Relief Valve: The Plumber's Mate, Book 2 (30 page)

“I can’t believe you’re even
suggesting
he could have tried to hurt either of us. Why on earth would he do that?”

“Just… How much do you really know about him? Have you met his family?”

“He hasn’t got any close family,” Cherry said shortly. “His parents are dead.”

That was convenient. Say, if there was the odd skeleton in your closet you didn’t want anyone to know about. “And how did you two even meet?”

“You’re being ridiculous. I’m going to have a bath.” Cherry stormed out without even answering my question.

Or passing me the bloody remote, either. Bloody marvellous. I tried to stretch out a socked foot far enough to reach it, but all I managed to do was nudge it off the other side of the coffee table. Meanwhile, Arthur, deciding my lap had become worryingly unstable, anchored himself more firmly by digging his claws into my legs.

Sod it. I shovelled him off my lap, earning myself a furious yowl and a couple more puncture wounds, grabbed the remote from the floor and sat back down, flicking on the telly with a sigh of relief. There was a
Mock the Week
on satellite I’d only seen about half a dozen times, so I let the controlled anarchy and carefully scripted ad-libs wash over me for a bit.

Then I remembered I’d used up the last of the milk and there’d be none for breakfast if I didn’t shift my arse out to the shops.

Bugger it. “Cherry?” I yelled up the stairs. “Just popping out for some milk.”

I didn’t hear an answer, so either she was sulking or she hadn’t heard me over the running water. Still, I’d only be ten minutes, tops. I shoved my feet into my trainers, pulled on a jacket, dithered over a scarf but decided not to be such a bloody wuss, checked I had a couple of quid in my pocket and opened the front door.

And almost walked into the Terrifyingly Reverend Greg, looming there on my doorstep.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Bloody fuck!” I stepped back instinctively and almost tripped over Merlin, who’d come to see what all the fuss was about.

Greg’s devilish grin faltered a little. “Ah, Tom,” he said, as if he hadn’t expected to see me there in my own sodding house. “Cherry told me she was staying here, and I happened to be in the vicinity. May I?”

No, I thought, you bloody well may not. Not with Cherry in the bath and me not there to protect her. How easy would it be for him to hold her down and drown her with those massive hands of his? “I was just on my way out, actually. Fancy a walk?”

The eyebrows drew together, a couple of disapproving hairy caterpillars cosying up like grannies having a grumble. “Are you sure it’s wise to leave Cherry on her own?”

“Positive,” I said, stepping through the door and closing it behind me. As Greg didn’t give an inch, this put us uncomfortably close together on my doormat. The height difference seemed a lot more pronounced. I wished I couldn’t vaguely remember horror movies where unspecified demonic creatures gained power and size after dark. “Shops are this way,” I said, trying to nudge him along without actually touching him.

“Shops?”

“Yeah. Just need to get some milk.” Weren’t there some supernatural beings that liked drinking milk? Elves, maybe? Or was I just thinking of hedgehogs?

“Oh, of course. Lead on.” Despite his words, Greg strode off down the street towards the bright lights of Fleetville without waiting for me. I ended up scurrying along to catch up.

“And how is your dear sister bearing up? She seemed somewhat agitated on the telephone.”

“She’s okay.” I wondered if I’d missed obvious signs of agitation from Cherry while we were out for dinner. She’d certainly
seemed
okay in the restaurant and when we’d got back to mine.

Except she’d sneaked off to call her bloke first chance she’d got. Maybe she was feeling more vulnerable than she wanted to let on. What if she got out of the bath and found herself all alone when she wasn’t expecting it? We needed to get a shift on. I scurried a bit faster and managed to jolt my hip with an unwary step. The sudden pain made me draw in a hissing breath.

“Are you all right, Tom?” Greg loomed over me, his eyebrows quivering with concern.

“Yeah. Fine. Just trod a bit awkward, that’s all.”

“Is it much farther to go? Can you manage?”

Blooming marvellous. Now I was a bloody cripple who couldn’t make it down the road without help. “It’s here,” I said shortly, opening the door to Vik’s convenience store and off licence that never seems to shut. I picked up a couple of litres of milk and some chocolate for Cherry, then decided a bottle of Merlot might be nearer the mark and grabbed that as well.

