‘I’m sorry, did you want to join them?’
‘I can do that any other time.’
She looked over to where the group were getting well into the celebrations, pints lined up in wait on the table. ‘I hope that guy’s wife doesn’t mind him being that merry when he gets home.’
‘She’s in hospital for a couple of days so I think he may well be making the most of his freedom while he can, he has his dad babysitting. How about you?’ He sipped his beer. ‘Do you see kids in your future?’
Where had that question come from? ‘Hadn’t thought about it.’
‘No? Not even with your other half, you must talk about it? I always imagined you with a family one day.’
‘I could say the same about you.’
‘Not met the right person.’
She gulped back her beer. ‘We need to make a plan, about Barney.’
With what could’ve been a faint eye-roll, she wasn’t sure, he asked, ‘Where do you suggest we start?’
‘I’ve been thinking about this.’ In between deciding what to wear and applying her make-up ready to meet the man who wasn’t even her boyfriend let alone fiancé. ‘Do you remember him telling us that he lived in a Norfolk village?’
‘That narrows it down,’ he harrumphed.
She plonked her beer bottle on the table, missing the cardboard mat entirely. This was what was hard between them, the not knowing whether he was happy to be spending time with her and trying to help Barney or whether he was still so angry with her for how things worked out that he couldn’t move past it. ‘Look, maybe we should forget it, you’re obviously so sure we won’t find anything that you don’t want to try.’
‘I never said that. I apologise for the sarcasm. Continue.’
Tears began to form, something she hadn’t predicted, certainly not tonight on a balmy summer’s evening in one of the prettiest beer gardens she’d seen in a long while. The rear windows of the pub had flower boxes filled with the brightest petals, variegated ivy covered the walls, blue flowers on the wisteria going over the back door added a pop of colour and well-tended flowerbeds added a sweet seasonal aroma to the air.
‘Melissa, I really am sorry. I’m being a dickhead.’
‘You are.’ But her tears weren’t because of the way he’d bitten her head off, she could handle a bit of attitude, it was more to do with her mounting confusion. Lately it was as though she had two lives, one here, one in Windsor. And it was as though she’d passed the optimum mourning for her parents by going to their graveside and dealing with her emotions, and next in line to process was her feelings about this man sitting opposite her.
Her voice wobbled. ‘We have to do this before I leave. I can’t bear the thought of this being the start of the end for Barney.’
‘You always were good at drama,’ he teased.
‘If you’re referring to my god-awful performance inAladdinat the playhouse then please, I beg you not to bring that up. Not my finest moment – I forgot half my lines.’
‘You did just fine.’ He took a swig of beer after smiling as he remembered the night she was talking about. ‘Right, what do you have in mind to get going with the search for answers?’
‘I think we should go back to the village in Norfolk. Barney has talked about living there, we know how much he loved to sail, he’s never made a secret of going to a marina and hanging out there a lot as a kid and as a teen. What we don’t know is what happened to bring him to Heritage Cove.’
‘I can’t remember what the Norfolk village is called.’
‘Me neither. So we’re going to have to do some detective work to find out where it was.’
‘Challenge accepted,’ he grinned, bringing out his phone as she did the same.
Between them they found maps and lists of towns and villages in Norfolk online, but none of them stood out as having been a place Barney had mentioned. There was one that kind of did but both Harvey and Melissa remembered it had been somewhere Barney holidayed several times as a boy, another stood out until Harvey recalled that it was only because there had been a street festival there and Barney had supplied apples for the cider-making contest.
They were well through their second drinks when Melissa’s phone rang and Jay’s name popped up on the caller display. She let it ring out but felt guilty. ‘I should really call him back.’
‘It’s fine, you do what you need to do.’ And if Harvey was bothered he didn’t let it show. ‘The name of the village might come to one of us when we least expect it. Maybe sitting here trying to remember is making it harder. You go and make your call, I need to get back to Winnie, she’s been on her own for a while today.’
‘I can always take her for a walk when you’re too busy.’ Was she offering for Winnie’s benefit or so she could be more involved with Harvey? She didn’t want to think about the truth behind that one.
‘I appreciate the offer, I’ll let you know.’ He picked up the empty bottles. ‘I’ll visit Barney in the morning and see if I can get him talking about the elusive village.’
