Too Close For Comfort (19 page)

‘So have you been hanging round here every night having snakebites?’ he whispered, lips close enough to my ear to touch my skin.

‘No . . .’ I faltered for a second. Jim had texted me again the night before, suggesting exactly that (well, not snakebites). He’d asked yet again if we could meet, told me how
worried he was about Lysette’s distressed state. I’d put him off – claimed babysitting duties – but I hadn’t shot the idea down in flames like I should’ve done.
‘I came here with Lysette a couple of summers ago. We sat in the garden and had white wine spritzers.’

It was the kind of weird, overdetailed response you’d give if you had something to hide, and I didn’t have anything to hide, not really. Patrick nodded politely, and we stood there
in silence for a couple of minutes waiting for the landlady to come back.

‘Here you go,’ she said. She paused. ‘You journalists then? We’ve got a houseful of them. You’re lucky to get a room. We don’t rent this one unless we have
to.’

Great: it looked like we’d be trying to conceive a child in a pigsty. Perhaps I’d give birth to the Second Coming.

‘Nope,’ said Patrick. ‘I’m a lawyer, and my beautiful fiancée here is a shrink.’

I always avoid answering that question before it’s absolutely necessary. Either people start eyeing you with suspicion – like you’re a psychic, not a therapist, and must
already know they stole a Twix from the corner shop when they were twelve – or they start telling you their dreams in excruciating detail. Her expression shifted.

‘You’re the one helping the police? Ian was talking about you.’

‘Was he?’ I said, trying and failing not to care what it was that he’d said.

‘He certainly was,’ she said, clocking my insecurity. ‘Let me show you to your room.’

We followed her up a rickety staircase round the back of the pub, Patrick bent almost double. It opened up onto an unexpectedly big landing, dried flowers splayed out in a vase on a central
table, four rooms arranged in a square.

‘Lovely place you’ve got here,’ said Patrick.

‘You’re the next floor up,’ she replied in a tone of grim satisfaction. The next staircase was even narrower than the first, a doorway right at the top.

‘Don’t worry,’ I said, ‘we can take it from here.’

‘Checkout’s at ten,’ she said, already clattering back down the stairs on her high black wedges.

Patrick turned his head to look at me, brown eyes twinkling with the sheer ridiculousness, then turned the key in the stiff lock. It was so obviously the servant’s quarters in days of
yore, the tiny space cut even smaller by the fact that it was in the eaves. The bed was the smallest double I’d ever seen.

Patrick flung himself down on it, limbs erupting out of the sides. ‘Well, the good news is it’s bouncy.’

I sat down gingerly on the very end. There was only one small skylight, adding to the cell-like quality of the room. I reached over him and turned on the chintzy bedside lamp.

‘Maybe we should just drive into Cambridge,’ I said, awkwardly rubbing his knee. All our angles were wrong. ‘We’ve got the car.’ For a lawyer, Patrick’s game
face is pretty poor. His hurt was immediately visible to me. ‘It’s tiny,’ I added, trying to sound like I was explaining, not whining. ‘I wanted to spend proper time with
you.’

‘Yeah well, I’d be happy in a bus shelter as long as I was with you.’

I lay down next to him on the tiny ribbon of available space, rubbed his chest through his shirt.

‘I know, me too. But . . . did they not tell you they only had a coffin when you rang to book?’ Just using the word jolted me out of my ‘Princess and the Pea’ style funk.
Sarah had lost everything – even Max.

‘I didn’t think it through. I just . . .’

‘I know,’ I said, crawling upwards to kiss him. ‘It’s fine. The food’s meant to be lovely. Not that that’s the point . . .’

Patrick kissed me back for a minute or so, then swung his long legs round to a sitting position. ‘You say that, but I think it might be. I’m starving.’

*

The landlady – who Patrick had now established was called Rita – showed us to a table near the empty fireplace and gave us a couple of menus. It was 7.30 by now, and
the pub was even busier than when we’d arrived. The tables were shoved close together, and I carefully surveyed the terrain whilst Patrick went to the bar to get a round. He strode back
towards me, deposited two gin and tonics on the table.

‘Cheers,’ he said, clinking my glass. ‘Now tell me what’s going on with you and Lys?’

I flapped a discreet hand in a downwards motion. ‘Walls have ears,’ I muttered, and he looked at me as if I was completely delusional. ‘Seriously,’ I hissed,
‘everyone knows everyone here, and even Madam over there admitted this place was crawling with journalists.’

