Chapter 40
1500 Words
40
He didn’t know whether it showed she was keen or just tragic that Christine wanted to arrange to meet up that evening. No time like the present, she’d said. That was a maxim Jack lived by, so he found it somewhat encouraging — if a little weird — that she wanted to meet up so quickly.
He’d spent the afternoon thinking about how things might pan out. It had been a long time since he’d been on a date, and he wasn’t sure what to expect. Was there a different etiquette these days? He wasn’t one to worry about etiquette at the best of times, but he really didn’t want to mess this up. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had taken any sort of interest in him. He’d largely given up since Helen had left. Of course, for the few years preceding that he hadn’t had to worry either. He’d been married — happily, he thought — so that side of his brain had been used to free up space for other stuff, much like an ageing computer hard drive.
Things would also have to be smoothed over with Emily. He’d only just got his relationship with her back on track. How would she respond to finding out her dad had moved on from her mum and got himself a new girlfriend? He didn’t know, and he had no idea of the safest way to find out, either.
He’d decided to go with a casual shirt, open-necked. Wearing a suit jacket would make him feel like he was at work, and that wouldn’t do him any good. He knew that if this was going to go well, he needed to completely ditch work mode and try and let his hair down for a while — what there was left of it.
That wasn’t something he found easy at the best of times. Work consumed his life, and a succession of friends, colleagues and relatives had pointed out that it had a tendency to completely take over. He couldn’t deny that.
He’d chosen a pub-restaurant in a village a few miles out of town. Meeting Christine in Mildenheath would be too much of a risk. For now, he wanted to keep this to himself. It wouldn’t do to bump into a local criminal — or, worse, a colleague — whilst out on a first date with a woman he’d met on a mobile app. Could he even call it a date? As far as he was concerned they were just meeting up to see if they got on, but he hoped there’d be something more to it than that. Even he knew he deserved to be happy.
He’d got to the pub a good ten minutes before they’d planned to meet, and sat down at a table in the corner, absentmindedly looking through the wine list. He didn’t know the first thing about wine — he used to joke that you could tell how nice it was by looking at the price column on the right hand side — but it gave him something to do while he was waiting. He didn’t order her a drink as he didn’t know what she wanted. She might be a wine drinker, a spirits girl or even a pint chugger. He guessed he’d find out when she turned up.
A few minutes later, he was aware of some movement in front of him, and he looked up to see a woman who looked vaguely — slightly — familiar, grinning at him and holding out a hand.
‘Jack? International man of mystery?’ she asked, giggling with the most annoying laugh he’d ever heard in his life.
He reached out to shake her hand. ‘That’s me. You must be Christine.’
‘Guilty as charged!’ she shrieked, holding her hands up in the air in mock surrender.
Jack forced a smile. ‘Want a drink?’
‘Ooh, yes please. Tomato juice for me.’
‘Ah. You driving?’ he said, looking back at the remaining dregs in his pint glass.
‘No, no. I don’t drive. I don’t drink, either. No-one’s going to catch me drink driving!’ she said, her annoying high-pitched laugh returning.
Jack tried to look amused, and turned away towards the bar to order a tomato juice and another beer. He glanced back over to the table, where Christine was happily playing away on her phone while she waited for him. He was tempted to sneak out the side door and disappear while he could, but he at least owed it to her — and to himself — to stick around and give it a fair crack of the whip.
Once he’d got the drinks, he returned to the table, promising himself he’d try to look for the positives and not make rash judgements. Unfortunately for him, his entire career had been based on having to make quick judgements and he was finding it difficult to change the habit of a lifetime now.
‘So, what do you do for a living?’ he asked.
‘I work in a charity shop,’ she replied, not taking her eyes off her phone.
‘Oh right. I didn’t think they paid their staff. I thought it was voluntary.’
‘It is.’
Not really what you do ‘for a living’, then, is it? Jack wanted to ask. ‘That sounds like fun.’
‘Yeah, it’s alright,’ Christine replied, locking her phone and placing it in between her breasts, as if they formed a makeshift pocket. ‘So, what about you? Apart from being an international man of mystery, I mean.’
