Relief Valve: The Plumber's Mate, Book 2 (14 page)

I sat down next to him and put his beer on the coffee table. “Nah. Just give it a mo, the valves need to warm up.” I leaned back.

He huffed impatiently. “You’d better not have dial-up,” he muttered as the screen finally flickered on.

“Works on carrier pigeon. You going to use that thing or just sit there and insult it?” I mean, it wasn’t like I was particularly attached to my old laptop, but it’d done me fine the last few years or six.

“Finally,” Phil said as the Ver Chambers website loaded. “Right. Cherry Paretski…specialism: criminal cases.”

I sat up to take a peek. Sure enough, he wasn’t telling porkies. “Huh. I always thought she did divorces and speeding tickets and stuff. Think it’ll say anything about cases she’s handled?”

“Nope. Think about it. If you got done for, say, ripping off the customers, would you want your case used as advertising by your defence lawyer?”

“Depends if she’d got me off. Nah, s’pose not. Are you going to ask her about it?” I yawned, leaning back again.

“Who’s my client?”

“What?”

“No, I’m serious. If I’m going to be investigating this, who am I working for here?”

I put my beer bottle down on the coffee table with a
clunk
. Arthur hissed. “So my sister’s only important to you if you’re getting paid?”

“Oh, for—I’m not after your sodding money, you prat.” Phil gave me a patronising look. “But if I haven’t got a client, it’s just me poking my nose in, and the police are going to be even less happy about that than they usually are.”

“Fine. I’ll employ you to look into Cherry’s…case.” Saying “attempted murder” made it seem too real. “Payment to be in the sexual favours of your choosing. Happy now?”

“Bloody ecstatic. I’ll draw up a contract.”

I was fairly sure he was joking. “So
now
are you going to ask her about her clients?”

Phil shut down the lid of my laptop. “Nope.
Now
I’m going to relax on the sofa with my boyfriend and drink my beer, because I don’t know about you, but I’ve had one bloody long day.”

Too right. I switched on the telly. Sky Sports was showing some Spanish football match. I let the sounds of the crowd chants and the hyperactive commentators wash over me as I tried to wrap my head around the thought of someone deliberately trying to kill my big sis. I must have dozed off at some point, as I woke up to find the footie was over and Phil was gently manoeuvring his arm out from around me.

“Come on, sleeping beauty. Time for bed.”

“Going to wake me up with a kiss in the morning?”

Phil laughed quietly, more a hitch in his breath than anything else. “I can do better than that.”

He did too.

Gary was on the phone first thing next morning. Or what he called first thing on a Saturday, which was halfway through the day for anyone who didn’t get to work at home in their jammies. Actually, to be fair, I wasn’t even sure if Gary worked on Saturdays. I’d always struggled with the idea of Gary buckling down and getting serious work done any day of the week, but I supposed he must do something to keep Julian in raw steak and Bonios.

Phil was long gone by then, off to do whatever private investigators did, and I was crouching under the kitchen sink at Mrs. L’s in Sandridge with water dripping into my hair. Mrs. L had popped out to catch her neighbour—ignorance being bliss and all that, I hadn’t asked what she wanted to catch her doing—and left me to it, so I took the call, glad of the excuse to unkink my shoulders and legs.

Look, I know maybe it seems a bit heartless, me just going to work as normal with my sister in the hospital, but Cherry was going to be all right, which was more than you could say for Mrs. L’s carpet tiles after she’d gone away for a week and come back to find the place flooded. And it wasn’t like I could have done anything at the hospital, except get on her tits when she wanted some time alone with the Demonstrably Reverend Greg. I’d pop along later this morning, take her some flowers or something.

Probably not grapes, what with the dicky tummy and all.

“How is she?” Gary demanded. That’s what I like about Gary: he may seem like a total self-obsessed queen, but deep down he’s got his priorities right.

“Fine. Well, not
fine
, fine, but she’s going to be okay.”

“Thank God.”

