Romeo's Tune (1990) by Mark Timlin Page A

old copies of the Telegraph just as the doc had told me. I laid down some food and introduced Cat to her new boudoir. She sniffed at it for a while and finally deigned to use it. I felt as if I’d won a small victory.
    The very same day I called Josephine Cass on the telephone.
    Whilst I’d been helping her to move into her flat I’d made a note of the number on the telephone which hung on the kitchen wall. So when Cat was catching the zeds I gave it a ring.
    The phone rang for maybe seventeen rings before it was answered. I recognised her accent straight away as she said ‘Hello’ with a sort of query in her voice as if she wasn’t expecting a call.
    ‘Josephine?’ I said.
    ‘Speaking.’
    ‘Hi, this is Nick.’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Nick Sharman, remember? I met you the other day.’
    ‘Oh hello,’ she said. Her enthusiasm didn’t exactly bowl me over.
    ‘Hello,’ I said back. There was a silence.
    ‘How are you settling in?’ I asked.
    ‘Just fine.’
    ‘I wondered if you fancied a drink or dinner or something?’
    ‘Not really.’
    ‘Would you like to see a film?’
    ‘I don’t think so.’
    ‘Too busy?’
    ‘So-so.’
    ‘English history wasn’t it?’
    ‘That’s it.’
    ‘Don’t you take time off?’ I enquired.
    ‘From what?’
    ‘Study.’
    ‘Sometimes.’
    ‘What do you do?’
    ‘When?’
    ‘When you take time off?’ I thought she was being deliberately obtuse.
    ‘All sorts of things,’ she replied.
    ‘Tell me one.’
    ‘I go for long walks.’
    This was better. ‘I like walking too,’ I said. ‘But I can’t go too far these days before my foot starts acting up.’
    ‘What’s wrong with it?’ she asked.
    ‘I got shot a while back.’
    ‘You’re kidding.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Shot, shot with a gun?’ she pressed.
    ‘That’s right.’
    ‘In quiet old England?’
    ‘That’s correct.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘Protecting the public’
    ‘How come?’
    ‘I used to be a policeman.’
    ‘No kidding?’ She laughed.
    ‘What’s so funny?’ I enquired.
    ‘I thought you drove a cab.’
    ‘It’s an easy mistake to make.’
    ‘And you got shot?’
    I almost wished I hadn’t told her. ‘Sure did.’
    ‘On a bust?’
    ‘That’s right.’
    ‘Are you still a cop?’
    ‘Private.’
    ‘Are you shitting me?’
    ‘No, I’m serious. What’s wrong with being private?’
    ‘Nothing,’ she replied. ‘It’s just unreal.’
    ‘How about that drink then?’ I asked again.
    She thought about it. ‘Maybe I will take an hour out,’ she said after a moment.
    ‘Tonight?’ I pressed my advantage home.
    ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Why not?’
    ‘I’ll pick you up at seven.’
    ‘Sure,’ she said.
    And that was that.

10

    I called round to collect Josephine at her flat at seven precisely. She greeted me at the door looking like ten million dollars. Her hair was piled up, revealing the delicate lines of her neck and just a few wisps escaped to caress her shoulders. She was wearing very tight and faded blue jeans, lace-up black boots with spike heels and a loose black angora sweater with a scoop neck that revealed a tantalizing, shadowed hint of her breasts.
    She was carrying a bottle of good white Bordeaux.
    ‘Hi,’ she said.
    ‘Hi.’
    ‘Come on in and have a drink.’
    I grinned like a kid and followed her through to the living-room.
    The flat was warm and she’d already begun to put her personal stamp on the place. There were a couple of new lamps discreetly placed, a TV and video rig and a giant ghetto blaster with detachable speakers and maybe fifty cassettes scattered about. I didn’t remember the framed Gauguin print from my previous visit either.
    ‘I see you’ve been out shopping,’ I remarked.
    ‘Oh sure, I spent a fortune in the record store yesterday.’
    ‘And the off-licence.’
    ‘The what?’
    I pointed at the bottle she was holding. ‘Where you get that?’
    ‘Oh, the liquor store. Off-licence, is that what you call it? I’ll have to remember that. Is