A Sticky End (34 page)

“It was a lucky day for Morgan when he met you, Mitch,” said Bert. “You've saved his life.”

“He's done the same for me.”

“And how did you work it all out? Where did you even begin?”

“I said that, at first, I suspected Walter Ross. But then he begged me to clear Bartlett's name, to save Morgan—and, however hard I tried, I couldn't make that fit into a killer's plan. So I looked elsewhere. Who was left? A lot of people, it seemed, but there was one man I really didn't like, so I thought I'd try to pin it on him.”

“Hugh Trent,” said Bert. “Just because he wasn't interested in fucking you.”

“Exactly. Everyone else… Well, let's just say he wasn't my favorite person. But I couldn't get anywhere with that, either. He seemed to be exactly what he appeared to be—a slightly pompous family man who doesn't like our type but wouldn't go so far as to kill us. But then there was that business in the music hall, and while Bert was fucking me, I started to remember the strangest things. Trent pulling away when little Margaret and Teddy tried to grab his whiskers. Trent running out of the room in confusion when I accidentally nudged his elbow and caused him to spill his drink over his face. He must have rushed off to the bathroom to fix his whiskers back in place—the whiskey in the glass would have dissolved the glue. Hence that little bit of business in Morgan's drawing room yesterday.”

“A very effective
coup de théâtre
,” said Osborne.

“And once I'd convinced myself that Trent was the blackmailer, I realized he must have an accomplice—and that would have to be someone on the inside. I'd long since dismissed you, Jack—you're a bad man, maybe, but not that bad.”

“I'll turn over a new leaf.”

“That's not all you'll turn over,” said Bert, who was as eager as everyone else in the room to fuck the handsome guardsman.

“And the only person left was Arthur Tippett. Tippett, who, according to Morgan, had a mind like a steel trap. A very appropriate simile, as it turns out. So, between the two of them, they drove Bartlett to his death.”

“And then set about murdering his widow,” said Stan. “How did they think they'd get away with it?”

“Trent had put the mercury oxide into Vivien Bartlett's sedatives. She'd been taking them for some time, but when her husband died, she needed them more than ever. All he had to do was replace her sleeping pills, and it would be attributed to suicide, or an accident. And then he would inherit everything. He and Tippett would split the proceeds—”

“But how long before they turned on each other?” said McDermott. “I bet they would have done.”

“They have already,” said Stan. “Tippett says it was all Trent's idea. Trent says the same about Tippett. They're singing like canaries, hoping to save their necks.”

“And will they?”

“I don't know,” said Stan, “but I wouldn't put money on it.”

A gloomy silence fell on the room, and we stared into our drinks. It was Gerald Osborne, MBE, who lightened the mood.

“Now see here, gentlemen. I was lured here on a promise of cock, and cock I will have. Much as I have enjoyed your meticulous reconstruction of the crime, Mr. Mitchell—and I have, I really have, it was as good as a play—I have not come all the way to Clapham to listen to sordid discussions of the motives of homicidal maniacs. I have come here to suck penises, something that I do very well, if I do say so myself. And so, before we all sink into the slough of despond, please allow me to give someone the benefit of a lifetime of
unnatural vice. Come along, gentlemen. I am waiting.”

There was a sudden mass fumbling for buttons—Osborne had spoken the magic words that broke the evil spell. I‘m not sure which cock was the first out—I think it was a tie between Gigolo Jack and Constable Stan—but, in any case, the Member of the British Empire was very soon down on his knees, a cock in each hand, alternating his tongue and lips between them, and the rest of us were quick to follow.

In the hour that followed, we all came at least once.

PC Stan Knight came over his belly, jerking himself off while Tabib fucked him up the ass and McDermott dangled his huge balls in his mouth.

Sean Durran came inside me, fucking me from the rear—and it was true, he was just as good at giving as he was at taking.

Bert came once in Gerald Osborne's mouth—“I didn't mean to,” he said, “but I couldn't help it”—and again while fucking Tabib, pulling out just in time to come all over the Turk's hairy belly.

Tabib came at the same time, his spunk mixing with Bert's. I had a feeling that this new friendship might last.

