Pressure Head (20 page)

“Whoa!” I threw up my hands. “Gary and me are just mates. Cross my heart and hope to…get kneed in the nadgers. Anyway, haven’t you noticed he’s about this far from getting your name tattooed on his arm?” I gave Darren my own hard stare, one I’d copied off Harry from that time she caught someone making homophobic jokes in her bar. “So make sure you treat him right.”

“Or what?” he taunted, in a you-and-whose-army sort of voice, but he was smiling.

“Or I’ll come round in the night and fix it so your sewer backs up in your kitchen sink.”

Darren burst into hearty cackles. “You’re all right, aintcha?” He took a long swig of his beer. “Did Gary tell you I used to be in films?”

I toasted him with my pint. “What do you reckon? Think Gary would keep quiet about something like that?”

“Bless ’im. Have you seen any of them?”

“Well, none that I remember… But then again, I probably wouldn’t have been looking at your face.” It seemed a bit more tactful than just saying
Sorry mate, I don’t watch dwarf porn.
“What was your stage name?”

“Ever see the
Man from UNCLE
?”

I nodded, wondering where this was going.

“You’re looking at the one and only Napoleon So Low.” He leered as he said it, and I spluttered into my pint.

“So have you given Gary a private showing?” I asked.

“Depends what you’re talking about, don’t it?” Darren put down his pint, just as Gary returned.

“Ooh, what have I missed? I hope you two haven’t been talking about me.” He was lying through his teeth. Gary
loves
people talking about him.

“Would we?” I said, just as Darren chipped in with, “Only the good stuff.” Then his face softened. “Course, that’s all there is, innit?”

“Aw, bless him!” Gary cooed, looking worryingly moist around the eyes. “Isn’t he adorable?”

“Darren was just telling me about his career in films,” I went on quickly, before any of us could drown in the slushy stuff. I turned to the man in question. “So how come you gave it all up? The acting, I mean,” I clarified before he could come up with some ripe innuendo on the subject of
giving it up
.

He made a face. “Had to, din’t I? Industrial accident.” He shook his head sadly, and Gary joined in.

Call me a coward, but I
really
didn’t dare ask. Good thing my pie turned up at that point.

The food was lovely, bless Marnie’s nimble fingers, although I had to edge around the table a bit to protect the chicken filling from Flossie’s hungry gaze. She stayed on the alert for a moment longer, ears pricked and nose twitching in my direction, then settled back down on her well with a reproachful air. I didn’t feel guilty. I knew for a fact Harry fed her two square meals a day, plus all the rowdy drunks she could chew on.

I’d no sooner set my fork down for the last time than Sweetie-Pie and Pumpkin were making their excuses.

“Sorry, Tommy.” Gary pouted. “Darren and I need to get an early night. I need to be up bright and early tomorrow morning to ring in the faithful.”

Darren leered and nudged me painfully in the ribs. “And after that, he’ll be coming home and ringing my bell.”

Gary shrieked with laughter and pretended to slap Darren. “Sweetie-Pie! You are
terrible
!”

As far as I could see, the only good thing about that evening was getting home to find a chatty, friendly email from Patricia Treadgood, attaching both her shortbread recipe and one for ginger snaps.

Chapter Fifteen

Sunday morning, I woke up way too early for someone who had neither bells to ring nor a boyfriend to shag. Granted, it hadn’t been a particularly late night, but this was my chance to have a decent lie-in, and I hated to waste it. Still, once you’re properly awake, there’s no point fighting it. It was either get up or lie in bed having a lonely, maudlin wank over Phil Morrison. I got up.

I had some part-baked croissants in the freezer, so I bunged them in the oven, made a cafetière of coffee and sat down on the sofa with the cats, warbling a little Edith Piaf as I went. A perfect lazy Sunday morning. At least, that was the intention, but the cats buggered off because they hate my singing and the words didn’t fit anyway, seeing as I was regretting a bloody sight more than
rien
. I thought, sod this for a lark, so I had a shave, put on something respectable and went to church.

