Free Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes Page A

old are you? Thirty-five? No excuse.”
    Twenty-eight, I wanted to say, but hell, it didn’t matter how old I was. I might as well be sixty.
    “Well, come down and find me later, won’t you? I want to hear more about that sexy young man who lives upstairs.” And with a wink, she was gone.
    I’d been dreading bumping into Robin. Fortunately he worked out of another office most of the time. With luck it might be months before he turned up again.
    I looked out of the window and thought about the man who lives upstairs.

Friday 28 November 2003
    When I got to the Paradise Café, Sylvia was already waiting for me at the corner table, a pot of tea and a double espresso on the table in front of her. The window where she sat was steamed up and the whole place was warm and damp and fragrant like a freshly showered Sunday morning.
    “Am I late?”
    “I didn’t order you a muffin,” she said, kissing me on both cheeks with enthusiasm, “I thought you’d like to choose one yourself. They’ve got apple and cinnamon ones.”
    “Then I’ll get us a couple of those, shall I?” I said.
    The Paradise was like an old friend. Years ago, Sylvia and I, and the three other girls I’d shared a house with at university, used to meet up here once a month, chatting about our lives, wasting an afternoon over coffee and food. Karen and Lesley had both moved away; Karen to Canada, where she’d taken a teaching post at the St. George campus of Toronto University, and Lesley to Dublin, where her family lived. Last year Sylvia had had a big falling out with Sasha, and she didn’t hang out with us anymore. Sometimes I had an e-mail from her, but she’d found a new boyfriend who had become a fiancée, and they’d moved into a new house, and gradually Sasha’s life had diverted away from the life we had shared.
    So now it was just me and Sylvia, my best, my dearest friend. She was working as a journalist on Lancaster’s regional newspaper, but was desperate to get out of the boring provinces and move to London. She would suit London, I always thought. Already she was too vivacious and bold for Lancaster, her blonde hair and jewel-bright outfits setting her in bold relief against the sandstone and the concrete.
    “You look like you’ve got some news,” I said. Sylvia was fidgeting in her seat, and it wasn’t like her to be first to arrive.
    “Not yet,” Sylvia said wickedly. “First, what’s this I hear about a new man? A little magpie told me you were out having dinner with a man in a suit.”
    The magpie would have been Maggie, who had been Sylvia’s flatmate when we’d first graduated. She’d gotten her nickname because she only ever wore black, very occasionally with something white, and had a penchant for bling.
    I found the smile that had barely left my lips had returned.
    “Well?”
    “Shit, Sylvia, I can’t keep anything from you, can I?”
    Sylvia gave a little squeak of delight. “I knew it! What’s his name, where did you meet him and what’s he like in bed?”
    “God, you’re dreadful.”
    “You know you want to tell me.”
    I took several sips of tea as Sylvia hopped from one bum cheek to the other.
    “His name’s Lee, I met him at the River, and it’s none of your damn business.”
    “And is he absolutely stunning?”
    I fished out my cell phone from my bag and scrolled through the menus until I got to the photo I’d taken of him, the only photo I had. Fresh out of the shower, dressed only in a white towel, hair damp, the bruises on his face and on his side fading. The look on his face lecherous.
    “Oh, my God. Catherine. He’s totally hot, isn’t he? Why the fuck didn’t I see him first?”
    For once, I thought, allowing myself to feel a tiny bit smug.
    A small frown furrowed between Sylvia’s neatly styled eyebrows. “What’s with all the bruises? Is he some sort of cage fighter? Stunt man?”
    “You tell me. He’s being all secretive.”
    That got Sylvia’s interest piqued. “Really?