Broken Promises

This is book 2 in the Jones series. Book one is titled 'A Twinkle in the Dark' and is also available in full here on Inkitt.

It took me a few weeks to really come to terms with everything that had happened during the Pine/Chimney case. Even though it was as wrapped up as it could be, one pain point remained. I was so single it was creepy. It was distracting and that was a problem. It’s bad enough when you’re a cop and in an office full of people, but when you’re a lone detective and you start drooling every time a woman walks into your office, well, it’s a really bad look. Beside I think I owed it to Ella to get a handle on myself. She was sweet and kind and of course, married, so she didn’t really pay attention to things like that. But I never wanted her to feel leered at by her creepy boss. So, I decided to get practical about it. I swallow my pride, and said.

“I mean, just an idea, I don’t want to pressure you into thinking this is part of your job or anything, but do you maybe know someone who might be interested in…”

“Yes, yesyes, I’m so happy you finally asked me about this, yay!”

She was so genuinely excited that it instantly put me off, but I realised that I’d just pressed a button I couldn’t un-press. To her credit though, she was a very good matchmaker. It helped that she’d been thinking about it since about the first time she met me, but still.

Ella had met Louise Fortune in line at a bank, or somewhere equally strange to meet people and make friends. The power of Ella’s infinite and excitable charm, I guess. Anyway, Louise was only a few years younger than me, and looked a lot younger than me. But that had more to do with the way I lived, and not her looking super young. She did look great though. Dark copper coloured hair that was almost definitely dyed, but suited her, milky blue green eye, almost the colour of jade. So much so, that I found it hard not to stare at them. Which was a shame because she did also have fine upstanding breasts which to the best of my knowledge and experience, were real. She worked in a small logistic office, mostly dealing with the importing of fruit into the Island. Being a manmade island, we didn’t have any industrial level farms or food production, other than fishing and very small boutique spaces that had started to pop up in the last few years. But even then, it was things like small personal greenhouses attached to expensive restaurants, or butter made from imported milk. But at least produced on the Island. And after making the same ‘Miss Fortune’ joke that she’d probably heard her whole life, we really started to hit it off. The first date was very civilised, dinner at Paul’s, a drink in the Lounge, and then a taxi took her home. Our second date as a bit more casual, lunch at The Dock Side Pub, because I couldn’t believe that someone who worked in food imports and had lived on the Island their entire lives had never heard of it. Despite it being lunch time, we ended up staying and drinking together and laughing together which was really refreshing. Sitting there with her, I felt like I hadn’t really laughed in years, and it felt good. That was also the first time we kissed and even though I was opening to heading back to one of our houses, she stopped me with a word, and I respectfully took a step back, a deep breath and said.

“Yes, of course, absolutely fine, of course, yup, of course.”

Which made her raise an eyebrow.

“Is it a problem for you when I woman says no to you?”

Her tone wasn’t really accusing but I knew enough about how shit the world could be to know that it was a very important question.

“No, it’s genuinely fine, I’m just pulling my mind back into the moment and away from … breakfast tomorrow morning.”

She smiled, stepped closer and kissed me again, then said with a renewed charm.

“What would you have made me?”

I quickly ran through the very short list of everything I had in my house.

“Coffee.”

Which made her laugh and playfully slap my arm, which was nice actually, reassuring that maybe something could happen with her. Maybe it didn’t have to be just a few dates, and if that were true, then maybe things didn’t have to go quickly.

On our third date she told me about her son and her ex-husband. Neither of which she’d even hinted at before. And the fact that Ella hadn’t said anything either told me she didn’t know, or it was such a bad situation that she’d been sworn to secrecy.

“We were together for 9 years and married for 6. We had our son after the second year of marriage. Honestly, I thought we were each other’s forever people. Tommy was planned and we’d planned to have at least one more, maybe even two. But I really struggled with depression after the birth, and it put massive strain on our relationship, and by the time I was feeling like myself again we hadn’t had any kind of physical intimacy in almost 2 years. We went to counselling, of course, I mean we were doing therapy for my depression anyway, and we tried some things, but it turned out that while I was super disconnected from my body, and unable to even imagine having sex, he was getting in touch with other people’s bodies. Which he also said was my fault because I was the one making the problem, and a lot of other things along those lines that at first, I believed, but thanks to great other people in my life, realised was just his way of passing blame and guilt because he wasn’t able to actually handle being an adult, or a father. Which, was maybe the most hurtful part, to learn that he really wasn’t the man I thought he was.”

I’ve said it before, being a detective was a lot like being a therapist. My clients were all people who had problems that they didn’t know how to solve themselves. And most of the time they weren’t even sure what they needed beyond the concept of ‘help’. I hadn’t pushed her to open up to me about it, but I was genuinely interested and genuinely curious so had listened and asked questions and then got the whole story. But I was also experienced enough to know that when people seemingly spontaneously open up, they also suddenly become very vulnerable, and how you react to those stories can make or break a budding relationship. So, I reached out my hand and placed it on hers and said.

“When my wife told me she wanted a divorce, I blamed myself for everything, and she used that against me to take full ownership of my nightclub and dream retirement job. Some people say that their Ex’s get their hopes and dreams in the divorce, but mine kind of did. And it hurts to be so betrayed by someone you can still remember trusting so completely. What I’m trying to say is, I’m so sorry that that happened, and I feel like I know what that’s like, and it never really stops being a memory bruise.”

She squeezed my hand and although her eyes had a distant quality to them, she didn’t tear up or cry. She just smiled sadly for a moment, letting the mist of our past hang over the table for a bit, not running from it, not wallowing in it, just letting the fact that we both had history be present. Then all at once she seemed to appear back in her body and her face brightened as she said.

“So anyway, I have Tommy most of the time and my ex gets him every other weekend. We do communicate and our situation is actually fine, now. We don’t hate each other, which was really me deciding not to hate him. Both for Tommy’s sake and my own. I don’t want to carry around that much anger all the time, that just makes my life suck while he goes on being himself.’ Her eyes took on a distinctly bedroom quality and she squeezed my hand again before saying, ’and that might be the reason I didn’t go home with you last time. The only reason, actually.”

I didn’t want to even try stop the smile that spread across my face and we kissed like excited teenager, possibly making the other people in the bar a little uncomfortable but I didn’t care. As it turned out, that was one of the weekends that her son was with his father, and I made her coffee in the morning, as promised.

Louise and I had had the conversation that morning and decided to be a couple. I could tell Ella she was right and that I now had a girlfriend, and she would start to think about when would be the right time and situation to introduce me to her son. Which, after a month, still hadn’t happened. Which I was actually okay with. Not because I didn’t want to meet him, or because I was getting tired or bored with our relationship. Quite the opposite actually, I found that I very quickly started to rely on it. I was excited to see her when we got to see each other, I wanted to find out about her day, her life, to share my stories with her, to get her opinion on things big and small. No, I was okay with not having met her son because in the whole time we’d been together I hadn’t had any serious cases. I’d had small things, it wasn’t a money issue. But I knew what my job took, what it entailed, and the stress it puts on the people in my life. I’d explained it to her, of course I had, but academically understanding that my job could be dangerous and getting a phone call from a hospital because I’d been attacked in the night and the person I was with had been murdered, that was something very different. I still thought about Thomas every time I walked down that alleyway to The Jazz Bar. And the sound of Margarette’s voice when I told her what had happened. The pain in it. I’d read that Francesa didn’t even attend the funeral, just point blank refused to return to The Island. And I couldn’t blame her for that.