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    Pressure Head
    Pressure Head
    Pressure Head
    Ebook285 pages4 hours

    Pressure Head

    By JL Merrow

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Some things are better left hidden....

    Tom Paretski’s not just a plumber with a dodgy hip courtesy of a schoolboy accident. He also has a sixth sense for finding hidden things. Called in by the police to help locate a body near Brock’s Hollow, he’s staggered to encounter Phil Morrison, his old school crush—and the closeted bully whose actions contributed to Tom’s accident.

    Phil’s all grown up now, and Tom’s unwilling attraction to him is back with a vengeance. Phil’s now openly gay—and what’s more, he’s interested in Tom’s personal charms as well as his psychic talents. As a private investigator called in by the dead woman’s parents, Phil is sceptical about Tom’s unusual gift, but nevertheless quick to spot its potential to aid him in his work.

    The further they go with the investigation, the less they can ignore their shared past, and the more the pressure and the heat build between them. But Tom isn’t certain he wants to know the secrets he’s helping to uncover, while there’s a murderer on the loose who won’t hesitate to kill again—and this uneasy couple is moving right into his sights.

    **NOTE: This is lightly edited reprint of a previously published novel.**

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRiptide Publishing
    Release dateJan 1, 2018
    ISBN9781626497122
    Pressure Head
    Author

    JL Merrow

    JL MERROW is that rare beast, an English person who refuses to drink tea. She read Natural Sciences at Cambridge, where she learned many things, chief amongst which was that she never wanted to see the inside of a lab ever again. Her one regret is that she never mastered the ability of punting one-handed whilst holding a glass of champagne.She writes across genres, with a preference for contemporary gay romance and mysteries, and is frequently accused of humour. Her novel Slam! won the 2013 Rainbow Award for Best LGBT Romantic Comedy, and her novella Muscling Through and novel Relief Valve were both EPIC Awards finalists.JL Merrow is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, International Thriller Writers, Verulam Writers and the UK GLBTQ Fiction Meet organising team.Find JL Merrow online at: www.jlmerrow.com, on Twitter as @jlmerrow, and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/jl.merrow

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    Reviews for Pressure Head

    4/5

    90 ratings13 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Laugh out loud dialogue. Recommend.
    • 4/5
      Entertaining and loved that Brit turn of phrase.
    • 5/5
      Love JL's writing. It flows so beautifully. Just the right balance of all the different aspects (dialogue/internal/external plot/characters - primary and secondary/pets/setting.

      Not too sure whether the guy on the cover fits my picture of Tom though. He doesn't look British enough.

      I have a feeling we're at the start of a great series. So all readers despairing the fact that their emotional arc wasn't tied up with a neat bow can look forward to the next instalment. Maybe the pairing will not be as fraught as Josh Lanyon's Jake and Adrien, but I don't think it's going to be a bed of roses for either of them. There's still a lot of their past hurts to explore.
    • 4/5
      My favourite Merrow book! Loved it!
    • 5/5
      4,75 stars. I liked it very very much. Tom was just one of the greatest MCs ever. He was hilarious and had such a great, dry sense of humour. The secondary cast was also great. The crime part was also good and had enough suspense to make you not miss the hot sex scenes to much...
    • 4/5
      I enjoy this author. I love the humor, the story lines, and the characters. There is always a bit of spice that makes the author's voice unique. The "who done it" aspect was well done and had me guessing for quite a bit. Enjoyable read.
    • 4/5
      4 stars. Loved Tom and the paranormal aspect of this. I liked Phil as well, but we don't really get to know as much about him as I wanted to. Would of given this a full 5 stars, but the ending was a bit abrupt. I'd really love to read more about this couple!!!

