light. ‘Vengeance didn’t do poor old Lear any good, did it, darling? Or Malvolio, come to think of it.’
He managed a grimace. ‘Or even Hamlet… But I shan’t let him get away with it, Vee. You mark my words.’ Then his eyes narrowed. ‘Hang on, aren’t you and he—?’
‘No, absolutely not!’ I declared, anxious to set the record straight. I didn’t want it to be thought that I only got the Aldred House work because Toby and I were lovers. Besides which, while Allyn must have known – and dismissed – all the rumours about our past, if she thought we were still at it hammer and tongs, where would my contract be? Torn up and floating down the Avon, that’s where. ‘Nor ever were. Ever.’
‘But it was in all the gossip columns… Oh, holy shit. Sorry.’
I nodded a curt acceptance of his apology, as if I really were offended.
He looked at me from under his heavy hair. ‘You will forget what I just said, won’t you?’
I thought it was time to turn the subject. ‘You mean when the police come knocking on my door asking what I know about Toby’s murder?’ I asked with just enough irony. ‘As a matter of fact I said to his face pretty well what you’ve just said to me.’ At least I’d thought it in his presence, which was much the same thing.
‘And he said?’
‘Darling, you know what an ego he’s got. People like that think the public spend all their lives clamouring for yet another appearance.’ So why did I still get the hots for him? ‘Just remember you’ve got a career ahead of you, and going to jail won’t help it.’
‘A good murder trial might. I could be standing tragically in the dock, watching the judge don his black cap and you could race in at the last moment with an alibi to prove my innocence.’ At last he managed a grin, which took twenty years off him.
‘You’ve been watching too much daytime TV.’
He shrugged. ‘I rest my case.’
‘Eh?’
‘I’ve got too much time on my hands. I want to work ,’ he added, dropping his voice to a gravelly moan, as thrilling in its way as Greta Garbo’s desire to be alone . He’d probably been practising it for weeks.
I thought briefly of suggesting he might join me should the Brosnics ever evince a desire to check out yet another Warwickshire residence, but it would have to be on a no-fee-until-sold basis, and I couldn’t see him falling for that. Not with the Brosnics’ track history.
‘Don’t we all, darling?’ I allowed a wistful quiver into my voice. ‘Do you think I actually enjoy cleaning other people’s loos? Any more than I like living in an ex-council house while other people can buy mansions they don’t even live in?’
He looked shocked. ‘I assumed you’d have a bijou black and white cottage in a cute village.’
‘Everyone does. And I prefer it that way. I have my pride, you know. And you, darling,’ I added, picking up the bill, ‘must have yours. No playing childish tricks that’ll only rebound on you…OK?’
He watched, opening his mouth as if to argue, and then shutting it again. He covered my spare hand with his. The nails were bitten right down. ‘There’s no matinee this afternoon, darling. And we could both do with a bit of cheering up.’ He lifted the hand to his lips, in my book one ofthe sexiest gestures a man could make, beating a short bathrobe any day. The invitation itself, however, was less than exciting. A bit of cheering up? Not much passion there, then. And I still had a lurking suspicion that Meredith might prefer dancing at the other end of the ballroom.
The waitress, who had so far taken a relaxed view about what constituted service, chose this precise moment to appear. I needed both hands to fish out my credit card. As I passed her the plastic and the paper I saw an expression I didn’t like. There was nothing overtly unpleasant; on the contrary, she was looking sympathetic and almost approving. But in basic terms, her eyes perceived us as an old bat whose
Hassan Blasim, Rashid Razaq