It had become an obsession that he should ask Fran to marry him. The idea had come to him as a fleeting whimsy the summer before, but now it had returned and wouldn’t let him go. If he suggested that they live together he knew she would agree at once. They’d known each other for more than a year and he spent as much time in her house at Ravenswick as he did in his own place. She’d said recently, making a joke of it but obviously wanting to test his reaction, ‘If we sold both homes we’d be able to buy somewhere with a bit more space.’ He’d been non-committal and he knew she’d been disappointed but too proud to let on.

He had no moral objection to their living together and he couldn’t care less what people – even his parents – thought, but still he was haunted by the idea of marriage. It was to do with permanence and stability; he knew that Fran wanted another child and he was terrified of being the cause of a fragmented family. There was a less noble motivation too. Fran had married Duncan, hadn’t she? If she refused Perez, wouldn’t that mean she loved him less than Hunter, with his affairs and his wild parties? Perez was tortured by the possibility of rejection, but couldn’t let the idea go.

He poured another mug of coffee then called Fran’s mobile. He wanted to talk to her and was willing to put up with a background noise of laughter and traffic. She answered almost immediately.

‘Jimmy? How lovely to hear you.’

‘Is it convenient?’ Why did he always sound so formal when he spoke to her on the phone? He might have been talking to one of his colleagues.

‘Brilliant timing. We’ve come to an exhibition at the Natural History Museum. Mum and Dad have taken Cassie off to look at dinosaurs and I’ve sneaked off to grab a decent cup of coffee.’ He could imagine her face lit up with enthusiasm, wondered what she was wearing. He’d like to picture that too. Would she think it weird if he asked her?

‘I’m at home,’ he said. ‘I’ve sneaked off for a quick coffee too. And I wanted to talk to you in peace.’

‘I wish I was there.’

Come home then. Get on the first flight from Heathrow to Aberdeen and I’ll book you on to the last Loganair. You could be back this evening.

Because that was racing through his mind and he was thinking about the practicalities of the plan – he supposed she would need to pack her bags, so after all there wouldn’t be time – he realized suddenly that there was a silence between them. She was waiting for a reply. ‘You don’t know,’ he said, ‘how much I miss you.’