Hot Blood (Bloodwords Book 1) (10 page)

‘Did you manage to fly this weekend Steve,’ she
asked her husband. ‘The weather looked good and I know you were looking forward
to going up.’

‘Yes, it was magical. You don’t appreciate what
you have here until you see it from another angle.’

Mmmm
. Never a truer word spoken she thought.

‘I don’t know what you mean. What did you see
from another angle?’

‘Everything I suppose Ali. You drive along the
bypass and see nothing of the coast, but from the air it’s as nice, if not
nicer, than the
Karpaz
in Cyprus – all sun
kissed beaches, sand dunes and sea. I was delayed by a road accident on the way
to the airfield but once I got up I flew as far as the coastguard station at
Crosby then back all the way to
Hesketh
Bank, then
did a lazy loop back inland – I actually flew over this mill – and
back to the field at
Ince
. Brilliant.’

‘So what did you do for a meal? Nothing seemed
to have gone from the fridge when I got back.’

‘Oh, I ate at the Red Squirrel, a pub style
restaurant just the opposite side of the bypass from the airfield I often use.
It takes half an hour to de-rig the Blade and by that time I’m ravenous. It’s
pub grub at a low price and it’s surprising who you see in there.’

Was that a coded reference? Should she now
fling herself on his mercy? But perhaps she was misreading things. If he had
indeed seen her he was being pretty blasé about it, and that wasn’t usually his
style.

‘Like who? Who have you seen there?’

‘You would be surprised,’ he said with a grin.
‘When I go in it’s a bit quiet after the mid day rush. They have an early bird
menu that’s excellent value and the salad bar is free, so they get a few older
couples looking for bargains. But if you look for them you can often see a man
with somebody else’s wife or a woman with somebody else’s husband trying to
hide in one of the darker corners. Spotting them has become a bit of a game for
me and once you know what to look for they stand out like a sore thumb. There’s
a smaller area down a couple of steps that cannot be seen from the doorway or
the
servery
and that seems to be their favourite
place to try and hide. It’s laughable really. They all do the same stupid
things. They put on an act of familiarity then blow their cover when they don’t
know simple things like whether their dining partner is allergic to something
or other or wants sugar in his coffee and simple things like that.’

Oh glory! Was that yet another coded message.
If so, he was right on target. It fitted them like a glove. Brian had ordered a
desert that she just couldn’t touch and then she had forgotten to sweeten his
Americano. Was Steve now telling her ‘I saw you girl’ or was that a
coincidence? And was taking a table in the lower section so bloody obvious? Oh
hell’s bells. What to do?

‘So who have you seen then? Did you recognise
anyone this time?

‘Well, yes actually. When I went over to the
salad bar I clocked that teacher from your school. You know the one. The one
that fancies you. What is he called? Ben, Bert, Brian or something I think. He
was paying at the till and looked pretty flustered. He hadn’t eaten on his own
but whoever was with him must have dashed out and left him to pay. Nice bit of
gossip for you there Ali. Who do you think he was dining with? Somebody else’s
wife perhaps?’

Oh bloody hell. They had been seen. But Steve
wasn’t usually this diplomatic when it came to her. Possessive. That was more
the Steve she knew. If he had really seen her with Brian then he would have
made a point of knocking poor Brian’s block off. And they wouldn’t be having
this conversation the day afterwards either – it would be a full blown
raging row.

But all the same, what if?

The what if wasn’t even worth contemplating.
What had she seen in Brian anyway? A bit on the side? A bit of something
different in her life? Something to spice things up? Well it didn’t need an
affair to do that did it? Steve was a successful businessman, they had a home
to die for, changed their cars every few months and if she wanted to go for a
meal or a weekend away he would be only too happy to take her. And then there was
Steve himself. Loveable Steve. What the hell was she doing messing about with
Brian?

‘There has been a bit of talk at school about
him actually.’ She felt her cheeks getting hot. Was she blushing and giving the
game away? Still, better to get it over with, to bluff it through if at all
possible. Did women have a mid life crisis?

‘There were one or two that linked me with him
because they didn’t actually know who he was seeing. He is OK really, probably
just lonely. I bet if the truth be known he’s not seeing anybody and it’s just
a blind.’ There, that should cover the cracks if Steve hadn’t actually seen who
was with Brian. In any case, although she had not stopped the affair, she and
Brian had had a row, so although it might be stretching things, she could claim
that she wasn’t seeing him. That might not be the case when they met at school
on Monday of course, but what the hell under the circumstances. Fingers
crossed.

‘So when are you flying again? I might just
come with you and give it a try.’

……….

Scanning the week’s art group bookings, Mike
Johnson searched in vain for her name. It wasn’t there. Why had she suddenly
stopped attending classes when she was the most promising newcomer to have
joined any of the groups for some time? What a waste of a talent. Not a bad
looker
either. Just her presence livened up a class, making
a welcome change from
fuddy
duddy
old widows and blokes that couldn’t paint but just wanted to ogle the models.
Clicking an on-screen button, the list was replaced by a
spreadsheet
showing the little art shop’s finances. It wasn’t just that the art groups were
dwindling, takings through the shop were down as well. Once it had been a
little goldmine but big multiple shops on the main street and in the retail
parks had opened art departments where they sold blank canvases, paints and
other materials far cheaper than The Palette could buy them. And the bollards
that stopped vehicles driving up past the shop had also decimated foot traffic.

They had had a good run for their money and
made lots of it while it lasted. Along the way there had been some good times
too, like some of the one-to-one evening classes. Indeed, some of those had
been very enjoyable. But with the sudden downturn in business a new direction
was urgently needed if they were to keep the wolf from the door. Short of
selling up and moving out – not an option because they both loved their
house – developing their land was the only option.

