Dead Pretty: The 5th DS McAvoy Novel (DS Aector McAvoy) by David Mark Page B

that he would rather talk to the sexy DSU than the massive, brooding Scotsman with the broken hands.
    ‘I hardly know her,’ he says, and his face shows regret. ‘Knew her, I mean. I just did the lass a favour.’
    Pharaoh stays quiet. Lets him fill the silence.
    ‘Look, I got talking to her in the Lambwath. This was months ago. Christmas just gone, that sort of time. You know the Lambwath? Not my normal pub but I was barred from my local so I went to spend my money somewhere else. She was in there with some friends. I don’t know what the occasion was. Birthday or leaving do or something. She was dolled up to the nines. They all were. She didn’t look like the others. Looked like Morticia Addams with all the black she was wearing and the piercings and the eye make-up. But for all that she was a smiley thing. She asked me for a fag and I said I didn’t have any but I’d roll her one. So I did. We had a natter. She told me she was going to have to move away because she couldn’t get a flat. Seemed a shame to me.’
    Gavan glances at his wife. Her face is stone.
    ‘Look, I haven’t always been a good boy,’ he says, looking at McAvoy and trying to find an ally. ‘I thought she were a pretty thing and I’m a sucker for that. She told me she couldn’t get a flat because she had a bad credit history and I said that money talks and if she could put down the first few months’ rent then most landlords wouldn’t worry too much about the credit checks. I own my own home, see?’ He gestures at his living room. ‘I doubted I could be a guarantor for the poor cow but I gave her my address and my number and said she could try and use my name on the forms. Could say she lived here, if she liked. I was just being nice.’
    Pharaoh raises an eyebrow. Twinkles a little. ‘You’re a bad puppy,’ she says, in a way that makes Gavan seem to grow two or three inches in height.
    ‘I wish I hadn’t met the lass, to be honest,’ he says. ‘Right pain in the arse she became. Called me up a week later and said she’d given my number to her landlord in case there were any problems. Said she’d spent her savings getting stuff for the flat and was stony broke. Wanted to borrow a few quid. I’d just got out of the nick and didn’t have enough money for a packet of tobacco. I ignored her. Then she sent a load more, saying she was really in bother and hadn’t eaten and that she had to get a train ticket and all the sob stories people use when they’re trying to fleece you. I’d have changed my number if so many people didn’t have this one. Then her landlord phones me and says she’s behind with the rent and that she’s given them my name! I was proper fucked off. Wasn’t my fucking business, was it? And my wife here puts up with a lot, y’know? I told her about this lass who kept bothering me. She wasn’t happy but it was a weight off my mind.’
    Pharaoh looks across at the rotund woman. Gives the tiniest of signals for McAvoy to take over.
    ‘Worth their weight in gold, a good wife and mother,’ says McAvoy, softly. ‘Jez is a lucky man. You must have reminded him of that when he told you.’
    Mrs Gavan sucks her cheek, enjoying the attention and the big man’s wide, sincere eyes.
    ‘We’ve been here before,’ she says, rolling her eyes and nodding at her errant husband. ‘He’s a sucker for the pretty faces. Always giving lasses money for a taxi or a few quid to get themselves a pizza on the walk home. Can’t help himself, the silly sod. This Ava took the piss. I believed him when he said nothing had happened – especially when I saw her for myself.’
    ‘You actually met?’ asks McAvoy, keeping his eyes on hers.
    ‘In town,’ she says, chattily. ‘Bottom of Whitefriargate. Jez and me were having a drink in the Bonny Boat one Friday night. Don’t normally drink around there but he were treating me. I saw him talking to this tiny little thing with half her head shaved and tattoos and piercings