Dead Flowers

HOME

HOME––––––––

The former Loggerheads pub (permanently closed), Nottingham

––––––––

Sian dropped the box on the bedroom floor and a cloud of dust flew up, making her cough. She looked around and was hit by nostalgia so heavy that it felt like a presence in the room. She hadn’t been in the top rooms of the Loggerheads public house for years and it was dragging her back in time.

Kris appeared at the door carrying two boxes with such ease that he made them look empty.

‘I see we have the usual Sian Love approach going on here,’ he said. He walked over and placed the boxes carefully against the wall. ‘You’ll break your stuff.’

‘I barely own anything breakable,’ she said.

Kris turned towards her and raised one eyebrow. ‘Previous house moves?’

‘Oi!’ Sian aimed a playful slap at his shoulder and he ducked away from her. She couldn’t help smiling as she saw the laughter in his warm brown eyes.

‘How you manage to run a methodical lab and not just break all the test tubes is beyond me.’ His voice was teasing.

‘Work’s different,’ she said, taking him seriously, although her forensics research role didn’t involve handling test tubes or equipment very often these days. ‘I’m handling people’s DNA, all their innermost secrets. It’s more important than a few books and knick-knacks.’

Kris grinned. ‘It suits me if you break things. Gives you an excuse to call someone tall, dark and handsome to help you fix it all up, Love,’ he said. He had this affectation of calling her by her surname like this, a habit formed when she’d been his boss, back when they’d first met working together on the local murder squad. Sian liked it, though.

‘Excuse me, but I can fix my own things, thanks,’ she told him, her grin carrying in the tone of her voice.

‘I’m just trying to help you here, giving you some good excuses for getting me over. Your loss if you can’t see that this is for your benefit.’ The words got quieter as he headed towards the stairs.

Sian looked around the room. It was going to take forever to unpack all of this stuff. She pushed a box aside and picked up a suitcase. She could at least put a few things in the closet. She reached up, opening the door, and was hit by a long-forgotten scent of old cloth and mothballs. It filled up her mouth and nose and, for a moment, she couldn’t breathe. She was back with her Uncle Rob, years ago. She could hear his voice, as clear as if he were here in the room. Ran off with a Scotsman, Sianey. And she could see the clothes she’d found that day, smell them again. Classic, figure-hugging dresses with floaty skirts, high, glamorous heels, and silk stockings.

Sian held on to the cupboard door handle, dizzy and confused. A Scotsman, a black man, the milkman, Uncle Rob had changed it every time he told the story. She knew now that those clothes could never have been his wife’s, even if she had existed. They’d been from a different era altogether, like something the femme fatale in a film noir might have worn. Sian’s fingers tingled again with the feeling of silk and she was filled with longing, and with fear that she hadn’t known her uncle at all.

All at once, Sian needed to be out of that room. She needed to not be alone. She rushed on to the landing and galloped down the stairs, taking them two at a time, her heart racing. She swung off the bottom step, holding on to the banister. She had to stop herself short to avoid colliding with Kris, who was waiting in the hallway.

‘What next?’ he said.

She shrugged. Kris grabbed her and pulled her into a kiss. She pulled away and noticed Elvis sitting neatly and calmly by the back door.

‘You need to bark, boy!’ she said, opening it wide for him. ‘I’m not psychic.’

‘Maybe he is and he doesn’t understand why you’re not getting him,’ Kris said. He put on a silly, dreadful American accent. ‘What’s that, Elvis? There’s a boy stuck down the well?’

Elvis strolled outside and dug at a patch of concrete. Sian watched him, the urgency of his claws and sniffing. It reminded her of earlier that day, when he’d lost his precious teddy toy underneath the sofa.

‘Tea?’ Kris asked her, cutting across her thoughts with a warm smile.

‘That’d be nice,’ she said. It would be. Nice. And Kris was nice, too, wasn’t he? He’d looked after her, been there and pretty much saved her life, more than once, since they’d first met on the force over a decade ago. She really needed to get over whatever was holding her back with him.