‘I’m afraid I might have over-egged the pudding a little bit on that one.’
‘You don’t say.’
‘If you must know, I’m a police officer. CID.’
Christine’s eyebrows rose a good couple of centimetres. ‘Ooh, nice,’ she said, before leaning forward. ‘Here, do you get to see a lot of dead bodies?’
‘Erm, a few. It’s all part of the job, I guess.’
‘Lots of gruesome murders? r***s?’
‘Yes. Yes, a few.’
‘That sort of stuff always fascinates me. I read a lot about true crime and all that. It’s amazing, really, innit? I remember reading about this one bloke who used to pick up hitchhikers and kill them. Then he’d chop off their heads and boil them right down, to make stock or soup.’
I won’t be going for the gazpacho, then, Culverhouse thought. ‘Yeah, well thankfully those sorts of things are a rarity. Mildenheath’s much more boring.’ Deciding to change the subject quickly, he added: ‘So, what’s it like working in a charity shop?’
‘It’s alright,’ Christine replied, taking her phone back out of her breast-pocket and replying to a text. ‘You get first dibs on stuff that comes in, so that’s good. Got to pay for it, mind. ‘Ere, what does plaggyrism mean?’
Culverhouse looked at her, confused.
Christine showed him the phone, which he was careful not to handle. ‘There, look.’
‘Plagiarism,’ Culverhouse replied, trying not to look or sound exasperated. ‘It means stealing or copying someone else’s work.’
‘Fucker! Sorry, not you. My tutor texted me. Said he wants to speak to me next week about accusations of... What was it?’
‘Plagiarism.’
‘Yeah that.’
‘What does he tutor?’ Culverhouse asked.
‘Oh, I’m doing a beauty course down at the college. Couple of days a week, but it’s alright. I wanna become a beauty therapist.’
Culverhouse raised his eyebrows and tried to look enthusiastic. To say her dating app profile picture had been, perhaps, a few years out of date would be accurate. He presumed she’d be no more credible a beauty therapist than would a twenty-five-stone personal trainer or a blind archery coach.
‘Sounds good,’ he said. ‘Sorry, don’t mind me. Back in two ticks.’ He stood up and headed in the direction of the toilets. Once he reached the gents, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and fired off a quick text to Wendy.
Call me in five minutes. Make it sound like an emergency.
Noticing how close the toilets were to where he and Christine were sitting, he made a point of drying his already dry-hands in the noisy hand dryer before heading back out to try and put on a brave face for a little while longer.
The next few minutes were spent watching Christine type out a response to her tutor, as well as helping her to spell a number of words. He wasn’t exactly a master speller himself, but this woman was missing some vital brain cells. Fortunately for him, his phone finally rang.
‘Culverhouse,’ he said, as he answered the call.
‘Come on, then,’ Wendy said on the other end of the line. ‘What’s this all about? I want the juicy gossip.’
‘A body, you say? Where?’
‘Is this the secret date that Ryan told us about but we’re not meant to know about?’
Culverhouse gritted his teeth. ‘Right, I think I know where that is. Do you need me there right away?’
‘Let me guess. She’s sixty-five, wears knitted jumpers and lives with her mum.’
‘Okay, I’ll head down now,’ he said, standing up and fumbling to put his jacket on with his one free hand, as he mumbled ‘b***h’ into the phone before hanging up. ‘Sorry, I feel really bad cutting things short but I’m the on-call DCI and there’s been an incident.’
‘No no, no problem at all,’ Christine said, grinning and doing a mock salute with her hand. ‘You’d better get to the rescue.’ She stood up and moved towards him. ‘Let me know if it’s a juicy one, though, eh?’
Before Culverhouse could realise what was happening, she was leaning in for a kiss. He managed to dodge just in time and turn it into a very brief hug.
‘Right. I’ll catch up with you later,’ he said, as he jogged out of the pub and back towards his car. He started the engine and went to put the car into gear, but realised there was something he needed to do first. He took his phone out of his pocket, brought the screen to life and deleted the dating app.
- Writer
