Falling More Slowly

Chapter Twelve

Carol Farr could hardly believe how late it was. She should have been back by seven but her coach from London had been stuck on the motorway for two whole hours and even after that the traffic had crawled along. Two massive accidents, apparently. Once the traffic started moving again they had made the driver stop at a service station, the whole coach was dying for a wee and the onboard toilet was out of order. They had run out of refreshments for the passengers so half of them also queued to buy stuff like drinks and sandwiches. In the end it had taken another half-hour to get everyone back on board. What a nightmare journey.

She hated walking home in the dark but she had spent her last penny in that service station on a Coke, some chewing gum and a magazine just to alleviate the boredom. Should have bought a sandwich, starving now.

The bridge seemed to go on forever tonight. There was still quite a bit of traffic, which made her feel safer. She had turned her iPod off now she was in the suburbs. With the music and the wind and the traffic noise you wouldn’t hear if someone came up behind you. She checked over her shoulder — there was nobody walking on the bridge at all. Just her. The wind blustered in her ears and snatched at her clothes. It had been a good gig, worth going, just a shame Jo had managed to get ill at the last minute leaving her to go by herself. She’d bought her tickets ages ago, there was no way she was going to miss it. And it had been worth it. Then today, after leaving Jo’s friends who had put her up on the sofa, she’d done Oxford Street, mainly clothes and record shops. She didn’t have much money left to spend so in the end she’d bought three CDs and that was that. Sensible. She could have got more money out but the whole trip had already cost too much.

Well, that was the bridge done. Not that this was civilization yet, Bedminster Bridge led you into some scenery that was bloody depressing. Coronation Road seemed to go on forever, nothing but the muddy river and shrubbery to the right, supermarket car park and shrubbery to the left. And she had to walk right to the end of it to get home, what a boring end to a brilliant couple of days. Carol turned her iPod back on.

They were just sitting there, on their scooters, two on each on both sides of the road. Suddenly there was no more traffic. Why was there no traffic? She just knew it was them. They closed in quickly on their scooters, surrounding her. Two of them got off.

They all shouted at her. ‘Your bag, your money!’

‘Hand it over!’

‘Now!’

The biggest one ripped her bag open, took her mobile and the CDs. ‘Your money, where’s your fucking money?’

The pillion from the other scooter grabbed her hair and twisted, yanked back her head and grabbed at her throat. ‘The money, now!’

Carol tried to prise away his gloved hand but he tightened his grip and kneed her in the back. ‘I–I haven’t got any.’ She only just managed to squeeze the words out.

‘Don’t lie!’ The big man in front of her went through her outer pockets, then ripped her jacket open, pawing at the inside pocket.

She glimpsed one, two cars going by. Couldn’t they see what was happening?

The punch in the stomach came as a surprise. The man behind her let go of her throat, spun her head around by her hair and kicked hard into the back of her knees. Then she was on the ground and they were kicking her. She shut her eyes and covered her head, curled up, as the kicks rained. Then it suddenly stopped. A car horn blared, the engines of the scooters whined. They were gone. Only when all was quiet did she dare to open her eyes again. Two more cars drove by slowly, the drivers curious, but then accelerated away. Carol hated them more than the muggers.

McLusky was glad it was a mild night because it meant they could walk. If he had thought about it he’d have found he was simply glad all round. The evening was going unexpectedly well, he hadn’t put his foot in it once, the food at the Myristica had been excellent and the night was curiously mild, giving it an almost Mediterranean feel. Even the Georgian houses around here didn’t look a million miles away from Italian architecture, though you couldn’t quite imagine people stringing washing across the streets. He hadn’t really known where else to walk so he had steered Louise towards his flat in Northmoor Street and she seemed happy to walk without asking the destination. He had been gently teased about his obviously brand new clothes that clashed with his comfortably worn shoes. What Dr Louise Rennie would make of his flat, even after the hour-and-a-half he had spent clearing up the worst mess, remained to be seen. At least the sofa and coffee table he’d bought from the junk shop down the road had been delivered and she wouldn’t have to stand. He had bought a bottle of red too, just in case.

