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Gabriel’s biggest fear was that Maggie wanted to see him, not because she wanted to thank him in person, but because she knew Charlie would never have said that he loved her. Maybe they hadn’t had that kind of relationship. In Gabriel’s mind—because of Charlie’s distress over whatever it was that Maggie had done—there’d been some sort ofargument before he left on his bike. If Maggie asked him what Charlie’s real message was, how could he tell her the truth? How could he let her carry the burden of it for the rest of her life? But equally, how could he maintain the lie if she were standing right in front of him?
His phone rang. He knew it was Beth, his phone had a special ringtone for her.
“Hi Dad, I’m just phoning to check you’re not slacking on our pact,” she said, smiling at him from the screen.
Gabriel laughed. “Guilty as charged. I’m on my way to meet Hugh for a drink.”
“I thought I recognized the village in the background. Is Mum with you?”
“No, she’s gone to London for lunch with Jade.”
“That’s nice, she’ll enjoy the break. I hope I still have my childhood friends in thirty years’ time.” She paused. “What’s happening on the Laure and Pierre front?”
“Hopefully they’ll resolve their differences tomorrow and Laure will only come back to pack her bag.” He pulled a rueful face. “She’s not that bad; I’ll probably miss her when she’s gone. But it’s been four weeks. Just saying.”
Beth smiled. “You and Mum should come to Greece once Laure has left. I know you couldn’t before because of your work, but you have time now. I haven’t seen you or Mum for nearly a year. I miss you.”
“Probably not as much as your mum and I miss you. We’ll definitely come, it would be good to get away. I’ll speak to Mum about it. Sorry, Beth, I’m at The Watershed. I need to go.” He flipped his camera so that she could see the pub. “Hugh will be waiting for me.”
“You like him, don’t you?”
“Yes, he and Esme are great. Esme is just what your mum needs, a friend in the village.”
“I’ll let you go, Dad. Have fun, don’t get drunk.”
“I won’t. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
He found Hugh at the bar. They ordered beers and carried them out to the garden.
“Are you missing the surgery?” Hugh asked, after he and Gabriel had established that they were both fine and glad to be away from their respective houses for a while.
It surprised Gabriel that he needed to think about his answer.
“Not as much as I thought I would,” he admitted. “The first few days were the worst because I felt guilty for not being there. I kept wondering how they were coping, how my regular patients were. But to be honest, there are days when I forget I used to be a doctor. It’s the garden; they say that gardening is good for the soul and, in my case, that’s certainly true. If I didn’t have that to focus on, I’d be itching to get back to work. Which wouldn’t necessarily be a good thing.”
Hugh nodded. “How’s Joseph getting on?”
“Fine. He’s a good worker,” Gabriel added, trying to sound generous rather than grudging.
“Yes, he’s a great help to me.” Hugh clinked his beer glass against Gabriel’s. “Here’s to youth.”
Gabriel laughed and took a long drink of beer. “Iris told me that he got into some sort of trouble a couple of months back. It was kind of you to take him on.”
“Yes. He was fired from Jarmans for drunk driving, and worried he would go completely off the rails, Esme’s dad asked us to take him in.”
“Jarmans?” Gabriel recognized the name of a prestigious landscaping firm. “I was wondering who he’d worked for. So, how are you enjoying village life?”
“It’s a huge change from life in the city, but a good one. And the beauty of it is that we’re near enough to London if we want to go up for the day.”
They stayed a couple of hours putting the world to rights, and as Gabriel walked home, he felt he had a true friend in Hugh. He thought back to what Hugh had told him about Joseph.
He couldn’t help feeling there was something cagey about him.He might only have worked with him for two days, but any attempt he’d made at conversation hadn’t got very far. He was so intrigued that when he got back to the house, he googled Jarmans, mentally shaking his head at himself. Joseph was hardly going to feature on their website, not if he’d been sacked. They probably employed hundreds of landscapers anyway. He looked instead at their projects, wondering which of them Joseph had been working on when he’d wrapped his car around a tree. There was a golf club, and a city park, and the grounds of a public school, St. Cuthbert’s, just outside Winchester.
Gabriel stared at his screen. St. Cuthbert’s was the school that Charlie Ingram had gone to.
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