Читать книгу Weddings Collection - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 12

‘ARE you and Mike…?’ Jacob left a gap for her to fill in.

‘We’re friends. Just good friends,’ Willow said quickly, testing how it sounded when she tried it on someone neutral. She didn’t like it one bit. ‘Do you live with your aunt, Jacob?’ she said, changing the subject. She was good at small talk, putting people at their ease, discovering their lives. It was what she did, after all, and he responded eagerly, not noticing that she was just going through the motions, had no real interest in his answer.

‘Jake, please. And she’s not really my aunt. Everyone calls her Aunt Lucy because that’s what she is, a sort of universal aunt to the village. She fostered me when no one else would have me.’ He grinned. ‘I was a bad lad.’

‘Yes,’ she said, and laughed. ‘I’ll bet you were.’ Still was, given half the chance, she was sure.

‘I owe her a lot, which is why I come down and stay whenever she needs me. It gives me a chance to make sure she’s still coping. That her accounts are neat and tidy. It’s little enough to repay all she did for me.’

‘She sounds quite a character.’

‘She’s a great old lady. Knows every snatch of gossip, knows who needs a hand, a chat, or just a cuddle. The village wouldn’t be the same without her. Lord knows what’ll happen when she packs it in.’ Willow perked up. Human interest. Village community under threat. It would make an interesting feature for Country Chronicle… No, no, forget that. The Globe. She had to start thinking in terms of what the Globe wanted. They’d have a different angle, but still… ‘You’ll meet her when you come into the shop again. You will come into the shop again?’ he added, hopefully.

‘I’ll make a point of it. I’d really like to meet Aunt Lucy.’ She had to get the kitchen painted tomorrow and go over the bits she’d missed in the day room. ‘When I’m not up to my elbows in emulsion, I’m a journalist. I’d really like to talk to her about her life, what the village shop means to the community. Would she let me do that, do you think?’

‘Aunt Lucy was born to talk. Drop by one afternoon, she’d love to see you. Tomorrow? Tuesday?’ Seeing her hesitation, he unzipped a pocket, took out a notebook and wrote down a number and handed it to her. That’s my mobile. ‘Call me.’

‘I’ll do that,’ she said, tucking the paper into her bag.

He grinned broadly. ‘I look forward to it.’

Willow looked up as Mike put a glass down rather sharply in front of Jake Hallam, looking as if he’d much rather tip its contents over the man’s head.

Jealous? He was jealous? Did ‘just good friends’ get jealous?

She glanced at Jake. He was certainly good-looking, but surely Mike knew her too well to believe she’d leap at the first man to make a pass at her simply because their relationship was over?

But when had jealousy ever been rational?

If she’d walked into the bar and found Mike chatting up some pretty airhead blonde, she’d have wanted to scratch the girl’s eyes out. And she knew that Mike wasn’t interested in airheads, whatever their colouring. At least not during the five months, two weeks, four days that he’d been the centre of her life.

Jake, apparently oblivious to the dangerous under-currents in the atmosphere, lifted the glass and said, ‘Cheers.’ Then, after swallowing a mouthful, he said, ‘So, Mike, you’re part of this painting team are you?’

‘Willow’s painting. I’m making shelves.’

‘I see.’ Then, glancing at Willow, he said, ‘Maybe I’ll come along one evening and pitch in.’ It was more question than statement, she thought, testing her enthusiasm for the idea.

‘Do you know anything about carpentry?’ Mike asked, before she could answer, choosing to take the offer rather more literally than it had been meant.

‘Actually I was more interested in painting.’ Mike could see exactly what Jacob Hallam was interested in and gripped his glass so hard it was a wonder it didn’t disintegrate. ‘I couldn’t knock a nail in straight to save my life.’

‘Why? It’s not difficult.’

‘We’d really appreciate any help,’ Willow intervened quickly, glaring at Mike, even as her heart was doing a joyful little quickstep. Maybe she was shallower than she thought. She wanted him to be jealous. Green with it. ‘It’ll leave me free to get on with the kitchen. The sooner that’s done, the sooner you can leave,’ she told Mike mischievously and she was rewarded with a demonstration of what exactly was meant by the expression ‘if looks could kill’. If looks could kill, Jake would be lying on the ground in urgent need of mouth to mouth resuscitation.

