Hi, all! Sorry for the extra-long delay. Yes, I am away on my travels (kisses from stop one, Croatia, for you all), and will update when I can, but alas, I can't promise any regularity. But hey, I am literally carting my big spiral notebook and my laptop all over Central Europe. - Also, please excuse the title. Sometimes I just can't resist making myself giggle and, most likely, the rest of you groan. Oh, also, I'm sorry for the weird tense shifts. Some are intentional; some aren't. Usually I'm sort of a perfectionist, but if I go back and fix it all, I'll never get this posted tonight.
Chapter Thirteen: The Beer Hunter
1.
What an amazingly crap day – and to make it worse, she has no one to blame but herself.
Sandra has been in a foul mood since she woke up half an hour late this morning, broke the heel on her favourite pumps on her way out the door, and saw that her left rear tyre was flat. And that was the high point of her day.
All right, arguably she's been in a foul mood since last Friday morning, when Gerry sailed into the office wreathed in smiles and bedecked in his flashiest tie and ugliest jumper, whistling "You Made Me Love You."
"Pulled some unwitting bird, have you?" Jack had asked with grim humour, and Gerry had actually pirouetted as he hung up his khaki-coloured coat.
"Nope." He'd peered into Sandra's office with a gay wave. "Top of the morning, guv'nor. Tea or coffee, lads and lovely lady?"
"What's up, then?" Jack demanded. "You're on time."
"Your cheerfulness is revolting at this hour," Sandra had put in with even more than her customary gentleness.
"Jayne," Gerry announced, "is getting divorced."
Sandra stared into the office. His predictability, she thought again, was disgusting. "Well, congratulations," she replied acidly. "Drinks all around."
"Now she won't be lumbered with that arsehole Jonathan – and neither will I, come to that." Gerry resumed his whistling as he set about making the tea.
Jack raised his eyebrows. "You've got Jayne back in the harem, then, have you?"
"I'm merely concerned with her welfare," the former sergeant had answered loftily, and Sandra rolled her eyes, safely hidden by her computer monitor. She sipped her hot coffee, but knew perfectly well that it had nothing to do with the slow burn creeping uncomfortably up her spine.
Over the past three days, as Gerry's insufferable good cheer had continued unabated, Sandra had decided just exactly why she was so hacked off. She hated, loathed, despised losing. She'd been head girl, teacher's pet, top recruit – Hell, she'd even been Jack's favourite, and Jack Halford didn't play favourites. And for eight years she'd made Gerry's head spin. She liked that, that power. It was not one of her more stellar character points, but it was the same reason she'd made a habit of sleeping with other women's boyfriends and husbands: because she could. It often had little to do with men themselves; it certainly hadn't the first time she'd done it, back at Hendon. Sandra liked to win. It was her competitive nature.
… Which was obviously why she was here now, drowning her sorrows, already on her way to being properly pissed at 7:15 on Thursday evening. This crummy little bar on the outskirts of her neighbourhood was exactly what she needed tonight: small, shabby, obscure, and not even on the radar of anyone she knew.
Because today Sandra Pullman, all-time top girl, had won again.
Too bad it felt so much like losing.
2.
What an absolutely fantastic day – not that he could take much of the credit for it.
He'd been in generally high spirits since Jayne had told him she was ending her marriage. Yes, that probably sounded incredibly self-centred, egotistical, unfeeling, blah blah blah, but it really was for Jayne's own good. She deserved so much better than that twat – and no matter how much money and education he had, he was a twat. And, yeah, she was upset, but she hardly seemed heartbroken. He strongly suspected she'd never been one hundred percent sure about the marriage, and he should know the signs, having been there himself.
Also, it was Thursday, officially Gerry's favourite day of the week. It was Sandra's week to pick the restaurant, so he knew he was in for an interesting dining experience, but the food definitely wasn't what had shivers running down his spine in anticipation.
