Punch-Drunk Love. Pernille Hughes
slipped from one home to the next, now, she lay in limbo. She was sensitive to every creak from the old building, she twitched at cars racing past and doors slamming out on the street. But sleep must have come eventually as she was woken with a start, by a crashing sound from downstairs.
There was no alarm. Blackie had never bothered, said it wasn’t worth the cost. Not that he was a stingy man, frugal as necessitated by the divorce perhaps, but on this he insisted he couldn’t see the point. There wasn’t really much to steal, unless someone was in the market for an ancient ring and old-school PE equipment. Blackie had stubbornly not succumbed to Tiff’s teasing suggestion of filling the building with state of the art kit, and heaven forbid make it something which at least gave a nod towards a modern facility. God (and Tiff) knew the space was there, the place just needed an enormous overhaul and the business would have a new lease of life.
I’m far too old to handle all those shenanigans, was his persistent final word on that conversation. The alarm came under the same heading. And besides, he’d pointed out, who’d be daft enough to break into a club frequented by half a town’s worth of fighters? Even kids looking for larks would steer clear.
And yet, tonight, it appeared someone was exactly that daft.
‘Crap,’ she whimpered. The sounds hadn’t stopped at the initial crash; there was further stumbling and some pretty ripe swearing.
‘Choices?’ she asked herself, scrabbling for a plan. She could stay there, cocooned in the bedding, hoping not to be spotted, but the lamp was on, drying knickers were on display and the duvet cover was scarlet. Hiding behind the sofa was out too, it being backed against the wall and heavier than a heavy thing.
She was contemplating crawling under it, when there was an almighty thump from downstairs followed by eerie silence. What if the intruder had been hurt? Didn’t she have a moral obligation to help someone in need? No, she reasoned, not if they were breaking in and about to harm her, though she’d read about homeowners being sued by injured burglars. But what if it was a kid? Scally or not, if they were hurt, she couldn’t lie there doing nothing. Yes, your Honour, I appreciate the teenager slowly bled out one floor below me, but weighing up the options, I thought it best practice to go back to sleep…
Peeling herself from her duvetpod, Tiff assumed her night-wee ninja guise as she slid across the floor in her bed-socked feet, pausing only to grab her electric toothbrush. True, she’d have preferred a crowbar, but the Oral-B without the toothbrush head on its spike would have to do. Holding it like a dagger boosted her courage. Something was stirring with a groan as she stepped carefully down each of the stairs, trying not to think how this scene –her murder – would be reconstructed on Crimewatch. Hopefully they’d dress the actress in better pyjamas.
Reaching the bottom she could make out a human shape heaped on the floor. Should she launch herself at them while they were down, or should she hang back and watch their next move? Which would the wise Crimewatch viewers judge as the most foolhardy – beyond having ventured down the stairs in the first place? Given the clear size difference, Tiff decided against the launching. On the spur of the moment, she flipped the light-switch.
‘You!’ she accused, with an angry hiss. Pulling himself up to his knees, surrounded by the disarray of her bags was a dazed Mike Fellner. By the looks of it, he’d been felled by a Quavers box of Mills & Boon.
‘You!’ he accused right back.
‘How did you get in here?’ She looked around for any damage, but found none.
‘I used the key,’ he hissed, indignantly.
‘What key?’ Only she and Ron had keys. Leonards had Blackie’s.
‘The hidden key.’
‘What hidden key?’ she said in an insistent whisper.
‘Why are we whispering and hissing?’
‘What hidden key!?’ she screeched. The adrenaline was mixing with relief now. Recognising him made her feel better, but owning countless true crime books she was well aware seventy per cent of murder victims knew their assailant. That was printed fact. Ink on paper.
Mike sat back and looked at her.
‘The key Blackie obviously had hidden in the same place for the last fifteen years, but chose never to tell you about.’ To illustrate his point, he held up a key.
‘Where?’
A grin spread across his face. Now, for the first time, she recognised him properly. That grin had bewitched her once. It gave her exactly the same thought then as it did now. Cocky beggar. Only this time she wasn’t charmed.
‘Not telling,’ he said, blithely. ‘I can’t betray Blackie’s trust.’ His tone was rich with mock piety, as he shook his head regretfully.
‘Blackie is dead,’ Tiff hissed.
‘He is,’ Mike nodded solemnly, ‘and he took his secret from you to the grave, so who am I to cross him? By the way, you’re hissing again.’
Tiff remembered the teasing. He’d loved teasing her, and apparently he hadn’t grown up at all. Once she’d have laughed, but right now, in the middle of the night, after a crappy day in a crappy week, having been scared witless, her appetite for being teased was scant. And then she remembered how angry she was with him, how deeply furious she was that he’d brought his face into her eye line again.
‘Fine. Keep your secret,’ she snapped. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I could ask you the same thing,’ he countered, and stared at her PJs. They involved flannel and baby unicorns. Tiff sat in a predicament; she could admit she was trespassing too, or she could bluff this. Standing as proudly as baby unicorns would allow, she told him primly the first thing that came to mind.
‘I’m holding a vigil.’
‘A vigil,’ he repeated, pulling himself up to his feet. He wasn’t sounding convinced.
‘A vigil,’ Tiff confirmed as slickly as possible. ‘Following the wake, I’ve decided to stay the night to make sure he’s moved on.’ Mike did that thing again with the eyebrow. Nope, definitely not convinced. ‘He died here, you know,’ she persisted. ‘Upstairs in the office. I was there. I want to know his soul has passed over.’
Mike ducked his head at this, digging his hands in his pockets in a gesture of reverence to the dearly departed. He walked to lean against the wall before looking up at her calmly.
‘So, in spite of your killer headache you’ve decided to put yourself, alone, in what might be a haunted office for the night, for Blackie.’ Tiff nodded vigorously.
‘For Blackie,’ she reiterated firmly. The sides of his lips began to rise, but he reined it in.
‘And what, out of interest, will you do if Blackie’s spirit is knocking about?’
‘Well, obviously I’ll have a chat and encourage him to pass over.’ She was out on a limb here and decided to curb the subject. ‘But I’m not the one breaking in. What do you want?’
‘I’m not breaking in if I have a key, am I?’
‘What if there’d been an alarm?’ Tiff asked indignantly. Mike rolled his eyes with a pff. Tiff cocked her head, set her jaw and gave him her best ‘I’m waiting’ stare. He scratched the back of his neck considering his answer, as if he hadn’t actually been sure of it until now.
‘I just wanted to come back and have a look.’ A simple little reason, but one which hurt her more than she’d expected. After ten years, of silence, having walked out on her, he just fancied a nosy? At a building? Really? That couldn’t be right.
‘In the middle of the night?’ She watched police shows. The facts didn’t stack up. Maybe she could push him into a confession of why he’d left her. She wasn’t going to ask him outright – how desperate would that be? She