02-Shifting Skin (21 page)

Rick couldn’t help laughing. ‘This isn’t like any other place.’

‘Oh, Jesus, I don’t like the sound of that.’

Dodging the debris scattered across the cobbles, Rick went up to the door. ‘Usually there’s a queue.’ There was a notice stuck to the door. ‘Ah. Miss Tonguelash is away. The place is shut for the night.’

Jon looked at him questioningly.

‘He owns the place as well as being the resident DJ, cabaret artist and stand-up comedian. Look.’ He read out the notice,

‘The bitch is back tomorrow.’

‘So is it a nightclub or what?’

Rick stared at the doors. ‘I’d call it a meeting of many minds. But yeah, basically it’s a nightclub.’

‘A gay nightclub?’

‘Not exclusively, no. We’re right on the border here between the Gay Village and the rest of the city. All sorts turn up, gay, straight, lots of cross-dressers. You even get working girls popping in off Minshull Street to grab the free packs of condoms. You know, like the one you were looking at in Taurus.’

Jon felt his face flush. ‘But it’s ten pounds to get in. That’s more than any pack of condoms.’

‘No, the entry fee is for the downstairs area where the cabaret and other stuff goes on. It’s free to drink upstairs.’

‘I can’t work out what Gordon Dean was up to, trawling these places. Is he gay? Is he lonely? What?’

‘You don’t have to be gay to be drinking in the Gay Village.

A lot of people come here because you don’t get fights breaking out. A lot of women come here because they know they won’t get hit on the whole time.’

Hands in his pockets, Jon looked down at his feet. ‘Do you remember ever seeing Gordon Dean? It seems he was a bit of a regular around here.’

Rick shot him a glance. ‘No. That occurred to me, too, but I don’t think I ever did. Besides, if I had I wouldn’t have kept it to myself.’

Jon looked at him quickly. ‘I wouldn’t blame you if you had. Admitting something like that would certainly get the tongues wagging round the incident room.’

Rick said nothing.

Jon stared off down the street. ‘OK. Assuming for a moment Dean killed the Betty Boop girl, do you really think this is where he also picked up Angela Rowlands and Carol Miller? Can you see those two visiting an area like this?’

Rick sniffed. ‘Doesn’t seem likely.’

‘So what’s he doing drinking around here on his own?’

‘I don’t know. But we need to come back when this place is open, that’s for sure.’

‘Because?’

‘I’ve just realised: the entry fee Dean paid? It was for two people, not one.’

‘So maybe he did get lucky that night.’

‘Maybe,’ Rick replied, looking at his watch. ‘Quarter to ten. Time for another drink?’

‘On one condition,’ Jon replied. Rick raised an eyebrow.

‘I choose the bloody venue.’

Jon marched to the top of the road. They emerged on to the slightly better lit Minshull Street, girls hovering in the shadows beneath the trees bordering an empty parking lot.

‘Where are we going?’ asked Rick, trying to keep up.

Jon crossed over, heading back towards Piccadilly station. ‘A proper pub.’

Standing in the hushed and cosy confines of the Bull’s Head a few minutes later, Jon turned an ear towards the low music coming from the speakers and nodded in appreciation. ‘Police and Thieves’, from the original version of
Black Market Clash
.

‘What’ll it be?’ he asked.

Rick was studying the fireplace and leather-upholstered seats.

‘Same again. Cheers.’

They sat at a corner table. Jon leaned back, closed his eyes and stretched his legs out. ‘That’s a relief.’

Rick looked amused as he took his jacket off and hung it on the back of his chair. ‘Do they keep your pipe and slippers behind the bar?’

One of Jon’s eyes opened. ‘I wish they did.’

Rick chuckled. ‘Is that leather jacket welded to your back or what?’

Jon’s other eye opened. ‘I owe my girlfriend for why I’ve kept this on all night.’

‘How come?’

‘When I told her we were going round Canal Street, she recommended I wear this.’ He held the jacket open.

Rick couldn’t see a single wrinkle in the T-shirt. He laughed and said, ‘Is it sleeveless, too?’

