Singled Out Read Online Free PDF

fluted into the silence, ‘aren’t you going to introduce me?’
    Kent took one look. He noted the tight, long-collared shirt, the velvet trousers, the small diamond finger-ring, and Rob was instantly pigeonholed.
    â€˜This is my brother Kent. Rob Sinclair.’
    Rob held out – or rather flourished – a hand. Without enthusiasm, Kent reached across and gave it a perfunctory shake.
    â€˜
Do
join us for a drink.
Please
. Laura’s told me
so
much about you.’ Rob sat down and patted the seat beside him. ‘
Do
sit down and tell me all about what it’s like being at the
sharp end
of the battle against crime.’
    Laura couldn’t decide whether Rob was being more camp than usual or whether he just seemed so in Kent’s awkward and forbidding presence.
    â€˜Get you a bijou drinkette, Kent?’ Rob enquired.
    â€˜Well …’
    â€˜Oh,
go on
. We’re going to have another,
aren’t
we, Laura darling?’
    â€˜Well –’
    â€˜
Course
we are.’ Rob sprang up again from his seat and asked in a self-consciously butch way, ‘What’s your poison, Kent old man?’
    â€˜Erm, a light ale, thank you.’
    Before Laura had time to stop him, Rob scampered away to the bar. She sat down. Kent lowered himself heavily on to the seat beside Rob’s, then pointedly moved it away.
    â€˜So who’s he, Laura?’
    â€˜A researcher. Someone I work with on the show.’
    â€˜Uhuh.’
    Again there was silence between them. Laura felt, as she always did in Kent’s presence, younger, immature. She felt she had to justify herself. ‘Today’s programme went very well,’ she said.
    â€˜Did it? Ah.’
    â€˜You have a good day?’
    â€˜Busy.’ He didn’t volunteer any more.
    Laura looked at her brother, and felt a familiar irritation. It was his slowness that always infuriated her, his unwillingness to initiate a conversation. She felt something for him, affection maybe – her upbringing had made her cautious about ever using the word ‘love’ – but Kent’s doggedness had always driven her mad.
    Presumably, at work, as a Detective Sergeant, he had to be more forceful, to take the initiative more often. Perhaps it was only she who brought out the reticence in him. But, whatever the reasons for his slowness, it always made her disproportionately angry. She found herself demanding, with more brusqueness than she intended, ‘Well, what is it, Kent? Is there some particular reason why you thought it necessary to come and see me here?’
    â€˜Yes,’ he replied ponderously. ‘Yes, there is a reason.’ He let one of his aggravating pauses hang in the air, then opened his mouth to continue, but was silenced by the return of Rob sashaying across the bar with one uplifted hand supporting a tray of drinks and the other balanced balletically on his hips.
    â€˜Drinkies,’ he trilled. ‘Drai whaite waine for the lady – and for you, sir, a light ale. I always think light ale’s such a
masculine
drink – positively
butch
, don’t you agree?’
    Kent was totally unqualified to deal with this kind of posturing. His natural instinct – probably to hit its perpetrator – was restrained by the knowledge that Rob was his sister’s friend. But he didn’t have any other appropriate behaviour to fall back on. With a gruff ‘Thank you’, he edged further away from the seat into which Rob sank like a wilting lily.
    â€˜Oooh, I certainly need this after the day we’ve had.’ Rob held his glass up to the light and swirled around the red fluid with its clinking ice. ‘Always Campari for me – with the emphasis on the “Camp”.’ He brought his knees together and leant forward to Kent in a parody of fascination. ‘Tell me,’ he said with a flutter of eyelashes, ‘have you ever worn