‘I’m in no hurry.’ Mike was definitely cabbage-green. It was a side of him she’d never seen before. But then, he’d never been challenged for her attention before. Under the circumstances she knew she should be feeling outraged but, instead, she was experiencing a completely illogical hopefulness. Which was ridiculous. ‘I won’t be going anywhere this week.’ He glanced at her, defying her to contradict him. She hadn’t the slightest intention of doing so.

‘Oh, well, I’ll be sure to see you again,’ Jake said as he got up. ‘Thanks for the drink, Mike. See you, Willow.’ He fastened his helmet, then climbed aboard the big, dangerous-looking motorbike, kicked it into life and roared away across the village, to be lost from sight as he turned behind the church.

Mike watched the motorbike leave with a sense of foreboding. Darkly handsome, graceful, dramatic in black leather, Jacob Hallam was the kind of man who only had to flash his eyes at a girl to have her at his feet. And he’d been so casual with Willow, as if he’d known that all he had to do was smile, snap his fingers and she’d be his for the asking.

‘Oh, good, here’s our food,’ Willow said gratefully, when the silence stretched beyond anything that could be described as comfortable, Mike’s expression of the kind that would turn milk sour. She smiled at the waitress, assured her everything was fine, since he didn’t respond to the girl’s query, and picked up her fork. ‘Cajun chicken!’ she said brightly. ‘Good choice. I love—’

‘I was wrong, you know.’

‘What?’ She stopped using her food as a conversational lifeline and looked up. He hadn’t even picked up a fork. ‘What do you mean, wrong?’

‘Yesterday.’ Willow held her breath. Wrong to walk out of church? Wrong to walk out on her? ‘It wasn’t five months, two weeks and four days. It was five. Five days. It’s a leap year. I’d forgotten.’

She was unnerved by the depth of her disappointment. Four days, or five days, it didn’t matter a hoot. All that mattered was that she loved him and she’d let him go.

‘You’d forgotten?’ She made herself laugh to cover the tremor in her voice. ‘I can’t believe you’d ever forget that leap-day feature I did where I talked half a dozen girls into proposing to their boyfriends on the pavement in front of the office,’ she said.

‘This may come as a terrible shock to you, Willow, but I don’t actually read the Chronicle from cover to cover.’

He always changed the subject when she talked about the newspaper outside of the office and she’d tried to keep her enthusiasm for her job within acceptable bounds, assuming that local news must bore him. But he didn’t even read her features? That was a serious dent in her perception of the way he felt about her. She’d have read a balance sheet to please him.

‘Even if you didn’t read the feature you must have noticed the increase in advertising revenue,’ she pressed. ‘We had wedding venues and bridal shops falling over themselves to book space, even offering discounts for wedding services for the six brave ladies involved.’

Maybe her face gave her away, because he found a smile from somewhere.

‘I’m sorry, Willow. If I’d made an effort to read more of your fine prose I might have realised how good you are at your job. So,’ he said, distracting her from her unhappy thoughts, ‘how many of these unfortunate men bowed to the inevitable and accepted the fate you so cavalierly inflicted on them in the pursuit of increased circulation and advertising revenue?’

‘All of them.’ She glared at him. ‘What man is prepared to look like a complete jerk in public?’ And he could take that whatever way he chose. Then, because maybe she’d pressured him into making a committment he couldn’t live with, she made an effort to justify herself. ‘The couples were chosen with a certain amount of forethought, Mike. It was supposed to be light-hearted, a bit of fun.’ He didn’t seem to find it particularly amusing. ‘One of them had been living with his girlfriend for fifteen years,’ she said, a little desperately. ‘They had three children, for heaven’s sake. No one could say he’d been rushed to the altar.’

That got his attention. ‘Why would they do that?’ he asked. ‘Live like that? Doesn’t the woman know how few financial rights she’d have? No right to a widow’s pension—’

‘Once an accountant, always an accountant,’ she said. ‘An accountant who asked me to move in with him, as I recall.’

‘That’s not true, you know. At least not in my case.’

‘What isn’t true?’

‘When I asked you to move in with me…’ there was a long pause ‘…I never intended the arrangement to be permanent.’

Well, terrific! ‘More, till boredom do us part?’

‘No!’ Then he said, ‘I wasn’t thinking that far ahead.’

