Page 65 of Pressure Head
Phil shook his head. “All the jobs you could have done—rat catcher, traffic warden, dustman—and you chose to go wading around in other people’s shit for a living.”
“It’s a labour of love,” I said, straight-faced.
We parted company at the front door ten minutes later, and Phil went off back to his place for some clean socks—actually, come to think of it, socks were the one item of clothing I could actually have lent him. It wasn’t exactly a sentimental farewell: just a nod and a “See you later.” I had to get a shift on, over to the other side of St. Albans for Mrs. R. and her blocked drain. Still, at least I was pretty certain Iwouldsee him later. All of him. My good mood lasted all the way to her house, and even through lying on the ground with my arm down a foul-smelling pipe to the shoulder—then disappeared down the plug-hole when Dave called.
He was another one who didn’t bother withhello. “What’s all this about the bloody vicar, then?”
“Kind of in the middle of a job, here,” I protested, trying not to drip slime on my clothes from the hand that wasn’t holding my phone, while Mrs. R. wrinkled her nose at me. In the cold light of day, it all seemed a bit daft, me getting so creeped out by the Rev.
“Put that on your gravestone, shall we?”
“What? Look, you’ve got it all wrong. He was just acting a bit odd, that’s all.” I glanced at Mrs. R., who was cleaning her glasses on her sari and trying to pretend she wasn’t listening in. “Look, I can’t talk right now. I’m with a customer.”
“How soon will you be finished?”
“Half an hour, maybe? Depends.”
“Soon as you can get away, I want you down the station.”
“You what?”
“You heard me. I want a proper statement from you about what the vicar told you—none of thisoh, he was acting a bit odd, but I’m sure it’s nothing. I want the facts, that’s all. And thenI’lldecide if it needs following up.”
“Fine.” I might have huffed a bit.
“And you can leave off the martyred tone, all right? This isn’t a bloody game. It’s a murder investigation. So we do things my way—no, bollocks to that,Ido things my way.Youdon’t even breathe funny without a court order and a note from your mum.”
“That’d be you, then, would it? All right, all right, I’ll be there, keep your hair on. What’s put you in such a bad mood—did she stand you up last night or something?”
There was a heavy sigh. “Oh, she turned up, all right. Bit older than I was expecting, but we had a great evening—went out for a meal, talked for hours. I told her all about Jenny and the job and everything.”
“But?” because there was obviously abut.
“But, at the end of the evening, she says,Sorry, Dave, you’re a nice bloke, but you’re too hung up on your ex-wife. So that was that.”
“Her loss, Dave,” I said kindly. Then I put the phone down and got back to the serious business of sorting out Mrs. R.’s drain.
I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to remember a conversation you had the day before, word for word. I found myself making a right hash of it, although it probably didn’t help that every time I shifted on the hard chair in Dave’s police interview room, a twinge in my arse sent my mind skipping happily back to last night with Phil. I’d headed straight round to the police station after Mrs. R.’s, thinking if Dave was going to make such a song and dance about the whole thing, he could bloody well put up with me whiffing a bit, but I was starting to wish I’d nipped home for a shower and a change of clothes first. Apparently, the police force weren’t big on windows that opened. Funny, that.
“Right,” Dave said wearily. “So the Rev’s a bit limp-wristed. No surprise there. And he did a few things when he was younger he wouldn’t want the bishop finding out about.”
Of course, from what Darren had said, there was a good chance the bish might have got up to some of the same tricks, but I wasn’t going to mention that to Dave.
“And,” Dave went on, “he had his knickers in a twist about the whole thing, but after he’d talked to you—you being, apparently, Hertfordshire’s new gay Agony Uncle—he’d decided what to do about it, and was feeling a bit better. Is that it?”
From the tone of his voice, I could feel a caution for Wasting Police Time coming on. “It . . . look, you had to be there, all right? He just seemed a bit, well, off.”
Dave massaged his temples. “Can you give me a for instance?”
I screwed my face up so hard, thinking, I could feel a headache of my own coming on. “Sorry,” I said in the end. “I did try and tell you on the phone it was just a feeling.”
“Feelings. Gawd help us.” Dave sighed heavily and pushed back his chair. “Just leave the investigating to the professionals, all right?”
“Sir?” A uniformed constable hovered at the door, although from the look of him, he ought to have been in school studying for his GCSEs. I had a vague idea that probably meant I was getting old, if the policemen started looking younger—but sod it, the kid hadacne. “You’re wanted. There’s been a development.”
Dave looked round sharply. “What kind of bleedin’ development?” The constable’s eyes flicked over to me. “Fine, fine, we’re done here anyway. Tom, you can go—come back and see me when the Reverend gives you his signed confession, all right?”
PC Puberty’s eyes went wide. “Um, sir, you might want to hear about this before you let the witness go.”
