Relief Valve: The Plumber's Mate, Book 2 (15 page)

“Yeah, sherry with the vicar’s not exactly your style, is it? So you’re getting on all right these days, you and her?” His gaze got a bit more focussed. “What does she think about that bloke of yours?”

“What, Phil?”

I gave myself a mental kick up the bum as Dave went for the predictable response. “Why, how many you got?”

“Just the one. Nah, she doesn’t like him much.” I shrugged. “Came over all big sister, only thirteen years too late.”

“Feeling’s mutual, is it?” His chair creaked as he leaned his not inconsiderable weight back.

“If you’re trying pin this on Phil you can bugger off. He’s on your side, remember? Solves crimes, doesn’t do them.”

“On our side? Pull the other one. You try telling that to anyone else in the force. Now me, I’m open-minded—”

As a bloody clam, I carefully didn’t say. Mostly because I knew it wasn’t actually fair. At least, I knew I knew it when I was thinking straight which, now, not so much.

“—but to your average copper on the beat, private investigators are just one step above ambulance chasers. And cockroaches.”

“Yeah, Phil sends his love to you and all.”

“You can give him this little billy doo from me.” Dave stuck up a finger. “How’s it going with him, anyway? In general terms, please.”

“Fine.” Oops. Said it a bit quick. If you do that, people tend to hear an invisible
Not
in front of it. “I mean, you know. Fine. How about you and Jen?”

His eyes went worryingly misty. “Good. Really good. We’re trying for a kid, you know?”

“Hey, that’s great.” I meant it. He’d been a right saddo when she’d left him last year.

“It’s harder work than you’d think, though,” Dave said with a mock sigh that wasn’t fooling anyone. “Since she hit forty, her fertility’s gone right down, she reckons. The number of times she’s rung me up at work to come home for a quickie ’cause she’s ovulating—”

“Yeah, all right, got the picture, thanks,” I said quickly. Nothing against Mrs. Dave, but middle-aged married couples shagging isn’t an image I really want in my head.

Dave coughed, and adjusted himself. “Right. Anyway, I’ve got to ask, has your sister got any enemies? Anyone you can think of who’d want to hurt her?”

“Not really. I s’pose I’ve been assuming it’s to do with her work? You know, the court stuff? Maybe she didn’t get someone off—in the legal sense, obviously—when she was supposed to? Or did, when she wasn’t?”

Dave nodded again. “Yeah, we’re looking into it. What do you know about Gregory Titmus?”

He’s a creepy sod with strangler’s hands? “Um, he seems like a decent bloke. And, you know, there’s the whole man-of-God thing. I only just met him.”

“What, at the party?”

“Well, no. Me and Phil went round to his for drinks a week or so ago. With Cherry, obviously.”

“So you saw him and your sister together before the party? How did they seem?”

I shrugged. “Pretty loved-up. Before and during. And after, come to that. You don’t seriously reckon he did it, do you? What was the point of proposing if he was going to try and off her afterwards?”

“Buyer’s remorse?”

“Oi, that’s my sister you’re talking about, not some bit of tat off eBay.”

“Sorry.” He didn’t sound it. “Partners are always the obvious suspect, though. And most of the time, it’s the obvious suspect who’s guilty.”

“So if I pop my clogs in a suspicious manner, you’ll be banging down Phil’s door?”

“Too bloody right.” Dave rubbed his neck. “Okay. Let’s leave the Right Reverend—”

“Nah, that’s bishops.” I’d looked it up on the Internet. “Greg’s just a Very.”

“Since when are you such a bloody expert on the clergy? Forget about him, anyway. Did anyone else at the party give the impression of not being too keen on your sister?”

“Well… There was this bloke from her old writing group. Fuck, what was his name? Tall old bloke, bit round-shouldered. Looked like he liked a drink or six. Morgan, that was it. Morgan Everleigh or Everton or something. But don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t anything
he
said. It was just Cherry. She didn’t seem all that chuffed he’d turned up. Said they’d had a few words about something he’d said she’d done, but she said she hadn’t. Done the thing he said she had, I mean, not had a few words.”