      Still, one of my favorite reads. Recommended! :)
    • 2/5
      DNF. I find it hard to get into a story when I don't like the characters. I just couldn't with these two mains. Seemed to me like they had all the chemistry of pineapple juice and milk. Phil was busy denying and trivializing the bullying, while blithely continuing with the namecalling. So juvenile. Tom for his part seemed suspiciously easily won over by a hot body and a bit of charity work. Like, sure this guy's bullying made school hell and led to an accident that caused serious injury, but that sexy bod tho! Barf. Couldn't even get into the murder mystery.
    • 4/5
      Sympathisch, witzig und in gutem Tempo erzählt. Eine gelungene Mischung aus Krimi und Liebesgeschichte, die sogar mir gefallen hat ?
    • 4/5
      Witty, cozy mystery. A page turner with warmth - will def go read the next book in the series right away!
    • 3/5
      Just started to read and while it seems interesting, can't stand an old-bully character. Why main characters have always find them attractive? Just want to see him get punched, don't care about his well-defined arms. Not sure if I"m ready for " let's forget what an asshole you were and still are on a basis of a few good things you had done and how hot you are, and let's make out" arc. Or it's better than that?
    • 5/5
      What a funny little (literally) gay plumber this Tom Paretski is. And he even turns out to be the main hero in a detective story because he is somebody who is able to sense hidden things, well, like a corpse in the bushes for example. Just before he finds a missing lady, he – once again literally – stumbles across a private detective, Phil Morrison, who once was part of a school gang that bullied Tom for being gay and chased him. That lead to a car accident that gave Tom a limp. While all these old painful feelings come up again, it turns out that the PI has come out of the closet himself. And despite their troubled past (or thanks to it) some chemistry is evolving between the two men who start of to search for the killer of the young woman.Funny, witty and sexy. Just a great read for a nice weekend on the couch, in bath, outside in the sun or in bed. Enjoy it, just like I did. I definitely need more of books like that. Any recommendations?!
    • 3/5
      So I enjoyed this well enough while I was reading it even if I thought it was a little lightweight. I read it in one sitting and went to bed. The next morning I was fishing around my ereader trying to find my next book. I opened up something and started to read when suddenly I remembered a bit about yesterday's book and for the life of me couldn't remember the ending. In fact, I couldn't remember if I'd even finished it. Then I couldn't even remember the title. Hunh. Not a good sign.

      So, I enjoyed it but it was forgettable. Some if it was predictable but the mystery wasn't. However, I think that was because we weren't given enough information. There wasn't enough danger for me and feelings I had to read between the lines to see were never shared with the other lover, but it was sweet enough. I wanted the main character's injury to play a role in the danger but it didn't.

      Still, I would read another book about these characters. So, I'll give it a three. Hopefully I'll remember that I read it. Thank God for Goodreads so I can keep track!

      1 person found this helpful

    Book preview

    Pressure Head - JL Merrow

    Riptide Publishing

    PO Box 1537

    Burnsville, NC 28714

    www.riptidepublishing.com

    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All person(s) depicted on the cover are model(s) used for illustrative purposes only.

    Pressure Head

    Copyright © 2012, 2018 by JL Merrow

    Smashwords Edition

    Cover art: Christine Coffee, coffeecreatescovers.com

    Editor: Carole-ann Galloway

    Layout: L.C. Chase, lcchase.com/design.htm

    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Riptide Publishing at the mailing address above, at Riptidepublishing.com, or at marketing@riptidepublishing.com.

    ISBN: 978-1-62649-712-2

    Second edition

    January, 2018

    Also available in paperback:

    ISBN: 978-1-62649-713-9

    ABOUT THE EBOOK YOU HAVE PURCHASED:

    We thank you kindly for purchasing this title. Your nonrefundable purchase legally allows you to replicate this file for your own personal reading only, on your own personal computer or device. Unlike paperback books, sharing ebooks is the same as stealing them. Please do not violate the author’s copyright and harm their livelihood by sharing or distributing this book, in part or whole, for a fee or free, without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner. We love that you love to share the things you love, but sharing ebooks—whether with joyous or malicious intent—steals royalties from authors’ pockets and makes it difficult, if not impossible, for them to be able to afford to keep writing the stories you love. Piracy has sent more than one beloved series the way of the dodo. We appreciate your honesty and support.

