Nick Oldham - Critical Threat

‘I shall do my best.’ He took another sip of his beer, aware it was going down on a very empty stomach. Angela watched him carefully.

‘FB really likes you, y’know?’

‘He’s got a funny way of showing it.’

‘I think his heart is in the right place. He’s got a lot of plates spinning.’

‘I didn’t know he had a heart.’

She watched him take another drink. She sipped her wine, then licked her lips. ‘How would you feel if an ACPO officer made a pass at you?’

Henry considered the question carefully. ‘I suppose it would depend on whether or not I fancied him.’

She giggled girlishly. Henry grinned. ‘What if it was a female ACPO officer, to be more precise? One living alone in a big rented house not two minutes’ drive from here?’ Henry’s pulse quickened. He took a longer swig of his drink. ‘One, say, on the verge of becoming a grandmother at the ripe old age of forty-four and one who would offer no strings attached, because she needed discretion and could not afford any sort of scandal?’

He drained his glass. ‘I need another. You?’ She swallowed the last mouthful of red wine and held out the glass.

‘A large one,’ she ordered. ‘Think about it while you go to the bar. I’m going to the loo.’

Henry’s weak legs just about managed to carry him as far as the bar, where with a husky voice he ordered and bought the drinks, returning to the seats in the conservatory to find Angela had also returned and let her hair down from her ponytail.

‘Er, lost for words, a bit. I mean, I know it’s all hypothetical and sounds a wonderful set of circumstances and my response would be that I would have to think about that sort of thing very carefully.’ He spoke as if he was responding to a business proposition. ‘In my experience, nothing ever comes without strings attached and I’ve got a very poor track record when dealing with females of the opposite sex. The older I get, the less I get them.’

‘This one’s simple, though. I might be an ACPO officer, but I still have pretty basic urges.’ She leaned forward. ‘This one is desperate for a fuck and nothing else. This one will use you and abuse you and toss you by the wayside after literally sucking you dry.’ She licked her lips and looked seductively at him. ‘And she wants to fuck you.’

Despite his good intentions towards Kate, there was a strong stirring in him which equated with weakness of the flesh.

‘I would have to enter such a’ — here, he shook his head, trying to find the right words — ‘relationship, I suppose, with eyes wide open and ground rules set.’

‘That would be acceptable.’

‘Although I do find it amazing that an officer of ACPO rank could even contemplate such a thing.’

‘Let me tell you, Henry, they’re at it like knives the country over.’

‘It’s a bit like imagining your parents having sex.’ He screwed up his face.

‘Even ACPO officers are flesh and blood.’ Then she added provocatively, ‘All I could think of during last week’s debrief was me and you, at it like knives.’

‘I won’t push it, Henry,’ Angela said, ‘and I won’t hold it against you if you’re not interested, but there is one thing I’d like you to think about …’

It was 8.30 p.m., way past Henry’s bedtime. He and Angela had finished their drinks and were on the car park to the side of the Anchor, standing by the open driver’s door of her Mercedes. She turned to him, standing only inches away, face turned up, and he didn’t have to be told that this was the point where they kissed.

‘Tonight probably isn’t appropriate,’ she said. ‘We’re both exhausted and we need clear heads for tomorrow, which’ll probably be an equally busy day, but …’ She didn’t need to say another word, because they instinctively came together and kissed. Their lips mashed together, their tongues sliding into each other’s mouths. Henry could feel her body through her T-shirt and his immediate hardness pressed against her. They broke apart, gasping for air, looking longingly at one another, Angela’s eyes moist with passion. ‘Just a taster,’ she said, ‘and believe me, I taste good.’

With that she pushed him gently away and slid into her car, closing the door and driving away, leaving him, as planned, wanting more.

He stood there until his manhood subsided, drawing a strange look from a couple walking towards the pub. The blood took for ever to drain away.

He sat in his car with the engine idling for a while. On the passenger seat was a slip of paper Angela had pushed into his hand which bore her address, mobile and home phone numbers. There was a big ‘X’ underneath. He picked it up and read it. He knew the road she lived on, just a matter of half a mile away. But he blew out his cheeks and dropped the paper on to the seat and set off down the dual carriageway towards Preston and, ultimately, home.

Henry knew his weakness and had major problems controlling it. And it was particularly tempting to be offered no strings attached sex by a woman who could not afford to get caught out because of her high-profile career.

God, why can’t I change my spots? he agonized internally. He was seriously working out whether he could juggle it when his brain suddenly cleared and remembered how recently it was that he and Kate had made fantastic love and he had said all those things to her and here he was, considering embarking on an affair, or at least a one-night stand, with another woman. Which then spun his thoughts into those dangerous areas of justification … Well, I’m not married, I’m not engaged, so technically I’m a free man; Angela’s free, too, so on the face of it I could screw her without any feelings of guilt … Except nothing was ever so easy … and he knew he had caused so much grief to Kate and the girls over the years and yet they still loved him … and what if Angela turned out to be a less stable character than she appeared?

He headed down Penwortham Hill and bore left over the flyover which spanned the River Ribble to the south of Preston. Then he drove down by the docks and picked up the Blackpool Road.

When his heartbeat settled back to normal, he slotted a Stones CD into the player, one he had burned himself, and relaxed as the opening chords of ‘Streets of Love’ filled the air and Jagger began to croon about unrequited love. The dual carriageway out of Preston continued past the docks and inclined upwards through Lea. Henry was not in a rush, his main aim being to stay awake and make it home in one piece. He stuck to the speed limit as he passed the Lea Gate pub on his right and approached the traffic lights at Three Nooks, intending to go straight on.

He attempted to erase the memory of the kiss, not entirely successfully, and thought fleetingly about the last woman he’d almost had a fling with. He recalled how he had got her so drunk that she wasn’t physically capable of sleeping with him. That action itself was a turn up for the books, a turning point in his life maybe. The ‘new’ and faithful Henry Christie. Or possibly the ‘old and getting past it’ Henry. The Henry who only wanted a plasma-screen TV and a quiet life. He had actually ordered the plasma and maybe the same was true of his life: it was on order, expected to be delivered at any time, but meanwhile he had to make do with what he had.

The lights were on red. He stretched, yawned and skipped the next two tracks on the CD and found, ‘Tell Me’, one of the first songs the Stones had ever written and recorded. He always thought it was a lovely song, written when Jagger and Richards were just testing their wings.

As the amber lights appeared, he moved off reasonably slowly, now thinking about Eddie Daley and the fact that Eddie’s mobile phone had not been found. He’d taken it out with him when he’d gone to the office, so it stood to reason that the killer had stolen it. And was there anything else missing that should have been there? Something continued to bang away at Henry’s brain.