‘Oi! Noreen! That bloke from the new suppliers is dahnstairs looking for ya!’

Arthur banged on the door like he was waking the dead. Which, in effect, he was.

‘Shite,’ Noreen said, rubbing her head. ‘Early meeting with vintner big shots. I forgot.’

Lara was already up. She might have got drunk quicker but she could weather a hangover better than her friend.

‘Better get a move on – here.’ She threw a fresh blouse and skirt across at her.

Noreen threw on the clothes, located her sling backs, then dragged a comb through her hair and ran downstairs.

Lara was relieved that she would have the chance to talk to Annie before Noreen got her hands on her.

When she came out to the living room Annie was in the kitchen, making a loaf of Irish brown bread.

Her hands flicked over the floured dough ball gathering up crumbs from the Formica countertop until it was as clean as when she started. Lara never failed to wonder at Annie’s talent for domesticity. She gathered up the light loaf and put it on a tray in the oven.

‘What’s the occasion?’ Lara asked.

Annie’s naked face was glittering with her secret excitement. She looked as if she might have been up all night. Lara could not look at her beautiful, perfect face without imagining the love in Matthew’s eyes.

‘I’m off work today so I thought I’d treat us all and have fresh bread for breakfast.’ She smiled awkwardly and added, ‘I saw Noreen rush off just now. Will she be back before lunch?’

She seemed as if she was trying hard to control her voice and keep calm.

‘I doubt it,’ Lara said. ‘She’s very busy today.’ It was true, but everything about this conversation was starting to feel like a lie.

‘How did the shoot go with Alex yesterday? Sorry I didn’t make it.’

That was a lie.

‘It was fine. How was your day? Did the stock arrive from Wales?’

‘Ah yeah. Fine.’

Noreen’s dark warnings about Annie’s duplicitous nature began to weigh on her. Could Noreen be right? Was Annie the devil incarnate? Did she even know Matthew was Noreen’s brother? Lara tried to remember if she had ever mentioned his name to Annie.

‘You were out late last night.’

‘Yes,’ Annie said, ‘I was.’

She wasn’t going to say anything. Lara turned away and walked towards the bedroom door feeling hurt and humiliated.

But, just as she was on the point of leaving, Annie shouted out in an excited burst, ‘Oh Lara, the most wonderful thing happened last night. The boy that I was telling you about – he came along to the shoot and he kissed me and we’re in love!’

Lara was relieved. She put a smile on her face.

‘I’m not supposed to tell anybody, because, and please try not to be shocked, but he’s a priest. Well, not a full priest, he’s training to be a priest. Although really he should never have been a priest at all because he just loves art and old paintings. He’s very creative, a lot like you. I think you would really get along.’

Then, something surprising happened. Lara found that the fake smile she had plastered on her face was, in fact, real.

‘Anyway, I never dreamt I would meet anyone so wonderful, Lara. We stayed out all night long. We walked all over London and we talked and talked about everything. I told him things, Lara, that I’ve never told anyone before. Is that wrong?’

She was speaking so quickly and excitedly Lara knew that the question was entirely rhetorical. She could not possibly answer even if she had known what she was talking about.

‘No,’ Lara replied, and found herself giving out a small laugh. ‘That’s not wrong, Annie. It’s good to share things about yourself with the person you love.’

‘Oh, Lara, I do love him. I know that’s silly because we only just met but we feel as if we’ve known each other forever. And – we kissed and kissed and kissed and…’

‘And?’ Lara asked. She could not believe she was mischievously asking Annie if she had had sex with Matthew! The truth was she no longer cared that is was Matthew. Her Matthew. Because he wasn’t her Matthew any more. Any man that could make Annie this happy, who was so obviously, so innocently in love with the sweetest girl in the world, didn’t belong to her any more. In truth, he never belonged to her. She knew that yesterday when she saw him kissing Annie. If she was entirely honest with herself, she had known it long before that. Now, the truth closed the circle. She set him free although she knew Matthew had done that for himself when he left her.

