Hot Blooded (10 page)

"So, you in Callum?"

I looked up, away from the envelope full of money, and some tiny little voice from somewhere deep inside my head raised a protest.

"I need to think about it."

Gazza played it cool. "Sure, I understand. That's a lot of money. And there's more where that came from, Callum. We're talking life-changing cash here. You take some time to think about that, about the things you could do for your mum with that kind of clout. She's not getting any younger, you know."

I stood up. "I know. I just need to get my head around this, yeah?"

"Well you let me know as soon as you know, Callum. There's a lot of hungry young men like yourself around here, clock's ticking."

I nodded my understanding and left. Outside, under a low, gray London sky, people were going about their business, just as they had been when I'd walked into the Club an hour beforehand. Everything looked the same as it had then, but everything suddenly felt different. There was so much money in my pocket it was weighing down my jacket on one side. Jesus Christ. Was I going to be able to say no to that, if I needed to? Because cash or not, almost everything about the past forty-eight hours was indicating that no was going to be the only smart answer.

I walked back to my flat in a daze, thinking about money and risk and the fact that it looked like I was going to have to decide, possibly very soon, just how much action I wanted in my life. There was also Lily, the fixed center around which all of my turbulent thoughts orbited. I needed to see her again. Somehow it felt like if I could just see her - talk to her - the answers to all my questions would reveal themselves.

A week after driving to Kent in the middle of the night, I found myself in one of the conference rooms at the station with a cup of rapidly cooling coffee in front of me. Callum had texted me every day since then and we'd spoken - on the phone - every evening. But I hadn't seen him. I couldn't see him. Something was happening between us and we both knew it. I could feel it racing towards me - inevitable and too fast, too powerful to stop. I thought if I gave it a few days, maybe a week, it might slow down. But it wasn't slowing down. Not at all. And I didn't have a single clue about what to do about it.

I jumped slightly when Superintendent Akin came bursting in.

"Sorry, Morgan," he apologized, "didn't know you were in here yet."

He sat down across from me and pulled a sheaf of papers out of his briefcase.

"We took another look at that alley, the one near the tube station. Cigarettes, coins, and," he paused for dramatic effect, "a coffee cup. Looks like the same kind the shooter was carrying, and it was in the back of a garden, sheltered under the eaves of a shed. We got DNA off it."

I looked down at the papers Akin pushed across the table at me. Photographs of a paper coffee cup, a diagram of the alley and the precise location where it had been found, and the DNA results.

"This could easily have been chucked from the alley," I said, trying to take in all the information in front of me and too afraid to hope that we might have made a serious breakthrough.

"Very easily, yes. The DNA doesn't match anyone on the database and obviously it could have come from anyone, there was a lot of rubbish about. But you know what we need now, don't you?"

"Yeah. You need DNA. From Gazza," I replied.

"And from Callum Cross."

I glanced up quickly at Akin, keeping my expression neutral in spite of the fact that my stomach had started to churn at the mention of Callum's name.

"From Callum Cross, from Gary Wilson and from anyone else who associates with them at the Club."

"That shouldn't be too hard," I said, swallowing hard. "Gazza smokes and they all drink. I'll grab a few pint glasses and cigarette butts next time I'm in."

"When are you in next? I'd still like to get that listening device on-site, but if you can't manage it it's less of a problem now with the DNA."

"Tonight, actually. Pandora texted me a couple of hours ago. I'm meeting her in Clapham for drinks then we're heading to the Streatham Club - tonight is fight night."

Akin smiled. "Good. Excellent. We need to be careful not to get our hopes up about this, but I looked at that video a few more times and the coffee cup looks exactly like the one he was carrying. As far as I can tell anyway, CCTV is shit."

Before I left the station I grabbed six plastic evidence bags with zip-tops and placed them, folded neatly, into the bottom of my purse. It didn't even cross my mind to neglect to collect a sample from Callum. Something was going on with him, with me - with the two of us. Something that could get us both into trouble. But my feelings for Callum couldn't be allowed to interfere in the investigation. Linda Trout's killer was still out there and he needed to be caught, nothing was more important than that.

I met Pandora at a wine bar in Clapham and we got a little posh-drunk before we headed to the Streatham Club. And by 'posh-drunk' I mean tipsy on individual glasses of wine that cost ten quid each rather than pints of lager. Luckily for me, the Met was paying.

