The Little Teashop in Tokyo by Julie Caplin Page 0,112

of things. He snatched his coat from the rack and stalked out. He seemed pretty angry.’

Fiona lifted her head and narrowed her gaze to the desk where there was a pretty Japanese woman in a black suit handing out programmes for the exhibition.

‘Excuse me a minute.’ She felt all eyes follow her as she walked over to the woman.

‘Hello, can I help you?’

‘Yes. I’m Fiona Hanning.’

‘Miss Hanning. Does Mr Morimoto know you are here? Everyone loves your pictures. There’s been so much excitement here. We’re very honoured to have them.’ She bowed. ‘Very good pictures.’

‘Thank you. There was a man here earlier but he had to leave. Dark hair. Blue eyes.’

‘Oh yes. He was asking when you would be arriving as he had to catch a flight. Mr Morimoto told him your mother had fallen ill and before he could finish and explain that you were on your way, he bowed, said thank you and that he was going to miss his plane. He left very quickly.’

Fiona winced uncomfortably, reminded of the image of Gabe’s furious face the last time she’d seen him. ‘Thank you.’ Well, that was that then. Gabe had been and she’d missed him. She turned to walk away, her boots like concrete weighing down her steps. ‘Oh wait, he left something. It’s a bit …’ She held up a crumpled flyer. ‘I don’t know if it was for you. He screwed it up and left it on the desk.’

The woman handed over the creased leaflet.

Love Letters.

An exhibition by Gabe Burnett.

The Castille Gallery, Dover Street.

April 25th – June 15th

Fiona stuffed it into her pocket. It wasn’t for her. He’d talked about a retrospective. She wasn’t a glutton for punishment. Those pictures of Yumi were brilliant, clever, and inspiring but she’d seen enough of Yumi to last her a lifetime.

Why had he even come this evening? Because he was in the country? As a courtesy to Haruka and Kaito? They would have expected him to call in, she was sure. And if he were coming to see her, or of his own accord, surely he would have been in touch. To tell her was going to be here. Or that he was even in the country. And if he had a flight to catch, he’d clearly never intended on staying for very long. Why hadn’t he texted or phoned her? If he’d wanted to see her, he could have done either.

‘Miss Hanning. You are here.’ Mr Miromito stepped into her path and bowed. ‘Welcome.’

‘Hello, I’m so sorry I’m so late.’

He bowed again and with his hands waved away her apology. ‘Your mother had an accident. How is she? I was most sorry to hear this.’

‘She’s fine. It’s not serious, I don’t think. She had a fall.’ That sounded better than that she tripped over the stupid cat. ‘She’s gone to the hospital with a friend to get it checked out.’

He bowed again. ‘I am very pleased to hear that she is being looked after. I hope that she will make a fast and good recovery. May I introduce you to some people?’

The rest of the evening was a blur of bowing, shaking hands and being introduced to so many people whose names she was never going to remember – well, except for the few celebrities that were there. Who would ever forget meeting Bryan Adams and talking photography techniques with him? Or Katie giving her a thumbs up and taking lots of pictures on her phone. She even spotted Brian May with his wife.

Even so, none of it made up for the disappointment squeezing her heart without mercy.

Finally, as the crowd began to thin, she had no more excuses for avoiding Avril and she made her way back to the others.

‘Well, I think you’ve officially got a hit on your hands, young lady,’ declared Conrad.

‘It seems like it,’ said Fiona, a little bemused. She’d been talking to the arts editor of one of the nationals who was going to put it in his guide for the weekend as a must-see show.

‘Well done, Fi,’ said David.

Avril was putting her phone away. ‘Sweetie, I’ve been speaking to my producer and he’s agreed we can film a segment here and interview you. With the Olympics coming up, tourism in Japan has had a huge boost. So we’re going to run a story on that and we’ll include a little piece on the exhibition and your inspiration. I’ll liaise with the crew tomorrow but I’d like to film it the day after