Ruthless (Staincliffe) - страница 44

He tried to sit up straight as she came back into the kitchen. ‘Gill, you and me, Sammy,’ he slurred, ‘you and me and Sammy-’ Blood crusted his nostrils, he’d a scrape on his chin. He wore a suit, a shirt, both creased and stained, his hair was dishevelled, the smell of booze coming off him and sour sweat.

‘I’m going to bed,’ she said.

He leered.

‘That is not a fucking invitation. You can sleep on the couch. There’s a sleeping bag in the utility room.’

‘We need to talk.’ He leaned forward, one hand spread open, imploring her.

‘You got that right. In the morning. We will. I’ll talk, you listen. You-’ She bit off the rant.

‘Gill,’ he chided her.

Sudden tears, tears of anger, pricked her eyes. She clenched her teeth at Dave and his sodding mess.

‘In the morning,’ was all she trusted herself to say.

Dave was on the lounge floor when Gill came down at half five. No sign of a sleeping bag. She made coffee, ate porridge with brown sugar and crème fraîche. Felt halfway human. She’d barely slept, too busy rehearsing her speech to Dave, then meandering off-track into a parallel universe where it didn’t matter what befell him, where she could exact revenge, see him ridiculed, demoted, gone, with no messy repercussions for either her or Sammy. Fantasies.

She kicked his foot. ‘Wakey-wakey.’

He groaned, didn’t even open his eyes. She kicked him again, his shin, harder. ‘Get up. Now.’

He yelped, and this time his eyes flew open. She saw the confusion in them: he didn’t know where he was, how he’d got there. He blinked a few times, raised himself on one elbow, coughed.

‘Coffee in the kitchen.’

‘It’s not six yet.’ He was staring at his watch. ‘If you want to go-’

‘I’m going nowhere, not until we’ve talked. And we’re going to talk now. Not later or tomorrow but now. Got it?’

He sank back, hand over his eyes. ‘Yes,’ he muttered.

When he joined her he’d washed his face, not that it had improved anything much, just made the edge of his hair wet. He sat down at the table where she’d left him a mug of coffee. She was opposite him, leaning against the work surface, arms folded.

‘Do you remember last night?’

‘Course.’ He gave her a smile. Grotesque. He was lying.

‘Do you? The accident, the arrest, me coming to bail you out?’

He looked alarmed, tried to cover it with a laugh. He’d not a clue.

‘Thought not,’ she said. ‘Let me tell you what happened, Dave. You were drunk. That probably goes without saying except it actually needs saying, loud and fucking clear. You were completely rat-arsed and you got into a car and drove. A criminal offence under section 4 of the 1988 Road Traffic Act. You attempted to hammer your way into my house, scaring the shit out of me. In fear for my safety I put out a 999 call. Officers attended the scene.’ She watched his face blanch. ‘I didn’t press charges. God knows I’d have liked to, you could argue that as a serving police officer I had an ethical duty to but I felt it was important, for the sake of our son, not to have you splashed all over the Oldham Chronicle, looking like a dick.’