Without Consent: Code Zero Series, #2

Chapter 1

She says her name is Sally. Or Sandy. Or something. Not Sandy, who calls themselves Sandy round this way? Anyway, doesn’t matter. For the last hour and a half I’ve been calling her Kylie, and she hasn’t slapped me yet. I say it’s because she reminds me of Kylie Minogue. The big hair and the broad smile, the tombstone teeth. She says it’s not the first time she’s heard that. Then there’s the fact that the top of her head only comes up to my chin, and that’s with her heels on. The crick I’m getting in my neck when we kiss is no joke. At one point I lift her up to give my tendons a break. She thinks I’m being sweet.

When she trips off to the Ladies’ I watch her go, this little doll of a Kylie with curls down so far they tap at the bare skin between her satin cropped blouse tied in a knot at her midriff and the black hot pants cradling her backside. I’m not the only one with eyes on her, but I’m the only one in the club she’s looking at tonight. Pressing her way through the bodies, she tips a glance over her shoulder and smiles, the lights from above painting her in a dastardly wicked shade of red. I wink, then once she’s out of sight, rub my hand over my neck and tip my head back to get a good stretch in before the next round.

‘You’re a jammy twat, I’ll give you that,’ Jockey shouts over the music. He thumps a full pint down on the ledge next to where I’m standing and some of the ale escapes down the side.

‘Cheers, mate, though you took your time with it,’ I say, mopping up the spillage with my thumb; no need to waste any.

‘Didn’t want to interrupt your tonsil hockey. I don’t know how you do it, you bastard.’

Jockey, aka Mike Taylor the master baker, shakes his head, but only because he’s betrothed. He wasn’t so sloppy with the women himself not so long back – hence the nickname, a champion rider if ever there was one. But that was before a six-foot-three German radiologist showed up at his bakery one lunchtime three years ago and ordered half a dozen sausage rolls, two corned beef pasties and a slice of his home-cooked chocolate and peanut butter caramel mousse pie. It had been a tough morning, she explained as he was bagging up her order. But she needn’t have said anything – Jockey was in love with the fair-haired, steel-eyed foodie before she’d even mentioned throwing in a Santa Claus cookie for later.

‘Actually, Jock, Blondie asked about you,’ I say, bringing the pint back to the ledge half empty.

‘She did?’ He perks up, something of the old Jockey sparkling in his pearly greys. ‘What’d she say?’

‘She said who’s that plonker wearing the Laura Ashley curtain, he looks like a right nonce.’

‘Fuck off.’ Jockey scowls and runs a hand down over the floral shirt Lena bought him for his last birthday. ‘Armani this is, mate. But I wouldn’t expect you to know that.’

He nods to my polo shirt, and I mimic him by running my palm down my chest. ‘Lyle and Scott. Drives the birds wild.’

‘Yeah? Shame they didn’t have one in your size.’

I cup a hand beneath each pectoral. ‘This is what they call defined, son. Sculpted. An Adonis.’

My friend tugs at the hem of the Armani fluttering over his expanding waistline, and looks over my shoulder to the bar, maybe thinking about getting some shots in before happy hour ends. Or a packet of pork scratchings.

‘Yeah, well,’ he says, ‘one of these days you’ll get yourself burned, sunshine. It’s not all about the muscle. Sometimes women like a man who talks with them, did you know that?’

‘Mate. You’re confusing me with someone who didn’t once run an online masterclass in seduction entitled, How To Treat A Woman Right, that almost broke the internet.’

I spot the little Kylie at the bar. She holds up two fingers to the barman, who nods and lines up a couple of shot glasses before her. The curls slide from her shoulder as she looks for me. I’m ready with a smile that she returns tenfold.

‘Do you even know anything about her?’ Jockey witters, moving into my line of sight, for which I frown. ‘Does she know anything about you? Like what you do for a living, by any chance?’

‘Course. She guessed from my physique that I must be a construction worker. So I said yeah, I’m working on the new BBC headquarters in Central Square. Gave my name as Jason. Couldn’t help myself.’

‘Construction worker, my arse. Fast worker more like. She could be a psycho, for all you know.’

‘Your green-eyed concern is as touching as always, my friend, but you’re preaching to the converted. I know everything I need to know. Like, see these hands? I know they fit perfectly. Right about here.’ I hold my scooped palms about a foot from my groin as though I’m cradling two bags of sugar.

