As it was the weekend there was no reason to think she might be disturbing him at work. After a childhood like his, he had told her on the day he got married ten years ago that he knew only too well the importance of drawing a line between work and family, of taking proper days off when his marriage and his home life would take precedence, and work was nothing but a dirty word. She had thought him arrogant at the time he’d said it. Unrealistically romantic. As if he was merely trying to make a point, and at her expense, but maybe he had been right all along. Whatever had gone wrong between George and Jessica – and she had a fair idea what that was – it would not have happened because of any want of trying on his part.

It threw her when the answerphone message kicked in. ‘Hello, this is George Cardew. I am not available right now. Please leave your name and number.’

She didn’t, of course. That was not the way she wanted to make contact again after so long. Not with an impersonal message that he might decide not to respond to. She sat, nursing the phone after she had hastily rung off, just staring ahead of her into space. She would try again, of course. Another day, another time. And he would see her name in his missed calls, so there was always the chance he might call her back. In the meantime, however, it had been lovely – no, better than lovely – just to hear his voice.

Chapter 12

PRUE

After a whole week of mooching around alone, eating too many takeaways and feeling mildly sorry for herself, Prue made up her mind: it had to stop. What a shame it would be to go home after a month in London having achieved nothing but wandering aimlessly about and gazing at a few sights she had already seen a hundred times on TV. So what if she had nobody to talk to, nobody to go out drinking with, no structure to her days? All of that belonged to her normal, everyday life. It was what she had wanted to run from, to test the waters away from Shelling for once, away from the slog of nine to five and the safe haven of familiarity and routine, and most definitely away from Joe Barton. She needed to make the most of the remainder of her time in London. She had had such grand ideas about all the things she could do …

When she opened the door on Monday morning, Aaron was loitering on the landing, one arm raised as if he was about to knock, and his phone, for once, nowhere to be seen. ‘Oh, hi,’ he said, a bit awkwardly. ‘I didn’t know if you were in. It’s my day off – night off, whatever, so I don’t need to sleep all day – and I was wondering if … well, if you were thinking of going out with your camera anywhere today.’