‘I was hoping you’d say that,’ she beamed, ‘even though I don’t believe it.’
‘It’ll come,’ he assured her. ‘It’s not always easy to cut your ties and get airborne.’
She sat opposite him. ‘Do you have any ties?’
Ben stirred his coffee thoughtfully. ‘Only the ones I make myself,’ he said.
Kate gazed out into the garden. The sun was low and golden, still holding the warmth of the day. Four men from the Confused About Computers course were whacking the croquet balls with gusto and looked equally confused about the rules of the game. Strains of classical music filtered through the speakers, filling the evening air with the gentle sound of strings.
‘My children love classical music,’ she said, turning back to Ben. ‘Vivaldi, Mozart, even boring old Bach. They get it from Jeffrey. I, on the other hand, coerce them into listening to Radio 1. I think children of their age should only listen to classical music when they go to the dentist.’
‘You worry about them, don’t you?’
‘Constantly,’ she admitted, and drained her coffee. ‘I’d better go and find Sonia,’ she said, ‘ and rescue her from the dessert trolley.’
‘You worry about everyone.’
‘I know.’ She gave an apologetic laugh. ‘I took it up when I stopped biting my nails.’
‘I’m going for a walk,’ Ben said. ‘Take what’s left of the evening air.’
‘Have a nice time,’ she said.
He cocked his head on one side, appealing. ‘It was an invitation.’
‘I know.’ Kate stood up. I’m scared of being alone with you, can’t you tell? ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’
‘Goodnight,’ he said with a sad smile.
Scrawled in untidy red letters on the white Nobo board in the reception hall was a note which read ‘Dead! Gone to bed. Sonia.’
Oh, no. Death by Chocolate had claimed its victim. Now what? It was a good job she’d come here for rest and recuperation, not excitement. Perhaps an early night would do her good, too.
Ben came and stood behind her. ‘You’ve been deserted,’ he observed.
She folded her arms in resignation. ‘All because of the dessert trolley.’
Ben looked puzzled.
‘I suspect a severe overdose of Death by Chocolate is the reason my friend has taken to her bed.’
He laughed. ‘Come on, you’ve no excuses now,’ he urged. ‘You can join me on my walk.’
‘But I haven’t got a cardigan with me,’ Kate replied.
He laughed. ‘I don’t think you’ll freeze to death. It’s the middle of summer, after all.’
And he set off, pushing through the modern revolving door that looked incongruous in its mellow medieval setting. Kate fell into step behind him, quickening her pace to catch up with his long stride. They strolled across the lawn, over the lengthening shadows and into the canopy of trees, an indigenous mix of oak, copper beech and sycamores, that bordered the grounds. A narrow bark path led the way to a set of overgrown steps and they threaded their way down through the nettles and thistles, Ben holding back unruly branches that threatened to spring out and bar their way.
They emerged onto a narrow lane lined with chocolate-box cottages that looked as if they had been untouched for centuries—except for the television aerials and the phone lines and the fact that, on close inspection, the neat white picket fencing that united their fussy, flowery gardens was made of plastic. Kate sighed inwardly. That was what her life was like. As pointless as plastic picket fencing. What earthly purpose did it serve? It didn’t keep anything in, it didn’t keep anything out and even its decorative properties were questionable.
This might have been the middle of summer, but a cool breeze sprang up, rustling the leaves on the trees and she shivered slightly.
‘Cold?’ Ben asked, concerned.
‘A little,’ she said. In fact her bare arms were a mass of goose pimples.
‘Let’s walk in the last of the setting sun,’ he suggested. ‘It’s chillier in the shade.’
They crossed the street, admiring the overflowing hanging baskets that adorned every porch, their blooms only slightly faded from the relentless sun of the past few days. As they walked, she could feel the air crackle between them, like an electric force field. His arm hung casually next to hers, six inches away at least, yet it felt as if he was pressed close against her. She was aware of his every movement as if they were joined together. Do you feel it too, Ben?
Ben glanced sideways at her and his eyes said yes. He stroked her arm lightly and her flesh stood to attention at his touch. ‘You’ve got goose pimples,’ he said.
Kate rubbed her arms vigorously. ‘Not enough fat to keep me warm,’ she joked.
