Pressure Head (3 page)

I fed them the dish of the day (lamb with rabbit, yum, yum) and set about rustling myself up some comfort food. A mug of Heinz tomato soup the size of your average bathtub, and hunks of baker’s bread with tangy cheddar cheese melted into it. Lovely. For dessert, I took a couple of ibuprofen. I don’t like popping pills all the time, but my hip was really killing me, and every twinge was a reminder of Phil bloody Morrison. And the accident.

I’d been seventeen when it happened. I’d made the mistake of heading out to the shops on my own. Just as I turned a corner, I ran straight into Phil Morrison and his gang. Literally.

He hadn’t been pleased to see me. “Oi, watch where you’re going—bloody hell, it’s Poofski!”

“He was touching you up, Phil!” That was Wayne Hills, a nasty little shit who did an awful lot of arse-kissing for a rabid homophobe.

“Get him!”

After a greeting like that, there was only one thing to do. Run. When it came to verbal sparring, I liked to think I gave as good as I got, but there were four of them threatening to get very physical, very fast, and they were all bigger than me.

So I ran.

Unfortunately, my talent for knowing where things are didn’t extend to the oncoming car that hit me square on, shattering my pelvis and breaking my leg. With hindsight, it would have been a lot less painful to stand my ground and take the beating they’d threatened. As violent thugs went, Phil and his gang were strictly minor league. The car, on the other hand, was a four-by-four. With bull bars on the front.

So I ended up missing my A levels, and I never did go back and take them. My parents were disappointed, but with my older brother a consultant oncologist and my sister a barrister, I suppose they thought on average, they’d done all right by their kids. Either that or they were worn out with the whole thing by then. My sister’s ten years older than me, my brother, twelve—I’m fairly sure my parents thought I was the menopause. I’ve never quite dared ask if they were pleased or not to find out the truth.

The plumbing thing came about more or less by chance, although once I’d thought of it, it seemed like the obvious choice. We’d had a pipe burst under the floor, and after ten minutes idly watching the plumber effing and blinding as he tried to work out where the leak was, I realised I could tell him to the inch. His comment of
“Are you trying to do me out of a job, son?”
got me thinking.

Anyway, as my dad always says, it’s useful having a plumber in the family. Usually, he says this right before he asks me if I’ll take a look at the drip in the shower.

(At which point I generally say,
“Oh, I didn’t realise my brother was visiting, and won’t he mind me staring at him?”
Family rituals—you’ve got to love them.)

I put down my mug and scratched Arthur’s chin. He leaned into me and purred—he may look like a bruiser, he may even swagger like one, but he’s just a big softy at heart. Talking of swaggering bruisers… Phil Morrison, a poof. Who’d have thought it?

Of course, it occurred to me, just because Dave had heard Phil was queer didn’t mean he actually was. I smiled to myself. Maybe he’d been the
other
sort of bent copper, and Dave had got the wrong end of the stick. Now that I could believe.

Chapter Two

I was eating my breakfast next morning when the doorbell rang, so I went to answer it with my hair uncombed, my face unshaven and a slice of toast and marmalade in my hand. I don’t know anyone who manages to look presentable before eight o’clock in the morning. It’s just not natural.

I wasn’t pleased to find myself facing an immaculate Phil Morrison. His broad shoulders filled my doorway, and a hand rested casually in the pocket of his designer jeans. “How did you find out where I live?” I asked, just about managing not to spit crumbs all over his sweater. It looked expensively soft, maybe even cashmere, not that I’d be able to tell for sure without reading the label. Knowing him, if he had to get it dry-cleaned, he’d probably send me the bill.

He smirked. “Private investigator, remember?”

“What do you want?” I was uncomfortably aware I’d been wearing this shirt yesterday. I had a clean T-shirt on underneath—I’m not a slob—but he still made me feel like something the cats had dragged in and then played with for a bit before losing interest and batting it under the sofa.

“Can I come in?” Phil asked, sounding annoyingly reasonable.