As they turned into Northmoor Street he couldn’t help feeling that it had been presumptuous to lead her here. ‘Well, this is where I live, doctor, thanks for walking me home.’

‘Is that what I’ve been doing?’

‘Looks like it.’

‘And are you going to ask me in?’

‘I was going to try that next. Would you like to come up for a drink?’

‘Thank you, I would.’

‘I must warn you, I haven’t had time to decorate yet. Or buy a lot of things, there hasn’t really been the time to do anything much yet, careful, the tread is broken on that step.’ He noticed he was talking too fast as they climbed the narrow stairs and with some effort stopped apologizing until they got to his floor. His mail had been left by the door. He scooped it up without checking it and inserted the key in the lock. ‘Well, here goes, don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ She dismissed his warnings as self-deprecation but only until she had negotiated the empty hall and stood in what was meant to be the living room. There were no curtains and no lampshade on the bare bulb dangling from the ceiling. In fact it would have been much quicker to list what actually was there: an unfashionable blue sofa and a pine coffee table standing on a thin ethnic rug. The walls were white. ‘Interesting, who’s your decorator?’

‘Warned you. The rest is worse. The spare room is still full of boxes, I’m not really unpacked yet.’ In the kitchen he popped the cork on a bottle of Australian red while Louise took in the spartan fittings with a deepening frown. McLusky noticed it. ‘I ordered a fridge, should come any day now.’

She ran a finger over the cream enamel of the WWII gas cooker. ‘A nice steam-driven one, I hope. Do all policemen live like this?’

‘No, I doubt it. Though I’m sure a lot of them survive on canteen food and pizza.’ He looked for wineglasses, couldn’t find any and had to settle for a couple of tumblers. ‘It’s only temporary, I’ll get it all sorted once I’ve got my bearings.’

The sofa was hard and smelled of dust and long storage. It reminded Louise of her student days in shabbily furnished accommodation, all that was missing were the posters of rock groups on the walls. She watched McLusky light a cigarette, manipulating the expensive-looking lighter with slender fingers. He used a saucer as an ashtray. This was like dating a teenager in his first digs away from home. She fortified herself with half a tumblerful of wine, reached out and gently grabbed and twisted his new blue shirt, pulling herself closer. ‘Okay, time you came clean. Unless this fabled spare room with all your boxes is one hell of a cavern you don’t seem to have … well, let’s just call it stuff. What happened? Did your last place burn down? Burglary? Repossession? Left somewhere in a hurry? Or did you just upgrade from a caravan?’

McLusky smiled down at Louise’s fist holding on to the shirt material. The grab had turned into a small, two-fingered caress. ‘I’m trained to deal with shirt-grabbers, you know?’

‘Well, you can show me that later. This is my interview technique. So. What happened? You’ve been very cagey all evening about your life in Southampton while I’ve told you practically every story of my life.’

‘I just don’t do stuff very well, that’s all. In Southampton I moved in with someone who seemed to have all that kind of thing already, fridges and cookers and heated towel rails. So I never accumulated any. When we split I simply threw some things into a few boxes and bin-liners …’ It had been Laura in fact who had packed all his possessions into boxes, carefully wrapped naturally, while he was still recovering in hospital. It was all there waiting for him at the section house when he got out. Half of it had never been unpacked since. ‘I’m not hung up on material things.’