‘Almost.’ He gestured to his upper arm. ‘They come to about—’ He stopped, realising Rick was taking the piss. ‘Yeah, yeah, nice one. You should meet Alice. You’d get along.’

Rick glanced around the pub again. ‘It’s bizarre to think this place is just a minute away from Canal Street. I didn’t know it existed and I must have walked past it dozens of times. I only live round the corner.’

Jon sat forwards and took a long pull on his pint.

‘Whereabouts?’

‘Off Whitworth Street. In the new development of flats on

Venice Street.’

Jon looked blank.

‘You know the Japanese restaurant on Whitworth Street?’

‘Yeah, Samsi something.’

‘The Samsi Yakitori. I live above that.’

Jon was thinking how much a flat in a spot like that would cost. ‘That must practically overlook Canal Street.’

Rick nodded.

‘What about the noise?’

‘Doesn’t bother me. Besides, it’s what living in the centre of a city’s all about. Part of the vibe.’

Jon looked down at the table and noticed Rick’s manicured nails. He thought of the hair-removal treatment Alice said Melvyn offered male customers at the salon. ‘Back crack and sack’, he called it. He wondered if Rick went in for that sort of thing. Still looking down, he said quietly, ‘How far back do you and McCloughlin go?’

He raised his eyes and studied Rick’s reaction. His partner didn’t blink. ‘How do you mean?’

Jon took another sip of beer. ‘Have you not worked on an investigation with him before?’

Rick looked bemused. ‘Never even met him.’

Jon kept his eyes on Rick, watchful for any body language that suggested otherwise. He spotted nothing. ‘I assumed he’d drafted you in because you’d crossed paths somewhere in the past.’

Rick’s eyes narrowed for a moment and a smile of realisation flickered across his lips. ‘And you thought I might be a plant, sent to keep tabs on the detective who stole his glory over the Chewing Gum Killer?’

Jon held his glass up and tilted it in silent acknowledgement of Rick’s powers of deduction.

Rick gave a short, sour laugh. ‘Cheers.’ His face turned more serious. ‘The order appeared in my pigeonhole the day before I met you. Until then I thought I was staying in Chester House for another desk rotation. I’ve never said a word to McCloughlin before joining this investigation. I think he’s a great SIO but I’m not his fucking lackey.’

‘I’m sorry. It just seemed a bit dodgy to me, especially given the wink . . .’ He realised he’d slipped up in his eagerness to appease his partner.

‘Wink? What wink?’ Rick leaned forwards. Jon looked away, cursing himself. ‘Just something McCloughlin did.’

‘I don’t follow you. Just something McCloughlin did when?’ Jon sighed, realising he was cornered. ‘When McCloughlin told me I was being paired with you, he gave me this wink.’ Rick frowned and Jon knew he was turning over the implications of what such a signal could have meant. ‘As in suggesting something about me?’

Jon sat back, wondering how often Rick had suffered with this kind of thing in the past. ‘I suppose so.’

Anger shone in Rick’s eyes. ‘Word soon gets round, doesn’t it? Apart from you, I’ve told two people in the force that I’m gay. I thought I could trust them both.’

Jon drank from his pint, considering whether to offer some insincere assurance that, career-wise, it didn’t make much difference. He decided to stay silent.

After a few seconds Rick took a massive swig of his drink and breathed out. ‘Fuck him.’

‘Who? McCloughlin?’ Rick nodded.

Jon clinked his glass against Rick’s. ‘I’ll drink to that.’

Both men sat with their own thoughts, but this time the silence between them was relaxed. Jon traced his mind over their encounters with McCloughlin during the investigation so far. In retrospect it seemed obvious there was no agreement between Rick and their SIO. He realised McCloughlin’s bitter attitude toward him was, in turn, souring his own perception. He’d have to make an effort not to let it affect him.

Still thinking about his partner, he said, ‘So when did you know you were gay?’

‘That old chestnut.’

Jon wondered if the question had caused offence. But Rick didn’t seem bothered. ‘I’ve always known. It wasn’t like a bolt from the blue at eighteen.’

