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‘Lara, I’m just saying be careful. I don’t want you to get hurt.’
‘Really?’ said Lara. ‘Because it sounds the exact opposite’.
She grabbed her bag and stood up. ‘You know, just because your girlfriend is screwing around, you don’t have to make me feel shitty about my love life.’
He tried to get up to follow, but Lara was already striding off along the towpath.
‘Lara, wait!’ he called.
But she was already gone.
Chapter 27
Alex hesitated before he rang the bell. He looked up at the blue door and he could just see the narrow staircase through the frosted glass panel. Alicia had the smallest apartment on one the best streets in Notting Hill, a quiet mews street with pastel coloured houses just waiting for a rom-com film crew to roll up with Hugh Grant and a rain machine.
‘It’s all about the postcode.’ That’s what Alicia had said the first time she had brought him here and Alex had always admired that about her: she always knew exactly what she wanted. Alex wished he felt the same. He had no idea what he wanted from coming here: an explanation? Some logical justification for Alicia being on Charlie’s doorstep first thing in the morning? The picture on Lara’s phone had seemed fairly conclusive. But then perhaps Alicia had a paper-round as a sideline and Charlie had been uncommonly grateful for the service. He smiled sadly to himself: gallows humour.
He pressed the doorbell and saw Alicia’s slim form running down the stairs, distorted, refracted. Maybe Lara was right, perhaps he hadn’t ever seen Alicia clearly. The door opened.
‘Hey there you,’ she said, darting forward for a kiss. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d be coming tonight. I’ve actually eaten but I can whip up a bowl of pasta for you if you’d like.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
He said it to her back as she had already gone upstairs.
Her flat was on the first floor, up a dark set of stairs. The door led straight onto the living space. The room was lit by a lamp in the corner and a little sodium from the streetlamp outside the window.
The bed was on a mezzanine platform reached by a steep set of stairs, a small kitchen ran along the back wall. It was still warm from the heat of the day and a candle in a ceramic pot dispensed a sweet, herbal scent that made him feel as if he was in the waiting room for the sort of deluxe spa that Alicia liked to go to.
As he watched her fluid movements, her elegant posture, Alex recognised that he was still attracted to Alicia. Had been from the minute he’d seen her. She had a delicate small-boned beauty that was in complete contrast to her steeliest. The teenage Alex would have run a mile from someone like Alicia Croft, but the grown-up Alex had fallen in love with her, and he still thought she was hot, no matter what she had done.
‘Drink?’ she asked, heading through the narrow apartment to the kitchen.
She fiddled with her iPad, settling on an Adele song before turning to the fridge and pulling out a bottle of wine.
‘I’m not staying.’
She turned, frowning.
‘Not staying?’
He stood awkwardly by the front door, as if poised on the edge of a cliff.
‘I met Lara after work,’ he said.
‘Again?’ she said distractedly, uncorking the bottle.
He ignored the jibe. Alex hardly ever met Lara after work these days; what little free time he had was given over to Alicia. Which was how it was supposed to be when you were serious about someone.
‘Lara went to Charlie’s place early this morning, around eight,’ he continued, determined to get it out. ‘Some urgent business to discuss.’
‘Could it not wait for the office?’ said Alicia, pouring the wine. ‘Oh of course not, she’s suspended.’
Alex almost smiled: a pre-emptive strike on Lara, a feint to distract him, draw his fire in another direction. Oh, she was good. Alex had always known that Alicia was an operator and up until this point he’d seen it as a positive. She worked hard at everything, yet it seemed that deceit was just another skill in her arsenal to get her what she wanted. Tonight, however, it wasn’t going to work.
‘Lara saw you with him,’ said Alex. ‘Coming out of the house just after eight AM.’
Alicia blinked at him.
