Stuart Pawson - Some By Fire

We put her stuff in the boot and drove up the hill and through the ancient archway, heater at maximum to dry our feet. When we'd exhausted the Big Bang we talked about DNA testing. She explained the difference between meiosis and mitosis to me and I told her about the retrospective cases we'd solved. I probably said a good deal more than I ought, but she was interested and I enjoyed showing off.

On the outskirts of Leeds I said: "Usually, after a walk, I indulge in a Chinese. Would you let me treat you?"

"Ah," she replied.

"Ah?" I echoed.

"I was just thinking that going home and starting to cook was a bit of a drag. Trouble is, I had a Chinese last night. How about a pizza or something, but it's my treat. We're not completely impoverished."

"Um, I'm not a great pizza fan. Do you like spicy food?"

"Yes. Love it."

"Right, then stand by for something different."

I headed towards the city centre then picked up the Chapeltown signs.

"I spent some time here," I told her. "Got to know every eating house in the district."

We went to the Magyar Club. It started life as a big house, probably for a merchant or a surgeon. It's escaped the division into bed sits that has befallen all its neighbours and now the descendants of the local Hungarian population meet here to keep their traditions alive.

The place was empty, but later would resound to balalaika music, the stomping of boots and the clashing of vodka-filled glasses.

"Do you still do the best goulash in town?" I asked the steward when he came to see who was ringing the bell.

"We certainly do, sir," he replied, only his broad face and fair hair indicating his ancestry. "Come in."

It hadn't changed at all. We had the speciality goulash and a small glass of red wine each. Elspeth didn't know whether to believe me when I told her it was Bull's Blood.

"Phew! That was good," she proclaimed, wiping her chin with the linen napkin and settling back in her chair. "How did you find out about this place?"

"I was the local bobby for a while. You get to know people in the community."

"And can anybody come in?"

"I suppose so, but we probably wouldn't fit if it was busy. You' dgive yourself away when it was your turn to do the Cossack dancing with a vodka bottle balanced on your nose."

"Ah-ah! Are you pulling my leg?"

I shook my head. "No."

I broke a few seconds' silence by saying: "You haven't mentioned your boyfriend once since I met you. Where have you left him?"

The smile slipped from her face for the briefest interval. She sighed, and told me: "Oh, I don't have one. I seem to pick all the wrong ones.

What about you? You haven't mentioned your wife at all."

She didn't mince her words. "Similar," I replied. "She left me so long ago that I think of myself as a life-long bachelor. I'd have thought that in a big school there would be some handsome geography master wanting to whisk you away from it all."

She gave a private chuckle and said: "There is one. He took me for a drink last week. He's thirty years old and teaches maths. I wasn't too disappointed when he arrived wearing a football jersey. It was blue and green stripes and looked quite nice."

"Sounds like Stanley Accrington," I interrupted.

"Stanley Accrington! Trouble was, it said something like… I don't know… Syd's Exhausts across the front, which completely ruined it.

And if that wasn't enough, when he went to the bar I saw it had a player's name across the back. Thirty years old and he was pretending to be someone else! Can you believe it?"

"He was trying to impress you," I told her. "That was his mating plumage."

"Well he can go mate with a goalpost, that's what I say. Do you know how much those jerseys cost? It's a real racket."

"Mmm," I replied. "Forty-two quid. I bought one yesterday. A red one, with number seven, Georgie Best, across the back and Phyllosan across the front."

"Oh no!" she cried, pulling her hair. "Now you are having me on! Tell me you're having me on!"

"Actually…" I leaned across the table conspiratorially, '… you can buy them at less than half price from the street traders. Except that today, in Heckley, we had a clamp down on them. Arrested them all and confiscated their stock. Or we would have done if somebody who shall be nameless hadn't tipped them off."

"Who'd do that?"

"Don't look at me!" I protested.

"You didn't!"

I winked at her. "In CID we adopt a you-scratch-my-back-and-I'll-scratch-yours policy."

"Charlie, that's awfulV We paid the derisory bill and I took her home. She lived in a nice semi in Headingley where trees grew in the street and gardens had lawns and flower borders. I parked outside and opened the boot.

"This is where the salary goes," she told me.

"You could always take in a student," I suggested.

"No way. This is my little castle. I come home at night and lock the door with all the world and its troubles on the other side."

"I know what you mean." I lifted the easel out and she took it under her arm. The artist's pad went under the other and I hooked her bag over her head. "Can you manage?" I asked as I loaded her to the gunwales.

"I think so." She looked up into my face and said: "You made it a lovely day, Charlie. Thanks for everything."

"I've enjoyed meeting you, Elspeth," I replied. "Thank you for your company. I believe it's called serendipity."

"Yes, it is. Well, thanks again." She hitched the easel further under her arm, tightened her grip on the other stuff, and walked across the pavement towards her gate. She opened it, then turned and said: "You could come in for a coffee."

I shook my head. "No, I don't think so."

"Right. Goodbye then, Charlie."

"Bye, love."

I watched her go in, struggling with her cargo, and she gave me a wave from the front window. I pushed a cassette home and drove off. It was Gavin Bryars, not quite what I needed. I ejected it and fumbled for another, something jauntier. This time it was Dylan's Before the Flood. Just right. He was launching into "Like a Rolling Stone' as I approached Hyde Park Corner. A gang of youths ambled across in front of me, even though the lights were green. I wound my window down and turned the volume to maximum. How does it FEEL! Dylan howled into the evening gloom.

I watched a wildlife programme and listened to some more music until bedtime, helped along with a can or two. Sunday I cleaned my boots and used the washing machine. Non-colour-fast cotton, my favourite cycle.

I took the car to the garage for a shampoo and set and filled it with petrol. Inside I could smell Elspeth's perfume. I hadn't noticed it yesterday. Lunch was courtesy of Mr. Birdseye and in the afternoon I vacuumed everywhere downstairs. I wasn't expecting upstairs visitors.

In the evening I took Jacquie to a pub out in the country. We sipped our halves of lager 'neath fake beams and admired the horse brasses that were probably made in Taiwan. I told her a bit about my day at Bolton Abbey, just the geography and weather, and she described the tribulations of being in business. Apparently the popular colours this winter are going to be emerald green and russet. Outside her house, before she could invite me in for coffee, I said that I wasn't going to see her again.

She took it badly. I told her that I was wasting her time and that it would be better for both of us. I didn't love her, didn't think I ever would. She cried a little and her shoulders trembled. I put my arm around them as she dried her eyes.

"Is it because I wouldn't go to bed with you?" she asked when she felt better.

"No," I answered truthfully. "Of course not."

"I would have done, you know. When I was sure."

"In that case, you were right not to."

"Would it have made a difference?"