Dead Scared (38 page)

I looked down. The glass was large and it was my third of the evening. What Nick didn’t know was that most of the previous two had been poured down the kitchen sink when he’d been out of the room. I may indulge in casual sex but I never do it drunk. As though it belonged to someone else, I watched my hand reach out towards the glass and raise it to my lips.

Monday 21 January (one day earlier)

I WOKE IN
darkness, with no idea where I was. Blue cotton sheets. A man’s bed.

‘Laura,’ said a voice behind my head. I turned. Nick was in the doorway, a mug of steaming liquid in each hand. He was dressed in a shirt and tie, neatly creased black trousers, ready for work.

‘I forgot to ask whether you drink tea or coffee in the morning,’ he said. ‘So I brought both.’

He put both mugs down on a bedside table that rocked dangerously under their weight. ‘It’s almost eight,’ he said. ‘I have surgery at nine and I expect you have lectures.’

It was Monday morning. ‘The good news is that there’s lots of hot water in the bathroom,’ he said. ‘The bad being that the rest of the house is freezing. See you downstairs.’ He stood up and turned to the door. Then he stopped and came back to squat down beside the bed. He leaned forward and kissed me. ‘Good morning,’ he said.

‘Morning,’ I replied, conscious of smudged make-up and seriously bad breath.

‘So for future reference,’ he said, ‘which is it? Tea or coffee?’

‘Both,’ I replied. He grinned at me and left the room.

I sat up. Oh boy, he hadn’t been kidding. The room was so cold it felt as though my face and shoulders were being slapped. I took a
deep
breath and pulled the covers back, swinging my legs over the side before I could change my mind.

My clothes were scattered around the thick sheepskin rug in front of the fire. I knelt on the rug, hoping some warmth might have survived the night, and found underwear, socks and my sweater.

Last night the fire had blazed as Nick had kissed me. I’d watched bold, darting flames licking over the logs as he’d slowly unbuttoned my blouse. He’d pulled off his own shirt and then both his skin and mine had glowed in the firelight. Sparks had shot into the air like fireworks when the heat found a damp piece of wood. And I’d known I couldn’t go through with it.

‘I’m sorry,’ I’d said, stepping back and bracing myself for a fight, even if just a verbal one. ‘I guess I’m just not ready. I’ll go.’

Looking round now, I found my jeans slung over an old-fashioned CD player. I hadn’t been allowed to drive home. Nick still thought I’d drunk more than I really had and I could hardly disillusion him. Gallantly, he’d left me in his own room and taken himself off to a spare.

As the flames had died down and the embers began to gleam like fire opals, I’d fallen asleep. I’d dreamed of gently stroking hands, probing fingers, soft kisses running the length of my spine. And when, in my dream, I’d opened my eyes, the ones looking back into mine hadn’t been russet brown.

My boots would be downstairs.

Pulling the bedcovers straight, I stepped out into the corridor. The first door I tried was locked. The second was the bathroom. The mirror told me my eye make-up had smudged but not appallingly so. My hair was a mess but I told myself in a sexy sort of way. The water was hot but I wasn’t getting undressed again in this icebox Nick called home so I splashed some over my face and used the loo. I would sort myself out when I got back to St John’s.

Sipping on the tea, holding the coffee in my other hand, I made my way downstairs. I’d never woken up in a man’s bedroom before. It was more my style to go home with a man, have sex with him, say goodbye and leave. I had no idea how to handle a morning after. Could I just go? Dump the mugs down, slip out of the door and drive away without seeing him?

Apparently not. Because to do that I’d have to cross the kitchen and he was in it, slicing bread that smelled like it had been baked that morning. I could hear the gurgle of a coffee machine. This room, thank God, was pleasantly warm, most of the heat coming from an ancient-looking Aga against one wall. Both pointers were curled on a rug in front of it. They both looked up as I came in. One of them gave me a merry wag of the tail. The other sighed heavily and settled down again, uninterested. A woman in the house in the morning wasn’t anything they hadn’t seen before.

Nick had set the table for two. There was a glass of orange juice at the place that I guessed must be mine. As I sat down, he ran the bread knife through the brown loaf in the middle of the table again. The yeasty smell intensified. As did the feeling that I’d woken up on Mars.

‘Were you up at five baking?’ I asked.

‘I was up at five mucking out the horse, walking the dogs and checking the birds,’ he told me. ‘The bread is courtesy of the bread machine. I set the timer before we went up.’

The butter practically sizzled when it made contact with the warm slice of bread he’d offered me. I didn’t have to spread, it was just going to ooze its way across the surface.

‘Liz Notley’s hedgerow jam,’ he said, pushing a jar of red stuff towards me. ‘Excellent.’

‘Do I want to know what’s in hedgerow jam?’ I took a bite by way of experiment and, in fairness, it was excellent.

‘Mainly blackberries,’ he replied. ‘Some wild apples, sloes, hips and haws.’

Hips and haws? I wasn’t going to ask. ‘So, you’re gorgeous, you’re a GP and you bake your own bread,’ I said. ‘I guess the catch must be your embarrassing taste in music. Were we listening to Billy Joel last night?’

