The pain ebbed away from Henry’s damaged body, replaced by a wave of energy.
‘ Oh God, Henry, we need to do it,’ she said.
No. Say no, Henry, you complete fucking imbecile. Think of Kate. The girls. Think about what happened last time.
‘ Yes,’ he said hoarsely.
He eased her out of her zip-up jacket and pulled her tracksuit top over her head. She released her grip on his fly and lifted up her arms obligingly to facilitate the movement. He tossed the top to one side and his arms quickly carried out a pincer movement to her back, his fingers meeting in the middle at her bra strap. It was a smooth manoeuvre and the clasp was breached in a second and the bra dropped to the floor.
He could feel her easing his jeans off, which ended up around his ankles, then she pulled down the front of his Y-fronts.
Another of those deep throaty groans broke from her lips when she grabbed his hard, swaying cock and slid back the foreskin.
‘ Aaah,’ he heard himself say. His hands went to her breasts, her nipples erect against the palms. He looked down at them. They were sweet, deep pink, long and excited.
‘ Come over here,’ she urged him.
They shifted to the settee like practising dance partners, allowing Henry the chance to step out of his jeans and trainers. He sat down quickly, removing his underpants and socks as he did so. Siobhan stood over him, bending forwards, those beautiful breasts hanging near his face. In a second she was out of her jeans and knickers. Both of them were completely naked.
He had only a few seconds to appreciate her body before she pushed him back onto the settee. He lay there without a fight. She went on him immediately, devouring him in her mouth and he surprised himself by not ejaculating there and then. She worked on him with wonderful lips and a wet, wet tongue, constantly looking up at him, judging his pleasure, until he could stand it no longer — at which juncture he took hold of her and drew her up.
He sat up. She sat next to him. He dropped to his knees and twisted round between her legs.
God, she smelled intoxicating.
For a moment they stared into each other’s eyes. Her mouth was open and wet and hot as he clamped his over it and kissed her fiercely. His fingers slid from her breasts and down between her legs, searching for and finding her. She was soaking.
‘ I get very wet,’ she said.
‘ Apparently.’
She lay back, opening herself to him. His head went down, his mouth working over her, tongue probing deftly, darting in, out, around. She squirmed and moaned, rotating her hips as everything built inside her. ‘Beautiful,’ she murmured appreciatively. ‘Henry, come on, do it, fuck me. Come on; let’s fuck now.’
What? Maybe he was an old-fashioned fuddy-duddy, but somehow the word seemed so… inappropriate. OK, it is what they were about to do. But fuck? This wasn’t going to be a fuck, was it? Kate would never use such terminology… yeah, Kate.
He shrugged off the brief unease and helped Siobhan to lie full-length on the settee. He clambered over her, holding himself aloft, his elbow joints locked. She drew up her knees and Henry, keeping his balance with one shaky hand, reached down and aimed his prick towards her, knowing that within a matter of seconds he would be in deep.
In deep… all of a sudden he caught an image of himself in his mind.
He saw his jeans and underpants, socks and trainers, out of the corner of his eye.
Then he visualised Kate and remembered the look on her face the last time. The hurt, the pain. The despair, the tears. The anger. Kate, the only woman he had truly loved. Who he never wanted to hurt and who he had betrayed in the worst way imaginable. He had done it once, and every day since it had been with him. The guilt. Always ready to pop up at the most inappropriate moments and niggle away at him like a cancer.
Yet here he was again. Once more with a younger woman. His penis touching the fat wet lips of her vagina, ready to plunge in, and fuck the consequences.
But this time there would be no consequences.
In that moment, when it could have gone either way, he made the decision, with a little whimper.
‘ I’m sorry,’ he said, kneeling up, his penis curved up out of his bush, touching his belly, swaying between them like an innocent bystander. He reversed off the settee like a crab, leaving Siobhan lying there stunned and unsatisfied, still wanting. ‘I can’t. It’s lovely. It’s been really lovely. And I really would like to do it.’ He gulped for air. ‘But I can’t. I’m sorry. Just won’t work.’ He scooped his clothes together and danced an impressive jig as he got into his Y’s. The bulge of his penis remained highly prominent.
Siobhan lay there for a few seconds in total, gobsmacked disbelief. This was replaced by a look of scorn and hatred which turned Henry’s soul cold. ‘You can’t do this, Henry. Starting something and then leaving me in mid- fucking air.’ It was as if another character had taken over her, someone slightly deranged. Or maybe just completely pissed off, Henry couldn’t be sure. ‘So, come on, fuck me. I want it. I want you. You can’t leave me in the air like this.’
‘ Look, I’m really sorry, but I can’t go through with it.’ He was struggling to get into his shirt and fasten it, finding one of the buttons missing and a tear in the fabric where it had once been. ‘It was a silly thing to contemplate. We’re colleagues, I’m a supervisor and I’m married. It’d all go horribly wrong.’
She rolled off the settee and stood proudly before him, seething anger hissing from every pore. Henry wasn’t so far gone that he couldn’t appreciate what a wonderful body she had and he was already regretting not completing the act.
‘ Is it me?’ she demanded. ‘Am I not good enough for you?’
‘ No, it’s not you. I mean — oh damn! You’re great, brilliant. I couldn’t think of anything better than making love to you. God, it’s me. Definitely me.’
He was slightly off-balance, hopping about on one foot whilst pulling a trainer on.
The hard, open-handed, perfectly-aimed slap which sent him winging across the room, crashing into the cabinets, caught him completely by surprise. It jarred everything that was hurting and made the punch Anderson had laid on him pale by comparison.’
‘ Jesus,’ he yelped, in a pathetic heap on the floor. ‘There was no need for that.’
Still naked, quivering with resentment, she stood over him, her eyes ablaze.
‘ I’ll tell you one thing you are right about, Henry fucking Christie, you out-and-out bastard. It has all gone horribly wrong. For you, that is.’
She stooped down, picked up her clothes and strutted into the other office to get dressed.
They met, as ever, at the Country Club, all arriving at different times. This, however, was purely a business meeting and no time was spent in the pool. They had use of a small conference room which had been swept for listening devices prior to their arrival.
Drinks and sandwiches were laid on. All very civilised.
Morton. McNamara. Conroy.
The three men who had met many years before, when each had been at the beginning of their chosen career, and since then their lives and fates had intertwined.
Morton and Conroy went back to 1960s Manchester. They had met when Morton had been a Salford city beat bobby and Conroy was running a couple of streetwalkers and a very iffy protection racket on a few Pakistani shopkeepers. Each assisted the other to mutual benefit. Morton made things easy for Conroy by feeding him information about police activities which might impinge on his business interests; in return Conroy offered up one or two sacrificial lambs by way of good quality prisoners which enhanced Morton’s professional standing.
Both had prospered.
Conroy grew as a criminal. Morton was promoted as a detective.
Now Morton was close to retirement. At fifty-four he had thirty-five years’ service, having been rotten for thirty-four of them. At his rank he could have stayed until he was sixty, but mid-fifties had always been his aim.