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Sunday Evening
Exclusive: Sun, sex and murder! Gay cop’s holiday hook-up ends in murder trial.
Charlie Rees was frustrated, miserable, and well on the way to being drunk. Worse, he had no one to blame but himself. Bringing the service into disrepute. The judge said he hadn’t been on trial, but he’d been tried by the media and been found guilty. All he’d done was take a week’s holiday in Lanzarote because his bosses said he was burned out. A night in a gay bar had landed him in the middle of a nasty murder followed by a media feeding frenzy with him as their prey. That he’d solved the case mattered not at all. What mattered was that his name was splattered all over social media, as if he had any control over that.
He’d been lucky not to be back in uniform facing years of breaking up fights outside licensed premises, operating speed cameras in remote villages, and maybe sitting in a patrol car waiting for sheep rustlers to turn up, or not. Instead, he’d been offered a last chance to redeem himself, by transferring away from his friends and colleagues and into the middle of another media storm in the college town of Llanfair The price of failure would be the opportunity to resign and keep his pension. Like he cared about a pension. He was barely thirty. So, here he was, halfway between his old life and the new one, drinking alone in a bar nowhere near either place, hoping no one here knew who he was.
His mother’s voice was the soundtrack to his thoughts: I hardly dare show my face in the town. I didn’t raise you to behave like this. Your face all over the papers. No self-discipline, that’s always been your trouble, Charles.
He finished his beer and asked for another.
The bar was getting darker and the music louder as it got later. Men were dancing, making out, and occasionally disappearing, returning with swollen lips and blissed-out expressions. The bar staff—all good-looking men—had stripped down to tiny tank tops.
“Let me get that,” a voice said from by his left shoulder. Charlie looked round. A big man with a black beard, was frowning in his direction. Charlie was sitting on a bar stool, and the man towered over him. He wore a red checked flannel shirt over a white T-shirt, sleeves rolled up to show his tats. By any measure, the guy was hot, but Charlie wasn’t interested. He was too busy beating himself up about the man who’d lied in Lanzarote. The man he could still lose his job over, because he, Charlie, was too stupid to…well, just too stupid.
“I’m fine,” Charlie said.
“You’re obviously not,” the man replied. “Want to talk about it?”
“That would be no.” Charlie wished the man would go away. His willingness to make nice, even to obviously nice guys, had deserted him several drinks ago. He shouldn’t be here. Yet another failure of judgement.
“Then I’ll buy you a drink and wait here in case you change your mind. I’m Tom, by the way.”
“Not going to happen.” Charlie turned away, but not before he saw the man signal to the bartender.
“There’s a drag show later,” Charlie heard the man say. He said nothing. “She’s really good,”
“I don’t like drag,” Charlie said, without turning. He did, but jeez, would this guy not take a hint?
“You’ll like this,” Tom said. “She’s a friend of mine. I promise she’ll cheer you up.”
“I told you, I’m fine.”
“You are one terrible liar. And you are headed for a hell of a hangover.”
This time Charlie did turn round. “What is with you? Recruiting for a temperance society?”
Tom held up his glass, which held something dark. Rum? “No temperance here. But a lot of experience with feeling crap and having hangovers.”
“Social worker then? Or just a general do-gooder?” Charlie sighed, picking at the label on his beer bottle rather than looking at the big man. Who was attractive, and had a soft, deep, voice Charlie liked.
There was no sign that he’d noticed Charlie’s irritation. He leaned against the bar and smiled. “I saw a seriously hot guy looking miserable, and thought I’d buy him a drink. Maybe chat him up a little. So shoot me.”
“Seriously hot guy?” Charlie snorted.
“I’m looking at him.”
Charlie snorted again and folded his arms. He wanted to like the compliment, but he knew what he was. Skinny, pale, not very tall. He worked out, but it didn’t show. His mother said he had an interesting face, by which she meant he wasn’t good-looking. He was used to it.
“Look,” he said, “I appreciate your making the effort, but I’m really not worth it. Enjoy the drag act.” He stood up, realising too late that he’d had too much to drink. Now he was going to make a dick of himself by stumbling out of the bar, and probably throwing up in the gutter. The room swam around him, and he gripped the dark wood of the bar for stability in a tilting world. Fuck.
He felt a strong arm round his waist and smelled rum and some kind of cologne that reminded him of childhood. He leaned against the plaid shirt, because there was no choice. It was that or fall over.
“Let’s get you out of here.”
The fresh air hit Charlie like a bucket of ice on his head, clearing it. He was still drunk, but not falling-over-drunk any more.
“Thanks,” he said. “I can take it from here.”
