She Read online

  SHE

  Pete Brassett

  Published by

  The Book Folks

  London 2016

  © Pete Brassett

  Polite note to readers

  This book is written in British English apart from instances where local dialect is used. For that reason, spellings of words may differ from North American English.

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  Other books by Pete Brassett published by THE BOOK FOLKS

  THE WILDER SIDE OF CHAOS

  YELLOW MAN

  CLAM CHOWDER AT LAFAYETTE AND SPRING

  THE GIRL FROM KILKENNY

  BROWN BREAD

  PRAYER FOR THE DYING

  KISS THE GIRLS

  Present: Tense. Past: Imperfect.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 1

  “SO. HOW DID YOU MEET?”

  Fluke. Pure chance. I was at Harry’s place, his bar on Rivington Street. Running a glorified pub wasn’t something he’d planned or dreamed about, it wasn’t something he’d hankered after, it just sort of happened.

  My fault I think. You see, if there was anything Harry was short of, it was drive. Ambition. If there was anything he had a surplus of, it was his inherent ineptitude at concentrating on anything remotely concerned with making a living. Simply because, he didn’t have to. Not that he was dim. Quite the opposite. He was smart, astoundingly so. One of those clever types with a mind like an Intel chip who understood string theory and the power of a neutrino but would fall to pieces if someone asked him to turn on the oven.

  Some people said he was lazy. Just another lazy, rich kid with a silver spoon wedged firmly in his mouth. They blamed his parents for being too soft. Maybe they had a point, but I didn’t see it like that. From where I was standing, they were simply supporting him, and, let’s face it, they could afford to. Money to them was like confetti at a wedding. They’re the kind of people who used £50 notes to light the barbecue, bought a new car when the old one ran out of petrol and thought nothing of doting on their only child until he found his way in the world. Found his ‘niche’. I don’t think ‘publican’ was the ‘niche’ they had in mind but they weren’t disappointed, they ran with it. It got him out of a hole.

  Harry, you see, despite his foibles, was just an average guy, albeit a privileged one, an average guy beset by boredom, cursed by wealth and addicted to booze. He was an alcoholic. He didn’t drink to suppress his emotions, or because he was hiding some sordid secret from his past. He drank simply because he was bored. That’s what he told me, anyway. Funny, I couldn’t help but think there must be another reason, I mean, you don’t become an alcoholic just because you’re bored. Or do you? Either way, I didn’t pry; all I knew was, it was killing him. I’d badgered him for months to cut back and slow down before his body gave his liver an eviction notice but whatever I said fell on deaf ears. I grew frustrated. I think he must’ve been a Taurean because he was as stubborn as hell. So stubborn I resorted to going behind his back. I spoke to his parents. I told them they were killing him with kindness and, much as it may hurt, they had to be hard with him. Tough love. They agreed, reluctantly, whilst knocking back the Chablis, and said they’d speak with him. They couldn’t turf him out – for someone in his condition, that would’ve sealed his fate – so they threatened to withhold his allowance unless he got a grip and sorted himself out. He did. Well, he tried. And he failed. He joined AA. Lasted one meeting. Almost. He got as far as ‘My name is Harry’ before launching a tirade of abuse at the other members of the group, accusing them all of being spineless, work-shy misfits with uneducated palates who wouldn’t know a decent Brouilly if it leapt up and bit them in the face. As a parting shot, he suggested they all sign up to a wine tasting course and do something useful with their lives before levanting for a night of passion with Laurent Perrier.

  I could see him ageing before my eyes, withering like a dehydrated hydrangea, so I decided to give it one, last try. I promised myself that if he didn’t listen, if he didn’t give up, then it was out of my hands and I could do no more than pen a witty eulogy and raise a glass to his passing. It was about a week later. We were at his parents’ house. In his quest to find someone he could hold on to at night, and wake up with in the morning, he’d invited a couple of twenty-something socialites to dinner in the vain hope that one of them would find the charms of a deluded dipsomaniac thoroughly irresistible. Neither did. The only thing they were interested in was the chateaubriand. Were it not for etiquette, they’d have licked their plates. They didn’t hang around after that, didn’t even wait for dessert. Mummy was unwell. Apparently.

