Page 42

‘Are you OK?’ Mark asked, his usually mild manner slipping. ‘Has something . . . happened here?’ His index finger swiped the space between them like a window wiper trying to clear a deadly fog.

‘I fancy a game of darts!’ Temperance leapt in with forced enthusiasm. ‘I’ll go and borrow them from the bar, shall I?’

Not a flicker of recognition from Abel. Their last summer together – just before he split – their gang of mates would trek into Salcombe whenever they could to try their hand at being cool, playing darts and getting served underage. Would it really cost him that much to say just one, ‘Do you remember when . . .?’ Apparently it would.

When Temperance returned, Susie was over at the jukebox and Mark look relieved to be out of the interview chair and chatting to Abel. A rapid set of synth chords played out, with Rihanna growling ‘Na na na na na’ over the top.

Temperance plonked the darts down on a little table and put her hands to her temples. ‘Oh man, Suse! ‘S&M’: I haven’t heard this in so long!’

Susie made her way over to Temperance, a winding motion in her shoulders and hips as she went. ‘You used to come back from a Salcombe night out and play it on a loop in your bedroom. I was twelve and had no idea what the lyrics meant. Got a bit of a shock when mum explained why I couldn’t blast it out of the car speakers on the school run.’

‘Yeah, it’s not all that family friendly, right? I didn’t get most of it back then. But the beat is just so . . . satisfying.’ The music snaked its way into her head and heart, drawing up long-lost memories of adrenalin and rum-fuelled nights that felt like they would never end. ‘You know, the first ever time I got into The Fort, Abel bought me a gin and tonic and assured me it was a proper grown up drink: it would make me look legit. I had two and started weeping about climate change. You put this on and started grinding with Tim Havers to cheer me up, do you remember, Abe?’ she turned to face him, the memory of the scene brightening her whole face with an unstoppable grin.

Abel’s eyes were on the space ten centimetres above Temperance’s head. She wasn’t even sure he’d heard her. In the silence of waiting for him to speak, Rihanna listed all the things she liked to do with whips and chains, being an unashamed bad girl. Temperance felt a surge of red-hot embarrassment travel from her toes right up to her hair follicles. How did she keep forgetting that clearly Abel would rather gouge his own eyes out than relive the old days? Somehow, she kept falling into unconscious ways to sexually harass him too, grabbing at his sweaty body in the strawberry field, leering at him in his wet suit and now making him relive a memory of dry-humping in a public place.

After a significant pause, Abel said, ‘Not really, sorry.’ And just like that, he took the bulb from her lighthouse yet again. He wasn’t going down memory lane – he was tarmacking over it.

Mark laid his arm along the back of Susie’s chair and she felt his thumb lightly brush the back of her neck twice. Despite herself, a charge of something thrilling shot down her spine.

It’s all part of his game! She reminded herself, hunching forwards in her seat and away from him. Never in her life had Susie had trouble moving on from a guy. Why did the one that she just couldn’t shake thoughts of have to be a corporate sell-out?

‘I’d love it if you could give me some paddleboarding lessons,’ he said warmly. ‘I’m a bit of a klutz, but I bet you could sort me out. Maybe if I get halfway decent we could follow the estuary as far as we can, make a day of it?’

Get me alone so you can dig up more insider info? I don’t think so.

It took all of Susie’s mental powers not to growl at him.

‘Hmm. Maybe. Anyway, let’s throw some sharp objects. I’m really in the mood.’

‘Are we doing teams?’ Mark asked. ‘I think the sisters will be deadly together, Abel – let’s split them up. I’ll take Susie, if that’s OK with her?’

She flashed the briefest of smiles in his direction. ‘But we play darts with drinking forfeits, you know,’ she said coolly. ‘So I’ll go and get some shots in, to be ready.’

Mark’s eyebrows pushed up. ‘Right. Guess we aren’t bothering with dinner then? Fair play. I’ll do anything but sambuca. It destroys me.’

Two hours later, the little pub table was Velcro-like with spilled sambuca. Susie had been expertly bodging all her throws, meaning that she and Mark took the forfeits – except that she’d feign disgust and let Mark valiantly take a shot on her behalf. As a result, he was three super-king-sized sheets to the wind, while she had merely a nice buzz from a few ciders.

Temperance was starting to worry just how sensible an idea it was to let Mark keep playing darts – a drunk person throwing small arrows was just the kind of thing the doom hanging over them would love to make use of. Sure, she’d had a lingering desire to throttle Abel now and again when he’d only grunt in reply to a question, but a dart in the neck was a whole other thing. When no one was looking, she slipped them under the table and onto a windowsill, behind a lamp.

Susie wasn’t lobbing questions at Mark anymore, but she was still sneaking up on him with the odd curveball.

‘You like the pub, don’t you? The Witch’s Nose, I mean.’

Mark leant his head back on the padded cushion behind Susie. ‘Yeah. Certain things about it I like very much.’ His wink was so drunken that it made his whole skull move.

‘And what do Beston portfolios like about it, in particular?’

Mark’s eyebrows clumped together, his brow deeply wrinkled. ‘What? What are you saying, Susie?’

Temperance knew they needed to keep Mark sweet until a chance came to lift his jacket subtly – they couldn’t risk him storming off now. ‘I think we could all do with coffees. I’ll get them.’

At the bar, the middle-aged barman talked to Temperance over the hiss of the coffee machine.

‘You’re not on the gin tonight, then?’

‘Sorry?’

He gave a dry laugh. ‘You don’t remember me. I had a lot more hair at twenty-five.’ He patted his bald spot. ‘And you don’t sport a ‘tache these days.’