Jack McDermott came in Stan's mouth, while sucking my cock; Stan was learning fast, and even a hardened professional like McDermott was impressed.

Gerald Osborne, MBE, masturbated while rimming Sean Durran's tight pink hole, and produced a prodigious quantity of semen for a man of his years.

And I came, of course, shoving my aching cock hard up Stan's ass, fucking him so hard that, for a short while, all thought of Morgan and Bartlett was driven from my mind.

We lay quietly for a while, some of us dozing, some of us (Tabib, in particular) snoring. Then the porter arrived with fresh supplies of drink, which seemed to inspire the party to resume. Tabib stood with his back to the door, preventing the young man from leaving—which he clearly had no
desire to do, as he was already on his knees, lapping at Jack McDermott's tasty cock, little knowing, perhaps, that in the normal course of events it would take him the best part of a month's wages to get anywhere near it.

THE BOAT TRAIN FROM VICTORIA TO DOVER RATTLED SLOWLY through south London and into Kent. My heart was in my boots. Just three days ago, I'd traveled down to Wimbledon with my spirits high, my cock hard, thinking of nothing more than dragging Boy Morgan up to his bathroom and fucking his brains out before we'd even said hello.

But that was not how things turned out.

Morgan was home, safe, a free man, and grateful, as was his wife. They expressed their gratitude fully, properly, when I went to see them this morning. There was much warm shaking of hands, arms around shoulders, kissing (between me and Belinda, on the cheek, and between Morgan and Belinda, on the lips), many promises to see each other soon, to spend more time together, to visit Edinburgh, to take a holiday, perhaps on the Norfolk Broads, or in the Lake District, or even in France, perhaps Biarritz, perhaps the Riviera.

We laughed and smiled and hugged when I said goodbye, and waved to each other as the cab—paid for by Morgan, at
his insistence—took me to Victoria. Waved and waved until I rounded the corner and could see them no more.

And I wondered if I would ever see them again.

Belinda had been at Morgan's side when I arrived, and she was at his side when I left. At first it seemed that I would have no chance for anything more than a formal expression of gladness and gratitude—that Morgan and I would not be left to talk alone. But, after Ivy served coffee and we'd made all the appropriate, sanitized observations about Arthur Tippett and Hugh Trent, after we'd expressed our hope that Vivien Bartlett—who was coming to stay—would make a full recovery from her recent bout of mercury poisoning, Belinda absented herself with her usual tact to take the children for an airing on the Common. Ivy cleared away the coffee things, and I was alone with Boy Morgan.

He stood at the drawing room window, looking out at the garden, waiting—or so it seemed—for the sound of the front door closing behind his wife and children. I kept quiet. It was up to Morgan to set the agenda for whatever was to follow.

He turned to face me and exhaled, as if he'd been holding his breath for some time.

“It's over, then.”

“Yes, Morgan, it's over.”

“Thank God.”

“Thank Him if you like. Or thank Sean Durran. Or Jack McDermott. Without their evidence—”

Morgan passed a hand over his face, as if wiping away a cobweb. “Please, old chap,” he said, “I can't bear to go over all that again.”

“Without them, you might be facing trial for Frank Bartlett's murder.”

For a moment, he looked angry. “I don't ever—” But he thought better of it, mastered himself, and continued in
more even tones. “Frank Bartlett seems like part of a bad dream to me now. A nightmare from which I'm very glad to say I have awoken.”

“I see.”

“I think I went a little bit mad, Mitch.”

“Do you?” Was this how we were now supposed to explain and dismiss his affair with Bartlett—a momentary madness?

“Frank was a very persuasive man.”

“Ah.” It was Frank's fault. And Frank wasn't around to set the record straight.

“I know I've been weak.” He looked at me with pleading eyes, hoping, I suppose, that I would swallow this version of events. Perhaps this was how he'd explained himself to Belinda—or how she'd explained it to him. Weakness, madness, persuasion, a bad dream from which he had now awoken to be comforted by Belinda—just as she would comfort Margaret or Edward. The bogeyman is just a nightmare, darling. He's gone away now. Mummy's here. Everything's going to be all right.