  We were on the terrace, he lamenting the loss of a potential partner who, incidentally, had all the charm of a spoiled brat and laughed like a horse while I, well, I think I was willing the sun to set so the evening would draw to a close. I watched as he uncorked a third bottle and decided to broach the subject before he slipped into oblivion. He wasn’t one for reading, mainly because he couldn’t focus on a page, so I’d already decided self-help books were not an option. Instead, I suggested he confront his demons, face them head on. I said ‘Look, if you have a fear of heights, you should walk a tightrope. If you have a fear of water, you should go swimming. Thing is, you don’t fear the booze, but you should. Give it your best shot. See who comes out on top.’

  I didn’t expect him to take me seriously, at best I thought he’d go on a bender, get the mother of all hangovers, then start over again. He didn’t. The following day he announced he was opening a bar and if he didn’t drink it dry, he’d be cured. His mother and father, excited at the prospect of their son entering the world of brasseries and Michelin stars, tossed him a bundle of notes and the use of a cheque book. Two months later, the bar was open and I was worried. I needn’t have been. By the end of the first week, he’d consumed so much alcohol, he’d grown tired of the taste. By the end of the second week, he spent so much time changing barrels and cleaning out slop trays, he’d grown sick of the smell. And by week three, the very thought of drinking it, turned his stomach. And that, as they say, was that. Five years he’d been clean. No Michelin stars, but then again, I don’t think they award them for cheese toasties.

  I digress. How did we meet? Well, like I say, I’d dropped by to see Harry. No particular reason, other than to say hello. Make sure he was still securely fastened to that wagon, after all, we were friends. Not the kind who socialised together, we didn’t ‘hang out’, but we had each other’s backs. There was a kind of, ‘distance’, between us, which actually kept us close, if you know what I mean. We never indulged in idle banter. If one of us spoke, the other listened.

  Anyway, he was busy behind the bar, scowling at customers, slicing limes and doing his best to be as unwelcoming as possible. I sat patiently with an ice-cold Guinness and waited for the early evening rush to recede. That’s when I noticed her. She was so… so, incongruous. She had class. A short, summer dress, a pair of Cons and no make-up in a sea of stilettos, Tandoori tans and enough lip-gloss to coat the QEII. She sat, her back, straight, while her friends, three of them, slouched and giggled. She sipped sparkling water while they glugged Pinot. She caught my
eye, smiled coyly, and slowly looked away. I waited a while, not too long, then glanced back. She was gone. It’s funny, I remember the feeling I got when I saw she wasn’t there. It was a strange feeling of vague disappointment. I’d never experienced that before. I heard a woman howl, more of a cackle really, and turned to see the tail end of her group spilling on to the street. Harry whistled, like a shepherd calling his collie, and placed a pint on the bar. One of the perks of knowing the owner. I fetched my drink and returned to find my seat occupied. By her. She smiled. I’ll never forget that smile. It was far too wicked for a face so innocent. I asked, jokingly, if she was stalking me. She smiled that smile again and said she’d wanted to meet me, that I looked, ‘intriguing’. ‘Dirty’. And she didn’t mean, unwashed. She declined the offer of a sparkling water with imported Italian bubbles and opted for a Bloody Mary instead. The works. Everything. Except the celery. She hated celery. Apparently. An hour passed, may have been two, I wasn’t keeping track.

  Lord knows what we talked about but the time flew by. It wasn’t late, about 8 o’clock, I think, but it was time to leave. She concurred and rather generously announced that I was entitled to walk her as far as the tube station. I did. Then the ticket hall, then the platform and then onto the carriage. We didn’t speak for twenty minutes. It was too loud, too crowded, a mass of tangled, perspiring arms clinging to germ-riddled grab-rails as though their lives depended on it. When she alighted at my stop I was, shall was say, a little, unnerved. I mean, what were the chances of her living near me? The odds must have been fantastical. I concluded she was either stalking me after all or was after a one-night stand. The latter seemed improbable, she simply didn’t seem the type, so I offered to walk her home, just to be sure. I wanted to see her put a key in the door and disappear from view. She did. I was, strangely, relieved and felt a tad guilty for casting aspersions on her character. I went home and realised I didn’t even know her name. Her address, yes, but not her name.

