‘What an unexpected pleasure.’ He was aware of sounding sarcastic but this afternoon’s interchange had stung.
‘I came to tell you something.’
He looked past her into the darkness. He hadn’t heard the approach of a car. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve walked here.’
‘OK. But I’ve had two large glasses of wine so I didn’t drive.’
It was hard not to notice how she hugged her thin jacket around herself. He took a tentative step back. ‘Do you want to come in to tell me?’
Equally as tentatively, she stepped inside.
As she seated herself in one of the armchairs he shook from his mind the image of the laughing, eyes-dancing Alexia lounging on the floor on Saturday evening, back propped against the same chair as she drank whisky. And, later, naked and glistening Alexia exploring his body with inquisitive hands.
Glad he’d already lit the fire in view of the way she extended her hands to it, he took the other chair. ‘What’s up?’
She wasted no time on small talk. ‘A man was looking for you at the pub. He said it’s important that your brother sees you, that Imogen needs your help, and that “we”, whoever that is, would like to know you’re all right. I decided that some of those messages might be important and as I don’t have your phone number I came over.’
‘Thank you for going to the trouble.’ Part of him wanted to consider why she had. Her collar, he noticed, bore small white polka dots, an unexpectedly frivolous detail of the same otherwise no-nonsense outfit he’d seen her in earlier.
She narrowed her eyes as if trying to measure his muted reaction. ‘The man was in his sixties with thin sandy hair—’
‘I know who he was.’ He rested his head on the chair back, knowing he had to prioritise. ‘It is possible that one of those messages might be important.’ Not the one about his brother, Lloyd – or, at least, he doubted it would prove to be anything new.
But Imogen …
‘Would you mind hanging on while I make a quick call?’ Without waiting for an answer he jumped up and made for the kitchen. There, he opened his contacts list and tapped on Imogen.
She answered after two rings, voice breathy with surprise. ‘Ben?’ She sounded so familiar that for an instant he felt as if the past had slipped into the present, as if he might be calling to say he could get home on Friday so they could go out to dinner. He could almost hear the reply she would have made: Or we could stay home, just the two of us … and then you never know what you’ll get on the table, her slight Berkshire burr caressing the words ‘could’ and ‘never’. He’d have laughed and lowered his voice to suggest …
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