didnât involve her knickers â more the fast removal of same so he could wallop her bum with whatever implement of choice heâd dreamed up as suitable for that day. Was this something he couldnât get at home? Or something heâd got at home so much that his wife had decided enough was enough, sheâd be quite glad not to have to take painkillers before she dared to sit down, thank you, and had called a halt. Sara liked Stuart and his slightly pervy devotion. He was several years younger than Conrad, yet shuffled round like somebody seriously ancient. He wore a random job lot of corduroy in all weathers, muddy-coloured and shiny, and he trailed pieces of grubby string from his pocket like an elderly Just William. His hands were ingrained with a mixture of earth from the allotment and car oil from years of endlessly teaching how to change a cylinder-head gasket to women who still believed that Car Maintenance classes were a pretty good bet for meeting a dream man.
Cass and Pandora called him Scary Stuart and laughed about his attachment to their mother, but how much harm could it do that he liked to supply her with boxes of his allotment-grown vegetables and have her company for a quick drink during the odd lunchtime while he told her about his fantasy plans? He wouldnât take any payment for his crops, which, she said, was ridiculous, as a similar delivery from any of the many organic companies would have cost a bomb. A year ago, when heâd started this but wouldnât take any cash, sheâd offered him a signed print of Conradâs. Heâd refused and said apologetically, âActually, Iâm not much of a picture man,â which had, Conrad glee-fully decided, been the clincher in working out whether it was Conrad or Sara he was keen on. Perhaps Mrs Scary Stuart gave him a hard time. Maybe she preferred her vegetables pre-scrubbed, pre-packaged and microwave-ready.
Sara carried the box into the house and had a look through the contents. Purple sprouting broccoli, carrots, early-season potatoes, a bag of rocket, a posy of violets. She quickly arranged the flowers in a small jug and put it on the kitchen worktop. When the glazier had been, and after she got back later that afternoon, sheâd put the jug on the ledge where much of the broken glass had landed when sheâd thrown the mustard jar. That should keep the glass safe from further damage. After all, it would be deeply dis-respectful and heartless to throw heavy missiles in the direction of an offering from an admirer.
Cassandra drove more slowly than usual, feeling reluctant to get to the college and possibly find that Paul was leaning on the door of the lecture hall, looking for an instant explanation of what, exactly, she thought she was playing at. In a lay-by, switching her phone on for the first time since leaving the flat the afternoon before, she found â as sheâd expected â that her inbox was completely filled with increasingly grumpy messages from Paul. She could track his thought processes through the tone of his words as they gradually changed with his realization that she wasnât merely out, she had actually gone. Sheâd done the unthinkable and abandoned him. Girls didnât do that to Paul Millington. He was one of those prize boys, the ultimate trophy date. When sheâd first met him and heâd got her to admit she liked him, heâd joked, âAnd hey, whatâs not to like? Iâm rich, pretty and the shag from heaven.â Except, of course, he hadnât been joking.
âWhere u babe â got foodâ was the first missed text, timed just after eight the previous night. No prizes for guessing what heâd been doing before that. The only debatable point was which bar heâd been doing it in. Union bar or the Lion? Possibly both â that was the trouble with being a rich student â his drinking wasnât curtailed by his bank balance. She