Landslide Read online

  ‘And how’s his new relationship going? With the Chinese girl?’

  ‘Well from the noises I could hear coming from the master bedroom when I went for a pee in the middle of the night I’d say it was all back on track’.

  Jaime laughed. ‘I hope we don’t make noises like that’.

  ‘Well he hasn’t said anything’ said Brendan. ‘But then he probably wouldn’t. He’d be too embarrassed. And I wouldn’t want to embarrass him. I don’t take advantage of good people especially when they pay my wages’.

  ‘You are so sweet’ said Jaime who tightened his arms around Brendan.

  ‘Tell me more about you, Jaime’.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Well, I mean, you know everything about me’ said Jaime who’d been slightly suspicious lately about what little Jaime gave away about himself. It was sexy in a way. It only added to the allure of the man. But then after a while it had started to grow inside Brendan’s head. He kept on telling himself that he should just not worry about it. He was having the time of his life with Jaime and maybe Jaime was just one of those people who didn’t like talking about himself. One of his friends had suggested that it was because Jaime was hiding something. Like a wife and kids. ‘You know about my family, my job, my employer. I mean, are you married, Jaime?’

  Jaime laughed. If only it was that simple. ‘No Brendan, I don’t have a wife and kids’.

  ‘Well is there somebody else in your life that I should be aware about?’

  ‘Brendan, I don’t have any family to speak of. I was an only child and my parents are both dead. I’ve got relatives but they’re all scattered all over the place in Scotland, London, New Zealand. I get Christmas cards from all of them but that’s more or less all in the way of contact. The ones in Scotland visit the ones in London and vice versa but they never think of calling on me halfway up or down’.

  ‘God, that must really hurt’.

  ‘It did when I was younger, and especially just after I’d lost both my parents, but I’m a big boy now and I just accept it. You see, my father came from a big family but my mother was an only child. I don’t know all the details but I think my mother’s family disagreed with her marriage to my father for some reason. I’m not really sure why. On the few occasions I’ve met my father’s family they’ve all seemed like decent enough people to me. But you know, rifts develop, months and then years go by. It just happens like that in families, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Not in mine’ said Brendan who hoped he didn’t sound completely insensitive at the richness of his own family compared to the cold reality of Jaime’s. ‘We’re a big old-fashioned Irish brood and there’s always someone from the family at my parents house’.

  ‘Your experience of family is totally different to mine’.

  ‘It seems like it’ said Brendan whose heart went out to Jaime. Brendan loved his family and couldn’t imagine life without them.

  ‘And then these past few years I’ve given everything to building up my business’ Jaime went on. ‘There are scores of business consultants out there and you’ve really got to work hard to step above the rest. I haven’t had much time for family or even a boyfriend. Meeting you has changed all that though. Now I want a different kind of life with my pretty little boyfriend at the centre of it’.

  ‘Well you won’t get any arguments from me there’ said Brendan although he still had one more lingering question. Why hadn’t Jaime ever invited him back to his place?

  ‘My love, my flat is just an office with a bed in it’ Jaime explained. ‘I’m bloody ashamed to invite anybody back to be brutally frank. All I’ve got pinned to my walls are spread sheets and the calendars of company’s I work for’.

  ‘It sounds … inspiring’ said Brendan who didn’t know what else to say. This poor handsome creature seemed to have been swimming along in this sea of nothing for too long. Well now that he’d fired up his passion Brendan was determined to bring some colour into the rest of Jaime’s life. He was beginning to feel like he’d got it bad and that was good, that was very, very good. He turned to look at the clock on his bedside table. ‘But look, what really is inspiring is that it’s a quarter to six and my alarm usually goes off in forty-five minutes at half past’.

  ‘Usually?’

  Brendan ran his fingers through Jaime’s thick mass of chest hair. ‘Well because it’s the school mid-term holidays and therefore Toby is spending it at his grandparents place, I’ve only got the boss to look after which means I can stay in bed another fifteen minutes’.

  ‘I sense there’s some kind of plan coming together here?’

  ‘Well what do you think we can do with the next hour now that we’re wide awake? Why don’t you guess?’

  Jaime reached down and clasped Brendan’s steadily hardening cock in his fingers. ‘Am I getting warm?’

  ‘I’d say you were more than just warm’.

  ‘I’d have thought you’d have got enough of this last night’

  Brendan, who then felt Jaime’s hard-on spring up against his leg, said ‘Clearly not and it feels like that goes for you too’.

  Once they’d finished making love Jaime held Brendan in his arms and was mightily pissed off. He’d waited a long time for someone like Brendan to come along and yet he knew he would have to break his heart sooner rather than later. He wouldn’t be able to avoid it but the difference this time is that Brendan had come to really matter to him and therefore, when the time came, Jaime would be breaking his own heart too.

  Barton drove Rita to where she worked at the Chinese cultural centre in the centre of Manchester where she worked. He’d decided that he thought enough of Rita to give her another chance and to put down what had happened that first morning to someone who just got a bit too keen a bit too quickly. It wasn’t a crime. He could forgive that of her pretty little face and since they’d got together she’d promised faithfully that she’d never compromise things with Toby again.

