‘But you don’t really want to be a nurse again, do you?’ I said. ‘You told me when we met that you were finished with that career.’
‘That’s true, but it’s what I do. It’s what I’m trained for.’
I shook my head. ‘No, there’s something else you’ve done. Listen, I’ve agreed to carry on this GWA stuff for a while. If I do that, and I will, I’m going to need a partner in my main business.’
She stared at me, wide-eyed with surprise. ‘What, back to being Phillips and Blackstone?’
‘Stuff that for a game,’ I told her, straight away. ‘Blackstone and Phillips, and no nonsense.’
I could see her head about to nod. ‘I want you to think about this before you agree,’ I said. ‘We’re friends, and we work well together, but it’s a business arrangement. We work from an office, not here.
‘Outside that, I’ve got to get a life, and so have you. I’ll be back from Frankfurt on Sunday night. Call me then. Unless you’ve gone back to Spain, that is.’ I stood her up and marched her to the door.
‘You’ve changed indeed,’ she said. ‘I like the new bloke though; as much as the old. I’ll call you.’
I stood in the doorway and watched her until she reached the end of the corridor. She knew it, and waved to me as she turned the corner.
I went back inside and sat in my captain’s chair. I tried to look out of the window at the afternoon city, but my eyes grew heavy, and gradually my head fell back.
As it had done on the afternoon before, a vision of Jan formed itself in my mind. She was sitting in a field — one of our places, hers and mine, just outside Anstruther. She was wearing a purple dress, and she was smiling.