Relief Valve: The Plumber's Mate, Book 2 (7 page)

“Yeah? How do you know that? Try it on, did you, and he turned you down?”

“As if.” I wasn’t sure if Phil meant, “as if” he’d cheat on me, or “as if” anyone would turn him down. “He could have been a bishop by now if he hadn’t stuck to his principles. Gay rights, women in the church, immigration—he’s got some unpopular opinions, at least according to the Church of England, and he’d get a lot further in his career if he kept quiet about them. Which is what most of them do. Just pretend to toe the party line.”

“So it could be the National Front sending him these letters?”

“Doubt it. He reckoned they were all spelled correctly, had good grammar and that.”

“So you think everyone who never got their A Level English is a racist? Cheers.”

“No, but I do think your average racist is pig fucking ignorant. For Christ’s sake, stop being so bloody touchy.”

“Oi. Just because I don’t happen to agree with every bloody word that drops from your lips doesn’t mean I’m sodding
touchy
.”

“Then calm down, all right? Jesus. You been taking drama-queen lessons from your mate Gary?”

There was a bit of a tense silence for the rest of the drive.

“You want to come in?” I asked as Phil pulled up in front of my house. It might have come off a bit more uninviting than I meant it to.

Then again, maybe not.

“Nah,” he said after a pause. “Think I’ll get an early night. Got stuff to do tomorrow.”

“Yeah, me too. Right. Goodnight, then.”

“Yeah. Night.”

I walked in, got a beer out of the fridge and sat on the sofa with it for a minute or two, feeling sorry for myself while the cats ignored me.

Then I pulled my mobile out and called Gary.

“Darling, everything all right?”

“Yeah, fine. Are you at home?” I couldn’t hear any background noise on his end.

“Mmm. Quiet night in.” There was something in his voice, but I couldn’t tell what it was. “I thought you were out tonight, though?”

“I was. I came back.” I took a swig of beer. “Do you think it’s weird Phil still wears his wedding ring?”

“Weird? No. Disturbing? Yes. Does he wear it in bed?”

“God, no.” I thought about it. “At least, not so’s I’ve noticed.”

“Good. You wouldn’t want him to be pumping away inside you and all the time thinking about a corpse.”

Great. Now I had visions of him doing just that. “Cheers, mate.”

“Have you confronted him?” Gary made it sound like it’d be some huge dramatic scene like in a soap opera. Of course, if he was involved, it probably would be.

“Well, he knows I’m not happy about it.”

“Good. Ignoring the elephant in the room never went well for my mother. Of course, as I told her at the time, she should never have married him. I told her she should make him pack his trunk.” There was the sound of muffled laughter.

I frowned. “Have you been drinking?”

“I am over eighteen, darling.”

“Just a bit. Is Darren there with you? No, don’t answer that. Tell him congrats from me, and if he jilts you at the altar, I’ll cut his balls off and sell them on the market, two for a pound.”

The laughter wasn’t muffled this time, and I was fairly sure I heard Darren say, “Come on if you think you’re hard enough,” which was asking for trouble with the innuendo meister in the room with him. The conversation deteriorated pretty rapidly after that, and I hung up with a smile.

It was good to see
someone’s
love life finally going all right.

Chapter Six

I was on my way to a job in Potter’s Bar when my phone rang a few days later.

It was Phil. We hadn’t seen each other since Saturday night. Must have been all this “stuff” we both had to do. I froze for a mo, then pulled over—lucky it was a quiet road—and hit “accept call”. “Yeah?”

His voice sounded a bit hesitant. “You all right?”

“Yeah, I’m good. You?” Being so bloody polite was setting my teeth on edge. “Just ring up for a chat, did you? ’Cause I’m on my way to a job right now.”

There was a sigh. Or maybe just a particularly heavy breath. It was hard to tell over the phone. “You busy tomorrow afternoon?”

“What time?”

“Straight after lunch.”