“God, I hope I never have a case that rests on getting you into the witness box. So this thing, what was it? And without all the he-said-she-saids.”

“Fiddling the funds, though God knows how much a writers’ circle has in the kitty. Couple of quid and an IOU, I’d reckon. He thought—that all right?—she’d accused him of it. She said she hadn’t.” I shrugged. “He seemed a bit, I dunno, high strung?”

Dave laughed. “That’s rich, coming from you. In what way?”

I ignored the dig at my masculinity. “Well, you know. Just getting a bit hot under the collar when he was talking about stuff. Like it was all a personal insult.” I was starting to feel a bit queasy. “Shit, do you think he did it?” There was something pretty horrifying about having a cosy chat with someone who ten minutes later tried to kill your sister.

“I don’t think anything right now. Except that when we’ve finished this little chat, I want you to go and write down everything you can remember about this EverReady bloke.” He sighed. “This would all have been so much easier if we’d been called in straight away. We don’t even know half the people who were at that bloody party.”

“Hang on, Cherry and Greg must know who they invited.”

“Must know, my arse. We’re only looking at the whole bloody diocese of St Leonards. Your Very Reverend chum put a sodding notice up in the bloody cathedral inviting all comers. And then Facebooked it. He was lucky he didn’t have a couple of hundred teenagers roll up and turn it into a rave.”

“Shit. I thought it was a bit packed. Well, that’s a bugger.”

He smirked. “Takes one to know one.”

“Eff off.” I paused. “Off the record, have you got anything to go on?”

“Officially, I’m not allowed to tell you anything about an ongoing investigation. Unofficially, bugger all. Although we did get a great set of prints off your sister’s glass.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Belonged to one Thomas Paretski. Haven’t you ever watched any cop shows on the telly? Even kids of five know you don’t bloody touch anything at a crime scene.”

“Oh. Sorry about that.” I thought about it. “Hang about, I didn’t bloody know it was a crime scene then, did I? And they’d have been on there anyway. I held her drink for her when she went to say hi to Richard and Agatha.”

“That’s your brother and the missus, right?”

I nodded.

“Get on all right with your sister, does he?” There was a steely glint in Dave’s eye.

“Come on, you can’t think he did it. Bloody hell, am I a suspect too?” I held out my hands, wrists together. “It’s a fair cop, guv. You got me bang to rights. Me and Richard were in on it together. That’s the last time she’ll cheat us at Monopoly.”

“Don’t be daft.” Dave looked out the window, and I got a nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was about to say something when he turned back to me. “Tell me more about this drink, then. You were holding it. Put it down anywhere?”

I thought back. “Well, yeah. I left it on the table when I went over to grab Phil and take him to meet my brother. Shit. Is that when someone poisoned it?”

“Never said it was the drink, did I?”

“Well, was it?”

“Maybe.” He sighed. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to leave drinks unattended?”

“If we’d been in a pub, I wouldn’t have, all right? The place was full of bloody church types. I wasn’t expecting anyone to get roofied.” My guts twisted painfully. I wished I hadn’t shoved that bloody sandwich down so fast.

Dave shook his head wisely. “Shouldn’t make assumptions. Some of these so-called God-fearing Christians have pretty dark pasts.”

“Yeah, yeah. Been there, bought the T-shirt.” I stood up. “Right. Why don’t you get one of your lot to show me to where I get to write this bloody essay for you?
What I did on my night out
.”

“Long as it’s only stuff that’s pertinent to the enquiry. I don’t want to hear about the rest of your Friday night.”

“Oi, there wasn’t any of that, not after my sister nearly died.”

“Yeah, bit of a passion-killer, I expect. So he was with you all evening, was he? Morrison, I mean. Looked after you all right?”

“I’m not a kid. I’ve been looking after myself for quite a few years now.” I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

Dave showed no such restraint. “Says the bloke who managed to get himself shot in bloody Hertfordshire not so long ago.”

I’m not sure if Phil was at the station the same time I was or not. If he was, Dave didn’t let on. Sneaky sod. Anyway, when I got out, there was a message on my mobile from Phil saying they’d put him through the wringer too, and we ought to compare notes.

I hoped Dave’s boys weren’t monitoring our phone calls. Something like that probably sounded as guilty as hell.