My first instinct was to slam the door in his face, but I was brought up proper, so I muttered, “If you must,” and stood aside for him to enter. He walked in, casting a professional, and no doubt unimpressed, eye all over my little semidetached house, which I liked to think of as cosy and unpretentious. Morrison probably saw it as poky and scruffy.

“Nice place,” he said in a tone so completely devoid of sarcasm I reckoned he had to be taking the piss.

“Yeah, and the weather’s lovely for the time of year. Now are you going to get to the point? I’ve got a blocked drain that was put off yesterday,
and
all the jobs booked in for today.” I shoved the rest of my toast in my mouth impatiently, still standing in the hall. I wasn’t going to invite him to park his arse on my sofa and get comfortable. That was the last thing I wanted.

Morrison watched me chew for a moment. “Melanie Porter’s family want to meet you.”

“What? Why?” This time I did spit out a few crumbs.

“You found their daughter, remember?” His gaze was open and bland, and I didn’t trust it as far as I could throw its owner. “Maybe they think you’ll be able to tell them something about how she died.”

“I won’t.” I pushed past him and stalked off to the kitchen, where I’d left my morning cuppa. Merlin and Arthur were busy demolishing their breakfast, furry bums in the air. I envied them. Life was so much bloody simpler for a cat.

Morrison followed me in, and I briefly wished I’d gone for a couple of Dobermans. “Come off it, Paretski—you must have had some grounds for knowing where to find her.”

I took a long, steadying swallow of PG Tips. “I didn’t. I told you yesterday, I’m just good at finding things, that’s all. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do.” I shoved my plate into the dishwasher, gulped down the rest of my tea and rinsed out my mug.

“You’ve changed, Paretski,” he said, and this time the tone was clearly disapproving. His impressive bulk loomed even larger in the narrow confines of my kitchen, and it didn’t help that I was only in my socks. One of which had a hole in the toe, I noticed. “I’d never have thought you’d leave an old mate in the lurch like this.”

I whirled, droplets of water flying onto his tan leather jacket from the mug still in my hand. I hastily put it in the sink before I could ruin his entire wardrobe. “An old mate? For fuck’s sake, Morrison, we hated each other’s guts!”

There was an odd look on his face. “Not me. Graham Carter.”

For a moment, I couldn’t place the name. It’d been so long since I’d heard it. Then it hit me.

We’d been friends at school, of a sort, me and Graham. He’d distanced himself from me after the
Poofski
thing broke, but I hadn’t blamed him really. The poor sod had had a hard enough time already, without being tarred with the same brush as me. He was a kids’ home boy, shy, nerdy and crap at games. He really didn’t need to hand the bullies any more ammunition.

Now I thought about it, I couldn’t actually remember Morrison being a git to Graham. He’d saved that for me, the bastard.

“What the hell has Graham Carter go to do with all this?”

“Melanie Porter was his girlfriend. They lived together, up on Dyke Hill. He was the one who gave the Porters my number, back when Melanie first went missing.”

“You and Graham are friends?” I couldn’t keep the scepticism out of my voice. It was like hearing Tweety Pie and Sylvester had suddenly become BFFs. “How the hell did that happen?”

“That’s not important. What
is
important is that he’s being set up for this.”

I folded my arms and leant against the draining board. “I thought you were working for Melanie’s parents, not for Graham.”

“I am. They don’t believe he did it—and they want to find the bastard who did.”

It didn’t seem to add up to the picture I’d formed in my head. “Dave Southgate said Melanie’s boyfriend was a junkie.”

“He was. Past tense.” Morrison sighed. “Look, he went through a bad patch after leaving school. A lot of us did,” he added, but went on before I could ask him about it. Not that he’d have told me anything, I thought sourly. “He was living on the streets for a while, doing smack, petty crime, that sort of thing—but he’d started to sort his life out even before he met Melanie.”

“So at which point did you and he become friends? The junkie bit, or after?” I persisted.

Morrison folded his arms, mirroring my posture. I couldn’t help noticing he had a lot more trouble than I had getting his beefy forearms in position. “I help out at Crisis, all right? Saw Graham there and got talking to him.”

