Pressure Head (8 page)

“I will, don’t you worry.” I watched her walk back to the bar with a spring in her step.

“Are you sure you’re even gay?” Phil muttered, poking at his pie like he thought there might be a body hidden in it.

“There are other reasons to be nice to people than just because you want to get your leg over.” I gave the ketchup bottle a hefty whack on the bum, and tried not to think about other sorts of red stuff.

Phil made a derisive sort of noise. “So, are you, anyway?”

I frowned. “What? Nice? Or hoping to get my leg over?”

“No, you— Are you seeing anyone?”

“Why do you care?” Did he care? Did I want him to? “No, as it happens.”

He paused, a forkful of pie halfway to his mouth. “Not the relationship type?”

“Yeah, that’s me. Shag a different bloke every night. And you know those porn clichés about the plumber turning up to give your pipes a good seeing to? They’re all true, every one.” I managed not to roll my eyes at him and jammed a forkful of fish in my gob.

“Still a touchy little sod, aren’t you?” He sounded amused.

“Less of the little, if you don’t mind.” I raised an eyebrow deliberately. I wasn’t sure Phil spoke innuendo.

His smile spread, so maybe he did understand me. “Why? It’s true. You should put it on your business cards—
Tom Paretski, the pocket-sized plumber. No job too small
.”

“And again with the height jokes. What do you have on yours?
Phil Morrison, the muscle-bound moron?”

“Now, come on—that’s a poor effort. How about
Private Dick—the biggest in the business?
”

I grinned. “So is it, then?”

His turn to say, “What?”

“The biggest. Come to that, is it private, or can anyone apply?” I took another forkful of plaice.

Phil stared at me a bit too intently for comfort, his eyes dark and unreadable. For all the fish was melt-in-the-mouth tender, suddenly my throat was too dry to swallow it. I reached blindly for my drink, unable to break eye contact.

“They can apply,” he said at last. “Doesn’t mean they’ll get the job.” Then he bent his head to his pie and started chowing down like a champion.

Obviously we’d finished with the flirting part of the meal. I followed his example and chomped in silence. Well, it’d be a shame to let it get cold—the fish really was good.

“Why did you leave the force?” I asked after a while, when I’d begun to feel full but didn’t quite want to stop eating yet. “Did the institutionalised homophobia get too much for you?” Although I couldn’t imagine Phil taking any crap about his sexuality from anyone.

“Not exactly.” He paused; decided it was safe to let me into the secret. “I’d always planned to go private. Just joined the force for the training.”

“Sneaky.”

“Sensible.”

“That’s my taxes paid for your training, though.”

“You got six years out of me. I reckon it’s a fair trade.” He speared a carrot. “And how much tax do you ever pay, anyway? I’d have thought half your work was cash in hand.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t pay tax on it.”

“I thought fiddling the tax man was one of the perks of the trade.”

“Spoken like a true upholder of law and order. Although I suppose now you’ve gone private, you can afford to be a bit more flexible about that, can’t you?”

“I’ve got my ethical standards, same as everyone. Are you done there?”

“Why, in a hurry, are you?” I looked at my plate. It still had some chips on it, but at least I’d eaten all my greens, Mum. “Yeah, I’m done.” I supposed this was good-bye. Maybe I’d see him at Graham’s sometime—I was definitely going to have to keep in touch with the poor sod. Someone needed to make sure he was eating right, that sort of thing. If they hadn’t already locked him up and thrown away the key, that was.

“Good,” Phil said, pushing back his chair and standing. “Come on, then—the estate agent’s just down the road.”

I did a double-take. “Hang on a minute—when did I become your unpaid assistant?” I had to hurry after him, the long-legged git. “What do you want me along for, anyhow?”

About to push the door open, Phil turned back to me. “Your van’s up at Graham’s. You’re not seriously expecting me to take you back there and then come back down here, when the place is only yards down the road?”

Had he set this up? I sent him a suspicious look, but seeing as it only reached the back of his head as he set off down the hill without waiting for an answer, I might as well have saved myself the bother. Still, I wasn’t exactly averse to spending a little more time in his company. If he could only keep his mouth shut, he’d be perfect. I smiled as I got a vivid image of Phil Morrison in my bed. Gagged.