‘NO!’ Annie said, shocked but laughing. ‘We certainly didn’t do anything of the kind!’

‘That would be a mortal sin would it?’

‘Most certainly,’ Annie said. Then her face dropped into an expression that was so forlorn that Lara was worried she had taken away some of her joy.

‘Sorry, Annie, I didn’t mean to make light of your feelings.’

‘I know. It’s just there are things I didn’t tell him. Things I can’t tell anybody. Bad things.’

Noreen’s foreboding tone last night floated up to the surface of Lara’s mind. She shook it off.

‘There are things about my past that are so terrible, Lara, that I cannot tell another living soul.’

‘If this man loves you,’ Lara said, ‘then he’ll forgive you anything.’

Annie’s expression did not lift.

‘Not anything. This is bad. Very bad.’

If Annie had a confession to make, Lara did not want to hear it. Despite herself, she felt genuinely pleased for Annie, but her lover was still Matthew and the fact was still raw. In any case, she was keeping her own secret now. Try as she might, Lara could not find a way of telling Annie who Matthew was. Perhaps she would leave that up to Noreen. Along with trying to make sure their furious, sturdy flatmate didn’t skin Annie alive when she got in.

‘Love isn’t always as straightforward as it seems, Annie. But it does conquer all in the end.’

It came out as it was intended: a clichéd platitude. But, as she said it, Lara had an epiphany. She had seen that look which she so painfully observed Matthew give Annie in the park. It had not been as soft or as lingering. If she had not been paying such close attention she might have missed it.

But there had been a moment when they were making love that she had seen that look but not been entirely certain she could trust what it was. Lara now knew with certainty that she had seen that look all right. Just, not from Matthew.

‘Sorry, Annie,’ she said. ‘I just remembered something important.’

Lara ran out of the flat, without her shoes. Barely dressed in a long night shirt that could pass as a mini, she ran down the stairs, banged on the door of Chevrons then shoved Arthur to one side and ran past Noreen and her men in suits until she got to the office door. She knew Coleman might still be asleep, or in the shower but she didn’t care. She put both hands up to the heavy door, banged and called his name.

Noreen looked across, curious but also furious at the interruption.

When he didn’t come immediately, Lara appealed to his business nous and shouted, ‘Open the door now, Coleman. Noreen’s in a meeting with suppliers and we’re disturb—’

The door opened a foot, and he dragged her in and slammed it behind her.

‘What the hell are you playing at?’

He was genuinely annoyed at being disturbed. Freshly showered, he was wearing trousers but was shirtless. His hand held her arm, his fingers digging in to her biceps.

She looked him square in the face and said, ‘Say it again.’

‘Say what again? What are you talking about?’

‘You know exactly what I mean, Coleman. Say it again.’

Coleman felt sick to his stomach. She couldn’t possibly mean it. She couldn’t possibly expect him to humiliate himself in that way. What kind of sick bitch was she?

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘If you really have no idea then I’m wasting my time.’

But she didn’t walk away. She just stood there, looked him in the eye and asked, ‘Am I wasting my time, Coleman?’

He didn’t know what to say. Or rather he didn’t know if he could say it. The last time being on the spur of the moment. The words had just come out of his mouth instinctively. That seemed the only way with any of these things. Love, anger – you couldn’t make them happen. They just did. You couldn’t be deliberate about emotion like that. You could lift the lid off, occasionally, but you could never be sure what would come out. All he could do was tell the truth.

‘I don’t know,’ he said.

Still, she didn’t walk away.

‘Say it again.’

‘I don’t know what you’re…’

‘Yes you do, and I know you do.’

He pushed her arm down by her side. She thought he would walk away but he didn’t, he just stood there.

‘So, Coleman. Say it again.’

He looked at her and his cold, dark eyes were dead with fear.

