The Sexual Healing lyrics by Marvin Gaye do not belong to me.
II
It was odd to have a father, only in his mid-sixties, living in an old people's home. One of Manchester's lesser homes at that, full of halls with peeling cream paint revealing layers of peeling green and mauve paint beneath that. But then his dad had spent forty years drinking hard liquor and busting his family's faces when the pubs closed. It was time to rest.
Hunt could just picture how another year might have advanced his old man's decrepitude further. Walking down those halls with that smell of sick and toilet cleaner, he wondered why the theme from High Noon played in his head when he was near him?
Knocking briefly on the door to Jim Hunt's flat, he wasn't surprised to find his dad in the same recliner chair by a small table, a stack of newspapers nearby. At least they weren't stick mags, he thought, taking off his coat and finding his own chair. Last Christmas's reminiscences had been more bitter than normal – what with Hunt having just moved down to London, his dad had savoured memories such as taking down a suitcase full of his son's long-treasured comics and trading them at the local book swap for a well-thumbed through pile of Big Jugs.
"Don't get up then." He went into the kitchenette and put the jug on the stove, as his dad watched his every move in silence.
"Your ex-wife were here the other day," Jim Hunt said finally as his son handed him a cup of tea and plopped a milk bottle down on the table.
"I bet you two had a good old yarn." Hunt had once had to punch his old man out cold for threatening her. It had been a good two years before he'd spoken to the old bastard again, but when he did come around to the family house they had carried on normally … just like this.
"Well at least it's about family with her. She brought me a steak and kidney pie. She's a good girl." Jim Hunt pulled the fag packet from his shirt pocket and struck a match off the side of the table. Lighting his own cigarette, Hunt pictured his family or the dessicated remains of it – just a bewildered grandmother over in Barnsley, one-armed Uncle Ricky who had a serious accident practically every year.
Fuck it. Hunt knew that this old folks' home was dry, but going through the three rooms of his father's flat would be like an alcoholic Easter Egg hunt. Now from memory … Hunt went into the bedroom to his old man's hanky drawers. Beneath the stacks of kerchiefs, neatly folded by the nurses, was a mostly empty bottle of Johnny Walker.
"Cheers." He poured the remainder into his cup of coffee, ignoring the protests, and downed it quickly. Already he felt that same claustrophobia. For two hours, he had sat neat his mother's grave at the cemetery, and even in the light drizzle he could have sat longer. But here, after two minutes it was like a glimpse into the hours in a prison cell.
"I want to hear all about Lon-don." The way Jim Hunt's tongue split the name into two distinct, tainted syllables ... Hunt made that whistling sigh through his teeth in response.
"Do you want me to drop you down the working man's then?" he replied evenly. At least down there, they could drink side by side and not have to talk. Or they could hide their mutual hatred by talking to the jolly nice drunks at the bar until it was closing time. But weirdly his father stayed put, hadn't instantly grabbed his jacket.
Used. All day he had been used. By Drake, and now by his unloved father until he could confirm to himself that he had done his duty to his mother for another year, and get back to London.
But it came clearly to Hunt as he put down the cup into the sink in the kitchenette and even rinsed the coffee stain ring from its edge. Drake had been using him, sure. But at least I get to stare at her tits while she's doing it. It brought a grim smile.
"Skip, it's called the Throstle. That's all I know."
"Well I rang Manchester Police and they said they thought it must be the pub in Hornby. That's up in the North of Bowland, Guv. Have you got a map? You should probably buy one."
"Maps are for those orienteering Marys. Just tell me what road it's on."
He could hear Viv sigh at the end of the line. "Have you got a pen and paper, sir?"
"Hang a minute." He felt in his pockets. "What is a throstle, anyway?"
"A thrush." Silence. "A bird."
"I knew you'd know. Right, give it to me."
Viv read out the directions, his finger following the route up to Lancaster and the A683. "Hornby should be not too far along the 683. Are you visiting relatives?"
Viv looked up, the receiver in the crook of his shoulder as Assistant Commissioner Vanderzee walked past the front desk. Vanderzee was walking slowly, his hat tucked under his arm. Walking so slowly it was odd, almost in slow motion.
Viv had been going to ask the Guv if he was up in the North with Drake. CID had been discussing it all day after Luigi had run over the road, with a hundred quid's change for the Guv. "I tol him it was too much, but Signore Hunt was in a hurry. I think he worried the Signorina Drake gon to crash his car."
Looks had been exchanged then – Ray's a deep frown – and Viv found himself holding Vanderzee's look as he said goodbye to Hunt and put down the receiver.
He'd half expected her to be still standing there on the street where he'd left her, her white jacket dripping with raindrops. But no, she'd obviously done her typical Drake thing – cursed him out silently and gone on down to the car rental shop.
Fer god's sake, she hadn't gone to the shop he'd recommended – did she ever listen to a word he said?
"How's business, Daffydd?" he'd asked the thieving Welshman who owned the North-West Best Rentals and was that minute standing out on the street next to a couple of his rent-a-dents, still grinning at the pleasure of having fixed up Drake with his rustiest piece of shit.