The master baker snorts his mock disgust. ‘You’re nothing but a rogue, Smithy. It’s shameful.’

‘Hey, mate,’ I say, leaning towards him but flicking my chin to gesture over his shoulder. He follows my gaze to where the little Kylie is swaying her way towards us with a shot glass in each hand and a curled smile that would send a whole monastery to hell. Twice.

‘Does she look like a girl who wants to talk, do you think, Jockey, my good man?’

Over the heart-shuddering bass pulsing through the DJ’s speakers, I don’t hear my friend’s muttered expletive before he leaves, but the thin grimace pulling his lips to one side tells me it would have been brutal. Little Kylie walks right up to me, close enough that her breasts press against my Lyle and Scott, and hands me one of the shot glasses. We knock them back, the sting of neat vodka burning my throat and setting a fire in my chest that has no time to cool before my new friend stands on her toes, wraps her fingers around my neck to pull me down to her level, and whispers sweet nothings in my ear: ‘So then, gorgeous, hope you’re alright with bacon and egg for breakfast.’

*

The plate hits the wall and breaks in half. The wallpaper of zesty citrus fruits against a bright white background drips with blood-red ketchup and cold baked beans. The half-eaten fried egg sticks only for as long as it takes for me to comprehend it could have been my head taking the full force if I hadn’t ducked when I did. A chair scrapes, door bangs, and the cool morning air hits me at the same time I catch sight through the kitchen window of a pair of skinny white legs jack-hammering across the lawn.

‘Shit.’

I drop the handheld I was using to take notes into my pocket and go scrambling after him, catching my hip on the edge of the table on the way.

‘Fuck, bastard, wanker,’ I curse, going out the door.

‘Neil?’ a voice calls behind me. But my eyes are fixed on the arse end of the white cotton briefs bobbing over a six-foot feather-board fence at the bottom of the garden and disappearing from sight.

‘Got him,’ I shout back, launching myself Spidey-like at the fence.

The mount is good, but the landing could have gone better. I see the paddling pool before I come down, but it’s too late by that point. My right foot plunges into the murky, green-tinged water that’s been cultivating its own ecosystem since the last dry spell last summer. There’s a waft about it now that I’ve disturbed it too, but of greater priority is staying upright while the sole of my boot slides over the algae on the exit.

I key the radio. ‘Control, 213. In pursuit of suspect through gardens rear of Bailey Street onto West Street. White male, black t-shirt, white briefs,’ I report, my attention honed on the balding scalp just dipping out of view to my left. I gear up for another fence launch, thankfully this one a few feet shorter than the last.

‘Received, 213. Putting out a call for more units.’

I get over the fence without incident, but as the half-naked man clambers over a hedge on the other side of the garden, I’m trying to figure out how much more of this obstacle course we have left before we hit the road at the end of the street. The chocolate milkshake I had for breakfast, and caramel latte I picked up on the way into work, could soon be about to reappear and I don’t fancy consuming them a second time. Or having some kid film me from his bedroom window while I puke on his lawn. It’d be all over TikTok before I’d wiped the drool from my chin.

‘213, could you repeat the description?’

I’m halfway over the hedge when Control asks the question. The newly trimmed branches are brutally unsympathetic to my bare forearms, but there’s no other way over other than an ungracious hug, shuffle and shimmy.

‘White pants. White pants. Black t-shirt— Whoa, shit!’ I tumble off the hedge, landing hard on my left elbow. Stifling a second and more bitter curse, I save my energy instead for regaining my footing and negotiating the slalom that is a child’s garden playground. Swing set. Slide. See-saw…

‘He’s half naked, for god’s sake,’ I pant, leaping over a miniature ball pit. ‘You can’t miss him. Heading towards Victoria Crescent.’

‘Received, 213. Assistance on its way to Victoria Crescent.’

Another six-foot fence looms, separating me from the assailant, and I’m estimating we’ve got only a handful more gardens before we reach the road and half a minute before I lose my stomach.

‘Come on, son,’ I mutter, leaping for the fence, getting a good grip and hauling myself up and over. I land with a grunt. This is a beast of a morning workout even for me, but more worrying is there’s no sign of my suspect. Somehow he’s widened the gap between us. I scan the garden as I pass through, making sure he’s not playing hide and seek, but there are no bins or sheds, nothing that could conceal him, and no activity in the house either.

