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  The brandy worked its magic, and two spots of red appeared in his cheeks. That English coloring always appeals to me. I’d make that flush spread all over his face, down his neck, onto his chest—

  “Good stuff, huh?”

  “Yeah. That’s better. Sorry about that, sir, I felt a bit—”

  “Call me Mitch, please.” I gave him a hand. “Dr. Edward Mitchell to my enemies, but Mitch to my friends.”

  “Mitch.” I could see that he liked the Americanness of the name. “Right.” He finished his brandy at a swig and looked toward the door, eager to get back to his post. This I could not allow.

  “So what are these ‘inconsistencies’ they’re talking about?”

  “I don’t know, Mitch.”

  “I think I do. There’s poison in the mouthwash, but that’s not what killed Bartlett, right?” I poured Knight another cup of tea; he took it without thinking. “There’s an indication of foul play, but no actual evidence. The strychnine did not enter Bartlett’s body.”

  “Maybe.” He frowned over his teacup.

  “So they’re thinking—suicide, or murder? Looks like suicide—locked door, slashed wrists, razor. But they don’t want that, do they? You cops want an arrest and a conviction and a nice neat line drawn under it. Case closed.”

  “I don’t think that’s—”

  “So you’re looking for ways to implicate Morgan. You’ve ruled out the obvious theory, the ‘mystery intruder’—because nobody entered the house. So now you’re suggesting that Morgan’s prints are on the razor, or he put poison in Bartlett’s mouthwash. In short, you’re trying to frame him.”

  “No!”

  “And why? Why not just let it be what it appears to be—suicide? Because if a prominent man like Bartlett commits suicide, then a lot of unpleasant questions will be asked. Who knows what will come out? No—easier to close ranks, find a culprit, and be done with it. What are they doing now? Trying to scare Morgan into a confession?”

  “I don’t know.” Poor Knight looked close to tears—just as I meant him to.

  “I bet you’ll find they’re all Freemasons,” I continued, warming to my theme. “They’re covering up for a brother in trouble, so Morgan gets the chop. It’s wrong, Knight. It’s evil.”

  Knight’s voice was shaky. “I need the toilet.” He stood up, and headed for the stairs.

  “Not that way. The upstairs bathroom is locked—and covered in blood.”

  He stopped in his tracks, his face pale. I took him by the shoulders and steered him to the scullery. “There’s one in there, for the staff, I guess.”

  “Thanks, Mitch.”

  “That’s okay, Knight. Hey—that’s not fair. What’s your first name?”

  “Stan.”

  “Go ahead, Stan.” I opened the lavatory door. “All yours. Though, now that we’re here, I need to go, myself.” I started unbuttoning. “You don’t really believe this was murder anymore than I do, do you, Stan?” I started pissing. “Come on, step up. There’s room for two.”

  His bladder got the better of his scruples—that’s tea and brandy for you—and he took his place beside me. “No, I don’t.” He pulled out a nice-looking piece, very pale against the dark material of his uniform, fringed with a little golden fuzz.

  “And if it was suicide,” I said, in midflow, “there was a reason for it.”

  “Must have been.” He was pissing too, our streams mixing.

  “And it’s up to us to discover the reason, and save Morgan from the gallows.” I looked him in the eye. “Isn’t it, Stan?”

  Silence for a while, broken only by our liquid duet.

  “Isn’t it, Stan?”

  “Yes, Mitch.”

  “And how are we going to do that?”

  He thought for a while, as our streams ran dry. Would he break all the rules in the police book, and help me with my investigation? Or would his training win the day?

  I needed leverage. So, instead of putting my cock away, I kept shaking it until it started to grow.

  Stan did not look away.

  Chapter Six

  I HAD A POWERFUL SENSE OF DÉJÀ VU—ME, A YOUNG policeman, a pissoir… Were all my encounters with the forces of law and order destined to be played out against the tinkle of urine on porcelain? Well, there has to be some excuse for these boys to expose their private parts, and what could be more natural and explicable than airing your hose in order to pass water?