‘I don’t know if I can.’

His jaw set and his words crawled out through lips tight with fury. But Lara wasn’t afraid.

‘Try,’ she said.

‘Jesus, woman I—’

‘Just three little words.’

‘I can’t, I—’

‘No big deal. You already said the first one. I…’

She smiled at him and, for a split second, he trusted her. He looked at her and could see she wasn’t going anywhere. She wasn’t going to leave him alone until he had done as she asked. Coleman hated being badgered and bullied like this. It made him feel angry. But also not. He looked behind her ear, at the side of the door and blurted it out, ‘I love you. OK? Happy now?’

Lara reached over and put her hand under his chin, drawing his face over to her until they stood, eye to eye.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Say it again.’

His eyes flicked away but her hold was gentle and persuasive, and her steady gaze drew him back. She wasn’t going anywhere.

‘Say it again, Coleman.’

‘I love you,’ he said to appease her.

She reached up and kissed him on the mouth, then pulled back, all the time holding his face in her hands.

‘Again.’

What kind of game was this? But her kiss had been tender and real.

‘I love you,’ he said. And she kissed him.

‘Again.’

‘I love you.’

She made him say it until ‘I love you, I love you, I love you’ was issuing out of his mouth so that the words themselves had lost their meaning and Coleman felt he was drowning in the pool of vulnerability left when a man relinquishes his pride.

They kissed then made love. The phone rang out, twice, but they barely heard it.

And, when it was over, Lara lay on his bare chest and said, loud and clear into the still, dead air of the soundproofed office, ‘I love you too.’

❊

‘Where’s that clobber you promised me?’

‘Hasn’t it arrived yet, love?’

‘No it bloody well hasn’t and you know it. Have you forgotten, we’ve got Billy and Sandra’s anniversary party on Thursday, in the new villa? I was told I’d have a fabulous new outfit by then.’

‘You will, love.’

‘It’s TWO DAYS away, Bobby. How long has it been since you promised me that new wardrobe? Nearly a month!’

‘You’ve got loads of new outfits, love. What about the dress you bought in that new shop in the arcade? You were a right bobby-dazzler in that.’

‘Don’t be such an idiot, Bobby. It’s not the same as getting something specially made from London, which is what you promised me. No point in turning up in some tat I bought locally. All the girls are expecting me to make a splash.’

‘You make everything look special.’

‘Piss off. I know your game, trying to wriggle out of it. Have you gone and upset Coleman? It’s not like him to break a promise.’

Cheeky bitch. Chevron was itching to give Maureen a swipe but, like she said, they had his business associate Billy Jones’s party on Thursday and it wouldn’t look good if Maureen turned up with a black eye.

But then, neither did it look good if you owned a boutique and couldn’t fix up a couple of new frocks for the trouble and strife with a simple phone call.

He had rung a week ago and left a message for Coleman to call him but he hadn’t heard back. It just wasn’t on. His ‘eye’ had been worse than useless. No information had been forthcoming. Coleman was still blaming the whole scam on Shirley. Chevron had fixed Shirl’ up with a few bob and a flat in Manchester. Got her a job waiting tables in another gaff he had a share in up there. She seemed happy enough, but, to be honest, he didn’t give a shit whether she was or not. He just wanted to keep her away from Coleman until he could work out what was going on. Because there was something going on. He was sure of that.

He tried Chevron’s office phone again. No reply. It rang out. Chevron hated when that happened.

Coleman was meant to run the club for him and report back like a good boy. Like he had always done. But now, he was acting like the boss. Coleman was going behind his back, doing naughty things like nicking money and going in the papers pretending to be something he ain’t. Pretending to be a big man like him. Bobby did not like that. He did not like it one little bit.

Now, his boy had caused him to get a roasting from his wife and show him up in front of his associate Billy.

Coleman had stepped over the line. Bobby had no choice. Something had to be done.