The Harder They Fall (8 page)

Andy was calling again, but Dan could do nothing about it. He let his head slip forward once more and stopped fighting.

One of those unexpected September heatwaves, inasmuch as the weatherman on breakfast TV had been quite convincing when he declared “light rain across most of the country and unusually cool for the time of year”. Jess hated the way weather presenters used language, missing key phrases with that strange, almost telegraphic speech they have developed over the years, and ultimately getting it totally wrong. So now she was sitting in her office, the windows as wide open as they would go, trying to tune out the car alarm across the road that had been intermittently disturbing the peace for the best part of the morning. She actually called the police this time, out of concern for her own sanity rather than the security of the car in question. Needless to say, they’d yet to materialise. She shrieked in frustration, shoved her too hot feet back into her shoes and stormed downstairs to her infuriatingly cool and composed receptionist, who was fully able to appreciate the through-draught from the wedged-open external door, unperturbed and oblivious in her earphone heaven.

“I’m gonna go out there and slash his damned tyres in a minute,” Jess said to no-one at all, because Lois couldn’t hear her and Eleanor had finished for the day. Lois did, however, pick up on the fact that she had said something and paused the playback on the voice recording she was transcribing.

“Is everything all right?” she asked in perfect RP.

“That alarm’s been going off since half past nine. It’s driving me nuts!”

Lois smiled. “On the plus side, the battery will be flat soon.”

“It won’t just be the battery that’s flat if I find out who owns the blasted thing,” Jess growled. Lois giggled and stuffed the loose earphone back in her ear, the sun reflecting off the silver chain dangling from her ear-lobe. Jess moved closer to get a better look at the tiny, sparkly gemstones, suspended like droplets of rain from the end of the chain.

“Sorry. Was there something else?” Lois removed the earphone again.

“Lovely ear-rings.”

“Thanks. They were a twenty-first birthday present. Aquamarine is my birthstone—oh, that reminds me. I meant to give you this earlier.” She lifted a stack of files and retrieved a small, white envelope from underneath, handing it across. Jess read the names on the front and frowned.

“Andrew and Jessica Jeffries?”

“It’s from…”

“Your Uncle Rob. I know! It’s a very old and not very funny joke. He’s getting married again, is he?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Oh.” Jess had been convinced it was a wedding invitation. “I guess I’d better open it and see what’s inside, then.”

Eleanor stopped off at the supermarket on the way home, for some nappies, washing-up liquid, sterilising fluid, cotton buds and several other items that had her questioning whether her days of shopping trolleys loaded with grown-up impulse buys were gone for good. As she queued at the one checkout that was open, she passed the time examining the contents of other shoppers’ trolleys and baskets, amused by how easy it was to determine a person’s lifestyle and living situation from their selected purchases. The man right in front of her, for instance, was clearly a student, with his instant noodles, cans of beans, strawberry laces and five-pack of doughnuts, whereas in front of him was a single career woman with bags of prepared salad and vegetables, pre-cooked chicken and a lone loose apple. Currently taking up the entire length of the conveyor belt was the weekly shop of a poor young mum with her two children, one in the trolley seat biting the handle and making a ‘mam-mam-mam’ sound as she did so. She was quite cute, with her rosy cheeks and blonde spiky hair, a small bunch of it partly secured in a little pink clip on top of her head. Not so cute was her older sister, who was harassing her exhausted mother almost to death with a teary, repeated request of “Please, Mummy?”. Eleanor had all of this ahead of her and the prospect wasn’t looking so grand from her current vantage point, particularly as by the time she’d made it through the checkout, there was a queue of six more people behind her and still no sign of any assistance for the poor bloke on the till. She took her change and bags and thanked him, giving him a sympathetic smile as she departed.