When we arrived, the other girls were already there. We all exchanged air kisses and sat down to our drinks. I looked around and the overpriced wine was enough to help me convince myself it wasn't Callum I was looking around for, specifically.

Gazza was at the bar chatting to a small group of men and I recognized one of the other fighters. Callum was nowhere to be seen. The sinking feeling in my stomach just made me angry at myself.

"Where's Callum?" Pandora asked, cheekily letting me know she'd seen me and correctly surmising who I'd been trying to spot. "Did you ever go out with him?"

'Go out with.' Ha. I knew exactly what she meant and I wanted my response to be clear.

"We had drinks, yeah, but I managed to restrain myself."

"Oooh, did you?" Genie piped up.
"Why?"

"Gotta make 'em wait, Genie, don't you?" I replied, keeping my tone casual. I knew they'd be all over me if I even hinted at my real feelings.

Hannah tittered and shook her head at me. "No, Lily, this is why we come here. Because these are the kind of men you
don't
have to make wait. And thank Christ for that."

"Cheers to that!" Pandora laughed, elbowing me in the side. "Don't worry, Lily, he'll come around. And when he does, I promise you it'll be spectacular."

I smiled tightly, not at all interested in hearing about the details of Callum's sex life from any of these women. Nor would I be drawn on talking about my interactions with him, no matter how hard Pandora pushed for it. I let them all fall back into conversation and looked around the interior of the Club again. Gazza's office door was open and I could see the mug he always used sitting on his desk in plain view. There was no way I was going to be able to get in there, though. He didn't seem to be drinking anything at the bar, either. Fuck. I decided to just gather as many empty glasses as I could, as long as they'd been used by someone who had, at any point during the evening, interacted with Gazza. Once the fights started it would be easier to do that, with everyone's eyes focused elsewhere.

"Hello, beautiful."

All five of us looked up, like flowers tilting themselves towards the sun. Callum. He was talking to me and God help me I could not stop the rush of happy warmth that suffused my body at the sound of his voice. He looked gorgeous in his t-shirt and jeans that fit just enough to show off his muscled thighs. I wanted to wrap my arms around him and bury my face in his neck, but I knew I couldn't put on a display like that in front of Pandora without inviting a proper interrogation.

"Callum! Hiya! Are you fighting?" Genie asked excitedly.

He grabbed a chair and pulled it up to our table, right next to me, and shook his head.

"Unfortunately not tonight. Got myself a little injury, you may know something about that," he replied, winking at me.

I could feel all four of my companions dying of curiosity.

"You're not fighting? Aww!" Genie whined, making a pouty-face that I knew she thought was cute despite the fact that she was in her thirties. Only those under ten can make pouty faces and expect to be tolerated, in my opinion.

"Sorry to disappoint, ladies. But Michael's fighting." Callum paused for a moment, thinking. “And so is Josh."

My female companions exchanged meaningful glances and Jemima sighed. "Ohhhh, Josh. I
like
Josh."

Callum turned to me. "You haven't met Josh yet, Lily? You should meet Josh. He's really very popular with the ladies. They seem to like his long, flowing locks."

My first reaction to that comment was slight annoyance. Was he trying to pawn me off on some other guy? But as soon as Callum actually found Josh and brought him to our table, I understood it had just been a diversionary tactic. He introduced us and then threw Josh to the wolves - that is, to Pandora, Hannah, Jemima and Imogene - so he and I could talk without a table of curious women listening in.

"Ha," I giggled, leaning in towards him and whispering, "that certainly worked. They're going to be entranced all night."

"Good. That means I get you to myself," Callum whispered back."I missed you. I want to take you out and don't give me any bullshit about getting back to me. I want a time and a place. Now."

Would it be wrong to admit I enjoyed him bossing me around, even jokingly? Because I did. Too much.

"How about you come up north this time?" I asked, trying for playfulness when what I really wanted to do was crawl into his lap and kiss him until neither of us could breathe. "And I, uh, I missed you too."

"You did?"

He was grinning widely, enjoying my self-consciousness. We were sitting very close to each other - close enough that I could smell the scent of his neck, warm and masculine, close enough that our faces were mere inches apart. It was impossible to keep myself from feeling anything except attraction when I was around Callum. All my sensible thoughts about slowing down, maybe even backing off, went out the window the minute he was near me.