    Some things are better left hidden.

    Tom Paretski’s not just a plumber with a dodgy hip courtesy of a schoolboy accident. He also has a sixth sense for finding hidden things. Called in by the police to help locate a body near Brock’s Hollow, he’s staggered to encounter Phil Morrison, his old school crush—and the closeted bully whose actions contributed to Tom’s accident.

    Phil’s all grown up now, and Tom’s unwilling attraction to him is back with a vengeance. Phil’s now openly gay—and what’s more, he’s interested in Tom’s personal charms as well as his psychic talents. As a private investigator called in by the dead woman’s parents, Phil is sceptical about Tom’s unusual gift, but nevertheless quick to spot its potential to aid him in his work.

    The further they go with the investigation, the less they can ignore their shared past, and the more the pressure and the heat build between them. But Tom isn’t certain he wants to know the secrets he’s helping to uncover, while there’s a murderer on the loose who won’t hesitate to kill again—and this uneasy couple is moving right into his sights.

    Publisher's note: This is a lightly edited reprint of a previously published novel.

    To the members of Verulam Writers’ Circle, for all their constructive criticism, good-natured ribbing, and general encouragement over a drink or two—cheers!

    And, as always, with thanks to my wonderful friends Jo and Pen. You know I couldn’t do it without you.

    About Pressure Head

    Chapter 1

    Chapter 2

    Chapter 3

    Chapter 4

    Chapter 5

    Chapter 6

    Chapter 7

    Chapter 8

    Chapter 9

    Chapter 10

    Chapter 11

    Chapter 12

    Chapter 13

    Chapter 14

    Chapter 15

    Chapter 16

    Chapter 17

    Chapter 18

    Chapter 19

    Chapter 20

    Chapter 21

    Dear Reader

    Also by JL Merrow

    About the Author

    More like this

    Whatever it was I was following, it was dead ahead. Calling to me, tugging at my mind. I fought my way through prickly hawthorn and incongruously festive holly, a minor annoyance as they clutched at my padded jacket. When I reached a clearing, I broke into a run. Melanie’s face was seared in my mind, and I thought, Please, God, let it not be her. Let it be some drunk’s alcohol stash . . .

    I already knew it wasn’t. There was the stench of guilt about this one, turning my stomach even as it dragged me nearer. Guilt and violence—and death.

    I reached a thicket, dropped to my hands and knees, and crawled in. Twigs scratched my face, caught in my hair. Damp soaked through the knees of my jeans, the chill reaching to my bones, numbing my core. There was barely any light to see by, but I didn’t need any, my questing fingers meeting cold, waxy flesh. I fumbled to be certain and found I was holding her hand.

    For a moment, I was six years old again, with the little girl in the park.

    But when you’re twenty-nine and you find a body, you don’t get to go blubbing for your mother.

    It started with a phone call, as these things usually do. I haven’t exactly got an office, more like a stack of files in a cardboard box that I hand over to my accountant once a quarter, and the answer phone’s on the blink, so if anyone wants to get in touch with me, they have to call my mobile.

    I was out in one of the villages when he rang. There are a lot of villages around St. Albans, most of them filled up with people who commute into London to work and keep the house prices sky-high. In between, you get the green belt made up of pony farms and golf courses, plus the odd actual working farm tucked in, with small herds of placid cows looking like refugees from the nineteenth century as they chomp on the grass and idly wonder what happened to the neighbourhood.

    I was fitting some new kitchen taps for Mrs. B., who made great coffee and liked to chat. I always had to be careful I didn’t go over time here. It wasn’t easy when I knew the next call was to Mrs. L., a sour-faced old biddy who always watched me like a hawk in case I made off with the teaspoons or did something unspeakable to her pet poodle.