James had gone to Birmingham to collect Oliver, as per their haphazard, ‘however it suited the previous Mrs. Brown best’ custody arrangement: the summer holidays had been spent with his mother; now, with due disregard of newborn baby brothers, impending nuptials and honeymoons, Oliver was to stay with his father, to be returned a fortnight before he was due to start school, which coincided with their return from Wales. For all of this (not to mention working from home during the daytime sleeps, even though he was officially on paternity leave, and thus utterly exhausted), James was delighted. So, all things considered, it was fortunate Eleanor had decided to take the week before the wedding off work: the locum was coming in tomorrow to have a look through the patients’ files, although it was the same doctor as had covered for her when the baby was born and nothing much had changed since then.

She arrived home to find an empty house, other than the white envelope addressed to ‘Ms. Eleanor Davenport’ propped against the coffee jar. She frowned and set down the shopping bags, too curious to leave it until everything was put away.

“Oh, good Lord,” she said, as she pulled the card from the envelope and realised what it was.

Adele was vacuuming the hall when the post arrived and didn’t notice until the pitch of the vacuum cleaner changed. She tugged the envelope away from the nozzle and squinted at the writing on the front.

“Mr. Daniel Jeffries and Miss Adele Reeves. Hmm.” She placed it on the telephone table (she had always wanted one, even though the phone was in the lounge) and continued on her way, little Shaunna tottering along behind her with her own mini pink version of an upright Hoover, complete with the ‘H’ logo on the front, but with the batteries removed so it didn’t play that dreadful music all the time.

Kris pushed the envelope across the table to Shaunna and raised an eyebrow.

“What’s this?” she asked, reading the front. It was addressed to the pair of them.

“You’ll never guess,” was all he said. She eyed him suspiciously.

“It best not be money from Andy again.”

“Can’t be, with both our names on it,” he pointed out.

Shaunna shrugged and put it down on the table, picking up her cup of tea instead. Kris tutted and continued folding the washing. Their sharing a house was still so entwined with having lived together as a couple that he saw nothing wrong with laundering Shaunna’s underwear. However, she was starting to find it a little disconcerting, because some of it was new and he did insist on passing comment.

“This is lovely,” he said, holding the silky camisole up against his chest and running his hand across the smooth surface.

“Thanks,” Shaunna replied, bending her face towards her mug of tea so that she was peering at him through her hair.

“I don’t remember seeing this before. I bet it’s really comfortable to wear. It’d look fantastic with your red skirt. And those black pumps. Are you going to take it to Wales with you?”

“Why?” she asked dryly. “Did you want to borrow it or something?” He stuck out his tongue at her. The teasing was a way of covering up her discomfort and he quickly added the camisole to the top of her pile of clothes. He didn’t do it on purpose.

“I’m a bit worried about the sleeping arrangements for this holiday,” he said in a casual tone that he didn’t quite carry off convincingly.

“Honeymoon,” Shaunna corrected.

“How can it be a honeymoon when you’re taking all of your friends with you? I can’t even begin to imagine what James must think.”

“I know what you mean, but we’ll be fine, even if we do have to share a bed. It’s not like we haven’t done it before.”

“True.” Kris finished folding the last item and added it to his own pile. At some point they were going to have to brave telling everyone that their marriage was over. In an ideal world they would have said something months ago, when it first happened. Now he was desperate to avoid an inadvertent revelation, which would be inevitable if he asked for a change in sleeping arrangements. He knew he was making a big deal out of nothing; it was only for a week, after all.

Now that George had his very own laptop, he was able to sit and play online games for as long as he liked, although they’d somehow lost their charm since he’d stopped having to compete for screen-time. Instead, he was going through his emails and chatting with Sophie via instant messaging. He was, he claimed, supposed to be reading a report on token economies, but it was badly written and ill-informed, so he decided to give it a miss. Yesterday’s lunch had really helped him get some perspective, although not with regards to Josh—that issue had yet to be addressed—but he’d decided to withdraw from his placement at the prison. It wasn’t just that the psychologist was using him like a work experience kid: his time there had made him realise that this was absolutely the wrong type of counselling for him. In fact, he was starting to question whether counselling was for him at all, or if he’d merely pursued this career path to be close to Josh. He was nowhere nearer finding the answer than he had been yesterday evening, when he’d also stalled on taking any action about the suitcases.