Sirens in the distance reassure me backup’s coming, but will they get to Victoria Crescent before he does? Of more concern, how will I explain that a barefoot, half-naked man twice my age outran me…?

Nah, nah, nah. I’m not having that.

I throw myself at the next fence, determined not to let the little shit get away. And it’s as I’m about to crest the fence panel’s pinnacle, old and wobbling so hard I’m certain it’s about to dump me flat on my face on the neighbour’s lawn, a blood-curdling scream pierces the early morning air. Birds take to the sky in panic. The fence creaks, groans, and tips me towards where I need to go. I leap the rest of the way, landing upright and sprinting around a part-cultivated allotment growing nothing but dandelion weeds. Sucking in a lungful of breath, I make it over a five-foot wall that drops me into the last but one garden and the source of the screaming blue murder.

Lying on the ground, curled over on his side, is my suspect, his torment releasing itself in guttural yelps like a trapped and tortured animal. His eyes squeeze shut, tears stream down pink-ravaged cheeks, and his hands clamp with careful but firm protection around his genitals.

‘On your stomach,’ I call, crossing the lawn and taking my cuffs from my belt. ‘Get over on your stomach. Hands where I can see them.’

‘Can’t,’ he blubbers to the grass under his cheek. ‘Can’t.’

‘What have you done?’ I shout over his whimpering, even as I’m eyeing the four-foot metal wire fencing separating this residence from the last on the street and putting two and two together. Or one and one divided.

‘Help me,’ he groans, voice growing hoarse – and also a little falsetto, I believe, if my pitch perfect hearing is correct. ‘Need an ambulance.’

‘Hands away. Let me see them.’

Still snivelling and yelping like a puppy who’s been trod on, the man eases onto his back as elegantly as if he were lying on a bed of nails. Sweat beads across his forehead and hands release from his briefs with all the tension and bravery of a bomb disposal technician. Even I hold my breath, waiting for something to go off. But nothing does. Instead, he hooks his thumbs under the elastic, and it’s only when I get a glimpse of the little guy that I realise what he’s doing.

‘Not them, not them. Your hands, for Christ’s sake, let me see your hands.’

The elastic snaps against his skin and he groans some more, head dropping back onto the grass, face wincing his agony to the skies.

‘Ambulance,’ he croaks. ‘Think I’ve… I’ve fucking castrated myself.’

I look at the off-white briefs and, satisfied we haven’t got a blood bath on our hands, crouch to slip the cuffs over his wrists. ‘You’ll live, mate. But Gareth Chambers, I’m arresting you on suspicion of taking a vehicle without consent, driving without a valid license and while uninsured, and also for assaulting a police officer…’

‘What?’

‘You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned…’

‘Assaulting a what?’

‘…something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say…’

‘What fucking officer?’

‘…may be given in evidence.’

With the pain in his nut sack all but forgotten, Chambers screws up his features and tries to jog his memory of the last ten minutes. But seems he’s drawing a blank. ‘Assaulting… I didn’t assault an officer. Are you taking the p—’

‘213. Suspect detained. Additional offence of assaulting an emergency worker. Location rear of Bailey Street, last house but one. DP complaining of injury to the genitals sustained during the chase.’

‘Received, 213. Is medical assistance required?’

‘Sit upright,’ I say, taking Chambers by the shoulder, who pulls himself vertical with little help from me.

‘You are, aren’t you? You’re taking the f—’

‘Not necessary, Control. Bringing him in. Could we have a wagon, please?’

I hook my arm around his elbow. ‘Come on, mate. On your feet. There’s a good man.’

The patio doors at the rear of the house slide open, saving me the trouble of knocking. A woman peers around the glass, late 20s, early 30s, blue fluffy dressing gown knotted at the waist, elbow propped against her hip and mug of something steaming in her hand. Judging by her expression, she’s either very laid-back or this is how her day starts most weekday mornings.

‘Sorry about this,’ I say, escorting a hobbling Chambers across the lawn. ‘Would you mind if we just popped out through the front way there?’

She shrugs and pulls the door wider, then touches her free hand to the curls around her forehead, a futile attempt to tame the morning hair.

‘Can’t believe you’re pinning this bullshit on me,’ my companion mumbles under his breath.

‘You threw your breakfast at me,’ I say, as I guide him down the steps to the patio, still smiling for the sake of our audience.

