Ugley Business (6 page)

Docherty lowered the hand brake—thankfully out of my view on his right side, because I think a great big phallic lever like that might have been too much for me—and we were off, slipping out of the car park recklessly fast, sliding to a halt at the end of the drive.

“Left or right?” Docherty asked, and I stared at him, eyes glazed. “Left or right?”

I blinked. I had no idea. “Where are we going?”

“Angel’s.”

“Oh.” I had to think about it, but I couldn’t remember which word was which direction. Eventually I pointed, and Docherty, smiling, took off.

God, it was fantastic. When I eventually recovered from the jolt and thrill of the start-up, I began to notice that people were starting to walk into lamp posts at the sight of us. When we stopped at the traffic lights, I saw one of my old schoolteachers standing at the crossing, and gave him a little wave. He waved back, stunned.

“You like the car?” Docherty asked, glancing over at me. His accent was very strong, Oirish more than Irish, slow and measured, his voice deep and smooth. I felt myself go liquid again.

“I
love
the car.”

“How far is this chapel?”

I blinked.
Chapel
? “What?”

He grinned. “The chapel where your friend lives.”

Oh. Calm down, girl. Save it for Luke. Next time I’m not in the mood, all I’ll have to do is think of this car. Luke will never be able to keep up with me.

“A couple of miles.”

“Sure you don’t want to go further?”

God, yes. I wanted to go all the way.

“No,” I said, my voice coming out very breathy. “Just go straight there.”

It seemed to take about thirty seconds to get there, and as we rumbled up the wobbly drive, the church doors opened and Luke and Angel came out. Angel looked impressed. Luke looked stunned.

“Fuck me,” he said in amazement when I opened the door and got out.

“Later,” I said, then I glanced back at the Aston. “Actually, no, not later. Docherty, can we borrow this?”

He got out, grinning. “It’s not been Scotchguarded.”

“I don’t care.” Luke ran his hands over the solid curves of the car. “Jesus, where did you get this?”

“Aston factory in Newport Pagnell.”

Luke rolled his eyes. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

“Nope.” They met each others’ eyes and both gave a little nod in greeting. I don’t suppose Alpha males like them are really into hugging. They even seemed too cool for a handshake.

Luke tore his eyes away from the car for a few seconds. “Angel, this is Docherty. He’s protected film stars, politicians, big white chiefs on both sides of the Northern Irish conflict. Docherty, this is Angel. She gets about ten phone calls a day from men who are in love with her. Don’t add yourself to the list.”

“Why would I need to phone her,” Docherty asked, looking Angel over speculatively, “when I’ll be right here with her?”

Luke rolled his eyes. “Just don’t,” he said.

“Home-wrecker,” I added, watching Docherty watch Angel go inside the church.

“Lifesaver,” Luke corrected. He considered it for a second. “Yeah, and home-wrecker too. How’d you find him?”

“He found me. In the shower.”

“Yeah, that’s Docherty for you.” Luke made to follow them inside but I pulled him back by his T-shirt and flicked my eyes at the Aston sitting there looking sexy.

“That’s a hot car,” I said, and Luke nodded, his eyes on the sculpted air intakes. “Don’t you think it’s really,” I kissed his neck and looked up at him, “hot?”

Luke flicked his eyes down at me suspiciously. “Ye-es…”

“And you haven’t even had a ride in it.” I looked up again through fluttering lashes. “Would you like a ride?”

Luke frowned and touched my forehead. “Sophie, are you okay?”

Since when did it get so hard to seduce this guy? I rolled my eyes at the car, which gleamed like the huge, throbbing beast I knew it was.

“Don’t you think that car is the sexiest thing you’ve ever seen?”

Luke paused warily. “Is this a test? Am I supposed to say you’re sexier?”

I stamped my foot. “No, Luke, you’re supposed to shag me. I’m more turned on than I think I’ve ever been. I’m about to explode here.”

At that his eyes gleamed. “Really?” He ran a hand down my back and skimmed his fingers over my buttocks. “How close are you?”

