6 hours on the rewrite including yesterday's post - feel like I'm punch drunk - stuff still needs final, when I finish

Neville rang Antona, “I’ve just told my Boss you are my girlfriend and I will visit Kingston every night… being the supercilious arsehole that he is, he said ‘he wouldn’t expect anything less from me’. Does the offer still hold?”

“I would expect some warning of when you are going to arrive. It gives Cookie a chance!”

“Do you do ‘doggy bags’?”

“Only if you sleep in a kennel… you turn up like a normal person – you’re eating habits, we can work on later… Albert will sort out the rest, and arrange the room?”

“It makes me sound like a kept man?”

“Merely leased, until something better turns up, is probably a more accurate description!”

Neville rang Macguire.

“Macguire!”

“Neville Jones. 2 more killed from the previous project. I am now staying with official approval at my girl-friend’s house in Kingston, where Roger Turner died. Outside of my area of jurisdiction but I am a Policeman in London, and will act as one. Please pass it around!”

“Understood, Mr Jones!”

Neville got ready – a kennel and a doggy bag would be his entrance and exit for being late.

Meeting a lawyer/crook closely, unless investigating them was unusual. He felt telling Owley it didn’t matter because Nat would tell Stapleton, anyway, and it would pass upwards, downwards and sideway like some kind of dance. 

He heard of some man in a book, finding a rich woman who took him in. 

Antona might take him in, in more ways than one before he ever understood her or what she was doing, and she was probably doing it now.

Roger died but they prevented him from investigating the killing—the only crime and evidence they found, put her daughter away for 3 years for drug dealing—was there some kind of balance, if he found it or ever knew? 

Neville understood Antona got the money from the oil tanker hijackings.

Now? 

Of the Group organising the hijacks—only she remained and for what? 

He’d might technically live off the rewards of crime, but what change was that to his life as a Police Officer and it had always been a career goal?

Was this a deterrent to the local Bobbies, who would be told by Nat or Stapleton, anyway, to monitor him. 

Now someone might string him by his badge, if things went wrong, without taking it off first as so many had tried. 

No authority anywhere in reality and strictly, all he might manage was ringing the local Bobbies, but they would be around a lot more, however he still a policeman mentally for whatever that meant.

Antona’s house finally appeared in front of him and he did manage climbing out of his battered old car without his usual back-stretching and cursing. 

The door; opened by Albert, who immediately took his bag, saying, “I will show you to your room, sir. Madam is in the study. Once you’ve had your shower she will no doubt, be pleased to see you?”

I’m being trained already, Neville decided. Fit in or be trained to fit. 

He followed Albert up to the room, and was surprised to find a robe already lay out on the bed. 

“There are some refreshments in the refrigerator for sir, but there will be a brandy downstairs, so I would suggest that sir leaves the beer until later.” 

Albert butlered smoothly off, leaving Neville to take his shower… a shower in the evening… Neville considered running for whatever home he had now, but there was no running backwards and forwards, to get his eggs timed by the shower.

His shower was just right as he finally remembered to take his clothes off—no standing under it in his vest and drawers as he washed his hair, underwear and himself at the same time. 

He took his time enjoying hot, instead of luck dominated water—usually the way his shower worked in Putney, where you never understood the way the water was going to hit you, until it did—this was enjoyable for a change but he was hardly in his first bloom of middle-age, probably at the stage of the first wither and being smashed apart in a shower was something that never changed but did at least wash his underwear… often… not very cleanly but usually in a fit of violence.

The idea of a bit of luxury before he died was appealing but something didn’t fit into his life.

He picked up an immense towel, that if his, would, either be stinking or slimy, and just felt it almost wrap around him, like a magic cloak, so even his toenails felt good—perhaps miracles can happen. 

He’d bought casual slacks … Tesco’s best, if they ever had a best, and wandered back to get dressed, finding on the bed a package and a card … ‘from your criminal girl-friend’, unwrapping the packages produced a decent pair of trousers, pants, and socks he would never ever find in a Tesco, and a good shirt … he turned the card over, and written on the back was ‘criminal girlfriends don’t have to follow the rules’? 

He laughed, and that was the first for a long time, of genuine humour … she had him by everything, everywhere and didn’t mind telling him – she had him! 

Port out; Starboard Home, he could live with it for a few hours but a Policemen never dreams?

A knock at the door, revealed itself to be Albert, “Are you ready sir, only Madam is waiting?”

“Thank you, Albert,” and he felt a fool for saying it. 

He made his way down, following Albert who negotiated him to the Lounge and kept checking to see where the lease was, in his opinion.

“Please sit down, Neville. Albert will get you a brandy, and then we can talk.”

Albert butlered his way to the brandy and glasses, with a rich biscuity deep aroma gently caressing the air, as he returned to Neville, who did not swill it like the cheap pub brandy.

He looked at Antona and she looked back on him. 

In a way they were two sides of a legal coin. 

Each corrupted by trying to enforce what they saw as the law, or what they could get away with, at that time in a court of law.

“Antona, I am being sliced, diced and hung up for smoking—maybe by the Police as well, but definitely with the gang that I know about… I think… maybe… I might be able to stop something happening, but I can’t give you guarantees. I can only muddy the waters, and I have already done that, but I can’t dam the flood although I can certainly damn the people concerned.”

“Neville. You could have walked away and you have already told me on several occasions what you think of me, plus a few threats, or promises as well… what made you come tonight?”

“I’ve always had this silly belief in the Law… I try… I try to observe it. If you were hit by the law, I have to watch, but the law doesn’t want to know you. Killers, Villains, Criminals all seem to want to know you, and most working for the Government… that offends my sense of reasoning but I happen to like and respect you for your courage, determination, and desire to provide something that is stable—I know, I probably have as much credit in your eyes, as a spent copper, but I am grateful for the chance to meet you, and at least be somewhere decent for a change.”

“You are here, Neville. Albert will make that room yours, for the shower at least, and as a dressing room… no-one else I think… no, no-one else will come near me. You said what you thought of me—most of it accurate… I fell… I fell I suppose into a habit, not personal desire, apart from preserving what had been achieved – I guessed my son was on drugs as I don’t really trust men. That my daughter was so stupid!”

“An interesting train of thought but not one for a Policeman?”

“It was sexist – I don’t like my son. He is brash, noisy and speaks his mind – he enjoys being rude for the fun of it. My daughter no longer likes me because I seduced Jimmy Mackintosh, after she failed to drive him away and she cannot face losing. I needed someone to love that night, but also for the money to keep this place going.”

“I am not a Merchant Banker, Antona, nor will I ever be one.”

“You are not Jimmy Mackintosh, but at the moment I need you here. You possess a kind of stability about you, a brain that many lack, and there are worse than you, believe me.”

“A backhanded compliment, but I probably asked for it?”

“There is a room… this is your house until you decide to leave —I am not speaking of love or desire, but of respect and a fear of the future – the possible future that I hope, you will stop from happening, but I happen to like you, and you are someone I want around the house. Shall we go in to Dinner? Cookie has done something plain.”

“You guessed, Antona that I am not used to formal or proper meals, without layers of fat and burnt offerings… decent food doesn’t feature in a normal Policeman’s diet.”

“Let’s start with the basics, Neville… I mean… that’s regular meals, and you come here, until you choose otherwise but let me know first?”

“Thank you, Antona… I like the idea—I will need to be able to get about, without calling for Albert to find my car, though.”

“I’ll tell Albert … although your car needs a service and he will sort that out – you are on a lease, and not a kept man, Neville—by your criminal girl-friend. You being here could prolong my life, and that matters to me! Let’s eat this dinner!”