‘I threw it at the wall.’

‘Then I’m arresting you for having a piss-poor aim.’

I pin back the grin as we step inside the woman’s home and into a sauna. At least that’s what it feels like. She’s got the central heating on, with damp clothes lined up over the radiators and hanging from airers. After my brisk morning exercise, I might be about to lose a few more pounds between here and the front door. The place smells like hot dust, toast and blackcurrants, and standing in the centre of the sitting room is a kid about… I dunno, young enough to be home from school, anyway. Spaceship pyjamas. A beaker in one hand. Mouth agape. TV on in the background, some presenters dressed in costumes flouncing about to a tuneless song.

‘Alright, fella?’ I say cheerily and give him a thumbs up. ‘Thanks for your help, mate. We appreciate it.’

Nope. Nothing. Strange, usually works. He’s still gawking though as we pass on through – me suited and booted with one damp and foul-smelling trouser leg, Chambers in only t-shirt and underpants and a waddle that to any age, but perhaps particularly a toddler, would suggest he’s shat himself. What a gentleman, though – Chambers nods his thanks to the woman as she holds open the door to the hallway.

‘Alright, Lyn,’ he says.

‘Alright, Ga,’ she replies.

With one hand on Chambers’ elbow and another on his back, I guide him through the doorway and into the narrow hall.

‘How’s your mam, Ga?’ she says behind us.

‘Yeah, she’s tops, thanks, Lyn. Cheers for asking.’

Stretched over the radiator in the hallway is a youngster’s police officer costume, an all-in-one jumpsuit with a radio and badge printed on the chest. Cute. But I can’t help thinking we might just have obliterated the dream the kid’s been sold.

Together we negotiate shoes, a gym bag and a football to reach the front door with its key still in the lock. I turn it to open it, grateful for the fresh air that floods in as I wait for Chambers to get himself over the step. There’s nothing much to him weight-wise, but he’s moving like he’s slipped a disc or ruptured his spleen. He peers back over both his shoulder and mine.

‘See you, Lyn.’

‘See you, Ga. Say hi to your mam for me.’

‘Will do.’

Outside, my colleague PC Mark Jones has pulled the car around and parked alongside the kerb. He gets out and opens the rear door.

‘Thank you, chauffeur,’ I say, marching a bow-legged Chambers down the pavement, ‘but he’s ordered the deluxe model. Being as he’s flighty and everything.’

‘Please though,’ my decrepit companion says, stuttering to a stop and bending at the knees, adopting the offload position. ‘Let me sit. I need to sit. Seriously.’

In all honesty, he is looking peaky. I tug on his arm to keep him waddling to the car, but flick my chin to Jonesy to pull open the door again. As I ease the injured party to perch on the end of the back seat, his feet still on the pavement, he winces and groans loud enough to raise the dead.

‘Fucking hell, fellas.’

‘Where’s the pain exactly?’

‘In my fucking nuts.’

‘The left one or the right one?’

Chambers shoots me a look which I take to mean he’s not in the mood. ‘A bit of sympathy would be nice.’

‘Wouldn’t it just,’ I say, leaning a hand on the car and examining the right leg of my cargoes. ‘Look at the state of these. I’ll stink like a wet fart all day now. You move pretty fast for a barefoot man in Y-fronts.’

‘Welsh Athletics Junior Hurdles Champion four years running,’ Chambers says through clenched teeth.

I look at him to see if he’s serious. He peers up at me with bloodshot eyes and nods.

‘Could have gone all the way, me.’

‘So why didn’t you?’

He shrugs and drops his shoulder to rest against the seat. ‘Father got me a job in the tobacco factory. Money in my pocket, all that. Athletics would have only been a temporary gig.’

‘Out of work now though, fella. What happened?’

‘Miserable fuckers give me the sack, didn’t they? After fifteen years hard graft and all.’

I fold my arms, lean back against the car. ‘Don’t tell me…’

Chambers cracks a smile for the first time this morning. ‘Made me a killing. Charged half what they were selling it for in the shops and still made a profit.’

‘What, you mean the hundred percent profit margin?’

He taps a finger to his temple. ‘Good business sense, see. Always had it.’

I glance over the door frame and share a wry smile with the young Jonesy. He’s still the new boy in terms of miles in his boots, which means all of this is a complex and interesting palimpsest of amusement and despair; the logic and life cycle of a criminal, a topic that will enlighten him a little more every day.

