Lee Weeks - Frozen Grave

‘Not far then. It’s just up the road.’

‘Of course, it’s a great place. We must go there for a night sometime. I’d forgotten how beautiful it is. The last time I saw it though I was on training exercises in preparation for Afghanistan. That was a rough experience.’

She smiled, tight-lipped. ‘It must have been. You promised me you’d wear your uniform this time. I’ve never seen you in it.’

‘Sorry, darling. I completely forgot to put it in the car. I’ll wear it next time.’ He held on to her and kissed her neck. He could feel the tension in her. Something wasn’t right. He was trying to think what it could be. ‘Wish I’d had you in Afghanistan. You’d have kept my morale up as well as something else. Now put the kettle on chop-chop and make me something to eat.’ He smacked her hard on her bottom as he turned to pick up his bag from the doorway.

She gave a false laugh but didn’t move.

‘No. I really want to go out for dinner this evening. You said we would this week. I’ve been looking forward to it. Seeing someone every two weeks means you have to make a big effort when you do. Don’t you think?’

‘Of course. Thought we’d light the fire and get cosy.’ He put his bag down in the hallway.

‘You know what, JJ?’ Gillian stood with her hands on her hips. ‘I’m sick of staying in and waiting for you to come and then we do nothing . Absolutely nothing. I’m beginning to think you just use me as a stopover. Eighteen months we’ve been together and we’ve only been away once. It’s not good enough. I can’t even put photos of you on my Facebook. It’s like I’m your dirty secret.’

Ellerman sighed. ‘I’m sorry, darling. I’d love to announce our relationship to the world on Facebook but I was in the SAS, remember? Do you know how many people would love to get me? I put some serious terrorists out of business. I—’

Gillian didn’t wait to hear him out; she turned and walked away into the kitchen.

‘Did you bring any wine with you?’

‘No. Sorry. I was in such a rush to get here.’ Ellerman strained to listen to her response. Normally, she would have melted at that kind of a comment – ‘couldn’t wait to get here and rip your clothes off’ kind of thing. But recently things had changed between them. Ellerman wondered whether their time was coming to an end. Christ knows, he was banking on her today. He was tired, hungry, a little hungover. He had been expected to really perform at Megan’s. He’d thought he was in for an easy night at Gillian’s. He hadn’t anticipated this reception. He heard the fridge door open and heard the clink of bottles. ‘I’ll go and get some,’ Ellerman called out as he jangled his keys.

‘Don’t bother…’ Gillian reappeared. She had stripped and was wearing a red corset. How Ellerman hated red lingerie. It reminded him of blood.

‘It can wait. I’ve got some.’ Gillian handed him a glass of cold white wine. He sipped it and tried not to grimace. Eastern European . He gave what he considered to be his deep seductive laugh – full of 007 promise, appreciative of what he saw in front of him and the beautiful figure that he was supposed to be delighting in, but in real terms he thought Gillian had become a little fat. He saw her as a little on the big side now and he wasn’t a great lover of curvy women. He liked all his women to be petite, much smaller than him. He loved to be able to pick them up in his arms and carry them, but he was pretty sure that Gillian now weighed twelve stone and would take some lifting. She looked at him expectantly but he saw by the glint in her eyes that she was challenging him.

‘Let’s go upstairs.’ She picked up the bottle. ‘I want to work up an appetite for this meal that you’re going to take me for.’ Ellerman looked at her expression and thought how she had obviously been building up to this and he hadn’t noticed. Whatever she had suppressed in the last few visits, it had certainly decided to surface now and he was feeling very deflated.

‘I’ve booked a restaurant in town. It costs a lot but then I’m worth it, aren’t I?’

She led the way up to her attic room.

He went across to look through the skylight at the evening. He could see the orange glow of car headlights going past on the road below; he could see streams of them in the distance on the motorway. He couldn’t see his car from there – he always parked it further up the road, well away from any chance of it being knocked. But he knew it was waiting for him. He felt the urge to get back in it now and drive, put on his music, and hit the highway.

Coz, baby, we were born to run…

He turned back to the bed and saw that she was waiting, and said to himself: ‘Get it over with…’ He started his usual moves but today it wasn’t working for him. He changed positions. Maybe if he thought of someone else – that would do it for him? But it didn’t. He was having a difficult job staying hard, maintaining his interest. He stopped, sighed, smiled embarrassedly as he hovered over her.

‘Sorry, darling – been a long day for me. I feel under pressure with you looking so damn sexy in your red corset. And…’ He rolled away. ‘My client really took it out of me.’ He lay on his back, exhausted.

‘You can’t just give up – don’t be so selfish. I thought you were Mr Stud?’

Forty minutes later, Ellerman was given the signal that enough was enough.

Gillian rolled over and looked at her phone on the floor beside the bed. ‘Just in time – we have forty-five minutes to get to the restaurant. And God, I’m hungry. I hear this place is Michelin-starred – a hundred pounds a head. But then…’ She turned and looked defiantly at him as she opened the attic-bedroom door and went out on the landing to have a shower in the bathroom next door. ‘You owe me – all the meals and the bottles of wine you’ve had here in the last eighteen months and, to be honest, I’m beginning to think you’re mean with money…’ Ellerman turned over in bed and lifted his head in protest but didn’t speak. ‘Yeah…’ said Gillian. ‘Prove me wrong.’

Ellerman got dressed whilst he heard the shower running. He gathered up his things and stepped down the stairs from the attic bedroom. He was thinking it through. He’d lost his hard-on halfway and had to spend half an hour on his knees pleasuring Gillian and now he was going to have to pay two hundred quid for a meal he couldn’t afford. Enough was enough. Ellerman went downstairs and into the lounge and was just contemplating what would be the best plan of escape when Gillian hurried down the stairs wearing a white towelling robe, as if she knew what he was thinking.

‘You going somewhere, darling?’ she asked in a child’s petulant voice as she pulled the robe tight around her. Her eyes were set hard. He could see that she was still in the mood she’d been in before they’d had sex, despite his exhaustive efforts.

‘I’m so sorry, babe. Just had a call. I need to go.’

‘What about the restaurant, babe ?’

‘I can’t this time, darling . I am truly sorry. I have to drive up North straight away. I’ve got a six-hour car drive ahead of me.’ Gillian shook her head in mock sympathy as she glared at him. He reached for her and rubbed her arms as if she were a needy relative. ‘Oh, bugger it – you’re so much more important to me than you realize. I’ll stay here but let’s relax, get cosy, get drunk together. I wanted to talk to you about the Spanish house. I wanted to give you an update. You know… I am so looking forward to us moving out there, darling.’

‘Really? All the money I’ve put into it these last eighteen months, I would have thought you could have built a fucking mansion by now.’