‘Let’s not talk here,’ he interrupted her quickly, glancing around to check no one could hear them.

Geraldine nodded. They were alone but one of their colleagues could walk past at any moment and, like Ian, she was reluctant to expose their private affairs to their colleagues. It was difficult enough dealing with Ian’s unexpected coldness, and her own bitter disappointment, without the additional barb of questions from her colleagues, some of whom already seemed curious about her relationship with Ian. Geraldine’s friend, Ariadne, had started to become quite intrusive in her concern.

‘I just hope you know what you’re doing,’ she had said. ‘Believe me, there’s nothing worse than being stuck working with an ex, especially if you didn’t part by mutual agreement.’

‘You sound as though you’re speaking from bitter experience?’ Geraldine replied, doing her best to hide her irritation.

‘Not exactly. Not me, at any rate. I had a girlfriend in my last station who kept running after this complete tosser. She was convinced she would wear him down in the end, and get him to divorce his wife and marry her, when all he wanted was to get his leg over. Everyone but her could see he was just fooling around. It didn’t end well. She must have been the only one who didn’t see it coming when he went back to his wife.’

‘I’ll be careful to make sensible decisions,’ Geraldine said, hiding her irritation.

She didn’t point out that where emotions were concerned, decisions were frequently neither sensible nor voluntary.

‘Let’s go to my flat,’ she now said to Ian. ‘We can talk there. I don’t want to give you a hard time about what happened between us, but I do have a right to know what’s going on,’ she added.

She hated herself for sounding apologetic, when Ian was the one who was behaving badly, but he looked so dejected she couldn’t give voice to her rage.

He nodded. ‘I’ll see you there.’

With that he turned and strode off to his car, leaving Geraldine standing alone in the car park. She half expected not to see him again that day, but he was waiting on her doorstep when she arrived home.

‘Come on in and I’ll put the kettle on,’ she said. ‘Or would you prefer something stronger?’

‘Stronger than one of your cups of tea?’ he smiled. ‘I’ll have whatever you’re having.’

Now they were alone together in her flat he seemed relaxed in her company again, displaying none of the tension he had shown earlier. Uncertain how long he intended to stay, she decided not to spend time brewing tea, and cracked open a bottle of red wine. After pouring two generous glasses, she sat down opposite Ian who was sprawled out on the sofa.

‘Now talk,’ she said.