‘Maybe my couple weren’t thinking ahead either,’ she suggested. ‘Maybe it just got to be a habit. I really don’t know. But maybe they’re right. Maybe the big wedding is all just for public show. Maybe the piece of paper isn’t such a big deal.’

‘It is, Willow,’ he said. ‘You know it is.’

‘Do I?’ She looked up. ‘I know that if I’d moved in with you we’d probably be living happily together and I could have taken the job at the Globe without it being some huge deal.’

He frowned at that. ‘Because you wouldn’t have felt the need to discuss it with me?’

‘No, because I would have just been your girlfriend. Not the consort to the high panjandrum of Armstrong Publications Ltd, on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week with a house full of gold taps needing to be polished, with endless charity dinners to attend, good works a speciality. Because it really wouldn’t have been that big a deal.’

She didn’t want that? It was the life she’d been brought up to expect…

‘Are you sure? You’d have been away five nights a week. Perhaps not always managing to get back at the weekend. What kind of relationship would that be?’

‘The kind where you’d have said, “Take the job if it makes you happy. It’ll make the time we have together truly special.”’

He lifted his shoulders, pushed his head back as if easing a great weight of tension from his neck. ‘You’re right of course. I knew it. You should have your big break and I was too caught up in my own selfish needs to see it until it was almost too late. My loss.’

‘Is that why you walked away from our wedding?’

He straightened, looked her in the eye. ‘It would be a comfort to think that my motives were wholly altruistic. But I’m not the man you think I am, Willow. I’m not the man my father wants me to be. I tried. I really tried. I thought having you would be enough to make up for sitting behind a desk all day, manipulating figures, when I had other dreams.’ He stopped. ‘Then I saw that you had dreams to chase, too. Really, one of us should have had our whole heart in the business, don’t you think?’

‘I think marriage is tricky enough if both parties are wholeheartedly committed,’ she agreed miserably. Just because they were right, she didn’t have to be happy about it.

‘Did you follow up those leap-year proposals? Do you know how many couples have finally made it to the altar?’

It took a little time to swallow away the aching lump that had formed in her throat. For a moment she felt she’d come very near to what was driving him but, before she could ask him what his dreams were, the shutters had slammed down again. End of conversation. Change of subject. He didn’t want to talk to her about his problems, his concerns. He never had.

‘Two down, four to go. One of which, I have to admit, is looking very dodgy.’

‘Not the couple with the three children I hope.’

‘No, they tied the knot the same week. Got a licence and did it without any fuss. They just needed someone to give them a push. Sort out the details, handle the paperwork.’ Someone to find out what they had to do. She was good at that. Information was her trade. If you couldn’t get answers from one source, you found another. If Michael wouldn’t tell her his dreams, she’d find out some other way. There always was some other way.

It might, in the end, hurt even more, but the feeling of having made a decision, having regained control, suddenly made her feel a great deal better.

Then she realised that Mike was still watching her. ‘Eat up, Mike,’ she said. ‘Your chicken will be cold.’

‘Comforted?’ Mike asked when she finally put her fork down.

‘Much better,’ she assured him. ‘But I think I’m going to need something seriously wicked in the pudding department to complete the cure. What shall it be? Death by Chocolate?’

‘Sounds about right.’

She got to her feet. ‘My treat. Coffee? Anything to drink?’

‘Just coffee. We don’t want to get lost on the way back to the cottages.’

‘Oh, I think we got lost a while ago, Mike. We were just too busy choosing wallpaper to notice.’ She sat down again. ‘What are we going to do about the house?’ It wasn’t something you could just parcel up and send back with thanks and a short note of explanation. ‘It’s in our joint names, isn’t it?’

‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll just need you to sign the deed of transfer some time, so that we can give it back to my father.’

‘He’ll be so upset. He really loved that house.’

‘Yes.’ Then he said, ‘It was a bit big, don’t you think?’

‘I guess he hoped we’d grow into it.’

That provoked a somewhat bleak smile. ‘We could have had a good time trying.’

She reached across, covered his hand with hers. Then she couldn’t think of anything to say that could possibly help so she got up again and went into the pub.

Walking home was a slower process than the rather breathless pace she’d set when they’d started out. It was deep twilight and Willow had no intention of racing on ahead, even if Mike had let her. But as she wove her way through the kissing gate, he caught her hand.

‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Wait for me.’ And she waited.

