on the steering wheel in a gesture of frustration and defeat. He shrugged.
‘I can’t understand it. She was at the bottom of the garden, digging a vegetable patch. I probably gave her a fright – I sort of came up behind her. I think she must be quite deaf, because I was calling her name all the way down the lawn, but she didn’t respond, so I kept moving closer, until I tapped her on the shoulder . . .’
Kate groaned. ‘No wonder she was scared, if you sneaked up behind her.’
‘I didn’t bloody sneak!’ Paul retorted. ‘What else was I meant to do? I tapped her on the shoulder, she jumped and held the garden fork out in front of her like she was about to impale me on it, and I tried to reassure her, but she wasn’t having any of it. She’s a game old bird, I’ll give her that.’
‘What did you say to her?’
‘I just said that we were here because we wanted to talk to her about her late husband, and she went mental. I had to back away – I mean, I really thought she was going to lunge at me with the fork. “You won’t get away with it!” she kept shouting. “Leave now otherwise you’ll regret it!” I think she must be a bit cuckoo. I was trying to get her to listen to me tell her about you, and that she knew your parents, but by that stage she was just yelling – I don’t think she even heard me. So I turned around and left.’
They looked at each other hopelessly. ‘Now what?’ Kate asked. ‘Perhaps I ought to try.’ She just about managed to refrain from saying that she ought to have been the one to try in the first place – she was sure she could have done it in a less confrontational manner. ‘There’s no point in knocking again, she won’t answer, will she? And I’m sure she’ll have gone back into the house. She’s not likely to have stayed out in the garden if she’s all that upset. I don’t want to go sneaking round the back and risk freaking her out again.’
‘I was not sneaking!’ Paul reiterated defensively. He looked so like Jack, when Jack was in trouble, that Kate couldn’t help smiling.
‘We’ll just have to wait till she’s calmed down. Why don’t we go and have a pub lunch, and come back later?’
‘OK,’ Paul said. ‘Sorry I messed it up. What an idiot, eh? Talk about a bull in a china shop.’
Kate hugged him, slightly self-consciously. ‘Don’t worry. All is not lost. Let’s go and eat. There was a nice-looking pub back there on the main road.’
Two hours later, after ploughman’s lunches containing slabs of cheese the size of small bricks, Paul and Kate walked back along the road towards Mrs Bainbridge’s cottage, and Paul’s car, in the tennis club car park.
‘I am so full-up,’ said Kate, tasting pickled onion in her mouth, and feeling her pint of lager sloshing around in her stomach as they marched along the verge.
Paul laughed, his mood restored. ‘I’ve noticed that about you: you’re either starving, or stuffed.’
‘Yes, well, you’d think I’d be used to large portions, having lived in the States. But that ploughman’s was enough for four grown men.’
‘I like your appetite,’ he replied. ‘I can’t stand girls who constantly fuss about how many calories they’re consuming. It’s so unsexy.’ He grinned at her, and she reached out and squeezed his hand. She felt unaccountably happy.
‘Let’s wait in the car for a while. We’ll be able to see if she comes out, and we can nab her then. She can’t shut the door in our faces if she’s outside, can she? And hopefully that way it’ll give her enough time to recognise me and not flip out.’
Paul squeezed Kate’s hand back again, and pretended to frown. ‘Wait in the car? Won’t that be, like, really boring, with nothing to do?’ He let go of her hand and gently caressed the back of her neck, holding the passenger door open for her as he did so.
‘We could play I-Spy,’ said Kate, grinning at him as she climbed in.
‘Or,’ Paul said, getting in the other side and leaning slowly towards her, ‘perhaps we could think of something else to pass the time.’
They kissed, both of them smiling through the kiss. ‘Sorry if I taste of pickled onion,’ Kate mumbled, but Paul just kissed her again.
‘If you do, then so do I,’ he replied when they surfaced.
‘That’s all right then. Kiss me again?’
Half an hour later, they were still kissing. Paul had had to switch on the engine and lower the electric windows, since the car had become almost completely steamed up.
‘We’d make rubbish private investigators, wouldn’t we? Elvis himself could’ve been in and out of that cottage ten times, and we’d be none the wiser,’ Kate said, coming up for air. She was painfully aware of how turned on she was. She was dying to touch him, but didn’t dare. It had been so long since she’d kissed anyone – including Vernon – that she couldn’t even remember the protocol for heavy petting. Perhaps she ought to wait till he touched her first?
‘Don’t worry. I’ve been keeping one eye open,’ Paul replied.
Kate tutted. ‘And there was I, thinking you only had eyes for me!’
‘Isn’t one eye good enough?’
‘No. I’m very demanding. And sex starved.’ Kate slid her hand further up Paul’s thigh. It was no good. She just couldn’t wait any longer, she had to feel his hardness. It felt absolutely wonderful, and they both sighed with pleasure.
‘That’s very impressive,’ she whispered, rubbing it through his jeans.
‘I don’t think those two are quite so impressed,’ said Paul, snatching her hand away too late, as two elderly ladies in tennis whites walked past the back of the car, looking disgusted.
‘Ooops,’ Kate giggled, heady with lust, and relief that he hadn’t recoiled in horror at her forwardness.
‘We’d better stop, otherwise I’m going to rip all your clothes off here and now, and not only will we never get to talk to Mrs B, but we’ll get arrested . . .’ He dropped his voice, ‘. . . And then I won’t be able to explore your body in greater detail tonight, because we’ll be in separate cells getting told off by the local constabulary.’
‘Is that what you’ve got planned for me, then?’ said Kate, feeling like a teenager again.
Paul leaned across to her, moving his own hand up between her legs. He nodded solemnly. ‘Oh yes,’ he murmured, and Kate thought she might just explode with lust.
‘But first,’ he announced briskly. ‘Business!’
Kate groaned.
‘She hasn’t appeared. Her car is still there. It’s been –’ he looked at his watch – ‘over three hours since I did not sneak up on her, so I’m sure she’ll have recovered by now. Why don’t you go and ring the doorbell? It’s worth a try. I don’t think I can sit here any longer without ravishing you.’
‘You’ve got a point. OK. You wait here, and I’ll go and see if she’ll let me in.’
