Free Clean Break by Val McDermid Page B

shoulders and held out his hands in an expressive shrug. “What can I say? I really enjoy it.”
    All of a sudden, I remembered one of the key reasons I like being with Richard. He lives an interesting life: music journalist, football fan and Sunday morning player, part-time father. I was sure if I hung around with Michael Haroun, I’d learn a lot of invaluable stuff. But not even the most brilliant raconteur can make insurance interesting for ever. With Richard, no two days are the same. With Michael, I suspected variety might not be the spice of life.
    Now I’d established that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life with the man, I felt a sense of release. I could take what I needed from the encounter, and that would be that. My life wasn’t about to be turned on its head because I’d fallen in love with a profile when I was fourteen.
    With that comforting thought in the front of my mind, I had no hesitation about inviting him back for more coffee. The fact that I’d forgotten to mention Richard to him somehow didn’t seem too important at the time.

7
    Richard’s car wasn’t home when we got there. I wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or not. On the one hand, I wanted him to see me with Michael Haroun. If it took a bit of the green-eyed monster to make Richard start thinking about where our relationship was headed, so be it. On the other hand, the last thing I wanted was for him to throw a jealous wobbler in front of someone who was potentially a useful source, if not a prospective client.
    â€œYou live alone, then?” Michael asked casually as we walked up the path.
    â€œYes and no,” I said. “I have a relationship with the man next door, but we don’t actually live together.” I unlocked the door, switched off the burglar alarm and led him through the living room into the conservatory that links both houses. “This is the common ground,” I said. “We each reserve the right to lock the door into the conservatory.” I wasn’t sure why I was telling Michael all this. Maybe there was still a smidgen of lust running through my hormones.
    Michael followed me back into the living room, closing the patio doors behind him. “Coffee?” I asked. “Or would you prefer a drink?”
    He smiled mischievously. “That depends.”
    â€œOh, you’ll be driving,” I told him. Even if I’d been young, free and single, he’d have been driving, I told myself firmly.
    He pulled a rueful face and said, “It had better be coffee then.”
    I’d just finished grinding the beans when I heard the clattering of Richard’s engine. I glanced out of the window and watched the hot pink, customized Volkswagen Beetle convertible nose into the space between Michael’s car and my Leo Gemini turbo super
coupé, a trophy from the case which had put our relationship on the line in the first place. I kept meaning to trade it in for something more suited to surveillance work, the coupé being about as unobtrusive as Chatsworth on a council estate. But it was such a pleasure to drive, I hadn’t got round to it yet.
    Back in the living room, Michael clearly wasn’t brooding on his rebuff. He was absorbed in the computer games reviews again. “Coffee won’t be long,” I said.
    He closed the magazine and replaced it in the rack. Either he had very good manners, or he was as obsessively tidy as I was. Richard calls it anal retentive, but I don’t see why you have to live in a tip just to prove you’re laid back. Before we could get back into computer games, I heard the patio doors on the far side of the conservatory open. Richard’s yell of greeting penetrated even my closed doors. “Brannigan, I’m home,” he called.
    Seconds later, he appeared at my doors, brandishing the unmistakable carrier bag of a Chinese takeaway. He pulled the door back, took in Michael and