She wasn’t walking along that path, in front or behind him, on her own. There were too many unidentified noises, squeaks and scrapes and scurryings in the hedgerow. Maybe that was why she left her hand in his. Why she gripped it so hard, when away across the field where the ground rose to a small copse she heard a long, agonised cry that goosed her skin.

‘What on earth was that?’

‘A rabbit. The weasel eats tonight.’

Her hand flew to her mouth. ‘Oh, that’s…’

‘The food chain in action,’ he said gently as she turned to him, buried her face in his T-shirt. Rabbits, beetles, one excuse was as good as another.

Mike held her. It would be so easy to keep holding her, kiss her, forget the nightmare of the last few days. He sensed instinctively that, whether she acknowledged it or not, she wanted that too. They were close to the cottages. One kiss would be all that it took and then they’d be running for it, ripping off their clothes as they tumbled through the door. But then what?

Beneath his hand, her pulse was racing, but no more than his own. Just to hold her, breathe in the scent of her hair, tightened the hot coil of desire, the need to have her in his arms, to possess her. She was clinging to him as if to a lifeline and some reckless part of him was urging him to go for it, self-destruct.

She’d never forgive him. He’d never forgive himself. He fought the temptation. This time he promised himself, he’d get it right. This time it would be different.

This time? Who did he think he was kidding? There wasn’t going to be any ‘this time’.

Except that somehow he had to make it happen.

The how of it was beyond him right now. So he just held her, waiting for her heart rate to return to normal, waiting for her to regain her composure.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, pulling back a little self-consciously when it became obvious that he wasn’t going to take the opportunity she’d given him any further. ‘In my world rabbits are cute, cuddly things on birthday cards, not some sharp-toothed creature’s dinner…’ She wiped a single tear from beneath her eye that had nothing to do with the rabbit. ‘Lord, how pathetic am I?’

‘Not pathetic. Empathetic.’ And he rewarded himself with a comforting kiss to her forehead before he put his arm around her shoulders and walked her home. He unlocked the door, turned on the light. ‘You go ahead,’ he said, as she turned to see why he hadn’t followed her. ‘I’ll just look around, make sure all the outbuildings are secure.’

She lingered in the doorway, back-lit by the kitchen light, her face in darkness. ‘Mike…’ Her voice was as full of uncertainty and need as his own heart. They had been lovers until yesterday. What had changed, after all? Take it back a couple of months to the moment before he’d proposed… And suddenly he saw the point she’d tried to make about the job not mattering. There was only one problem with that: he didn’t want to go back to a point where it didn’t matter.

His proposal might have been provoked by her unwillingness to move in with him, but the feelings he’d had that night were as strong as ever. He wanted to wake with her beside him every morning for the rest of his life. Nothing else would do.

‘I’ll see you in the morning, Willow.’

He knew she’d wanted him. Willow covered her cheeks with her hands. She’d thrown herself at him like a dehydrated duck diving into a muddy puddle. And he’d rejected her.

All that made her embarrassment bearable was her certainty that he hadn’t found it easy to walk away. Why else would he have decided to stay outside, checking up on the outbuildings, putting himself beyond temptation?

This wasn’t about a lack of desire, a lack of need for each other. That was as strong as it ever had been. It was about more fundamental problems that they hadn’t ever addressed.

She turned on her phone in case he’d sent a message. Nothing. She keyed in ‘Help!’

Then erased it.

Maybridge. That was where she’d find the answers to the questions that had kept her awake all night long. Willow stood back to get a better view of the wall she’d spent the morning retouching, but it wasn’t the paint job that occupied her. It was Maybridge.

‘You’ve done a good job.’ She turned as Mike joined her. ‘Coffee?’

‘Mmm, thanks.’ She took the mug and quickly looked back at the wall. His bare, sweat-slicked torso was far too exciting for ten o’clock on a Monday morning. Far too exciting for a relationship that had run its course and was going nowhere. ‘It’s a bit bare, don’t you think?’ Then she blushed, but Mike didn’t appear to notice her confusion as he stood back and contemplated her work.

‘It could do with something to break up all that blue,’ he said after a moment. ‘A few clouds, maybe.’ There was something about the way he said it that made her look back at him.

‘Into every life a little rain must fall?’

‘It seems to work that way, although I think the kids who come here will have probably experienced a deluge rather than a shower. Maybe they’d prefer a big smiley sun.’