We met up in the foyer of the Merchant Café in St Albans. It’s a big place, as they go in St Albans, but cosy, with lots of little round tables and dark wood everywhere. In the summer, they have ceiling fans going, or you can sit outside in the Market Square on the rare occasions the sun actually shines.

This time of year, with everyone bundled up in thick coats, there was hardly room to move inside, but it was worth it for the smell of the place—rich, dark coffee with just a hint of chocolate. I almost didn’t bother getting a drink—I could have got my caffeine fix just by breathing in deep.

Then again, I’d have had nothing to dunk my biscotti in. I got a cappuccino and a smile from the blonde barista as she gave me extra chocolate sprinkles.

Phil got an Americano. And no smile. Then again, he was looking a bit grim. We sat down at a table in the middle of a row. Even though we were banging elbows with the neighbours, the din of chatter in the place gave us all the privacy we needed to talk. We could probably have discussed our sex life at full volume and no one would have batted an eyelid.

Then again, after what Phil had told me about his dogging case, I was beginning to think me and him weren’t trying all that hard with our sex life.

“Did you tell the police about Greg hiring you?” I asked. “I mean, I didn’t. Wasn’t sure it was relevant or whether it was one of these professional confidentiality things, so I thought I’d leave it to you.”

Phil sipped his coffee, then put down his mug. “I told them. You don’t know what’s going to be relevant in a case like this.” Voice of experience, here. Phil was a copper himself, once upon a time.

“Yeah, but it’d be stretching it a bit, wouldn’t it? I mean, someone doesn’t like Greg, so he—or she—poisons my sister? Why not cut out the middle man? Or woman, rather.”

“You don’t know what’s going on in these people’s heads. Maybe they thought if his fiancée died, Greg would turn away from his evil ways and repent? You think they were just out to hurt him, but these religious nutters usually aren’t that straightforward. They reckon they’re doing the right thing. Saving his soul. Maybe they think if someone has to die, that’s worth it.”

“What, so Greg’s soul is worth more than my sister’s life?”

“Maybe. To someone like that.”

I hoped they’d burn in hell. If, you know, it existed.

Phil carried on. “Or maybe your sister wasn’t the intended victim, have you thought of that?”

“That’d make more sense. If they thought it was Greg they were poisoning.”

“Or you.”

I choked on my cappuccino. Must be the biscotti crumbs. “You what? Why’d anyone want to kill me?”

Phil didn’t say,
Because they’ve met you?
which I was grateful for. “Why does anyone kill anyone?” he asked instead.

“You want to get all philosophical about it? I don’t know. Money, sex… Uh, maybe they were being blackmailed? They
weren’t
being blackmailed, by the way. At least, not by me.
If
I was supposed to be the victim.”

“Were you having sex with them?” He smirked at me over the rim of his mug.

“Well, Dave did say you’d be suspect number one if I ever kick the bucket in dodgy circs, so maybe.”

Phil nodded. “Yeah, that’s why I’d never poison you.”

“Thank God for small mercies.”

“I’d push you off a ladder or booby-trap your toaster. Make it look like an accident. Safest way.”

A woman on the next table shrieked with laughter, but I was fairly sure it was at something her friend had said, not the thought of Phil getting domestically violent with me. “Glad to hear you’ve got my untimely death all planned out. Oi, you didn’t tell Dave about this theory of yours, did you? They’ll be on you like a bloody rash if you did.” The last thing we needed was a bunch of flatfooted policemen poking their noses into our relationship.

“Course not. I’m not daft.” He paused. “Might be an idea if I move in with you for a bit, though. Just in case.”

“See, now, if you
were
trying to off me, that’s just what you’d do, innit? All those opportunities to shove me downstairs and say I tripped over the cat.” I wasn’t sure how I felt about him moving in. Yeah, it was nice waking up to him in my bed, and all right, I liked the cosy evenings and, yeah, the shagging, but did I really want him here all the time? Wasn’t that how the magic went out of a relationship? Plus, I’d have to start keeping the place tidy
all the time
. Phil’s flat was always immaculate, now he’d got rid of the last of the boxes from moving in.