“If you don’t help me, I’ll explode all by myself.”

That did it. Luke grabbed the back of my head and bit my lower lip. “That crypt Angel mentioned…”

“I am not having sex in a crypt!”

He licked my lips and I shuddered. Maybe the crypt wasn’t such a bad idea. After all—

“Buffy did,” Luke said, and I shuddered again, because he’d read my mind. And then I glanced at the Aston, silent and brooding in the moonlight, and I smiled slowly at Luke. “Up against the car.”

Luke blinked. “Seriously?” I nodded. “Where anyone could see us? Thought you didn’t—”

“Against the car or nowhere,” I said firmly, getting quite desperate now.

Luke looked at the car. Then he looked at Angel’s closed door. Then he looked at me.

“You’re that desperate?”

I doubted I’d last until he got my knickers off. “Becoming less desperate the more you procrastinate,” I said as airily as I could.

Luke grinned and lifted me up against the car’s curved flank and flipped my fly undone. “Liar,” he breathed into my mouth.

“Luke,” I said, playing with the hair at the back of his neck, “you’re a spy. I’m a spy. This is an Aston Martin. Fuck me.”

He gave me a slow grin. “Love to.”

Angel shook her head at us when we went in. “You two are incorrigible,” she said.

“You better not have messed up my paint work,” Docherty warned, taking in my mussed-up hair and flushed cheeks.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

“We were just,” Luke glanced at me, “briefing each other.”

“Stop,” Angel held up a hand. “Please.”

Luke grinned and pulled me over to one of the sofas, slipping his arm around me so I could snuggle up against him. Angel and Docherty exchanged glances.

“I’ve told him about the letters and the e-mails,” Angel said. “About that camera flash we saw the other day, Soph.”

Mmm, Luke had a nice chest. All warm and hard. Maybe we could just borrow Angel’s bed for a bit—

No! Concentrate, Sophie.
“That was, what, two nights ago? And nothing since.”

She shook her head. “The photos yesterday.” She walked over to her desk and took an envelope out of a drawer. “The real ones went to Karen so she could check them for prints, but we made copies.” She gestured to the scanner and photo-quality printer half-hidden by the roll-top of the bureau.

“So they’re on your hard drive?” I asked, as Angel handed the pictures to Docherty. “Can you e-mail them to me?”

“If you checked your inbox more often,” Luke said, “you’d see I already have.”

I made a face at him, but I was still too tingly and relaxed to be in any way mad at him. He’d kept whispering things like, “460 break,” and “48-valve, V12,” to me. It was when he said, “Top speed 190,” that I broke. All that speed, all that power. God. I forced myself to think of bike crashes and murder.

But even that was still disturbingly sexy.

“Have you accessed the autopsy report on it?” Docherty asked, looking at the pictures.

“Tried,” Luke said. “It’s blocked. Maria’s at Thames House now trying to get something out of them.”

“Where?” I said.

“MI5,” Luke said, shaking his head. Well, it’s not my fault I didn’t know that. It’s his fault for not telling me.

“Maria de Valera?” Docherty asked.

Luke nodded, grinning.

“Christ. Didn’t think she’d still be alive.”

“Very much so,” Luke said, but before I could ask how they all knew each other, when Luke had come to SO17 from the SAS and Maria from the SBS and Docherty didn’t look like he’d be allowed past the checkpoint on any military barracks, my Siemens started ringing. I looked at the display. Home.

“I’ll just be a sec,” I said, reluctantly leaving Luke and going through into the bedroom to talk to my mother.

“Are you coming home for tea tonight?” she asked, and I stared blankly at the Gaudi print above Angel’s bed. Hadn’t I told her I’d be on nights all this week? Shouldn’t I be at work by now?

While I was formulating a reply, my mother went on, “We’re having pies. I got you a McCartney one.”

Damn. She knows I love them. And she knows I’ll feel guilty that she went out of her way to get vegetarian food for me so I’ll come to tea.

“We’re having Yorkshires,” she added, and I sighed.

