The Devil's Trill Sonata (3 page)

“Holy shit,” Tim said. “Is he a gay Muslim, then?”

The pressure was alleviated. Unfortunately, Tim’s remark meant that the entire table instantly accepted that he was, and a semi-serious blip of gay rights in the Middle East popped up for all of thirty seconds before Leah made a vulgar joke about whether his ‘meat’ was halal. Jayden informed Darren of the development by text, red-faced but secretly kind of enjoying the relaxed atmosphere, and received a picture of his middle finger in response.

“Tough guy!” Tim crowed when Jayden showed it to him, and then someone decided a gay Muslim would totally own a ginger Welsh Bob Marley in a fight, and things spiralled off from there.

“You miss him?” Leah asked lowly amongst the hubbub. “Your boyfriend. You’ve not stopped texting him all evening.”

“Darren,” Jayden murmured. “Yeah. Stupid, he only left this afternoon, but…you know. It’ll be the first time we’ve been apart since we got together.”

“How long?”

“Three years ago.”

“A school relationship? Those don’t really last…”

Jayden shrugged, rubbing his thumb over the phone screen. “We’re going to try,” he said lamely.

“Hey, don’t get me wrong, good luck to you,” Leah said. “Got a proper picture, then?”

Jayden thumbed through his phone and stopped on one taken last Christmas, of Darren outside a nameless cafe in his jacket, scarf, and red beanie, curls escaping under the rim. And his
glasses
. That was why Jayden had taken the picture in the first place, even if Darren hadn’t smiled when ordered to. The glasses were enough.

“Huh. Kinda cute,” Leah opined.

“Devastatingly attractive, thank you,” Jayden said loftily and clicked onto the next one. Darren didn’t know he had this one. It had been a Sunday morning, one of the rare ones when Mum hadn’t taken Darren home Saturday evening. She’d come back drunk with Dad, far too late, and had let Darren stay the night, “just this once!” only it hadn’t been just once but—anyway. “See?”

Darren had still been asleep. Although he didn’t smile much, his face was always expressive—except in sleep. All the lines had been smoothed out, and he’d looked ethereal, and Jayden had snapped a picture of that relaxed, stunning face, the curls headed for the pillows instead of hiding his high forehead, and it never failed to make his breath catch.

“Eh.” Leah shrugged. “I maintain that he’s
kinda
cute.”

Jayden flicked through a couple more pictures before he was interrupted by a text from the man himself.
who the fuck is timothy cooper n y did he just frend me on fb?

Leah, reading over Jayden’s shoulder, shrieked, “Tim!” at the top of her lungs and attacked him with her napkin.

“Oh, come on, that Ella chick already friended everyone, it was easy!” Tim started protesting. “I wanna know a gay Muslim! That’s
awesome
!”

Jayden ignored them both, and replied,
Don’t worry about it, ignore him :) xxx

Freaks. Ur all freaks!

He laughed, the knot unpicking in his chest, and before he could reply, he was offered more horrible English.

But ilu x

You are eighteen years old. I have seen your schoolwork. I know you can write. Stop being a retard and spell it out.

Bitchy, arent we? fine. I love you. Better?

“That’s so sweet I might puke,” Leah surmised, peering over his shoulder. “He’d better be way more gorgeous than those pictures.”

“He is,” Jayden said, replying
ILU2
before taking the leftover cake she pushed at him. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Leah said and returned to baiting Tim.

Darren helpfully told him to piss off by text, and Jayden felt, between the banter and the presence of some people who seemed like real human beings, like maybe this Cambridge thing would be all right after all.

Darren kicked the door shut, dropped his backpack on the rug, and flopped backwards onto the bed, arms out. He bounced once, his glasses flew off onto the pillow, and he groaned at the eased pressure off his heels. Work shoes absolutely
sucked
.

He was training as a crime scene examiner with the police. His first week had just finished, and they’d already progressed from desk safety (seriously?) to graphic descriptions of what happened to the human body when exposed to certain toxins. But it was interesting stuff, even if it was a lot of wandering around fake crime scenes. He’d figured in a few years, they’d all want degrees off their applicants, not just A-levels, so get in now before they started asking, and it had worked. Okay, so he’d had to move a fair way to do it, and rent wasn’t particularly cheap on the coast, but it was manageable. Pay in training sucked, but he’d get an automatic pay rise when he passed the course, and it wasn’t exactly rocket science, so…

It was good, but god
damn
, being on your feet all day
killed
.