“What will you do about the will?”

“We've discussed that,” said Morgan, avoiding my eyes. “We think it would be best if we came to an arrangement with Vivien.”

“I see.”

“Obviously it's all watertight, and if that's what the old man wanted.”

The old man. So that was how Bartlett was to be remembered.

“Well, I won't deny that some extra dibs would come in jolly handy. Just while I get myself back on my feet.”

“Will London Imperial take you back?”

“I wouldn't go even if they did,” said Morgan, straightening his back. “Belinda thinks I can do a lot better than that. And after the way they treated me…”

“Right. Well, I'm sure Belinda's right.”

“I don't know what I'd do without her, Mitch.”

And what about me? Without me your pretty neck would be in a noose.

“Will you stay here?”

“Probably not, old chap. With two children, it's already getting pretty crowded. And who knows? There might be more of us before long.”

“Oh. Congratulations.”

“Early days yet, old chap. But the timing's right. And then, we'll need a bigger place. Somewhere less…”

“What?” A house where your lover didn't slash his wrists, believing you to be his blackmailer? A house where every brick, every window, every tile on the hall floor, every drop of water in the bathroom doesn't remind you of Frank Bartlett, who paid for it all?

“Less cramped. Less suburban.”

“Ah. You're going up in the world, I see.” Just how much money would he “arrange” to take from the Bartlett estate?

“Yes,” said Morgan, with no trace of self-consciousness—though he still would not look me in the eye. “We all have to think about the future, don't we?”

“I suppose so. But we mustn't forget the past.”

“As for that…” He stood at the window, looking out on the garden, his back to me, silhouetted in the morning light. I knew that shape so well—the broad shoulders and narrow waist, the elegant neck, the well-proportioned head with its sheen of dark hair. And I felt then as if he was receding from me, moving into a future in which I had no part.

“I've made a lot of mistakes, Mitch.”

“You mustn't say that.”

“And it's time for me to set them right. I have responsibilities.”

“You've had responsibilities for a long time, Morgan.”
And they never stopped you from wanting a cock up your ass.

“And now I have to face up to them. I'm a married man. A father. You have to understand, Mitch.”

I understood all too well. Whatever had been between us was over.

“Of course. I'm…pleased for you. And for Billie, of course.”

“She's a wonderful girl, Mitch.”

“I know it.”

“Will we still be—” He turned, and finally looked at me. And there in his eyes was all the longing, all the lust, all the love of fun and adventure that I'd seen a thousand times.

“Friends, Boy? Of course. We'll always be friends.”

The sparkle dimmed in his eyes. He blinked, cleared his throat. “Quite so. The best friend I've ever had.”

And that's all? That's how I'm dismissed, after all we've meant to each other? Like Bartlett—the Old Man. Mitch—the Best Friend. The friend of my youth. I've moved on, I'm a husband and a father, but Mitch—well, perhaps Mitch is stuck. Perhaps his sort never really moves on. Never grows up.

I kept the bitterness out of my voice. “Thanks, Morgan.” Damn it, that frog in my throat. I coughed. “Christ. I'm dry. Any chance of a drink?”

“Brandy?”

“Wouldn't say no.” I could feel the symptoms of shock beginning to set in—a sensation of cold, though it was a warm day. Shivering. Just as Morgan had been when I found him, distraught and confused, on Sunday morning.

But who would comfort me? Who would hold me and kiss me and fuck me till I felt better?

He handed me a brandy, and took one himself.

“Here's to friendship,” he said, and we raised our glasses. I could not think of a suitable reply.

At Dover I took the ferry to Calais, traveling light—I left
a suitcase with the porter at the Middlesex, and took only what I would need for a few days in Paris with Vince. I didn't pack many changes of clothes. I did not intend to wear many clothes. The ferry, of course, was swarming with interesting male passengers and crew whom, under normal circumstances, I would have been luring into an empty cabin for some tossing on the crossing, but, despite several expressions of interest, I ignored the insistent knock of opportunity and thought only of Vince.