    I put down my spanner and dug my mobile out of my pocket. Paretski Plumbing, I answered in my jaunty trade voice, flashing Mrs. B. an apologetic smile. She dimpled.

    Tom? Dave Southgate. Got a little job for you.

    Oh, yeah? Blocked toilet down at the station? Must be all those doughnuts you lot eat. I wasn’t talking about the place you catch a train from. Dave Southgate is one of our boys in blue—or he would be, if he still wore a uniform. And when he rang, the job was never all that little, though I lived in hope.

    "I wish. No—young lady by the name of Melanie Porter. Last seen going off to meet person or persons unknown three days ago—if you believe her useless yob of a hoodie boyfriend, who I personally wouldn’t trust as far as I could throw his drugs stash. We’ve received information suggesting we have a look for the young lady in the woods up by Brock’s Hollow."

    I do have a proper job to do, you know. Even I could hear the resignation in my voice.

    Cheers, Tom, I owe you. We’re up on Nomansland Common. Up past Devil’s Dyke—you know the area? Combing through the woodland, the usual drill. How soon can you get up here?

    I looked at my watch. About ten minutes—I’m only down the road, as it happens. Just need to finish up. And I’d have to ring Mrs. L. and apologise for the no-show, but that’d be more a pleasure than a duty.

    I shoved my phone back in my pocket and finished tightening up the taps. Opened the supply pipes and turned the taps on and off to prove they worked. There you go, I said, wiping my hands on an old rag. All sorted.

    That’s lovely. Sure you wouldn’t like to stay for another coffee? She gave me a winning smile, and the dimples deepened. I’ve got some Belgian chocolate biccies.

    Sorry, Mrs. B., I said regretfully. Duty calls.

    I first met Dave Southgate around three years ago. A kiddie went missing in Verulamium Park, and they put out an appeal on local radio for help finding the little lad. He was only three. I tracked him down under a bush right next to the main road, crying his little heart out and clutching a half-eaten loaf of bread he’d taken to feed the ducks.

    Obviously, me being a single gay man who’d managed to find a missing toddler, it wasn’t just as simple as handing the kid over and receiving the effusive thanks of a grateful police force. There were a lot of searching questions about just how I’d known where to look. Eventually, I managed to convince Sergeant Southgate, as he then was, I just had this knack of finding stuff. Or people, as it might be. Since then, he’s called me in a few times to look for things—burglars’ loot, hidden drugs—and bodies.

    It’s a bit hard to explain, but I can’t just find any old thing. I’m not some bloody database on the location of everything in the world. It’s only certain types of things. And usually, there has to be some strong emotion involved. So lost things are almost always impossible, because if you’d been feeling that strongly about the thing at the time, chances are you wouldn’t have lost it, would you? Hidden things, on the other hand, call out to me. All the guilt and shame and sneakiness involved in the hiding acts as a kind of beacon. And I can often tell from the feeling just what sort of thing it is that’s hidden.

    I mean, say you buried a suitcase in your garden. I’d have a pretty good idea before I dug it up whether it contained your collection of hard-core porn, letters from a lover, or the body of your dead baby.

    Bodies, actually, are the classic one. I have to be close enough physically—although there’s tricks I can do to help, I’ll get on to those later—but once I’m there, it’s like they’re howling at me.

    The first one I found, I thought she really was howling.

    It was back when we lived in London. She wasn’t anyone I knew. I think Mum knew her mum a bit, but that was all. She was too young to have played with me, and certainly too young to have played with my sister. She was only four, you see, when it happened. Just wandered off in the park, I guess, met a man who seemed really friendly . . . do I have to spell it out for you? He’d hidden her under some bushes, right in a patch of nettles. Must have been wearing gloves, I suppose. I had shorts on when I found her, and I got covered in stings.

    But she was crying, at least I thought she was, and I knew I couldn’t leave her there. So I crept in after her, calling out, Don’t cry—it’s all right.