He eyed the ceiling dispassionately. It was dusty up in the eaves like this. He’d rented a studio flat on the top floor of a converted house, and it was tiny. He was also fairly sure the lettings agent had lied about the insulation. He lived in what used to be a loft, and last night had been about as warm as sleeping in the park. As had every night this week.

“Fucking
hell
!”

Aaaaand then there was the neighbour. She lived in the other loft room on the other side of the stairs. Darren hadn’t met her yet—he’d only been here six days, and five of them at work. Frankly, if she was anything like the weird old lady on the first floor, he didn’t want to know. Apparently he was responsible for the Nazis
and
the Israel-Palestine problem. Would’ve been nice if someone had told him.

“Hey!”

Darren groaned. She was banging on the door. “It’s open!” he yelled.

It banged off the wall, and Darren blinked, groped for his glasses, put them on, and squinted. Nope. Same vision.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

There was a girl. In his room. In a T-shirt and knickers. And socks, he noticed, but nothing
between
the knickers and the socks. Except these gangly bare legs that she hadn’t shaved in at least a week, that matched her general tall-and-gangly appearance, and the cropped dark hair, and the scowl. And the hands on hips pose. Not that she was very intimidating. She was…okay, she was tallish, for a girl, but she was scrawny. No boobs. Brown hair in one of those weird cuts that even pixies called short, so short it wasn’t even rumpled. Bony sort of a face. Kind of luminously white—even Jayden had more of a tan than she did. White T-shirt that didn’t help the skin tone, or do anything to hide those tiny boobs. Offensively pink knickers.

Pretty, he supposed, in a very rough and sketchy way.

“Stop leaving the landing door open when you come in,” she said. “It creates a draught!”

Darren stared at her. “The what?”

“The landing door!”

“…The door at the bottom of the stairs?”

“Yes!”

“Um, okay.”

She scowled harder, then folded her arms. “Okay.”

“Uh, yes,” Darren said. “Now, do you mind? At least put some trousers on.”

She scowled again and huffed. “Why do you think I felt the draught?”

“Fair enough,” Darren said and sat up. “Darren Peace.”

“Rachel Yates,” she said and shifted her knees. Darren didn’t blame her. It was chilly; he wasn’t paying for extra heating
before
winter hit. “You like omelettes?”

“Yeah.”

“Come on then,” she said imperiously and swept out. Darren eyed the door that she left open, showing the tiny landing and her own open flat door. He considered his sore heels, then figured if his neighbour had decided to show up in her knickers and offer him free food, who was he to turn it down?

He heaved himself off the bed and followed.

* * * *

Rachel Yates lived in an identical box across the tiny hall of the converted top floor, and in disarray. Her kitchenette was covered in yellow sticky notes with cryptic messages like ‘unsalted butter wtf?’ and ‘JODIE’S PENCIL’ in chicken-scratch handwriting. She had more pink knickers drying on the radiator under the window, threw a cherry tomato at Darren’s head, and imperiously demanded if he knew how to make an omelette.

“I’m crap,” she said. “You’d better know.”

“Do I get some of it if I do make it?”

“A quarter.”

“A third, or you and your tomatoes can go fu…”

“Fine, Jesus.”

She rummaged in the fridge; Darren complimented the knicker-clad arse, and got another tomato bounced off his cheek for his efforts.

“Perv,” she said.

“You’re the one who invited a total stranger into your flat to make you dinner. In your knickers. What am I meant to think?”

“I’m being nice!” Rachel defended herself.

“You’re being a massive flirt,” Darren said.

“Please, the landlady told me you’re gay.”

“Bi,” Darren corrected and Rachel flushed. “Yeah. Check your research next time.”

She snorted and dumped an eggbox in his hands. “Get on with it.”

Rachel, it turned out, was twenty-two and a teaching assistant at the nearby primary school. She was originally from ‘Pompey’—or Portsmouth—but had moved away to get away from her childhood, just like Darren. She had a disturbing fetish for yellow sticky notes (seriously, they were
everywhere;
there was one on the light switch about a frog) and went running every morning, and spent the entire cooking time for the omelette trying to persuade Darren to join her tomorrow morning.

