Page 26 of Pressure Head
Weird.
I could feel the water in the plumbing, of course—but apart from that, nothing. Not a peep.
I found the loo and took a quick peek in the cistern, but all I found was one of those tablets that turns the water blue. Treading as silently as I could, I crept to the stairs. Once I got there, it was a lot easier to be quiet, as the carpet had the sort of pile you don’t so much walk on as hack your way through with a machete. I padded upstairs and tried again with themystic crap, as Phil had put it.
Still nothing.
This wasreallyweird. Everyone hides stuff.Everyone. Frowning, I pushed open the nearest door and found myself in what looked like the spare bedroom. It was nicely decorated; the bed was made up—but there were no signs that anyone actually lived in it. No half-drunk glasses of water on the bedside table; no rolled-up socks peeking out from under the bed. No vibes, either. I tiptoed out again and went next door.
This room was clearly the master bedroom—or rather, the mistress bedroom, although only in the lady-of-the-house sense. It was still unfeasibly tidy, but there were discreetly expensive pots of face cream on the dressing table, and a bonkbuster by the bed. Well, clearly Mrs. E. had to get her kicks between the pages, as I could tell at a glance she wasn’t letting poor old Cock Robin in here to give them to her between the sheets. Still no vibes, though, which was weird. The top drawer of the bedside cabinet was open a couple of inches, so I pulled it out the rest of the way, boggled briefly at the variety of sex toys carelessly scattered inside, and shut it again. Didn’t she hideanything?
I was going to have to hurry up, I reminded myself. I gave up on Mrs. E. as a bad job and went looking for where her husband slept. I found it at the other end of the corridor, a boxy little room with a tiny window looking out over the road; clearly Robin thought getting as far away as possible from his lady wife was far more important than having room to swing a cat in.
If this was how the other half lived, I didn’t rate it.
Robin’s room was the most lived-in one in the house—but even there, I felt nothing.Nothing. And that really was odd, because I’d have sworn blind he had secrets. Maybe he’d found somewhere else to keep them. I took a quick look in his drawers, but all I found were neatly paired socks. Not even any porn. Which, to my mind, was the strongest argument yet he was having an affair.
So the question was, where did he keep all his dirty little secrets? I rubbed my chin. He was an estate agent—how hard could it have been for him to set up some little love nest for him and Melanie, or whoever the lucky lady was. He wouldn’t even have to buy a place—just set up a rental lease with a fictitious client for an absentee landlord.
When I got back downstairs, Phil and Mrs. E. were standing by the kitchen door—obviously I’d cut it a bit fine getting back. “You were a long time,” she challenged me, the previous glow in her cheeks now frozen out of existence.
“Sorry, love,” I said with a grimace, rubbing my tummy. “Bit too much of the old Ruby Murray last night. Probably best if you give it ten minutes before you go in there. Still, squirt a bit of air freshener and it’ll be right as rain. Are we done here, Phil?”
He nodded, his lips pressed together like he was trying not to laugh. “We’re done.”
We left her standing there. She didn’t look half as pretty with that sour expression on her face.
“What did you find?” Phil asked as we drove away.
“Well, she’s not human, and he’s hiding stuff, but not here. So in other words, bugger all.”
Phil swore. “Nothing at all?”
I shrugged. “They’re not sleeping together, her and Cock Robin. He dosses in the box room, and she makes her own entertainment with a couple of mechanical friends.” Phil snorted a laugh. “So chances are she wasn’t telling porkies about him having it off with the staff.”
“All of them? Or just Melanie?”
“We don’t know it was her.” Okay, so maybe I’d only met her the once, and that not exactly socially—what with her being dead and all—but I felt a bit defensive of poor Melanie. It wasn’t like she could speak up for herself. “It could have been anyone, not just people at the office. For fuck’s sake, it could have been Graham.”
“In your dreams, Paretski.”
“What?” I’d had as many sexual fantasies as the next man, but sex involving Graham didn’t exactly make my top ten. It didn’t even make the top ten thousand.
Phil wrenched the wheel around, taking a corner a bit faster than he needed to. “You just want East to swing both ways because you’re desperate for him to swing in your direction.”
I cocked my head to one side like I was considering it. “Well, I wouldn’t kick him out of bed. I mean, come on, he’s pretty bloody gorgeous.”
“He’s a slimy git who cheats on his wife.”
“Yeah, but who can blame him?”
“A vow’s a vow.” Phil’s jaw was set.
“Oh, for— You didn’t see those rooms. Maybe they made the vows, but you can’t tell me what they’ve got is a marriage. It’s a sham. And she doesn’t give a toss who knows it.”
“I don’t give a monkey’s. They made their vows; they should stick to them.”
“Says the bloke who’s never made that kind of promise in his life.” When did Phil turn into a bloody Victorian moralist?
