“I didn’t want to be rude. And anyway, his lips locked on to my face like a lunar module docking.”
Sarah was helpless with mirth. Laura felt bad. Poor Graham. He didn’t deserve to be ridiculed. She remembered the bewildered look on his face when she finally broke the suction between them and garbled her good-bye before fleeing inside the house and slamming the door behind her. Poor Graham. But that didn’t mean that she ever wanted to see him again.
“Poor Graham be damned!” Sarah always had the uncanny ability to know what Laura was thinking. “Sounds more like ‘Poor Laura’ to me. He’s a bad kisser with a dodgy pole. Swill your mouth out and move on!”
Laura couldn’t help but smile, but just as her spirits were beginning to lift, a memory knocked them down like a rogue breaker, toppling a tentative paddler.
“Shit!” She slumped forward in her chair and once again buried her head in her hands.
Sarah put down her cup of tea, ready for the next revelation.
“Freddy!” groaned Laura miserably. “He found me this morning.”
“So?”
“He found me this morning; my face stuck to the sofa with dribble, wearing last night’s smudged makeup and not much else, surrounded by empty bottles and two glasses. Two, Sarah! He’ll think Graham ‘came in for coffee’!”
“Well, however compelling the evidence might be, it is purely circumstantial. And anyway, what does it matter what Freddy thinks?”
“He’ll think I’m a drunken harlot!”
Sarah smiled and spoke gently and slowly, as though to a small child.
“Well, if it matters that much, tell him what really happened.”
Laura sighed despondently. “Then he’ll think I am just a ‘dried-up, scruffy old bag lady.’”
“Right!” Sarah slapped the palms of her hands down on the table. “Enough of this moaning and wallowing. Upstairs, bag lady, and make yourself look presentable. After you’ve dragged me away from work to listen to your pathetic and tedious complaining, the least you can do is take me out to lunch. And I don’t just mean a sandwich, I mean a proper hot meal. And a pudding!”
Laura clipped the top of Sarah’s head playfully as she passed her on the way out of the kitchen, mussing up her perfect cut and blow-dry. Almost immediately, Freddy came in the back door.
Sarah stood up and offered him her hand and her brightest smile.
“Hello again. I’m afraid I didn’t introduce myself properly. I’m Sarah Trouvay, an old friend of Laura’s.”
Freddy shook her hand but refused to meet her gaze, turning instead to the sink to fill the kettle.
“Freddy. I’ve just come in to make a coffee. Can I get you one?”
“No thanks. We’re just going out.”
The silence, deliberate on Sarah’s part and embarrassed on Freddy’s, was broken only by the rattle of water boiling in the kettle. Looking everywhere but at Sarah, Freddy caught sight of Laura’s dress, hanging out of the bin. He fished it out and held it up.
“Hmm. Nice dress.”
“Yes. I bet Laura looked absolutely gorgeous in it.”
Freddy shifted uncomfortably in his muddy boots. “I wouldn’t know.”
At the sound of Laura’s footsteps coming down the stairs, Sarah stood up.
“I know it’s probably none of my business, but sometimes someone has to say something, even if they’re the wrong person. Last night; it wasn’t what it seemed.”
She turned to leave the kitchen and over her shoulder added:
“Just in case you’re interested.”
“None of my business either,” Freddy muttered sulkily as he poured boiling water into his mug.
Liar, liar! Pants on fire! thought Sarah.
The Moon Is Missing was hosting a wake for a ninety-two-year-old former boxing coach and horse dealer called Eddy “The Neddy” O’Regan. The mourners had clearly been toasting the dear departed enthusiastically for some time already, and the mood was cheerful, rowdy, and sentimental. Laura and Sarah managed to squeeze into one of the booths, and over saucisson cassoulet and puréed potato, washed down with a glass of house red for Sarah and a Diet Coke for Laura, they caught up with each other’s news. They had spoken briefly after Anthony died, but since then Sarah had been working on an important case that had only just been heard in court.
“Did you win?” Laura asked.
“Of course!” said Sarah, poking with her fork at the rather mushy-looking sausage and bean stew on the plate in front of her. “But never mind about that. Tell me everything.”