Yeah, Gerry spent five days a week, eight hours a day, with Detective Superintendent Sandra Pullman; but it had been two weeks since he'd gotten to see that other side of Sandra, the one that was terra incognita to Jack and Brian. An impromptu lunch with Emily, who'd been waiting for him in Sandra's office when Gerry and Jack got back from Hampton Row, had been a nice surprise but, much as he loved his daughter, not as nice a surprise as what had happened afterward.
Sandra had, quite frankly, been a bitch all week. Maybe it was perverse, some twisted product of his maladjustment and slew of bad relationships, but Gerry found bitchy Sandra almost irresistible, especially when the full measure of her discontent wasn't leveled exclusively at him, and this week had been characterized by equal opportunity bitchiness. If she ever realized how much it turned him on when she yelled at him, she'd laugh herself sick.
So he wasn't exactly reluctant when, late that afternoon, she'd emerged from her office and snapped, "Gerry, with me," even though her tone was nakedly hostile.
"Where are we going?" he asked as she burst into the car park. It was a good job there hadn't been anyone standing on the other side of the security door, because Sandra would just have broken his or her nose with her explosive force.
She shot him a cool look. "I'll drive," she said instead of answering, and whacked her handbag over at him.
And drive she did, her foot generous on the accelerator. "I have to be in with Strickland at 4:30," she murmured, checking the mirror before zipping into the next lane, "so we have to be back before then."
Gerry still didn't know back from where, but he didn't bother asking. Yeah, okay, Sandra wanted him to develop temporary blindness during working hours, but she looked absolutely devastating in solid black: black velvet blazer, black camisole thingy with a dangerously plunging neckline, very snug black jeans, chunky black heels. Somehow it made her look almost as dangerous as she was.
(Clearly he needed to get out more, preferably with a certain blonde.)
He snapped back to the present when she made a very sharp turn onto her street, then pulled to a teeth-rattling stop in front of her building. She cut the engine and sat calmly.
"Uh, Sandra?" he questioned with even more than his usual eloquence. He clutched her handbag in his lap, maybe for protection. "What are you doing?"
She turned her upper body toward him and pushed her oversized sunglasses up to anchor her hair. She looked him over thoughtfully, her deep blue gaze calculating, sizing him up. "You don't have any idea?"
Gerry gulped. He had some ideas; some very interesting ones. But this was Sandra.
"Come inside," she instructed in that same no-nonsense headmistress tone, and Gerry followed more obediently than he ever did as a schoolboy. "Lock the door behind you."
Ooh, ominous. And promising.
Just inside the door, she stripped off her jacket and regarded him with that same cool, almost cold expression on her face. "We have thirty-five minutes, Gerry. How do you propose we spend them?"
Gerry felt a little dizzy. Sandra sounded almost angry, but the invitation was blatant. "I'm sure we can think of something," he replied.
Approximately two minutes later he had ascertained that Sandra was indeed wearing solid black from head to toe, and that that pristine white sofa was softer than it looked. He would've liked to know what he's done to deserve such a very special treat, but he was afraid to ask. There was a hard, sharp, bright gleam in her eyes, but she felt deceptively soft and sweet in his arms.
When she dumped him in the car park and briskly set off to see the DAC, again looking totally polished and maddeningly professional, Gerry was relieved to find that he could still walk. Sort of.
That was nearly three hours ago, and the only fly in his blissful ointment is that he hasn't seen her since and can't raise her on her mobile.
He leaves a voicemail, leans back in his favourite chair, and closes his eyes. If his evening plans are going to include as much vigorous exercise as his afternoon did, maybe he should bide his time by taking a nap.
3.
What a pathetically mediocre day – but at least it was looking up.
"A pint of the Lion's 'ead, mate," Frank boisterously instructs the bar tender, "and keep 'em comin'. Aw, yeah, you beauty," he exults as the amber ale begins flowing from the tap into the streaked glass. Mother's milk. Come to papa, sweet'eart.
Lion's Head: for his money, the finest ale produced in the British Isles, and Frank Patterson considers himself an expert. Nothing compared with its frothy richness and deep, creamy undertones. When they retired, some people volunteered, tended the garden, hell, became fond of quiz shows and recreational pharmaceuticals. Not Frank Patterson.
