Gideon nodded. It would be so much better if he could get this stony weight off his heart. He wasn’t a religious man, but still he thought sometimes in the words his father had taught him.Lord, I have a burden on my soul...“I hid James,” he said roughly. “He was a lovely man. He taught at the kindergarten. He had so much more to lose than I did, and...”
“He was out. He wasn’t scared.”
“No. He was ready to tackle all the flak we’d face here – the village gossip, the school, the church, my job, even...” Gideon paused, remembering old Pastor Frayne, his face like a stone-carved eagle’s even before his dementia had robbed it of expression. “Even my parents. I stopped him. I wasn’t ready at all.”
Lee pulled up the blanket to cover them both more closely. “He must have loved you a lot, to agree.”
“Oh, God, he never agreed. We fought over it all the time. But I made it... a rule, a condition of our relationship. Yes, he did love me though – to put up with it as long as he did. We both loved each other a lot.”
“But he got tired of it.”
“Yeah. I wouldn’t even touch him in public. And after all, it was such a bloody waste, you know? The whole village knew about us anyway. I was...” His voice broke. “Such a coward. Such a fool.”
Lee shifted to lie over him. There was something so warm and uncompromising in his gaze that Gideon didn’t try to stop the sob rising up in him: let it tear free, the lonely sound of it harsh in the dawn silence. Lee’s brow creased in empathy. He kissed the tears off Gideon’s face. “If you know that now – if you told him, wouldn’t he come back?”
“Not likely. He got married last month.”
“Oh.”
“To his new boyfriend. Biggest public ceremony you ever saw. I don’t think he meant to rub my nose in it, but... he was pissed off. He wanted to show me, I think – what I’d missed.”
“He invited you?”
“Yes.”
“And you went?”
“Yeah. I shook his hand. Jonathan’s, too. I wanted to wish them the best. What else could I do?”
“You’re a good man.”
Gideon had felt like a bad one for such a long time – and, since the child’s disappearance, a useless one. But when a verdict like that came from Lee, it wasn’t a guess, was it? Not just his opinion. He’d said that he couldsee. Gideon stared up into his face. “Maybe we weren’t the loves of one another’s lives either,” he said slowly. “Or... I couldn’t have treated him like that. I’d have got over myself.”
“Or he’d maybe have settled for what he had behind closed doors.”
“I could never have asked that of him.”
A faint smile, wicked and sad at the same time, curled one corner of Lee’s mouth. “I dunno. I think sometimes a good man is worth staying in for.”
He leaned in. Gideon arched a little way up to meet him, and they brushed mouth to half-open mouth, moth-wing tentative. “Does that,” Lee whispered, “answer more your idea of what a first kiss ought to be?”
“Yes.” Gideon’s expectations for everything were being turned on their heads tonight, though. “Still, I like the one we had. Christ, Lee – I feel bad, lying here so warm and happy with you. I haven’t really slept since the kid went missing.”
“I know. If it’s any comfort to you, if it’ll help you sleep... I really think she’s still alive.”
Gideon frowned. He tried to resist the inward lift, the charge like ozone in the air, that came with this strange man’s pronouncements. “You see, this iswhy I tried to warn Sarah about you. You’ve got so much power. You say something like that, and people believe you.Ialmost believe you.”
“I’d never say it to Sarah. I’ve never oncein all my career told a relative or a friend their missing person was alive until I had real, direct evidence. I’m saying it to you because you’re strong. You’re smart and brave, and you can do something about it.”
Gideon lay speechless. Tears were stinging his eyes. “Sleep now,” Lee told him, softly commanding. “I’ll be here. You know I can see off your monsters, just like you can help me with mine. Go to sleep.”
Chapter Seven
A stormy Halloween morning broke over the moors. From the kitchen window, Gideon watched blue-black clouds massing over the hills, darkening the bracken and heather to a far-flung mantle of grey. If this kept up, dusk would be down by four, and the schoolkids could get a good, hysterical head of steam worked up before the night’s riots began. A busy night, the old Samhain could be, even for a copper in a tiny place like this.
Gideon’s day was looking pretty full as well. He wanted to see Bill Prowse – nothing formal, just an unexpected drop-in for a chat. The DNA specialist was due that afternoon, and there were a dozen routine tasks in the office to be caught up on. And Sarah Kemp to see, of course.Gideon felt ready for it all, even the walk down Sarah’s shadowed road.Sleep now,Lee had commanded him, and he had – only for a couple of hours, though, before that same voice had woken him, this time ordering him to lie back and let Lee get on with the job. Gideon had no idea why he felt so refreshed. He turned away from the gloomy scene outside, switched on a light that made the ancient kitchen look almost appealing, and set the kettle to boil. His dog materialised at these signs of life and he opened a tin for her, letting her into the scullery so he wouldn’t have to watch the gory process of her breakfast.
Then he rested his hands on the time-blackened table and let the warm rush of recall have sway. God, who knew he’d have been capable? Stored-up energies, perhaps, from a long lonely year... Lee beneath the duvet, diving down. Gideon coming almost as soon as the hot mouth closed on him: groaning, laughing, swapping positions and doing the samefor him, awkward as a bullock but remembering how. No condoms to hand, and the lube gathering dust somewhere in a bathroom cupboard, but Lee’s agile weight at his back, the pressure of his cock between Gideon’s thighs, his hand underneath, expertly jerking him off...
