33. So Much to Answer For

Where can a night like this go from here?

Saturday 1am

She goes to the bar and sees some of the boys from the Pips already half a pint in gathered in the same formation they’d been in at the pub. She’s still half-watching Moses, and she’s mouthing along to the tune, and the two things happen simultaneously which confuses her for a second. Rod leans across to her from the Pips boys at the bar and his barrel-chested avuncular Aussie tone, half-soaked but totally held together the way he often is at the time on a Friday to offer her a drink at exactly the same time that she notices that woman copper is in the club, on her own sat at a wall table near the DJ booth with a drink in front of her, and she’s watching Moses, in much the same way Med has been. She knows that look she’s seeing, and she knows that feeling she’s feeling too. Jealousy. Bright, loud, fanged jealousy.

“I said can I get you a pint, Med?” Rod says. He’s not leaning now. The rest of his body has aligned with his head and shoulders and he’s right next to Med. “You worked hard tonight. Can I get another pint of lager? Which do you want? The Czech or the Dutch?”

“Is it a bit weird for a police officer investigating a murder to go clubbing the night of the murder?” Med says.

Rod points to the Dutch. He follows Med’s gaze across the dancefloor and sees who it is she’s referring to between the arms and legs and torsos of all the girls letting go. “Is she a copper?” he says.

“She was in earlier asking questions of Vardaman and Moses about Aaron,” Med says, thanking Rod for the pint and taking the head off it without taking her eyes from Waingard.

“I don’t see how she’s police,” Rod says.

“Yeah, she is.”

“Nah, I don’t see it.”

Rod offers Med a Marlboro Red from the packet. She looks down at them and declines. “Too much for my little girly lungs,” she says. “I’ll stick to my own.”

They both light up.

“What do you mean Nah?” she says.

“She’s from around here.”

“Well, yeah, she’s a police officer here.”

“No, I mean, from back a long time ago. I’ve been trying to remember her name. I’m talking fifteen, twenty years ago. I saw her in the Pips earlier. I don’t think she remembered me. She was a young kid. Bit of a… Goth? When you wear all the make up and drink cider and black? Yeah, goth? Goth. So I didn’t recognise her immediately. But I remembered then she left to join the army. Remembered because, y’know, not many girls do that round here. And she was seeing this guy called Glenn, who died not long after she left. Fucking killed himself. Nice guy. Very sad. Can’t remember her name, though.”

“But that doesn’t mean she can’t be a police officer now. Isn’t it common for people to go from the army to the police?”

“It is. I even thought about it myself after I got back from Vietnam…”

You have to be quick with Rod, to keep him off his own biographical tangents. “So why couldn’t she do that?”

“I heard she went to jail,” Rod said. “Sure she did.”

Med is incredulous but presses anyway.

“What for?”

Rod shrugs. Drinks. Smokes. Thinks on it. They’re both leaning with their backs on the bar now, eyes trained on Waingard. Bush Tetras playing now. Obscure but has enough in it to keep the dancefloor.

“She got a couple of years,” Rod says. “I remember one of the boys talking about it. Don’t know why it’s stuck in my mind. Maybe because it’s all so sad with the way things ended for Glenn and all that. But she definitely went down.”

“You sure it’s her?”

“It’s her.”

Med isn’t convinced, but Rod wouldn’t care either way.

“I don’t get what’s going on, in that case,” Med says.

“Put it this way: if she’s asking Vardaman and Moses questions about Aaron’s death, then it’s not on behalf of the South Wales Constabulary.”

Med looks across her. Waingard is up now talking to Moses at the hatch of the DJ booth. She’s flirting with him. He’s flirting back. Bitch is at least ten years older than him and looks twenty years older than him in the blacklight. It’s embarrassing. Bush Tetras into the Cure is a smart mix. Lovesong. Med watches as Waingard gives Moses the thumbs up before she spins on her heels and dances back to her seat a couple of yards away. What is she playing at?