  But now—well, there was no need for both of us to be standing in the pisser with our dicks hanging out, mine half hard, his stirring.

  I had to get him over to my side before he had a chance to think about the step he was taking.

  “Looks like you needed that,” I said—a totally fatuous remark, but it did the trick.

  “Yeah.”

  I swung my hips from side to side, making my cock wave and rise. “Hey—wanna fight?”

  “What?”

  “A cock fight.”

  “You mad?”

  “We do this all the time in America.” That seemed to persuade him, and he stepped up to face me. “Yeah—looks like you’re nearly ready.”

  His cock was fully hard now, and he blushed again.

  “Two out of three?”

  He had no more idea what I was talking about than I did, but he understood enough. We stood a foot apart, hands on hips, waving at each other. It took a bit of coordination, but then—baff!—my cock hit his, broadside. After that it was easy to make it happen again and again, until we slipped into a rhythm, swaying our bodies, our cocks getting stiffer with every contact. He was grinning like a kid with a brand-new toy, and would have continued with this “traditional American” game if I had let him. But I decided it was time to make the rules a bit clearer, and, as our cocks collided once again, I reached down and grabbed them both in one hand, pressing them together so he could be in no doubt that one was just as hard as the other.

  “Looks like I win,” I said. “You have to do a forfeit.”

  He didn’t ask by what recondite scoring I’d “won,” but just said, “What?”

  “The loser has to kiss the winner.”

  “Kiss?”

  I pointed down. “Yeah. There.”

  “On the…”

  “Exactly.” I mashed our pricks together again, then stroked the two shafts. “Go on.”

  I let him go, and he knelt, just as obedient as I could wish. I must write a letter of commendation to the Police Training College.

  “You want me to…kiss it?”

  “That’s the rules, Stan.”

  “Where?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  He frowned, as if deciding whether to plant his lips on the flower or the stem—and then, some decision obviously reached, he pouted his mouth into a small O and placed it right on the end of my cock. It fitted neatly into the little pucker of his lips, until his lips parted in a kissing noise, and he drew back. But now we were joined by a thin, glistening string of precum that hung for a moment like a skipping rope, then snapped, leaving viscous drops on his mouth.

  “How was that, Mitch?”

  “That was good.”

  “Want me to do it again?”

  “Sure. It’s all yours.”

  This time it was an open-mouthed kiss, and my cock, touching for the first time the wet, firm softness of his tongue, forged ahead. I rested a hand on Stan’s bristly blond head, feeling the warmth of his scalp, and gently drew him in. He looked up for reassurance, his bright blue eyes troubled, as young men’s eyes so often are at the first taste of penis. I smiled back down.

  “That feels good, Stan. Really good.”

  That did the trick; he closed his eyes, and concentrated on the new sensation of cock in his mouth. It’s a long time since my lips first parted to admit a man, but I still remember the shock of the size, the stiffness, the salty taste, the strangeness of taking one body part into another. I looked below Stan’s head to see if he was enjoying this as much as I was. He w
as.

  After sucking ineptly on my cock for a while, Stan came up for air with a look on his face that clearly said What now? This is always a difficult question for me, especially when faced with the prospect of a handsome young convert to whom I want to do everything in a limited time. Top of my list was fucking him, but it was a high-risk strategy—I didn’t want to send my new friend running, or rather hobbling, back to the station and busting me in a fit of postcoital remorse. I had to keep this first encounter lighthearted and, above all, pleasant. So I cupped his chin in my hand, feeling the wetness of his saliva where it had smeared against his handsomely molded chin, and raised him to his feet. His cock was as hard as it could be. It was time for a little reciprocation.

