Comfort Room - Or The Seven Dreams of Frank Diggory

The Longest Day

‘I have it.’ Emet announced boldly.
Frank, along with all of their friends, and her mum and dad, stared at her in utter jaw-dropping disbelief.

So she repeated herself. ‘I have it.’ Before adding, ‘Come on, Frank! Did you honestly think that a broken floor tile was a good place to hide your wallet? Ma’am Roberta found it while she was cleaning. She showed it to me. I told her I would keep it safe.’

Frank was stunned at what he was hearing. ‘My warrant card was in that wallet. So you knew. All along. You knew I was a policeman, but you said nothing. Why?’ he asked, his disappointment and pain evident in his voice.

‘This should be a private conversation. Do you really want to have it here?’ Emet asked him, suddenly feeling deeply embarrassed and ashamed.

‘At the scene of the crime? Yes. Yes, I do.’ Frank told her.

‘But with this audience?’ Emet asked weakly.

‘Okay, everybody. Let’s go. They need some space.’ Pastor Josh waved his hands around and drove the others out of the house, despite ‘But... But...’s from the more nosey people in the group, who were suddenly placated when Ethan whispered about his cameras, and then hurriedly returned to the party in his house.

Which Pastor Josh and wife Judy found to be thoroughly unseemly. So they went home.

‘Okay. We have about three minutes before Captain Reyna makes it to Ethan’s place, and about ten minutes before Ethan gets there, so let’s make it quick.’ Frank told her.

‘Not here.’ Emet told him, gesturing surreptitiously towards the corner in the room where she presupposed Ethan had hidden his camera and motion sensor.

‘Where, then?’ Frank asked, frustratedly.

‘I can think of a place...’ Emet nodded towards his back door.

Frank sighed. ‘Okay, but not through a wall. I need to see your face.’

Emet nodded.

And so Frank unlocked his back door, and both he and Emet headed through to his outdoor bathroom and closed it behind them.

‘I can’t agree with them spying on Emet and Frank. It's wrong. It’s just plain wrong.’ Pastor Josh ranted as he and Judy entered their house. ‘They need their privacy to sort this out.’

Judy headed for the kitchen, grabbed a glass tumbler and then headed for their back door.

‘Where are you going with that glass?’ Pastor Josh asked his wife.

‘You can forgive me for it later.’ she called out over his shoulder, as she headed for their bathroom.

Emet and Frank stood around a pace apart in his bathroom. Emet was nervous. Jumpy. But tried to hide it. ‘Wow! Ma’am Roberta did a great job in here. I wonder how she gets the dirt out from between the tiles. I can never get it that clean.’ she wittered, distracted by the brightness of the grout. Or, at least, pretending to be.

‘Emet.’ Frank brow-beat her, his sense of betrayal clearly obvious. ‘Why did you steal my wallet?’

Emet’s face flushed with pink shame. ‘Well, I wouldn’t call it stealing, more “taking for safekeeping”.’ she excused herself. In vain.

‘Emet, please!’ Frank pleaded earnestly with her. ‘Tell the truth.’

‘Okay! Okay!’ she submitted. ‘I took it because... because I could see that you are a policeman. And a senior one at that. I Googled you and...’ she chuckled wryly. ‘...you do not have a good reputation. Yet here you were sweet and kind and gentle and a little bit lost... not to mention incredibly British. I mean, poached eggs on toasted bread for breakfast? Do you even have taste buds? Do they actually function, like, at all? So I thought that I would hide who you are for a while. Keep you as you were. Maybe work to make you a little better. Knock some rough edges off. Improve you a little. Make you proper.... I don’t know... husband material.’