Patterson was a man on a quest for spiritual fulfillment.
A quest for beer.
Well, ale, tonight.
The more obscure, the better, and Lion's Head was pretty damn obscure, especially this far south. After extensive research Frank had found three pubs that had it on tap. He habitually haunted one, but tonight, the horror! Its barrels were dry. The second was all the way out in Brixton. So here he was, in this little out-of-the-way hole at which he never would've looked twice otherwise. As he took his first deep, satisfying drink of the ale, his eyes lit on something – someone – that made him very glad he had taken that second look.
A few months ago he wouldn't have thought he had a snowball's chance in hell with Sandra Pullman, but now he finds himself thinking, Give it a go, Frankie. Her taste in men had untested depths, as he had recently discovered.
His night was about to improve immeasurably. Lion's head might even fall to second place.
4.
She'd known from the strength of her headache that wine wouldn't get it done tonight, and besides, she couldn't maintain any self-respect if she ordered wine in a place like this. Sandra is devoting herself diligently to scotch, and by 7:30 it seems like a reasonably sensible idea to answer her mobile when Gerry rings for the third time.
"Sandra, are you all right?"
She considers. "Fine," she decides. "Probably pissed, but not yet paralytic. I'm working on it, though," she informs him with dignity.
"What's wrong?" he demands immediately.
"I told you, Gerald." She laughs hoarsely. "Nothing."
There is a brief pause. "I'm coming to meet you." Gerry sounds subdued. "Tell me where you are."
"Sure, why the hell not? You can buy me a drink," she says philosophically, and gives him directions.
That's just before she hears that unmistakable voice ordering a pint. Oh, shit, she thinks, which is what she inevitably thinks when she hears Frank.
Maybe he won't notice her.
Right. This gaff is about the size of her bleedin' living room.
Again, shit. When did her internal voice start sounding disturbingly like Gerry?
Gerry. Oh, hell, Sandra, what is wrong with you? she asks herself. She's behaving like a complete lunatic today. This afternoon – it doesn't bear thinking about. She wishes she could blame her behaviour on Gerry or Jayne or Emily, but she's an adult, and it's all down to her. Congratulations, Pullman.
She'd been pleased for about five minutes when Emily dropped in looking for Gerry; then the younger woman had turned the conversation to her father and his third ex-wife.
"So obviously they're trying it on again," Emily had said rather apprehensively. "No one's saying anything, but you hardly have to be a detective to work it out. I don't think she's staying at dad's because he's having trouble making the rent."
Sandra hoped she didn't look as gob-smacked – and furious – as she felt. "Jayne is staying at Gerry's," she repeated, questioning.
Emily nodded.
Sandra immediately wanted to yank her computer monitor off her desk and hurl it through the window. Instead she said, "As long as he manages to turn up for work, it doesn't concern me."
But she couldn't stifle the hot flare of… competitive energy … that surged through her. So Gerry had jumped right back into playing happy families, and he hadn't even bothered to tell her. Well, fine. Fabulous. That wasn't Sandra's style, but he could have it.
He couldn't have her too, though. That was not their agreement, no matter what he might think – the tosser. Shagging him silly while he was in love with someone unattainable was one thing; having it off on the quiet now that he was, apparently, getting back together with his ex-wife, lucky number three, was something else entirely. Sandra wasn't looking to be Gerry's Ms. Right, but she certainly wouldn't be his "other woman." She'd had enough of dating married or seriously involved men. And if that man were Gerry Standing, who'd never met a woman he didn't want to shag – Christ, it would be humiliating.
No, it was time for Gerry and Sandra to start treating Thursday like any other day of the week. No harm, no foul.
But first, she had chortled with glee at the thought of giving him something to remember her by.
Very mature, Sandra. You'll have a hell of a time being his governor now he thinks you are out of your bloody mind.
Mission accomplished, though: he'd remember this afternoon.
Shit.
"'Ello, Sandra! What a place to meet a lady."