  I took him in my hand and jerked him off slowly; he let out a loud sigh, and for a moment I thought he’d come. I had to check my hand for sticky evidence to make sure he hadn’t. I maneuvered him to the toilet and sat him down, taking care to lower the seat first. Then I dropped to my knees between his spread legs and got to work. My hands felt firm, muscular, football player’s thighs through the rough blue material of his uniform pants, and my tongue tasted a fresh, hard cock. I gave one good, slow lick along the underside of his shaft and then, when I reached the top, opened up and swallowed him whole. He groaned as if someone had winded him, and his hips bucked upward, leaving the seat and allowing me to slip my hands around and cup his ass. So PC Stan Knight got his first blow job, and I could tell by the rigidity of his cock and the way his fingers clamped down into my hair that he’d be back for more.

  I wanted to see him naked, but this would have to wait. In order to get his pants off I’d have to unlace and remove his boots; as for his shirt, first there was the nightmare of buckles and buttons on his tunic. So I contented myself with lowering his pants halfway down his thighs and pulling his shirt up to his belly button—enough to expose the whole of his midsection, and more than enough to see that Stan Knight was pale-skinned and smooth, except around his cock and ass, where blond hair formed a thick bush. I licked all around his balls, which were already getting tight; it wouldn’t be long before he was coming in my mouth, and that was just as well. There was work to be done, mysteries to be solved, friends to save…

  And a very nice cock to be sucked. First things first.

  I took him back into my mouth and moved my lips down to the base, and soon I had a good rhythm going. With one hand I stroked his stomach, feeling the muscles working underneath the tight skin; with the other, I worked my way beneath his balls and around to his ass. Stan was so caught up in what was happening to his dick that he didn’t really notice the added attention I was paying to his ass—all he knew was that he was easing into that final rapid downhill slide toward orgasm. If he hadn’t been so far gone, he might have steered me away from that taboo area; as it was, he allowed my fingers to rub his ass lips and push a little way into the hole. And, when I judged the time was right—when his abdominal muscles tensed, and his cock stiffened in my mouth—I slipped one into him, just to the first knuckle.

  His climax hit him like a wave breaking over a seawall, and he was helpless, holding on to my head, pumping his cock into my mouth, unloading his balls, unable to think of what he was doing, let alone analyze the fact that he was having sex with a man who had just digitally penetrated him. I took care to slip that finger out in plenty of time, before he came to his senses. Next time—oh yes, there would be a next time—he’d have an empty feeling in his ass and he wouldn’t know why. He’d just want me to fill it.

  I swallowed his spunk, and let him soften a little in my mouth. My own cock was hard as hell, of course, but I had no urgent need to come; it wasn’t long since the last time, and though my powers of recovery have been met with disbelief on occasion, I was content to save myself for later. What mattered was not that I shot a load over the young copper’s boots, or into his handsome, flushed face, but that I had got myself a sidekick. And a very useful, decorative one at that. So I pushed my cock back into my pants—Stan gave it a lingering glance, already looking forward to his next taste—and buttoned myself up.

  Would he make his excuses and leave? Would he arrest me? Or did he realize what I intended him to realize—that we were now partners in crime as well as in pleasure, and that it would be definitely in his interest to help me out? I would never willingly stoop to threats or blackmail, but when Morgan’s life was in danger, morals took second place.

  Happily for both of us, PC Stan Knight showed no remorse, nor any urgent inclination to leave. Instead, he wiped himself up with a bit of toilet tissue, splashed water on his face, and rearranged his clothing.

  “You—” he started, then stopped. There was a mischievous smile on his face.

  “What?”

  “You swallowed it.”

  “Yup. Rude not to.”

  At this he threw back his head and laughed long and loud, his Adam’s apple working in his throat. I had a terrible desire to kiss him—but he’d keep.

  “Right, Mitch,” he said, when he was once again a respectable, properly dressed young copper on duty, “what next?”

  “You’d better get back outside. I don’t want Godley or Weston turning up and finding that you’ve deserted your post. As for me, I’ve got a lot of questions and I need some answers.”

  “What sort of questions?”

  How much could I tell him? I decided on the bold course of action. After what had just happened, he could hardly cause me problems. “There was someone else here last night.”