I mentally reviewed my schedule. “I’ve got a job on at eleven, shouldn’t take more than an hour or so, then nothing until four. Why?” If he said the reason was we needed to talk, I was going have to invent an emergency call-out.

“I’m going to see Greg about those notes he’s been getting.”

“And you want me to hold your hand? Now who’s scared of the little furry animals?” There was a silence. “Sorry.”

Another sigh. “Yeah.” Yeah, what? Yeah, he was sorry too? Or he was agreeing I ought to be?

“So you want me to come with?” I prompted.

“If you want.” Another pause. It was a bloody good thing I hadn’t been on the motorway with nowhere to stop the van, or we’d have been in six o’clock news territory by now.
Multi-vehicle pile-up on A1(M)
, the headline would be. Or, if the
Sun
wrote it,
Poofter Plumber goes Postal in Potter’s Bar
. “Greg said he’d show us around the cathedral.”

I couldn’t help smiling. “Well, if there’s a trip round the cathedral in it for me…”

“Git. So, you coming?”

“Yeah, I guess so. Wanna meet for lunch first?”

“You going to have time?”

“Well, no, not really, but we could grab a sandwich somewhere. Actually, come to think of it, why don’t you come round mine tonight? I might even cook you something.”

“Sorry. Can’t do tonight.” He didn’t say why.

My smile evaporated. “Oh. Okay. See you tomorrow, then.” I hung up and then realised we hadn’t made any arrangements for actually meeting up tomorrow.

Sod it. He’d either ring me again, or he wouldn’t.

My eleven o’clock job turned out to be a bit more complicated than I’d expected, which was partly my fault. I fixed the leak in the bathroom (easy job: just the loo inlet pipe seal, which had left a nice tell-tale damp patch on the carpet) and was on my way out when I looked up at the ceiling, which was mottled with those lovely brown stains you get from an upstairs plumbing problem.

Except the leak I’d just fixed was placed wrong to have caused them. Now, I’d be the first to admit that sometimes water moves in mysterious ways, but something was telling me we had another leak here. “How long have those been there?” I asked.

Mrs. C. (plump, mid-sixties, made a nice cup of coffee but wasn’t what you’d call chatty) gave me a look that said she was starting to wonder what they were teaching plumbers these days. “Since the leak started, of course.”

“Just going to take another look upstairs, all right? Check everything else is okay.”

She followed me up, obviously suspicious I might be about to “discover” another leak with a swift blow of a wrench. I stood on the landing and listened, which probably made her wonder even more. Got it.

“You had your hot water tank checked lately?” I didn’t wait for an answer, just opened up the airing cupboard. Bingo.

She had a load of old towels and bedding stacked on the cupboard floor—obviously the type who didn’t throw anything away, in case it came in handy later. Which, as it happened, was just as well in this case.

I turned back to her. “See this?” I prodded the linens. “Absolutely sodden. ’Fraid you’re going to need a new hot water tank, love. They get these pinhole leaks in them, and then it’s only a matter of time before they go completely.”

She closed her eyes briefly, her face falling. “I don’t believe it. It never rains but it pours, does it?”

“Look on the bright side. At least we caught it before it started pouring through your ceiling.”

When I finally got out of there and looked at my phone, I saw there was a missed call from Phil and a text that just read,
Lnch?

I called him straight back. “Sorry, job overran. We still on for visiting Greg? Want to go via a drive-through?”

“Not a lot, no. Where are you?”

“Top end of Bricket Wood.”

“Right. Hop on the M1 and I’ll meet you at the Holiday Inn car park on the A414—you know it? Just past that roundabout with the modern art.”

“Those claw things? Give me the creeps, those do. Right. How long?”

“Twenty minutes. I’ll bring the food.”

I hopped and got there in ten. The van’s pretty nippy when she wants to be. I still didn’t beat Phil there, so obviously he’d already sorted out lunch before I called him, unless he’d changed his mind about the drive-through. Actually, I quite fancied a burger. The chips are always rubbish at those places, though.