“All right, Tom?” Vik (short for Vikram, but only his mother calls him that) rang up the total on a till so old-fashioned he actually had to put the numbers in by hand. “Cold enough for you?”

“And then some.” I fumbled in my pocket with numb fingers, realising a bit belatedly I’d come out with
literally
only a couple of quid in my pocket. “Bugger. I’m a bit short, Vik, I’ll have to leave the wine.”

“Nah, pay me tomorrow.” He grinned and cast a quick glance over my shoulder at Greg hovering behind me. “Don’t want to ruin your first evening in with the new bloke.”

I don’t know what my face looked like, but Vik cracked up at the sight of it.

“Right. Home,” I said firmly to a blessedly oblivious Greg.

Cherry was still in the bath when we got back, so at least she hadn’t found herself home alone and thrown a wobbly. That was the only plus point I could see, though. It left me and Greg sitting in the living room glaring balefully at each other. Well, all right. Maybe Greg was smiling genially. Then again, he hadn’t been the one having a near-death experience last time we’d met. I offered to open the wine; Greg declined. I offered to put the kettle on; he protested he didn’t want to put me to any bother.

I was ready to scream by the time Merlin poked his furry little nose around the door frame. Greg beamed. “Ah! You have pets.” Like he hadn’t noticed the cat hair already making pretty patterns on his smart black trousers. “Wonderful. As you know, I have a great fondness for animals.”

Dead ones, maybe. If he came anywhere near my cats with the glint of taxidermy in his eye, we were going to have serious words. Luckily, Merlin caught him watching, spooked and voted with his paws, running out of there like he’d seen the skinning knives. Hah. My pets weren’t stupid.

Then Arthur prowled in, gave a disdainful sniff in my direction and jumped straight onto Greg’s lap.

Typical.

There was the noise of a door opening and closing upstairs, then Cherry appeared, towel round her head and wearing my dressing gown, her face pink and shiny. “Tom, I need to borrow a—Gregory!”

I couldn’t help smiling at her double-take. “You want to borrow him, it’s Arthur you need to speak to.”

“I meant a hairdryer… Gregory, what are you doing here?”

Greg stood, having picked up Arthur and deposited him carefully and without protest on the floor (no clawed legs for a man of the cloth, apparently). He went to meet her, taking her hands in an old-fashioned gesture. “I had to make sure you were all right, my dear.”

“I’m fine, darling,” Cherry simpered. Oh God. Were they going to kiss?

Yep.

I tried looking away, but that just left my imagination free to run riot, which was even worse. I coughed loudly. “I’ll put the kettle on, all right?”

I didn’t wait for an answer.

An hour later, our cups of tea had long since been drained and Greg still hadn’t bloody gone. I yawned loudly, hoping he’d take a hint.

Cherry glanced over. “Tom, if you want to go to bed, we won’t be offended.”

“Nah, I’m good,” I lied.

She smiled. “Lovely! I’ll open that bottle of wine, then.”

We each had a glass while they carried on billing and cooing and having animated discussions over exactly which of the cathedral ladies simply had to be asked to do the flowers for their wedding, and which should, under no circumstances, be allowed to decorate.

I nearly melted in relief when Cherry offered top-ups and Greg held a large hand over his glass. “No more for me, I’m afraid. Indeed, I should really be getting back home.”

“Why don’t you stay here?” Cherry said. “It’s far too late for you to drive all the way back to St Leonards tonight.”

What? “Nah, he’ll be fine,” I said quickly. “Roads’ll be empty this time of night.”

“But they could be icy.” She topped up Greg’s glass without waiting for either of us to chip in.

Course, she wouldn’t have been able to do so if he hadn’t moved his hand away first.

“Really,” he fake-protested even as he raised his glass to his lips. “I shouldn’t like to put Tom to any trouble.”

Cherry gave him a girlish smile. “Don’t be silly. It isn’t any trouble, is it, Tom?”

