Pressure Head (16 page)

My memory was a bit fuzzy about what had happened the previous night after Phil had got me home, but I’d woken up wrapped snug in a blanket, with a pint glass of water and a bucket (thankfully unused) by my side. I’d felt, in a word, cared for. It was a good feeling, and I’d carried the good mood it gave me all the way to work.

“Maybe some other time. Are you free at all today?”

I was tempted to trill
I’m free!
like John Inman playing Mr. Humphries, but I resisted. After all, they might not have watched
Are You Being Served
reruns in his house. “Depends what for.”

“How about a visit to the Honorary Treasurer, Mr. Lionel Treadgood, esquire?”

“You take me on all the best dates, don’t you?” There was a silence, which I rushed to fill. “What time?”

“Any time this afternoon, he said.”

“Sounds like we’re dealing with a member of the leisured classes. Nice work if you can get it.”

There was a sharp breath down the phone line that might have been Phil smiling. “He’s got his own construction firm, so I guess he takes time off when he wants to. House up in Fallow’s Wood; makes the East place look like a council flat.”

Which meant my house, by comparison, was a condemned garden shed with both wet and dry rot. “Do I need to put my Sunday frock on, then?”

“Twinset and pearls will do just fine.”

“Shame my tiara’s in the wash.”

There was another short silence. “Thought you might be feeling a bit hungover after last night.”

“Nah, someone got me to drink a gallon of water before bed. And I don’t really get hangovers. Well, not that bad, anyway.”

“Lucky bastard.”

“Hope I didn’t say anything too daft last night.”

“What, dafter than usual?” There was a pause.

I was expecting him to ask why I’d drunk so much—I was fairly sure I hadn’t got round to telling him last night—but maybe he didn’t want to get into anything heavy over the phone. I thought about bringing it up myself, but then again, the customer (
call me Angie, love
) was only two flights of stairs away, and though I seriously doubted she was a regular at St Anthony’s Church, Brock’s Hollow, loose lips sink ships and all that.

“Thanks for taking me home,” I said, when he didn’t say anything.

“No problem. It was only up the road.” He cleared his throat. “Right. How about we meet up at the Four Candles in Brock’s Hollow, and you can leave your van in the car park, and we’ll drive up together?”

“Works for me. Okay, I’ve got a quote to do around twoish—might need to go up in the attic—so how about I meet you in the Four Candles at three?”

“See you then.” He rang off, and I got back to work just in time for when Angie came back up.

“I brought you a cup of tea, Tomasz,” she said with a fair attempt at a Polish pronunciation, at least as far as I could tell. “Or is it Tomek?”

“Just Tom, love,” I told her, trying not to sound too long-suffering.

She crouched down to my level. Given how short her skirt was, it was probably a bit more of a revealing move than she meant it to be. Then again, maybe not. “Two sugars all right?”

“Lovely,” I said and gave her a wink. “Thanks, love. Just put it down there, and I’ll drink it in a mo.”

I could always tip it down the sink.

I was just finishing up my Diet Coke when Phil walked into the Four Candles. I was sitting in a corner, surrounded by photos on the walls of Brock’s Hollow in Days Gone By. Most of the buildings in the pictures were surprisingly recognisable, except every other house in the High Street seemed to have been a pub those days. Perhaps that was what old people meant when they talked about making their own entertainment in the pre-TV days.

Phil was looking good, in tailored trousers and a different cashmere sweater, one I hadn’t seen before. Did his wardrobe have its own mortgage? Mind you, you can get cashmere in Tesco’s these days.

I was fairly sure he’d have shopped somewhere a bit more upmarket, though. “Who says you can’t take the council estate out of the boy?” I joked, appreciating the view.

He flushed—and not in a pleased way. “Some of us work hard to get away from our roots, all right?”

“Keep your hair on! You’re going to take someone’s eye out with that chip on your shoulder. I just meant you’re looking good, that’s all.” Okay, so now I’d overcompensated and I was probably going just as red as he was.