  “Mr. Morgan never mentioned him.”

  “No. He wouldn’t. He wasn’t the sort of person that a gentleman—ought to be entertaining at home.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you?”

  “I’m not stupid, Mitch. I mean, Mr. Morgan is…like you, right?”

  Like us, I wanted to say. “Yes. Sometimes.”

  “And he and Bartlett…”

  “Yes. They were friends.”

  “Hmmmm. I see. So would I be right in thinking that this third party who visited the house last night was also…that way?”

  “Ten out of ten. Top score.”

  “So who was he?”

  “They met him in a pub.”

  “What sort of pub?”

  “You tell me,” I said, holding the front door open; now that I’d thought of Godley and Weston, I wanted to get Stan back to his post as quickly as possible. “Where do men of that sort go around here?”

  “There’s the White Bear, just across the Common.”

  “That’s the one. How do I get there?”

  He gave me directions.

  “Any others?”

  “Why? You planning a pub crawl?”

  “Maybe. Wanna come with me?”

  “I don’t get off till seven.” It was now just after four.

  “Okay. Pick me up at seven-thirty. You can show me around.”

  “There’s quite a few of ’em,” said Stan, counting on his fingers. “The White Bear in Wimbledon, the Ship in Tooting, the Ring of Bells in Balham, the Queen’s Head in Clapham High Street—”

  “You seem to know a lot about it.”

  “Yeah. First job they gave me when I started was that beat. Going round the queer pubs, looking out for any funny business.”

  “Did you find any?”

  “Nah. Copper turns up in uniform, they’re all good as gold, aren’t they? Doesn’t do any harm to let ’em know we’ve got an eye out.”

  “Right.” Little bastard, I thought—I’ll fuck you extra hard for that when I have you at my mercy. “Bet you never thought you’d be visiting them undercover, did you?”

  “I wouldn’t go in any of ’em on my own, not without the uniform. But I’ll be safe with you, won’t I?”

  “Yes,” I lied, setting myself a challenge of breaching his virgin ass with my dick within the next 24 hours. “Safe as Fort Knox, Stan. See you later.”

  I went back inside.

  Just over three hours before
I had any chance of finding the mysterious Sean Durran—the last person, apart from Morgan, to see Frank Bartlett alive. He, surely, held the key to the mystery. What had he said to Bartlett? What had happened to turn him from a happy, horny husband into a suicidal wreck? Was Durran what he appeared to be—a casual encounter? Or was there some missing piece to the puzzle? Was Durran a killer? You heard such things whispered among friends, or you read between the lines of the crime reports—men killed in hotel rooms, or in parks late at night, a guardsman arrested, or a laborer, or unemployed. Was Bartlett simply unlucky in his choice of playmates? Was Durran a lunatic with a hard cock and a guilty conscience?

  It was an attractive idea, in many ways: at least then we’d be talking about a straightforward murder, a crazed killer, an unlucky victim. I pictured Durran to myself—attractive, hot-eyed, mad with lust, madder with remorse, picking up the very instrument with which he had been given such exquisite pleasure just a short while before—Bartlett’s razor—and using it to blot out the unthinkable fact of what he’d just enjoyed.

  I got carried away with the notion and even started composing the speech I would give to Sean Durran when I trapped him—pompous nonsense about justice and honesty and self-respect. But suddenly the cold water of reason quenched my ardent fantasy. Was I not falling into the same trap I’d warned Stan Knight about? Pinning the death on some sinister intruder—not, admittedly, the burglar or tramp of popular imagination, but just as convenient. The fact that Durran had been invited into the house, and had joined Morgan and Bartlett in the bathroom, did not alter the fact that he was an outsider. He was not “one of us,” at least in terms of his class, even if other aspects of his nature made him a brother. The police would happily pin the crime on the likes of Sean Durran—a working-class idler, obviously of Irish descent, an habitué of the pubs, shiftless, dishonest, immoral. And I was doing exactly the same thing myself.