A Taste for Malice Read Online Free

outside my flat. They’ve got their blossom out. Every time the wind blows, the air downwind is filled with a pink snow. The small flowers then gather in clumps at the side of the pavement like a scattered offering to the gods. When nature does litter it puts on a show.
    Didn’t sleep much last night. Ate a huge bar of chocolate before I went to bed and it was enough to keep me awake. Eventually I nodded off only to wake up mere minutes later with my eyelids being sun-blasted by a bright spring morning.
    I stumble into the shower and repeatedly promise myself a set of black-out curtains while the hot water pours over my head and shoulders. I fill my hands with liquid soap and start to work it over my body.
    I think of Theresa. I stop working the lather over my chest. You know how it is; you haven’t really grown up yet although you are technically an adult, you see the chance of some no-strings-attached shagging. You take it. You take as much as you can. Except something happens that makes you grow up. Then you realise you want more. You catch her scent while sitting watching TV. You think you see her head bobbing in a crowd of people just ahead. Always just ahead.
    I did see her just last week in Argyle Street. I was going in to Debenhams, she was on the way out. A man held the door for her. She saw me and a smile stuttered into place. My eyes were drawn down to her full belly and back up to her face. The world slowed and settled. We held each other’s gaze. Her eyes read of acceptance and content. Was there an apology in the lift of her brow? My eyes moved back down to her swollen abdomen. Mine, I wanted to ask?
    Real time settled back into place with the bustle of shoppers. My momentum carried me past her and her companion’s voice reached me.
    ‘Did you know that guy? Theresa, did you know that guy?’
    Her answer was lost among the footfall and charge of rapacious consumers. In a daze I walked on past M&S and towards Trongate and Glasgow Cross. She’s pregnant. And by the size of her stomach — and this is a man’s judgement — she is due to give birth any second. Which means the baby could be mine. Fuck. I will be a father. Scratch that. I was the sperm donor, nothing more. She has her life all mapped out, I was clearly nothing but a diversion until she found a purpose.
    I dry myself and dress. A black coffee and a scan of the news channels later and I am on the way to work.
    More emails. I read them while the thought of Theresa being pregnant with my child is like a saccharine hangover that colours my thoughts. For sanity’s sake I need to try and get over it. She has clearly decided that I am not parent material.
    More emails. More coffee. No-one has a birthday, so I buy some cakes. The clichéd American cop would have a number of doughnuts with a variety of toppings. None of that shite for your Scottish cop. We have a selection of cream cakes, apple turnovers, strawberry tarts, carrot cake, iced gingerbread, iced fruit slice, empire biscuits, snowballs. Just looking at the pile on the table is enough to strip the enamel from your teeth. Daryl raises an eyebrow when he saw me carrying in the cake boxes.
    ‘Shut it,’ is my qualified response. ‘Besides,’ I pull in my belly. ‘I am no longer wearing a fat-suit.’
    Daryl raises the other eyebrow.
    ‘That’s a neat wee trick. How do you do it?’ I ask.
    ‘Hours in front of the mirror,’ Ale jumps in. ‘Don’t you know that’s his hobby?’
    Daryl puckers up for a kiss.
    ‘In your dreams, loser,’ says Ale walking back to her desk.
    I turn and walk back into my office. Someone follows me and closes the door behind them.
    ‘What can I do for you, Daryl?’ I sit down.
    ‘I have a problem with my pussy.’ A grin fills his face. He puts a pad of paper on the desk.
    ‘There’s a lot of it going around.’
    ‘I need some counselling.’ He crosses his arms and leans back in his chair. ‘I hear you are the right man with the right set of skills