About an hour and a half later we walked along to the hotel bar for that drink.
Sex between us had been a combination of a journey of discovery and primal human eagerness. We puffed and panted a lot, but we also laughed and, when it was over, we lay entwined together, sweaty and naked on the bed in happy satisfaction.
‘God, I needed that,’ Kate said. ‘It’s been a long time.’
‘For me too,’ I agreed.
Neither of us asked the other how long exactly. It wasn’t important.
‘I should have ordered champagne and strawberries,’ I said.
‘Why strawberries?’
‘Well, according to Richard Gere in Pretty Woman, it brings out the flavour of the champagne.’
‘I absolutely adore that film,’ Kate said, rolling over onto her elbows. ‘Especially that bit when Julia Roberts goes back into the shop where the two bitches have been so nasty to her and then holds up all her shopping bags: “You work on commission, right? Mistake. Big mistake. Huge!” ’
We spent a while arguing over which bit of the film was the best and agreed, in the end, that we both loved the scene at the end when the knight (Edward) arrives on his white horse (standing up through the sunroof of a white stretch limo) with his drawn sword (umbrella) to climb up a rope (fire escape) to rescue the princess (Vivian) from the wicked queen’s tower (apartment block).
What a pair of right softies, we were. And we loved it.
‘Champagne?’ asked the barman. He was the same one as had been on duty on Wednesday evening.
‘Yes, please,’ I said. ‘And some strawberries.’
Kate started giggling and that set me off too.
We sat in the bar and consumed a bottle of champagne and a whole punnet of strawberries, and then decided against having room service after all, opting for dinner à deux in Squires Restaurant.
We took our time, enjoying each other’s company and the wine, in the sure knowledge of what we would be having for dessert.
‘What did you do at the races today?’ Kate asked over the main course.
I told her about the mad Momentum’s race and my various interactions with Oliver, Ryan and Tony.
‘Poor Janie,’ Kate said. ‘She hasn’t had the best of times there since Ryan took over. And I know both the fire and Zoe’s death have hit her badly.’
‘Does she have a theory of who started it?’ I asked.
‘I think she’s trying to blot it out of her thinking completely. She was so upset about the poor horses dying and then to learn that Zoe was in there as well has just about finished her off.’
I remembered back how my just mentioning the fire to her had caused the tears to flow.
‘She knew Zoe quite well then?’
‘I wouldn’t say well, not in recent years, anyway. She knew her a bit better at school. Janie was like a big sister to her at one point. I think Janie was sorry for her, but she also upset her.’
‘How?’
‘Zoe was quite disturbed. She made things up about people. She also used to cut herself, you know, on the arms and such with a razor blade. She used to tell Janie that her brothers did it but once she told a teacher that it had been Janie’s doing. We had the child-protection lot around to our house fast as lightning. I think that caused the end of their friendship.’
‘I’m going to see Zoe’s husband tomorrow,’ I said.
‘Are you indeed. What about?’
‘I’m not really sure. I just feel he must know something. I want to see how he reacts when I get there.’
‘Where’s there?’
‘Ealing,’ I said.
‘Does he know you’re coming?’
‘No.’ I smiled. ‘I’m going to just try my luck and see if he’s in.’
‘And what if he isn’t?’
‘Then I will have wasted my journey,’ I said. ‘But I want to go to my flat anyway to collect a few things, more clothes, for example. I also thought I might stay over Saturday night just to let the neighbours realise that I haven’t scarpered altogether.’
‘Can I come with you?’ she asked eagerly.
My first instinct was to say no, and for two reasons. First, I didn’t really want to involve her directly in what I was doing as I feared it might all result in some damaging fallout. And secondly, I wasn’t sure in what state I’d left my flat. Usually, it was not good, especially on a Monday morning, which is when I’d last been there.
‘I could look after his kids while you talk to Peter Robertson.’
‘Haven’t you got plans for the weekend?’
‘Nothing that can’t be changed. And I’d love a night in London. Perhaps we could see a show.’
She was so excited. How could I say no?
‘All right, you can come,’ I said. ‘Which show do you fancy?’
‘A musical. Absolutely love them.’
There followed a lengthy discussion on which was the best musical we had ever seen, and we finally left the dining room with her singing ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’ to try to prove to me that it was the best song ever written.
I tried hard to ignore her.
That was, until we arrived at my bedroom, then the opposite was true.
Lovemaking the second time around was more relaxed, slower, and more passionate. The need was still there but the hunger was less desperate.
I ran my fingertips over her bare skin, making her shiver with excitement and anticipation, and then I hugged her close to me, wanting to feel as one with another human being like I had never felt before.
The emotion was so powerful, and that, as much as the physical exertion, left me drained and exhausted.
‘That was wonderful,’ Kate said.
It certainly was.
We lay together on our backs, holding hands in the darkness. Eventually I drifted off to sleep, at ease, happy and fulfilled.
On Saturday morning, Kate and I caught the 10.47 train from Cambridge to London.
I checked out of the hotel in spite of the receptionist informing me that my booking had been made until the end of the following week, and those were the terms on which the room-rate discount had been agreed.
Good old Georgina, I thought.
‘I might be back again tomorrow,’ I told the receptionist, ‘but I have to go away tonight and it seems an unnecessary extravagance to keep my room when no one is sleeping in it.’
I paid the hotel bill, discount applied, with the Simpson White credit card, and promised to let them know as soon as possible if I were returning.
‘I can’t guarantee that you’ll have the same room,’ the receptionist said.
Shame, I thought. I’d suddenly become quite attached to it.
My driver followed in his Mercedes as Kate drove us in her Mini convertible to Six Mile Bottom. She turned into the driveway of a Victorian red-brick property set back from the main road.
‘It used to be a gamekeeper’s cottage,’ she said. ‘It was converted into two separate homes sometime in the 1970s. And I love it.’
I had a quick look round Kate’s half while she exchanged the Tatts uniform in her suitcase for what she called her glad rags.
‘I can’t go to the theatre looking like some country bumpkin, now can I?’ she said.
She looked anything but a country bumpkin to me, I thought, in a tight-fitting navy-blue roll-neck sweater and white trousers.
The driver dropped us both at Cambridge Station and, on the train, I logged on to the internet using my dongle. There was an email from ASW with Peter Robertson’s latest known address and another from the research team with what they had discovered about the Robertsons’ bank account, which was precious little. Indeed, the only thing of interest they had managed to unearth was a memo from a credit reference agency that had given them a rating of ‘adequate’ when they had recently applied to Ealing Council housing department to move into a larger property.