Page 61 of Between the Lies

Joshua stood there, hands in his pockets, rolling his eyes. The man didn’t take himself seriously at the worst of times, but he stuck with you no matter what. Who else would keep pestering their arsehole of a pal until they opened the damned door?

Taking pity on Joshua, Robert unhooked the latch.

‘Ah, so you are alive and not an exploded corpse we’d have to peel off the floor,’ Joshua said, pushing past Robert. ‘You just reek like one.’

Robert smacked the door closed, instead of smacking Joshua on the head. ‘What news have you got? And you’ve got a fucking key to this place. Use it.’

Joshua slid a bag to the floor and raised his arms. ‘The key’s in the house. Apparently, I’m a cop who spends all his time working, thinking about work or talking about his work pals, so Beth has left me… or rather locked me out.’

Beth, Joshua’s wife of two years.

‘Oh fuck, that’s shite.’ Robert reached for Joshua, but the man backed away.

‘Let’s not. The fact that I’ve moved in with my mum – I’ll be damned if I disappoint her any more than I already have – is the only reason I’m not joining you with a six-pack of Tennent’s and a bottle of new-make spirit.’

Robert pushed his hands into his pockets. ‘Hell, not even proper whisky, eh?’

Joshua shrugged. ‘A small bottle of seventy per cent alcohol should poison me or take me under, shouldn’t it?’

New-make spirit was a clear liquid created in the process of whisky distillation. While single malts contained forty to fifty per cent alcohol, a new make held seventy per cent. Clear and lethal.

Robert turned and headed into the kitchen. ‘I don’t know, but I have an endless supply of beer… and Tunnock’s teacakes.’

Joshua found one of the yellow beer cans littering the kitchen counter and snapped the top open. ‘Two years. Somewhere along the line I knew this would happen. We’d only been dating six months. I jumped the gun. We thought it was a great idea. But hell, she wasn’t prepared for my work schedule, and I wasn’t prepared for…’

‘Spa-day bills and Botox appointments?’ Robert winced at his words.

Joshua groaned. ‘You ain’t wrong. And I thought I could make this work. Bastard.’

Robert nodded towards the living room. ‘You need time. Counselling might help.’

By the look on Joshua’s face, the thought had crossed his mind and his wife had killed it. Not that Robert and Anne had even considered counselling, despite knowing, somewhere in their minds, that their marriage wasn’t working out.

‘I thought I could join you in your… dump.’ Joshua clomped into the living room, then saw Robert’s handiwork on the wall. ‘Ah.’

‘That’s all I’ve got,’ Robert said, before heading back into the kitchen. After leaving Cheryl and Joshua behind, Robert had stormed off, not in a mood to investigate. He’d instead raided the alcohol section in two shops – the first shop had refused to sell him a dozen six-packs of beer. Now the entire kitchen counter looked like it belonged in a student hall. Beer cans – used and unused – littered the entire space. In the centre of the counter, Robert had dumped several large multi-packs of crisps, the selection ranging from ready salted to salt and vinegar, enough for a party of two.

Robert scooped up a few crisp packets from each bag, then took them with him to the coffee table in the living room. Joshua plucked a salt and vinegar packet and groaned. ‘You were all prepared to drink yourself away.’

‘First instinct, aye. Then I remembered what Nina told me – that I’m wasting my life away.’ Robert got himself a can and plopped on the sofa beside Joshua.

‘Wasting your life?’

‘I thought it was the only way,’ Robert muttered. ‘I had two goals in life: become a police officer and build a family. Look where I am right now.’

Joshua reached out to clank their cans together. ‘Touché. Two grown men felled by love.’

Robert snorted. ‘According to Nina, people always leave. So what’s the point in getting attached to someone?’

The two of them stared into the middle distance, Robert mulling over the conversation he’d had with Nina, Joshua probably lost in his own world.

The more Robert thought about it, the more Nina’s words resonated with his logic. But, hell, his heart did not agree.

Perhaps he’d moulded his heart to believe in love. Raised by a single parent, he’d wanted the quintessential family. He’d watched couples and had craved what they had. Had even been teased for having dreams like a woman.

Yet the idea of a family had been so enticing. A family was yours: the unit you went home to, the one with whom you could be yourself. But family had now become a pipe dream, rendered so by fate.

After gulping down his second can of beer, Joshua finally spoke up. ‘I don’t think you agree with Nina.’

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