“Something funny?” Bugger. He’d turned at just the wrong moment.

“Trust me, you don’t want to know. This it, then?” We’d stopped outside the offices of Village Properties, which was next door to the Women’s Institute shop. I could see hand-knitted dollies peeping coyly out from behind patchwork cushions and strange, vegetable-shaped ornaments in their window.

Phil, of course, didn’t spare a glance for the ladies’ handiwork, and pushed open the estate agent’s door. I followed him in—and nearly tripped over the doormat when I saw the bloke at the desk. Bloody hell, that photo had done him no justice at all. He wasn’t just
nice
; he was gorgeous.

Chapter Six

For a moment, I thought George Clooney must have decided to turn his back on the acting profession in favour of flogging houses to the middle classes. And while he was at it, turned the clock back fifteen or twenty years.

“Good afternoon,” he greeted us in ringing, mellow tones.

“Hi,” I said, giving a daft little wave like I was a geeky teenager with a crush. I think I even blushed. Phil stared at me for a moment, which helped to bring me back to earth.

“What can I help you with?” Cloney Clooney asked, rising from his seat and extending a hand. “I’m Robin East, delighted to meet you.” He glanced shrewdly between me and Phil. “First house together, is it?”

If Phil had looked any stonier, Cock Robin would probably have taken his details and sold him to a family of four as a desirable property in need of some modernisation. “Mr. East, I was hoping I could ask you a few questions,” he ground out while I stifled a laugh.

Gorgeous brown eyes narrowed, looking no less sexy for all that. George Clooney playing some kind of legal eagle; he could cross-examine me any time he wanted. “Press?”

“No. Private investigator.” Phil handed him a card. “I’m looking into Melanie Porter’s death.”

Robin slumped back in his chair, looking genuinely troubled. “God, what a nightmare. Such a sweet girl—I can’t believe anyone could do such a thing.” Now he was back in the ER role, and a patient had just died despite all his efforts… I had to stop doing this, I told myself firmly. The bloke might be sex on legs, but he was probably straight and definitely a suspect.

“You saw her the night she died, didn’t you?” The expressionless way Phil asked it sent shivers down my spine.

Robin’s eyes widened. “No! No, as I told the police, that wasn’t me. The phone call, that is. I was working late, yes, but I didn’t call Melanie.”

“So you were here alone?”

Was it my imagination, or did Robin’s cheeks start doing a faint impression of his namesake’s breast? “Yes, I’m afraid so. Quite alone.”

“Make any phone calls at all?”

“Ah, no. Catching up on paperwork, I’m afraid.” Robin fiddled distractingly with a pen on his desk. It was a Montblanc, which didn’t surprise me; I’d seen the prices in the window on the way in.

Phil nodded; I wasn’t sure what he was agreeing with. Maybe he just liked to nod at people he was interviewing, so they’d think he was on their side. “Did Melanie mention she was going out that night?”

“Not to me.” He put the pen down very deliberately—sensible; you don’t want to risk breaking a posh pen like that—but then his fingers started drumming on his stack of papers. I read the top one:
Exceptional living space and stunning views make this superb barn conversion…
I stopped reading before I could get to the price and have a heart attack.

“So who might she have talked to?”

Robin didn’t look like he wanted to tell us, which seemed weird as he’d presumably gone through exactly the same thing with the police already. “Well…there’s my secretary, of course.”

“Then maybe we should talk to her?”

His lips thinned. “Of course. Pip?”

I started as a colourless shape I’d been vaguely aware of at the corner of my field of view unfolded itself from a desk in the corner and walked towards us.

“This is Pip Cox, my secretary. Pip, this is Mr. Morrison, a private investigator, and..?” He looked at me expectantly.