‘I wish I could be chivalrous and whip off my jacket and place it gently round your shoulders like they do in films. But I don’t have one, so I’m afraid you’ll just have to shiver.’ His expression was woeful. ‘Unless…’
‘What?’ she asked cautiously.
‘I was going to say that I could put my arm round you and you could huddle against me for warmth.’ The devastating smile twitched at his lips. ‘But even the thought of it has turned your face pale.’
‘You’re laughing at me,’ Kate said.
‘No,’ he said softly. ‘No, I’m not.’
She glanced at her watch. ‘I’d better get back. I should phone Jeffrey.’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Lucky Jeffrey.’
‘Now you are laughing at me,’ she chided, stronger now that she’d mentioned her husband’s name.
‘Yes,’ he said, eyes twinkling in the fading light. ‘I am.’
They walked in silence, not entirely comfortable, until Ben stopped to pluck a white rose from an old-fashioned rambler that tumbled over the wall of the end cottage. ‘A beautiful rose for a beautiful woman,’ he said, presenting it to her.
‘Thank you.’ It was a long time since she had been given roses. Not since Joe was born. She twirled it in her fingers and inhaled its sweet scent. ‘It smells wonderful.’
He studied her seriously. ‘Do you know that every rose has twenty-five petals?’
‘No.’ She didn’t, but it was the sort of thing that Jeffrey would know.
The rose was just beginning to open, only the outer petals accepting the sun. At the centre the bud was still tightly closed, waiting for the right time to unfurl and show its beauty.
‘I’ll count them when it opens,’ she said. ‘And see if you’re lying.’
‘I never lie,’ he said earnestly.
They turned back towards the priory, walking down the High Street as the quicker option. The pavement was made of intricate patterns of block paving and studded with Victorian-style bollards that were neither useful nor ornamental, so narrow in parts that they had to walk single file. Ben guided her in front of him, his hand hot in the small of her back. Comforting and discomfiting at the same time.
It was one of those streets that are full of prissy little shops selling dried rosebud topiaries in gilded terracotta pots, antique cribs and hand-made writing paper. Wonderful for passing tourists, but selling nothing remotely useful to the resident populace, who, no doubt, had to trek off in their cars to the nearest supermarket to purchase even a tin of cat food or a bar of soap. Kate eyed the contents with as much interest as she could summon for designer teddy bears and wooden cats, trying to keep up a pace that was less than relaxing.
The light was fading fast, the night air chill and damp. It made the lights from the priory look warm and welcoming as they approached.
‘Safe and sound,’ Ben announced.
‘Yes,’ she said, wondering whether she would ever feel safe and sound again.
‘A quick nightcap in the bar?’
‘No, I’d better…’
‘Phone Jeffrey,’ he finished.
‘Phone Jeffrey.’ She fiddled with her fingers.
‘Are you enjoying the course, Kate?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
I just thought that finding myself would be easier than this. I’ve got feelings running riot round my body that shouldn’t be allowed out without a safety warning and a hard hat. And now I think I feel more confused than ever. ‘Are you?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘More than I expected.’ He twitched his eyebrow. ‘But then I expected to be learning about The Beauties of Bordeaux, not the beauties of Buckinghamshire.’
‘Oh.’ There wasn’t a lot else she could say.
‘Will you be at the session before breakfast tomorrow?’
‘I don’t know.’ She scuffed her feet against the tarmac drive. ‘I’m not at my sparkling best in the morning.’
‘Feeling the cold dew between your toes is very enlivening. It’s one of the best feelings in the world.’
What are the others, Ben Mahler? She smiled softly at him. ‘I’ll take your word for it.’
‘Goodnight, Kate,’ he said.
‘Goodnight.’
He leaned forward and kissed her gently on the lips. It was soft, tender, warm and it made the world tilt very slightly on its axis. Turning away from her, he strode towards the priory, raising his hand in a wave without looking back. She followed his movement until he was out of sight, clutching the thorny stem of the white rose. As he disappeared from view, she put her fingers to her mouth and felt where his burning lips had been.
chapter 20
Solace was to be found in the form of alcoholic consumption, Jeffrey decided. They had abandoned Tim’s car at the golf club after they lost count of how many pints of Theakston’s Old Peculier they had downed, and had shared a taxi home. It was very, very late and Tim had been safely deposited at his house to rescue the possibly now demented Mrs Shaw and the beleaguered hamster from the clutches of his sons.