‘Neither am I. Just a place to lay my head, really.’ She let herself sink back along the length of the sofa, bringing him with her by the shirt. Slipping her fingers into his hair she pulled him close until their lips met in a series of slow, tentative kisses. His aftershave seemed to have mellowed and blended with his own particular fragrance into faint hints of cinnamon and musk. She enjoyed the weight of his body on hers and wriggled lower, sliding her hands down his back as their kisses grew longer. His hands insinuated themselves smoothly into the small of her back, the arch of her neck. A hum of pleasure vibrated his chest and he pulled her body harder towards his own. Louise walked her fingers over the unfamiliar topography of his muscles under the shirt material, a whole landscape in urgent need of exploring. The unfamiliar buzz of the door bell froze both of them in a silent, trembling pause. The door bell sounded again, longer, more insistently.

‘Bugger.’ His first instinct was to ignore it. It was what the cast of Louise’s eyes and the pressure of her palms against his back seemed to suggest too. Only his mobile had been turned off, his airwave was in the kitchen and he could still hear the super’s warning that he might keep himself more available in future. The buzzer sounded for long seconds, someone was leaning on the button downstairs. ‘I’ll have to check.’ With an involuntary groan of frustration he disentangled himself, moving swiftly to the intercom by the door. ‘Yes?’

‘Liam?’ A woman’s voice.

‘Who is this?’

‘It’s me, open the door.’

‘Laura …?’

‘Give that man a coconut. Are you going to let me in or not?’

McLusky pressed the button while his mind raced. What was she doing here? And at this time of night? How had she found him? What could it mean? When she appeared in his doorway the sight of her drove all speculation into the background.

‘Well, can I come in?’ She peered past him. ‘Or is it inconvenient?’

‘No, not at all.’ He stepped aside to let her pass and caught sight of Louise whose expression suggested he might have worded that differently. ‘Come in, now you’re here.’ In the sitting room he made the introductions, feeling a little dazed. Unexpected didn’t begin to describe this. She looked well, her hair was shorter, she looked younger too, somehow, or just different? ‘What are you doing here? And how did you find me, I mean, why?’

‘I did call your mobile but it was always unavailable. They gave me your number and address in Albany Road, after they checked with Southampton that I was who I said I was.’

‘Laura, what are you doing here?’

Louise got up, smoothed her dress and picked up her handbag. ‘I’d better go, I can see you have things to discuss.’

‘No, wait, I mean, I’ll call you a cab.’

‘I’ll be fine, I’ll call myself one.’

‘If you’re sure.’

‘Sure I’m sure. Bye-bye, Liam.’ She twisted lightly away from the hand he had laid on her arm and didn’t look back as she descended the stairs. McLusky closed the door gingerly behind her.

‘I did call, honestly, Liam. I thought I’d see how you are, I couldn’t have known you’d be having company. So soon.’ Casually opening the doors to both spare room and bathroom she nodded knowingly, went on into the kitchen where she stalled in mock astonishment for a moment, then tested the weight of the kettle before flicking the on-switch.

He leant against the door frame, hands buried in his pockets. ‘Make yourself at home, Laura.’

‘Well, it does all look so familiar. It’s an exact copy of the place you had when I first met you. I don’t even have to see your bedroom, it’s a mattress on the floor and a bin-liner with dirty laundry in the corner, am I right?’ Her smile finally reached her eyes. ‘But even then you at least had a fridge. You need a bit of help with this nest-making thing.’

‘Is that what you came here for, to help me build a nest?’

‘Oh no, not at all. I had an interview today at the university here.’

‘To do what? And why here?’

She turned her back on him while she pretended to look for tea and mugs in the dresser. ‘It’s for a degree course. I’m going to be a student.’

‘A student. Studying what?’ Laura had never before given the slightest hint that she wanted to resume her education.

‘You could sound a bit more pleased for me. Archaeology. Field archaeology.’

‘You’re going to … dig up stuff.’ It figured.

She turned, folded her arms and leant back against the dresser, the search abandoned. ‘That’s the plan. I had an interview today, it went well. At least I think it did.’

‘And what brought this on? I mean, you never talked about archaeology before.’

‘Yes I did. Well, I always watched stuff on telly.’

‘What about your job?’