He made a sheepish face. ‘You got me,’ he said. ‘We used to play it around the house a lot when I was a kid. I guess it reminds me of Mum. Another one?’

And he’d loved his mother! I let him cut me another slice of bread. I felt as though I could eat the whole loaf if it was offered. If this was what mornings after were like – blimey, they were quite nice.

‘Lucky for me you were snoring before Neil Diamond came on,’ he said.

That took a second to register. ‘I don’t snore.’

‘You do,’ he said. ‘I could hear you from the corridor. But only in a cute, snuffly, dormouse sort of way.’ He raised his wrist and looked at the slim, elegant man’s watch he wore. ‘We have to hustle,’ he said. ‘Can I call you tonight?’

He found my coat and boots and ushered me out of the house and into my car. The two pointers went with him, jumping into the back of his Range Rover. He set off along the pothole-strewn path and I followed more slowly, not sure how much punishment my suspension could cope with, or how I was going to deal with the turn events had taken. I’d started this investigation with no real idea of what it had in store for me, but what I really hadn’t expected was that I’d find myself with a boyfriend.

Or, at nearly twenty-eight years old, with the knowledge that I snore.

I DROVE BACK
to St John’s, parked the car and jumped out, knowing that if I didn’t run I’d be late for my first lecture. All around me, people had the same idea. Bikes were speeding past, people hurrying through the rear gates. Just one solitary figure wasn’t moving. A tall man, padded coat concealing his muscular build, woollen hat pulled down over his ears, was leaning against one of the gate’s pillars.

I needed to touch base with Evi before I went out again, find out the latest on Jessica. I also wanted to check emails.

The man in the padded jacket straightened up when he saw me coming and stepped into my path. I slowed down.

Turquoise eyes were looking directly into mine. Don’t give him a chance, I told myself. Get in there first. Ask him where the hell he’s been, how he can just abandon you like that. I couldn’t say a word. All I could do was to look into his eyes and wish something large and heavy would fall down from the old building and knock me into oblivion. I stopped three feet away and waited for him to start. It was going to be bad. He was going to say things I’d never be able to forget.

‘Good morning,’ Joesbury said. ‘How are you?’

‘Fine,’ I replied, still bracing myself for the blow. ‘You?’

He actually smiled. ‘Couldn’t be better,’ he said. ‘New orders for you, Flint. Go to your room, pack your bags and drive yourself back
to
London. Report to the Yard nine o’clock tomorrow for a debrief.’

It took me a second to take it in. ‘I’m not sure I …’

‘Don’t contact your room-mate, Dr Oliver, or any of the people in college. Above all, don’t attempt to contact Nick Bell. If you do, we’ll know.’

I’d expected it to be bad. I hadn’t expected this.

‘What’s going on?’

He sighed and looked at his watch. ‘You’re off the case,’ he said. ‘I want you out of Cambridge within the hour.’

‘Oh, screw you, Joesbury.’

OK, that wasn’t wise, I know that, but I wasn’t having him pulling rank on me when we both knew what this was about. He barely blinked. ‘Excuse me?’ he said.

‘You can’t kick me off the case because I spent the night with someone.’

And then he laughed. ‘Get over yourself, Flint,’ he said. ‘The only interest I have in your boyfriend is that he’s taken your mind off the job and seriously jeopardized your cover. The decision’s made.’

‘There’s something I need to tell you,’ I began.

He held up one hand. ‘Save it for the Yard, Flint. That’ll be soon enough.’

I wasn’t going to win this. I had to turn and leave now if I wanted to retain any shred of dignity. But I took a step closer. I could smell coffee on his breath.

‘I think you need a reality check,’ I said. ‘Students have sex. They’re known for it. My room-mate never sleeps in her own bed.’

He leaned away as though I still had morning breath. I probably did. ‘No, I’m giving you a reality check,’ he said. ‘Sending you here was a massive mistake. You’ve disobeyed orders from the moment you arrived. You’ve persistently run around like some sort of demented Nancy Drew, poking your nose in everywhere and threatening to jeopardize months of work. Your antics yesterday were the last straw.’

Three girls passing looked at us curiously. It was pretty obvious to everyone in the vicinity that we were rowing. I didn’t care. Something he’d just said had made my ears prick up like a fox hound’s.

‘What do you mean, months of work?’

For the first time, he couldn’t look me in the eye. ‘You have nothing like the focus needed for this sort of operation,’ he said to the snow at our feet. ‘I want your bags packed in thirty minutes.’

‘What do you mean, months of work? What the hell is going on here?’

He turned away, tried to walk off. I wasn’t having it. I grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

He took a deep breath. ‘Take your hands off me,’ he said, ‘or I’ll stick you on.’

Stick me on
meant make an official complaint. I was past caring. I stepped closer. ‘What job have I taken my mind off?’ I insisted. ‘What exactly is the job here, Joesbury? Every time I send you information, you tell me to butt out, that I’m not investigating, that there’s nothing to investigate, to keep my eyes open and my head down. Now you’re telling me I’ve messed up months of work.’

Getting this close gave him the perfect opportunity to look down and sneer. ‘How come every time we get close, you stink of another man?’

I was going to break his nose for that the second I had a chance. In the meantime …