Pressure Head (18 page)

“So what are you trying to say? We should all know our place and not get above ourselves, is that it?
Can’t take the council estate out of the boy
? Thanks a fucking bunch.” The gears complained as Phil put the car in reverse a bit too viciously.

“That’s not what I meant. I just meant… Patricia Treadgood’s a lady, that’s all.”

“Fine. I hope you’ll be very happy together.” We drove out onto the road to play hunt-the-pothole again. “Course, you might have to bump off
hubby
first, but I’m sure she’ll forgive you for that. It’d be the classy thing to do.”

“You know, right now I’d like to do something really classy to your arse.”

There was an excruciating silence that lasted through several potholes. Okay, so maybe I hadn’t meant it to come out
quite
like that.

“Listen,” I said quickly, trying to break the tension that was crackling through the air. “There’s something I ought to tell you.”

“Like what?” Phil sounded cautious, but then we were just getting to the worst bit of the road.

“It’s about the case. And the Rev. I went to see him again yesterday—I wanted another chance to search the place.” I paused. If I was waiting for a pat on the back, it was a good job I wasn’t holding my breath.

“You what? On your own? You twat!” Phil’s face darkened, its lines hard. “Have you forgotten this is a murder investigation? And the Rev’s a sodding suspect?”

“He didn’t do it,” I said earnestly. “I found what he was hiding, and it’s nothing to do with Melanie or her death.”

“And how the bloody hell do you know that? If you’ve got something to hide, you can be blackmailed about it. That’s how it works.”

I was shaking my head. “You didn’t see it. It was, well, it was a bit pathetic, really. Just a few really tame gay books and some old letters and pictures.”

“Who were the letters from?” Phil asked.

I shrugged. “Dunno. I didn’t read them. They were old. They obviously weren’t anything to do with Melanie.”

“Have you even been listening? People have been blackmailed over stuff that’s fifty years old.”

“You what? The
Rev
isn’t even fifty years old.”

“You know what I mean. Please tell me you at least looked at the photos to see if there was anyone in them we know.”

“Look, I’m sorry, all right? They weren’t rude or anything. It just didn’t seem relevant.”

“Nobody knows what’s relevant or not, at this stage. I can’t believe you didn’t look at them.”

“I don’t like prying, all right?”

“Don’t like… It’s what you
do
, for fuck’s sake!”

“No, it’s what
you
do. I’ve got a so-called gift I never asked for. I didn’t choose this—not like you did. You’re the one who decided to make a business out of poking your nose into other people’s lives.”

“So basically,” Phil said, a frown creasing his forehead and an edge to his tone I didn’t much like, “what you’re saying is, my job disgusts you.”

“That’s not what I…” I trailed off. Maybe it was what I’d meant. “I don’t know, all right? All I know is, I don’t feel comfortable doing it.”

“Feel more
comfortable
watching Graham go down for his girlfriend’s murder, would you? While the bastard who did it looks on and laughs? Would that be all right with your holier-than-fucking-thou conscience?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake! That’s not what I’m bloody saying, and you know it.” We’d turned onto Brock’s Hollow road, and I’d had enough. “You can let me out here. I’ll get a bus back or something.”

“Don’t be so bloody stupid. I’m not leaving you stranded here on your own,” Phil snapped, as if I was a none-too-bright ten-year-old who’d never quite got the message about stranger danger.

“Worried the Rev’s going to pop up to have his way with me and bury me in the churchyard? Actually, hang on a minute,” I said, my anger draining away as I thought about it. “If the Rev killed Melanie, why wouldn’t he do just that? Why not hide a body with a whole lot of other bodies? Wouldn’t it be way riskier taking the body somewhere else? I mean, he’d have to get it there, and it was always going to get found eventually, up on Nomansland Common. The whole bloody village walks their dogs up there. Even the Girl Guides go up and build dens there.”

Phil’s knuckles were still white on the steering wheel, and he took a couple of deep breaths before he answered. “You might have a point,” he said, like it was being dragged out of him along with his fingernails. “But you’ve got to remember, people don’t always do the logical thing when they’ve got a body on their hands. Most murderers don’t plan to kill.”