“What time?”

“About an hour?”

“Sure.” I was about to go when my mother asked me something really stupid.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”

Gaudi’s lovers seemed to be laughing at me. I squinted closer, and realised that it wasn’t a print, it was the real deal. “Yes,” I said in exasperation, “so why are you calling me?”

“Is Angel working?” My mother managed to completely ignore my question. “Does she want to come too?”

My mother is always inviting my friends over. I barely have to do it anymore. If someone so much as drops me at my parents’ house Mum is there offering them coffee or a cold drink or something, there’s
Buffy
on TV, show her those shoes you bought, Soph, do you want to stay for tea? We’re having pizza with dough balls.

“I—erm, well, she’s—I’ll ask her and call you back.”

I ended the call, scowled at the Gaudi lovers, and went back into the nave. Luke had a can of Director’s (how come Angel had beer in her fridge?) and was frowning over the photos. Docherty was reading the e-mails, Angel standing very close behind him.

I opened my mouth to ask Angel if she wanted to come and have dinner at my parents’ house, when a thought struck me. So Luke had never really met my parents. Why not now? I think two months is plenty late enough to meet someone’s parents. And they were nice people. Not scary or insane or anything. Well, not noticeably.

“Who was that?” Luke asked, looking up.

“My mother. She—er, I’m going over there for tea. In about an hour. Do you want to come?”

“No, thanks,” Luke said, and went back to the photos.

No thanks? Not even, “No, I’m too busy” or “No, I’m nervous about meeting them.” Or even “No, this relationship is about sex, not meeting parents.” Just “No thanks”.

I walked back over to the sofa and picked up my bag, intending to calmly replace my phone and go back to looking at the photos. Asking Angel to tea had completely slid out of my mind. But instead, I put the phone away, looked down at Luke, and heard my voice say, “Why not?”

He blinked up at me. “Why not what?”

“Why don’t you want to come to tea? You don’t even know what we’re having. My mum’s a great cook.”

“I’m sure she is.”

“So why don’t you—”
Stoppit
, I told myself,
don’t mess it up
, “—why don’t you want to come?”

He shrugged. “No reason.”

I meant to leave it there, I really did, in the same way I meant to put my mobile away and say nothing else on the subject. But my mouth just blabbered on.

“Luke,” I said, and I sounded plaintive, and I could hear that Docherty had stopped typing on the computer and I knew he and Angel had front-row seats. “Just give me a reason. In the two months we’ve been—” oh God, what have we been? A couple? Seeing each other? Enthusiastically shagging? “—in two months you haven’t expressed the slightest interest in meeting my family.”

“You’ve never expressed an interest in mine,” Luke said, and I felt my blood boil at his reasonable tone. It was true, but then they didn’t just live down the road. Mine did. I went there all the time.

“Are they as emotionally unavailable as you?” I asked meanly.

“Fuck off.”

“Precisely.”

Luke let out a tight sigh and put down the photos. “Sophie, can I talk to you?”

“What are we doing now?”

“Arguing in front of someone I hardly know and someone you don’t know at all, even though you’ve just had sex up against his car.”

“I did not need to hear that,” Docherty said.

I ignored him and narrowed my eyes at Luke. “Fine,” I said, and in the absence of anywhere else to go, stalked—yes, the occasion fully called for stalking—outside, Luke following me closely.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he asked when we were alone, although I knew if I turned my head I’d see Angel and Docherty watching through the window.

“What’s wrong with me?” I stared at him. “What’s wrong with you? I am trying to have a conversation about what is wrong with our relationship—”

“What relationship?” Luke said, and I got in the car and drove home.

My phone kept ringing all the way home, but I ignored it. I thought I saw lights following me, so I pulled off the road into a field and cut my lights, waiting until the car had gone past. Then I realised Luke would go to my flat if he was going to follow me anywhere, so I turned Ted across the field—bugger the farmer—and drove the long way around to my parents’.

When I got there I was vastly relieved to see Luke’s Vectra wasn’t in the drive. I locked Ted up and let myself in, surprising my mother in the kitchen.

