Page 56 of Pressure Head
I might not be religious, but I was a bit scandalised, all the same. “Gary! You can’t do that kind of stuff in a church!” I hissed.
They burst out laughing.
“What?” I said, miffed.
“Darren was speaking, ah, euphemistically. We weren’t talking about theactualbelfry.”
Thank God for that. “Right. Fine. But keep it down, yeah? The volume, I mean, in case you thought I meant that euphemistically too. There are people still coming out of church.” I turned to indicate the open door, just as the Rev poked his head out.
He saw our little group, and for a moment, I thought he was having a heart attack. His face, pale to begin with, turned grey, and he literally staggered where he stood. A group of die-hard churchgoers surrounded him then, and he was lost to view.
I felt sick. Christ, what had I done to the poor bloke?
“Well, well, well,” Darren said. “Who’d have thought it?”
I wrenched my attention back from the concerned knot in the church porch. “Thought what?”
“I’d never have reckoned I’d see that face above a dog collar.” He laughed. “Not that sort, anyhow.”
“Ooh, do you know our Merry?” Gary trilled.
“Darren,” I said carefully. “If you’re about to tell me you used to work with the bloke, I think my head’s going to explode. Fair warning and all.” Bloody hell. The Rev’s little episode hadn’t been about me at all. It’d been about Darren.
Darren laughed. “Nah—but he was a fair old goer in his day. Years ago, it was, back in London, when I met him. There was this party, see—we was celebrating, ’cause we’d just finished filming . . .” He frowned. “Sod it, which film was it? Might have beenA Taste of Mud Honey—or hang on, was itHope and Glory Holes? You’d have liked that one; it had a plumber in it. Goes to fix a public lav in Clapham, and when he bends over to shove in his plunger, he gets—”
“And the Rev?” I whispered, impatient.
“Yeah, he was— Oh, I know which one it was we’d just done.The Horniness of the Long-Dicked Cummer. Good film, that was. I had some great reviews for that one.”
I looked around nervously, but luckily all the old dears from church were already doddering off to their Sunday lunches or their online bingo or whatever it was they did with their time, not listening in to Darren’s potted history of British gay porn. “So this party, what happened?”
“Well. Me and the lads turn up at this place—it was at the director’s house, nice place it was too, very nice—and we was still in costume, so we was in a fair bit of demand. I had on this leather harness—”
Gary’s face lit up. “Ooh, Sweetie Pie, have you still got it?”
“Nah, sorry, Pumpkin. Weren’t mine to start with—I had to give it back after the party. Tell you what, though, I know a bloke with a garage in Camden—”
“Can we get back to the bit about the Rev, here?” I interrupted. “You can sort out your kinky love lives later.”
“Bit of a prude, are we?” Darren asked in anOoh, get him!kind of voice.
“Just think of me as the saddo who isn’t getting any, so doesn’t want to hear about people who are,” I muttered.
“You won’t want to hear about the Rev, then. When I saw him, he was sucking off Wayne—he was the long-dicked cummer—and getting his arse pounded by Rudy. Course, Rudy just had a small part in the film.” Darren cackled with laughter. “Had a big part in your Rev, though, din’t he?”
My gob was well and truly smacked. I stared at him, open-mouthed. Then I closed it quickly, because the mental image of a spit-roasted Merry wasn’t doing wonders for my stomach.
“I don’t believe it!” Gary actually sounded genuinely shocked, which is not an easy feat to accomplish. “Merry?”
“He was that night, anyhow. Totally off his head. Anyone’s and everyone’s, he was.”
“Youdidn’t!” Gary gasped, his hands to his mouth.
“What, me personally? I’m wounded, Pumpkin. I thought you knew I’ve got taste.” He winked. “I know a few more who did, though.”
God, Merry must have been easy prey for that lot, with all his pent-up desires and his repressions wiped out by the alcohol and whatever else he was on. Maybe Darren read my expression. “What? He was old enough to look after himself, wasn’t he?”
Gary made a sort of apologetic face.
“Course,” Darren carried on thoughtfully, “now I come to think about it, maybe it ain’t so surprising. I used to live near Lambeth Palace, and you wouldn’t believe what a load of randy buggers some of them was. They never admitted they was church, mind, but you can tell.”
I didn’t need to hear any more. “Listen, I’ve got to go, all right?” I said. “I’ll catch you later.” I half ran out of the churchyard. I had to tell Phil about it. This was just what he’d been talking about, wasn’t it? Blackmail—at least, the possibility of blackmail.
It didn’t make sense, though. Even if Melanie had somehow found out about the Rev’s wild youth, would she really have blackmailed him? I didn’t want to believe her capable of something so, well, heartless. And it was an even bigger leap of faith to imagine the Rev killing her. After all, when he’d found me poking around his stuff, he hadn’t gone ballistic with the fire irons, had he?
I shivered a little, though, as it finally sunk in what a risk I’d been taking, going there on my own. Phil was right. I’d been a twat.
I got in my Fiesta, made sure my seat belt was nice and tight, and drove back to St. Albans, bypassing my house and heading straight for London Road.