Driving to the North out of Manchester, Hunt squinted at the hurriedly scribbled directions, had to reverse back down several lonely roads slick with the afternoon's rain when he overshot a turning.
Cursed himself out too when he thought about why he hadn't just left that bloody Artemis file in the vault at Edgehampton. Hiding it around his office and flat had just been a lark. But typically Drake had got herself involved, increasing the seriousness into such a predicament that he now couldn't fathom what they were into – a string of people dead in horrible accidents, spooks messing up his flat, strange men calling out of the blue...
As he grew nearer to Lancaster, and the muddy sky deepened into night, he was half-surprised not to have come across Drake broken down by the side of the road. Passing Lancaster to the East A683 route, he drove with one hand, smoked with his other, dwelling on that vault at Edgehampton.
That vault was the origination of all that had followed. He had stolen the Artemis file, but more acutely what had passed between them in the flickering light had brought him to this. The vulnerability in her face, her voice breaking, some kind of intense feeling that had grown up in him before he could control it. He couldn't fathom it either.
I can't fucking help myself, he thought.
The Throstle Inn sat on the 683 on the edge of Hornby – a Victorian pub with hanging baskets of flowers hanging under its slate roof, and a large car park filling fast. The rain had stopped just in the past hour and the air had a freshness as Hunt jerked the Quattro to a halt right outside the pub's glowing windows. Alex sat at a table by the window directly in front of his headlights and Hunt kept them on her as he picked his cigarette packet from the passenger seat.
"Miss me?" He sat down opposite her. She'd been here for hours already. "It's New Year's Eve. If this bloke turns up at seven pm like he's supposed to, how's he supposed to recognise you? Did you tell him you'd be the one with the visible bra strap?"
Maybe she hadn't thought through that detail. "What, do you think he here's already?" She glanced around. Yes, actually the pub was already pretty crowded here at 6.30. "Like that man there?" She nodded to a bull-necked bloke in an anorak at the bar.
"I doubt that one could read the pub menu, let alone clip a newspaper and print your bloody name on an envelope to send it to you."
Oh, give me a break, she thought. Just stop shouting at me for one night.
"Now, I'm not one to play into Northern man stereotypes, but hanging flower baskets 'n all, this place is a little on the shitty side."
Hmmm, yes she had to admit there was a bit of an edge inside this pub. Not the expected tables of bearded folkies in Arran knits, or old people sipping Campari. The bar itself seemed to have a constant throng of louts pressing in on it. She watched as Hunt pushed his way to the front, three sweaty barmaids and the landlord dodged around each other to pull pints, ignoring him. "S'aright?" she saw him nod a greeting to Mr Bullneck. "Expecting a big night?"
"Fuck off." The man turned his shoulder and hunched over his pint.
"Get that down you." Hunt handed her a gin and tonic and spread three pints out in front of himself. "I ain't going back up in a hurry."
"The man on the phone said I had to be here at seven pm alone," Drake said, pulling back from the window. "I-"
"So, you're thinking, 'Gene, please walk back out and let me run off into the night with a strange man who phones me out of the blue and tells me to meet him at the North-West's unfriendliest pub?'" He stuck out his legs and lit a cigarette. "Here was I thinking you'd be a bit fucking happy that I even showed up."
The clock on the wall now read 6.45. Alex just held her drink up in a silent salute. She mouthed, I am happy.
It was funny – when the real you was lying half-dead over rotting floorboards, coming to places like this didn't seem real, let alone dangerous. But an itching, creeping sense of alarm had come to her over the past couple of hours, and the headlights blinding her and Hunt stepping out from the Quattro had made her break into a weary smile. So embarrassing that she'd hung her head to hide it from him.
"We should just call off this Scooby Doo bollocks anyway and head back to London."
Head back to London? "No." Alex swallowed the entire drink in one go and shook her head adamantly. Whoever had called her, whatever he knew, whatever his motives. Whatever the danger, she had to follow after it. If the truth behind Artemis and Actaeon led her back to her body, to her real self and to Molly, she was prepared to do anything.
"I've got a chance here, Gene. Oh, don't give me that look. I'm sorry if you think I ruined your holiday by coming up here, but I … I don't know." She wasn't going to bring up her daughter with Gene again. It always made him angry, and the insinuation that she was just using him until she left would hang between them again. She didn't care to examine her motives. Anything I do here, anything, it doesn't matter if it gets me back to Molly.
It was now nearly seven pm – the long hand on the clock to just hang.
Alex nearly missed the car outside their window, reversing with a screech from its parking spot. How long had that car been here? She banged on the window, then stepped back from the table, from the sweep of the car's headlights. The car's engine gunned, could be heard above the rock'n'roll on the jukebox inside, and Alex pushed her way through the crowded tables and standing drinkers to the door.
There were no lights out in the car park, and the car was nothing but a black mass and the sound of its tyres on the pot-holes and puddles. The driver paused for a second and she put out her hands to stop him, a futile gesture. The car turned out into the A863 and soon disappeared around a bend.