“You’re early!”

Nice of her to sound so surprised. I have been known to be early occasionally. Hell, I was born two days early. That sets a pattern, right?

“Yeah. Had nothing else to do. Angel’s not coming, she’s, er, she’s not feeling well.”

“What’s up with her?”

“Cold,” I said. Easiest option. This was England. Everyone has a cold at some point.

“Hope you haven’t caught it,” said my mother, Florence Nightingale in training.

“No. I’m fine. When’s tea ready?”

“Forty-five minutes.”

I nodded as my mobile started to ring again, and ran from the room. It was Luke, and I cancelled the call.

What relationship? What fucking relationship? I mean, I never expected it to be a full-blown boyfriend-girlfriend, mini-breaks in the country, holding hands in public, naming our future children sort of thing, but I at least thought that we had some sort of relationship, even if it was based completely on sex and sarcasm. Surely I meant something to him other than a reliable shag?

I stomped up the stairs and started pulling books off their shelves in the spare room, trying to find something about IC and Greg Winter. My dad came in, apparently alerted by the thuds from all the books I was chucking on the floor, and asked what I was doing.

“Walking the bloody dog,” I snarled.

“Okay,” my dad said cautiously. “Your mum says you were looking for some books on the Winters?”

“Where are they?”

He went into my old room and came out with a box. “They’ve been in the loft for ages. Bit musty.”

I found a smile for him. “Thanks, Dad.”

He smiled and went back downstairs. There was football on, which was why I hadn’t gone into the sitting room when I arrived. I have a sixth sense for this sort of thing.

I started looking through the biographies and retrospectives. Greg Winter was always my dad’s favourite songwriter, he has every album on CD and most on rather valuable vinyl, too. He also had a bit of thing for IC Winter, and there were quite a few glossy coffee table books on her in the box.

I picked one up. It was called
A Winter’s Day
and was full of pictures of IC. She’d been beautiful, really beautiful, glowing even in faded black and white pictures. She had one of those smiles that make you want to smile, too. I read the caption. “Despite the froideur her name suggested, Imogen Carmen was a very warm person who always enjoyed spending time with her daughter, Angelique…”

I came across a picture of her and Angel, dressed in identical outfits, taken when Angel was about four, and got a lump in my throat. If my mother died, I don’t know what I’d do, and I’m a grown-up now. Angel had been eleven when her mother had finally succumbed to a brain tumour, and twelve when her father had died in that crash.

Been killed in that crash. But the books said nothing about that. No one at all seemed to know anything at all about the MI5 connections. The books all said the same thing about Greg’s death—that he’d been found by a passing motorist some ten hours after he’d fallen from the bike, somewhere remote in North Yorkshire. I made a mental note to find out who’d found the body and what state they found it in. There’d been twenty-four pictures in the envelope Angel had been sent. It was entirely possible that the killer had run out of film, not nasty ideas.

My phone started vibrating again: I’d long since turned off the volume because it annoyed me so much. I glanced at the display. Maria.

“Hey,” I said, glad that it wasn’t Luke, but also kind of wishing it was. I didn’t want him to give up so easily.

“Hey yourself. What did you do to Luke? He went mental on me when I asked where you were.”

Oh, joy. “I didn’t do anything to him. He said we had no relationship. I got in the car and left.” Well, actually, I’d had to stomp back inside for my bag first, which slightly ruined the effect, but the principle was there.

“He said you had no relationship?” Maria sucked in her breath. “How dumb is he?”

“I know—” I began, but ran out of steam when I heard Maria’s next words.

“You never tell someone there’s no relationship, even when there isn’t.”

“You—you thought there wasn’t?”

“You thought there was?”

This could go on.

“Look,” Maria said in a kinder tone of voice, “this is Luke we’re talking about. He’s a commitment-free zone. I’d like to say he has issues, but really he’s just a bastard when it comes to women. He doesn’t have time for a relationship and even if he did, work would still come a victorious first.”