‘So use sign language,’ he said, grinning.

What I wanted was to be stretched out on an enormous bed, in a room of our own, with a room-service glass of something delicious and all the time in the world to unravel what this last week had
been like. I took a breath, tried my best to tell him. I described the afternoon as best I could, trying not to mind the fact that his eyes kept being drawn downwards to look at the menu.

‘But, darling, she
is
grieving,’ he said, when I paused for breath. ‘She’s not gonna be all there . . .’

‘I know, but . . .’

Just at that moment Rita arrived, pen held aloft over her order pad.

‘Hello!’ said Patrick, ‘I know exactly what I’ll be having . . .’ whilst I desperately scanned the menu, thinking how much I didn’t want mutton, even in a
pie.

‘Um, I’ll have the cod,’ I said eventually, as Rita glared at me, ‘and some veg. Whatever you’ve got.’

‘It says, just there,’ she said, pointing a scarlet-tipped finger at the sides section. ‘Mixed salad, beans or broccoli.’

‘Broccoli!’ I said, unnecessarily zealous, handing back the menu. I turned back to Patrick as soon as she’d left. ‘Today wasn’t about her,’ I said, dropping
my voice. ‘It was about . . .’ I dropped my voice even lower. ‘Max.’

‘Darling, this isn’t the cold war,’ said Patrick. ‘Let’s go outside. I’ll smoke a fag, give us an excuse.’

Patrick does like the odd sneaky cigarette – I try my best not to mind. Once we were in the beer garden he lit one up from an incriminatingly empty packet.

‘Can I borrow your jacket?’ I asked.

It was fairly deserted out there, only a couple of the wooden tables still occupied, a nip in the air. The garden sloped downwards towards a wide stream, trees overhanging. A couple of ducks
quacked companionably as they swam past.

‘We’re not in Holloway any more, Toto,’ said Patrick, smiling down at me as he took a drag, the tension in his body visibly ebbing away. I could see what he could see, but
somehow I couldn’t see it for myself any more.

‘We’re not,’ I said, squeezing his hand.

‘Look, I know you don’t feel like it, but you being here will be doing Lysette the world of good. And you’re helping all those other people too . . .’

‘That’s what I was
trying
to do today. Help Max. If she loves Sarah so much she should want that! He wants to talk to someone.’

‘Are you sure that’s not you’ – Patrick waved his cigarette in the dusk, fake pompous – ‘what do you call it, projecting?’ He saw my face, snaked a long
arm around my waist. ‘I know how hard it was for you with your dad when you were little. It’s gorgeous the way you try and help all those kids. But . . . he’s a six-year-old
who’s lost his mum. Perhaps he and his dad just need to grieve.’ Frustration boiled up inside me.

‘It’s not just Max!’ I hissed. ‘Even the police are saying Lysette’s behaviour is bizarre. So does . . .’ I stopped myself: I didn’t want to say Jim.
‘And the other mums are nearly as weird. That dinner I went to . . .’ Again I ground to a halt. Why didn’t I just tell him about Kimberley? The truth was, I still couldn’t
bear to tell him about
me
– my sneaking around, how gauche I’d been when she’d advanced on me. It made me irrationally ashamed.

‘The police?’ said Patrick, an edge to him. ‘What, Lawrence Krall?’

‘Yes, amongst others.’

Patrick’s eyes burnt down at me. ‘Don’t go hitching your star to his wagon.’

‘What?’

‘Come on,’ he said, flicking the cigarette onto the flagstones and grinding it out with his heel, ‘our dinner’ll get cold.’

*

The pub was even more hectic by the time we got back inside; a hubbub of voices, bodies closely packed together at the bar. As I’d suspected, our meals were yet to arrive.
I offered to go up and get us a couple of glasses of red in readiness, although what I really wanted was a moment to breathe. We had so little time together: why weren’t we making it count?
We kept abandoning our sentences midway, the real meaning floating off into the ether like a smoke ring, its shape transformed into something else entirely when it hit the air. I was determined
that we do better.

‘So what’s your beef with Lawrence Krall?’ I asked, depositing our brimming glasses down on the table. Now it was Patrick’s turn to signal me to turn the volume down.
‘I thought he had this amazing clear-up rate,’ I added, more quietly.

Patrick looked away, sheepish.

