He heard something heavy smack against the door. Were they using a fucking battering ram?
Joshua rolled his eyes. Issues when you had cops as pals; they knew ways to break into your house and justify the damn thing.
Pushing himself up, he groped around for his gym tracks, then pulled them on before hurrying to the door.
Without looking through the peep hole, Joshua unlocked the door and, ‘oomph’! Something heavy collided into his chest. Unprepared for the impact, Joshua reached out to grab the missile.
It played out in slow motion. His foot slipped, the missile in Joshua’s arms escaped his grasp, pushing away from him. He had no chance of staying upright; he sprawled out on the floor, this time on his arse with a bevvy of cops staring at him, wide eyed.
Joshua blinked at their stark neon vests over a black shirt, the walkie talkies now cracking in his ears, and three pairs of unfamiliar eyes. Once more he shoved off the floor, resting his elbows on the ground. ‘Who are you?’
The man on the left, towering over the other two held up a warrant card. ‘DCI Payne. That’s Inspector Sheridan and Police Constable Chen.’
Still unsure what these unknown colleagues were doing at his front door, Joshua tweaked his eyebrow upwards. The only reply he got was the click-clack of heels in the corridor beyond. Then a voice, this one too familiar. ‘I told you not to go on without me.’ The heels stopped. ‘For god’s sake, Josh! Put a shirt on and stop, for once, going to bed naked, will you?’ The woman stepped in, waved at the officers, then slammed the front door in their faces.
Joshua followed her as she took her coat off. ‘Seriously? Now they’ll think we’ve slept together!’
DI Cheryl Spiers turned, showing off her stiff blazer and that neat hair swinging in their ponytail she tied almost militantly at the back of her head. How the woman never looked rumpled or had a headache with that hairdo Joshua would never understand. Now she glared at him. ‘Anyone who knows me enough knows I have sophisticated taste. I don’t go about having affairs with men who can’t even wear their boxers right!’
Joshua looked down at himself then shut his eyes. There was one thing to wake up with wood. Another thing to wear gym shorts when answering the door in the morning with no pants on underneath.
He groaned. ‘Great.’
And the police weren’t known to be a forgetful bunch either. What were the chances the news of his state of undress and then humiliating fall hadn’t yet reached HQ?
As slim as a fucking slice of bacon rashers.
Joshua hopped up from the floor, turned his glare on Cheryl. ‘Why the fuck are yous here so early anyway?’
Her eyes were fixated on his torso. ‘I could say the one good thing Beth’s done for you with this divorce is to force you to go to the gym.’ Cheryl fake gasped. ‘Is that an honest to goodness muscle?’
‘Shut up.’ Joshua crossed his arms. ‘You saw it as well as I did that is a six pack, and these,’ he flexed his arms, ‘are biceps and triceps.’
‘Oh good, taking tips from the Rock, are you?’ Shaking her head, Cheryl waved him towards the bedroom. ‘Whatever way you put it, it’s still just disgusting. Did you even take a shower at the gm last night?’
‘I’m divorced, not an invalid.’ He strode into the bedroom, searching for something, anything suitable that didn’t smell that he could put on. Another issue with being a gym aficionado who hated laundry: he never found clean clothes nowadays.
Joshua settled on two day old jeans—it passed the smell test—and a t-shirt from when he and Beth had gone to a holiday in Gibraltar. That holiday, paid for by her father out of his own insistence, should have given him a clue. But even police cops were blind in love.
As he hand combed his hair in place, Joshua nodded to himself.
After five minutes, he emerged into the living room to find four coppers in his kitchen, enjoying his tea. The only reason he didn’t scream at them for waking him up at half past six on a day he didn’t have a day shift was because Cheryl set down a store bought coffee in front of him and not that instant coffee crap.
Joshua took one sip, looked at each face then screamed, ‘why the hell are you in my house?’
