‘Oh, she's not here, I'm afraid. Did she speak to you on the phone? What's it about … is it something on the website? Maybe I can help you instead.'
‘Er, well, what time's she likely to be back?' Not usually at a loss for words, Declan now found himself prevaricating. What if Lily hadn't told anyone else she was contacting him? Maybe she didn't want it to become public knowledge.
But as he dithered, the expression on the woman's face began to change. Her eyes widened and she raised a tentative index finger like a child in a classroom thinking she might know the answer.
‘Wait.' She searched his face for clues, then said in wonder and disbelief, ‘Are you … Declan?'
Her voice was beautiful, clear and gentle, with no discernible accent. He liked the way she said his name.
‘Possibly.' He eyed her with amusement. ‘Are you Coral?'
At that moment, a burly builder type ambled past and clapped her on the shoulder. ‘She's Coral, I'm Ted, and I'm starving.'
Coral shook her head at him. ‘Ted, you're always starving. The country would be knee-deep in sausage rolls if it wasn't for you. Off you go.'
Ted strolled off down the street, pausing to rub the ears of the Labrador outside the pub. Coral, her hands clasped to her chest, turned to Declan. ‘You're here to see Lily! I can't believe it! She's been checking her emails every five minutes for the last four days. She was starting to think you were never going to reply.'
‘The letter arrived, then it got lost, then this morning it turned up again. I know I should have emailed,' said Declan, ‘but I wanted to see her in person. I couldn't wait.' He paused, disappointed. ‘Except it looks like I'm going to have to.'
‘Oh, not for too long; she'll be back by three. If you can stay until then.'
As if he'd leave now. Declan nodded; he'd just have to call Gail and let her know he wouldn't be back for the detox steamed fish and summer greens. ‘It's OK, I can stay.'
‘Hooray, that's fantastic! She's going to be so thrilled to see you. In fact, come here.' Coral spread her arms and gave him a hug. ‘We're all thrilled. You have no idea how much this means to Lily.'
Declan was aware of the feel of her hands on his shoulders, the front of her T-shirt against his chest, the fresh, woody scent of the perfume she was wearing. ‘Thanks. It means a lot to me too.' He paused, then said with a crooked smile, ‘I don't even know why it feels so important. It just does.'
And now she was stepping back, holding him at arm's length, studying his face. ‘I've seen the letter Lily wrote to you. You really were the love of Jo's life, you know.'
Hearing her repeat what Lily had said in the letter caused a surge of emotion to well up. Declan hesitated, then nodded. ‘And it turns out Jo was the love of my life too.'
Did that sound melodramatic? It was true, though. He'd expected to meet someone else; he had met plenty of someone-elses over the years, but none of them had ever made him feel quite the way he'd felt about Jo.
‘Oh, and you probably didn't know she'd died. That must have come as an awful shock.' Coral touched his arm.
‘It did. I mean, it wasn't something that had ever occurred to me. I know we hadn't seen each other for all those years, but I'd assumed she was out there somewhere.' Declan shrugged. ‘I always hoped she was happy.'
‘Come along inside.' Guiding him through the gates of Goldstone Salvage & Treasure, Coral led him across the flagstones, past an eclectic assortment of items for sale and into a low building that turned out to be an office.
‘Marty, could you keep an eye on things out there? This is someone I need to chat to in private for ten minutes.'
Middle-aged Marty, also wearing a blue Goldstone T-shirt and jeans, nodded and left them alone. Coral offered Declan a swivel chair and perched herself on the edge of the desk next to the computer.
‘Like I said, Lily should be back by three o'clock. I'm not going to call her and say you're here, because I don't want her racing back down the motorway like a maniac. And I'm not going to talk to you about her either, because that wouldn't be fair. Lily deserves to be the one who does that.'
‘Absolutely.' Declan nodded in agreement.
‘But you won't be disappointed.' Coral smiled at him. ‘I can promise you that much. She's a gorgeous girl. I won't show you any photos. You'll see for yourself when she gets back.'
‘Fair enough.' Now he knew it was definitely going to happen, he was fine to wait.
‘And we're pretty busy here today, but we can chat about Jo, if you'd like to.'
‘You were her best friend,' said Declan. ‘I'd really like to.'
‘Jo was so great. The first time we met was the day we both moved into the halls of residence at Exeter. There was this weird whacking sound coming from the room next door to mine and a voice kept saying, "Oh you bugger." In the end I went to see what was going on, and there was Jo trying to hit a bluebottle with a rolled-up magazine, but every time she took a swipe at it, it flew off. The first words she said to me were "Oh, hi, have you come to watch me murder my new roommate?" And at that exact moment, the bluebottle flew around her in a circle and landed on her head.'
‘Ha.' Declan smiled, already glad he'd made the journey down; hearing stories about Jo wasn't only going to benefit Lily, it seemed. ‘I can just picture that happening.' He could almost hear Jo saying the words, mischievous yet deadpan. Comic timing had always been her forte.
‘We were friends from that moment on,' said Coral. ‘It's scary to think we might not have met. If some bored office admin person had allocated us different rooms or put us in different halls … well, everything could have been so different.'
‘The first time I saw Jo,' said Declan, ‘I was just turning up for my shift at the restaurant in Barcelona. An old Scottish woman on holiday had had her purse snatched and the thief was running off down Las Ramblas. Jo had seen it happen and she raced off after him. She was still carrying her tray,' he remembered. ‘The thief had an accomplice waiting for him on a moped at the end of the street. Just as he was about to jump on the back of the moped and escape, Jo threw the metal tray at him like a Frisbee and it hit him smack in the back of the legs. I saw it with my own eyes. The thief dropped the purse and went flying, the guy on the moped rode off without him and Jo picked up the purse and the tray and came back up the street to the restaurant. The old lady was sobbing with gratitude and tried to give her some money to say thank you. Jo said, "No way, that's the best fun I've had in weeks."'
‘That's exactly what she was like.' Coral was laughing now. ‘All she told me was that she once threw a tray at a thief in Barcelona. I never got to hear the whole story.' She shook her head. ‘This is amazing. It's like filling in all the gaps. We could carry on doing this for hours.'
‘I've brought a photograph album down with me.' Declan waved his hand in the rough direction of the car park. ‘I'll wait until Lily's back. I mean, I know Jo had photos too … '
‘Of you and her together? Oh, but she didn't. Well, she did once,' Coral hastily amended. ‘I saw them when we were first at uni. But they disappeared during our second year, just vanished. Jo was distraught when she realised they'd gone missing. I'm sure it was her boyfriend. He always denied it, but I'd bet any money it was him. Anyway, Lily never got to see them, obviously, so she'll be thrilled to see your photo album.'
‘Which boyfriend was this?' By the curl of her lip, Declan suspected she wasn't a fan.
‘Keir. Lily's biological father.' Coral pulled an even more disparaging face. ‘Honestly, I can't tell you how much I despise that man. He left Jo high and dry, refused to have anything to do with her once he found out she was pregnant, and got his parents to do his dirty work for him. Eurgh.'
Declan closed his eyes briefly. Whatever had Jo been thinking, getting involved with someone who so clearly didn't deserve her?
Aloud he said, ‘Why was she with him in the first place?'
‘Well the trouble with some people is you don't find out what they're really like until it's too late. To begin with, he seemed fine.' Coral shrugged. ‘On the surface he was good-looking and he had plenty of charm. He could be good company too, if I'm being honest. Jo would never have got together with him if he'd been awful. He was fun to have around. And they seemed happy together, until Jo got pregnant and Keir decided he wanted nothing to do with the situation. That was it, relationship over.'