“Tom Paretski. Plumber.” I thought, what the hell, and handed her a card. “Call me any time. No job too small,” I added, mainly for Phil’s benefit. I smiled, but she didn’t return it—just ducked her head, hiding beneath a fringe of hair. Pip Cox? Anyone less like an apple it was hard to imagine. She was tall to the point of awkwardness—she had a good eight inches on me, and she wasn’t wearing heels—and bone-thin, with worried brown eyes and shoulder-length, unflatteringly cut mouse-brown hair. She wore a flared skirt, blouse and cardigan that looked like they belonged to her gran and did nothing for her face or her figure.

“Miss Cox?” Phil said politely. “Is there anything you can tell us about that day?

Her thin fingers played with a spot on the edge of her cardi she’d half worried into a hole already. “Not really,” she said in a voice I had to strain to hear, her eyes fixed on the carpet. “Melanie just said she’d be having a night in. With Graham.”

“She specifically mentioned that to you?”

Pip nodded.

“Did she sound like she was looking forward to it?”

Another nod.

“Graham mentioned she’d been working late a lot recently,” Phil said, obviously trying to coax her out of her shell a bit.

“Well, of course,” Robin butted in. “We’ve been extremely busy. There’s a mini-boom going on at the moment, and with the new school being built—well, it’s a seller’s market.” Not to mention, an estate agent’s one, I thought. He must have been doing very nicely indeed on the commission.

Phil glared at him briefly. When he turned back to Pip, he softened his expression with what looked like a painful effort. “Have you had to work late as well, then?”

She seemed a bit flustered by his sympathetic tone. “I—well, no, not really—I mean, I don’t—my husband doesn’t like it if I—” She was married? I glanced at her hands, and sure enough, there was a ring. I couldn’t believe I’d missed it. I imagined some IT nerd with a beard and glasses, and wondered if they ever had sex or if they just played Minecraft and Skyrim together.

“Pip doesn’t show properties,” Robin interrupted. “So she works mainly nine to five.”

She sent him a grateful smile, and just for a second, her face was transformed. She looked almost pretty, and suddenly it wasn’t such a stretch to imagine her married.

“It must have been pretty rough on you,” I said. “Losing a friend like that. Was Melanie the only other girl in the office?”

Pip darted a glance my way and nodded.

“Did you see a lot of her outside work?” I continued, seeing as Phil seemed content to let me do the talking for a bit.

This time she shook her head. “Not really. She was always busy.”

“With Graham?”

“And the church stuff, of course.”

“Oh, yeah? Didn’t know Graham and Melanie were religious. He’s changed a bit since we were at school, then.”

She gave a wary smile. “I don’t think—I mean, I don’t know… I think it was just Mel. She felt sorry for Mrs. Reece.”

I frowned. “Mrs. Reece…?”

“The parish administrator. Except she’s been ill lately, and her husband, of course… That’s why Mel was filling in for her.”

I nodded. It must be catching. “Must have made it hard for the poor girl to fit in a social life. Did she ever talk about going out? With or without Graham?”

Pip bit her lip. “Sometimes. Well, she had her regular things—prayer group on Wednesdays, Salsacise on Thursdays, and French class on…Mondays, I think. Yes, Mondays. When she wasn’t working, that is. And she and Graham always went to her mum’s for Sunday lunch.”

Bloody hell, no wonder Graham had been pissed off about her going out the night she died. From the sound of it, it must have been their first night in together in a month of Sundays. Of course, if she
had
been seeing someone else, any or all of these hobbies would have made an excellent cover.

“Did you go to any of these activities with her?” Phil asked. Maybe he’d had the same thought as me.

Pip jumped. Maybe she’d forgotten he was there—although how anyone could overlook his brooding, monolithic presence was beyond me. “I—oh, no. I mean… Well, I did go to Salsacise once, but… My husband…” She stared down at her feet.

Okay, this was the second time she’d mentioned the husband not liking her going out at night. My mental image of the nerd was replaced by a beer-swilling, unshaven Neanderthal who thought a woman’s place was in the home and wasn’t afraid to say so. “You should tell him to make his own tea for once, love,” I said. She flicked me a shy smile but didn’t reply. When Phil didn’t jump in, I carried on. “I think poor old Graham had to fend for himself a fair bit. Did Melanie ever give you the impression things weren’t going too well between them?”