“Yeah, but you said this one did, didn’t you? The phone call, I mean. That had to be planned in advance.”

“
If
it was the murderer who made the call.”

“Oh, come on—it’d have to be a bit of a coincidence, otherwise.”

“Coincidences happen. That’s why there’s a word for them.”

“There’s a word for unicorns too, but I haven’t seen a right lot of them prancing down the High Street lately.”

“There’s a word for smartarses, come to that.” Phil’s tone was still grim, but he’d eased up on the death-glares, and he was keeping to the speed limit as we drove into the village.

I relaxed a bit. “Only one? I thought you had a better vocabulary than that. You need to stop reading the
Sun
and start buying yourself a proper paper. You know, one where you don’t just look at the pictures.”

“I can find all the words I need to describe you in the
Sun
, thanks.”

“What, like
cor, what a stunna
? I’m flattered—I never knew you saw me that way.”

Phil just shook his head, but he was smiling.

“Hey, are you doubting my abilities as a glamour model?”

“You do seem to be lacking a couple of essential qualifications,” he said, glancing at my chest.

“You haven’t seen me with my kit off. At least, not since school. I like to think I’ve filled out a bit since then.”

Now he was laughing. “To page three model standards? I bloody well hope not.”

“If you hate tits that much, how come you spent so much time at school hanging around with Wayne Hills and that crowd?”

“God knows.” There was a beat. “You know I—”

“Don’t,” I said. It was all water under the bridge, now. “That was a long time ago, all right? You’re not the same bloke you were then, and neither am I.”

He glanced at me as we turned into Four Candles Lane. “You reckon? Because I don’t think you’ve changed all that much.”

“Great, so now you think I never grew up.” And presumably, never got over that stupid crush I’d had on him.

“No, that’s not what I mean. You just… Forget it.” I opened my mouth, about to push him on it, when he beat me to it. “Do you—fuck.” He shook his head again. “Sod it…I know this is a daft idea, but do you want to get dinner some time?”

I stared at him. After about a minute, I realised I still had my mouth open, so I shut it, quick. Then I opened it again. “You what? Are you asking me out?”

“Maybe.”

I couldn’t seem to get my head around the idea.

I think my silence got to Phil. “Look, forget it, I said it was a daft—”

“No!” I blurted. “I mean, yeah, I’ll go out with you. Um. For dinner, you know, I’m not saying I want to be your boyfriend, because obviously…” My mouth still wasn’t working properly. Or my brain, come to that, so I shut the one and hoped the other would sort itself out PDQ.

Phil looked a bit shell-shocked. I wasn’t sure if it was down to my babbling, the fact he’d asked me out, or that I’d said yes. It was probably just as well we’d got to the Four Candles, as I had a nasty feeling if we talked any longer, we’d bugger it all up again. “Right,” he said, as he parked the car next to my van. “Tomorrow all right?”

Probably didn’t want to give either of us too long to have second thoughts. “Yeah, that’s fine. Why don’t I come out to yours, for a change, and we can walk into town from there?”

“My place is a bit of a mess…”

“So? What am I, a domestic goddess? Have you got any pets?”

“What? No.” He sounded baffled.

“So you win over me on the cat-hair factor, at any rate.”

“Fine, fine. Just don’t expect much, all right? I’ve only just moved in. You still got the address?”

“Yes, Mum.”

“Call me that while we’re out and you’ll be paying for your own dinner.”

I’d thought I would be anyway. God, this really was going to be a date. Phil Morrison was Taking Me Out For Dinner. An embarrassing little shiver ran through me at the thought, as if I was still at school, lusting after him from afar. Bloody hell, I was going to have to watch myself. At this rate, I was going to start doodling little hearts on my invoices and putting
Tom
loves Phil
inside. I shook my head to clear it of the frightening image.

“Are you all right?” Phil asked.

“Yeah—fine. Um. See you around seven, seven-thirty?”

He nodded. “Whenever you can get there.”