‘The surgery is merging with a larger one and they don’t need two administrators so I took the redundancy they offered. It’ll pay towards my degree.’

‘But why here? Don’t they do archaeology at Southampton?’

‘They do but here I get to study with the good-looking bloke from the telly.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘I am. The fees are lower and I prefer the course programme.’

‘I see. Well, I …’ He let out a deep breath through puffed-up cheeks. ‘That’s … brilliant. But why are you still here? In town, I mean?’

‘There’s a field trip for interested applicants tomorrow, we’ll spend the weekend on a dig near here. They didn’t tell us what, I think it’s to test our dedication.’

‘Could be a Roman villa.’

‘Medieval midden heap.’

‘Ancient burial.’

‘Who was that woman?’

‘Someone who helped me with a case.’

‘But she’s not an officer.’

‘No, she works at the uni.’

‘Might get to see more of her then. Me, not you, I mean. Ehm …’ Laura frowned at the kitchen again. ‘I’m not sure I really want a hot drink.’

‘There’s some red wine …’

‘You know I’m allergic to red.’

‘There’s a late-night place down the road, I’ll get you a bottle of white.’ He picked up his jacket, shook it but didn’t hear his keys. ‘I’ll ring the door bell, I won’t be a sec.’ While he walked quickly along the road McLusky marvelled at how Laura had managed within two minutes to drive away the woman he had hoped to take to bed yet had him trotting along to the late-night pub to fetch a bottle of overpriced white for her. Three years, that’s how. Three years of living and fighting and scratching their names into each other.

Laura walked through to the one door she hadn’t opened yet. She pushed it wide without entering. A mattress on the floor, as she had expected. Yet there wasn’t the accumulation of beer cans and empty cigarette packets that used to complete the picture and there were no black bin-liners either. Another sure sign that she had interrupted something was the fact that the bed was made. Liam never made a bed unless he expected to share it. And only then for the first half a dozen times. Unless the accident, as everyone had insisted on calling his attempted murder, had miraculously changed him into a tidy person. It had left him looking leaner and paler than she had ever seen him but underneath she suspected the same old Liam. So why was she here?

The door bell rang, two short pings, the way he always rang it. She pressed the button on the intercom until she heard the door open downstairs then on a sudden impulse went into the bathroom. Here she was back on very familiar ground. Several damp towels draped wherever, the wash basin encircled with used razors and a tube of toothpaste spilling its guts. In the corner behind the door, a stray black sock. This chaos had always infuriated her, so why did a fierce nostalgia bite at her now? She heard the clinking of bottles and quickly checked herself in the mirror, make-up, hair, teeth, then pulled a face at herself.

From the sitting room came a girl’s voice. ‘Liam? I pilfered six bottles of Pilsener from the pub and I want you to arrest me. I suggest a strip search and a night in custody. Where are you?’

Laura found the voice belonged to a blonde girl showing surprise, a pierced belly button and a lot of leg below the hem of a frayed denim miniskirt.

‘Oh sorry, hi, didn’t know he had company. I’m Rebecca.’ She was cradling half a dozen bottles of beer in front of her no doubt perfect chest. ‘Where is he then?’

‘He just popped out, he’ll be back in a minute. I was just leaving.’

‘You sure?’

‘I am.’ She picked up her handbag. ‘Absolutely certain. Abso-bloody-lutely.’ She slammed the front door and clattered noisily down the stairs. As she left the building she nearly collided with McLusky carrying a bottle of wine by the neck like a weapon.

‘Where’re you going? I just got your wine, I thought we were having a drink?’

She didn’t stop but walked a few steps backwards. ‘Some other time, Liam, you’re far too busy right now.’ She smiled and waved then walked quickly away. Just around the corner she passed a man in a blue rainproof examining his shoes. She couldn’t be absolutely certain but hadn’t he been there examining his shoes when she arrived? Not that it bloody mattered.