After her bath, she put on a clean pair of Levis and her Aran sweater, pulling a face at her limited wardrobe. When she’d come back from Italy, she’d gone back to Cordelia’s to drop off her lightweight clothes and pick up some winter outfits. But she hadn’t anticipated being away for more than a couple of weeks. She was going to have to go down to London with a van soon and clear her possessions out of Cordelia’s house. And she’d have to find somewhere to live in Glasgow till her own flat became vacant in July. Whatever was on the cards for her and Sophie, she felt wary about moving in on a semi-permanent basis, even supposing Sophie wanted her to. After Cordelia, Lindsay needed a place to call her own, a place she couldn’t lose on the whim of her lover.

At twenty to seven, she left the flat and drove to The Cricketers, the pub attached to the local cricket club. Instead of planning her encounter with Ian McIntosh, she was too busy with the rosy glow of memories. When she’d lived in Glasgow three years before, she and Sophie had often met here after work in the long, warm summer evenings, sitting out in the garden, drinking cool lagers, putting the world to rights. Cordelia Brown had only been a name on a book jacket to her then.

Impatiently, Lindsay shook off the past and took a deep breath. She walked into the bar and immediately saw Sophie sitting at a window table with a slim man in his thirties. Ian McIntosh had straight, light brown hair cut like Robert Redford’s. As Lindsay approached, however, she noticed that the youthful image presented by his fashionable casual clothes was tarnished by the network of fine lines round his eyes and mouth.

As Lindsay reached the table, he leapt to his feet and turned a poor imitation of Redford’s engaging boyish grin on her. “Hi,” he said effusively. “Sophie mentioned you’d be joining us. You must be Lindsay. Nice to meet you. Any friend of Soph is a friend of mine. Let me get you a drink. Same again, Soph?”

“Thanks. I’ll have a pint of lager,” Lindsay said as Sophie nodded. Lindsay’s eyebrows rose as he headed for the bar. “I thought you said you only knew him slightly.”

“I do. This is the longest I’ve ever spent in his company. I told you he was full of shit.”

Before they could say more, McIntosh returned with a round of drinks. “Aren’t I the lucky man, surrounded by two lovely ladies,” he said, preening himself.