Page 134 of The Last Kiss Goodbye

‘Don’t you go worrying. Pete’s lamb has been cooking since lunchtime and it’s still not done to his satisfaction. Come in, come in,’ she said in her sing-song voice.

Dunlevy Farm was one of the largest properties in the area, the sort bought with money made from downsizing from one of the bigger cities – in Pete and Julia’s case Cork. It was warm inside, and a comforting foodie smell wafted around the hallway, the sort that rarely permeated his own cottage now that his culinary repertoire had contracted to tins of sardines, potatoes, eggs collected from his chickens and soda bread baked by a neighbour.

‘Come and meet my sister. She’s over from England with her husband for a few days,’ said Julia.

Dominic smoothed down his tweed jacket anxiously as she led him across to a couple around twenty years younger than himself.

‘Paula, David. This is our good friend and neighbour Dominic Bowen.’

He was stranded by his host and left to make small talk.

‘So where’s home?’ he asked.

‘London,’ smiled Julia’s sister, pouring him a glass of wine. ‘Actually, Esher, but now the kids have left home, we’re thinking of moving into London proper. Becoming those trendy OAPs who spend all their pension on the theatre and restaurants.’

‘Where were you thinking of? Which area?’

‘Why? Do you know London?’ said David with a faintly superior expression, or at least one reserved for old people and those he did not consider quite as sophisticated as himself.

‘Not really,’ smiled Dominic, playing the role that was now second nature.

‘We were thinking Pimlico or Borough for the food market,’ said Paula more kindly. ‘I love Bloomsbury, very Charles Dickens, loads of history. The British Museum is there too, but prices have gone through the roof.’

Dominic nodded politely, longing to tell how wonderful he thought the area was too. He wanted to tell her about the secret gardens, and the overlooked pockets of the British Museum. About the house that had inspired the setting for the Darling residence in Peter Pan, and how it only took twelve minutes to walk to Soho, another fifteen to get to the river, which always made Bloomsbury in his opinion not just the centre of London but the centre of the world. And he longed to tell her husband that he was not Dominic Bowen, a simple man from the local village, but Dominic Blake, Cambridge-educated magazine editor and intelligence officer, a man who could offer so much to the conversation if only he could be bothered to listen.

‘Lamb’s ready,’ said Julia, returning to the group and putting a hand on Dominic’s shoulder. ‘Hang on. Someone’s phone is ringing.’

For a moment Dominic couldn’t hear anything and made a mental note to get his hearing aid checked.

‘Dominic, I think it’s you,’ said Paula, nudging him.

He looked up in surprise, unused to the tinny ring of his mobile phone. He’d only had it a few months, a present from Julia for Christmas, and although he’d jokingly dismissed it as new-fangled technology, Julia insisted he keep it on him, ‘just in case’. He knew exactly what she was hinting at. He did not like to see himself as an old man, but with a phone in his pocket, he felt just a little less vulnerable.

He made his excuses and went to take the call in the study.

‘Hello. Dominic?’

‘Yes. Hello,’ he said, struggling to hear the caller over the rise and fall of party chatter.

‘It’s Jonathon.’

He was not completely surprised to hear his old friend’s voice. Even though the two men seemed to have very little to say to one another these days, their deep and long-standing bond eroded and weakened by time and space, he still heard from Jonny Soames every two or three weeks, in what he could only suppose was a duty call.

‘How are you?’ he asked.

There was a long pause that made Dom nervous. His first thought was whether Michaela and Jonathon himself were both okay.

‘Ros knows,’ Jonathon said finally. ‘She knows you’re alive.’

Dominic felt his breath shudder and almost stop in his throat. He went over to the study door and closed it.

‘What has happened?’ he asked, summoning the words to speak.

‘A news story ran about your disappearance a couple of weeks ago,’ replied Jonathon.

Dominic hadn’t seen the piece. He had long ago given up reading the British press, which reminded him too much of a life unlived. He frowned, trying to work out if there was some significance in the date. Whether it was any particular anniversary or had any other news-worthy importance.

‘Why on earth would anyone want to run that story now?’ he asked, his old editor’s instincts twitching.