  The cultural centre was at the bottom of Deansgate, right behind where the original Coronation Street set had been before it moved down the road to the brand spanking new Media City complex in Salford. Barton parked in a back street round the corner so they could have just a modicum of privacy.

  ‘You are amazing’ said Rita after she’d come up for breath from kissing Jeff. ‘Finding us this tidy little spot to start the day off right. But being a senior police officer I guess you must know every nook and cranny of this city’.

  Barton was amused. ‘Every nook and cranny? Where did you learn that?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well it’s such a peculiarly English … expression. Surely you didn’t learn it from a textbook at school back in Beijing?’

  ‘No, just from listening about, you know’ said Rita. ‘And you Brits have some peculiar sayings that just don’t make sense to a dumb foreigner like me’.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Cheap at half the price?’ That doesn’t make sense at all. Oh and my favourite is when I hear people say that the weather feels really close. I mean, of course it’s close. It’s everywhere around you’.

  Jeff smiled. ‘Yes, I do know what you mean’. It was curious listening to Rita because, although her English was impeccable, she still had that Chinese lilt to the way she spoke. His late wife had never had any trace of a Chinese accent because she’d been brought up in England. He’d asked himself a couple of times lately if he was with Rita because she reminded him so much of Lillie Mae. Not just in her ethnicity but her whole poise was so similar to how Lillie Mae used to walk and carry herself and her figure was just like that of her too. In the end he was confident that his feelings for Rita were something completely new but if the Gods had sent down the spirit of Lillie Mae to cure his loneliness then he wasn’t going to argue with them.

  ‘You know I can only drop you off like this when Toby is on school holidays and staying with his grandparents?’

  ‘I know and I understand that you have to take him to school, believe me’ sai
d Rita who then started to laugh.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well it’s just that I saw Brendan’s boyfriend again this morning. He was coming out of the bathroom dressed only in a towel that was wrapped around his waist. I don’t know who was more embarrassed, him or me. He seems like a nice guy though’.

  ‘Yes he does and he’s certainly putting the smile on Brendan’s face’ said Jeff as he placed his hand on the inside of Rita’s leg and began moving it upwards. ‘But listen, just remember to only get moist for the master of the house’.

  Rita met his lips with her own and they spent several minutes kissing as passionately as they could. ‘You know, when I first saw you in the pub that night I never thought you’d end up being as dirty in bed as you are’.

  ‘It’s always the quiet ones’.

  ‘Isn’t it just’.

  ‘And I’m just glad your friend didn’t turn up because her loss was my definite gain’ said Barton. ‘But I’m sorry to break up the party but I need to get to work’.

  ‘Any progress on the case you’re working on?’

  Rita knew that Jeff was working on the discovery of the little girl in the car boot whose feet had been chopped off. She’d seen him holding the press conference on TV. But he was very professional. He wouldn’t tell her anything about the details.

  ‘Now you know I can’t talk about that, Rita’.

  ‘I do but I thought it was worth a try’.

  ‘By the way, did you ever find out why she didn’t show up that night?’

  ‘I’ve been screening my calls and when her number comes up I let it go straight to voicemail’.

  ‘Naughty’.

  ‘Oh well I’m so fed up with her, Jeff. Like I said that night it wasn’t the first time she’s stood me up and yet she always expects me to forgive her no matter how pathetic her excuse sounds. But if I did it to her then there’d be hell to pay because she really does think the world revolves around her. She wasn’t like it when I first fell in with her but then people aren’t always what they seem’.

  ‘She thinks the sun shines out of her arse but she forgets her shit smells just like everybody else’.

  ‘Yeah, that’s exactly it’.

  ‘All things being equal, is she pretty?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Is she blond by any chance?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Large breasts?’

  ‘Yes?’ said Rita a little self-consciously. She’d always been a bit sensitive about the size of her breasts. She’d have liked to have been blessed with bigger ones but she’d never run off to a plastic surgeon to make them bigger. After all, they’d never stopped her from getting any man she wanted.

  ‘Well then all that adds up to why she thinks she can get away with treating people like shit’ said Barton. ‘But let me let you into a little secret. You know, my brother-in-law Seamus, the airline pilot? He was at work the other day when his cabin crew told him that a young female passenger who’d been sitting in economy class had planted herself in the business class cabin. She refused to pay the fare difference and was refusing to move from the seat she’d procured. She said she was blond and beautiful and therefore she could get away with it. So Seamus put on his Captain’s hat and his jacket and went down to confront her. She immediately began flirting with him which the cabin crew all found hilarious because of course they all know that Seamus is gay. So he let her have her fun for a moment or two and then he said ‘I’m afraid this is not your lucky day because you see, I got married recently and my husband Lewis has been my long standing boyfriend for several years. So you can flirt away all you like but what’s going to happen is you’ll go back to your seat in economy class or I will have you arrested when we land at Munich. I hope I make myself clear’.

  They were both laughing as Rita asked. ‘And what did she do?’

  ‘Well when she realised that her charms weren’t going to work on him she apparently stormed back to her economy seat and sulked for the rest of the flight’.

