I took my drink away and nursed it for a while in Mariel’s eye line, until she reluctantly came over, trailing laughter at the hilarious jokes of Simon, who, it would later turn out, wasn’t divorced at all, or at least not to the knowledge of the wife and children he very much still had. ‘I want to go. This was a bust.’
‘It wasn’t so bad.’ She looked back at Simon, as if she could shape this unpromising man-clay into something workable. Into love, into hope.
‘Come on, Mar. You can do so much better than that suit.’
She drained her white wine. ‘Can I?’ Disappointment seemed to radiate off her in waves, and I was worried I’d catch it.
I went home disconsolate and lay awake wondering where the middle ground was between twenty-something pick-up artists and older men cheating on their wives. But the next day after work, I found myself walking past the same bar, and thinking about the young barman with the blue eyes, the simple unaffected way he’d spoken to me. Something genuine about it, not awkward-flirty or just plain awkward like the single men I met at my age. I could call in for a drink, couldn’t I? I was an independent woman in my thirties with no one to go home to; what was to stop me popping in for a small cocktail or a glass of Merlot? So I went in, on one of those small whims that change your life, and there was Aaron working again. The smile he gave me made me ashamed of my cynicism, that a young man couldn’t treat me with respect and admiration without me throwing it back in his face. ‘You came back,’ he said.
‘Yeah,’ I said. That was it. Sometimes it is very simple, if you can just get out of your own way.
Afterwards, Mariel loved to tell the story of how I went speed dating and picked up the young barman instead. I didn’t love it as much. In fact, I didn’t really see her much nowadays.
Alison
She stared at the little stick, fighting a desperate urge to pee on it.
Tom’s voice came through the door. ‘It’s too soon, mate, I told you.’ He always called her mate, just like he had when that was all they were, friends, partners, colleagues. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it.
‘I’m not doing it!’ It was far too soon, he was right. It would only be negative, even if she was, technically, pregnant. Alison peed – not on the stick – flushed, washed her hands, using the towel to push down the cuticles on her hands as her mother had taught her. She needed a manicure, but the chances of finding the time for one were up there with spotting Sasquatch on Beckenham High Street.
She opened the door to find Tom hovering. ‘You’ve got to chill, mate.’
‘I am chill,’ she said, in a very non-chill voice. ‘But . . . what if we can’t . . . ?’
‘Then we get the IVF.’
‘And if that doesn’t work? We only get one free round.’
‘Try again, I guess.’
‘Just lob five grand at it, like?’
He shrugged. That was always his attitude – do the thing to fix a problem or accept it as it was. Men. So infuriatingly practical. ‘How’s the case, then?’
She was grateful to change the subject. ‘Jealous, are you? What’s it you’re stuck with, petrol fraud?’ It had been a long day at the site of the death, a suburban house in Beckenham, going over forensics and taking initial eye-witness statements, and she was sweaty and tired but despite all this, fired up. It was a good one.
He scowled. ‘It’s so boring. And everything stinks of petrol now. Tell me about your exciting one.’
They moved into the kitchen, where dinner was cooking. She stirred the pot. It was still a surprise to find herself living like this, domestically coupled up, buying cushions and making Nigella meals, and with Tom Khan of all people, once her irritating partner when she worked in Sevenoaks, barely even a friend. Everything had changed when Alison got the offer of a promotion, but with the Met in Bromley instead of Kent, and when she announced it Tom had declared himself in a surprisingly romantic way and now they were a thing. A couple. He was still working in Sevenoaks, and they lived somewhere between the two, clinging on to the very outer edges of London, which every day extended to surround and engulf them. ‘Well, there’s ten possible suspects. If you don’t count the babies.’
His face changed. ‘There’s babies?’
She stirred, not meeting his eyes. ‘Well, yeah, did I not say? It was some antenatal group meet-up. Babies sort of come with the territory. I think that’s the only reason they know each other.’ It was strange, the diverse make-up of the group, social, racial, and age. Where else would you find such different people socialising like that? Tom turned down the dial on the hob; she swatted his hand. ‘Stop back-seat cooking!’
‘Yeah, yeah. Are you going to be alright with that?’
‘What?’
‘Babies. You know.’
‘I can be around babies. I’m not some crazy barren woman.’ She wished she hadn’t said the word, even in jest, because it made it more real. Barren. Barren. She was only thirty-six, not even that old. Some of those women there were years older than her, she was sure. She had time, whatever her mother said. But it didn’t feel like that. It felt monumentally unfair that even though human lives were stretching, that she could expect to live to a hundred, her fertile years were still so short. Whereas Tom’s would go on and on.
‘It’s going to be OK.’
‘You don’t know that. There’s only a twenty per cent chance it’ll work, even with IVF. That’s pretty crap, isn’t it?’
‘I got twenty per cent on a maths test once,’ he reflected, fiddling with the hob again.
‘And? Did you pass?’
‘Ha. Nope.’
‘And they still let you do the job. Her Majesty’s finest.’
He went to set the table. ‘Who’s your new me, then?’
‘That Diana Mendes – she’s come down from North London. Young but good, I hear.’ Alison had yet to work with her new partner, which was just another thing to worry about.
The cutlery drawer rattled. ‘So what happened then? One of the yummy mummies snapped and pushed them over the edge?’
‘I’ve no idea. Things were very confused. I’ve had ten different versions of the story so far. Most of them insisted it was an accident. A fall, a slip, no foul play, honest officer.’
‘What did Colette say?’
Alison’s boss was inclined to the accident angle, which meant less officer power for the case, less urgency, less budget. ‘She thinks probably that, yeah.’
‘But?’
He knew her so well. ‘She wasn’t at the scene, was she? It was weird, Tom. They were all, I dunno. Off their heads. Different stories. Jumpy as hell.’
‘Maybe you would be, if someone just died at your party.’
‘It was more than that. I’m gonna look into it, for as long as she lets me.’ They’d had to let the witnesses go home overnight, but she would be calling on them all, starting tomorrow. At least until Colette pulled her off it to work on something that was definitely a crime.
Tom leaned against the counter. ‘Because?’ He was listening avidly, and she was glad of this, that they’d always have something to talk about together, namely the grisly things that people did to each other, the lies that they told.