Deception on His Mind (Inspector Lynley, #9)(77)

“I haven't been cheesed off,” Gerry said. He cracked the eggs and whipped them in the bowl while the bangers began to hiss on the cooker.

“Okay. Well, good.”

But was it good, really? Cliff didn't think so. Lately, he had begun to notice changes in Gerry: the uncharacteristic, lengthy silences, the frequent weekend retreats to the small garage, where he played his drums; the long nights he spent working on that private remodelling job in Balford; the intense evaluative looks he'd taken to giving to Cliff when he thought Cliff wouldn't notice. So sure, maybe Ger wasn't cheesed off at the moment. But he was definitely something.

Cliff knew that he ought to say more, but what he realised was that he very much wanted to leave the room. He figured that it would be wiser, anyway, just to pretend everything was fine despite all contradictory indications. That made more sense than running the risk of finding out something he didn't want to know.

Still, he remained in the kitchen. He watched the way his lover was moving, and he tried to suss out what it meant that Gerry was seeing to his breakfast with such a combination of assurance and concentration. It wasn't that assurance and concentration were out of character in Gerry. To be a success in his line of work, he needed both qualities. But neither of them was a quality that Gerry usually demonstrated when he was with Cliff.

Now, though … This was a different Gerry. This wasn't a bloke whose main concern had always been that problems between them got solved, questions got answered, and irritations got smoothed away without either of them raising their voices. This was a Gerry who sounded and acted like a bloke who'd put his oars in the water and knew exactly how far he had to row to get to the shore.

Cliff hadn't wanted to think about what this meant. He'd wished like hell he had stayed in bed. He heard the kitchen clock ticking loudly on the wall behind him, and it sounded just like the steady drumbeat that led the condemned to the chopping block. Shit, he thought. Fuck, hell, shit.

Gerry had taken his breakfast to the table. It was a hearty meal to see him through till lunch: eggs, bangers, two pieces of fruit, toast, and jam. But when he had it laid out with cutlery in position, a glass of juice poured, and a napkin tucked into the top of his T-shirt, he didn't eat. He just stared at the food, curled his hand round the juice glass, and swallowed so loud that Cliff had to think he was choking on a stone.

Then he looked up. “I think,” Gerry said, “we both need to have blood tests.”

The kitchen walls swam. The floor felt unsteady. And their shared history came back at Cliff in a sickening rush.

Who they'd been would always haunt them, two blokes who lied to their respective families about how and when and where they'd met: in a public loo at a period of time when “taking precautions” wasn't near as important as buggering the first bloke willing to have it. He and Ger knew the truth about each other, about who they'd been and, more important, who they could easily go back to being if the time was right and the temptation was there and the market square loo was empty save for just one other accommodating bloke.

Cliff had wanted to laugh, to pretend he'd misheard. He'd thought about saying, “You daft? What the hell're you on about, mate?” But instead, he said nothing. Because long ago he'd learned the value of waiting for panic and terror to subside before saying the first thing that came into his head.

“Hey, I love you, Gerry DeVitt,” he'd finally declared.

Gerry bowed his head and began to weep.

Now Cliff watched the two cops yakking outside Hegarty's Adult Distractions, just like two biddies over their tea. He knew they'd soon be going to every business in the industrial estate. They'd have to do it. The Paki'd been murdered, and they'd want to talk to anyone who might have seen the bloke, talked to him, or observed him talking to anyone else. Next to his digs, the industrial estate was a logical place to begin. So it was only a matter of time before they got themselves over to Hegarty's Adult Distractions.

“Shit,” Cliff whispered. He was sweating despite the air conditioner in the window that blew a frigid breeze in his direction. What he didn't need right now was a run-in with the rozzers. He had to keep them away from Gerry. And he had to avoid telling anyone the truth.


AN IMPRESSIVE TURQUOISE cruisemobile swung into the industrial estate just as Emily was saying, “We can be sure of one thing, based on the fact that Sahlah didn't know who F. Kumhar was. He's a man, as I've thought from the first.”

“How d'you reckon that?”

Emily held up a hand to hold Barbara's question at bay for a moment as the car rumbled into the lane. An American convertible, it was all sleek lines and leather interior with chrome that glittered like polished platinum. Thunderbird sports car, Barbara thought, at least forty years old and perfectly restored. Someone wasn't hurting for lolly.

The driver was a tea-skinned male somewhere in his twenties, with long hair tied back in a ponytail. He wore wrap-around sunglasses of a style that Barbara had always associated with pimps, gigolos, and card sharks. She recognised him from the demonstration that she'd witnessed on television the previous day. Muhannad Malik.

Taymullah Azhar was with him. To his credit, he didn't look particularly comfortable arriving at the factory like a fugitive from Miami Vice.

The men got out. Azhar remained by the car, arms folded across his chest, while Muhannad sauntered to join the two police officers. He removed his sunglasses and tucked them into the pocket of his white shirt. This was perfectly ironed and fresh-looking, and he wore it with jeans and snake-skin boots.