‘If we had both,’ she pointed out, ‘we could have a rainbow.’

‘For hope?’

‘We all need cartloads of that.’ But what, exactly, was she hoping for? ‘A bright green hill with some daisies would be good, too,’ she said quickly, before the eager little brain cells, positively panting with hope, urged her to fling herself at him, tell him that she’d made a mistake, and didn’t care about her career, only about him. Unfortunately, she wasn’t the only one who’d decided at the last moment that plighting their troth wasn’t such a great idea.

‘Just to be sure we keep our feet on the ground?’ he enquired, with the slightest hint of irony.

‘I think we’re probably the most grounded people in a hundred-mile radius.’ Why else would she be having such a civilised conversation with a man who’d jilted her? Who she’d jilted? ‘Maybe we should have a little hot-air balloon.’ She sipped her coffee. ‘Drifting over the hill.’

‘Why don’t you get Jacob onto it? I’m sure he’d be happy to oblige with all the hot air you can take.’

She restricted her response to a smile. Jealousy was good. Jealousy meant he cared. She couldn’t believe how much she wanted him to care…

‘I’d better check with Emily before I get carried away with the representational art. Meanwhile, I have to make a start on the kitchen if you’re ever going to get out of here,’ she said, unable to resist pushing the little green buttons a little harder.

‘No, first you have to drink your coffee. Bring it outside and get the smell of paint out of your lungs,’ he said, steering her towards the door. ‘You can tell me what you think of the shelves. Gently,’ he warned, as she reached out to run a finger along the smooth finish. ‘They’re just fitted together, not glued and screwed.’

‘I had no idea,’ Willow said, taking in the scope of the project. ‘I thought you were making some little shelf unit to hang on the wall. This will fill the whole of that end wall, won’t it?’ She glanced up at him. Then she said, ‘I love the way you’ve smoothed out the sharp edges.’

‘Kids horse around.’

‘It’s all so clean, so professional. I didn’t know you could do this stuff.’

‘I didn’t know you’d applied for a job on the Globe.’

She spun round. ‘But I did that before I met you.’

‘Ditto,’ he said. Then, when she was quite lost for words, he stepped back, tossed the dregs of his coffee into the grass and put down the mug. ‘I’ll need some more timber if I’m going to make a start on the storage seating.’

‘Yes.’ Her mouth felt like glue. ‘And I need to make some phone calls. The girl at the Globe told me to call Toby Townsend today.’

‘From St Lucia?’ he asked, a dangerous edge to his voice.

‘No, of course not—’

‘Don’t be defensive, Willow. A career girl has to make these sacrifices, even on her honeymoon.’ His voice dripped with sarcasm. ‘Or maybe even last week you were beginning to have doubts about where your best interests might lie?’ Then he shrugged awkwardly. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t blame you, really. I didn’t exactly respond like a “new man” to your big chance, did I?’

‘Not exactly. And correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t believe your flight from commitment was the result of a sudden blinding flash of insight at the chancel steps. Was it?’

‘Not entirely.’

When he didn’t elaborate, she carried on. ‘The only reason Toby is expecting a call from me this morning is because he was out when I rang last week. His assistant said I should call today and it seemed easier to say yes than go into details…’ That did sound defensive. And details would have been a heck of a lot easier than this. ‘So I wrote a letter,’ she added lamely. She had no reason to feel bad. But she did. She felt terrible.

‘And now you have to phone and explain that it was all a mistake. That you didn’t mean it. I guess it’s been that kind of week.’

‘Actually the letter never got sent.’ Oh, hell! ‘It was on the hall table with a stamp, just waiting for someone to go to the box.’ Then she lifted her shoulders and dropped them again. ‘I picked it up from the hall table as I rushed out of my parent’s house on Saturday.’

‘That was quick thinking under pressure. I’m impressed.’

‘Well, I can hardly come back and work at the Chronicle, can I?’

‘You can do what you like, Willow, I won’t be there.’

‘Won’t you? Why not?’

‘But maybe it would be a good idea to call and let someone know your plans. They’ll need to find someone to replace you.’

‘And you?’

‘Yes,’ he said, after a moment. ‘And me.’

‘Replacing your son and heir is rather different from replacing a reporter, Mike.’

