Stuart Pawson - Some By Fire

"Thanks all the same, but much as I'd like to, I'll decline, if you don't mind." PMs on sinkers are not pleasant. "Apart from which," I continued, "I've said I'll take Melissa to the airport."

"They're going back today, are they?"

"Mm'

"Shame about the wedding."

"Isn't it just? Give me a ring, will you, please, Les, as soon as you have something."

"Will do."

After that we'd have a big meeting with Tregellis and the prosecution service to prepare the case against Kingston. That was something to look forward to. If I allowed an hour to Manchester airport I'd have to pick Melissa up at about ten thirty. Call it ten to be on the safe side. I went up to the top floor to tell Gilbert as much as he needed to know.

They were waiting for me, eager to be back in the Land of the Free, where the streets have no pavements, and you have to carry your driving licence with you and a disapproving look given to a skateboarding youth can end in gunfire. I pressed the lever to unlock the boot and Slade lifted it open. I got out and walked round the back but he didn't need any help. He wouldn't have received any, but he didn't need it. They were wearing the same outfits they arrived in, which was reasonable enough, you need to be comfortable when faced with a long plane ride, and she was made up like a Kikuyu warrior. They both climbed in the back. I could see the edge of his face in my rearview mirror, but she squeezed into the corner, out of sight.

I thought about taking them the scenic route, but decided not to. The M62 was quicker and that's all I was interested in. Cruising at seventy in the middle lane, I tilted my head to see him better and asked: "You been to England before, Slade?"

He glanced at me in the mirror and replied: "Nope. First and last visit, God willing."

"You don't sound impressed."

"You god dit

"What didn't you like?"

"The beer's like warmed-up hoss piss, the beefburgers rot your brain, you've never heard of air-conditioning and the women're ugly."

I had to chuckle. Well, I did ask. "Melissa's not ugly," I said.

"There's an English rose lurking underneath all that muck she covers herself with."

"Just fucking drive, Priest," she snapped. "We gave you what you wanted, now get us out of this dump."

I stretched my neck but she was ducked down and I couldn't see her.

What I didn't know was that she was holding one of the blades from the little feminine razor that she shaves her temples with, and was systematically slashing my back seat with it. I discovered that three days later, when I found the razor blade she'd thoughtfully left embedded in the upholstery. I wish I'd known; it would have helped me make a decision.

Meanwhile, the hangover had gone and I was feeling almost light-headed.

"We arrested Kingston yesterday," I said.

"Congratulations."

"Thought you'd like to know."

"You were wrong."

"Oh, and Mo Dlamini asks to be remembered to you." He'd prefer to forget all about her, but I was in a mischievous mood.

There was a silence, then she said: "Mo?"

"Mm'

"You've talked to Mo? About me?"

"That's right."

"What did he say?"

"I wouldn't dream of repeating it."

"Who else have you spoken to?"

"Just about everybody you went to school and university with. Everybody remembered you. Maybe it was the purple hair."

After another pause she said: "Did you speak to Janet? Janet Wilson?"

"Er, I'm not sure," I lied.

"It was her, wasn't it?" she declared. "She put you on to me, the two-faced cow. She tried to come between me and Nick, but it didn't work. She was just another notch on his bedpost, and she's hated me ever since."

I'd asked for that. I was in the outside lane and traffic was bunching up on my left. A big blue sign flashed by before I noticed it, and I said: "I think this is ours." I squeezed across into the slow lane behind a minibus loaded with suitcases and didn't speak again until we were lifting theirs out of the boot.

It could have been different. She might have said: "Look, Priest, I don't like you and you don't like me, and that will never change. I admit I've done some bad things in the past, things you'd never believe, but it's all behind me now. This is a new start for me, and I'm going to make the best of it." That's what she might have said, but she didn't. She was arrogant, unrepentant and vindictive, all the way. And the decision I had to make was that much easier for it.

I parked in the short stay and Slade found a trolley for their luggage.

"We can manage from here," he said. "We've done airports before."

"I'll see you aboard," I told him. "That's my orders."

"Just obeying orders, hey, Priest," she said. "Always do as you're told, do you?"

"It makes for an easier life," I replied.

"Do you know what the best bit was?" she went on. "Do you know what made this trip worthwhile? I'll tell you. It was the look on your face when you learned that we were married. I'll cherish that for a long time."

I shrugged my shoulders. "Win a few, lose a few," I said. "It's just a job; we don't take it personally."

"Ah, but you do, Priest, don't you?" she asserted. "Well, tough shit."

I followed them at a polite distance through checking-in and into the departure lounge. He had a beefburger and coffee, she sipped a mineral water. All those brains, I thought, all that talent, and the intelligence of a wood louse I found a seat and watched people for a small eternity.

The Air 2000 charter flight we'd squeezed them on was called through into the boarding area and I showed my ID to the immigration officer and followed the crowd. I stood with my arms folded as the seat numbers were announced and watched groups of tourists rush to be first on, as if their bit of the plane would take off before the rest of it.

They were a cross-section of working-class Britons and their offspring, off for a fortnight of fast food and fun. Football shirts were the dress of the day, with a good smattering of back-to-front baseball caps. And these were the dads. They carried surfboards, deflated li-los, raster-blasters to annoy the neighbours and rolled-up windbreaks. Windbreaks. I almost wished I were going with them.

An indecipherable announcement was made and Melissa and Slade rose to their feet, hoisting hand luggage on to their shoulders. Melissa saw me and couldn't resist coming over. "Just thought I'd tell you," she said, 'that it hasn't been a pleasure knowing you. Goodbye, Priest. I hope all cops die in pain."

"Au revoir, Melissa," I replied.

"It may be a small comfort to you," she went on, 'to know that seven hours crushed in a plane with all these ghastly people is my idea of hell, but it's worth it to escape from this dump. You're paying the fare, after all."

"Oh, it's a large comfort," I told her.

She went back to Slade and put her arm around his waists. He put his across her shoulders and they moved towards the girl at the desk and showed her their boarding passes. She gave them a well-used smile and they stepped into the gangway.

I moved across so I could watch them follow the file down the boarding tunnel. They stood behind a little knot of passengers until it was their turn. The hostess looked at the seat numbers on their cards and pointed, and they vanished from view. Ten minutes later the plane door was closed and the gangway pulled back. I turned and made my way up to the observation area.

It's a curious mixture of bracing fresh air and kerosene fumes up there. There's a theory that enthusiasts for old cars and aeroplanes and other things mechanical are really addicted to hydrocarbon vapour.

I don't believe it. There's a romance in watching the big jets surrounded by the service vehicles, like worker ants around the queen.

They replenish it with fuel, evacuate the waste and restock the kitchen with four hundred meals: two hundred of them chicken; one hundred and ninety-nine beef; and a vegan for the Hindu in row six. One by one they move away until the queen stands alone. A tiny figure with headphones makes a hand signal and you see the pilot return it. That's the bit I like best; the romance of travel captured in a single wave.