Jon thought about this. ‘How do you mean always? You fancied men even as a little kid?’

Rick toyed with his drink. ‘Did you fancy women even as a little kid?’

‘I don’t know. I remember watching
Top of the Pops
and getting pretty excited by Pan’s People’s dance routines.’

Rick laughed. ‘Well, Brian Jackson doing press-ups on

Superstars
made more of an impression on me. But I didn’t

consciously fancy him – it was just that he was more interesting, somehow.’

‘But how did you find it at school? Playgrounds can be pretty brutal places.’

‘Never a problem,’ Rick stated. ‘I’m not a screaming queen. In fact, if it wasn’t for this one girl, most people would never have guessed.’

‘A girl you turned down?’

‘Basically, yes. I confided in her, thinking we were mates. She went off and told her friends, so pretty soon I was rumbled.’

‘And?’

‘One particular bloke tried to turn things on me. I walked straight up to him and burst his nose. It’s the only punch I’ve ever had to throw. Luckily it was a beauty.’

Jon smiled. ‘Sounds it. So no problems after that?’

‘None.’ Rick finished off his drink ‘Again?’

Jon found himself reassessing another preconception about gay men. ‘When you started on the gin and Cokes I thought, here we go.’

‘Here we go?’

‘You know,’ Jon faltered. ‘Well, I thought, that’s a bit of a ladies’ drink. Then I thought, two of those and he’ll be all over the place. But fair play, you look more sober than me.’

Rick grinned. ‘Think about it. Which thing more than any other drains people’s money, time and energy, ensuring they have to get up early every single day of the week?’

Jon frowned. ‘I don’t know. Kids?’

Rick clinked his glass against Jon’s. ‘Precisely. And what would a segment of the population do if they had no parental responsibility, plenty of cash and lie-ins every weekend? They’d go out and have a good time. Restaurants, bars, clubs, nice holidays. Here’s to the power of the pink pound.’

Jon was left to stare into the dregs of his pint, mind wandering to the early-morning feeds now only weeks away.

Chapter 17

The manager of the women’s refuge wrapped her arms round Fiona, engulfing her in a fiercely protective hug. ‘You take care of yourself,’ she whispered, tilting her head back to look Fiona in the eyes. ‘And let me know how you’re doing.’

Fiona smiled, thinking about the six precious nights she’d spent in the refuge. ‘Thank you so much, Hazel. You’ve been a life-saver. You are a life-saver.’ Waving once more to the women on the doorstep, Fiona turned to her car. Her bags were packed safely in the boot and she climbed in.

The drive to her bedsit took less than a quarter of an hour. She had chosen a place with good transport connections to Melvyn’s salon. After all, in the absence of anything else, it was now the main part of her life.

She could accept how the majority of her friends had been slowly driven away by her husband’s cold and suspicious welcomes every time they tried to visit. Her resolute denials that anything was wrong had hardly helped.

But the rift she’d opened up with her parents was a deep and aching wound. She’d enjoyed a happy childhood, supported and encouraged by a mum and dad she rarely heard argue. That made it all the more painful when she began to realise her marriage to Jeff wasn’t destined for the same level of success.

She’d married him in her late teens. At first everything seemed great as he got a graduate job at a firm of surveyors and she completed her final health and beauty qualifications. Then she got pregnant and gave up work. With the birth of their daughter Jeff became more preoccupied with work. He’d been given new responsibilities and they made more demands on his time. Time he seemed only too happy to give.

He started coming home later and later, often smelling of whisky. It was a way of relaxing, he assured her. The management encouraged a bit of bonding outside work hours.

But his promotion never came and he became more irritable, forever screening the household bills. She was no longer earning and he made her feel guilty about spending money he said wasn’t her own. The balance of their relationship had shifted and her role edged more and more to the subservient. It resembled, she realised one day with a mixture of surprise and disappointment, that of her own parents. Dad the breadwinner, mum the housewife. Only her mum had never seemed unhappy with her role. Perhaps she was being selfish in wanting more. So she kept quiet about her doubts, playing the part of happy mum, hoping things would improve.