Looking for Trouble - [8]

‘Dustbin man,’ he beamed. I cleared up while he threw a tantrum. He stopped when I brought out the chocolate chip cookies. Bribery works.

I sat down with a fresh cup of tea when the phone rang. Maddie made no move to answer it.

‘Shit.’ I slammed my cup down.

‘Hello.’ I tried to keep the irritation from my voice.

‘What’s eating you?’

I’d failed. ‘Diane. Oh, kids.’ My old friend Diane hasn’t got children but I make sure she has a fair idea of the trials of motherhood.

She laughed. ‘Just checking you’re still on for tonight.’

‘Yes.’ We were going for a drink. ‘See you in there, about nine.’

My spirits were raised. There was nothing like a good natter with Diane to put things in perspective and take me out of my own little world. The kids began to argue again.

‘Only two hours,’ I reminded myself, ‘they’ll be asleep and I’ll be out.’

CHAPTER SIX

Diane was ensconced in one of the cosy corner seats when I arrived at the pub. Half-way between her house in Rusholme and mine in Withington, it’s one of the few locals that hasn’t been done up to appeal to lager drinkers. But it’s still respectable enough for husbands to bring their wives on the weekly night out. No spit and sawdust. Warm, quiet, dull if you like. I like.

After buying a pint of hand-pumped Boddington’s, I slumped into the seat next to Diane and sighed theatrically.

She raised her glass. ‘Cheers.’

‘Cheers.’ I took a long drink. ‘Ah, that feels better.’ I didn’t just mean the alcohol. Escape. The prospect of two uninterrupted hours stretching ahead. Time to talk, to listen. Time to be me with the best company.

Diane grinned. She has a slow, lazy grin. Like a Cheshire cat. It lingered in her eyes long after it had faded from her lips.

‘I like your hair.’ It was a dark golden colour, shot through with streaks, cut short and asymmetrical.

‘I’m going off it,’ she said. It was my turn to grin. Diane changes her hairstyle every month. Perhaps it’s hormonal.

‘Go on,’ she said, ‘you first. You look like you need it.’

‘Nothing dramatic. Just work, and kids. I’ve got a new case.’

‘More matrimonials?’

‘No.’ I took another draught of beer. ‘Missing person. Runaway boy.’ I told her all about it, finishing up with my meeting with Giggler and Blue Eyes. ‘I think they thought I was a plain-clothes police officer or something.’

‘No chance,’ Diane snorted.

‘What d’you mean?’

‘You’re too messy.’

‘What?’

‘Your hair, shoes. I bet you had your trainers on, didn’t you?’

‘So?’ I bristled.

‘Even undercover, the police look neat and clean. Nice manageable hairstyles, polished shoes or perfect trainers.’

I held up my foot. The trainer was scuffed and stained. The stitching was frayed, the laces grubby. ‘Well, they didn’t like me.’

‘So,’ she stretched out her hands, ‘they’ve no taste. Another?’ She picked up her glass.

‘Not yet.’

Diane walked over to the bar. She was a big, fat woman. She insisted on using that description. After twenty years of being miserable on diet after diet, she’d rebelled. Joined a group formed after the publication of Fat Is A Feminist Issue and had come to like her size and to flaunt it. Tonight, she sported a bright turquoise and gold knee-length tunic with gold leggings. She walked gracefully, light-footed for all her weight.

I stretched and twisted in my seat. My left shoulder ached. It’s the side I carry the kids on, the side that tenses up when I drive, when I’m worried.

Diane set her drink down and tossed me a bag of nuts.

‘Well,’ she pronounced, ‘maybe this’ll be the one that got away.’

I grimaced.

‘You can’t expect to solve every case, can you?’ She opened her own peanuts and picked a couple out.

‘But that bothers me…’

‘Perfectionist.’

‘No, it’s not that. If I’m taking the money, I want to make it worthwhile. Get some sort of result.’ I tugged at the packet of nuts. The plastic stretched but didn’t tear.

‘But if this lad’s disappeared, doesn’t want to be found, then maybe that’s the result. Missing without trace or whatever they call it. Anyway, there’s loads of times when people shell out money for no result.’

‘Such as?’ I tried using my teeth on the packet.

‘Estimates for work, eye tests when nothing’s changed, structural surveys; I had to fork out for three of those before I found a place that wasn’t falling down.’

I grunted and made another attack on the peanuts. Shit. Salted nuts cascaded around the table and floor. I salvaged what I could.

‘Anyway,’ I sighed, ‘there’s that, and the phone isn’t exactly hot with clients, plus the children were driving me…’

‘Don’t talk to me about children,’ Diane groaned.

I bit my tongue. Our relationship has weathered the difficulties of me having a child and she choosing not to, but it hasn’t always been easy. There’ve been times when motherhood has dominated my thoughts and feelings. When I’ve needed to talk about all the contradictions. But not with Diane. She’s happy with an occasional update. She has a rough idea of how hard it can be and she’s glad she’s not a mother.

‘It’s Ben,’ she explained. ‘We had a talk.’

Ben and Diane had been going out for over a year. Their relationship had started off casually through a lonely hearts column and had gained in intensity. At New Year, Ben had suggested that they live together. Diane had declined. Since then things had been just as intense but edged with the unspoken agenda of commitment.