As always, his timing is just perfect. "Hi, Frank." She turns on her bar stool to meet her fate. "If you see a lady, let me know."
How quickly can I down this and piss off? But Gerry's coming. Oh, hell, what's Patterson going to make of that?
"You here all alone?" Frank looks about as if someone might pop out of the woodwork, or as if the tubby inebriate to her lift is a likely prospect. "I suppose a certain ex-detective sergeant has another engagement, eh?"
Sandra just stares, unblinking, expressionless.
"I could sort of take his place, like." Frank wedges himself next to Sandra's stool so that their arms brush and flashes her what is probably meant to be a winning, knowing grin. He looks even more like a delinquent troll than usual. "Just for the evenin', unless you were to decide you liked me better. I bet Gerry and I could share, under the right circumstances."
Her eyes have narrowed to dangerous little slits. "Share what, exactly? – Think very hard before you answer that, Frank."
"Oh, c'mon, Sandra." She can't stand the way he elongates the first vowel in her name: Saaandra. He actually goes so far as to nudge her with his elbow. "You know ol' Frankie'll keep stum. Silent as the grave." He quaffs his pint for effect.
Sandra would like to put him in the grave. "I don't know what you're on about," she replies firmly, and then knocks back the dregs of her drink and signals to the bartender.
"Gerry's me mate," Frank returns easily. "We don't have to keep secrets here, the three of us."
Sandra feels the colour finally draining from her face, but her voice remains even. "How many of those have you had to drink, Frank?"
"Wot, you denying it?" He chuckles, either amazingly impudent or amazingly stupid. "'E always 'as been a one for the ladies, Gerry 'as. I don't understand it, though. 'Ow does 'e do it? Wot's 'e got that I 'aven't?"
Half a brain, thinks Sandra. Or at least I thought he did. She has begun to feel numb, but she doesn't think it has much to do with the scotch.
She'd thought Gerry couldn't do anything that would shock her. She was wrong.
"Really, I can't see it. Tell me, Sandra: wot're you doin' knockin' 'im off? You oughta be way outta his league, bird like you."
She still stares, but she feels her jaw and mouth growing very tight. She has never cared for Frank, but now just being in his presence makes her feel in dire need of a shower or, better yet, an entire decontamination unit.
Of all the people in the world, Gerry has told Frank Patterson about their… affair, she supposes she has to call it, although the word makes her grit her teeth bitterly. Christ, that makes him even worse than Frank; and Sandra hasn't slept with Frank.
She is going to murder Gerry, and then she's going to dismember the corpse and burn it. That's far too kind, but she can't think of anything suitable.
"Speak of the devil," Frank says maliciously, and the part of Sandra's brain that isn't on fire with rage wonders if he's terminally stupid or just a mean bastard.
She gets an idea of what the expression on her face must be when Gerry blanches at the sight of her. "Everything all right here, gov?"
"Still call her that, do you? I bet she likes that. She'd be the type." Frank winks broadly at Gerry, who has instantly turned sick. Even as a cold chill races down his spine, Gerry feels himself break into a sweat.
Sandra slides off her stool and clutches her handbag. Her first step is unsteady, but then she finds her sea legs. She ignores Patterson entirely, focused on Gerry.
"Sandra?" he says urgently, panicking.
"I trusted you," she returns frigidly, and walks past him to the exit.
Gerry's first instinct is to go after her, but he wheels on Patterson. "What the hell have you been saying, you twat?"
"Only the truth, mate." Frank gulps his pint. "Didn't think she'd take it so 'ard. She's 'ardly the first, is she? You're legend, mate. The lovely detective superintendent is the latest in a long line of tarts taken in by the old Stand-Up charm. I don't know wot she sees in you, but she's a credit to you, Gerry, bird like her, at your age."
Unfortunately Frank won't get to finish his pint of Lion's Head this evening, because when Gerry punches him in the face – a hard right cross – and knocks out his right front incisor, Frank doubles over in pain and spills it. That, however, is the least of Frank's problems at the moment.
It's certainly the least of Gerry's problems.