So, he and Sophie were idly ‘chatting’ away, when all of a sudden a message appeared from Joe, whom he hadn’t spoken to since he signed over the ranch and was almost certain he’d removed from his ‘friends’.

“Hey, G. How’s it going?”

“Great, thanks. How’re you?”

“I’m good. Just came on to say there’s a fax come for you.”

“Who from?”

“It’s back in the office. I was going to send it on, but don’t have a number.”

George pondered for a moment. They didn’t have a fax machine, so that wasn’t an option.

“Can you scan it and email it?”

“Sure thing. It’ll be a couple of hours. OK?”

“OK. Thanks.”

And then Joe was gone again. George sat back and rubbed his chin. It was the first time he’d ever received a fax and a bit of a mystery all round.

Josh took the long route home, still trying to come up with a way of telling George that he’d looked in his suitcase. He sort of wished he hadn’t—that he’d given him the chance to tell him of his own accord—but he was also relieved at what he’d found. In the hours between discovering the cases locked in the shed and when his curiosity prevailed, he had gone through all kinds of wicked possibilities, including the utterly absurd notion that George was hiding child pornography. It was entirely unfounded and driven by a client he’d been working with recently, who didn’t have child pornography, but admitted to wanting to look at it. This wasn’t the first time he’d heard this, although it didn’t get any easier or less repulsive through repetition. The man was sick, in need of help way beyond Josh’s capabilities, or at least that’s how he felt about it when they were sitting in consultation with only floorspace between them.

No, George was nothing like that, and nor was he a drug smuggler (yes, he’d been through that one too), nor a transvestite (that one wouldn’t have bothered him at all, apart from the hilarious image it created in his mind’s eye), nor an armed bank robber (possible—he could have picked up some tricks at the prison) nor a serial killer (what kind of trophy would he take if he were? A snip of hair maybe, or a button off a shirt? That was much more like him). So anyway, the reality was still a bit of a shock, especially with the way he’d been acting lately, but nothing compared to what it could have been. The choice now was between owning up, or feigning ignorance, should George ever get around to sharing. It was a tough call. Josh parked up, turned off the engine and readied his door key in his hand, preparing himself for another evening of awkward pretence.

It was bound to be a bit of a challenge, sharing a house after living alone for so long, Josh reasoned, as he noted the sound of the running shower and observed the laptop strewn across the sofa, stupid little email icon blinking in the corner of the screen. He took a deep breath and continued through to the kitchen to make coffee, trying to reason away his annoyance. The thing is, George knew it irritated him, which made him wonder if he’d done it deliberately, but then he did it every time he was studying at home, so it was probably an innocent, but nonetheless infuriating, oversight. He filled the kettle and thumbed through the post, sifting out the obvious junk mail and restacking the rest for later perusal, stopping when he came to the white, handwritten envelope and examining it in an attempt to establish whether it was by a hand he recognised. He kept it in view as he spooned coffee into two cups (an assumption on his part), concluding that it was from someone male with a manual job (scrawled, angular, block capitals—it wasn’t difficult), but otherwise he didn’t have the faintest idea. The kettle came to the boil just as the bathroom door opened and closed, George bounding down the stairs a couple of seconds later, with a towel around his waist.

“You want a coffee?” Josh called.

“Please,” came the reply.

He poured the water into the cups and carried them, envelope dangling from his teeth, through to the lounge, catching a glimpse of his housemate slow-stepping up the stairs whilst he tried to read his computer screen, hold up the towel and coordinate his legs, all at the same time. Josh tutted and put down the coffees, carefully peeling the envelope away from where it had stuck to his lip. He opened it and pulled out the card inside.

“What on earth?” George stopped dead and almost dropped his towel.

“Oh no,” Josh said, re-reading to confirm that his eyes weren’t deceiving him.

“You’re not going to believe this, but I’ve just received…”

“An invitation to a high school reunion?” Josh finished, walking out into the hall and waving the card so George could see it. “Me too.”