I parked the van and jogged over to Phil’s car, my hands in my jacket pockets to keep them warm. Might as well let him drive us over to St Leonard’s, seeing as Greg would be paying for his petrol. “You all right, then?”

He nodded. “Get in.”

“You know, you’re going to have to work on toning down these effusive greetings. People are going to talk.”

“Git.” But he cracked a smile.

There was a paper bag on the seat, so I picked it up rather than sitting on it, then looked inside because I’m nosy like that. The mingled scent of warm bacon and greasy pastry teased my nose and set my stomach rumbling. “Nice. Not Greggs?”

“Nah, I went to the baker’s in Brock’s Hollow. Pass us a sausage roll.”

“You want to start with the bacon butties. They don’t stay hot.” I grabbed one out of the bag and took a bite. Lovely. Thick, crispy bacon and fresh, floury white bread, with just enough butter. You don’t need anything else for a bacon butty, not if you’re doing it right. I glanced at Phil. He was staring at me, his sossie roll forgotten and eyes crinkled up a bit at the corners in that way that makes him look like he’s got a headache, but actually means he’s trying not to laugh. “What? Have I got flour on my nose or something?”

“Yeah, but I was more bothered about what else that bacon sarnie was doing to you. Should I be getting jealous?”

“Hey, you’re the one who brought the butty into this relationship. If you didn’t want a threesome, you should have left it at the baker’s.”

He did laugh then. “God help us all when you get on to the sausage rolls. There’s a cup of tea here for you too, by the way.” He reached into the back footwell and brought out a cardboard cup holder, with his-and-his cups of tea, the teabag strings swinging jauntily. “Better get a shift on, though. We’re due at the Old Deanery at two.”

We munched in silence. It was, well, crap word, but it was nice. I’ve never been one for posh dinner dates, but there’s just something about sharing food with your bloke. Phil had parked facing away from the Holiday Inn, looking out over the green bit at the side. The view out the front windscreen wasn’t much, but it was all right, gave us something to look at, and it just felt sort of cosy, sitting there with Phil. I mean, it was pretty nippy outside despite the watery sunshine, and if we’d sat there much longer with the car heater off, my toes would probably have gone numb, but as it was, it was just right.

I was kind of sad when we’d finished. Still, places to go, canons to see. I crumpled up the bag, licked a few bits of flaky pastry off my fingers and wiped my hands on my jeans. “Ready?”

Phil nodded and switched on the ignition. His hand hovered by the gear stick, then changed track and reached over to grab the back of my neck and pull me in for a kiss. His lips were soft and warm and tasted of flour and bacon. I kissed him back, feeling a weird fluttering in my chest.

Too much greasy food, probably. It can give you indigestion.

When we broke apart again, Phil just looked at me for a long moment. “We ought to do this more often,” he said finally, with this funny sort of half smile on his lips.

“What, snog in public?” Not that there was actually anyone around to give a toss.

“Meet up for lunch. Go places together. You know.”

I didn’t know what to say. That fluttering in my chest was getting stronger, so I flashed him a smile and looked at my watch. “Yeah, okay. ’Bout time we were making a move, though, innit?”

Phil made a grunt of a sound that could have been a laugh or could have just been him agreeing with me. Then he put the car in gear, and we set off.

Traffic was light, and we got to the Old Deanery with five minutes to spare.

Gregory came to the door with a twinkle in his eyes and both large hands outstretched. I was worried for a moment he was going to pick me up or pinch my cheeks or something else I might never recover from, but he settled for clapping me and Phil on opposite shoulders simultaneously, as if he was about to knock our heads together. “Come in, come in,” he boomed.

We came in. Then we just stood there in the hallway for a bit while he beamed at us happily and I fought the urge to run.

Phil cleared his throat. “Perhaps we should go and sit down, and you can tell us some more about the letters—”