Written in Blood(89)

Tim Young, Avery’s partner, pulled out a chair for Laura and Avery served, on basic white china, thick curried parsnip soup with nan bread, tiny filo parcels of melting goat’s cheese and slices of raw, marinaded fennel. He poured the wine, and its fragrance mingled divinely with the spicy food.

Laura lifted a soup spoon to her lips, then put it down again. Directly facing her was a spectacularly gruesome poster. A yawning grave surrounded by rotting maggoty skulls was giving up its ghost in the form of a massive scaly creature with two heads, each of which held a huge molten eye. Inside these spitting furnaces many tiny creatures were being burnt to a frazzle.

‘I’m afraid . . .’ Laura averted her head and made a repulsed movement with her hand. Avery looked over his shoulder and immediately got up.

‘My dear, I’m so sorry.’ He bustled round to her side of the table and changed seats, grumbling to Tim as he sat down. ‘What were you thinking of?’

‘What I’m always thinking of,’ replied Tim. ‘My wild nights with Simon Callow.’

‘Take no notice,’ said Avery, resettling himself. ‘He’s never even met Simon Callow. I shall take that dreadful thing down after lunch.’

‘Oh, don’t do that,’ protested Tim. ‘I like it. It reminds me of your ex.’

Laura listened to them happily prattling on. At first she ate automatically, distracted by melancholy, but nobody could eat Avery’s food automatically for long. As her nose and taste buds became entranced by the soft but vibrant impact of the wine and the piquant, buttery soup, Laura’s attention was claimed completely.

When she next tuned into the conversation the talk was of VAT returns, the property market and the general bloody-mindedness of bank managers.

‘It’s not even as if it’s their money,’ complained Avery, very loudly.

‘Calm down,’ said Tim.

‘I’m perfectly calm!’

‘You’re shouting.’

‘I’m not shouting. Am I shouting, Laura? I mean, truly, am I?’

Laura, nibbling a fat Greek olive that smelled of coriander, did not reply. Now that the meal was almost over she felt the paralysis of loneliness starting to creep back. Isolated, unintentionally withdrawn, she drained her glass in one quick movement.

‘What is it, love?’ said Tim. ‘What’s the matter?’

She looked across at the lean, dark face intently regarding her. His eyes - unlike his partner’s, which were always inquisitive and glossy with excitement at the merest whiff of another’s sorrows - were grave and concerned. Perhaps it was this that made Laura answer honestly. Perhaps it was the wine.

‘Someone’s died. A friend.’

‘Oh, Laura.’ Tim reached across the table and took her hand. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘And here we were,’ said Avery, ‘blathering on.’ He refilled her glass. ‘Drink up, heart.’

‘Do you want to talk about it?’

To her surprise, for she had already talked about it to a degree that had left her quite wrung out, Laura found that she did. That previous outpouring to the chief inspector, such an anguished, angry flux, had left her sore and miserable. The whole process had been so untimely - provoked not by a need on her part to speak but by pressure from an impersonal inquisitor.

‘The man who died - he was killed actually - lived in our village.’

‘Not the one in the papers!’ gasped Avery. There was a sharp movement under the table. He winced and said, ‘Sorry.’

‘Yes. I loved him,’ said Laura simply. And after that it was easy. She started at the very beginning, when she had trodden on Gerald’s foot in the village store, and went on until the end, when she had kissed him goodnight (and, unwittingly, goodbye) on the last night of his life.

‘I always used to think,’ she concluded sadly, ‘that if you loved someone hard enough and for long enough eventually they wouldn’t be able to help loving you back. Very . . . very foolish . . .’

‘Oh darling, don’t take on.’ Avery produced a large silk Paisley square from his breast pocket and passed it over with a flourish. ‘Have a blotette.’ Laura blew her nose. ‘All due respects, but he must have been blind as a bat. Heavens - if I weren’t gay I’d spend my entire life panting through your letter box. Wouldn’t you, Tim?’

‘Absolutely.’ Tim stood up and rested his hand lightly on Laura’s shoulder. ‘Some coffee?’

‘Yes, please.’ Her head was heavy from the wine. She looked at her watch. ‘Good grief - it’s half past three.’

‘So?’ He plugged in the grinder.