Dying on Principle (25 page)

I don't know how long we stayed like that. Occasionally his fingers would stroke my hair, and he would move his head to touch kisses on to my neck. And then I knew that he wanted me at least as much as I wanted him.

‘Come on,' he said.

‘But Blake—'

‘They can manage without me for a bit. Everyone knows what they've got to do. You're not staying here any longer.' He tried to make his voice authoritative, but his eyes betrayed him.

Even as he tucked me into his car and I looked at the fine hairs on his hands, I had to stop myself touching him. I had to stop myself pulling his face down to mine so I could kiss him. It would be a dreadful mistake. I couldn't be his woman. There was nothing logical about the way I felt – in many ways we'd have made a most suitable partnership. But not now.

His conscience got back into gear as soon as he let us into his house. ‘I'd better let them know where I am,' he said, as if surprised to find himself there.

I went into the kitchen to wake up his percolator, and dug out the whiskey. Jameson's was a habit he'd caught from me. A tot each, that should help. I held my glass in my hands as if it would warm them as much as it warmed my stomach. Chris came in and took his glass without comment.

‘I said I'd got a migraine coming on, and had had to come back here to take some medication.'

He was so pale it could have been true.

The sitting-room phone rang. He strode off to answer it. I finished my whiskey, considered another glass, but decided against it. The coffee was ready, so I poured myself a mug; Chris regarded sugar as something entirely alien to tea and coffee, so there was none in the basin, and I had to ferret in his store cupboard to find a packet. The milk was virtually fat-free, of course. Right then I'd have loved the comforting richness of cream.

When he came back, I poured his coffee and pushed the sugar at him. He winced.

‘I'll have to get back – shit!'

His radio this time. Automatically he turned from me to talk. I took bread and low-fat spread from the fridge, and looked for something to make into sandwiches. Plenty in the salad drawer, of course. And what I was sure would be low-fat cheese.

He slumped at the table and stared at the whiskey.

‘Medicinal,' I said. ‘Here. And you need to eat.'

He shook his head.

‘Chris, you're much more used to it than I, but I bet you don't like finding corpses either. What's the surgeon think it was, anyway? Heart attack?'

‘Almost certainly. But she said she couldn't be sure until after the autopsy – something inconsistent, she said. Didn't understand her jargon, I'm afraid. Wonder what was on the computer to give him the heart attack.'

‘Cybersex?'

‘I beg your pardon?' He didn't know whether to laugh or look shocked.

‘Well, there's cyberspace and—'

‘But cybersex? Where d'you get the sex from?'

‘The smell of semen.'

‘What are you on about?'

‘That's what I could smell – I'm sure it was! I'll bet the old stoat was watching Internet porn. There's a brisk exchange of it these days. And of course he'd be safe in Dr Trevelyan's room. Might have given him an extra little frisson, wanking himself off thinking she's safe in the loony bin.'

‘You do have the most elegant turn of phrase,' he said. ‘I'll get them to check the computer, anyway.'

‘Tell you what, Chris: get them to get a real expert to take it apart. Don't let anyone just switch it on and try and get into his program.'

‘Why on earth—?'

‘In case someone's loaded a program that deletes everything it doesn't want intruders to see. Can happen. Honest, Gaffer. Please.'

He raised a cynical eyebrow, but spoke into his radio. And wouldn't, interestingly enough, accept any protests.

I looked at his clock, a handsome Victorian specimen I'd often thought would look better in my kitchen than in his. ‘I've got my GCSE class in half an hour. An exam class.'

He didn't protest. Just reached for his sandwich and picked it up as if to eat it while he drove. Then he caught my eye and took a bite. His mouth so full it was hard for me to hear, he said; ‘But you're moving in here until you can find somewhere else to stay – right?'

‘All right,' I said. And ate the last of the cheese.