‘Listen, mate,’ Chambers says, shuffling on the seat. ‘Serious. I think I need medical help. Any chance you could just…’ He flicks his eyes down past the cuffs to his crotch.

‘Nope.’

‘Go on,’ he says, with a pained expression. But I’m a hell of a lot more pained at the thought of rooting about in his budgie smugglers. With some relief, the van pulls into the street right on time.

‘Here you go, mate. Taxi’s arrived.’

‘Please. Just… Just a quick peek,’ Chambers says, inching himself forward on the seat, groin first. And there’s something in that motion and the low tone of his voice that’s unnerving. I might think I’m being a little oversensitive if not for Jonesy, his back turned as he walks to the meat wagon but with an unmistakable tremble in his shoulders that gives him away. It’s only once we’re in the car and following the wagon to the station to book our ball-busting champion hurdler into his cell that my partner speaks, and it’s to make my day worse than it already is.

‘Hey, Smithy. What say after this job we code four at Sam’s Plaice? Don’t know about you, but I could murder a couple of battered rissoles.’

It doesn’t stop there. He might be a probie, but Jonesy’s been quick off the mark with the most crucial lesson of all – that this job is about scratching out a few laughs wherever you can find them, even if that’s at the expense of your colleagues. Especially at the expense of your colleagues, they’re the best kind. Which means his desperate testicle references persist for the rest of the shift, and might have pushed me over the edge into disliking him if not for the fact that the little Kylie keeps texting and nagging me for an encore of last Friday night’s star performance. And what kind of gentleman would I be to let the poor girl down?

Chapter 2

‘Lovelace, are you there?’

‘I’m here, where the hell are you?’

‘Hang on…’

There are only three half-decent shirts in the wardrobe and two polo shirts that could pass for okay. But what would Kylie prefer? Memories of getting back to her place last Friday are fuzzy round the edges, but I’m pretty sure it was less Casablanca, more Fast and Furious. I don’t think she’d have the patience for buttons. I slam the wardrobe door closed, take the black Ralph Lauren polo shirt from the drawer, lay it out on the bed, and crouch to sit on the floor, pulling the laptop onto my thighs.

‘Lisa Lovelace, how’s it hanging?’

I’m looking at the back of her head while she sits at her kitchen table having a conversation with someone else. Presumably lover boy. It’s about seven in the morning where she is, hence the pink satin dressing gown and bleary eyes through big round glasses when she turns back my way.

‘Jeff says it’s hanging comfortably down his left thigh, thanks for asking.’

Hm.

‘Good to hear, Jeff. Good to hear. You’re looking tired; you working too hard?’

She leans over the table, sighing loud enough to blow the speakers on my aging second-hand MacBook. ‘No. Just you keep scheduling these calls for first thing in the sodding morning. And why aren’t you wearing any clothes?’

‘Alright, calm down, I can see I’ve caught you at a bad time. But number one, we don’t schedule these calls, Leese, they’re not business meetings, they’re me and you time. Two, you know my shifts are unpredictable, so I have less flexibility than you. And three, I’m only half naked. I wouldn’t taunt you with my nakedness when you have to spend the day with a room full of young children. That would just be unfair.’

‘Pip. Pip.’ She holds up her hand. ‘Stop right there.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing. Just stop right there.’

She takes a sip from her mug, the one with Mrs Cartwright Is The Best Teacher Ever scrawled across the side in a neon spray-painted graffiti-style font. We’d giggled over the irony of that when she’d first shown it to me, and I’d questioned what she was filling those poor Kiwi kids’ heads with. But the truth is, I agree one hundred percent with the sentiment.

Lisa Lovell, now Cartwright, shepherded me through our school years, spending all her spare time, evenings and weekends, repeating everything we were learning in class in a way that I could actually make sense of. She knew before anyone else that it wasn’t that I was dull or lazy or all those other things they said about me, but that my brain didn’t spin in the same direction as everyone else’s. She also knew that when I used my fists in the schoolyard – and from which she gave me the nickname Pip from Dickens’ Great Expectations after flooring Keith Howley, aka Big Daddy, with one punch – that it was mostly because I was pissed off with the way teachers and pupils alike were writing me off.

