I suppose I'm writing this down because anyone on the outside of this thing is going to think that I am either drunk, drugged, or hallucinating. The truth is, well, awkward to say the least. Improbable at best. People would say it was impossible. And, if you look at it on cold crisp paper, it is.
Much, much later, when the furore died down. And the generally accepted version of what happened came to be reported, we talked it over. My lover and I. Though even the fact that we had become lovers was at best, improbable.
I should start at the very beginning. As the song goes. It's a very good place to start. At the beginning, I was standing in a dock, in a court room. Hearing some pretty unpleasant things about myself. That these things were mostly true was absolutely no comfort. As with everything in court rooms, there's a balancing act. So they weighed my misdeeds, which were heavy, I admit. But up against that they stacked the fact that I had walked away. I had been so incensed and distraught at the beating my then lover had taken that I had willingly given up one of the men who had done it on the orders of my father, to the police. Well specifically one policeman. A copper.
I had betrayed my old man. Supposedly the father that loved me. Anyway, I betrayed him, to the cops. To one copper in particular. The copper had arrested me. He'd stood up in my personal space and told me to let him do his job. To give up the second man. The man who had beaten the man I loved at that time to a pulp. So I did. Because that's what Tom would have wanted.
Except. If I'm being honest with myself, it was more about what DS Stuart Turner wanted than what Tom wanted. I knew, as I stood outside that hospital room that Tom would never let me back into his life again anyway. That he would run as far and as fast as he could as soon as he was able. And I was right. He did.
Detective Sergeant Stuart Turner. There lay the real problem. My problem. After Tom had gone, I had a lot of time, time to do nothing but think. To sit and recall a fleeting moment in time, outside a hospital room, I was moody, being arrested has that kind of effect on me. So I was surly, and then he handed me his card and let me go. I went. I made him no promises. I just walked away. But I knew, deep down inside, that I was going to do what he wanted. So I did.
They arrested me again. I went down on remand. Then court. I had three whole days to look at him. He must have felt my eyes on him, noting every little detail, those dark gypsy good looks, his clothes, the sound of his voice, every time he looked at me, every time I didn't respond. Every time I stared at him as though committing him to memory.
I kept the card. And the day I was standing outside the prison waiting for a bus back to the crummy flat that had been arranged for me, I took it out of my wallet. Turned it over in my hands. It had been nearly a year, he would have forgotten me. In my head, there was this half formed plan to run into him. Accidently of course. So at some point in the preceding nine months, I had decided that if I wanted to get to know him, I had to work my way into his world from the same side of the law. So I had a job to go to when I left prison.
"You're going to do what?" My parole officer's disbelief was understandable.
"I am going to work as a trainee private investigator." I showed him the letter employing me in the capacity of trainee. "It's all perfectly legitimate."
He took the letter as though it might bite him. Read it through at least three times. And then he sighed. He went through the tedious process of explaining the parole system to me. As though it hadn't already been explained in prison at least a thousand times already. I picked up everything I needed and walked out the door, ready to begin my new and legitimate life.
All of which, leads neatly to that moment. Zero hour. The moment I had been subconsiously preparing for ever since the last day in court. The day our paths were bound to cross again.
I was sitting in a car. The sort of car which was a major climb down in the status ranks for me. Ten years old, dark, nondescript, a bit tired looking, baby seat in the back. As if that was likely to happen, though I did appreciate the irony, when I had time to think about it. I had been there four days already. Hiding behind newspapers waiting for my boss's target to do something the man claimed he was incapable of doing. My boss's clients were mainly insurance companies. Insurance companies don't like paying out money. And where possible, they like to claw it back if it could be proved that they had been taken for a ride.
Mr Ian Sherring was definitely taking his insurance company for a ride. I'm an ex con, so I can spot a fellow crook. The difference was, that I had seen the light... okay, may be I hadn't as such, but this was definitely penny ante stuff. Mr Sherring was supposedly incapable of doing any work. The insurance company had duly paid out his insurance claim, but they were edgy about it.
So I was sitting outside his place hiding behind several days' worth of copies of The Times. I was tired, I had several reels of film, nothing that was yet good enough to call it a day. My back, hips and knees ached, I was dying for a slash, and I knew I looked rough. A shadow blocked the light from behind me. Something knocked on the roof of the car. I looked in the wing mirror. Saw a piece of white shirt, a black leather belt, and indigo jeans. It was him. Just my luck. I was a mess. I was unprepared. Of all the crappy jobs, in all the world, or in this case, in London, he had to walk into mine.
I wound down the window.
"Would you mind getting out of the car, Sir."
So I slid out, straightened up, every bone in my body from waist to knees complained about that one. And turned to face him. Damn. He looked even better than I remembered, that half smile on his face that said he'd struck gold when I turned up in his jurisdiction.
"Anthony Monks." I could even forgive the triumphant note in his voice.
"DS Turner. Or have you gone up in the world?" Wouldn't do to let him think I'd missed him or anything like that.
"No, it's still DS Turner." he grinned, that pirate smile did some very peculiar things to my nerve endings. "Do you mind telling me what you're doing here?"
"Not at all." I turned to reach into the glove box, "if you don't mind?" He nodded. I could sense his barely contained excitement, my Stuart liked results. I knew that much about him. Though at what point I had started thinking of him as my Stuart, I am not prepared to admit.
I rooted around in the glovebox and pulled out the paperwork I had been given, in preparation for just such an occurrance. I handed it over. He looked almost disappointed. I had a perfectly legitimate reason for being there. He looked over it all, examining it for bugs, but there were none. He handed it back to me. Our fingers brushed, I looked up, and caught a fleeting glimpse of something in his eyes and expression that caused a considerable stirring in my loins. I was grateful to be holding onto the papers, to at least cover my confusion a little. Those dark gypsy eyes were still staring at me, full of Eastern promise, as the telly advert went.
"Sarge?" Female voice, mildly amused, Stuart flushed a little and turned round to face the speaker.
"Jo."
"Well, aren't you going to introduce us?" he looked even more confused than he had when our fingers had brushed.
"Er."
"I'm DC Jo Masters, Sun Hill." she was older than him, assured, confident, the kind of woman it would be nigh on impossible to deceive, and she clearly had Stu's number. And he was very aware of it.
"Anthony Monks, I'm a private investigator." I held out my hand. She took it. Looked me up and down, I sensed that she knew what colour my underwear was, and what size shoe I took before we let go. And she knew, from the moment that she touched my hand that I was interested in Stuart. And I sensed that I had found an ally of sorts.
She smiled. I smiled. Stu looked glum, he sensed that he was going to lose this one. And my Stuart didn't like to lose. He also wasn't too keen when Jo took his elbow, winked at me and steered him firmly back to their car. It was clear that they were lurking about too. And had spotted me.
As I got back in the car, I had time to wonder why they were there, and whether or not there was going to be more to this than met the eye. And, most significantly, if they had spotted me, had the target spotted me as well. I looked at my watch, it was knocking off time. Mr Sherring was clearly not going to commit any kind of mistake while I was sitting there. Time for plan B.
I looked in my rearview mirror. They were still there, five cars back on the other side of the road. I could feel Stuart's eyes boring into the back of my neck. The ache in my loins grew worse. I turned the key and pulled away, tomorrow was going to be interesting.