"Clear a space now unless you want a dart hanging out your cheek." The landlord had rolled up his sleeves as he clapped three times to get some kind of silence in the bar. Two hundred people, perhaps more, were inside now, and most of them were locals and obviously knew what a flash-tempered bastard he was. "Ladies and gentlemen, the annual final between Yorkshire ladies' darts champion team and our own Lancashire champions is about to start. Give the ladies a round of applause and if I hear any jeers, me barmaids will thump the ever-living shit out of you." He raised his arms for more silence – not the kind of man to care if everyone saw his armpit stains. "And don't forget the disco. It starts at nine after we've cleared the dining tables away."
"I was wondering why there were so many fierce birds here," Hunt said, nodding to the ladies lining up to begin the darts match. "I will be very surprised if this doesn't end in a bottling."
A little drunk now, and her large dark eyes barely took in what he was saying. "This is the most random New Year's Eve gathering I could ever contemplate." Alex shook her glass at him for a refill. "You said it yourself, let's celebrate."
"Your man could still come back."
"You think?" Her dark look to him said not. "I am just going to face it – 'Alex, you're stuck here'. You know? It just goes to show, you can go through your whole life thinking you're successful, smart, in control, and it's only because of circumstance. It's a matter of timing." She brought the empty glass down with venom. "Here, I am... got fired from the 'B team'. I don't have my daughter. I don't even get to solve crimes anymore, not even in my own bloody head. My mum and dad are dead and I couldn't..." She folded her arms, and wouldn't look at him. She wasn't going to say it, but he had the feeling she'd silently added this entanglement between them to her list.
"Like I said," his voice was firm, "your man could still be here." Hunt turned away and made his way back into the throng. Fuck her. He finally made some elbow room at the bar and ordered a pint.
"You're not having the best of nights, are you?"
"Eh?" He looked up from the stack of coins he'd lined up. One of the Lancashire ladies' darts team sat on a stool next to him.
"You and your lady friend there in the corner. You don't neither of your look like you're enjoying yourselves." She brushed her hand across his as she flicked her cigarette ash. "It's funny though, I'm not much either."
"Your team losing then?"
"Oh no." She told him she was just a reserve for the match. "Even if we do lose, we'll still have a good time doing it." She leaned forward towards him. "That's the thing about folk from Yorkshire, They're not exactly known for their fun-loving good times, are they?"
"I'll raise a glass to that."
"And I'll buy you another." Without any encouragement, she talked through three cigarettes, now completely ignoring the darts match and the frowns and mutterings of her own team as they continued to fall further behind the ladies from across the border.
Jan, her name was Jan.
Finally Jan came around to her point. "I'm not having fun and you're not having fun, so let's go for a dance through there in the disco and try to rescue this New Year's Eve." Her eyes flickered. "Or would your lady friend be mad at me?"
"My lady friend … my lady friend is looking for somebody." Hunt couldn't even see Drake now. She'd left the table and could not be seen in the large room. The fireplaces at each end of the room, and the people in between, had warmed the atmosphere to the extent that he was sweating.
Beer in hand, Hunt followed Jan out of the room into the cleared-away dining room where a few couples were dancing to the juke box amid a floor of balloons.
One of the couples was Drake and a man Hunt hadn't seen in the room before. Arm slung straight over Jan's shoulder, and the beer glass in his hand, he observed for a long, irritated minute.
The jukebox stopped. A coin was dropped into the jukebox.
Get up, get up, get up, get up
Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up.
The man's hand was on the small of Drake's back. She'd taken her jacket off, and the man's arm surreptitiously caressed the blue silk of her shirt.
Hunt reeled back a bit and the beer split down Jan's back, but not so she noticed. She moved her hand and he felt it slip comfortably into the back pocket of his trousers.
And baby, I can't hold it much longer, it's getting stronger and stronger
And when I get that feeling, I want Sexual Healing
And they were dancing so closely, Hunt observed, that Drake's chest was pressed to him. An old trick. It was hard to dance that close without your hips pressing too.
Come take control, just grab a hold, of my body and mind soon we'll be making it
Honey, oh we're feeling fine
You're my medicine open up and let me in
Darling, you're so great, I can't wait for you to operate
"What's your name?" Jan whispered in his ear, her arms now hanging off his shoulders.
"Gene," he replied absently, catching Alex's eye for the first time.
"I love this song." Jan knew the trick as well. Her breasts, her hips pressed against him. His mind was full – Alex was mouthing something, something urgent – he couldn't catch it.
"I wish they'd play this song again," Jan said.
Huh? He finally caught the words on Drake's lips. "Behind you!" He turned in time to see the punch from the man from the bar who'd told earlier him to fuck off. And it caught him in the teeth. Hunt swayed back on the balls of his feet, wrenched away from Jan's arms in a second as the bloke followed up with a gut shot to the solar plexus.
"You're trying to fucking diddle the wrong missus."
From the floor with its caked-on food scraps, Hunt wiped his sleeve across his bloodied mouth. Maybe it was the concussion talking, but it seemed obvious to him now. The man dancing with Drake was a spook.