  The following morning was the same as any other. The unavoidable, habitual routine designed to hasten my departure. 6am. I showered while the kettle boiled, slurped a cup of tea while I smoked a cigarette, then dressed in the same, old jeans. That’s where the similarity ended. I opened the front door and there she was. Smiling. A tingle ran up my spine, half excitement, half fear. Maybe ‘fear’ is too strong a word, but you know what I mean. There was something about her, something ‘dangerous’. I asked if she’d camped out all night, or followed me home. She laughed. No, she’d simply asked Harry for my address. Another tingle. She wasn’t heading for the tube; she didn’t work in town. The previous night had been nothing more than a social sojourn into the smoke to catch up with friends she knew she’d probably never see again. She worked in the archive department at the library on Vestry Road. I could see why. She was ordered, methodical. Sorting, numbering, listing, logging, filing. It suited her. I didn’t ask why she was hovering by the gate, and that’s odd. You’d have thought that that would have been the first thing on my mind – ‘what are you doing here? what do you want?’ – but, no, the words never made it past my lips. She left, smirking, and walked towards the bus stop while I headed in the opposite direction.

  I called Harry. Asked him if he remembered the girl in the bar, the girl in the yellow dress and Converse trainers, asked him if he knew her. He did. I couldn’t believe it. Must be that ‘6 degrees of separation’ thing. Not only that, they had a history, too. An intimate history. The words ‘dark’ and ‘horse’ sprang to mind. For some reason, I wasn’t shocked, even though they were an unlikely pairing – she, petite and delicate, he, six feet four and built like a scrum-half. He told me, briefly, that they’d met soon after he’d opened the bar. Turns out she’d helped him through the Battle of the Bottle, got him straight, kept him on an even keel. Said she reminded him of his ex, a skinnier version, shorter hair and, most importantly, not as bossy. Familiarity. I think that’s why he kept her close. Made him feel comfortable. Couple of years they were together, but not, as what you might call, a conventional couple. Seems they never lived together, they never took a holiday together and neither celebrated Christmas or birthdays in the company of the other but, for a time, they must have needed each other. He asked if I was going to see her again. I said I had a feeling that wasn’t going to be for me to decide.

  CHAPTER 2

  SPRATT HALL ROAD, WANSTEAD. 6:55am

  From his office on the third floor, D.I. Munro was afforded a view normally reserved for roofers and steeplejacks. He sipped his tea – white, three sugars – and watched from the open window as a lone female – tall, mid-twenties – played enthusiastically with her retriever amongst the chestnuts and the sycamores on the green below. She stopped, abruptly, perturbed by something untoward, something unexpected, spun on her heels and called for the dog to follow. Munro’s eyes darted to the left, tracking her intended route, and settled on a drunk, dangling precariously from a bench, the ground beneath him littered with empty beer cans. It was a recent phenomenon, not as bad as the jakeys and the junkies that lay strewn about the streets of Dumfries, but it was unacceptable, nonetheless. He buzzed the Desk Sergeant, advised him of the inebriate sleeping al-fresco across the way, and suggested he introduce him to a cell before the school run commenced.

  He checked his diary. One entry. One more than the previous day, and the day before that. 11:45am. Snaresbrook Crown Court. Sentencing. Burglary. He’d be back in time for lunch. At the foot of the page he’d scribbled: ‘D.S. West’. Finally, he thought, he’d have someone to talk to.