Some malign fate must have had it in for my GCSE students. Having shed my ministering PC at the door, I'd done no more than take the register, calm and normal as if I were used to having my (erroneous) preference for oral sex plastered in front of anyone wanting a pee. The students themselves looked ill at ease, as if I might be about to interrogate them. Or as if they were ashamed that someone could have been so vicious, even to one of the enemy.

The fire alarm rang.

I think they were actually as irritated as I was when they realised they were to lose their class. They left their belongings, as requested, and trooped out in front of me. We processed down the main stairs and joined the throng in the car park. And not such a large throng either. Perhaps there were others elsewhere. I registered the group again to make sure none was trapped in a potential inferno, and wondered how I could manage to go walkabout. The arrival of the fire appliances, two ordinary ones and a Simon Snorkel, provided a diversion. I set off purposefully, as if wanting to speak to someone in an adjoining group. Then I went to the next, and the next. Finally I dodged behind the main buildings, into the areas of kitchen bins and other tat.

God knows what I thought I was looking for. A fire, maybe. No joy on that front, anyway. Not so much as a smouldering rag.

I worked my way round. Over to my right lay the yard where Melina had landed. Another skip waited there.

By now I was by the computer suite, and another couple of yards would take me level with Dr Trevelyan's room. I looked at the window. The blinds were still down, either out of respect or to conceal the activities of the police. There was police plastic tape festooned everywhere, and when I stared too long a WPC moved purposefully towards me. But I'd had time to see that all the flowerbeds were equally flat.

Back to the path. Chris had better know. Fast.

My quickest route was past the skip, the last thing I wanted to be anywhere near. I told myself I didn't have to look, that I wouldn't find anything if I did, that surely to God there'd be no more bodies. So I looked. And – if only my GCSE students had been there so I could have explained the meaning of ‘bathos' – there was nothing there except a load of old wire and some electrical bits and pieces: valves, cable, the innards of what might have been a video. Simon would have had a field day. In fact, I might just phone him, to tell him what riches some Philistine was about to dispose of.

I strolled casually back to the car park and my group.

Everyone was restless by now. Usually there'd have been an announcement, probably that it was a false alarm, and that we were to return. Certainly there was no flurry with hoses, though the fire fighters were still standing by their appliances. There was a zooful of pandas by the main entrance, and a couple of patrol cars, their drivers sharing a quick fag with Hector. I detached them – Hector tried very obviously not to overhear – and explained what I'd seen. The younger had to stop himself saluting me, and scuttled off.

My class and I were just trying to arrange an
ad hoc
class at a time to suit us all when at last Curtis appeared with a loud-hailer. Acting Principal Curtis, with, no doubt, an emolument suited to such a position, probably with effect from the moment the poor guy died. I would judge his speech accordingly.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, we have had a report that a bomb has been planted in the building. The police are taking it seriously. You are asked to remain where you are. More announcements will be made in due course.'

It did not score highly.

So, there we were, in the fitful sun of a May afternoon, with absolutely nothing to do. It was then I had my good idea. With permission from Curtis – no, he didn't remember my name – and from a harassed WPC, I gathered together my group, herded them across the road, and spent the rest of the afternoon helping them revise in the privacy of my back garden. They had to drink their tea and coffee in relays because I didn't have enough mugs, and they finished my biscuits, but altogether it was the most positive, if not ultimately successful, teaching session I'd had at George Muntz.

And the good thing was, it took my mind almost entirely off the problem of sex with Chris.

When the students left, the house was very quiet. There were a couple of messages on my answering machine, so I broke the silence by playing them. Nothing obscene this time. Aberlene reminding me about fixing up supper with her and Tobias; Richard Fairfax trusting that I had suffered no ill effects after my weekend jaunt and hoping I might join him for a drink on Tuesday evening. Nothing to inflame the listeners' ears. Suddenly I felt very cold; I shut and locked the patio doors. By now those listeners would know I'd discovered the bugs at work. Chris's colleagues would already be planning their next move; I had a nasty suspicion that A. N. Other would also be busy.

