‘I just don’t get it,’ says Libby. ‘Lurking around, slinking through tunnels and bushes, hiding upstairs when he knew I was downstairs. Are you sure it’s Henry?’
‘Well, no, of course not. But who else would know you were going to be there? Who else would know how to get into the house?’
‘One of the others,’ she answers. ‘Maybe it’s one of the others.’
28
Lucy checks the time on her phone when Michael is briefly distracted by a wasp that is bothering his plate. He flaps at it with his napkin, but it keeps coming back.
It’s nearly three o’clock. She wants to be home by four. She needs the passports, but she also knows that in asking for the passports, she will be quickening the inevitable journey towards Michael’s bed.
She starts to clear their plates. ‘Here,’ she says, ‘let’s get this stuff inside, that’ll get rid of your annoying friend.’
His eyes are glassy and he smiles at her gratefully. ‘Yup,’ he says. ‘Good plan, and let’s get some coffee on too.’
She leads the way into the kitchen and starts to load the dishwasher. He watches her while the coffee machine grinds beans. ‘You really kept your figure, Luce,’ he says. ‘Not bad for a forty-year-old mom of two.’
‘Thirty-nine.’ She smiles tightly and drops two forks into the cutlery basket. ‘But thank you.’
The atmosphere is clumsy, slightly sour. They’ve left it too long for what comes next. They’ve drunk too much, eaten too much, sat for too long in the languorous air of the garden. Lucy says, ‘I need to get back to the kids soon.’
‘Oh,’ says Michael lightly. ‘Marco’s a big boy. He can look after his little sister a while longer.’
‘Yes, sure, but Stella gets a little anxious when she’s not with me.’
She sees his jaw twitch a little. Michael does not like to hear about weakness in others. He abhors it. ‘So,’ he says with a sigh, ‘I suppose you’ll want the passports?’
‘Yes. Please.’
Her heart thumps so hard under her rib cage that she can feel it in her ear canals.
He cocks his head and smiles at her. ‘But don’t rush off just yet? OK?’
He goes to his study and she can hear him opening and closing drawers. He returns a moment later, the passports in a felt drawstring bag in his hand. He waves it at her.
‘I am nothing if not a man of my word,’ he says, walking slowly towards her, his eyes on her, dangling the felt bag in front of him.
She can’t work out what he’s doing. Is he expecting her to snatch them from him? Chase him? What?
She smiles nervously. ‘Thank you,’ she says.
And then he is standing up against her, the small of her back hard against the kitchen counter, the felt bag clutched in his hand, his mouth heading towards the crook of her neck. She feels his lips against her throat. She hears him groaning.
‘Oh, Lucy Lucy Lucy,’ he says. ‘God, you smell so good. You feel so …’ He grinds himself against her. ‘So good. You are …’ He groans again and his mouth finds hers and she kisses him back. That is why she is here. She came here to fuck Michael and now she is going to fuck Michael and she has fucked him before and she can fuck him again, she really can, especially if she pretends he is Ahmed, pretends he is a stranger even, then yes, she can do this, she can do this.
She lets his tongue into her mouth and closes her eyes, tight, tight, tight. And his hands are pushing her up from behind, pushing her up on the counter and he takes her legs and he wraps them around his body, his hands gripping her ankles hard enough to make her wince, but she doesn’t stop, she carries on because this is what she came here to do. Behind them the coffee machine bubbles and hisses. She knocks an empty glass and it rolls across the counter, smashes against the side of the kettle. She tries to move her hand away from the broken glass but Michael is pushing her closer towards it, his hands pushing up the fabric of her skirt, searching for the waistband of her knickers. She tries to move across the counter away from the glass, but she doesn’t want to stop the momentum of what’s happening, she needs it to happen so that it is done, so that she can pull on her