Charlie Cochrane - Mysteries with a dash of slash, romances with just a pinch of spice

May I wish you all a very merry Christmas (or as merry as can be managed given the present circumstances.) We're all hoping that 2021 will be happier and healthier for us all - although some good things came out of 2020, like Mr C learning to use contactless payments and our youngest mastering rough puff pastry.
  
Competition
 
As promised, I’ll be doing a draw on New Year’s Eve, picking out one winner from my mailing list who’ll get their choice of an audiobook code, an ebook, a print book or a Brit goodie bag.
 
A free story!
 
I've a brand spanking new - and totally free - Lindenshaw story, An Outlaw for an Inlaw, which you can find at my website.
 
The first Sunday of half term, October 2020.
The Matthews/Bright/Campbell-the-Newfoundland residence
 
“Does rule of six include dogs?” Adam Matthews scrutinized his Christmas lunch list, one of many lists he and Robin Bright produced at this time of year. Who got a real card, who got an e-card, who they bought presents for, whose presents had to go into the post, what food they had to order and what they had to buy fresh. Even for a Christmas like 2020, you needed to be organised and organised well in advance. Perhaps even more so, with the frenzy of online buying that was bound to occur. So the start of October half-term wasn’t too early to be putting his lists together.
He also had a mental list of things he didn’t want to happen, top of which was Robin getting called in over the Christmas break to deal with a murder.
Adam looked up from his seat, to where his partner was lying on the sofa, eyes shut. “Eh, I’m talking to you, Detective Chief Inspector Bright. Are you having a sly kip?”
“No, I’m just resting my eyes.” Robin shot him a smile. “Rule of six. Despite the fact that he’d eat enough for six if we let him, Campbell doesn’t count as a human.”
The Newfoundland, who’d definitely been having a kip, although there was nothing sly about it, raised his head at the mention of his name. Or maybe at the magic word “eat”.
“Even though he gets a stocking?”
“You could give a stocking to that hedgehog who used to come sniffing around the back door but that wouldn’t make him count as one of the six.” Robin patted the dog’s head. “Used to drive you mad, didn’t it, boy? No nasty hedgehogs here.”
“There’ll probably in hibernation. Don’t count your chickens until next spring.”
The first spring they’d have in their new home, following on from the first Christmas they’d spend there. The change of location was the main reason Adam and Robin were so adamant with their families that they’d be hosting this year and it was one of the positive things that had come out of 2020. A stamp duty holiday to take advantage of had kick-started the local housing market, so perhaps it had turned out just as well that they’d not taken the plunge earlier, despite having said—almost from the time they’d first moved in together—that they should be looking for a place that was theirs from the start. Rather than the cottage that Adam had inherited from his grandparents.
Campbell had been part of that inheritance too, then barely more than a puppy. Back when they were first going out, Robin had asked, in his subtle policeman way, why the old couple had taken on such a large and active dog at an advanced stage of life and got more of an answer than he would have expected. The Newfoundland had been bought to replace Hamish, a black Labrador who’d been their faithful companion for twelve years before passing on to the great Bonio shop in the sky. They wanted to keep active and a dog was perfect for that.
So he’d proved, initially, but then fate struck. A diagnosis of an inoperable brain tumour had meant Mrs Matthews didn’t get to see Campbell grow to maturity and her husband’s death had followed hard on her heels. A broken heart, people said, conveniently ignoring the fact that forty cigarettes a day for most a of a lifetime made a man susceptible to coronary disease. While the shock of his wife’s death had contributed, it was nicotine rather than grief that had caused the fatal heart attack.
Adam had never smoked and vowed he never would, having seen both his father and grandfather succumb to the effects of the noxious weed. The effects on the house he’d inherited had been notable, too. Even though his grandparents had kept it sparklingly clean and regular decorated it, you could never disguise where a smoker lived—the clue was always in the paintwork. It had taken Adam a whole summer, a ton of sugar soap and the services of a professional decorator to get to the point where the white looked white and stayed that way.
Their new property hadn’t needed quite so much intensive care, having been left in pristine condition, which is perhaps what you should expect from an ex-army type, which the previous owner had been. The neighbours seemed a nice bunch, accepting of having a gay couple in the vicinity, although Adam and Robin’s professions no doubt helped on that score. The older couple across the road thought it very reassuring to have a policeman almost on their doorstep. Adam had made a joke about Robin not being out patrolling the streets and hadn’t had the heart to say that one of the reasons their previous neighbours had surely heaved a sigh of relief at their departure was the nasty characters who—albeit infrequently—had a habit of turning up on their doorstep. Or, on one occasion, confronting Robin in the kitchen with a gun.
The first day in their new home Robin had remarked, as they’d symbolically carried Campbell over the threshold of their new home, about how long it might be before they had to move again.
“How did you get to six, anyway?” Robin asked, jogging Adam out of his thoughts. “You, me, my mum, Aunt Clare, your mum. That’s five, so you can include Campbell and be fine. Local lockdowns and whatever willing.”
“What about Jeff?”
“Jeff?”
“Your aunt Clare’s gentleman friend, Jeff.”
“Oh, yes. I’d sort of assumed he’d be history by now. She does have a tendency to pick them up and lay them down again pretty sharpish. High standards, Mum says.” Robin’s eye roll showed what he thought of that opinion.
“Whereas you vacillate between thinking she’s a commitment-phobe or a just footloose and fancy free?” Adam chuckled.
“Something like that. I never did get to meet him, though. What’s he like?”
“Alright.” Adam scratched his head with his pen. “Bit of a silver fox. Widower the last five years. Plays indoor bowls and quite useful at it, apparently.”
“I already got all of that from Mum, apart from the silver fox bit. She said he had classic looks, whatever that means.”

And finally - some of the wonderful Christmas lights at Blenheim Palace. I think they're baby pterodactyls


 
 
Charlie