Sian sat down on one of the fold-out chairs in the kitchen as the kettle boiled. She’d scrubbed and scrubbed the cupboards and surfaces in here but the colours still looked muted by grime. Kris got up and dug in the boxes on the worktop, pulling out some teabags and a couple of mugs. He turned towards Sian. ‘OK, DCI Love. I’ve known you for long enough now. What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing.’ Sian was shaking her head. ‘And I haven’t been a DCI for a very long time, matey.’ She wasn’t sure she wanted reminding of how senior she’d been by the time she’d left the force, how complicit that made her feel about everything that she’d seen, even if she had walked out in protest. She’d hated the blurred lines of policing, the corruption and s****m she’d seen, and the racism too, directed at Kris.

‘Well, I ain’t going to call you Doctor Love.’ Kris clicked his tongue against his teeth. ‘Not gonna happen.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Come on, it’s never nothing. I’m not that young and naive.’

‘Two years!’ Sian was talking through a broad grin. ‘You are literally two years younger!’

Kris shrugged. ‘Gotta take my advantages where I can find them, babe. Wouldn’t even beat you in a fight.’ He took milk out of the fridge and turned to look straight at her. ‘So, c’mon. What’s up?’

Sian let out a long sigh. ‘Oh, I dunno. Can’t put my finger on it. Just being back here after all these years.’

Kris glanced across at her and for a horrible moment Sian thought he was about to come over and hug her. But perhaps he really had known her long enough. He carried on making the tea and then brought the mugs over, plonking one down in front of her on the pasting table that she was using as her temporary dining furniture. ‘Weird circumstances. You’re still grieving for him and now, moving into your uncle’s place. Everything here must remind you of him.’

‘Yeah,’ she said. She half-smiled. ‘Although I haven’t got a clue why he left it all to me.’

‘Families are weird,’ Kris said.

‘Especially mine.’

Kris c****d an eyebrow. ‘Not stupid enough to get drawn in by that,’ he said.

They let the silence rest for a moment and both sipped at tea. Sian cupped her hands around the mug and felt it warm her.

A loud scratching sound came from the other side of the kitchen door along with a gentle whimper. Sian got up and walked into the hallway; Kris followed. They both watched Elvis, who was scratching at the cellar door. ‘Leave it, boy,’ she said. Then louder, ‘Leave it!’ Elvis came away, a good boy. Her dog was also ex-police; retired now but very well trained. ‘There must be something there,’ she said. ‘He only does that when there’s something there.’ She swung the door open and flicked on the light, spotting something furry and matted on the top step and recoiling for a moment, thinking it was a rat. She realised it was just his teddy toy. The door didn’t quite catch properly, and the bear must have slipped the other side and got shut there.

‘Ah ha!’ Kris said. ‘The big softy.’

Sian laughed lightly, handing Elvis his toy. Her dog bounded off and sat down with it, chewing at one of the cloth ears. Her toolbox was on the hallway floor, waiting to be taken down into the cellar, and she placed it in front of the door to keep it shut.

‘Can we go out or something? Get a drink.’ A tight fist of anxiety squeezed her stomach.

‘Sure,’ Kris said, making the word sound uncertain.

Sian grabbed her coat from where she’d slung it over the top of the living room door. Elvis padded after her. ‘Not this time, boy,’ she said. She checked her pocket for her keys. Glancing up, she saw Kris locking the back door. As if he lived here, too.

Kris walked down the hallway, squeezing past her and out into the street. Sian turned, taking a last look at Elvis. ‘You be a good boy,’ she said. ‘No digging or scratching at things. OK?’

He tipped his head to the side, as if trying to understand what she was saying. She smiled at him, which made him tip his head to the other side.

‘You coming?’ Kris called back, yards up the street already.

Sian turned from her dog and shut the door, locking it. She could feel the broken coin on her uncle’s old keyring, cold against her hand. Uncle Rob had left her a pub but he’d also left her this weird mystery; half of a Mizpah love pendant. Somewhere in the world there was a second half coin that would fit with this one perfectly, completing the words of its broken promise. She had no idea where it had come from but its existence put a very different light on his jokes about a wife who had run away.