately. He probably had a cleaning service to do that anyway.

Phil looked up from his desk when I walked in. It was wood, like Cherry’s mahogany monstrosity, but a lot more modern-looking. Also smaller, but he probably wouldn’t appreciate me saying so. He had it in the big bay window at the front, which had to be deliberate. It meant the client or whoever got all the light right in their face, and Phil was just a sort of looming shadow. “Thought you were busy today?”

“So did I. Bloody customers.” I flopped down into one of the client chairs and set it swivelling lazily.

Phil rolled his eyes and looked back at his computer screen. “Most people get playing with the chairs out of their system in their first year of work.”

“Never worked in an office, have I? Does it get on your tits when your clients do it? I mean, all that nervous energy’s got to go somewhere.”

He smirked. “Why do you think I bought them?”

“What, so you’re sizing up your clients by the way they swivel?” I grinned. “Sounds a bit kinky.”

“Yeah, you got me. Modern investigations, it’s all about the orgies in the office. So what, you come to drag me out to lunch? Bit early, innit?”

I looked at my watch. It wasn’t
that
early. “Maybe. Nah, just came to see how you were getting on with things. You know. Found any skeletons in Literati closets?”

Phil leaned back in his chair and looked at me. “One or two. Hannah Mudge had a breakdown a year or so ago. Peter Grissom took voluntary redundancy from his last job and hasn’t worked since. And the word is, it wasn’t half as voluntary as he likes to make out. Haven’t got anything on the others yet, but I’m working on it.”

“And Raz? Seeing as he’s the one who actually threatened me?”

“Told you. Working on it.”

I swivelled a bit more. “Hey, how come you know all their surnames? I only know Morgan Everton and Margaret Pierce. Knew. Whatever.”

“Trade secret.”

“What, worried I’m going to set up in competition? Actually, yeah, Paretski Investigations, that’s got a bit of a ring to it. Way more interesting than Alban Investigations.”

“Maybe, but it’s wasted if no one ever sees it. Most people, when they’re looking for a tradesman, company, whatever, don’t bother to look down past the first few listings. Why do you think there’s all these businesses called A1 This and Aardvark bloody That?”

“Oi. Paretski Plumbing does all right.”

“Yeah, but that’s word of mouth. You’d be amazed how many of my clients
don’t
go around telling all their mates they hired me to stalk their cheating wife stroke husband stroke significant other.”

“That’s a lot of stroking going on there. I can see why you went into this job.”

Phil held up a finger. “See this? Why don’t you swivel on that for a change?”

“Tempting, but what if a client comes in? So how did you find out those surnames, anyway?”

“I asked Everton.”

“Hang on a mo, I thought the idea was to not let them know you’re looking into them?”

“Well, when I say
I
asked, I actually meant Paul Morton, reporter for the
Herts Herald
, asked. He’s doing a feature on up-and-coming authors in the county.”

“Is he now? Let me guess, he did the interview by phone?”

“Well, one wouldn’t want to waste Mr. Everton’s valuable time, would one?” Phil’s accent did such a rapid social climb during that sentence I was surprised his ears didn’t pop.

“Indeed one would not.” Shame I hadn’t got a cup of tea—I could have stuck my little finger out with the best of them. “So where are we getting this lunch we’re doing, then?”

“Who’s buying?”

“Don’t you usually charge it to the client?”

Phil smirked. “That’d be you in this case.”

“Nah, we could talk about Greg a bit and then you could charge it to him.”

“And you’d be happy to freeload off your sister’s fiancé?”

“Too right. He owes me after this morning.” Oops. Hadn’t meant to bring that up.

Phil leaned forward, his eyes narrowed. I swear his bloody nostrils were flared as well. “What happened this morning?”

Shit. “I went to see him, all right? I mean, he invited me. To go see that bloody cathedral roof.”

“And?”

“And nothing. I just had a bit of a dodgy turn, that’s all.”

“Right. Because you’re well known for your fainting fits. So how come you reckon he owes you?”

“God, you’re like a bloody terrier, aren’t you?”

Phil smiled. “No. You’re the terrier. I’m a Rottweiler. Stop trying to change the subject.”

“There’s no subject. Seriously. I just got a bit of vertigo, that’s all.” I stood up. “Are we having lunch? Some of us have got work to do this afternoon.”

“Right. Better go somewhere local, then. Want to give the Cock a go? And no, that isn’t a come-on.”

“Shame. All right, then.”

The Cock and Hens (or, as Gary likes to call it, the Cock and Bollocks) is a small pub on the edges of Fleetville not noted for being particularly gay-friendly, but I reckoned we’d be safe going in for a bit of pub grub at lunchtime. Let’s face it, if you were feeling a bit bored and looking for a couple of queers to bash, you wouldn’t pick on the six foot one of solid muscle and surliness that’s the face my so-called better half presents to the world. Not without calling up half a dozen of your mates, and with a bit of luck, they’d all be off shoplifting from Lidl or signing on for benefits before toddling off for a bit of housebreaking, this time of day.

At any rate, we managed to walk in without the whole place falling silent like that scene in
American Werewolf
. And trust me, I’ve been in pubs where that’s really happened. Here, it was pretty quiet already, just a few old blokes—no women—nursing lonely pints, and nobody even glanced up at our entrance.

I decided I probably wasn’t going to make this my new local.

“What do you fancy?” Phil asked.

I left that innuendo well alone and took a glance at the specials board. It didn’t look all that special to me. “Dunno. Fish and chips? Not a lot they can do to that, is there?” I added in a lower voice.

“You’d be surprised,” Phil muttered back. But he ordered it for both of us, plus a couple of pints.

The bloke behind the bar took his money without a smile, and we went and sat at a table by the window, not that you could see out or anything. It was that sort of bottle glass you get in basement skylights.

“So, you come here often?” I asked, still keeping my voice down.

Phil grunted, possibly in amusement. “Never been in before. Christ, this place is depressing.”

He wasn’t wrong. The main theme in the decor seemed to be dark, drab colours that wouldn’t show it if someone spilled their pint—or a bit of blood—on them. The brightest thing in the place was the worn patches on the faded velour seats where an off-white lining was showing through. “On the bright side, you’re going to be pretty keen to get back to your work.” I grinned. “You take me to all the best places.”

“You spend half your working life with your head stuck down a drain. Don’t tell me you’re getting all high maintenance now.”

“Nah, I’m strictly low rent, me.” My stomach rumbling, I glanced hopefully up at the bar, even though it was way too early for the food to be on its way. I frowned at what I saw. “Not acting too gay, am I?”

“You what?”

“There’s a bloke who’s just come in. He’s over by the bar. Staring at us.”

Phil tensed but didn’t look round. “Describe him.”

“Big—as in, muscles, not fat—probably about your height, sort of dark blond hair shaved short at the back and sides, bit scruffy,
Daily Mail
under one arm. Sort who’d probably leap at the chance to glass a couple of poofters.” Phil turned to look. And oh shit, I’d just realised why the bloke had looked familiar.

Bar-bloke lumbered over. “All right, Phil? Didn’t know you drank here. Who’s this, then?”