A Dark Matter Episode 37

Thomas looked at her. “You realise how insane this sounds.” Dorothy touched her eyebrows. “Yes.” “He would have been 60 years old he was sleeping with Rebecca – if he when did.”

She stared at him. “Sixty-year-olds can’t have sex?”

“She would have been in her mid-30s then.”

“So?”

“In a happy marriage.”

“We don’t know that. Maybe Natalie isn’t his, maybe Jim bonded with Rebecca over her missing husband, took advantage of a distressed pregnant woman.”

“Then this DNA test is pointless.” “It’s just one possibility.”

“Jim was a good man, Dorothy. He loved you, that was obvious.”

“That’s right, men who are in love with their wives never have affairs.”

“Not Jim.”

“Especially when those wives are old and wrinkled and dried up.”

Thomas paused and held her gaze. “You’re none of those things.”

Compliment

She looked away, embarrassed that she’d fished for the compliment. This wasn’t about that.

A young woman walked past pushing a girl in a buggy. The toddler had a banana squished in her fist, chewing at the fruit from the edge of her fingers. Her mum was on the phone, talking loudly about booking a holiday.

Dorothy turned back to Thomas and lifted the two hair samples off the table.

“Can you do it or not?” she said, holding them out.

He looked at the samples then at her. Eventually he took them and put them in his pocket. “It’ll take as long as it takes,” he says. “It depends how busy they are and the quality of the sample.” Dorothy exhaled. “Thank you.” Thomas finished his coffee and placed the cup in the saucer. “What happens if it comes back negative?”

“I don’t know.”

“What happens if it comes back positive?” She looked at the stream of people, hundreds of them getting on with their lives, talking and eating and breathing and laughing and crying like regular people. She felt disconnected from it all.

“I don’t know that either,” she said.

JENNY

Jenny stared at the bubbles clinging to the lime in her gin and tonic. Lunchtime back at The King’s Wark, this time she was sitting at the bar, her back to the diners and the door. Tiny shards of sunshine cut through the windows as the same barmaid from last night poured pints of Italian lager for two guys in suits.

Jenny looked at the receipt she got with her drink, “You Were Served Today By Sam”. She’d already Googled the name and the pub, tracked her down on Linkedin. Sam Evans. She made a mental note to follow up on that later. When Sam was done serving, Jenny stared at her watch and sighed dramatically. Sam turned and Jenny tapped her watch.

“Men, eh? He’s half an hour late.” The barmaid made a sympathetic face. She looked prettier up close, freckles and dark eyes. Jenny could see why guys might drink in here because of her. Jenny twirled the stirrer in her drink, swished the lime around. “You got a boyfriend?”

Sam looked across the pub for something else to do but then took a step closer anyway. “Yeah.”

“So you know, right?”

“I suppose so.”

Jenny followed her gaze around the place. The barman who served her last night wasn’t in, so she took a punt. “I haven’t been here before,” she said. “Nice place.”

Sam shrugged. “It’s OK.” “Different if you’re working.” That got a tiny smile. “Yeah.”

“Actually, a friend recommended it, I think he drinks here quite a lot. You might know him?” She got a shrug for that. “Liam Hook.”

She watched for a reaction but Sam shook her head. “Tall, dark and handsome,” Jenny said, forcing a laugh at her own cliché. “Forty years old. Comes in after work sometimes, so I guess he’d be wearing a suit.”

Another shake of the head. “Get a lot of guys in here like that.”

When Jenny was 20, 40-year-old men were invisible to her, especially if they wore a suit. But her experience wasn’t universal. She knew younger women who went for the sugar-daddy thing, the flattery of a guy with experience and cash in his pocket.

She tried to read Sam’s body language. She looked very at home behind the bar.

“Time to go,” she said to Sam, touching her watch. “He doesn’t know what he’s missing.” She downed her drink and got up, the barmaid watching as she walked squinting into the daylight outside.

She went to Maritime Street, feeling the alcohol in her system accelerated by sunshine. She couldn’t handle her drink now like she could when she was younger, found herself buzzing as she strode across the cobbles to the vennel and the studio.

She walked up and tried the door, and to her surprise it opened. She went into an empty foyer, narrow corridors in both directions. She noticed that the buzzer system and lock on the door were both busted. A beer crate acting as a coffee table had a spread of community flyers and notices. On the walls were posters for local gigs, galleries and clubs.

She hesitated then turned right. She could smell burning plastic, other kinds of industrial smells she couldn’t identify. The corridor had three doors off to the left, all cheap plywood.

She walked to the end, then along the other corridor, which was the same except with a toilet at the end. She knocked on the nearest door, no answer, then tried the handle. Locked. Same at the next one. Knocked on the third. “Just a minute.”

A woman in her late 20s opened the door, a lit blowtorch in one hand, goggles pushed into her mess of curly red hair, wearing orange overalls that made her look like a terrorist prisoner. She stuck her chin out. “Yeah?”

“Hi, I was thinking of renting one of these studios, do you know if any are free at the moment?”

She tried the door, and to her surprise it opened. She went into an empty foyer, narrow corridors in both directions

A Dark Matter by Doug Johnstone is published by Orenda Books, as is Black Hearts, his latest in the same series. orendabooks.co.uk