No, I hadn’t suddenly got religion. It’d just occurred to me that everyone mixed up with Melanie’s case was also mixed up with Brock’s Hollow parish church. Apart from Graham, obviously, but I was trying
not
to treat him as a suspect. And all right, Robin East and his wife probably weren’t much into the God-bothering business either, but the rest of them were. I didn’t really have a plan in mind, but I thought it couldn’t hurt to see them all together, watch how they acted with one another.

I felt a bit bad about turning up on the Rev’s doorstep like the proverbial bad penny, but then again, maybe it’d reassure him if I went along and didn’t do anything to out him?

When they built St Anthony’s Church, Brock’s Hollow, which according to the signs was sometime in the thirteenth century, for some reason they didn’t think to put in a car park. I ended up parking next to the Four Candles and hurrying breathlessly into church just after the service had started. My shoes clattered like hob-nailed boots on the flagstones, and the Rev faltered in the notices he was reading out. I mouthed
sorry
in his general direction, hoping the rest of the congregation would get the message too, and looked around for a spare pew. It wasn’t as easy as you’d think. For all the talk in the papers about declining church attendances, this place was pretty well stocked with worshippers. Looked like the better schools in the area still had a church-attendance requirement to get your kids a place.

“This way—there are some seats in the Lady Chapel,” a reedy voice whispered in my ear, and I turned to find a wiry old dear, so bent over with age she had to peer up sideways at me, offering me a chirpy smile and a hymn book.

I beamed back at her, relieved to see a friendly face. “Thanks,” I whispered, following her doll-like steps around the side of the main pews and up towards the front. The church was built in the shape of a cross, and I ended up in one of the arms, staring at the side of the Rev’s head. A family of four obligingly shuffled their bums over to make room for me on the end of their pew, and I sat down as quickly and as quietly as I could. “Thanks,” I whispered again. The old lady beamed and toddled off again.

Across the way, I was surprised to see Robin East was here after all. No sign of Samantha. Maybe Sunday morning was her time for bathing in the blood of freshly squeezed virgins.

The Rev finished droning on—something about an extension project, and the forthcoming Advent Carol service—and announced a hymn. Everyone opened their hymn books, and I flicked around frantically in mine trying to find the right page as the organist started up.

“Tom, how lovely to see you here.”

I looked up, startled, into Patricia Treadgood’s face. She was in the pew in front, next to her husband. The glare Lionel shot me over a ramrod-straight shoulder left me in no doubt how lovely
he
thought it was to see me. I smiled at Patricia, mostly because I was glad to see her, but also because it’d annoy him. “Hey, you too. I didn’t see you there. Thanks for your email.”

“My pleasure.” She turned back to the front just as the organ intro finished and everyone launched into the first verse. Everyone except me, of course, as I was still trying to find the bloody thing. Maybe this was what I’d missed out on after they’d kicked me out of Sunday School: advanced hymn-finding. I hunted on, trying not to curse, until a small hand tugged at my sleeve. The little girl next to me shoved her hymnbook under my nose, one grubby, nail-bitten finger pointing out the place they’d got to.

“Thanks,” I whispered yet again, and did my best to join in the tune. By the time we’d got through seven verses, I had an aching back and a crick in my neck from leaning down awkwardly to share the book with her. I’d also remembered I was tone deaf, and by the appalled and/or amused faces around me, quite a few people were now in on that little secret. Maybe I’d just lip-synch from now on.

Then again, the row in front had shifted slightly and Lionel Treadgood was right in front of me. I couldn’t think of anyone else I’d rather torture with my off-key attempt at religious worship. I needed something to amuse me, because frankly, I was disappointed. I’d come here for a game of spot-the-suspect, and I’d clocked half of them in the first five minutes. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to keep my eyes peeled and check out the rest of the congregation.