I coughed. “You do know I’ve only got one spare room, don’t you?” And the bed was pretty bloody narrow, even setting aside any qualms I might have about her seducing God’s representative on earth into rumpy-pumpy out of wedlock.

Greg patted the sofa as if he’d stuffed it himself. “This will do admirably.”

Cherry looked almost as horrified as I was feeling. “You can’t sleep down here. You’ll ruin your back. You can share with Tom.”

What?
“Hang on a minute…”

“He’s got a lovely big bed,” she continued, talking over me.

Shit. I had to nip this one right in the bud. “Sis, most straight blokes wouldn’t be too happy about sharing a bed with a poof.”

“You shouldn’t use that word. And Gregory knows perfectly well you’re not going to molest him in his sleep.”

That was more than I knew. What if I rolled over and my subconscious thought he was Phil? It didn’t bear thinking about.

“I’m sure my virtue is safe in your hands,” Greg agreed genially and took another slurp of wine.

Bloody brilliant. “I snore,” I blurted out as a last-ditch attempt to save myself.

“Oh, you won’t wake me. I’ve spent most of my adult life sleeping close by church bells and clock towers. I sleep like the dead.”

And he’d know, wouldn’t he? If he was a bloody
murderer
. Shit. There was about a glass of wine left in the bottle. Sod politeness—I tipped it into my glass and downed it in one.

It only got worse after that. Obviously, Greg hadn’t brought his pyjamas with him, and equally obviously, there was no way anything of mine was going to fit the bloke, so he stripped down to his ecclesiastical undies to go to bed. Apparently, the church favoured white cotton Y fronts these days. I’d have been a lot happier to see him in a full set of thermals, or maybe some of those old-fashioned one-piece combinations they used to sew kids into for the winter back in the Dark Ages. I dug out my thickest set of PJs—some that Mum bought me one Christmas and I’d never worn—from the bottom of the wardrobe and changed, miserably, in the bathroom.

When I got back in the bedroom, Greg was stretched out in bed, taking up a good two-thirds of it. His hairy chest peeked over the top of the duvet like a badly trained pet dog, and his welcoming smile was weirding me out big-time.

Not that I’ve got anything against hairy chests. Or smiling blokes in my bed, for that matter. But Christ, not this one.

“Just as well I never gave Phil a key, innit,” I joked weakly as I climbed in beside Greg. “He’d have a fit if he turned up unexpected and found me in bed with another bloke.”

Greg rolled onto his side, propped himself up on one elbow and loomed over me with earnest eyes. “I’m quite certain he trusts you implicitly. It’s heartwarming to see the two of you with such a loving, committed relationship.”

“Er, thanks.” I wasn’t sure what to say. Were we committed? I mean, I hoped Phil didn’t want to break up with me, and I was bloody sure I didn’t want to break up with him. But we’d never talked about, well, commitment and stuff. Still, it was early days yet, wasn’t it?

I wondered how long Phil had been with Mark before they’d decided to get married.

Shit.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Greg was saying, “but I’d like to say a short prayer before we retire. Perhaps you could join me in the Lord’s prayer?”

“Right. Yeah.” God, I hoped I could remember the words. It’d been a long time since Sunday School. Feeling about five, I put my hands together and closed my eyes, and waited for him to start
Our-Fathering
.

“Before we begin,” he said instead, startling me so I opened my eyes again. Greg’s face filled my blurry vision, and I flinched. He ignored it. “I have a little confession to make.”

Despite the PJs, an icy chill ran over me. “Yeah?” I said weakly. “How little?”

“Ah, there is only one true Judge of our sins. But I trust that He will see my intentions were pure.” Greg beamed.

Was there a manic edge to his smile? Shit, was I in bed with a murdering religious nutter? “Er, yeah, that’s his job, innit?” I said, trying to edge away unobtrusively.

“
Nevertheless
,” Greg barked, freezing me in my tracks. “I feel a certain amount of remorse.”

“So, er, maybe you should just ‘go and sin no more’?” I’d have given myself a mental pat on the back for the sudden inspiration if I hadn’t still been in terror for my sodding life.