Later, not satisfied with helping me get the school grades I needed, she persisted after that to push me into applying for the police service, when alone I wouldn’t have even tried. If not for her, I would never have learned that there are systems in place for officers with dyslexia, and that it’s not the barrier to entry I had assumed it was. Or, to paraphrase her own words, it’s not as big a deal to everyone else as it is to me.

‘So, Pip,’ she says, returning the mug to the table and chewing on a croissant she tears apart with her fingers. ‘How’s my girl doing?’

‘Oh, that’d be right. You ask about Millie before you ask about me.’

‘Naturally.’ She giggles, the light from the screen reflecting in her glasses. If I look close enough, I’ll see myself.

I rest the laptop on the edge of the mattress and put my fingers to my lips to whistle.

‘Mil, come here. Come here, baby.’

A distant tapping of paws on the carpeted stairs grows ever louder, then a snout nudges the door open and the most beautiful girl in the world trots around the bed to land in my lap. I lift her up, her little black and white body warm and wriggling furiously against my skin, and tap my finger at the screen. But she ignores that, snorting through slim nostrils and licking my face.

‘Not me, you daft girl,’ I say, trying to turn her to the camera, while all she can do is revel in this moment of attention I’m giving her. I raise her front paw. ‘Wave to Aunty Lovelace.’

‘Actually Pip, I’d prefer Aunty Lisa. Don’t want her thinking I’m some kind of brothel madame.’

‘Sorry, Leese, but she already knows about that.’

‘Give me a kiss, you gorgeous baby.’ Lisa looms large on the screen, lips puckered. I pucker my own and lean in.

‘Not you, you ape.’

‘Oh.’

I point a wriggling Millie at the laptop and, after a bit more coaxing, she licks the MacBook then yaps at Lisa’s cooing and cheering.

I kiss her on top of her head, her bat ears flicking against my cheeks. ‘Now go get some water, wash the dust off your tongue, there’s a good girl.’

She circles three times when I put her down, mouth pulled back in a wide grin and tongue shimmering as she pants. Once she’s done showing off, she finally listens and takes off out of the room, paws picking up speed the further down the stairs she goes until it sounds like she tumbles the last few steps.

‘She’s looking podgy. You feeding her bacon again?’

‘Keep it down, Leese. She’s sensitive about her weight.’ I lean back against the wall and cross my ankles.

‘Are French Bulldogs even allowed to eat red meat?’

‘God, won’t you give the girl a break, she’s been dealt a rough enough hand as it is. Would you deny her the only vice she has?’

‘You always were a sucker for a pretty face and a sob story,’ my long-distance friend says over a yawn, folding her arms and dropping back in the seat. But her lack of empathy doesn’t wash with me. Eleven thousand miles away she might be, but she’s followed Millie’s progress closer than anyone since the day I picked her up from the rescue centre three and a half years ago. She was the one who sobbed over Skype when I told her that no one else had wanted the young pup because of her condition. Brachycephalic Airway Syndrome, or BAS. All too common in the breed. It’s the small heads and squashed snouts – makes breathing hard in normal conditions, but it could be fatal if she gets too stressed, too hot, over-excited or over-exercised. It means more work for me, extra care and attention and responsibility, and in the early years, surgery – another thing Lisa broke her heart over. But I’d do it all again tomorrow. Millie’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. And she’s loyal – you can’t put a price on that.

‘Speaking of pretty faces, Pip, are you breaking any hearts lately?’

I glance at the clock on the bottom of the screen. 8.15. Fifteen minutes until the little Kylie comes knocking. I wonder if I should have dropped Millie round at Mum’s – she’ll hate being shut out of the bedroom, but what can I do? I can’t have her sitting there, looking up at me wide-eyed and panting while I’m on the job. It’s probably just as well she can’t get up on the bed unaided, or that would be even more complicated.

‘I never break hearts, Lovelace, that’s your thing.’ This time my old friend mimes her yawn, tapping her fingers at her mouth. But I couldn’t resist dropping that one in. ‘My thing, Leese, is to warm hearts. Fill them with tingly sensations.’

‘Is that what you call it?’

‘I make women feel good about themselves. And I can do that because unlike most fumbling Neanderthals I know what women want.’

Lisa pretends she’s choking on something. No, not choking. Laughing. ‘Go on then, hot stuff, what do they want?’

I shrug one shoulder. ‘Easy.