Free All That Mullarkey by Sue Moorcroft Page A

the bed. Gav inched closer, mumbling sleep language, his breath scalding her neck.
    She tried to remember the dream that had just broken. Skidding images of holding something and being frightened it would be seen but not knowing how to conceal it. And a feeling of being trapped.
    ‘Give me a bit of space, Gav,’ she whispered.

Chapter Nine
    Usually Gav liked the friendliness of his parents’ street, but the neighbours had driven him nuts with their constant demands for up-to-the-minute George-bulletins. And he’d been stuck with his mother’s claustrophobic half-a-car, little heap of shit.
    Still, his dad seemed to be on the mend, that was the main thing. He was grateful.
    And he was free to come back to work. He locked his Focus and glanced up at the endless windows of the Clyde, Rhode & Owen offices. Standing in the car park in the sweet unidentifiable smell of the CR&O flavourings plant, he shrugged into his jacket. But, instead of heading straight for the office, he wandered towards the brook that idled at the edge of the industrial estate past their building. Climbing over the two-bar fence, he pushed through the cool fronds of a willow tree and joined the dog-walking track beside the water.
    The sun dappled through the elders and a lacy edging of cow parsley almost made the olive water pretty. He kicked stones into it as he walked. Birds, seemingly uncaring that their home was only an overgrown patch no one else wanted, sang liquid songs to the pale-blue sky. A cloud of gnats danced infuriatingly around his face and he swatted at them futilely.
    He dropped sticks into the water to see how fast they left him, watched leaves dance with the sunlight, nodded at two dog walkers and let time go by.
    What was he going to do about Cleo?
    Her picture slid easily into his mind. Dark hair thick to her shoulders, a long and wispy fringe sweeping above her beautiful eyes, the generous mouth he’d possessed a million times. Her curvy body. The body he’d held, stroked and loved, been faithful to for so long. His playground.
    Fear was a monster in his guts. Bad things were happening and, even whilst he hid them from her, Cleo’s apparent inability to see them was making him unreasonably angry with her.
    Things were tense at home, but he didn’t want to go to work. Lillian would be back. With Lillian’s holiday and his hurriedly taken week in Yorkshire, he’d avoided her for a fortnight. But now she’d be back with her cocky one-upmanship. The fear monster stirred. Sometimes he hated Lillian and could envisage changing jobs to get away from her sharply styled hair of red and blonde streaks, her tight skirts.
    But sometimes he fancied her absolutely dead rotten, despite loving Cleo. And that made him feel guilty. Which made him mad at Lillian. And, improbably, again at Cleo.
    He turned for the office, feeling no better about his life for having taken ten minutes to reflect on it.
    Crossing the marble foyer floor, he swiped his security pass to open the lift door, forcing encouraging and motivating phrases into his mind to reassure himself that Lillian was no better than him. ‘We’re the same grade, both tens.’ Ten. A junior management grade. Gav a 10A and there weren’t too many people who merited an A. And only one who merited an A (Special). ‘Bloody Lillian. Same grade, same sodding grade, I do my work just as well, she isn’t actually my senior. Only a “special”, not Superwoman. Lillian is not Superwoman. Lillian is dangerous.’
    His section was at the far end of a floor so enormous that some of the young headcases brought micro scooters to whiz up and down on. Often, members of a section had no idea about the function of other sections. The flavourings industry was secretive about what it did and how it did it and the hierarchy of privileges and passwords would do MI5 proud.
    His quadrants were sketchily separated from the others with wood-edged screens. His section had grey desks and blue trays;