His chest was bare. He wore only a pair of dancer’s trousers. Every detail of his well-muscled, young body was on show, above and below the waist. I realised that I could see not just the bulge, but the shape of his cock.
I felt my erection growing. It was almost hurting. I had to do something about it. I glanced around me. I was just one of a throng of like-minded men. No one was looking at me. None of them were interested in anything except their own needs.
I had little idea what the financial protocol might be. In the dim light and at a certain distance, I hadn’t been able to be sure of the denomination of the bank notes being passed over. I thought the middle-aged punter I had watched so carefully may have handed over bundles of tenners. I was pretty certain the notes were pink. But, of course, they could have been fifties. Surely not? I decided I would start small and maintain my options. Although the ache in my groin was making that difficult.
I passed the beautiful boy three twenty-pound notes. He leaned forward to take them in his teeth. I pressed them into his hand. I wanted this business over with.
‘Uh, c-could we go to a champagne room?’ I asked tentatively, stumbling slightly over my words.
The boy glanced at the money with a kind of mild amusement. Then he laughed out loud. All the while he carried on dancing, provocatively thrusting his groin towards me.
I passed over three more twenties. This time the boy merely half smiled. He still carried on dancing.
It was going to be more expensive than I had expected, but then, the quality of the goods appeared to exceed my expectations. I couldn’t mess about. I was now in a hurry. The money didn’t matter any more.
I passed over five more twenties.
The boy beckoned me forward. He led me into a ‘champagne room.’ It was small, like a cell, and very hot. The atmosphere was thick, heady, but any lurking hint of the fetid was well enough disguised by a heavy perfume, perhaps some kind of incense. That might have been a relief, if I hadn’t been so past caring. The only furniture within was a short, low couch covered by a velvet throw. Well-used, I imagined, but I didn’t care about that either. The door closed behind us.
I reached for him. He shook his head and backed off.
‘First you have to buy this,’ he said, producing a bottle of champagne. It cost me a further one-hundred pounds. I paid up without a murmur. We never even opened the bottle.
I was desperate for relief. I reached for him again. This time he did not back away. I could feel him now, as well as see him. His flesh warm and smooth. His lips full and instantly responsive. He surely was a God, sent to give me peace again.
I didn’t think a man like me could hope for anything beyond that, nor even wish for it.
So how was it that as I succumbed to the relentless grip of my desire, all I could think of was Tim.
Nice, ordinary, Tim. Tim who wanted more than sex.
Tim who wanted me.
Nine
Right after leaving the North Bristol Academy, Vogel received a text from Hemmings to say that the formal identification had been completed as expected. The dead girl was Melanie Cooke.
He called Willis to relay the news and to suggest they compare notes over lunch.
‘Don’t know about you, but I’m starving,’ said Vogel.
He’d been woken before 6 a.m. and eaten nothing that day, other than a couple of Daisy Wilkins’s biscuits. He was pretty sure the same went for Saslow too. Vogel believed in feeding the brain, even though he frequently forgot to do so. His brain, he feared, was not working at anything like full strength. He doubted that Willis had stopped to eat either. The DS seemed almost as driven as his boss, when he was on a big case. He told Willis to meet him and Saslow at the big, new, vegetarian restaurant down by the floating harbour. Vogel had been a vegetarian for years. He had no wish to be a participant, albeit by default, in the death of any living creature. He wasn’t interested in pub lunches and didn’t drink alcohol. He just didn’t like the taste.
Most of the officers he worked with would have moaned about his choice of venue, preferring a pub or a burger bar. But Vogel knew Willis was only a moderate drinker, who rarely seemed to care what he ate. As for Saslow, he was quite sure she would like nothing better than a fancy salad or a plate of grilled root vegetables. She was always watching her weight, though Vogel had no idea why, he thought she was a perfect shape. He’d never found excessively skinny women attractive.
Willis, looking dapper as ever in a well-cut, navy blue suit, was waiting at a table, when Vogel and Saslow arrived. The DS had already ordered sparkling water, a plate of garlic bread and a dish of mixed olives. It occurred to Vogel that his little team were a tad different to most CID people. Gone were the days when everyone in a male-dominated world of police detection fortified themselves with several pints at lunchtime, as a matter of routine. Though, Vogel mulled, the odd one or two still slipped through the net and quite a few CID men, and women, carried a packet of polo mints close to their warrant card.
‘Oh well done, Willis,’ muttered Vogel, taking a large bite out of a slice of garlic bread, before he’d even sat down.
Saslow contented herself with nibbling an olive.
Vogel watched Willis cut a piece of bread into neat sections of almost identical size and shape, that was typical of the DS, thought Vogel. Willis was an organised, precise sort of man, who liked to put things into boxes. Vogel understood. He was much the same. He was aware of a number of similarities between himself and the somewhat pedantic sergeant. Not in personal appearance though, Vogel was incapable of looking dapper. His wardrobe consisted primarily of a selection of honourable, corduroy jackets in various states of dilapidation.
‘Come on then, Willis,’ said Vogel. ‘Tell us how you got on with the second Mrs Cooke.’
Willis gave a fair and balanced account of his interview, the flat vowels of his native, Manchester accent still evident in his voice, even after thirteen years in Bristol. He didn’t unduly stress the strained relationship between father and daughter or the matter of Susan Cooke’s sleeping pills. He did not need to, instead he gave just the correct amount of emphasis to both. He was that kind of copper, thought Vogel, who noted automatically that both the present and previous Mrs Cooke apparently had ‘trouble with her nerves.’
Willis did draw attention to the bruise on Mrs Cooke’s face.
‘Claire Brown and I both reckoned Terry’s been knocking her about. Bastard.’ Willis spat out the last word.
‘Steady,’ said Vogel. ‘Not the first wife beater you’ve come across, John, and it won’t be the last. Doesn’t make the man a killer.’
‘Maybe not. Makes him a vicious bully though. I can’t stand it, boss. Saw too much of it as a kid.’
Vogel and Saslow glanced at Willis in surprise. It wasn’t like him to remark on anything so personal. They both waited for the DS to tell them more, but he didn’t. Vogel, of course, was secretly relieved.
‘Anyway, on the basis of fact alone, we certainly can’t rule Terry Cooke out,’ Willis continued. ‘I don’t think an alibi from his missus would stand up for long in court, that’s for sure.’
Vogel nodded his agreement. ‘All the same,’ he said. ‘Looking at the family on the usual basis of who would be the likeliest suspect, I still lean more towards the stepdad. Although we know he’s a lying, cheating toerag, it no more makes him a killer than being a wife beater. Plus, his alibi seems pretty cast-iron to me.’
Vogel then enquired about any results from the officers knocking on doors in the vicinity of the crime scene.
‘Not a lot, I’m afraid, boss,’ responded Willis, glancing up from dissecting a second piece of garlic bread, ‘Stone Lane is tucked away just off the beaten track, which is why the girl was taken there, presumably. Turns out neither of those two big houses up the lane are occupied. They’re up for redevelopment, so nothing there. West Street and Old Market Street always have some sort of life going on, but the shops would all have been closed, of course, except the sex shops.