Page 77 of Playing By Ear

That way, there’d be no trail.

Chapter 15

“You sure you’re up for a party?” Jamie asked as they entered Perry’s flat. “With the state of your head?”

“I just need some paracetamol and a lie-down.” Perry entered his blissfully dark bedroom, toed off his shoes, and stretched out on the bed. His pillow was an ecstatic comfort, though it did little to ease the headache splitting his temples into four quadrants of competing pain.

“A disco nap wouldn’t go amiss for me either.” Jamie set his bag on the floor and began to shed his kit. “After a shower, of course. I’m not fit to be smelt in your bed yet.”

“Clean towels are in the hall cupboard.”

“Cheers.” Jamie left the room, bare feet slapping the hardwood floor.

Perry pulled in a deep breath through his nose, hoping to unwind the knots in his neck. The air was ripe with the scent of Jamie’s kit.

He sat up, waves of pain radiating from his eyes. Then he scooped up the football kit, took it to the kitchen, and tossed it into the washer/dryer.

A zip rattled against the drum’s metal interior: Jamie’s jacket. Perry pulled it out to check the pockets.

The left pocket contained Jamie’s phone; the right, a folded piece of white paper. Perry set both objects on the worktop for Jamie to collect, then stopped, a recent memory pinging his brain.

After the match, Ben had told him Jamie was trying to give a scrap of paper to Evan, an MI5 officer turned private investigator, but Evan had refused it. Was this the paper? What information was Jamie seeking?

Don’t look. Do not look.

Perry unfolded the paper and brought it close to his eyes, but he couldn’t read it. Probably a sign he shouldn’t read it.

He opened the nearest drawer and found one of several magnifying glasses he kept around the flat. This one wasn’t self-lighting, so he switched on the light above the cooker. It should’ve been bright enough to read the note.

But it wasn’t. However hard he stared and squinted, the scribblings wouldn’t resolve into letters or numbers.

His pulse quickening, Perry smoothed out the paper, then drew it and the magnifier near the end of his nose, into the range where letters and numbers usually crystallized. There were two lines of text: three words each, then a set of figures…or maybe dates?

Perhaps whoever wrote this note simply had poor penmanship.

Clinging to this hope, Perry jerked open another drawer and pulled out a Chinese takeaway menu, which he held under the light and the magnifier. It might as well have been written in Mandarin for all he could make out.

Fuck.

The water in the shower stopped. Perry shoved the note back into Jamie’s jacket pocket. Hands trembling, he laid the jacket over the back of a kitchen chair, then added a washing pod to the machine and pressed start.

Maybe this wasn’t it, the moment when reading ended forever. The bright sunlight had fried his eyes and brain. Maybe they would be fine after a short rest.

The bathroom door opened, and a few moments later Jamie called from the other room. “Have you seen my kit? Or smelt it?”

“Yes to both,” Perry called back. “It’s in here.”

Jamie came into the kitchen, smelling of Perry’s shampoo and soap as well as his own pine-scented antiperspirant. “You’re washing it for me? That’s so sweet, not to mention brave.” He stepped forward and kissed Perry, one hand holding up the towel around his waist. “Hang on, what about my jacket?”

Perry motioned toward the table. “I reckoned it probably should go in cold water, so I left it out.” A perfectly plausible lie.

“You’re right, thanks.” Jamie went to the chair and picked up his jacket. There was a rustle of paper as he checked the pockets. Then came the electronic click of a phone screen. “Fergus is asking everyone to contribute food and drink. We’ll stop on the way for beer and crisps.”

Perry nearly laughed at the thought of attending a party during this brain hurricane. “You go on without me. My head’s worse.”

“What about the paracetamol and lie-down? You’ve not given them a chance yet.”

“I’ve had enough of these headaches to know when they’re unthwart-able.”