    Of course, it wasn’t all right. Not for her, and not for her poor mum and dad. For them, I expect it was never all right again. She stopped crying as soon as I found her, so maybe she found some peace. I don’t know. I thought she was asleep, but she was so cold. I tried to drag her out, but I was worried I’d hurt her, so in the end, I left her there and ran and got my mum.

    And then things got very grown-up, very fast.

    Anyway. Hidden things. Lost things, sometimes. And water, funnily enough. I’ve never really understood that one.

    I rubbed my hip as I walked over the rough grassland of the common to the edge of a scrubby patch of woodland, where I could see Dave and a couple of police dogs with their handlers. I broke my pelvis badly when I was seventeen—got hit by a car and spent months recovering—and it aches whenever the weather turns cold and damp. Which, this being Britain, it does quite a lot, especially in November. Maybe I’d move to Florida when I retired.

    Maybe a passing porker would be able to fly me there.

    All right, Dave? I called out when I got to where they were standing, grim-faced.

    Dave’s face broke into a relieved almost-smile, although the men with the dogs cast me sceptical glances. Dave was a big bloke, by which I mean a bit too fond of beer and takeaways. He was tall compared to my five foot eight, but probably only average compared to everyone else. I don’t mind. In fact, it’s pretty handy for a plumber, being small—especially when you’re working in one of those new, shoebox-sized houses they throw up everywhere these days, with the sort of bathrooms where you step out of the bath to find you’ve got one foot in the toilet.

    Tom. Good to see you. Dave took a deep breath. Right. Melanie Porter. She’s a twenty-three-year-old estate agent, works down in the village. Boyfriend, as I said, a bit on the dodgy side. He’s got previous for drugs, petty crime—that sort of thing. Supposed to have settled down since he met the young lady—at least, he’s stayed out of trouble for nearly a year now. His story is she got a call Saturday night and told him she had to go out. They had a blazing row about it—we’ve got the neighbour’s corroboration for that—and she left, and he hasn’t seen her since. Or, depending which theory you subscribe to, he bludgeoned her to death and disposed of the body sometime in the early hours of Sunday morning.

    So why do you think she’s here? I nodded over at the trees.

    Anonymous tip-off. Said if we want to find Melanie, we’re to look around here. He scratched his nose. Somebody really ought to buy him some nose-hair clippers for Christmas, I thought, distracted for a moment by the bushy growths that sprouted unchecked from his nostrils. Be pretty convenient for him, if he did do it. They lived just over there, in a council flat. Dave inclined his head towards the Dyke Hill estate, an unlovely but functional collection of houses and flats for the less-well-off of the village.

    Right, let’s get started, then, I suggested. The longer I stayed out here, the worse my hip would ache. And I still had Mrs. L.’s blocked drain hanging over me, metaphorically speaking. Have you got anything for me?

    It doesn’t always work, but sometimes a picture of the person I’m looking for will help. Dave handed me a snapshot, taken on a sunny day down by the river. Melanie Porter was a pretty girl, although she’d never make the cover of Vogue, or even Nuts. She had a roundish face, chestnut hair, and large blue eyes. Her smile was a little crooked, which gave her a sympathetic air.

    Suddenly I didn’t want to find her. She looked like the sort of girl you hoped your brother would marry.

    There’s this too. Dave handed me a carrier bag with a cardigan in it. She was wearing it at work, the day she disappeared.

    I’m not a bloody sniffer dog. I took it anyway, in case it had some vibes for me. I pointedly didn’t sniff it. I didn’t feel any vibes, either. It was just a plain, slightly bobbly cardie.

    Oh, bloody hell—how did he find out about this?

    I looked up from the photo to see Dave glaring at a tall, blond figure striding our way across the common. The new guy was big in a totally different way to Dave—his shoulders were broad, his legs were long and lean, and the bulk of his chest wasn’t all due to the body warmer he was wearing over a thick sweater. Well, it was a bit nippy up here, as I was finding to my cost. I gave my hip another rub.

