Chapter 2-2
1323 Words
In about twenty minutes, the scent of bacon frying took him out of the cat zone and back into Francis’s flat. The living room was still messed up, awaiting SOCO’s forensic examination. He followed his nose to the kitchen—entirely free of cats.
Francis stood at the stove, wearing sweats and a T-shirt with a black cat silhouette on it, his hair damp. His face was lumpy and bruised around one eye, which was almost closed. He smiled wanly at Dez as he chivvied bacon around the pan.
“Let me do that,” Dez said.
“I’m fine. Feel free to butter a couple of rolls, though.” He nodded at the counter, where a packet of bread rolls and a tub of margarine waited.
Between them, they worked on the simple breakfast of bacon rolls and coffee. When it was done, Dez carried it all on a tray to a table in the living room.
“My hero,” Francis said when Dez put it down and started to unload it. “I mean it,” he went on. “Ah, what you did last night…thanks.”
“It was nothing.” No, really. It was nothing. He’d done nothing useful. He’d frozen.
They sat and Dez applied brown sauce to his bacon roll.
“Well, thank you anyway,” Francis said. “And for staying here with the cats all night. Were they okay?”
“Fine. Calmed down after all the excitement. I fed them last night. Not sure if it was on their schedule, but I thought it would help them feel more…” He shrugged. “I don’t know. Safer?”
“Oh, great, thanks. Yes, good idea.” He sipped his coffee. “I don’t think I should open today, though. After all that excitement, they still need time to calm down.”
“And you, too, Mr. Green.”
“Just Fran is fine.”
“Fran. You can call me Dez. And of course you shouldn’t open today. You’re hurt, you need to rest.”
“Oh, yes, I suppose that, too. I must look a fright. Do I look bad?”
Dez glanced at him, taking the moment, and the permission, to really inspect. Francis—Fran—was not a fright. Barring the injured left eye, which was a nasty insult to a thing of…well, he was rather handsome, in a sort of fine-featured way. Good bone structure. Angular rather than soft and rounded, for all its delicacy. And the one eye that was fully open was a soft hazel to go with his reddish brown hair. His skin was pale. Not an outdoorsy-looking guy at all. Right now, his chin bristled with whiskers. Too many bruises to shave, Dez supposed.
“I wouldn’t say a fright,” he said, “But you might want to give it a while before dealing with customers face to face.”
Fran sighed. “Good point.” He yawned and winced, holding his bruised face. “Excuse me one second.” He got up, then returned to the table with an iPad and started tapping away. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be anti-social, but I need to send cancellation notices for bookings. And message the staff not to come in.”
“Have a couple of them come in to take care of the cats. So you can rest.” Dez realized he sounded a bit too authoritarian when Fran looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “Just a suggestion.”
Fran smiled. “A good one. I will. I had no sleep at all. I mean, after I got woken up. And I think a night in A&E unwound all the benefits of whatever sleep I did get before the break-in.”
“Well, if you’d just stayed in your bedroom and called the police instead of getting into a fight with the intruder—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Fran said, wearing a chagrined expression. “I’ve been told that about twenty times overnight, thanks very much.” He shrugged. “It was instinct, that’s all. I saw a strange man in my house, trying to get in at the cats. I acted on instinct.”
Yeah, like the instinct that had made Dez chase the guy, until he’d brandished something that, in the dark, might have been a gun.
“Anyway, you went after him,” Fran said. “So you can’t say anything.”
“That’s different. It’s my job.”
Fran looked up from the iPad for a moment. Thoughtful. “Yeah…” He trailed off and looked away, awkwardly.
“I’m on sick leave right now.”
“Yes, right, of course.”
He knew. He knew who Dez was. Maybe he’d checked him out on his smartphone during those long hours in A&E. He’d have been able to find plenty of information. Police officers didn’t get shot very often in Britain.
“If you ever need a hand with anything,” Fran said, glancing at him, “I mean, because of your shoulder, you can just ask.”
Dez smiled. This…this waif of a guy was offering to help him take the tops off stubborn jars or shift a bit of furniture. It was quite…kind of him. “I’ll remember, thanks. How do you know my shoulder still bothers me?” He’d still been wearing a sling when he moved into the building, but that was months ago.
“You favor it.” He glanced away, as if caught looking at something he shouldn’t. The idea that he’d been checking Dez out enough in their few brief meetings to realize that was interesting.
“You’re observant,” Dez said. “Maybe you’d make a good copper.”
Fran laughed. “Yeah, right. I’d mince the villains into submission.”
Dez laughed, too, but he wasn’t just teasing. The lad had tackled an intruder on instinct. He thought more of protecting others—the cats, in this case—than himself. He was observant. He had stayed clear-headed so far. Most victims of break-ins that happened while they were on the premises would still be babbling in shock, in Dez’s experience. The guy had nerve.
“Okay,” Fran said, peering up from his iPad again. “Customers cancelled. Two of the staff are coming in to look after the cats today. They’ll be here in about an hour.”
“Good. As soon as you’ve got them to work, you should go to bed.” He stood. “I’m going to hurry up SOCO to examine your living room so they can leave you in peace.”
“Oh, well, thanks. That’s great.” And he gave Dez a smile no longer quite so wan and tired, but one that warmed Dez right down to his toes.
* * * *
The next day, as he left by the street door, Dez saw Fran opening the café at ten o’clock. Fran gave him a wave as he let in the short queue of customers waiting outside. Dez waved back, then hurried to catch his bus.
He came back a couple of hours later and had to pass the café window to get to the staircase entrance. As he unlocked the door, it suddenly opened, making his keys rattle against it. Fran stood there, wearing a big grin—and another cat-themed T-shirt, this one featuring a stylized ginger tabby sitting on a fence.
“Dez!” Fran said. “Oh, sorry.” He retrieved Dez’s keys from the lock and gave them back to him.
Dez stepped inside. It was nice to be greeted so heartily, but a tad suspicious, too. “How’s your eye?”
The swelling was still there and the bruising gruesome and purple. “Oh, pretty bad. I’m mostly staying in the back to avoid scaring the customers too much. Can you come through a second? I have something for you.”
“What?”
“Come and see.”
What the hell? Dez dropped the bag he’d been carrying and followed Fran through the door that led into the kitchen at the back of the café. The small room was crowded with four other people, all women and all wearing name badges in the shapes of cats.
“Girls,” Fran said, pulling the hesitating Dez inside by his good arm. “Here he is, the man of the hour. My hero, Dez!”
The women broke into a round of applause and a couple of cheers. Fran let go of Dez’s arm and picked up a frosted cake. Piped on top were the words “Our hero,” alongside some cat-shaped decorations.
“The cats insisted I got you this.” Fran winked, which was extremely cute, but Dez found it hard to appreciate when his heart was pounding like it wanted to smash though his ribs. The space was too confined. There were too many people. They’re just women, he tried to tell himself. Waitresses and cat-carers. They’re no threat. Get a hold of yourself.
He couldn’t breathe…
He backed up, bumped into the counter, knocking something off. It bounced and clonked on the tiled floor. “I…have to go.”
Fran was still holding the cake, but his face became a mask of concern. The women stared and the applause stopped.
“Dez…the cake…you don’t want…” Fran faltered the words.
“I have to go.” Dez heard the panic in his voice. The fear. Fear of being trapped. Of not knowing what was behind him.
He made it out of the door backwards. Forgetting his abandoned bag, he fled up the stairs, boots thundering and drowning out the music from the café.
- Writer
