‘Cocksucker,’ said Sellers. He thought about Mandy and the Age Concern shop’s evening event, and realised he’d made the wrong choice. The way he was feeling at the moment, he’d happily sit in a grey plastic chair in a smelly shop for the rest of his life as long as Gibbs wasn’t sitting beside him.
When Charlie opened her front door and saw Simon, her heart dropped and landed with a thump on the floor of her stomach. Then, with equal speed and as little warning, it began to ascend, as if someone had filled it with helium. Simon was here; he’d made the effort to come and see her. About time.
‘Hi,’ she said. He was holding something behind his back. Flowers? Unlikely, unless he’d hired a private tutor in the social graces since Charlie last spoke to him.
‘What’s happened here?’ he asked, looking at the bare hall behind her.
‘I’m redecorating.’
‘Oh, right. Sorry, I…’ He craned his neck, looking for paint and dust-sheets that Charlie hadn’t bought yet.
‘Not now, at this precise second. I was just about to grab a spoon and have some cold, ready-made chilli from a jar for my dinner. Fancy some?’
‘Why don’t you heat it up?’ Simon looked puzzled. ‘You’ve got a microwave.’
‘I suppose you’d rather it was home-made as well. With organic beef.’ You’re going to drive him away before he’s even through the door.
‘Why didn’t you give that letter to me?’ Simon produced a hostility to match Charlie’s. ‘About Mark Bretherick not being who he says he is? Why did you take it to Proust?’ They glared at one another; it was like old times. Strange how quickly they could switch back.
‘You know the answer to that.’
‘No, I don’t. I don’t know the answer to anything. I don’t know why you stopped talking to me, or jacked in CID. Do you blame me for what happened last year, is that it?’
‘I don’t want to talk about that. I mean it.’ Charlie gripped the door, ready to close it. It was too late, of course-the shame was already in the house. It was there even before Simon had said the words ‘last year’; she knew he knew, and that was enough.
Simon stared at his shoes. ‘All right, so you’re punishing me,’ he said quietly. ‘And I’m supposed to guess why.’
How could Charlie tell him that her respect for him had grown since she’d removed herself from his life? From the start Simon had had the good sense to stay away from her; he’d known there was a taint about her, waiting to happen.
‘So, you’d fuck up your career just to spite me,’ he said viciously. ‘I’m flattered.’
Charlie laughed. ‘The world doesn’t begin and end with CID, you know. What about your career? Don’t you think it’s time you took your sergeant’s exams?’
‘One day someone’s going to realise how ridiculous it is that I’m still a DC, and they’ll do something about it. I’m not applying for anything.’
‘Oh, what shit is that?’ Charlie couldn’t keep the words back. How did Simon do it? How did he manage to hit her bang in the middle of her temper reflex every time? ‘You can’t be made a sergeant unless you put in for the exams and you bloody well know it.’
‘I know how many people are aching for a chance to kick me in the teeth. No way am I going begging for a promotion. I’d rather be a DC for ever and embarrass everybody by being better than them. I’ve got as much money as I need.’
Charlie knew no one but Simon who would adopt this attitude and stick to it. Who would really mean it. She wanted to weep. ‘Look, we can’t talk on the doorstep. Come in, if you can bear my shell of a house. But I meant what I said: certain subjects are closed.’ She turned and headed down the long narrow hall towards the kitchen. ‘What are you hiding, anyway? If it’s wine, hand it over.’ She took the jar of chilli out of the cupboard. There was nothing to go with it apart from some egg fried rice in a foil carton in the fridge, left over from a takeaway two days ago. It would have to do.
There was a rustle of plastic, the sound of something being taken out of a bag. Charlie looked round and saw two ugly greeting cards standing on her kitchen table. Both were creased and looked as if they’d travelled here in Simon’s trouser pocket. She took in the pastel-coloured flowers and swirly gold letters. ‘What are they?’ she asked, moving closer. ‘Wedding anniversary cards.’ Strange but true. She laughed. ‘Darling, don’t tell me I forgot our anniversary.’
‘Read them,’ said Simon gruffly.
Charlie opened them both at the same time, looked from one to the other. She frowned.
‘Don’t worry, I’ve not stolen them from evidence,’ said Simon. ‘The originals are back at the Brethericks’ house. But that’s what was written in them, word for word.’
‘Sam made you buy two more cards and copy out the messages? Why not just photocopy them?’
Simon’s cheeks reddened. ‘I didn’t want to bring photocopies. I wanted you to see them as cards. As I saw them, on the mantelpiece at Corn Mill House.’
Charlie tried to keep a straight face. Who else would bother? For greater accuracy, Simon had even made sure to cast in his reconstruction cards that had been designed specifically for marriages of ten years-like the Brethericks’, Charlie assumed. Both had embossed number tens on their fronts. ‘Where did you buy them?’
‘Garage down the road.’
‘The romance is killing me.’
‘Don’t laugh at me, all right?’ The warning in his eyes went beyond what he’d said. Something inside Charlie shrivelled and slunk away. Was he reminding her that she was no longer in a position to feel superior to him? To anyone? It didn’t matter if he was or wasn’t; she’d just reminded herself.
She picked up the jar of chilli, twisted open its lid and emptied it into a small orange pan. Welcome to the most miserable dinner party in the world. She didn’t even have any lager.
‘I want to talk to you about it. Geraldine and Lucy Bretherick. ’ Simon’s voice closed in behind her. ‘You’re the only person I want to talk to about it. It’s not the same without you. Work, I mean. It’s shit.’
‘Sam’s been keeping me up to date,’ said Charlie.
‘Sam? Kombothekra?’
‘Yeah. There’s no need to look like that.’
‘You see him? When? Where?’ Simon made no attempt to conceal his displeasure.
‘He and his wife have me round for dinner sometimes.’
‘Why?’
‘Thanks a lot, Simon.’
‘You know what I mean. Why?’
Charlie shrugged. ‘They’re new in town. Well, newish. I don’t think they’ve got many friends.’
‘They’ve never invited me.’
‘Why don’t you get your mum to ring and complain? Pathetic, Simon!’
‘Why d’you go?’
‘Free food, free booze. And they don’t expect to be invited back, ever, because I’m single and pitiable and in need of looking after. Kate Kombothekra thinks all single women over the age of thirty live in brothels without kitchens.’
Simon yanked a chair out from under the table, scraping its legs along Charlie’s new tiled floor. He sat down and hunched forward, his large hands on his knees, looking as if he might pounce. ‘You don’t speak to me for a year, but you go round to Kombothekra’s house for dinner.’
Charlie stopped stirring the chilli. She sighed. ‘You’re the person I was closest to. Before. I found it-I still find it-easier to be with people who-’
‘What?’ Simon’s mouth was set; his next move might be to punch her. He used to hit people all the time. Men. Charlie hoped he remembered she was a woman; you could never tell with Simon.
‘People I don’t know very well,’ she said. ‘People I can relax with, and not worry that they know exactly how I feel.’