‘You can’t resign as a son, Willow. I’ve tried. At least, I’ve tried to resign the heir bit. I think this time I might have managed to convince the old man. I’m just sorry you got caught in the crossfire.’ Mike picked up a wide pine plank, the muscles in his back standing out as he turned away from her. ‘Well, what are you waiting for?’ he asked when she didn’t move. ‘Hadn’t you better get on with it?’

‘Yes.’ She had so many questions, and now just the glimmer of an answer, but he couldn’t have made his position clearer. He didn’t want to talk about it. ‘I’ll call Toby right now.’

And then what? If she was going into London—if?—she’d need clothes. She glanced down at herself. Proper clothes. The kind of clothes that suited her new image as a journalist on a national newspaper. Sharp and sexy. But she couldn’t face the prospect of going back to her flat, creeping in, avoiding the neighbours. Avoiding her mother, who probably had the place staked out.

Maybe Crysse would have calmed down sufficiently to consider bringing her some stuff. Or maybe even to meet her and help her choose something new. Her casual, comfortable regional-newspaper image would probably make her look like a country cousin in the Globe’s London office.

Besides, she really needed to talk to Crysse, try to explain about changing her mind. But when she dialled the number, despite the fact it was the school holiday, there was no answer, not even from the answering machine which would at least have provided the comfort of her cousin’s voice.

Talking to Toby Townsend, delighted as he was to get her call, eager as he was to see her, didn’t do a thing to lift her spirits. She consoled herself with the vigorous application of white paint to the kitchen wall.

‘You’re beginning to get the hang of that,’ Mike said when he came in to wash his hands at the sink. Perched high on a stepladder, reminding herself that this was her choice, trying to convince herself that she’d done the right thing, she merely grunted. ‘It’s a pity you didn’t start at the other end, though. I could have installed the shelves this evening.’

‘Oh, heck. I wasn’t thinking.’ Or maybe she was. She wasn’t anywhere near as eager for him to leave as her mouth kept saying she was. ‘I’ll do that wall next, then, shall I?’

Mike shook his head. ‘No, don’t get out of your rhythm. I can carry on with the boxes for now.’ He wiped his hands on one of the red towels that had found its way down from the bathroom. ‘It’s your turn to make lunch, by the way.’

‘Is it? Who posted a rota?’ she asked, then realised that he might have a point. So far he and Emily had provided all the food. ‘I’ll open a couple of cans. Soup, or beans on toast?’

Mike leaned back against the sink, arms folded, looking up at her. ‘You’re not at your best in the kitchen are you, Willow?’

‘That depends what I’m doing in it.’

He ignored her attempt to make him laugh. ‘Admit it, you hate cooking.’

‘You’re wrong. I don’t hate it, I’ve just never seemed to be able to quite get the hang of it. All that rubbing in and whipping up…’ A spatter of paint hit her cheek and Willow gratefully seized this opportunity to deal with a totally unnecessary blush by wiping the drips from her face with the sleeve of her T-shirt. ‘All that washing up.’ Then she said, ‘Oh, I get it! It was the appalling prospect of having to cook your own Sunday lunch that sent you running from the church. Admit it!’ She could change the subject with the best of them. Mike, rather than owning up, disappeared behind a cupboard door. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Getting lunch before I starve to death. You’ve talked me into it.’

‘Works every time,’ she said flippantly. Her thoughts did not match the lightness of her voice, however. What on earth was so desperate that he couldn’t face talking about it? Hadn’t he learned anything about not talking? Hadn’t she? ‘I’ll have the soup,’ she added, propping her brush on the paint tin, stripping off the rubber gloves and climbing down from the stepladder. ‘With toast. Five minutes?’

‘Five minutes.’

She picked up her bag. ‘Just time to wash and brush up.’

Upstairs, with the bathroom door shut, she extracted her mobile phone and switched it on.

‘Directory enquiries, how can I help you?’

‘I’m looking for a Maybridge number. Michael Armstrong.’

‘Do you have an address?’

‘No, I was hoping you might be able to give me one.’

‘I’m sorry, we can’t do that.’

‘Oh, well, the number will have to do.’

A recording clicked in and she made a note of the number. It didn’t mean anything of course. He would have had a Maybridge number before he returned to Melchester. Nevertheless she dialled it and got a recording.

‘You’ve reached Michael Armstrong Designs. The workshop is closed at present, but if you leave your name and number I’ll get back to you,’ Michael’s voice assured her. She disconnected as if stung.