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‘This is lovely,’ said Prim. ‘It’s saying something to me, but I’m not sure what it is.’

‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ I said. She took hold of my shirt front, and would have had more out of me, if Jan hadn’t come in just then.

She looked at us thoughtfully, for a few seconds. ‘Yes, Mum was right. About you two, I mean. She phoned me to tell me that Oz had met his match at last. She approves. So, by the way, do I,’ she added, in a very matter-of-fact tone. ‘Not least because, hopefully, it’ll let Mother get me sorted out in her head.’ Before Prim could follow up the begged question she changed the subject.

‘Right, fugitives. What’s the story?’

I know three people in the world who could have handled the truth about our predicament. Happily Jan’s one of them. So I pulled Prim on to the sofa beside me and we told her; just like we’d told my Dad, only this time there was an important fact to add which two days earlier had been simply a hunch, plus the part about our narrow escape in Auchterarder.

When we had finished, Jan spread herself in her recliner, her skirt riding away up over her thighs, and looked at us. ‘Astounded’, just about covered her expression. Her eyes narrowed as she focused on me. ‘You know, Oz, I was starting to think that you were turning into a young fogey. A BYF; know what I mean … Boring Young Fart. Now here you are, trippin’ over corpses, boakin’ on traffic wardens, accessory after God knows how many facts, and on the run from a renegade copper.

‘Sunshine, you don’t just turn over a new leaf. You turn over the whole fuckin’ tree!’

She stood up, smoothing down her skirt. ‘So what can I do to help?’

‘You’re doing it. We’ve decided to head south as fast as we can, with the clothes we’ve got in that bag. As soon as they’re dry, we’ll be off.’

‘How are you for cash?’

‘No problem there. I’ve got my chargecard, and my PIN number’ll work in Europe. Coffee and a sandwich would go down well though.’

She shook her head. ‘I can do better than that. I was making a stir fry tonight; I can stretch it to do four. Come on.’ She led us back through to the kitchen and busied herself washing and slicing vegetables. Jan’s as good a cook as her Mum, but from a different era. Where Auntie Mary works miracles with baking tins and saucepans, Jan tends to use a Wok.

We did our best to help. Prim skinned and boned the monkfish, while I tackled the tough job, cooking the rice. I was watching it intently, and so I didn’t see the figure when first she appeared in the doorway.

‘Hello Oz. I thought that was your limo outside.’

Anoushka Turkel and I had a difficult relationship until Prim came along. Where Jan’s Mum probably saw me as a figure of hope, I’m sure that to Anoushka, I was something of a threat. The old boyfriend, the ever open door when things erupted between them as sometimes they have done, or when Jan’s bisexuality caught up with her and she needed a man.

There’s nothing bi- about Anoushka. She’s a lesbian, and not in the least uncertain, or self-conscious about it. She’s a very serious person — a smile from Anoushka’s like a rainstorm in the Sahara — but she’s kind and she loves Jan to bits. And Jan loves her too. Early on, when first they met, she and I discussed how she felt.

How could I forget! We were in bed together at the time.

As a lover, Jan was one of those people who put everything into it, without ever really getting there herself. I never made the Earth move for her as memorably as she did for me. It was the same that night, only this time I sensed that Jan wasn’t putting quite as much into it as usual. So I asked her what was wrong and, being Jan, she told me: how she’d met this corporate lawyer in the office where she was working at the time, and how they’d gone for a few drinks, and how one thing had led to another, and how she’d had the first real, full-blown, screaming orgasm of her life.

I don’t think I handled it too well — well, I mean, what bloke would? — until she told me that the corporate lawyer was a woman. Somehow — and I’ve never figured out how or why — that made it tolerable in a way. With macho rivalries out of the way, I understood what she was saying, and I did my best to help her. I didn’t exactly encourage her to set up home with Anoushka, but I said that if she loved her, it was okay with me. When Auntie Mary found out, and it all blew up at home, I stood up for her, and that helped her. Anoushka’s never been to Anstruther, but at least after a sticky spell, things are all right between Jan and her Mum.

Of course, the fact that I wasn’t in love with Jan helped me be the Boy Scout through it all. Yet I can’t deny that on the odd occasion during the year when my doorbell rang late of an evening, and she was there, wearing a look that told me she had a change of knickers and tights in her handbag, well, it didn’t half pump up the male ego. Anoushka must have suspected that we had the odd encounter, but, whether out of fear or consideration I don’t know, she never raised the subject.

Now she stood there in the kitchen doorway, giving me her odd sizing-up look once again, trying to gauge the significance of Oz Blackstone in her kitchen, helping her girlfriend prepare supper. And then Prim, seeing my gaze, stepped out from behind the door.

A bad analogy, I know, but I took the bull by the horns. I stepped forward and kissed her on her high Slavic cheekbone. ‘Hi, Noosh,’ I said, as warmly as I could. Then I took my new lady’s hand and drew her to me. ‘This is Primavera. We’re in lurv. Prim, this is Anoushka, Jan’s partner.’

Noosh looked at us, stood there together, in total surprise. And then she smiled. It was raining in the Sahara again. ‘Well goot for you,’ she said, in her funny accent, with its hint of her Eastern European origins. I reckon that was the most sincere thing she’s ever said to me.

‘Jan never said about you,’ she added, as if to explain her surprise. ‘So what brought you to see us. Your good news?’

‘That and a knackered washing machine,’ said Prim.

‘Ah! But you stay to supper?’ We both nodded. ‘Good. Excuse me, I must change. Back in a minute, Jan darling.’ She patted her grey suit, which matched the streaks in her hair, and walked through to their bedroom.

‘Oz,’ she called through. ‘I hope you have that car MOT-d.’

‘Yeah. I’m still waiting for my tax disc, but it’s okay. Why d’you ask?’

She stepped back into the kitchen, wearing a light dress. “Cause when I got home there was a policeman in uniform giving it a funny look. I don’t think that he was looking at the tax disk, more the number. You don’t report it stolen to claim the insurance, no?’

I didn’t say a word. Instead I strode back through to the living room and peered out into Castle Terrace from behind the curtain. The line of parked cars had thinned out as the office building next door had emptied, and there were only three to be seen on the far side of the street, mine and two others, a battered old Mini and a Citroen with French plates. There was no sign of a policeman.

Jan and Prim looked at me anxiously as I came back into the kitchen. I answered them with a quick smile and a shake of the head. ‘Whatever it was, he’s buggered off.’

‘That’s good,’ said Jan, ‘because your rice must be nearly ready!’

We ate in the small back room which Noosh and Jan use as a dining room. The stir fry was one of Jan’s best ever, full of chunky monkfish, mushrooms, yellow peppers and lemon grass, but it was wasted on me. I kept thinking about that copper, and his unhealthy interest in my car. I excused myself as soon as I had finished, and went back through to the living room, back to my stance behind the curtains.