about it.’ They were nearing the point where he turned off for home. He thought about the house and if there was anything there that he might not want the girl to see. He had an hour or more before he was to meet Arnold and, despite the circumstances, he was enjoying her company. ‘I live just round the corner,’ he said. ‘Do you fancy continuing this conversation over coffee?’
The girl hesitated, but then agreed.
‘Maybe you can show me some of your pictures,’ he said. ‘Convince me that it’s art.’
She laughed. ‘Not on this, I can’t. It’s your traditional wind-on camera, nothing digital going on here. I’ve got to develop these in the darkroom.’
‘Wow, people still use those things?’
‘Mostly only photography students, to be honest, but I love it. Some professional photographers still do it this way, but it’s more expensive – the money you have to spend on solutions and stuff makes it a costly hobby.’
‘And is that what it is – a hobby?’ Oliver asked.
‘For now it is. Obviously, I’m hoping it’ll pay the bills one day. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a lot of point in investing all this money in a degree course. At least that’s what my mother says.’
‘Doesn’t she approve?’
Joanna shrugged. ‘I think she finds the arts a bit whimsical. She’d have been happier if I’d gone on to study something more practical – business, or law maybe – like you. What area do you work in?’
‘I practise family law: divorces, custody cases, nothing too exciting.’
They had reached the house. The girl waited as he turned his key in the door, and he wondered again if there was anything lying around that shouldn’t be. ‘I hope you’ll excuse the mess,’ he said. ‘A man on his own tends to let things go …’
She followed him down the hall. When they entered the living room he saw her eyes travel quickly around, taking everything in. He followed her gaze – there was nothing particular in this room to suggest a woman’s presence. He had removed all evidence of Mercedes – packed everything away where he didn’t have to see them. Joanna took the camera from round her neck and carefully placed it on the coffee table. He asked her if she’d like tea or coffee, and she followed him into the kitchen and sat at the breakfast bar while he scalded the pot and put the teabags in. He felt very conscious of her presence and wondered what to do or say next.
‘So what do you do for fun?’ she asked him.
‘I sue people.’
She laughed. ‘No, really,’ she said.
He turned to her, smiling. ‘You’re right, that’s not so much fun, but it’s all I seem to have time for lately.’
He steered the conversation away from himself by asking her about her course.
‘I’m putting together a portfolio at the moment,’ she told him. ‘We’re having an exhibition in a few weeks’ time.’ She paused and then jumped up from her stool. ‘In fact, if you’re really interested, I can show you the shots. I have them saved to a USB. It should be in my bag.’
‘Great, I’d love to see,’ he told her. ‘You go get it, and I’ll take the tea into my office. It’s just through here.’ He took the two mugs, placed them on the desk and booted up his computer. Joanna went out to the living room to retrieve her bag.
They were standing side by side in the small room watching the slide show of her photographs when the phone rang.
‘Aren’t you going to get that?’ Joanna asked him.
‘No, let them ring back,’ he said. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing that can’t wait.’
He closed the office door on the ringing lest the answer machine should kick in.
Joanna arrived home to an empty house. Her mother had not yet returned from her shopping expedition with Pauline. She decided that she would process the film on which she’d taken the canal bank shots that afternoon, but it was just as she had that thought that she remembered she’d left the USB stick containing the photos for her college presentation in Oliver Molloy’s laptop. She looked at the clock. She needed that USB for her class the next day. She had two choices: she could either scan the photos again, which would take a lot of time, or she could go back to Oliver’s for the stick. She didn’t have his home phone number so she would just have to take the chance on his being home.
Joanna drove slowly past the row of terraced houses until she came to Oliver’s. There was a light on in the front room, but it went out just as she turned off the engine. Perhaps she had just caught him before he went out, she thought.
She was about to get out of the car when the front door opened and a woman stepped out. The woman pulled the door behind her and walked swiftly down the path and crossed the road just in front of Joanna’s car. She couldn’t say why but, instinctively, Joanna shrunk down in her seat. She didn’t want to be seen sitting in her car outside Oliver’s house, even though she was doing nothing wrong.
She’d had a clear view of the woman as she’d crossed in front of the car. She was dark-skinned and dark-haired, and definitely didn’t look Irish. She wore a leather jacket, a short skirt and knee-high boots. If Joanna had had her camera, she’d have felt compelled to take her picture, but she’d left it in the darkroom back at the house. She continued to watch the woman until she grew small in the distance, then she vanished altogether. Joanna wondered if she’d hailed a cab at the side of the road.
She looked at Oliver’s house. There was a single light on in the hall, but otherwise no sign of life. She wondered if the woman was his girlfriend and was surprised that with that thought came a pang of disappointment. For some reason, she had assumed that he was single. She supposed it was his quip earlier about ‘a man alone tending to let things go’. She wasn’t his wife, then; but he was an attractive man and she shouldn’t have been surprised that he might have just as attractive female callers.
After a sufficient time had passed since the woman’s departure, Joanna got out of the car and made her way up the driveway. She rang the bell, a musical ding-dong, and waited. There was no sound within. She rang the bell again, but still there was silence. Oliver must be out, she thought, and in that case, the woman she had just seen leaving had either been there when he left, or she had her own key. Joanna sighed and traipsed back down the driveway. As she did, she saw a glove on the path. She leaned down to pick it up. It was a red wool glove that the woman must have dropped on her way out. Joanna put it back where it was, closed the gate behind her and got back into the car.
She wondered what to do. She could wait, but there was no telling what time Oliver might return. And what if the woman returned instead? She didn’t want to make trouble. She would just have to wait until tomorrow to get the USB back. There was nothing for it but to go home and begin scanning her photos again.
Joanna gathered her collection of photos and took them up to her room to scan. Her mother had still not returned home. The landline rang when she was about half an hour into the work and she went to her mother’s room to answer the extension. It was her
