‘Got one of those faces, haven’t I?’ Anthony says, combing through the front of Stephen’s hair, looking for the exact angle of attack. ‘Blend into the crowd. Useful if you’re avoiding the police, nightmare on Grindr.’
‘I’m very grey,’ says Stephen, examining himself.
‘Nonsense,’ says Anthony. ‘Elizabeth’s grey, you’re “Burnished Platinum”.’
‘You do such a lovely job, Anthony,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Doesn’t he look handsome?’
‘He’s a looker, this one,’ agrees Anthony. ‘Look at those cheekbones. You wouldn’t last a minute at Brighton Pride with those, Stevie-boy. Someone’d whisk you off to their Airbnb and have their wicked way.’
‘You’re from Brighton?’
‘Portslade,’ says Anthony. ‘Same thing, isn’t it?’
‘You might know my friend, Kuldesh?’
‘I’ll look out for him,’ says Anthony.
‘Bald as a coot,’ says Stephen, and starts laughing.
Anthony catches Stephen’s eye in the mirror and starts giggling too. ‘No good to me, then, is he?’
Stephen nods. ‘What’s your line of work, Anthony?’
‘Me, hairstylist,’ says Anthony, fingers on Stephen’s temples, tilting him this way and that. ‘How about you?’
‘Well,’ says Stephen, ‘I potter about. Bit of gardening. Allotment.’
‘I’d kill for an allotment,’ says Anthony. ‘I grow cannabis under my sunbed, but that’s it. This haircut for a special occasion? Going dancing?’
‘Just felt it needed doing,’ says Elizabeth.
‘If you see Kuldesh, you tell him Stephen says hello,’ says Stephen. ‘Tell him he’s an old rascal.’
‘I like a rascal,’ says Anthony.
‘Me too,’ says Stephen.
Stephen remembers so few of his friends now. School friends mainly. Elizabeth hears the same stories, and laughs in the same places, because Stephen is one of those people who can tell you the same story a hundred times and still make you laugh. Language trips from him with such grace and joy. Most of the time now he struggles with words, but those old stories stay note perfect, and the smile on his face as he tells them stays true. He remembers Kuldesh because that was his last adventure. Out and about with Bogdan and Donna. It must have made him feel alive.
‘I used to have my hair cut in Edgbaston,’ says Stephen. ‘Do you know it?’
‘I’ve never heard of anywhere,’ says Anthony. ‘I thought Dubai was in Spain. I couldn’t believe how long the flight was.’
‘A barber called Freddie. Freddie the Frog, they called him, I don’t know why.’
‘Long tongue?’ guesses Anthony.
‘You might have it there,’ laughs Stephen. ‘An old boy he was. Probably dead now, wouldn’t you say?’
‘When was this?’ asks Anthony.
‘Gosh, 1955? Something like that.’
‘Probably dead, then,’ says Anthony. ‘Perhaps he croaked?’
Stephen laughs, his shoulders shaking under his gown. Elizabeth lives to see these moments. How many more will there be? It’s nice to sit here with him. To not think about the case, and let the others get on with it for once. Wherever the heroin is, it can wait a while longer. Joyce probably knows something is up. Joyce always knows when something is up. Elizabeth will have to speak to her at some point.
Anthony is finishing, and Elizabeth dips into her handbag for her purse. A little heavier than before their visit to Viktor.
‘Don’t you dare,’ says Anthony. ‘The handsome ones are free.’
Elizabeth smiles at Stephen in the mirror and he smiles back. Love can be so very easy sometimes. She decides she will switch off her phone. They can cope without her for a day. She would like to know how Joyce and Ibrahim got on with Samantha Barnes, but she would rather give her full attention to Stephen. Work isn’t everything.
Anthony takes his final look at Stephen in the mirror. ‘There, that should last you.’
Stephen admires himself. ‘You ever come across a chap called Freddie the Frog?’
‘Freddie from Edgbaston?’ asks Anthony.
‘That’s the one,’ says Stephen. ‘He still knocking about?’
‘Still going strong,’ says Anthony.
‘Freddie the Frog, fit as a fiddle,’ says Stephen.
Anthony puts his hands on Stephen’s shoulders and kisses the top of his head.
Breaking into buildings with a warrant can be a lot of fun. A dawn raid the most fun of all. You get to have a bacon sandwich in the back of a van and arrest a drug dealer in his pants before the world has even woken. Sometimes they’d make a run out of the back of the house and you’d get to see them rugby-tackled by an out-of-breath sergeant.
Other times they would hide in the loft and you’d have to play cards on the landing until they needed the loo.