"Well, yeah," I said quietly, tingling with the need to feel his hands on me. "We should go to that place in Soho, the Dog and - what was it?"

"Duck?"

"Yeah, the Dog and Duck."

The scrawny little barman, Stan, interrupted us then with another round of pints, including one for Callum.

"Oh, you're so sweet. You only have to ply one of us with alcohol but you bought a whole round!" Pandora ribbed Callum, who just smiled back, amused.

I kept an eye on what glass he drank from and made note of where he put it on the table. Was I really going to do this? Why wouldn't I? It wasn't a betrayal, after all, it was just part of a larger series of questions, a step that needed to be taken to exclude Callum from a list that included Gazza and his associates at the Streatham Men's Club. If I positioned it a certain way in my head, it could even be seen as doing him a favor. Of sorts.

I tried to keep an eye on Gazza, but being involved in a face-to-face conversation with Callum wasn't very conducive to that. Gazza wasn't drinking - or, if he was, it was in his office and from his own private supply. He probably had a coffee-maker in there, too. I decided to wait and see if, when the house lights went down for the fights, I might have a chance to sneak in there, but somehow I doubted it. There was also the listening device in my bag and I was getting more and more certain that placing it, even just under the bar, probably wasn't worth the risk, especially with the DNA results we now had.

Callum stayed at our table, chatting with everyone but mainly focused on me, which I admit I reveled in, just a little. When the lights were dimmed to indicate the fights were about to begin, he leaned in and whispered in my ear:

"Do you really want to watch this? Let's get out of here."

I didn't want to watch the fights. I also didn't want to leave without any samples collected.

"I don't know," I lied, as eager to be alone with him as it seemed he was to be alone with me. "Let's just watch the first one and see."

Callum shrugged. "Whatever you want, gorgeous girl."

Oh God, he was good. He was really good. He slipped one big, solid hand over my knee and gave me a squeeze and I nearly melted into my chair.

As soon as everyone's pints were starting to look slightly less than half-full I got up, announced that the next round was on me and walked to the bar with the sound of my own rapid pulse thumping in my ears.

"Six, Stan. Two Strongbows, three lagers and one stout."

"Coming right up," he replied, his voice breaking endearingly on the 'up'.

The lights were off in the Club at that point - there was a single spotlight hanging over the ring and that was it. I glanced over my shoulder and behind me, trying to make it look like a casual I'm-just-waiting-for-my-drinks gesture. No one was looking. Callum wasn't at our table anymore but I couldn't see him, he must have gone to the bathroom. With Stan's back turned I plucked three empty pint glasses off the bar, all of which had been used by the men Gazza had been talking to earlier. There was no time to bag them and they clinked against each other worryingly. Even in the dark, I realized it was going to be impossible to stretch across the bar and curl my fingers under the lip on the other side in order to place the listening device. Stan was standing right there, and it wouldn't have gone unnoticed. Damnit.

When I got back to the table, Callum was still absent. I knew it was my moment. All four of my companions were focused on the fight, as was everyone else around us. I hadn't even noticed who was fighting. I did another quick check and picked up Callum's empty glass, depositing it gently in my bag and covering it with a scarf before zipping it back up. Everyone was still watching the fight. I breathed a slow, steady sigh of relief.

"So, have you seen enough bad fighting for one evening?"

I startled slightly when Callum came up behind me and whispered the question in my ear.

"You're a jumpy one, Lily. Come on, let's get out of here, I want to show you something."

I turned to face him. The dim light from over the ring was catching his eyes, highlighting their clear, pale aqua. What was I going to say? No? I had all the glasses I was going to be able to collect that night, even if I'd failed to get the one that really mattered: Gazza's. There's no way you're going to get into that office, I told myself. I was probably right. Still, I left with Callum knowing a chance might still have arisen and that leaving was closing the door on that chance. I know I had a choice, but it didn't feel like it at the time. At the time the only thing I could think about was being alone with him.

"Sure, OK," I said, "I just need to go to the bathroom. Give me five minutes."

In the bathroom stall I sat down on the toilet and went about bagging each pint glass, writing the letter 'C' on Callum's and leaving the others blank because I couldn't be sure which man had actually drunk from which glass. Then I wrapped the scarf around them so they wouldn't make as much noise and walked out, pleased that I'd managed to get at least something related to the investigation done.