“Yeah, I think Greg’s got that bit covered.” I had a bit of a root through my toolbox for the sealant I was going to need in a bit. Hmm. Getting low—I’d better remember to stock up.

“Was it a miraculous recovery? Do we suspect divine intervention?”

“More like stomach pumping and activated charcoal, from what I heard.”

“Ugh. Poor her.” There was a pause. “How does one even activate charcoal?”

“Buggered if I know, but it seemed to do the trick. Anyway, I reckon Greg did some serious God-bothering last night, so maybe you were right on the divine-intervention thing.” I’ve never been totally sure how Gary actually feels about the church. I mean, he’s a bell ringer, but that doesn’t have to mean serious religion. Far as I know, they don’t actually make you get down on your knees and swear allegiance to the Archbishop of Canterbury before they let you up in the tower. Knowing Gary, he probably caught sight of one of those thick, furry sausage things they have on the end of the ropes one day and just couldn’t resist giving it a tug.

“Well, if a canon of St Leonard’s can’t put in a good word for the one he loves, who can?”

A drip of water trickled down my forehead, and I wiped it away with my sleeve. “Isn’t that nepotism or something?”

“Ooh, did somebody eat a thesaurus for breakfast?”

“Don’t be daft. Even I know those have been extinct for millions of years. Listen, I ought to warn you, you might get the police wanting to talk to you. They were going on about her having been poisoned, last night at the hospital. They were doing tests and stuff. Didn’t tell me anything more when I rang up this morning, so it might be nothing, but I thought I’d better give you a heads-up.”

“Poisoned? You mean, with malice aforethought? Like Lucrezia Borgia, or Dr. Shipman? Why on earth would anyone want to do that to poor little Cherry?”

“Phil reckoned it might be some pissed-off client. He’s looking into it. You know, someone who got banged up and didn’t reckon she did a good enough job of defending him.”

“Or it could be a victim, distraught at her attacker walking free from jail?” Gary was getting into this, I could tell from his voice.

“Maybe. Anyway, we don’t know anything for certain yet.” I heard the front door open. “Look, I’ve got to go. Speak to you later, yeah?”

Mrs. L faffed around taking her shoes and coat off just long enough for me to get my head back under the sink by the time she padded into the kitchen in her fluffy slippers. “How’s it going, love?” she asked. She was probably around Cherry’s age, but apart from that, she was nothing like her. Auntie Lol would have called her “brassy”.

I stuck my head out and grinned at her. “Have you sorted in a jiffy. Just need to grab a bit of pipe from the van. Who plumbed this in for you? He made a right pig’s ear of it.”

She nodded, folding her arms and hitching up her tits on top of them like a couple of perma-tanned grapefruit on a greengrocer’s stall. “Bloody typical. Wasn’t the only thing he was rubbish at, I can tell you.”

“Let me guess. The late, lamented Mr. L?”

“Lamented, my arse. ’Scuse French. Want a coffee, love?”

“Cheers. White, no sugar, please.” I winked at her on my way out to the van, and she smiled as she put the kettle on.

I’d suggested she fill it before I’d turned the water off. I’m not daft.

I got along to the hospital later that day.

Cherry was in a room of her own, which at first made me think she must be paying for it. But the telly on the shelf was about as old as I was, so I guessed it was just one of those perks you occasionally get on the NHS for no apparent reason.

Odd, though. I’d have thought if anyone had private medical insurance, it’d be Cherry. She looked pale and tired, and her hair was a right mess, but she was sitting up in bed, frowning at a John Grisham book.

“Those American barristers not doing it right?” I asked.

She looked up and actually smiled at me. “They’re not called barristers over there.”

“I do watch telly, you know. How are you feeling?” I handed her the teddy bear I’d bought downstairs—there hadn’t been any flowers in the hospital shop. Maybe they were against NHS policies these days. Or had all been eaten by hospital superbugs.

