Relief Valve: The Plumber's Mate, Book 2 (6 page)

“Come and meet Mrs. Tiggywinkle,” Cherry urged in my shell-shocked ear. She ushered me over to where a hedgehog snuffled silently around the bottom of the floor-length curtains. “Isn’t she adorable?” Cherry actually crouched down, picked the thing up and shoved it in my face.

“Oi! Careful. Those things have fleas,” I protested, backing off.

Behind me, Phil sounded amused. “That one won’t. Unless Gregory stuffed them as well.”

“Alas, that’s a little beyond my skill.” Gregory was beaming at me over Cherry’s shoulder.

“I thought all things were possible if you had faith?” Phil’s voice was right in my ear now, so I stopped backing up before I ended up tripping over his expensive loafers and falling, damsel-like, into his arms. Thank God I’d brought him with me, though. He could distract them while I ran away.

“Thou shalt not put the Lord thy God to the test,” the Augustly Reverend Greg reminded us all.

“That’s Leviticus, isn’t it?” Phil challenged.

And he went on at me about having gone to Sunday School?

“Deuteronomy, actually.” Greg’s expression changed somehow. The line of his eyebrows had softened, and they didn’t look quite so demonic. It would have been reassuring if it hadn’t been so bloody unnerving. “Our Lord, you’ll find, was much less fond of Leviticus.”

I waited for Phil to come back with
I see your Leviticus, and I raise you Genesis, Exodus and all the prophets
, but he just sort of grunted.

“I hear you’re a
private eye
.” Greg rolled the words around his tongue with relish. “It strikes me that must bring you into contact with the worst excesses of human nature.”

“Pays the bills,” Phil said shortly.

“Oh, don’t mistake me—I admire you for it. It’s not everyone who can, as it were, gaze into a cesspit and remain unmoved. I suppose a great many of your cases involve affairs of the heart?”

“There’s always people who want to know if their husband or wife is cheating on them,” Phil admitted.

“And are they? Generally speaking, I mean. I’ve always thought one must have a sixth sense about the person one lives with. So to speak.” Greg leaned in towards Phil, his eyes getting that alarming glint in them again.

Phil didn’t seem fazed by it. “And there’s no smoke without fire? It varies. Some people are just paranoid, and sometimes the ‘other woman’ turns out to be a gambling problem.”

“And how do they tend to take the news? I imagine there must be a certain degree of relief when one knows the worst…?”

I could see this was going to be a long discussion, and if I wasn’t careful I was going to be stuck there with the legions of the stuffed for the duration.

Desperate times called for desperate measures. Actually, looking at my glass, I reckoned it was more like a desperate triple measure, but I girded my stomach, took a deep breath and tossed it down. I just about managed not to collapse in a choking fit, although there was probably a bit of steam coming out of my ears. “I’ll, er…” I cleared my throat, held up my empty glass and then legged it back to the other room, giving Buster a sympathetic pat on the way.

I was staring at the arrangement of bottles and decanters, wondering what was safe to touch—I’d have killed for a Coke and probably at least mugged someone for a Pepsi—when Cherry came up behind me. “You’re being a bit rude,” she muttered in my ear. “You could at least admire the skill that goes into Gregory’s art.”

“I don’t bloody believe this,” I whispered back. “You go on at me about chumming around with corpses, and your boyfriend has a whole bloody houseful!”

She stared at me. “They’re
animals
, for goodness sake.” Not
for God’s sake
, I noticed. Apparently you couldn’t say that sort of stuff while you were actively hobnobbing with one of his main men on Earth. “Not people.”

“Are you sure the Rev knows that? He called them family.”

“It’s a joke. You’ve heard about those?”

I was momentarily speechless. She was accusing
me
of not having a sense of humour? “Pot, much?” I managed feebly.

She blanked me. “If that’s some druggie reference—”

“Come off it! Since when have I ever done drugs?”

“Well, I don’t know
what
you got up to. You dropped out of school—”

“I got hit by a four-by-four!”

