‘Thank you.’
She dawdled, feigning absorption in the paintings. The first one had been mildly amusing but after three or four, it was hard to see them as more than a gimmick. The door opened and a couple came in, the man about sixty, the woman perhaps thirty and dressed in tight indigo jeans, a long camel coat and heels that gave her a bird’s-eye view of her companion’s shiny pink cranium. She reached repeatedly for an iPhone in a diamanté case into which she spoke rapid-fire Russian. Niet, niet.
When the street door opened again, it was Greenwood. He looked better than he had at the funeral but not much. His eyes were still hollow and grey-shadowed, and he seemed thinner, his coat at least a size too big.
He recognised her and came directly over. ‘Rowan.’
‘Mr Greenwood, I’m so . . .’
‘James, please.’
‘I’m sorry just to turn up like this without ringing.’
He shook his head, reflexive good manners.
‘I wondered if I could talk to you?’
He glanced back at the desk and seemed to think. ‘Would you like some coffee?’ he asked. ‘There’s a place just around the corner.’
He gave the woman – Cara – a message then ushered Rowan towards the door. He was someone brought up to know how to make any social situation comfortable, she thought, but this was testing even his limits. He was stiff with tension, straight-backed as a meerkat. They walked side by side, both trying to find something to say that wasn’t ludicrously trite. The weather, the cold – how British.
He held the café door open and she went up a worn stone step into a muggy room permeated with the smell of cooking bacon. Clustered around small tables were about thirty other people.
Greenwood went to the counter but within a minute he was back, unloading a milk jug from the tray, asking if she took sugar. He picked up a sachet for himself but then had second thoughts and put it on the table.
‘Thank you for doing this. And for the coffee.’
He shook his head again: of course.
‘I feel very insensitive. Selfish. I’m really sorry – I should have thought more before coming. The last thing I want is to make things harder for you.’
He gave a grim smile. ‘It’s difficult to imagine how things could be harder.’
She looked down and straightened her spoon in the saucer. ‘I wasn’t sure if you’d be at work.’
‘I have to, for the sake of my sanity. I’m just going through the motions but the idea of sitting at home . . .’
‘It was nothing like this, of course, but when Marianne and I fell out, I was – well, it doesn’t feel right to say devastated now, in the circumstances,’ Rowan inclined her head, deferring to his pain, ‘but at the time, that’s what it felt like. It’ll sound stupid but when you said she used to talk about me, it made me happy.’
‘It doesn’t sound stupid.’ Despite the heat, he’d kept his coat on and his cuff buttons rattled against the table as he put his cup down. He seemed to square his shoulders. ‘What did you want to talk about?’
‘Exactly that. I wanted to ask what she said.’ A flicker crossed his face. What was that? Surprise? Rowan felt a stab of alarm: what had Marianne told him?
Greenwood picked up the sugar and tore it open. His spoon jittered against the vitreous china saucer. ‘I’m a bit shot,’ he said, looking at his hands, ‘so you’ll have to excuse me if I can’t remember exactly.’
‘Of course.’
‘But also, she didn’t talk about you often, I’m afraid. I had the impression – no, I knew – that it was painful for her to think about you. What happened?’
‘She didn’t tell you?’ Rowan looked at the cup between her hands.
‘No.’
‘It was a mess. The whole thing.’
‘I know it was about the time her father died.’
Her heart gave an exaggerated beat. ‘Yes. Because he died.’
‘What do you mean?’
Rowan made herself meet his eyes. ‘I’m so ashamed of how I behaved. I understand why she didn’t want to be friends afterwards.’ He was waiting, watching her. Hadn’t she come to ask him the questions? ‘When Seb died,’ she said, ‘Marianne disappeared. I don’t mean she ran away – just, she vanished. She locked herself away. I wanted to support her but she wouldn’t see me. At first I understood – she wanted to be alone with her family – but after a couple of weeks, I started to feel rejected. I know,’ she glanced quickly at his face and then away again. ‘Even saying it now, I’m mortified. The self-centredness.’