Jeffrey was now feeling rather old and peculiar himself as the taxi headed towards Acacia Close. What was there for him at home? he thought self-pityingly. Two sleeping children. An empty bed. An absent wife and instead of the gorgeous Natalie, the grizzled features of Mrs Barrett, who was baby-sitting for him. He sank into a deep and remorseful depression. And it was all his fault.
What did it matter that Kerry’s belly button was now mutilated beyond belief ? Was it important in the scheme of things? Was it life-threatening? Possibly, when Kate found out. The thought sobered him briefly. He should apologise to Natalie for overreacting, and he should do it now. He sat bolt upright.
When he managed to locate it, Jeffrey tapped the driver’s shoulder. ‘Wait, wait,’ he slurred. ‘I don’t want to go home. I want to go to Jessica’s house. Now!’
The taxi driver pulled over to the side of the road and turned in his seat. ‘Jessica’s house?’
‘Yes, yes.’ Why didn’t I think of it before?
‘Can you be a little bit more specific?’ the driver said, using all his Cockney charm. ‘Do we have an address for Jessica?’
Jeffrey looked puzzled. ‘An address?’
‘It tends to help. Where does she live, mate?’
‘Near me,’ he said helpfully.
The driver sighed patiently. ‘What about a name? Is she known as anything else other than Jessica?’
‘She’s my wife’s friend. She organises terrible, disastrous barn dances.’
‘Does she now.’ The driver picked up his radio and spoke to the control. ‘Margaret,’ he said to the woman on the other end, ‘do you know a woman called Jessica that organises crap barn dances and lives near Acacia Close? She’s a friend of…’ He looked at Jeffrey for inspiration.
‘My wife,’ Jeffrey supplied.
‘Who is?’ the driver asked with the studied patience of a man who is used to dealing with inebriated passengers.
Jeffrey tried to look alert. ‘Who is what?’
‘What is your wife’s name?’
‘Kate Lewis, of course.’ Was the man an idiot?
‘Kate Lewis.’ The driver rubbed his face. ‘Of course.’ He repeated the name into the radio. ‘She’s a friend of Kate Lewis.’
The line crackled and buzzed and it reverberated in Jeffrey’s head.
‘Jessica Hall,’ the answer came amidst the static. ‘She lives in Palfrey Avenue. Number twelve.’
‘Cheers, Margaret,’ he said. ‘I owe you one.’
‘No problem.’
The driver turned to Jeffrey. ‘We’re off to Jessica’s house, mate,’ he said. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to do a quick kerbside quiche while we’re stopped?’
‘No,’ Jeffrey assured him. It wasn’t his stomach that was sick, it was his heart. His stomach was like cast iron.
Number 12 was in complete darkness as they bumped into the drive. The driver hunched over his steering wheel. ‘It don’t look as though this Jessica’s in,’ he observed.
‘She’s in Florida,’ Jeffrey said helpfully.
‘Hang on, I thought you said…’
‘Someone else is in,’ Jeffrey assured him. ‘I know she is.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. Absolutely positive,’ Jeffrey said expansively as he handed some notes to the driver. ‘Thank you, thank you.’
The cabbie counted out his fare and gave Jeffrey his change. ‘I’ve taken a two-quid tip, mate,’ he said.
‘Take more,’ Jeffrey urged him. ‘You deserve it.’
‘I deserve a bloody medal.’ The driver looked at him anxiously. ‘Wouldn’t you like me to wait for you?’ he asked. ‘You’re not all that steady on your pins, old son.’
‘I’m fine. Really.’ Jeffrey tried to pat him jovially on the back and missed. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Well, I hope whoever’s in has got plenty of strong black coffee,’ he said. ‘Go easy.’ And the taxi drove out of the drive, its headlights swinging away, leaving Jeffrey alone in the pitch black of the night.