“Oh. Well, you too, obviously.”

“Yeah, right.” I hadn’t had time to change, so I was in my dusty work jeans and shirt, and when I’d nipped into the Gents a few minutes ago, I’d found cobwebs in my hair—no reflection on Jersey Farm standards;
nobody
hoovers under the bath, for God’s sake. Or in the attic. “Old Lionel’s going to think you found me sleeping under a hedge.”

“You look fine.” He coughed. “Are you ready to go?”

I nodded and stood. “So is this bloke a suspect, or do you just want to sound him out about the Rev?”

I’d said it quietly, but Phil still darted a gaze around before glaring at me. “We’ll talk about it in the car.”

“Oh, come on, you don’t think—fine, let’s talk about the weather. Bit nippy for the time of year, isn’t it?”

He didn’t answer. Maybe that cashmere sweater was really good at keeping him warm, and he didn’t like to disagree with me. I chuckled to myself—quietly, so Phil wouldn’t hear. “How are you getting on with the new place?” I asked. “Got all your stuff unpacked yet?”

“I wish. Still living out of boxes, mostly.”

“I could come and give you a hand some time, if you like,” I offered, surprising myself a bit. Usually I get my second thoughts a bit sooner than that.

Still, Phil looked pleased, so I was glad I’d said it. “Thanks. Yeah, that’d be great.” He frowned. “Have I told you where it is?”

“No—I was going to ask you about that, but I thought you were enjoying being a man of mystery. Either that or you were worried I’d turn up and uncover all your secrets.”

“I’ve got my secrets, but my address isn’t one of them. And it’s not like I’ve been living there long enough to get the skeletons moved into their cupboards. I’ve got a flat out on London Road.” He gave me the address.

“Hey, we’re practically next-door neighbours! You must be what, half a mile away from mine?”

“Something like that.”

“You never did tell me how come you moved back out here,” I reminded him as we got into the Golf.

“No. I didn’t.” Phil started the engine.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot. Man of mystery and all that. Fine—have it your way. So can we talk about Lionel now?”

He nodded. “He’s church treasurer, right? So he’ll know a lot about the way the church conducts its business. We can ask him about that night—see if he thinks it’s feasible Melanie might have meant the vicar when she talked about her boss. If it’s likely the Reverend would have called her out in the evening.” Phil peered cautiously out of the narrow entrance to Four Candles Lane, saw both oncoming cars were politely waiting for him, and pulled out onto the village High Street. He gave a pinched-looking smile. “See if he knows the vicar’s dirty little secret, and if he’s got any of his own.”

“Still think being gay’s a dirty little secret, do you?”

“It is if you’re a vicar. He should grow a pair and come out. Half the persecution of homosexuals done in the name of the church could be avoided if people like him weren’t too shit scared to stand up and be counted.”

I stared at him, speechless for a moment. I’d been about to tell him about my trip to see the Rev, but right now I was damned if I was going to betray that sad collection of books and keepsakes. When I finally found my voice, it wasn’t pretty. “You fucking hypocrite! What about when we were in school together? You never stood up to be counted then.”

Phil flinched back for about a hundredth of a second, then turned on me angrily. “That was then. Do you still define yourself by what you believed when you were seventeen?”

I thought about it. “Pretty much, yeah.”

“Well, spare a thought for us poor mortals who have to learn by experience, all right? Not everyone gets it right first time.”

I couldn’t help it. I had to laugh. “You think I get everything right first time? ’Scuse me, but have we even met?”

He threw me a look, but it was gone before I could work out what it meant. “You really haven’t changed, you know,” he said, and I didn't think he meant it as a compliment.

We took the left turn off the main road, towards Fallow’s Wood. It was all scrubby forest either side of us for a short way—if you come here in the spring, the bluebells are lovely—then we got to the first of the houses.