I closed my eyes. Maria had told me all this before.

“Yeah,” I said eventually. “I know. I’m just being stupid. I shouldn’t have said it, or thought it. I shouldn’t have done any of it.”

“Now that’s just silly,” Maria said. “You enjoyed it, no one was hurt—”
I
damn well was, “—so just enjoy the memory. Thank you for the music and all that.”

“You think we should end it?”

“I think if you’re starting to think in relationship terms about Luke, then yes. Stop shagging him now before it becomes addictive and you can’t stop. Dump him before he dumps you.”

“How can I dump him?” I said bravely. “We have no relationship. I’m just cutting him off.”

Even as I said it I felt my stomach twist. No more Luke. What was I doing to myself? How damn stupid was I being?

“Good girl,” Maria said approvingly. “Now, do you want to hear my news?”

“Yes. Please.”

“The archivist at Thames House is really cute.”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s the news?”

“No, that’s an extra. The news is I got access to the files on IC and Greg.”

“Excellent. Hard copy or disk?”

“Both. With threats of death if I let any details leak…”

“Yada yada yada. What does it say? The Greg one. How did he die?”

“Cause of death—why did you ask me about this yesterday?”

“I had a hunch. Tell me!”

“Cause of death was a broken neck.
But
,” Maria paused dramatically, and I drummed my fingers on the picture of IC and Angel, “he was also found to have finger marks on the neck, as though someone had helped his neck to break. No prints, the killer was wearing gloves. Also he had a bullet in his shoulder, a .22, not bad enough to kill him but enough to get him off his bike.”

“Ha!” I said, and told her about the photos.

“Luke mentioned them,” she said. “He said it was clear it wasn’t an accident.”

“Not at all.” I paused, a horrible thought having occurred to me. “Maria, what about IC? How did she die?”

“Brain tumour,” Maria said, as if it was obvious. “Didn’t you know?”

“Yes, but then I also knew Greg fell off his bike.”

“Good point, well made. No, it was definitely a tumour. There’re medical records I’m assuming our supreme commander will understand. They mean bollock-all to me.”

It was gratifying to know that there was something Maria didn’t excel at.

“So what about Luke?” she said, and I sighed, because for five minutes there my mind had been diverted.

“I suppose I’ll have to end it,” I said.

“It’s for the best.”

“Umm. Don’t suppose you fancy calling him up to tell him he’s dumped?” I asked hopefully.

“You’re not twelve any more.”

“I thought you’d say that. Wish me luck.”

“Good luck. And no goodbye shags.”

“Meanie.”

I ended the call and stared at the books, but they gave me nothing. Greg and IC had met at an awards ceremony, dated, got engaged then married and had a baby, all in the public eye, all sweet and romantic and lovely. Not sordid and emotionless.

I’d call Luke after tea. It was nearly time to eat anyway. I’d think better on a full stomach.

I went downstairs, trying to think of some way to tell him it was over without creating a huge incriminating void that would taint our working lives, or worse, letting him think he’d won. Of course I knew we had no relationship, I’d always known that, the word slipped out. I just thought it’d be best if we kept our relationship professional. It wouldn’t do to get clouded by personal concerns.

Yeah.

The football was just ending and I sat down with a big glass of water, glancing at the wine bottle on the table longingly. No. I had to stay sober. If I had a drink then I’d probably end up chickening out.

Unless I had one for Dutch courage.

No. That would not be smart.

The worst part, I thought as I chewed a carrot and let my parents argue about what to put on telly, was that I’d known this would happen all along. I knew Luke wasn’t going to turn to me and say he loved me. I knew there was nothing in it that wasn’t work-or sex-related. But I still wanted more. I think. Maybe not with Luke specifically, but I wanted some sort of future with some sort of nice man.

By the time Chalker handed me the tub of ice cream that was as sophisticated as dessert ever got in our house, I had persuaded myself that Luke didn’t deserve me, that I should be with a great man who was sweet and kind as well as sexy, and would think about the future of our relationship, instead of just telling me we didn’t have one.