“Crisis?” My flabber was well and truly ghasted.

“The homelessness charity,” he supplied impatiently.

“I know what it is, all right? I just wouldn’t have imagined you playing the good Samaritan to a bunch of tramps.” Then again, I’d never have imagined anyone telling me Phil Morrison was queer either.

“There’s a lot about me you don’t know, Paretski.”

Not as much as you think
. I found myself giving him an appraising look and wondering what kind of bloke he liked, and if he was seeing someone at the moment. Then I gave myself a mental shake. Still perving over Phil Morrison after all these years, for God’s sake?

Trouble was, he was just the sort of bloke I go for. Always had been. He’d filled out a bit since his school days, but then so had my image of the perfect man. Physically, obviously, because personality-wise, I still couldn’t stand the git.

At least, that was what I’d thought. In the light of all these revelations, I wondered if I ought to revise my opinion.

He heaved a heavy sigh, his arms rising and falling with his chest. “Look, can we focus on what’s important here? Graham’s in trouble. Are you going to help, or not?”

“I….” I had to look away. “It’s not that I won’t help. I just don’t see how I can, that’s all.”

“Fine.” His jaw set, Morrison unfolded his arms and marched towards the door.

“Oh, for—hang on a minute, okay?” I found myself chasing after him and grabbing hold of one granite forearm, only to drop it like a ton of, well, granite when he turned and glared at me. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t go and see them. I just don’t see how it can help. I don’t know anything. I just find stuff.”

He drew in a breath as if about to say something, then stopped and shook his head. “Okay, then. I’ll pick you up here at seven o’clock tonight, all right?”

“Okay,” I said, regretting it already. What would it do except raise hopes I couldn’t fulfil?

I felt in dire need of someone to talk to after that, but work came first, seeing as mortgage companies tend to get a bit nasty if you don’t cough up each month. But I called my mate Gary and asked him to meet me for lunch up the Dyke between jobs.

The Devil’s Dyke pub in Brock’s Hollow is actually named after the Iron Age earthworks still visible nearby, but you could be forgiven for thinking the place took its name from its landlady. Henrietta “Harry” Shire is over six feet tall and built like the proverbial outhouse. She may have hung up her boxing gloves, following not inconsiderable success on the amateur ladies’ circuit, but it’d still be a brave man who dared cause trouble in her pub. The place is staffed by a gaggle of pretty young girls who all seem to live in and never, ever have boyfriends. They’re referred to locally as Harry’s harem, but only when the speaker is one hundred and ten per cent certain the Devil’s Dyke herself isn’t listening.

Anyway, they do decent pub grub up there. It’s down a quiet country lane, and there’s a large garden on one side of it, so summer weekends it gets pretty busy with kiddies playing football while their parents enjoy a pint. On a Wednesday lunchtime in November, there was still a respectable crowd, although we were all over school age and we stayed in the public bar and kept warm by the fire. The Devil’s Dyke is an old-fashioned country pub and still has two bars: the public bar and the lounge bar, only the latter of which they let the kiddies into. As is usual in these places, it’s the nicest one that’s adults only. It’s a shame, really, as Harry’s border collie Flossie makes her home in the public bar, whereas all the lounge bar has to recommend it is a secret passageway in the walk-in fireplace which is, in any case, locked and marked “Private”.

Flossie likes to lie down on top of the covered-up well. What a pub wants with an in-house well is beyond me—personally, I’d have thought they’d want to discourage the drinking of water—but maybe they had their reasons back in Ye Olde Times. Anyway, all that’s left now is a circular plinth about two feet high, with a glass cover you can look down to see that yes, it really does go all the way down. It keeps Flossie’s tail safe from being trodden on and gives her a vantage point from which to fix a beady eye on anyone daring to eat meat in the place. I generally go for fish when I have a meal there.

There are plenty of low beams, none of which I have to duck for, and the walls are tobacco-coloured, maybe to compensate for the fact you’re not allowed to smoke inside any longer. Pride of place on the walls is given to Harry’s collection of exotic beer bottles, with a few horse brasses tucked in apologetically here and there.