my shoulder. I turned to see Sam talking to one of the ladies who had come from the social club. He was smiling at her, his head inclined towards her so she could hear him, dark hair falling over his eyes.
‘He’s not my boyfriend,’ I said, shocked.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘He seems very nice, anyway.’
‘He is – he’s lovely.’
‘But not…?’
I shook my head. Not my type, I thought, not having any clue what my type actually was, nor why Sam wasn’t it.
‘We miss you at work, you know that,’ she said. ‘I mean it. They all send their love.’
‘I’ll be back soon,’ I said. ‘Maybe Monday.’
‘Take as much time as you need,’ she said. ‘But it would be good to have you back.’ She turned to go, but hesitated and came back to me. ‘You know Frosty’s got a whole pile of billings? He’s pretending that he knows what to do with them, but you know…’
‘Billings? For the job?’
‘Yeah. I mean, I could look at them, but it’s your baby, isn’t it, this one? I don’t want to interfere with it.’
‘He never said.’
‘He’s probably trying not to put you under pressure to come back, but you know – if it was me – I’d want to be involved. You don’t mind me telling you?’
‘No, of course not. And you’re right – I do want to be involved. Thanks, Kate.’
She headed back towards the car park. I watched her go, feeling a buzz of excitement inside. I’d not been looking forward to going back to work, remembering that feeling of isolation, but actually speaking with Kate had made me feel a bit more cheerful about it. She hadn’t had to come to the funeral, but she’d made the effort, not just to be there but to speak to me afterwards. Maybe things would be better from now on. And now I had a real purpose, a task to do.
Back at Keats Road, Irene had cooked a roast lunch which I had to force down, even though it was delicious. I’d forgotten what hunger felt like. The atmosphere around the table was subdued, which must have been on my account. Every mealtime since I’d arrived had been conducted to the accompaniment of bright conversation and laughter. Brian was a joker, always starting off long anecdotes about friends, work colleagues, Irene or Sam, with a twinkle in his eye which I’d worked out meant that it was a complete fabrication and at the end of it would be some corny punchline. His method of delivery was always the funniest bit.
‘Don’t mind him,’ Irene had reassured me, the first time this happened. That particular story had taken twenty-three minutes to tell from one end to the other, partly because he’d been distracted part-way through it and had lost track, diverting on to a story about someone’s dog that had eaten a prawn sandwich containing a hidden anti-anxiety tablet and had to have its stomach pumped (apparently the stomach contents were also found to contain a mysterious diamond ring that nobody recognised, and a Roman coin), and then eventually picking up the thread of the original story about a friend of his who’d accidentally overdosed on his Valium and ended up asleep for five days. None of which was true. I listened to it all, rapt, mainly because it meant I didn’t have to say anything.
Irene and Sam seemed to deal with him by talking between themselves – they’d heard it all before, after all. Every once in a while he’d come up with a new one and then they would both listen with smiles on their faces, waiting for the joke.
When we sat down to eat the roast, Brian started off on a story of a funeral he’d been to, of a colleague whose hobby had been ventriloquism. Irene gave him a look across the table and brought the anecdote to an unexpectedly abrupt halt. After that we sat in silence.
‘I’m going to go out for a bit,’ I said after we’d eaten.
They all looked at me in surprise.
‘I’m coming with you,’ said Sam, standing.
‘No, it’s alright. I just need… um… a bit of fresh air.’
Before they could argue I was out of the door and unlocking my car.
The police station car park was mostly empty, which was unsurprising given that it was nearly four o’clock on a Friday afternoon. They were all in the pub, or on the way home, or playing snooker in the club across the road. I parked in one of