Page 22 of The Honeymoon Affair

‘Are you going to join us?’ asks Celeste, when he stays standing beside the table.

‘He’s just waiting for his drink.’ I’m the one being rude now.

‘Do you mind if I sit here?’ he says.

‘Not at all,’ Celeste tells him.

She sits down, and Charles takes an empty chair from another table and sits beside me.

‘So,’ says Celeste. ‘You’re the famous author. Izzy’s told me all about you.’

‘Have you read my books?’

I wonder if he asks that of everyone he meets.

‘A couple,’ replies Celeste, and he looks pleased though also a little disappointed. I suppose he wanted her to say she was his number one fan.

‘Are you enjoying it?’ He turns to me, and I tell him that he writes really well before asking him how it’s going with The Mystery of the Missing Mallet.

‘It’s . . . intriguing.’

‘Have you worked out who the murderer is yet?’

‘It’s either the carpenter or the husband,’ replies Charles.

‘Why?’ I ask.

‘Because the victim has been having an affair with the carpenter,’ he says.

‘That’s a red herring. It’s definitely not the husband.’

‘But the affair—’

‘The affair is irrelevant.’

‘Affairs are never irrelevant.’ His words are heartfelt, and I wonder if that’s what happened with the agent-slash-ex.

‘In this case, I’m betting it is.’

‘So you think . . . one of her colleagues?’

‘I haven’t read far enough to be sure yet, but I’ll write my guess down and you can check later.’

‘You’re on,’ he says, as the waiter reappears with a fresh martini.

‘Cheers, ladies,’ Charles says.

We clink glasses.

Celeste looks at me over the rim of her cocktail glass and winks.

Charles starts talking about books again, but it’s Celeste who replies this time, because the genre has switched from cosy crime – my specialist subject – to far more literary novels. Celeste holds her own in the conversation, most of which is going over my head because I haven’t read any of them. I listen to them debate the merits of one of the books Celeste has brought with her, and I’m amused to hear Charles’s rather acerbic take on the author, Cosmo Penhaligon.

‘He thinks he’s better than he is,’ he tells Celeste. ‘Believes all the good reviews, ignores the bad ones.’

‘Don’t you think you’re quite good yourself?’ I join in again. ‘You do seem to expect everyone to know you’re a prizewinning author.’

‘God knows why. Nobody really cares but me.’ His sudden vulnerability is disarming.