With a builder’s offer on the table, they
should have been celebrating, but the legal action had stopped it in its
tracks. Not only that, there was pressure from the bank. If there wasn’t some
movement soon then the
The
Palette would close. And
like dominoes, that would bring everything else down with it. Something had to
be done about Mr Peter Archer. Dear brother-in-law had to be stopped in his
tracks. If the police wouldn’t believe him and even his own solicitor couldn’t
stop the little upstart, then somebody had to. Family or not, the time had come
to take things into his own hands.

The shop door opened and in walked a tall,
seductively dark haired, young woman. Olive tinted skin and cleanly defined
features betrayed an oriental origin perhaps several generations earlier, while
her unusual height and perfect posture gave her an enviable elegance. She was
good looking and knew it, using it to perfection. Her gait was measured and
practiced, her clothes impeccably selected. And she used it all to advantage.

‘Hello Mike, am I too late?’ Uttered in a soft
voice that was neither hoarse nor a whisper, yet at the same time, both, they
were provocative words, provocatively delivered. She crossed the shop and
smoothed her silky skirt as she lowered herself into a chair, completing the
movement by crossing her slender legs.

‘Some things are worth waiting for,’ he
replied, matching her enquiring smile with an equally provocative expression,
adding ‘and the lady that just walked into my shop brought with her the most
wonderful vision of beauty I have ever seen, lightening the load on this poor
man’s shoulders beyond compare.’

Throwing her head back and laughing
infectiously, her smile broadened before metamorphosing into an alluring pout
as she responded to his prose with ‘And I thank the kind sir for his
observation, his patience, and hopefully, his keenness.’

Keenness indeed! Of course he was keen. It went
without saying. Far from being the utterance of a mere flirt, his words had
been chosen with extreme care, being the verbal interpretation of his feelings
for the woman that had entered his life so recently, and did not enter his shop
as often as he would have liked. This apparition of youthful beauty had
enriched his life and eased the cares of both a family feud and the worries of
impending financial disaster.
 
Neither feud nor disaster were on his mind at that moment; a wonderful
picture of beauty now graced his vision and he was determined to make the most
of that image before the time was lost and reality returned.

‘Give me the opportunity and I will show you,’
ventured the artist with a cheeky grin. ‘Why don’t you pop upstairs and get
ready while I lock up the shop and turn off the lights. I bet that I am up
there with you before you’ve had time to sort yourself out – that’s how
keen I am. Oh, and don’t forget to close the blinds first, we wouldn’t want any
late night shoppers getting the wrong idea would we?’

……….

Sipping his tea in the Windsor Tea Rooms, Kyle
Fraser had a good view of The Palette and had noted the entrance of the woman,
the easy way she interacted with Johnson, his eagerness to lock up the shop,
turn over the ‘closed’ sign and switch off the shop lights. It had been as an
old silent movie; knowing glances, exaggerated actions but no sound. How he
wished that he could have heard what had been said and what had been arranged.
Then, as he watched with fascination, the woman had preceded the artist
upstairs and the blinds had quickly been drawn. It didn’t need his sergeant’s
stripes to imagine what happened from there.

‘Another tea sergeant, it’s on the house?’

‘Yes please Helen.’

Visibly nervous when he had entered the tea
shop, the young woman had at first kept her distance from the detective, but as
it became obvious that she wasn’t the focus of his enquiries, she had wandered
over to talk to him. She seemed a bit on the immature side, not able to hide
her feelings or control her nervousness, but for all that, all the more
attractive. The innocence of youth perhaps. Give her a couple of years and a
few more broken romances and the innocence would have gone and she would have
had more practice at hiding what she really felt. At the moment though, her
immaturity was in Kyle’s favour; nervous reactions or a lighting fast blush of
her cheeks gave too much away.

He smiled at her as she put the china cup and
saucer on the table in front of him. In truth he would rather have had a large
beaker. Only a few mouthfuls and the Windsor’s little cups were empty.
Returning his smile – and what a pretty smile she had – she
enquired whether he would also like a piece of fruit cake. It was a speciality
and really quite good. And that would be on the house as well.

‘Thanks for the tea Helen,’ he responded, ‘but
no, I’ll take a miss on the cake,’ adding that he would be having his evening
meal soon, but thanks all the same.

‘Are you still going to art classes at The
Palette?’ he quizzed her.

‘No. Like I told the inspector, my boyfriend
kicked up an awful fuss and said I had to stop.’

‘I know, but you said that you had finished
with him. Jack wasn’t it? Well if you finished with him he doesn’t have any say
in what you do anymore does he?’

‘That’s right. Jack is history. But I couldn’t
carry on with the classes could I? The art group always meet up here for a
coffee before walking over to the studio for the lesson and when Jack came he
showed me up in front of all the group as well as customers in the other shops
and people walking along. I couldn’t show my face again could I?’

‘Well pardon me Helen,’ he said with a cheeky
smile, but there’s more than your face showing in The Palette’s window isn’t
there?’

In a flash her face was crimson and she threw
up her hands to cover her mouth.

‘Oh
Lordy
’ she
exclaimed, ‘it’s been a nightmare. I’ve begged Mike to rip the picture up but
he said that it’s been his best advert.’

Kyle wasn’t surprised at that. But her
embarrassment might help him steer the conversation so that he could elicit the
information he needed. ‘Don’t worry about it Helen,’ he responded, ‘Jack’s the
loser here so just ignore it and everything will die down. But do you work this
late every day? I mean, isn’t the tea shop trade mainly mid morning and early
afternoon? I wouldn’t have thought that many customers came in at this time.’

‘You are right. We normally close at five, but
there are a few groups that come and meet here so we stay open especially for
them. We stay open on Tuesday for the art group, and Wednesday for the camera
club.’