‘Charming,’ said Jake, who’d arrived just before them. ‘And to think I was about to buy you a drink.’
‘I am strong,’ Nuala told him smugly, ‘I am woman. Moping over men is no longer my thing.
Anyway, I’m quite capable of buying my own drinks.’
‘But sadly not capable of paying your own rent.’ Jake grinned at Dexter then winced as Nuala landed a punch on his shoulder with her good arm.
‘Just for that, I’ll have a Bacardi and Coke.’ Turning to Kate, Nuala said, ‘And make it a large one. In fact, make it a bucket.’
Dexter, who didn’t miss a trick, had already sensed that something was up. The moment Jake Harvey had entered the pub, Kate’s body language had given her away. Jake, as relaxed and laid-back as ever, had greeted her with a cheerful grin but Kate’s jaw had tightened beneath the polite veneer and she had made a point of avoiding his gaze. Knowing Jake as he did, it didn’t take a genius to work out what had happened when Jake had taken Kate home the other afternoon. It was like a Pavlovian reaction, Dexter imagined: the moment you found yourself alone with a girl, you automatically seduced her. What’s more, when you were Jake Harvey, it evidently never crossed the girl’s mind to say no. Who knows, maybe he’d slept with Nuala too, although Dexter doubted this. If he had, he suspected Nuala wouldn’t have been able to resist the urge to boast.
The range of emotions he was experiencing weren’t the kind Dexter was used to – he didn’t actually know where they’d sprung from but they were no less powerful for that. Whereas the thought of Nuala in bed with Jake didn’t bother him at all, imagining Kate and Jake together filled him with a boiling rage. How dare Jake take advantage of her like that, when he clearly had no interest in a proper relationship? That was Jake Harvey all over, he was a shameless, morals-free zone.
‘And one for yourself,’ Jake told Kate, when she’d finished serving the rest of the round of drinks.
‘No thanks.’ Kate busied herself wiping up the spilled drops of lager on the bar.
‘Go on.’ Jake’s voice softened. ‘Hey, no hard feelings. We can still be friends, can’t we?’
Dexter, straining to hear the murmured words from six feet away, longed to land a punch on Jake.
Deeply intrigued, Nuala raised her eyebrows enquiringly at Maddy.
Maddy, who’d been lost in thought about Kerr, hadn’t a clue what was going on and wondered why Nuala was doing that weird thing with her eyebrows.
Kate shook her head. ‘Really, I’m fine.’
Resting his fingers fleetingly on her arm, Jake mouthed, ‘Sure?’
Unable to keep quiet a moment longer, Dexter barked, ‘She doesn’t want a drink, OK?’ Barging up to Kate, he steered her towards the restaurant end of the bar. ‘Table six want another bottle of wine.
Sort them out, will you? I’ll take over here.’
An hour later, Jake left to pick up Sophie from Marcella’s. Fascinated, Nuala watched Kate doggedly pretending not to watch him go. During a lull at the bar she beckoned Kate over to the table she was now sharing with Maddy.
‘More peanuts?’ said Kate.
Her shoulders were noticeably more relaxed.
‘It’s not peanuts we’re after.’ Nuala gave her a complicit smile. ‘It’s information. Otherwise known as gossip. So,’ she went on brightly, ‘you and Jake, am I right? What’s been going on that we don’t know about?’
Kate reddened. Startled, Maddy said, ‘Actually, there are some things I’m quite happy not to know about.’
‘Oh, don’t be so boring.’ Eagerly Nuala turned her attention back to Kate. ‘You slept with him, didn’t you? I can tell.’
‘Look,’ Kate shuffled awkwardly from foot to foot, ‘this isn’t—’
‘Oh my God, I’m right, aren’t I? You really did!’
‘Please,’ Maddy protested, but Nuala was unstoppable now.
‘You lucky, lucky thing,’ she gasped excitedly, slopping drink all over her sleeve. ‘I wanted to sleep with Jake but he turned me down – damn, I’m so jealous! What was he like?’
‘Hello? Excuse me,’ Maddy’s voice rose, ‘but I really don’t want to hear this.’
‘Just whisper it then.’ Nuala gave Kate a nudge. ‘I mean, I’m assuming he’s fabulous.’
La la-la,’ Maddy sang loudly, her fingers jammed in her ears.
Hurriedly, Kate said, ‘Dexter’s going to hit the roof if I don’t get back to work.’
Clearly Kate wasn’t about to spill the beans. Some people were just plain selfish.
‘OK, some other time. We could try that new club down by the train station on your next evening off, have a real girly night out.’ Giving Kate a nudge as she turned to leave, Nuala added, ‘But he is fabulous, isn’t he?’
‘Kate, get over here,’ Dexter bellowed. ‘I don’t pay you to stand around doing bugger all.’
Back behind the bar, Kate snapped, ‘And there’s no need to yell at me.’
‘I thought I was rescuing you.’ Dexter’s voice softened.
This only served to remind her of Jake calling her a damsel in distress. Pushing past Dexter on her way to refill the ice bucket, Kate said coldly, ‘Well, don’t.’
Chapter 34
Was this sad? Was this the kind of thing only truly pathetic people did? Was it really so wrong when it brought her so much comfort?
Well, OK, maybe not so much comfort, but beggars couldn’t afford to be choosers. Any tiny crumb of comfort going was better than none at all.
Squinting in the darkness, Maddy held her wrist up to her face and peered at her watch. Ten past two in the morning and here she was, sitting in her car at the end of Kerr’s road, gazing up at the unlit windows of his flat.
She would have been here earlier but Nuala had stayed up until midnight and Jake hadn’t gone to bed until almost one o’clock. Maddy had been forced to wait until they were asleep before sneaking out of the cottage, climbing into her car and driving – hopefully not in a deranged, stalker-like fashion – into Bath.
Oh, but now that she was here she really did feel better, just knowing that Kerr was less than fifty feet away from her. These were his windows, that was his car parked outside, there was his very own dark blue front door .. .
She wasn’t doing anything wrong, Maddy reminded herself; this was a harmless coping mechanism, nothing more. OK, so she’d promised Marcella she’d never see Kerr again, but nobody had said anything about not seeing his front door.
Behind her a set of headlights swung round the corner into the road. Guiltily, Maddy sank further down in the driver’s seat and waited for the car to pass.
When it did, she caught her breath. Now why on earth would a police car be patrolling a deserted backstreet at this time of night? Honestly, when you were desperate for a passing policeman you wouldn’t find one for love nor money, yet here were a pair now, tootling around in the small hours, avoiding the city centre where they might actually be needed.
As the patrol car reached the end of the cul-de-sac and swung round, Maddy tugged her purple baseball cap further down over her face. A horrid thought was unfurling like a tapeworm in her brain –
surely not ... oh bugger, don’t slow down, no, nooo0 .. .
The car pulled up directly in front of Maddy’s Saab, so that their bumpers were almost kissing.
Lucky bumpers. Mortified, Maddy watched the door open and a skinny beanpole of an officer unfold himself from the passenger seat.