Her cheeks flaming, Nuala said defensively, ‘He does it to everyone, that’s just Dexter’s way.
When we’re on our own he’s lovely to me—’
‘Wrong. No.’ Maddy was shaking her head. ‘He doesn’t do it to everyone. He’s brusque, he’s sarcastic, he can be downright cantankerous, but he doesn’t verbally abuse the rest of us. Only you, because he knows he can get away with it. And a man who treats you like that in public – well, you can’t blame us for wondering what else he might do when the two of you are on your own.’
Nuala gazed blindly out of the side window, hot with shame. Everyone was going to assume she was a battered girlfriend. With a shudder, she imagined the regulars in the pub eyeing each other meaningfully, muttering behind their hands, watching her and Dexter and drawing their own wrong conclusions every time he came out with one of his mock derogatory remarks.
‘I’ll talk to him about it,’ she said. ‘Tell him he has to stop, you know, saying those things.’
Maddy drove out of the car park. ‘Right, you do that.’ She sounded horribly unconvinced.
‘I will. Don’t give me one of your looks,’ Nuala protested. ‘God, I’m not going to be able to work for weeks.’ She plucked gingerly at her sling. ‘How’s Dexter going to manage without me in the pub?’
‘Grumpily, I’d imagine.’ Swinging round a corner, Maddy said, ‘He’s already asked me if I’ll help out tonight.’
‘Really? And are you?’
‘No chance. I’ve already made plans.’
‘Great.’ Mischievously Nuala said, ‘Can I come along with you?’
A faint smile tugged at the corners of Maddy’s mouth. ‘How can I put this? Not a chance in the world.’
Chapter 21
‘Come on, you stupid animal.’ Kate tugged at Norris’s lead as he dawdled along like a recalcitrant toddler. It was Saturday afternoon, the temperature had shot up into the nineties and she was beginning to regret this attempt at a longer than usual walk.
Since embarking on a keep-fit plan for Norris, they had done their best to restrict his eating, but last night he had wolfed down an entire Dundee cake that had been carelessly left out in the kitchen by Estelle. Today, in an effort to work off a few of the ten thousand or so calories he had guzzled in ninety seconds flat, Kate had changed into jeans and trainers and resolved to bring him out on the equivalent of a doggie marathon. Leaving the village behind them, they had set out along Ashcombe Lane, the hilly, winding road that would eventually take them into Bath. Not that they’d get that far, but at least the scenery was spectacular and it made a change from endlessly circling Ashcombe itself.
Feeling like an American sergeant major harassing the latest unfit arrival at boot camp, Kate chivvied Norris past a promising clump of creamy white cow parsley – he could spend forever searching for the perfect place to pee – and dragged him on up the hill. Huffing and grunting in protest, Norris waddled more slowly than ever. Honestly, at this rate ants would be overtaking them.
‘Not much further,’ said Kate, pushing her hair back from her face as they reached the brow of the hill and the wall of trees ahead of them came into sight. ‘Norris, you really are hopeless, it hasn’t even been two miles yet.’
By the time they reached the entrance to Hillview, Norris had had more than enough. When Kate stopped walking he sank down onto the grass verge with a grunt of relief. The road was deserted in both directions. The sun blazed relentlessly down. Norris’s tongue, attractively, was lolling sideways out of his mouth.
‘Two miles,’ Kate told him. ‘Well done, you. One day you’ll have more muscles than Schwarzenegger.’
Then, turning, she gazed once more at the battered sign, half hidden by ivy. She hadn’t deliberately planned this, not really deliberately. If Norris had been skipping along like a spring chicken, more than happy to set off back home, then that’s what they would have done. But seeing as he was on his last legs and clearly desperate for a drink, well, it would be cruel to deprive him. And where was the harm, anyway, in knocking on Pauline McKinnon’s front door to ask for a bowl of water? The advantage of calling on someone who was a recluse was that they were bound to be home. She could talk to Mrs McKinnon, casually ask her how Kerr was doing these days, maybe hear some news about him.
And if the woman was so reclusive she refused to answer the door, Kate remembered there had been a decorative stone water trough and a small pond to the side of the house, years ago. Since they were unlikely to have been removed, Norris could still have a drink.
Norris groaned when she attempted to pull him to his feet. Bending over, Kate hauled him up into her arms — God, he weighed a ton, it was like carrying the world’s fattest baby — and headed up the bumpy, weed-strewn driveway.
Her heart leaped into her mouth as she rounded the last bend and saw the car parked on the gravel. A gleaming midnight-blue Mercedes — surely this was the one that had passed her that day on Gypsy Lane. Oh good grief, Kerr must actually be here now, in the house, visiting his mother .. .
With adrenalin swooshing through her body — whether it was due to terror or excitement she couldn’t tell — Kate clumsily shifted her hold on Norris, freeing one of her hands just enough to be able to comb her fingers frantically through her hair and rub the beads of perspiration from her upper lip. She really hadn’t been expecting this, but was it such a bad thing to have happened? Maybe it was fate bringing them together today, maybe they were meant to meet again and when Kerr saw her he wouldn’t even notice her scars .. .
OK, so maybe that was a fantasy too far, not even Stevie Wonder could fail to notice these scars, but Kerr would see them and instantly, magically, dismiss them because she was all that mattered, her personality was what was important and he didn’t give a toss about physical imperfections.
Shit, shit, shit. Kate ground to an abrupt halt. Having ventured another twenty yards up the drive she was now able to see a second car parked behind Kerr’s Mercedes. A silver Saab.
A silver Saab, silver Saab — the wheels were clicking in Kate’s brain. She’d seen it before, parked in the Main Street outside — God, outside Jake Harvey’s workshop. But this made no sense. Why would it be parked here now? Either Pauline McKinnon had just died and Jake was measuring her up for one of his bespoke coffins or Jake and Kerr were gay, conducting a furtive homosexual affair.
Creeping up the driveway, taking care not to crunch the gravel, Kate lowered her face to Norris’s fat neck and shushed him before he could even think of betraying her with a bark.
Approaching the house, she veered away from the front door and headed over to the long sash windows of the sitting room. Her pulse was thundering now, crashing against her ribs. If the silver Saab belonged to Jake, what on earth could he be doing here?
Breathing shallowly, Kate reached the sitting-room window at last. Clutching Norris tightly in her arms, she half knelt, half crouched in the untended flowerbed and peered inside.
What she saw made her cry out in disbelief.
The sitting room was empty but the house was narrow, longer than it was broad, with a clear view, via the two sets of windows at the front and back of the house, through to the back garden.
And there was Kerr, not with Jake Harvey at all, but with Maddy.