"And this was preferable?"
"Of course it was. No dishes to do."
"Thanks. Get in."
Jacquie came into my life when I was as low as I've ever been. I'll never be able to tell her how good she was for me, for I'd only be able to do that by comparing her with someone else, which would be unkind.
She was eighteen years younger than me and had the kind of figure that ought to be included in the Highway Code. Watch out, deadly distraction ahead. Masses of wild fair hair framed a face that was full-lipped yet ingenuous, blue-eyed but smouldering. English Rose meets Sophia Loren. It was a potent combination. But… "Let's go for a drive," I suggested, starting the engine. "I need my spirits lifting after that." I took us on to the Tops, near Blackstone Edge, and parked with the nose of the car almost overhanging the drop into Lancashire. It's one of my favourite places, and Jacquie wasn't the first woman I'd shared it with. I sat with my arm extended across the back of her seat, my fingers running through her hair, and we talked about our days as the sun fell imperceptibly into Morcambe Bay. Jacquie owns a boutique, Annie's Frock Shop, in the new mall, and she told me about a difficult customer and the problems of ordering from the winter collections when the thermometer is in the eighties. I told her about the robbers and the ram-raiders.
"I knew you'd ring me tonight," she said, 'although you left it a bit late."
"I didn't know I could get away until the last thing," I replied.
"It was in my stars."
"Was it?"
"Yes. What did yours say?"
"That I'd buy a rabbit and fall off my bike," I replied.
"Don't mock them," she admonished, looking at me. After a few moments she declared: "Leo. I bet you're a Leo, aren't you?"
"How do you work that out?"
"By studying you. You pretend to be relaxed, asleep, but you're always in charge, watching. That's a Leo characteristic. You have a wisdom, a self-confidence, but it's easily damaged and just as easily restored."
"Yep, that's me," I said. "All it takes is a tickle behind my ears." I pulled her closer until her head was resting on my shoulder. Her perfume was so delicate I hadn't smelled it until now, and it hit me like a fix.
"You're soft and cuddly," she went on, 'but you have claws and you're not afraid to use them, if necessary."
"Only on nasty people," I said. "And never on you."
"So am I right?"
"Ssh," I said. "Watch the sun. Sometimes, just as it disappears, there's a flash of green light."
The last molten blob of orange spread sideways and vanished, leaving a void in the sky that the stars would soon fill. "How long does it take you to brush your hair?" I asked.
She turned her face towards me and said: "As long as I've got. Two minutes? Ten minutes? It doesn't make much difference."
"Doesn't it?"
She shook her head.
"I'd like to brush it for you," I told her, burying my fingers and raking them through it. "Two hundred times, and then another two hundred just for the hell of it."
"That would be nice," she replied, tilting her face upwards towards mine.
Her lips are everything I'd dreamed they'd be, are everything I remember. But lips are lips, promising all, then creating greater desires than the one they satiate. My free hand slipped around her waist and hers fell on to my forearm, halting its progress, like it always does. I buried my face in that hair, gritted my teeth and thought of England.
Maggie was sitting in my chair when I arrived at the nick Saturday morning. "Morning, crime buster I said as she moved into the visitor's place. "Is the kettle on?" It was, of course.
"I've rung the hospital," Maggie informed me. "They're sending them home first thing, meaning nine o'clock, so I'll meet them there. Are you coming?"
"Do you need me?"
"No. I can manage."
"OK. I want a word with Mr. Wood, if he comes in. We need to know exactly what's missing: values; photographs, if possible; any distinguishing marks; you know the sort of thing."
"It's going to be a really jolly morning," she sighed.
"Yeah, afraid so. To be honest, I think you'll be better on your own.
Look after them, Maggie, it's a tough time for them."
She finished her tea, looked at her watch and decided there were a few minutes to waste. "So, did you have a riotous Friday evening?" she asked.
"Went to the Eagle," I replied. "Don't bother going. It's a fun pub now."
"The Eagle up on the moors?"
"Mmm."
"They used to do decent grub."
"Not any more."
"That's a shame. Did you, um, go by yourself, or were you, um, accompanied?" Maggie takes a sisterly interest in my love life.
"I, er, did have a companion with me," I admitted.
"The radiographer?"
"No."
"The librarian?"
"She's not a librarian. I thought she was but she'd just gone in to see her best friend, who is the librarian. They were both behind the counter and when they saw me approaching they fought to decide who served me."
"And the librarian friend won?"
"No," I said with forced patience, "Jacquie won."
"Ah, it's Jacquie, is it? So what does Jacquie do?"
"She owns Annie's Frock Shop in the mall."
"Really?"
"Really."
"So she's a lady of independent means?"
"Let's just say she's doing better than I am."
"Great, Charlie. I hope it works out for you. Tell me, why don't they call it Jacquie's Frock Shop?"
"I don't know. Maybe it's like Alice's Restaurant."
Maggie looked puzzled, then said: "So what happened to the radiographer?"
"She saw through me," I replied.
I had an hour doing paperwork until I felt the need for another brew coming on and went upstairs to see Superintendent Wood. When we were settled behind our mugs and I'd brought him up to date on crime in a small Pennine town, I said: "What can you tell me about Keith Crosby?"
He took that first tentative sip to test the temperature and replied:
"Keith Crosby? Our old MP? Why, what's he done?"
"Nothing that I know of, but he wants to see me. Says it's important.
I thought you might have met him at one of your charity bashes, or the Freemasons."
"How many times," he sighed, 'do I have to tell you? It's the Rotary Club, not the Freemasons."
"It's all the same," I told him.
"No it's not."
"You all piss in the same pot…"
"No we don't." '… while standing on a chair, with one trouser leg rolled up."
"Do you want to know about Crosby or don't you?"
"Do you know him?"
"I've only met him briefly, but I know about him. He gets talked about."
"Ah, so you go for the gossip," I said.
Gilbert nodded in agreement. "You'd be surprised what I learn, Charlie, when tongues have been loosened by the Macallan."
I told him about me and Sparky being at the fire that caused Crosby's fall from grace. Gilbert hadn't known we were there. I was supposing that Crosby had some new evidence, and wanted to know as much as possible about him before we met.
"He remembers you from the fire?" Gilbert wondered.
"Yes."
"It was sad, I suppose," he went on. "Poor bloke had only been an MP for a couple of years. Achieved his life's ambition, then, splodge, it's taken from him. Word has it that he'd set up a love nest with a gorgeous black girl, but I doubt if it's true. Anyhow, it cost him his job."
"It was sad for the people burnt to death in the fire, Gilbert," I said. "Tell me how he's got to where he is now, if you can."
"Well," he began, 'you've heard of the Friends in Need organisation?"
"Yes. It was a forerunner of the Samaritans, wasn't it?"
"Not exactly. The Samaritans came first, I believe, but the Friends is slightly different. Crosby started it long before he became an MR It was a counselling service intended primarily for the student population, but the idea is that you call them long before you reach the suicide state. He must have got the idea when he was at university himself. From small beginnings it spread to other universities, and now it's targeted at specific professional groups, especially the ones with high suicide rates. Doctors, for example. The theory is that each client also becomes a counsellor, so you are accountable to each other, if you follow me."