As the Rev droned on some more, I let my gaze wander around the church. It was pretty big, and all bare, pale greyish stone—no interior paint to brighten the place up, although someone had got their sewing kit out and made some bright felt banners to hang here and there. Nice flowers too. Hefty pillars blocked the sight lines in several directions, but I was able to spot Pip sitting between a tired, worried-looking woman and a scowling Mr. Pip. I was fairly sure he wasn’t thinking pious thoughts as he glared at me. Pip herself kept her eyes fixed on her knees.

Everyone seemed very white, although I suppose most places in Hertfordshire would be a bit like that after Fleetville. There were quite a lot of old dears, most of them in hats, but then it was a bit nippy. There seemed to be some kind of under-pew heating system, which meant my bum was nice and warm but the rest of me was shivering even in my padded jacket. I couldn’t see half as many men as women, and most of them were old too, their liver-spotted heads peeking through wisps of white hair. There were just a few young, male heads—and oh, shit. One of them was Phil’s. He looked up just at the wrong time too, and I got a jolt in my chest as our eyes met.

The pillar he was sitting next to looked soft and insubstantial next to his granite glare. Bugger. For some stupid reason, it hadn’t even occurred to me he might have had the same idea I did and rolled up here. Although the fact I’d been trying to avoid thinking about him all morning might have had something to do with my lack of getting a clue. I wished I could work out what that look he was giving me was all about. Then I wondered what he could see in my face, and if he’d tell me if I asked, because I was buggered if I knew how I felt about him and his little obsession. Was it an obsession? It had only been a couple of photos, for God’s sake. And a newspaper article…

I dropped my gaze hurriedly, just as everyone around me shuffled a bit and bowed their heads. Time for the serious God-bothering, I guessed. I tried to look like I was as into it as they all were. At least it gave me an excuse not to look at Phil anymore.

We didn’t have to kneel, which was a relief. There were hassocks or cassocks or whatever it is you call those cross-stitched kneelers hanging from hooks on the back of the pew in front, but nobody seemed to be using them. Unless you counted the little girl who’d shared her hymn book with me, who was playing a game with them with her brother, swinging them together like conkers.

I felt like a right fraud, pretending to pray. Luckily, they gave you all the words, rather than make you sit there like a lemon and think up your own. There was a bit where they prayed for people who’d died, and I thought of poor Melanie Porter. It felt weird to think she might be up in heaven now, looking down on all this. If you believed all that stuff, anyway. Then I started thinking, if there was a God, why didn’t he just send down a thunderbolt on the bastard who’d killed her, and save me and Phil the trouble?

It occurred to me about then, though, that depending on your views about the whole thing, God (if he was there) might not look too kindly on blokes like me and Phil, and might think we were pretty good candidates for the thunderbolt treatment ourselves, so I decided maybe I’d just keep my head down in here and not draw attention to myself.

When the service was finally over, Patricia turned round to me again. “Are you staying for coffee, Tom?”

“Er…” Actually, I’d been planning on making a quick getaway before Phil had a chance to ask me what the bloody hell I thought I was doing here.

“Oh, do stay. It’s all Fair Trade, you know.”

I wasn’t sure how that was supposed to persuade me, but I found myself nodding. Lionel looked pretty pissed off about the whole thing, which was a plus. “Well, seeing as it’s you asking,” I told her with a smile, and she glowed a bit in response. So after the organist had played the retreat for the blokes in frocks—with the choir as well, there were quite a lot of them—I joined the queue for the coffee urn, which was handily set up just inside the area I’d been sitting in.

The coffee was all right, but the Fair Trade biscuits turned out to be not a patch on Patricia’s shortbread. I turned to tell her so, but while I’d been exchanging a few words with the ladies serving coffee, it seemed Lionel had whisked her away. Instead, I found myself face-to-face with Phil. Well, all right, given the height difference I was face to throat with Phil, but that didn’t make things any easier. Neither of us spoke. Then both of us spoke at once.

“You all right—”

“Sorry about last—”

We fell silent again. Set into the floor by my feet was a stone slab like a tired gravestone; I could just make out the words,
Here lyeth ye virtvovs body of…
The name had been worn away by generations of Christian feet, but whoever it was, I envied them briefly.