Cass took her place in line and settled down to the slow shuffle towards the front, letting her mind idle over what wine to pick up from the offie at the bottom of the road, and whether she should just take along a big pan of homemade carrot and coriander soup to Nita’s instead of taking vegetables. All this and half a dozen other thoughts were percolating randomly through her head as Cass looked around, just passing the time. As she idly gazed across the faces of the people at the stalls, she caught sight of Fiona’s live-in boyfriend, Andy.
She’d seen him once or twice at concerts, although barely ever spoken to him despite Fiona’s sporadic insistence that they should all get together for a meal sometime. He was loping across the road towards the market, dressed in a battered leather jacket, and he was smiling. Instinctively Cass looked in the direction he was looking, scanning the little groups of people, trying to pick out who he might be smiling at, wondering if it might be Fiona—and then Cass saw that it wasn’t Fiona.
Picking out the recipient of the smile gave her an odd feeling, a little shiver that made Cass feel uneasy. Andy was smiling at a girl, a girl who smiled right back in a way that said she was more than pleased to see him. She waved and hurried towards him, all smiles.
‘Hi,’ the girl mouthed. ‘How are you?’
As Andy and the young girl embraced and then held each other at arms’ length, looking each other up and down, a million and one thoughts tumbled through Cass’s head. First of all, she tried to tell herself it could be anyone, that it was silly to jump to conclusions. She could be a friend, a work colleague, god it could even be his sister—but there was another, stronger voice that was busy telling her that Fiona was right. Andy was seeing someone else. Someone significant, someone he was keeping away from Fiona, someone who he cared enough about to come out to meet first thing in the morning—in the rain.
As Cass watched, the girl tipped her head up towards him and Andy kissed her on the cheek. Tenderly. And then he smiled. As he pulled away, Andy scanned the faces of the people around them, left and right. Everything about the way he moved suggested that he didn’t want to be seen, not here, not now, not with this girl. Cass and Andy’s gaze met for a split second and Cass felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle as they made a connection. A nanosecond later and it was over, as Andy guided the girl between the stalls, away from the early morning shoppers.
The girl was small and blonde and slim, and very, very beautiful. She was in her early twenties, wearing a ginger wool jacket and a mustard coloured scarf. The outfit looked bold and stylish and youthful and for an instant Cass’s heart ached, as if the breath was being pressed out of her chest.
Cass and Fiona were beautiful in the way that women over thirty are beautiful; they were women who had learned what suited them and how to wear clothes well, and what lipstick works with what and how to make the best of what nature gave you—but this girl, this girl had that other thing, the thing that only happens when you are young, the thing that means throwing on whatever you find on the floor from the night before, the thing that lets you scrape you hair up into a topknot with tendrils tumbling out and that still lets you end up looking gorgeous and stylish and desirable. Whatever it was, that youthful thing, the girl with whom Andy was currently walking across the market square, had it in spades.
Cass couldn’t take her eyes off them. The pair of them drew her like a magnet. Their body language was a peculiar mixture of familiarity and reticence—maybe they were afraid of being seen, maybe Andy was afraid of looking silly with someone so young, maybe the girl wasn’t sure of him or quite what to do. Whatever it was, it was obvious to even the most casual observer that they were together. Cass kept on staring. There was an instant when the girl tried to slip her arm through his. Andy artfully avoided it. Cass was mesmerised.
‘S’cuse me, can I help you?’ said a voice from somewhere behind her.
It took Cass a few seconds to realise the question was being directed at her, and even longer for her to get her thoughts back on track. ‘Oh I’m so sorry. I’d like some—some…’ Her mouth worked up and down. The word was somewhere there in the back of her head; it was just a case of finding it.
The woman smiled her encouragement.
‘I’d like some fish,’ said Cass, trying to buy herself some time.
The woman nodded. ‘Righty-oh. Well, you’ve come to the right place, love. What do you fancy? We’ve got some smashing cod or then there’s Nile perch, nice bit of tuna, or red snapper if you fancy something a little bit more exotic…’ She managed to make it sound like a night in a lap-dancing club, but Cass couldn’t quite tear her mind away from Andy and the girl, which must have shown on her face.
‘Would you like me to give you a bit more time?’ the woman said. ‘Maybe you’d just like to take a little look and I’ll come back to you?’
‘No, it’s fine,’ said Cass. ‘I’d like…’ What the hell was it she wanted? Cass’s brain rolled over and played dead. She looked up in desperation. Behind her the queue was getting restless.
‘It begins with H…’ she said miserably. ‘And it goes early, which is why I’m here. I was sent by my mother’s husband, my stepfather, although he’s a lot younger so I don’t call him that…’ Cass cringed: her brain might be dead but her mouth was alive and kicking and just kept on going.
‘And he sent you to buy a fish that begins with H?’ The woman said helpfully, as if playing I-Spy was something she did on a regular basis.
Cass nodded.
‘Haddock?’ suggested the woman. She managed to make it sound like an insult.
Cass shook her head. ‘No, I’m sure it wasn’t haddock.’
‘You sure? Only it’s not dyed, and we do sell a lot of it—and we’ve got some lovely thick fillets. That’s very popular. Smoked. That always goes real quick on a Saturday.’
‘Or there’s hake? Or what about herring?’ suggested the other woman who was working behind the counter, as she plopped a couple of nice plaice fillets onto the scale. ‘Have you got any idea what he was going to do with it?’
Someone in the queue behind Cass made a fairly graphic suggestion. Cass began to sweat, Buster began to whimper. Just exactly how many fish were there that began with H?
‘Huss?’
Cass shook her head again.
‘How about halibut?’
‘Halibut,’ Cass said, with a genuine sense of relief. ‘That’s it. I’d like some halibut. Please.’
‘Righty-oh, we’ve got a bit left; it always goes early, you know.’
Cass nodded. ‘So I’ve been told. Have you got four nice pieces, please?’
‘Certainly have,’ said the woman, holding out a snow-white piece of fish towards her. ‘Four like that?’
Cass nodded. ‘That will be great. And a pint of prawns please,’ she said, although try as she might to concentrate on the fish, Cass’s mind kept being pulled back towards Andy and the young woman. She couldn’t see them now, but she guessed where they would be heading. They would be in Sam’s Place.
Above the market square, the town clock was just chiming the hour. It was eight o’clock. Wasn’t that what the note Fiona found had said, ‘Saturday eight o’clock?’ The only difference was that Fiona had assumed it was eight o’clock in the evening, not eight o’clock on a cold wet windy early autumn morning.
Walking home, Cass mulled over what she should do. Should she ring Fiona and tell her? Fiona had asked for her help. Or was it one of those things best left alone? Cass hunched against the wind, Buster tucking in behind, slipstreaming out of the weather.
Fiona didn’t take bad news well. Cass could remember the time when she’d seen Peter Bailey—the boy whose children Fiona planned to bear when they were both about fifteen—in town with Alison Wickham.