to milk the applause. Harry knew the ASM would be in for it later.
Harry watched as Barclay’s audience-pleasing grin turned to a grimace. ‘Get my drink,’ he growled at Harry ‘And get your skates on.’
‘Yes, Mr Jack.’
WWMMD?
Jackson was idling on his phone. He was on a messaging app, but no one had a message for him. There were two sofas in the living room of the cottage, Jackson occupied one, a snoring Queen of Carthage the other. The television was still on, one of those channels aimed at the insomniac elderly that showed old crime shows, presumably because they were cheap to buy. An ancient Midsomer Murders gave way to an early episode of Collier. Jackson was keeping a weather eye out for an appearance by Julia. When it came it was fleeting. She was in the mortuary, holding what was meant to be a human heart in her hand. (‘Healthy male,’ she said. ‘No sign of heart problems.’) There was a metaphor in there somewhere but he wasn’t sure what it was. Did she hold his heart in his hand? (And was he a healthy male?)
Since he’d started living up here and seeing her regularly on account of the endless dropping off and picking up of Nathan, they’d fallen into a comfortable routine with each other. ‘Like putting on a pair of old slippers,’ she said. ‘Thanks,’ Jackson said. ‘Just what I’ve always wanted to hear from a woman.’ They had kissed once – no, twice – but it had gone no further, and one of those times had been Christmas, which didn’t really count.
He’d finally managed to persuade Nathan to go to bed – the same tedious tussle every evening. ‘Why? I’m not tired,’ repeated endlessly in the hope of wearing Jackson into indifference. He’d gone up to say goodnight, stifling the instinct to hug his son for fear of rejection. He should be more hands on, like Julia. (Hold him down for me, will you?) He was probably still awake up there, Snapchatting by the light of the silvery moon. It was more golden than silver tonight, fat and round, dominating the dark night sky above the wood. Jackson hadn’t drawn the curtains and he could see it climbing up the window. He heard an owl. He had thought before living here that owls made gentle, fairy-tale sounds – twit-ta-whooo – but this one sounded like an old man with a bad smoker’s cough.
The phone rang. Jackson sighed. There was only one person who called him this late.
‘Are you in bed? Shall I tell you story? Bedtime story?’ Tatiana purred. Jackson wished she didn’t always sound like a sex-phone operator. And, no, he had never phoned a sex line – but he always imagined they were manned (or womanned) not by the Tatianas of this world but by harassed yet practical women, mothers who were talking filth to their unseen clients while sorting out their son’s football kit or stirring a spaghetti sauce for tea. Older women, supplementing their pension, half an eye on a muted Countdown while pretending to be in the grip of ecstasy.
‘No, I’m not in bed,’ he said. Even if he had been he would have denied it. It would have made him feel vulnerable and weirdly unsexed when talking to Tatiana. ‘How about you just tell me what happened,’ he said. ‘Everything all right?’
‘Everything okey-dokey.’
‘Where are you?’
‘In taxi. Just left Malmaison. Robbie is very naughty boy.’ Sometimes – often, in fact – Jackson got the feeling that Tatiana was perfectly capable of using tenses and articles and all the other little bits and pieces of grammar but she just preferred to sound like a comedy Russian. ‘I meet him in hotel bar and say, “You want to buy lady drink?” and then after drink, I say I have room here, does he want to come up? He say da. I say, “Do you have girlfriend?”’
‘And he say?’
‘Nyet. Says he’s single and fancy.’
‘Fancy-free,’ he corrected. ‘Did you record all this?’
‘Da. Don’t worry.’
Should he worry? His job was to protect women (yes, it was), not pay them to put themselves in positions where they might be at risk. What if it got her into trouble? She wasn’t most women, of course, she was Siberian and could probably smash a man’s head like a walnut with those nutcracker thighs.
Tatiana was off the books, although Jackson was more than willing to pay her and gather PAYE and National Insurance and whatever else was legally required, but