When Chris phoned, I was at the dining table working away with pencil and pad.

‘I'll pick you up soon,' he said.

Nothing more. Well, not a lot of point, really.

I didn't bother with supper, expecting that Chris and I would eat together. I just packed an overnight bag. I found some condoms left over from a previous relationship. They were perilously close to their end date, but I could no doubt trust Chris to be meticulous in such circumstances. The more I thought about it, the more I was afraid our bedding would have disastrous consequences for Chris. It's one thing to love someone from afar, another to have sex with her and then have to return to the
status quo
. I flung down the condoms on the bed, and myself after them. ‘Shit and shit and shit!' Let the listeners make of that what they might.

I was back at the table when Chris arrived two hours later. He marched straight past me when I opened the door. By the time I'd locked it again, he was standing at the table, studying my notes.

‘Well?'

‘Bastards!' He threw the pad down so it slid across the table and down to the floor. ‘Bastards!'

I touched his arm and put my finger to my lips. He stalked round the table, snatched up the pad and headed for the front door. Picking up my bag, I followed more circumspectly, and set the alarm. I deadlocked the front door behind us.

He didn't say anything as he drove through Edgbaston. He didn't drive as well as usual, and once or twice I found myself squeaking as we approached a crossing too fast. He parked badly but it was his drive so I didn't say anything. I merely reached for my things, struggled out – bracing my knees had brought the throbbing back – and watched while he locked up and set the alarm. He looked grey, with great blotches under his eyes. And he kept brushing the right side of his face as if to clear his sight.

He walked up the path like an old man: clearly it was touch and go whether he could get in before his migraine overtook him completely. I knew his drill, knew where to find the tablets, where he kept an ice pack in his freezer. I even found his wristbands, those that stimulate the acupressure points, and managed to slip them over his clenched fists. What I couldn't deal with was the sight of Chris's tears, so I drew his curtains and tiptoed from his bedroom.

There I was, at a loose end I was only half grateful for. I decided against music or TV – Chris's bedroom was directly above his living room, and I wanted to do nothing to disturb him. I read through his newspapers: the
Guardian
and the
Birmingham Post
. News-shocked at last, I decided to make some tea and sat in his kitchen watching the kettle boil. When the phone rang I pounced.

It was someone from Action Aid asking him to sell raffle tickets. I wrote down their number, but didn't, for a moment, put back the handset. There was someone I ought to phone about Muntz, wasn't there? Someone unlikely. Aberlene!

I got through on the fourth ring, but only to her answering machine. It's often like that, communicating with musicians, who live in a different section of the day from those of us with nine-to-five jobs. George and I used to joke that his answering machine and mine had more conversations than we did.

Apologising for the delay in returning her call, I told her about my bugs. I gave her Chris's numbers, both his home and Rose Road, and asked her to phone one of us urgently about Muntz's Bradford connection. And then I remembered that she'd got a week's leave to prepare for her Wigmore Hall recital, and might well be staying with her parents in Henley for a bit of peace. But she'd no doubt call her machine from time to time, so I wished her luck anyway, and rang off.

It was about six when at last I heard Chris using the bathroom. I slung on my dressing gown and padded from the spare room to offer help. Now he'd be ready for my ministrations – vomiting was a signal that his migraine was more or less over.

He managed a pallid smile.

I smiled back. ‘China tea?'

‘How did you guess?'

‘And some dry toast for breakfast? When you've showered?'

‘Wonderful.'

Since it was a very long time since that lunchtime sandwich I was ready for rather more. There didn't seem to be much in his fridge or store cupboard – another sign he'd been working overlong hours. But even as I set out plates and cutlery I remembered I'd better dress first.

Thoroughly decent in jeans and sweatshirt, I returned to my search for food. His muesli looked uncompromisingly healthy, and would be more so if I laced it with fat-free milk. On the other hand, the toast smelled good, so I settled for some expensive-looking marmalade, the sort that comes in small jars with large price tags.