“Right. I’ll see you then, then.” I got out of the car, still not quite believing it. Me and Phil, going on a date.

I might even have something to tell Gary about, next time I saw him.

Chapter Fourteen

I wasn’t working on Saturday, so I had plenty of time to wonder what the hell I thought I was doing, agreeing to go out with Phil. I cleaned the house a bit, did some food shopping, watched the football on the telly. By six o’clock, the butterflies in my stomach had mutated into flying elephants all flapping around like Dumbo drunk on champagne. It was daft—after all the time I’d spent in Phil’s company over the last couple of weeks. But that had been business—his business, at any rate. This…this was dinner, with a chance of sex.

At least, I hoped there was a chance of sex.

Well… I thought that was what I hoped. To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure what the best-case scenario was in this situation. Phil was…well, basically I fancied the pants off him, but every time we spent more than half an hour in each other’s company, we ended up yelling at each other. And not in the porno way. It was so bloody frustrating—every time I got a hint he might actually like me, it all seemed to go tits up the next time we met.

I wasn’t even sure what to wear. He’d only seen me in my work clothes—scruffy jeans and dusty shirts. Would he be disappointed if I dressed up? Did he like to see me as his little bit of rough? Then again, if I turned up like that and he was all smart in his posh shoes and his cashmere, wouldn’t it just look like I couldn’t be arsed to make an effort?

It was weird—back in school,
he’d
been the bit of rough. Maybe he’d had a taste for the good life back then, but his parents certainly hadn’t had the money to indulge it. My dad had made bank manager by the time I was in my teens, so my stuff was always brand-new. God, I hoped this wasn’t just some twisted way of getting his own back on me, of rubbing it in how well he’d climbed the social ladder, while I’d slipped down a rung or two.

In the end, I went for a fairly new pair of jeans and a lambswool sweater Gary always tells me makes my shoulders look bigger. Of course, sod’s law it’d be warm in the restaurant so I’d end up taking it off, and be back to my usual skinny-runt-in-a-T-shirt look, but at least I’d tried. Then I gave the cats an early tea and set off on foot.

Phil’s flat was just up from the old Odeon on London Road. They’ve tarted the outside of the cinema up a bit recently—supposed to be restoring the inside as well. I wasn’t holding my breath, but at least they weren’t just letting the place fall down anymore. I’d even chipped in the odd fiver to the fundraising myself. From the location, I’d expected Phil to be living above a shop, but as it happened, the whole building had been converted into flats. His was on the top floor—in fact, when the house had been built, it would’ve been the attic. I wondered how he was getting on with the sloping ceilings—at his height, I’d have thought they’d have been a bit of a challenge. I grinned to myself. Maybe that was why he was so grumpy all the time—he had a permanent headache from constantly banging his head on the ceiling.

It looked like I wasn’t going to have to wait to find out, as he buzzed me in on the first ring and opened the door to his flat just as I reached the top of the stairs. He smiled when he saw me, which sent the butterflies into overdrive. He looked relaxed, in jeans and a soft blue shirt the colour of his eyes. “Want to come in for a drink before we head out?”

Dutch courage? I was all in favour of that. “Yeah, sounds good.” I stepped inside and looked around. The place had been modernised recently—it was all open-plan, with bright white decor and light-coloured wood, making the most of the space. In daylight, it’d probably be light and airy, but the downside was a faint smell of fresh paint which didn’t seem to sit too well with my empty stomach.

It was also…bare. And full of boxes, many of them open at the top and showing signs of frustrated rummaging. “Still not unpacked yet?” I asked, because there’s a rule you have to state the obvious in this sort of situation.

“Not even close.” He grimaced. “Half the trouble is, I’ve got no cupboards or shelves to store stuff when I unpack it—the London flat was furnished, and I’ve been concentrating on buying the essentials. Like a bed.” It was good to know he had one of those. A decent night’s kip is very important. “I’ve got a sofa on order,” he carried on, oblivious to my filthy mind filling in what else his new bed might be good for, “but for now, you’ll have to park your arse on the garden furniture.”