Cherry grimaced at the frankly tacky toy—there hadn’t been a lot of choice, okay?—but didn’t immediately lob it at the bin. She even tucked it into the crook of her arm. “Horrible. But better. You just missed Mum and Dad, by the way.” That’d explain the discreet Get Well Soon card peeking out from behind her water jug and was another reason to be glad I’d been at work. I wasn’t sure I could have faced one of Mum’s guilt trips today. “They’ve been asking me all sorts of questions.”

“What, Mum and Dad?”

“No, idiot. The doctors. They said the police might be coming too. It’s just so silly.” Cherry sank back on her pillows, and I hurried to take her book from her and put it down on the bedside table. “I mean, you don’t think it was anything except an accident, do you?”

“Don’t know a right lot about it yet, do I? What did the doctors say?”

“Nicotine poisoning. But why would anyone do that deliberately? It must have been an accident.”

“Yeah, but how do you reckon that happened? One of the cathedral ladies had a bit of a senior moment when she was making the sausage rolls?”

“Well, maybe. Some of them are getting on a bit. Maybe one of them got a bit mixed up when she was doing the flowers? Gregory said it was an insecticide.”

I frowned. “He said it used to be. Don’t know if it still is.”

“Oh, you know old people. They keep things
forever
.” She closed her eyes.

“Er, do you want me to leave you to have a sleep, then?” I said after a minute or two went by.

Which, of course, was her cue to open her eyes again. I was a bit horrified to see they looked leakier than Mrs. L’s pipes. “Don’t go,” she said in a little-girl voice, reaching out for me.

I wanted to run screaming for the hills, but what I actually did was sit down on the bed and take hold of her hand. Should I pat it? Would she think I was taking the piss? “Is Greg coming over again?” I asked. “Soon?”

“I think so,” she said moistly. “I’m just really glad we got back in touch. We shouldn’t have drifted apart like that.” She squeezed my hand. “Promise me we won’t do that again? Families should stay together. No matter…” She trailed off.

“Yeah, promise,” I said and cleared my throat.

We sat there like that so long, Cherry cuddling Tacky Teddy and me holding her hand, I got painfully aware of the tension in my shoulders. My fingers felt like they were about to cramp up any minute too, and my back was aching from this morning. Must be old age creeping up, I thought, because what this moment really needed was another reminder of mortality.

I was just wondering how the hell I’d ever get out without upsetting her when she started to snore.

Thank God. I eased my hand out of hers and legged it.

Chapter Eleven

When I got out of the hospital, I saw I’d missed a call from my old mate Dave. Or DI Southgate, I should say, seeing as he’d had his Old Bill hat jammed firmly on over his bald patch when he’d rung. He’d left a message politely requesting I call him back. Well, sort of. What he’d actually said was, “Get your head out of that bloody toilet and give me a bell, all right? I don’t want to have to send the boys round—you’d bloody enjoy it too much. Call me. You know what it’s about.”

I did. I called him.

Upshot was, I had thirty minutes to shove a sandwich in my gob and get round to his office, otherwise known as the nick. I tried ringing Phil to let him know, but he wasn’t picking up. I texted him,
Gon 2 see Dave. If not back by tonite, bake cake with file
, and set off.

I was ushered in by a woman PC with a face like granite and, by the look of her, muscles to match. “Cheers, love,” I said as she turned to go.

I probably imagined her snarling.

Dave was on his feet by the window, blocking out most of the light. He turned when I came in. “Bloody hell, I can’t leave you alone for five minutes, can I?”

I glared at him. “Thought you lot had sensitivity training these days?”

He subsided, huffing, into his chair. “So?
I
thought
you
hadn’t spoken to your sister for years. Go on, sit down, don’t just stand there giving me a crick in the neck.”

I sat. “Yeah, well. Just because we weren’t speaking, doesn’t mean we weren’t
speaking
.” I frowned at that myself. “You know what I mean. Anyway, that was before. We’re speaking now. She invited me to her party, didn’t she?”

Dave raised an eyebrow, then nodded.

“What, you thought I’d crashed it? Trust me, if I’d wanted to crash a party I’d have picked a better one.”