‘It was him or me,’ she said.

‘Like I said. You’re a nice quiet girl, but when you’re upset, I guess you really do blow.’

‘He was going to kill me. And my family.’

‘You could have run out the front door when I got there.’

‘And left them to it? No. I couldn’t.’ Angel hesitated. ‘You know what? For years I hated them. My family. They treated my mother badly. But slowly I’ve come to see that it wasn’t all their fault. That they were just the product of their times. And anyway? Frank Pargeter told me not to run out the door. He warned me of the consequences.’ Then Angel told Cory about the Colombian necktie thing Frank had said, right there in the kitchen of the family home.

‘Jesus,’ said Farmer, sitting back, the smile gone. ‘Angel?’

‘Hm?’

‘Are you going to tell me what happened with Donny Maguire?’

‘That again?’ Angel wiped her lips with the damask napkin and stared across the table at him. ‘Do you ever stop being a detective?’

‘Nah, it’s in the blood.’

‘Nothing happened with Donny Maguire,’ she said.

‘Do you want pudding?’ offered Farmer.

‘No. Coffee.’

‘His wife, Fiona, said you came to her door years back,’ Farmer went on. ‘She saw you in the station the other day, and she recognized you straight away.’

Angel reached out a hand and touched his cheek. Farmer drew back a little, startled. ‘What happened here?’ she asked. ‘This bruise? And there’s a cut.’

Farmer shrugged. ‘Someone else didn’t like me asking questions about Donny Maguire.’

‘What, and they hit you?’

‘Two of them. They told me to drop it.’

‘But you won’t.’

‘Not until I know the truth.’

Their coffee arrived.

‘The truth’s overrated,’ said Angel.

‘Not to me.’

Angel gave a sad smile. ‘I know you have to do what you have to do,’ she said.

160

It was raining when they left the restaurant. Farmer flagged down a taxi.

‘Let’s go to your place,’ said Angel. ‘Can we?’

He stared at her in surprise. ‘All right.’

They were silent in the back of the cab as it roared through the night-time streets, a simmering sexual tension enveloping them both. Then, feeling reckless, knowing it was suicide, knowing that Cory Farmer was her Nemesis, Angel slowly leaned in and lightly kissed his lips. She saw his eyes widen in the half-dark, then he put a hand under her chin and kissed her back until her head spun, until she was clinging to him and not caring what was going to happen to her any more. This was all that mattered.

The cab journey seemed to take forever, but finally they arrived at Farmer’s ground-floor flat. He opened the front door and they went in. Instantly Farmer was shoving Angel up against the wall and kissing her again, over and over until her legs felt like jelly.

‘Where’s the bedroom?’ Angel murmured against his mouth.

He took her hand and led her down a hallway in the dark, into a room. He switched on a table lamp. It was an impersonal bedroom, neat like Farmer himself, the bed made. Farmer crossed the room and closed the violet-coloured drapes that matched the bedspread. Then he turned back to Angel and in a couple of strides was back with her, pushing her down onto the bed, kissing her again and again, his hands under her dress, tugging down her tights. Angel, laughing, dizzy with passion, shoved down her panties and started to undo his belt with trembling fingers, but he pushed her hands aside, unzipped himself, mounted her and quickly eased his cock into her.