  ‘Well yes I could see my friend trying to pull some stunt like that but I do know that she hasn’t been to Germany recently so the woman couldn’t have been her’.

  ‘Okay but now I really do have to get to work’.

  ‘Me too’.

  ‘Have you got a lot on?’

  ‘Not really’ said Rita, shrugging her shoulders. ‘At the moment I’m just keeping the normal stuff ticking over. Working for the Chinese government isn’t always that clearly defined. It’s hard to trust people sometimes, you know?

  ‘What? Even your colleagues at work?’

  ‘Especially my colleagues at work’ said Rita. ‘You never know whose agenda somebody might be working to’.

  ‘It must make life at work quite difficult at times?’

  ‘Oh it does but I get through it’ said Rita. ‘These days my day only gets exciting when you come into it’.

  Barton went into work still smiling with excitement at the way Rita had come crashing into his life and he was so glad that she had. It must be hard for her at work though from what she was saying. He knew about all the shadow boxing that was sometimes necessary when you worked for a public service in a democratic country like the UK. But it must be ten times worse when your employer was the emerging economy in the world and had been a one party state for decades. He wondered what it must be like to be a police officer in Beijing. Since Lillie Mae’s family had almost made him an honorary Chinese citizen he’d grown to know a great deal about the culture of the country. But it was all the good side that added up to what it meant to be Chinese. They’d kept him away from the more negative side and he’d had no inclination to find out about it for himself.

  Lillie Mae’s family. He loved them dearly and had the upmost respect for them. But how would they react if things got really serious between him and Rita? They’d said to him often that they wanted him to be happy and if he met someone else that he grew to love then he would have their blessing. But when presented with the reality it often wasn’t so easy to accept what you thought you could in theory.

  Just after he got to his office he looked up and noticed that he’d just walked through a rather heavy atmosphere. Nobody on his team were speaking to each other and it wasn’t anything to do with all the work they had to do as they sat there with their faces in their laptops. It was just one big overwhelming silence. Well enough of their petty little game of stupid wankers. These were grown up police officers and he wasn’t going to let them behave otherwise. Their duties were far too important to sink to levels like this.

  ‘Tea for you, sir’ said Louisa lightly as she came in with a mug of tea and placed it on Barton’s desk.

  ‘Louisa, thank you but you really don’t have to do this’ said Barton. ‘We didn’t employ you as a tea girl’.

  ‘I know, sir, but I don’t mind doing it’ Louisa countered.

  ‘Okay fair enough, now any luck on looking into possible connections with the murder of our young girl and any unsolved cases with a similar MO over the last ten years?’ asked Barton. It was still preying heavily on Barton’s mind that there was some connection between this case and something from the not so distant past. If he did turn out to be right then it could alter the whole dynamic of their investigations.

  ‘I’ve requested the necessary information, sir from all forces across northern England and I’ll be chasing it up this morning and seeing if there is something that could link together with our case’.

  ‘Okay, thanks Louisa, and tell me, and I know you’ll give me an honest answer, what’s with that lot out there this morning?’

  Louisa smiled caustically. ‘It goes back to the clash over race issues that blew up yesterday, sir. They’re all sulking with each other now and acting like spoilt brats in my opinion’.

  ‘My thoughts exactly, Louisa, and don’t take any notice of the rant I’m about to kick off with. None of it is intended for you’.

  Barton marched back out into the main office and stood in
the middle where everybody could see him.

  ‘Now listen up everybody and listen good because I won’t be repeating myself’ he began. ‘I don’t do atmospheres, I don’t do sulking, and I certainly don’t do senior police detectives acting like nursery school kids. Need I remind you that out there is a killer who chopped the feet off a little girl before killing her. Now start showing her some respect and start showing this investigation some respect. Because if you can’t bury your differences over personal opinions then you can fuck off out of my team. I really do hope that for the sake of that little girl, I have made myself loud and crystal clear’. He paused and then said ‘DS Bradshaw?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Can you manage to ride solo today?’

  ‘Okay, sir’.

  ‘Right answer’ said Barton. ‘DC Alexander?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘I’m replacing DS Bradshaw as your friend for the day. No need to be nervous. I’m in a good mood’.

  LANDSLIDE SIX

  ‘So with all due respect sir, am I in for a bollocking?’ asked DC Joe Alexander as he drove himself and he boss out of the station and onto the main Chester road. He would never admit it but he was indeed nervous. Barton wasn’t the kind of boss who consulted a human resources manual before he bollocked someone. He preferred a more holistic approach but it still didn’t mean that you looked forward to getting a bollocking off him. Far from it, because he was the kind of boss he was it meant that any bollocking you got off him carried more truth and therefore more weight than other bosses who would bollock you just because they could.

  ‘Do you think you deserve one, Joe?’

  ‘I suppose my answer to that is that it’s a matter of opinion, sir’.

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘I didn’t mean to offend DCI Wright’.

  ‘But you did’.

  ‘Then I’m sorry for that’ said Joe. ‘I am genuinely sorry. But it’s just that I’ve got a different opinion about what’s happening in the country and the wider world at the moment and I do believe it’s too easy for someone to play the race card when it comes to investigating crime or indeed to any other kind of matter in society’.