“—and then the next thing I know, I’ve got Mum on the phone telling me you’re not even going to bother with an education. It wasn’t easy for her, you know.” She picked up a bottle of something I was fairly sure was sherry, and tugged at the cork.

“Right, because it was such a bloody walk in the park for me. Anyway, Dad was fine about me taking up plumbing.”

Cherry was still struggling with the sherry bottle, frown lines forming on her forehead. “Yes, but that’s different.”

“What?”

She stared at me blankly. “What?”

“What you said—forget it, just give that here.” I took the sherry bottle and opened it with a quick twist of the wrist. “There you go.”

“Thank you.” She poured herself a generous measure, then waved the bottle in my direction. “You?”

“Nah, ’s okay. Actually, any chance of a soft drink?”

“There’s probably some fruit juice in the fridge. You’re driving, are you?”

“Nah, Phil is. I’m just not really into all this poncey stuff. More of a beer drinker, you know?”

I probably imagined her lip curling. Wait, what was I thinking? No way did I imagine that. “I’ll see what I can find in the kitchen.”

“No half-stuffed animals, I hope. Unless it’s a turkey for tomorrow’s dinner. In which case, feel free to invite me. And Phil, obviously.” I followed her through the hallway to the kitchen, which was decorated in hideous 1970s’ style, all Formica tops and cupboard doors in shades of grunge. No pet cemetery in here, though, thank God, or at least his representative on Earth.

“Gregory’s having lunch with the bishop tomorrow,” Cherry told the fridge. “I don’t think you’d really fit in.”

“I dunno. Bloke goes around in a purple frock all day, doesn’t he? We might have more in common than you think.”

Cherry pulled out an opened carton of orange juice, frowned at it, sniffed it and handed it over. “Here. I think it’s still in date.”

I
tsked
. “Your Greg needs someone to look after him, doesn’t he?” I took the tumbler she handed me and poured in some juice, then tasted it carefully. “Seems okay. Ta.”

“It’s Gregory. You’re welcome. Right, well, we’d better get back to the others.” She didn’t make a move, though, so neither did I. After a moment, she spoke again. “Is it serious, you and this Phil?”

“Maybe.” I put my glass down on the counter and folded my arms. “What about you and Greg? Ory,” I added, as her forehead wrinkled up. “You never did say how you met.”

Sis had gone a bit pink. “Oh, the usual sort of way. Now come on, they’ll be wondering where we’ve got to.” She scurried out of that kitchen like it’d just made an improper suggestion to her. After a moment, I picked up my glass and followed her.

We got back to the “family” room to find it empty of anyone except, well, the family. Cherry looked a bit put out at Greg disappearing like that. I just hoped he hadn’t taken Phil off to his workshop to get busy with the skinning knives and sawdust.

“Think we should send out a search party?” I asked, wandering aimlessly around the room with my orange juice. I peered at a bookshelf, then recoiled at the sight of a mole in spectacles carefully positioned by a copy of
The Wind in the Willows
. If there was a rat and a toad around here too, I didn’t want to meet them.

“Don’t be silly.” Cherry was frowning, and she didn’t stop a moment later when Phil and the Worryingly Reverend Greg reappeared, looking oddly furtive. “
There
you are.”

Greg beamed at her. “We were in the study. Phillip expressed a desire to see my badger.”

I blinked. Even Cherry seemed a bit taken aback. “Good, was it?” I asked Phil.

He nodded. “Bigger than I was expecting too.” Totally straight-faced, the git.

“Yes,” Cherry put in. “A lot of people say that, don’t they, Gregory?”

Sod the orange juice, I decided. I was going back on the Slivovitz.

Chapter Five

What felt like several decades later, I took in a deep lungful of fresh air as the front door shut behind us. “Thank God we’re out of there. That place gives me the bloody creeps. It’s like
Animal Rescue
after the zombie apocalypse in there.”