In fact, by the time the doorbell rang, I was fully convinced that Luke was a complete rat bag and what he really deserved was a kick up the arse for taking me for granted.

“You look like you’re planning to murder someone,” Chalker said, as my dad went to answer the door.

“I always look like this,” I said, swallowing my ice cream forcefully, and it was a good job, because otherwise I might have choked when my dad walked back in and said in a puzzled voice, “Sophie, do you know anyone called Luke?”

I nearly dropped the ice cream. “Luke?”

“Says he’s a friend of yours.”

“Oh, no, he’s bloody not,” I growled, getting up and stomping out of the room as my mother’s voice floated after me, “Is he the really cute one who brought you home that time?”

And there he was, standing in the porch because it was raining, looking dishevelled and sexy. Not cute. Luke would have had cute for breakfast.

“Cute, am I?” he said, looking amused.

“No,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

“You weren’t answering your phone.”

“So you followed me?”

“I need to talk to you.”

I sighed. “Okay, but not here.”

He made to come inside but I blocked him. “What? Thought you wanted me to meet your parents.”

“I changed my mind.” I glanced out into the rain. It was really chucking it down. Had I been so self-absorbed that I hadn’t even noticed that?

I grabbed my bag from the newel post and brandished Ted’s keys. “Out here.”

Luke looked amazed, but he followed me to the car and, when we got in, leaned over to kiss me.

“Luke, don’t.”

He pulled back sharply, looking hurt and confused. “You—”

“I didn’t want to argue in the house. It’s—” how to say it? “—it’s over.”

He stared at me, and I repeated myself to fill the silence.

Luke tore his gaze away, staring hard at the dash. Not at me. “Over?” he said eventually.

I nodded. “This can’t work. You and me,” I said, aware I was echoing what he’d said only the night before when we’d made out in the domestic satellite. “I—it’s been great,” yeah, give him something, “but it can’t go on.”

“Are you breaking up with me?” Luke said incredulously, and I could well believe it had never happened before.

“Don’t you have to have a relationship to break up?”

“Is this because I said—”

“It’s not because you said that, but it made me realise that you don’t want a relationship and I do,” I said, feeling very adult. “I can’t separate sex from emotion like you and I don’t think it would be very smart to get involved in any kind of relationship outside of our work together,” I finished, pleased with myself.

There was a silence, then Luke said flatly, “Sex and emotion.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t tangle one up with the other.”

“Good for you,” I said, offering a small smile which wasn’t returned.

There was another silence. Luke stared at the rainy windscreen.

“No more sex,” he said, and something inside me twisted.

“No,” I said, meaning to say more but suddenly floored by a double attack of lust and tears. See? Sex and emotion. All together, now.

“So I’ll go,” Luke said, and I croaked, “Probably best if you do.”

He was still a second longer, then he looked at me, then he was gone. I heard his car bumping away over the ruts in the drive, and I put my head on the steering wheel and felt hot tears trickling down my cheeks.

I don’t know how long I sat there like that, but it was long enough that I eventually stopped crying and lifted my head, sniffing. It could have been worse. I could have cried in front of him.

I wiped my eyes and put my hand on the door, but as I did the passenger door opened and I turned to tell Luke to go away.

But it wasn’t Luke. It was a man with a balaclava and a gun, and he said in a gravely voice, “Drive.”

I stared at him for a second, utterly shocked. Through the blurry windscreen I could see the TV in the sitting room. Chalker was sitting there flicking through the music channels. I was sitting here with a gun pointed at my head.

“I don’t drive so well with a gun aimed at me,” I said, and he shook his head.

“Drive.”

I opened my bag, and he waved the gun at me. “No,” he said, and his voice was heavily accented, and I realised he probably didn’t speak much English. He grabbed my hand. “No. Drive.”

I rolled my eyes, trying not to shake. “My keys are in the bag,” I said, making what I hoped looked like key motions with my hands, but what were probably filthy things in sign language. “Keys, to start the car?” I pointed at the ignition, and the man grunted.