    There was something vaguely familiar about the bloke. Who is he?

    Private bloody investigator. Hired by our girl’s mum and dad. Private bloody pain in the bum, if you ask me. Ex-copper, couldn’t hack it, so left to go private. He gave me a speculative look. Course, you might get on all right with him. He’s one of your lot, not that you’d know it to look at him.

    What, a plumber? I asked innocently.

    Piss off. And he’s not a bloody psychic either. He’s queer, all right? And if I catch you two canoodling on police time, I’m taking pictures and bunging them on the internet.

    I’ll try and control my raging homo desires, I said as dryly as I could. I’ve managed to keep my hands off you all these years, haven’t I? I added to wind him up.

    Dave shuddered. I wasn’t offended. I was too busy fighting off a shudder myself. Dave’s a great bloke, and I love him dearly, but not like that. Dear God, never like that.

    I had to admit I wouldn’t mind a bit of canoodling where the PI was concerned. Dave’s comment about his sexuality had piqued my interest, no doubt about it. As he approached, the sense of familiarity deepened, and I wondered if I’d seen him around somewhere. I was fairly sure we’d never hooked up or anything embarrassing like that. This guy was way out of my league—with a body like that, and a square-jawed, classically handsome face above it, he could take his pick, and he looked like he knew it too.

    He nodded at Dave as he got up to where we were standing. Southgate.

    Dave didn’t so much nod as curl his lip. Morrison.

    And it hit me where I knew him from. It was all I could do not to stagger back, winded from the blow.

    Morrison. Phil Morrison.

    The last time I’d seen him, we’d still been at school. It wasn’t a time I looked back on with a nostalgic, rosy glow. My last name’s Paretski, a legacy of my great-grandma’s Polish stepdad, so naturally enough I was known for most of my school life as Parrotski. With the occasional Parrot-face or Polly thrown in for variety. I didn’t exactly like it, but I couldn’t say it really bothered me either. Although I did feel a bit envious of my older brother for having managed to get away with plain old Ski as a nickname.

    Then Phil Morrison caught me looking at him in the changing room after PE—well, who wouldn’t look? He was the fittest lad in the school: tall, blond, athletic—and he came up with the bright idea of calling me Poofski.

    It caught on instantly. Soon, hardly a day went by without a joke at my expense. Games lessons were the worst. Don’t let Poofski follow you into the shower! was a gag that never seemed to get old. My maths teacher, Mr. Collymore, even called me it once. I mean, I’m sure it was a genuine slip of the tongue, and he apologised afterwards, but they were laughing about that one in the classroom for days.

    For all I know, they laughed about it in the staff room too.

    And now he was here. Against all laws of probability or even human decency, apparently queer. And I was supposed to get used to it?

    Morrison must have noticed my reaction, as he looked at me with his eyes narrowed. Suddenly, his face cleared, and a half smile flickered across his lips. Parrotski, he said with grim satisfaction.

    Well, it could have been worse. And I was long over being intimidated by him. "That’s Paretski, if you don’t mind," I snapped.

    You’ve changed a bit, he said cryptically.

    So have you. I tried to inject as much meaning as I could into those three words. I wanted him to know I knew his little secret. I wanted him to feel like the bloody hypocrite he was.

    Zero reaction. Either it didn’t work, or more likely, he just didn’t give a monkey’s what I thought about him.

    Dave huffed impatiently. "If you don’t mind me interrupting this touching reunion, we do have a body to look for. And Morrison? Unless you’re here to hand deliver a map drawn by the murderer, your services are not required. This is an official police investigation, not a bloody free-for-all."

    Morrison raised an eyebrow. Oh? When did you join the force, Parrot—Paretski? Good thing for you they dropped the height restrictions.

    My jaw tensed. I’m just here as a consultant.

    "Know a lot about hiding

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