“Seriously? You’ve found dead bodies—human bodies. And you’re creeped out by a few animal skins stretched over wire?” Phil laughed, the git. “Bet my leather jacket gives you the right shivers, then. And don’t get me started on your shoes.”

I frowned at them, crunching over the short gravel drive and back to Phil’s car. “That’s different.”

“No, it’s not. Skin’s skin.” Phil’s automatic central locks
ca-chunked
open, and we got in.

I shuddered. I’d touched dead people too. It wasn’t an experience I liked to remember. “Your jacket doesn’t look like a dead animal. Anyway, what do you mean, wire? I thought they, you know, stuffed them. With sawdust or something.”

“Nah. They make a wire frame, then pull the skin on like a glove.”

“Okay, that picture is
not
helping.” I was going to have nightmares about people wearing dead animals on their hands like some sick cross between
Dexter
and
The Muppet Show
.

“Remind me not to take you to see any horror movies. You’d probably scream like a girl.”

“No, I’d scream like a bloke. It’s lower-pitched and more manly.”

“You keep telling yourself that.” He pulled out through the gateway and onto the cobbles of Cathedral Close.

I was silent until we got out onto the road. “What was all that about Old Deuteronomy, then? Since when have you been all bloody theological?”

“Come off it, you’ve got to know Leviticus is the one the Bible-bashers quote when they want to justify nailing people to fences.”

“Maybe.” To be honest, those weren’t the sort of stories I liked to dwell on much.

“Thought you went to Sunday School?”

“Yeah, but the lessons there were more about Jesus suffering the little kiddies and setting up his own branch of Subway next to the sea of Galilee.”

“You what?”

“You know. Feeding the five thousand. Anyway, they didn’t go into the controversial stuff is what I’m saying.” Actually, I was surprised how well I could remember Mrs. Whatshername telling us the stories and giving us sheets to colour in where all the blokes seemed to be wearing dresses. I’d liked Mrs. Whatshername, although now I came to think about it, she’d left Sunday School under a bit of a cloud too. Right about the time Mr. Somebodysdad stopped bringing the kids to church.

No wonder they hadn’t wanted to go controversial in the lessons.

“What was up with you and Greg, anyway? Disappearing off like a couple of kids going behind the bike sheds for a snog.” I gave Phil a nudge with my elbow. “Did he really show you his badger?”

“Jealous, were you?”

“No, just worried about you. If he tried groping you with hands that size, he might snap something off by mistake.”

“You really ought to see someone about that castration complex. No, don’t tell your sister this, but he’s asked me to work for him.”

“You what? Oi, you’re not spying on my sister.”

“Did I say anything about your sister? It’s nothing to do with her. Gregory just doesn’t want to worry her.”

Huh. Now Phil was calling him Gregory. “Worry her about what?”

“He’s been getting these letters. Hate mail.”

“Seriously? What, from animal lovers?”

“No. He thinks it’s queer-bashers, but they’re not that specific.”

“What,
Rot in hell for reasons unknown
?”

“Just bible verses, mostly. About sinners in general, and false prophets, and people who reject God’s teachings. But he’s spoken out on gay rights, stuff like getting married in church, and that’s the one that gets people’s backs up the most.”

“What are they like, these letters? Are they done with bits of newspaper, like on the telly?”

“He said they were just printed out on cheap paper—like from a computer.”

“He said? Didn’t you ask to see them?”

Phil huffed. We were on the main road now. It was pretty quiet—I supposed this time of a Saturday night, everyone who was going out had already got where they were going, and everyone else was tucked up on the sofa in their onesies watching Graham Norton. “He burned them. Six letters so far, he thinks, though it could have been one or two more or less, and they’ve all disappeared up the bloody chimney.”

“So there’s no proof they ever even existed.”

“I wondered if you’d spot that. What do you think of him? Apart from the dead animals.”

“Dunno. Not what you’d call normal, is he? Then again, who is?”

“Speak for yourself.” Phil was silent for a moment. “He seems fairly harmless, though. And he’s got integrity, I’ll give him that.”