  Disillusioned with the raft of cutbacks at ‘The Mount’, and still smarting from the untimely passing of his beloved Jean, Munro had postponed his retirement and moved south to escape the suffocating solitude of his memory-laden Larchfield home. With the Met employing the same cost-cutting techniques as his home town, it wasn’t the distraction he’d hoped for. He finished his tea, sighed and wondered, momentarily, if he should have surrendered his badge when he had the chance. Compared to life on the streets of Dumfy, where his investigative prowess was tested to the limit on a daily basis, his role down south was as taxing, and as interesting, as life in a retirement home.

  The shouts from the street, though unintelligible, were undeniably threatening, the dialect, eastern European. Polish, perhaps. Or Romanian. It was impossible to tell. He watched, despondently, as two of his constables steered their staggering quarry back to the station, knowing full well he’d be back on the streets by nightfall.

  The phone buzzed. Internal. Front desk confirmed the arrival of their guest and advised him that a certain Detective Sergeant West was on the way up.

  Munro checked his tie in the small, framed mirror hanging from the bookcase, patted down what was left of his thinning, grey hair and wiped an unwelcome scuff-mark from the toe of his polished, leather, walking boots. He stood, back to the window, hands clasped behind his back and ensured his expression was suitably stern. A short, sharp, rap rattled the door.

  ‘Hello, lassie,’ he said, peering over her shoulder. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Detective Inspector Munro? James Munro?’

  ‘Aye, that’s right. I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m expecting someone the noo.’

  ‘D.S. West, Sir.’

  ‘That’s right, how did you know? Is he with you?’

  ‘I, am Detective Sergeant West, Sir.’

  ‘You?’ said Munro, mildly surprised. ‘I… I was…’

  ‘You were expecting a man. Sorry to disappoint you.’

  ‘No, no, I’m not disappointed, just a wee bit…’

  ‘Surprised.’

  ‘Aye. That’s the word. Surprised.’

  ‘And you don’t like surprises?’

  ‘I do not.’

  Munro looked on as D.S. West, smirking slyly to herself, commandeered the empty desk and made herself at home. He regarded her approvingly, attired, as she was, in a green hiking jacket, black jeans and sturdy boots, and couldn’t help but
think she would have looked more at home clambering up The Devil’s Beef Tub or sheltering in a bothy.

  ‘Well, once you’ve unpacked,’ he said, testing her, ‘perhaps you’d like to make some tea. Kettle’s just there.’

  D.S. West did not, as expected, rise to the bait.

  ‘Sorry, Braveheart,’ she said, smiling broadly, with scant regard for his rank. ‘I don’t make tea for anyone, unless they’re in my house.’

  Munro allowed himself the smallest of smiles, happy at the arrival of his foil.

  ‘Humility is an admirable trait,’ he said. ‘Often lacking in the younger generation, but I’m not too proud to put the kettle on myself. What’ll you have?’

  She reached into her bag and tossed him a box.

  ‘One of these, please.’

  ‘Chamomile?’ said Munro.

  ‘Yes, it’s herbal. What they call, an infusion.’

  ‘Is that so? Well, well, well.’

  They sat, quietly, at their respective desks, each cradling their cup, each watching the other like a couple of steely-eyed, poker players, waiting to see who would crack first. Munro correctly assumed his partner to be in her late twenties. Her tousled, brown hair was pinned precariously atop her head. Her complexion was fresh and attractively weathered. Her eyes, hazel. As were Jean’s. Judging by her accent, she wasn’t a Londoner. Too eloquent. More, home counties. Berkshire, he imagined, or Surrey. Somewhere spacious enough for her ponies. He drained his cup.

  ‘Well, now, Sergeant,’ he said, opting to break the silence. ‘It wouldn’t do to call you Westie for the foreseeable. Folk will think I’m calling a hound. So, tell me, do you have a first name?’

  Unlike certain officers she’d worked with in the past, officers who hid behind a stereotyped façade laden with bravado and expletives, there was something charming about Munro. The way he carried himself, his actions, slow but deliberate, his Celtic brogue, soft and lilting. She locked eyes with his, disarmingly bright and blue, and caught a glimpse of the man beneath. Someone as hard as nails.