‘He’s a lady’s man, that’s all. Wife and kids safely tucked up at home whilst he’s off gallivanting round the country, playing the hero.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really,’ he said, sounding every bit as irritated as I had been when he was doubting me. His charm hadn’t felt exactly flirtatious to me – the nature of his
manipulation seemed like something different and more dangerous.

‘Patrick.’ I reached across the sticky table, took his hand. ‘You can’t possibly think you’ve got anything to worry about?’

‘No, obviously.’ He paused, his jaw rigid. My feelings were like a waterfall, tumbling from offended to guilty in a matter of seconds. Was he sensing that something was off, but
pointing his finger in the wrong direction? Not that there was a right direction: this was why I couldn’t afford any more contact with Jim, however worried I was about Lysette’s
secrets. ‘It’s just – when we met . . . you were with someone.’

‘But Marcus was all wrong for me.’ Now Patrick looked almost hurt on my ex’s behalf. He was evidence-gathering, hearing brutality where there was none. ‘I mean, he was a
lovely guy, but it was my Daddy complex.’ Marcus had been older than me, seductive but distant. It suited me at the time. ‘It was nothing like us. And I wasn’t engaged . . .’

I looked down at the tiny, sparkly diamond on my finger, using it as an anchor. I plopped my left hand on top of his, held his gaze. Rita was bearing down on us now, her tray laden with
plates.

‘Cod,’ she said, making it sound like a swear word, ‘and here’s the steak for you, sir.’

‘Looks delicious,’ said Patrick, beaming at her. I smiled too, poking an exploratory fork into the broccoli.

‘Enjoy,’ she said, as Patrick withdrew his left hand to grab for his cutlery.

‘I don’t want you to feel like that,’ I persisted. ‘If you want me to come straight home, I’ll come home.’

‘No, darling,’ said Patrick, a large rectangle of steak impaled on his fork, speeding towards his mouth. Patrick tended to eat with the pace and enthusiasm of a starving border
collie. ‘Forget I said anything, I’m being a dick. Besides, it sounds like you’re really making a difference here.’

‘I’m not sure about that,’ I said, looking away.

‘You say that, but . . .’ Patrick paused. ‘Mia, do you think, now you’ve been talking to people, that the teacher really did murder Sarah?’

I went to answer, then stopped myself.

‘That’s not what I’m here to do. I’m not Miss Marple. Don’t start getting all police-y on me.’

Patrick put a hand up, his brown eyes intense.

‘But do you? Because if you think someone else did it, if you have evidence for that . . .’

I looked at him, articulating something that I hadn’t even voiced inside up until that point.

‘I think that, even if he did, the reasons are way more messed up than anyone’s even started to realise.’

*

Afterwards, we lay next to each other in the darkness.

‘That was awful,’ said Patrick, and I started to giggle.

‘The worst ever.’

Patrick had stubbed his toe on the wooden bed frame halfway through, causing a disastrous break in proceedings.

‘I lost my virginity in a bunk bed,’ he said. ‘I should’ve had some specially tailored moves.’ I tilted my face upwards, kissed him.

‘You’ve never told me about that,’ I said. ‘Who was the lucky minx?’

A flash of Jim and me, all those years ago. The shock of his nakedness. The sharp pain that I’d gritted my teeth through.

‘Stacey Barrett. She was in my year at St Christopher’s. We were on a geography field trip.’

‘It’s sounding sexy already,’ I said, tracing my index finger down the angular contours of his chest. It’s always been good with Patrick. It never feels like a
performance with him, in the way it often did with the others – every inch of him is there with me. For me. ‘You’ll have time to work on those moves; we really ought to try and do
it again in the morning.’ I giggled again. ‘Also sexy.’ We were both quiet for a minute.

‘It will happen,’ said Patrick, his voice low. ‘And if it doesn’t – we can always get some help.’

‘It’s easy to say that, but even if we did do that, they don’t have a magic wand. I’ve got so many clients it doesn’t work for. All those hormones and injections . . .’

‘Maybe you need to slow down a bit, give your body a chance to relax. I’ve been doing some Googling about it. You’ve been working your arse off all year . . .’

I felt my body stiffen, withdraw from his. ‘Just don’t, OK? Do you think I haven’t done that, and every single thing I read contradicts the last thing. I love what I do –
being bored out of my mind like some Stepford Wife isn’t going to get me pregnant. You work all the time.’

Now it was his body that shifted and hardened. ‘The case I’m doing right now, it’s human trafficking. Trust me, if I didn’t spare you the details, you’d know why
I’m doing everything in my power to keep these people off the streets.’