“I’ve been here a year,” Rachel said when Darren passed her a plate, and beckoned him to curl up on her sagging sofa, covered with fluffy afghans in varying colours. He sank into the nest and found it surprisingly comfortable. “My last neighbour died.”

“Lovely,” Darren said.

“Yeah, he hanged himself on the landing. Lovely thing to find first thing in the morning.” She pulled a face. “He was weird, though. Literally never spoke to him.”

“No knickers-related invasions?”

“Nope,” she said loftily. “Weird, bald guy. I swear he shaved everywhere. He wasn’t fuzzy like you,” and she prodded Darren’s ankle where his work trousers had ridden up enough to show a slip of skin and leg hair above his sock. “You that hairy all over?”

“Not anymore,” Darren shrugged. “The boyfriend complained.”

“Is he here too?”

“Nah. Cambridge.”

“…He’s from Cambridge?”

“No, he’s
at
Cambridge. The university.”

“Jesus Christ, your boyfriend got into Cambridge?” She gaped, then frowned suspiciously. “Wait. Are you a student?”

“Nope,” Darren shook his head. “Didn’t want to go. I work for the police.”

“A copper?”

“Crime scenes,” Darren corrected. “I dust everything with a tiny paintbrush.”

“Messy.”

“Mm.”

Rachel eyed him over a forkful of egg. “You should come out on Friday night. With us.”

“Who’s us?”

“Me and some of the girls from work,” Rachel said. “Jodie would love you. Are you mixed-race or Jewish or something? The hair’s kinda crazy.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“Jodie’s a massive equal rights freak,” Rachel said. “I mean, if you’re bi, she will like literally talk your ear off about how she hates biphobia.”

“My grandfather’s Iranian. Or was. He’s a bit dead now.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes,” Darren said. “Very dead.”

“I
meant
the Iranian thing. You’re having me on.”

“I’m not,” Darren said. “Never met him, mind. He died when Mother was a kid.”

“What’s your mum called?”

“Alison.” Darren smirked, and Rachel scowled. “Akbar, before she got married.
Her
mum was from Wexford.”

Rachel huffed. “Oh, my God, Irish-Iranian-Englishman. Jodie’s going to love you,” she insisted. “Come out with us Friday. You can’t have something else on, you only just got here.”

Darren rolled his eyes, but the remark stuck. For the first time, he didn’t. Rachel was right; he had no plans for the weekend, because weekends had always meant Jayden, and now they didn’t. Darren was going to have to fill up his weekends with something else. He’d have to start looking into sports clubs or something.

Until then, maybe baiting a hairy-armpitted nutjob who probably had a degree in black studies or something like that would fill up this first one.

“All right,” he said. “But I make no promises for my behaviour.”

* * * *

He spent most of the evening in Rachel’s flat watching TV with her and criticising her taste in actors until his phone rang.

“Boyfriend,” he said, flashing her the caller ID, and then, “Hey Jayden,” before he’d even gotten off the sofa.

“Night, Darren,” Rachel called after him; he waved over his shoulder and closed the door of his flat behind him as Jayden asked who he’d heard.

“Rachel. Neighbour,” he said. “How’re you?”

“I have like four essays already.”

“It’s been a week!”

“I know!” Jayden whined. “I have four essays, I don’t even know what the last one means because I swear, Darren, I
swear
that if you’re going to call Shakespeare up for misogyny,
Othello
isn’t the play to do it in because there’s like one scene of banter and then all the other issues come forward, and…”

Darren dropped onto his bed, clamping the phone between his right shoulder and his ear as he worked his trousers off. Might as well get ready for bed while Jayden rambled; it was half ten already, and tomorrow’s training session started at eight.

“…and Leah’s trying to get me to join the hockey club but I can’t do drama
and
hockey
and
actually pass this degree, because this is insane, I’m thinking maybe…”

Darren hummed in the right places as he rummaged for his squeeze ball that the physiotherapist had given him, and flopped back onto the bed with it, crushing it and releasing it again in a slow rhythm. The damaged muscles in his shoulder protested, but not too sharply tonight. They were adjusting to the job and the hefting kit around pretty well, all things considered. Maybe he should start boxing or something, really tone them up.