On my way out for lunch, I bump into Charles.
‘Have you got a moment?’ he asks.
‘Not really, I’m just popping out to buy a sandwich.’
‘Will you letmebuy it for you, my dear?’
I meet his eye. ‘Guilty conscience?’
He looks up and down the corridor, then leans forward to speak in a low voice. ‘He came to me for advice afterwards.’
‘After it happened, or after I found out?’
‘After you found out. I had no idea what he’d done. And if I did, I would have told you.’
Charles’s blue eyes meet mine, and I can tell he’s telling the truth.
I suggest he buys me a Pret club sandwich, and we head out together.
‘I’ve got lots of questions,’ I tell him, as we walk towards Marylebone High Street. I take a deep breath and start with the one I most want answered. ‘Did anyone know?’
‘No one at work if that’s what you’re worried about.’
‘So it wasn’t a quick dash to the pub toilet while everyone was toasting her farewell?’
‘You haven’t asked him yourself?’
‘I’d like to know what he told you.’
‘In case he told us two different versions?’
I shrug, but he’s busted me.
‘The party continued in her flat after the pub. She’d invited some other friends. It was barely ten, and he thought another couple of hours would be fine.’
I nod. So far, the stories stack up.
‘He was in pieces on Friday night. I was out with a delightful young lady, but he kept calling, so in the end, I had to make my excuses and leave so I could talk to him. I’d never heard him sound so distraught.’
‘Gosh, the poor thing – distraught to have accidentally inserted his penis into another woman and his girlfriend found out.’
‘I think there was quite a lot of eagerness on her part.’
I shake my head. ‘We’re not pinning the blame on her.’
‘What I mean is, she was eager to continue the liaison afterwards. But Rich was clear with her that it was a one-off, regrettable, mistake.’
‘She came to ourflat, Charles. I saw her on Friday when he was supposed to be helping Snot with his fridge.’
‘Yes, I know. She wasn’t happy Rich wanted nothing more to do with her so she ambushed him.’
‘She’s what, twenty-three? And Rich will be thirty-seven on his next birthday. Chasing younger women seems to be a familytrait. What was it – an early mid-life crisis? He should have bought himself a bloody Porsche.’
‘I’m not excusing him. I just want you to know how much he regrets it and how he’ll do anything to make it up to you. Being unfaithful – it just isn’t Rich. He hated seeing what his father’s affairs did to his mother.’
‘But she stayed, Charles. It’s a powerful message to a young man – women will put up with cheating.’
Pen and I get to Bar Salsa just before eight and find Tig sitting in a booth by herself, glumly sipping a fishbowl of a cocktail through a straw.
