Little Boy Blue - страница 49

‘That I wanted more than he did.’

Emilia nodded, but said nothing.

‘Contrary to the rumours, not all gay men are promiscuous,’ he continued. ‘I’ve only ever had long-term relationships – don’t see the point in the other -’

‘And you were hoping that Jake might be a keeper?’

‘Isn’t that what everyone’s looking for?’

Emilia smiled, keeping her counsel. Was that what she was after? She’d had relationships of course, but they had been brief – her work schedule and family responsibilities always conspiring to kill off any potential romance. And now, after so long, she wondered if she was actually capable of commitment.

‘So what was the problem?’ she replied eventually, interested in his answer for more than just professional reasons.

‘His heart wasn’t in it.’

‘Because?’

‘Are you always this fucking blunt?’

Now his anger was clear. Emilia had misjudged how brittle he was and hurried to recover lost ground.

‘I’m sorry if I sound rude. It’s early mornings – I’m no good at them and I’ve a tendency to put my foot in my mouth. All I’m trying to do is get a sense of what you’ve been through. But please don’t answer if you don’t want to. I’m very happy to put you in touch with the police if you’d prefer, so you can get the answers you want from them.’

This had the desired effect. The police had clearly been in contact with Simons, but Emilia sensed that he’d been evasive about the precise date of his arrival in the UK. He seemed keen to avoid contact with them for as long as possible. In the meantime, Emilia was a useful source of information for him – it would pay him to keep her onside, despite his evident distress.

‘I’m sorry, I’m just very tired…’

‘Of course you are,’ Emilia responded gently, offering him another doughnut. ‘And there’s no need to talk about anything you don-’

‘He was in love with someone else, ok? He loved me in his own way but there was a part of him I couldn’t reach.’

‘I see. And do you have any idea who this other person was -’

‘I glimpsed them talking once, but it was nobody I recognized.’

‘Can you describe him for me?’

‘Actually it was a she. Tall, shoulder-length hair, pretty.’

Intrigued, Emilia scribbled the description down before asking:

‘So what happened?’

‘I confronted him about it. He denied that he had feelings for her but he was lying, so I pushed it. He told me more and… well, I was bloody upset, so I called it a day. I’ve been in this situation before. And I didn’t want the end of our relationship to be death by a thousand cuts.’

‘You went your separate ways?’

‘I took some work in the States. Tried to put as much distance between Jake and myself as possible. I’m not sure it worked though.’

Emilia kept her eyes glued to his as she scribbled – female lover? – on her pad. The tears that had threatened were coming now and she had the strong sense that this poor guy, who had loved Jake so much during his short life, now loved him even more in death.

He hammered on the door with his stick, but there was no response from inside. What was it with these people? Did they think that paying rent was optional?

Cursing, Gary Lushington looked down at the little book in his hand. There it was in black and white – rent arrears going back over three months. Paine had been a good tenant at first – if you ignored what he got up to for a living – but he’d been evasive and moody of late, which made Gary nervous. That type of behaviour usually meant only one thing – him ending up out of pocket. And that wasn’t something he was prepared to allow.

Muttering, he leant against the door and, pulling the key chain from his pocket, began to search for his duplicate set. As he did so, he became aware of a very strange sensation. His back felt warm against the door – no, more than that, it felt hot. Gary pulled away quickly, turning to face the doorway.

And now he became aware that this corridor was markedly hotter than the couple he’d already visited on his rounds. He’d assumed his clamminess was the result of all those stairs – they were harder for him now he had to use a stick to get about – but now he realized that the heat he felt was emanating from within the flat. What the bloody hell was Paine thinking? It was a nice autumnal morning, for God’s sake – there was no need to have the heating on full blast.