2

  So, he’d come.

  She knew he would; it must have been the abuse, earlier on, that had decided it.

  She was gratified to discover that she still had that kind of power over Humphrey, although extremely uncomfortable with the knowledge that she was actually rather pleased to see him.

  That CCTV camera he’d convinced her to install inside the shop had finally proved useful, then.

  Anthea could – just about – see the monitor from where she was, crouching behind the counter, trying to keep her creaky old knees from giving her away.

  True, it wasn’t very dignified but it was all she’d had time to come up with in the blind panic that came about from seeing him at the window, peering in at her.

  But then he’d come in and he hadn’t gone out. And she couldn’t come out. Her knees probably wouldn’t be able to unlock now anyway.

  Probably not ever.

  Oh, God.

  Until earlier that afternoon, she hadn’t laid eyes on him at all since the divorce. She’d spent those three weeks brooding; hating him.

  Well, trying to hate him at least.

  Why didn’t she hate him?

  The swine had divorced her!

  The fact that she had told him to – on quite a number of occasions, actually – well, surely that wasn’t relevant? The man was a pig; a git; a complete and utter tosser, with no redeeming features.

  What-so-ever!

  To make it even worse, he looked so damn handsome stood out there, on his own.

  Picking his nose.

  He was wearing his Snoopy tie too.

  Oh, damn it.

  That had been their official ‘signal’ when they were married. If there was ever a chance of any romantic assignation, she would leave a blindfold lying around somewhere obvious and/or he would wear that tie.

  In fairness to him, he’d actually worn it a great deal.

  Disproportionate to the eventual number of romantic encounters by quite a significant margin.

  That had been her fault, of course.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  She could admit that to herself, although, that horrible little nagging voice that seemed to be always with her already knew it. The blindfold had rarely left the safety of the airing cupboard. And he’d worn that tie, almost to destruction.

  He’d even worn that tie during the very last stages of their divorce proceedings, but he hadn’t been wearing it earlier on.

  Perhaps he was trying to tell her something?

  Oh no, she did hope not.

  She could have stayed there, watching him like that, all day.

  In all likelihood she was going to jolly well have to anyway.

  Unless he gave up waiting for her and cleared off.

  At least she could keep an eye on him until he went.

  It was definitely a good idea, that camera.

  Could she claim the credit for it in some way, that was the question.

  The answer was an obvious ‘no’. It had been her former husband’s idea, through and through.

  Her whole shop had evolved as a direct result of his influence.

  As far as that camera was concerned, he’d been extremely keen on exposing her to a much wider audience, via the world wide web.

  A ridiculous idea, quite clearly.

  Yet even ridiculous ideas sounded interesting sometimes.

  Coming from him.

  In this particular case, he’d pitched the idea over a bottle of red, one evening. A bottle of red was – very much – her language, therefore that was a very good start.

  He was wearing that tie on that occasion as well.

  Now she thought about it.

  His proposal was to offer prizes to anyone who could take a screen-shot of his then-wife either smiling, half-smiling or even looking as though she might be contemplating any sort of smiling whatsoever.

  Well, she hadn’t been very impressed: despite the genius of his marketing strategy. The prizes on offer would have been outrageous. A luxury yacht; a trip to Mars; the Crown Jewels... it wouldn’t really have mattered.

  The point was, they’d all have been quite safe.

  She was sufficiently steeped in self-loathing to completely understand where Humphrey was coming from. To paraphrase all of his romantic flimflam and claptrap, she was a pathologically miserable old cowbag.

  Well, perhaps not ‘old’.

  After all, a woman is only as old as her chosen low wattage light bulb will let her get away with.

  Knackered old knees not withstanding.

  The wheels had almost come off the entire webcam scheme when Anthea had objected to the angle at which Humphrey had wanted to position his equipment. The positioning of his equipment had been flagged up – numerous times – prior to that as being abysmal – although in somewhat different circumstances – but he’d actually – seriously?! – expected her to allow a machine of any description, to record her image for posterity.

  He really had!

  There was ‘na?ve’ and then there was ‘bonkers’.

  And then there was him.

  But the nucleus of the idea had been fairly interesting: on her terms, naturally. She’d argued that the camera could – just as easily – be focussed on her customers, thereby keeping her nicely out of the limelight. A slight change in the wording of Humphrey’s plan was all that was needed. People would still be looking for a hen’s tooth in the eye of a needle in a haystack, but they could be basing it on the reactions of her customers.

  If any of them fainted with shock, it could be inferred that she’d given them a smile.

  Her wording that, not his.

  No, not even hers… it was that horrible little voice she kept up there in her head.

  He’d rapidly agreed – ‘rapidly’ being a word he was more than familiar with – and she’d delivered herself willingly unto his professionally manipulative charms.

  Just as she’d done fourteen years ago.

  Fourteen years ago?

  Impossible, surely!

  She’d still have been doing her O-levels, fourteen years ago.

  Sod it, no.

  It was GCSEs in those days, wasn’t it?

  Oh, what the hell.

  She had first met Humphrey fourteen years ago.

  There.

  And she’d been no spring chicken, even then.

  The memory of their first meeting jumped on Steve McQueen’s motorbike and made its Great Escape, clean over her mental, barbed wire, fences.

  Hell, she hated having to face her past.

  Although, she wasn’t particularly looking forward to meeting her future with any great enthusiasm either. Not now Humphrey had ruined it completely. The sod was even trying to manoeuvre himself into her present.

  He had that extra agility these days, of course.

  When they’d met, all those fourteen years ago, it had been somewhat different.