He unsteadily perused the darkened house. There were probably more signs of life on Mars. He tiptoed up to the door. It wouldn’t do to ring the bell—it might startle her. Crouching down, he pushed open the letterbox. ‘Natalie,’ he whispered, trying not to wake the neighbours. ‘It’s me, Jeffrey. I’ve come to apologise.’
He waited. For an answer. For a light to be switched on. Nothing.
‘Natalie!’ he said more loudly. ‘It’s me, Jeffrey. Let me in.’ He paused with his ear to the letterbox. ‘I need to talk to you,’ he added when there was still no response.
‘Please!’ He stood up and waited, beginning to feel the cold air pinching through his shirt and wondered vaguely what had happened to his jacket.
He rapped viciously at the letterbox and rang the bell for good measure. It echoed eerily through the hall. Cupping his hands round his mouth he shouted: ‘NATALIE!’
A light went on in the house next door but Jessica’s house remained steadfastly in darkness. Where could Natalie be? Perhaps her bedroom was round the back of the house.
Jeffrey tiptoed along the side of the house, using the wall to feel his way in the darkness and stopping to shush a noisy hedgehog that was snuffling haphazardly ahead of him. It was all going quite well until he fell over the dustbin. He stubbed his toe, kicking it over—the metal lid clattered noisily to the ground, scattering its contents in his wake and making a ginger tom who’d been having a nice nap on the top shriek with terror. Jeffrey joined in, sprawling full length on top of a rotting chicken carcass and assorted debris. He dragged himself to his feet, hiccoughing, and began hopping down the path, nursing his toe and trying to escape the tangle of Chinese take-away cartons that had become attached to his trouser bottoms like sweet and sour limpets.
He emerged into a vast expanse of inky garden, dismayed to see that there was no hint of a light to welcome him. Jeffrey wiped his hands on his shirt, smearing chicken grease and mayonnaise down the front, before picking up a handful of gravel from the edge of the path, weighing it in his hand, drunkenly surveying the range of windows, looking for one that might suitably belong to a resident au pair. End one, frosted, bathroom. Middle one, small—study? Hadn’t he and
Kate been to a party here years ago? Another fiasco like the barn dance involving a poorly plotted murder mystery, if he remembered rightly. Jessica had been dressed to kill and her food was much the same. Did he go upstairs to the loo? He probably hadn’t dared, lest he discovered he was the corpse. Other end, double window—spare bedroom? He’d give that one a go.
Jeffrey took aim. The window was showered in a flurry of small stones. ‘Natalie,’ he coo-eed. ‘It’s Jeff-ers!’
His heart sank when, after a few moments, her beautiful face still hadn’t appeared at his chosen window. They never had this trouble in films, did they? One little pebble aimed at a window and the heroine never failed to appear with a cherubic beam and overflowing negligée.
Scooping up a bigger handful, he aimed less carefully, in an overhand throwing style not much practised since his premature departure from the cricket club, shortly after the premature birth of his son. The stones ricocheted against the window and, narrowly missing Jeffrey’s head, fell in a noisy hail onto the patio at his feet.
‘Natalie,’ he implored in the loudest stage whisper possible. ‘Wake up!’ The dead in several nearby cemeteries were waking, but still Natalie did not appear.
Wrong window, Jeffrey concluded. He moved along the house and repeated the process. Small gravel, large gravel and even a bigger handful of gravel, but to no avail. Did this woman sleep for Australia?
He searched round the garden until he’d found a nice large rock. It was jagged and mossy, and supported a crop of purple sedum ‘Autumn Joy’. It was the sort of rock that in a state of sobriety would scream at you DO NOT THROW AT WINDOWS!
Jeffrey heaved it to shoulder height, did a couple of warm-ups worthy of a Russian shot-putter and launched it full tilt at the window he first thought of.
The sound of shattering glass set up a posse of barking dogs, and the few remaining dead that had slept through the rest of the entertainment no doubt sat up and said, ‘What was that dreadful noise?’
Jeffrey was perplexed. Where was she? He stood gaping, until he realised that the shrill noise wasn’t coming from a ringing in his ears, but from the burglar alarm which, unlike Natalie, had awoken from its beauty sleep and was performing its specified task in life perfectly. Lights were starting to go on all over Palfrey Avenue—all except in number 12. It was time for a sharp exit. Where could she be at this hour of the night?
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