Fallow’s Wood isn’t much of a village, more a collection of posh houses, some with gardens measured in acres, scattered around a golf course. Opinions differ as to whether it’s part of Brock’s Hollow or a separate address in its own right. Me, I’m on the fence, which around there is around eight feet tall and made of freshly painted wrought iron with pointy gold bits on top. The place has got its own pubs, which is a point in its favour, but no corner shop. It’d piss me right off if I had to get in the car every time I needed a pint of milk, but I suppose the Fallow’s Wood residents have got to justify their three or four motors per family somehow.

Lionel Treadgood’s house was set at the end of a private road, which was un-surfaced and had more potholes than I’ve had hot dinners.

“You’d think with all the money floating around here, they’d do something about this,” I said as we rattled along in Phil’s car at ten miles an hour. “I suppose maybe they just see it as sort of low-tech traffic calming,”

“Or maybe they’re just tight-fisted bastards,” Phil muttered, his face set. Probably worrying about what the road was doing to his tyres and suspension. We'd have been better off bringing my van—it might not be smart, but it’s robust. When we got to Lionel’s wide driveway, Phil parked the Golf with a crunch of gravel and a vicious jerk on the hand brake, and we got out. The house in front of us was large, but it looked more like it’d been built for practicality and added to when necessary—at least, “necessary” by rich people’s standards—than architecturally designed to tone in with the surrounding countryside, or whatever the usual estate-agent guff was.

“Going to do your stuff?” Phil asked softly.

“What, out here? With that?” I nodded towards the swimming pool on the right of the house. Shielded by a high hedge, it hadn’t been visible from the road. “And I reckon they’ve got the river down the bottom of their garden. It’d be needle in a haystack time. Must cost an arm and a leg to keep a pool that size heated this time of year.” I pursed my lips, looking at the steam rising gently from the water. There was a sort of summerhouse thing to change in, and a decking area where you could sit out with drinks when it was warm.

“Nice if you can afford it,” Phil murmured, pursing his lips. “Wouldn’t mind one of those myself.”

I shivered. “You can keep it.”

Phil turned to stare at me, an incredulous look on his face. “Don’t tell me you’re scared of water? A plumber with hydro-bloody-phobia?”

“No,” I said, a bit indignant. “I’m not scared. I just don’t like swimming pools. Too much dead water. The vibe’s all wrong.”

“And it’s got your sat-nav on the blink?”

“I’ll be fine in the house. It’s just interference, that’s all.” We crunched up to the front door, and Phil rapped on it with the old-fashioned door knocker.

“Okay, remember—same drill as at the Easts’, all right? Except this time, pull your finger out and get back before he starts getting suspicious.”

“Tell you what, why don’t you shove a broom up my arse, and I can sweep his floors while I’m at it?”

“Stop being such a touchy little—”

I was saved from hearing the rest of it by the door opening.

Lionel Treadgood wasn’t quite what I’d been expecting. He was tall—around Phil’s height, but narrower across the shoulders and broader in the waist, without actually being fat. He looked like he kept himself in shape the old-fashioned way, with long walks in the countryside in between rounds of golf and persecuting small furry animals. Probably in his late fifties, or a well-preserved early sixties, he still had a full head of thick, iron-grey hair, darkening to steel in the middle. He wasn’t bad looking, if you like that sort of thing—not a patch on Robin East, mind. Even though Lionel was at home, he had on a proper shirt and tie. I wondered if it was for our benefit, but decided he’d probably been wearing it anyway. He was the sort who never took his tie off unless it was to put on his flannel pyjamas to go beddy-byes.

“Mr. Morrison? Good to meet you. Dreadful business about poor Melanie.” He shook hands with Phil, then turned to me with a polite question in his eyes.

“Thanks for agreeing to talk to us,” Phil said in his impressing-the-punters voice. “This is my colleague, Tom Paretski.”

I was a colleague, was I? Maybe I’d insist on getting paid this time.

Lionel grasped my hand in a firm, cool handshake and frowned. “Paretski… That sounds familiar, somehow. Have we met?”

“I don’t think so. But I’ve got family in the area.” I was willing to bet none of them moved in his sort of circles, though.