Page 21 of The Monday Night Heartbreak Club

The police arrived about half an hour later, at the same time as Annie, accompanied surprisingly by Eddie.

‘This is my husband, Eddie,’ she introduced him and we all had to pretend that we’d never set eyes on him before and nod and murmur hello.

Fraser, showing an intelligence that outer appearances belied, especially outer appearances that were wearing a Bugs Bunny pyjama set and slippers, said, ‘Oh, I know you, I sees you in the mornings at the gym!’

‘Oh, yes.’ Eddie looked a little embarrassed about that. Almost as though he didn’t want anyone to know about the gym thing.

‘We came as soon as we could,’ Annie went on. ‘Eddie had to get the car out, you see.’

The police interviewed me and told me they’d arrested Dexter.

However, since he hadn’t actually attacked me, all they were going to be able to get him for was threatening behaviour, and the likelihood was that he would be out and about within the week, and did I have anywhere else to go, particularly since my front door was now missing?

‘She can come here,’ Flynn said confidently.

‘Are you sure, sir? We can’t guarantee that the individual won’t try again.’ One of the policemen looked worried at the proposition. He had no doubt met people like Dexter before. ‘His sort usually do,’ he added. ‘I’d take out an injunction, if I were you,’ he said to me.

‘He’d only break it.’ I sipped at my tea. ‘Dexter doesn’t really care.’

‘I don’t think he’ll be back.’ Flynn still sounded confident. Beyond him, in the wine bar, Margot, Wren and Annie twittered a dubious dawn chorus. Fraser and Eddie were talking about treadmills and comparing weight loss and inches gained.

‘I admire your positivity, sir.’ The police radios crackled and they set off with Dexter in the car, bound for paperwork and frustrating attempts to get him to admit to having done wrong.

‘How are you all here?’ I’d stopped shivering now.

In fact, draped in a blanket from upstairs and drinking my third mug of tea, I was slightly too warm.

I suspected that Flynn had turned the heating up.

I’d given Wren back her jacket too, although there had been something about the slight trace of perfume on the collar that had made me want to keep it.

It felt maternal, and that was a first for me. ‘What happened?’

‘Wren has been staying over at my house,’ Margot started.

‘I can’t bear to be in the flat. It reminds me of Jordan,’ Wren said. ‘It’s just so quiet at night, and I was worried I might give in and text her.’

‘So, when you messaged, we went over and picked up Fraser and got here as fast as we could,’ Margot finished.

‘We were later because Eddie had to get the car out,’ Annie said again. Unless Eddie had the car garaged in Tierra del Fuego this didn’t really mean anything, but she was obviously desperate for me to understand that her delay wasn’t from lack of intent.

‘And when we got here and saw that man trying to climb the gate, we knew who he must be. Fraser was most impressive, I have to say.’

At the mention of his name, Fraser looked over. ‘He were trying to run,’ he said proudly. ‘I got him.’

‘Most impressive,’ Margot repeated.

I looked around at the club. Margot was wearing what looked like yoga gear: lovely flowing trousers and a zip-up top.

Wren was in leggings and a T-shirt with her jacket over both.

Fraser’s Bugs Bunny was crumpled as though he’d been asleep, and Annie had a nightie on under a big coat.

Tears began to trickle from the corners of my eyes again.

They’d come. They’d heard I was in distress, and they’d all come.

‘Thank you.’ I could only get a whisper out again, but this time it was emotion rather than terror stopping the words.

Wren gave me a quick hug. ‘We’re glad we got here when we did,’ she said. ‘He was trying to climb over the gate. He only started to run when we put the headlights on him, and I dread to think what might have happened otherwise.’

‘Hey.’ Flynn, who had been standing silently behind the bar, joined in now. ‘I can fight.’

‘He was enormous,’ Wren said dubiously. ‘Fraser had to sit on him.’

‘All right, I can’t fight very well, but I could have hit him with a chair or something.’

I looked around the wine bar. Its acres of glass windows looked suddenly vulnerable and I felt very exposed in here.

‘If he’s been on the coke, Dexter doesn’t stop,’ I said sadly.

‘It’s like he’s impervious or something.

You could probably shoot him and it would take an hour for the message he was dead to get to his brain. ’

‘Ah.’ Flynn gave me a grin. ‘But he’s gone for now, so let’s not go armed for the time being, all right?’

Behind me, Annie yawned, and Eddie put a protective arm around her. ‘I ought to take the little lady home,’ he said. ‘She would come out to make sure everything was all right.’ He gave Annie a fond look. ‘The silly sausage,’ he said.

‘I was worried for Fee,’ Annie said. ‘Margot was certain that something might happen to her.’

I winced at my sore feet, now covered in some suspicious yellow cream that Flynn had found in his bathroom cabinet and smelling slightly of lavender.

I’d had to borrow a pair of socks to stop me sliding straight out of the door when I stood up, so I was now resplendent in my own pyjamas, which had inexplicable streaks of blood up both legs, an enormous pair of football socks of Flynn’s and a fluffy blanket with a picture of a kitten on.

I looked like a triumphant last-minute goal scorer after a particularly savage match in the Arctic Cats’ Home.

‘Something did happen,’ I said, words still filtered through tears. ‘Dexter.’

‘You’re still in shock,’ Margot asserted. ‘We’ll go now and let you get some sleep. Flynn, you’ll look after her?’

I saw Flynn give a sharp nod as though this matter had never been in doubt.

Margot lowered her voice now, although it wasn’t really necessary; Eddie was guiding Annie carefully out of the bar with Fraser trotting alongside, wittering on about his month’s membership almost being up.

‘Will you be all right for…’ she lowered her voice still further and I had to lean forward to hear her, ‘…the Thursday thing?’ An emphatic jerk of her head towards the door followed her words, as though I might not have grasped her meaning.

‘I’ll be fine.’ I sounded a lot firmer than I felt. ‘But…’

Wren hurtled in. ‘We ought to go, Fee, if you’re sure you’re all right.’

‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Margot jingled her car keys. ‘Well. We look forward to hearing from you during Thursday. And we’ll see you next Monday, of course.’

And they were all gone, leaving Flynn and me still in the bar.

‘Come on.’ He put a solicitous arm around my shoulders. ‘I’ve got a spare room and I’ll tuck you up, then go over to your place and make it secure.’

I ought to have protested. I ought to have maintained that I would be fine in my own flat; Dexter had been arrested, which would give us a day or so’s grace before he started anything else, and I could put a curtain over the doorway in the meantime.

But I didn’t. All my strength seemed to have ebbed away, seeping out of me with the blood that my slashed feet had left.

I just wanted to be helped into a warm bed and not to think about anything for a few hours, so I let Flynn guide me upstairs as though I were an elderly invalid, and I fell into the bed he offered and unconsciousness.

Flynn let me spend the next couple of days upstairs. The flat was bigger than I’d imagined, with two bedrooms, a large living room, a storage area and a wonderful kitchen and bathroom that looked as though they’d been newly installed.

Walking was painful, so I tottered about using the furniture to bear my weight. By the time Flynn came up for lunch on Wednesday, I’d reached the point of being able to stand without seeping and I made sandwiches.

‘What do we do when he comes back?’ I said.

‘Who?’

‘Dexter. I know him, Flynn. The club showed him up. I showed him up. He won’t like that and he won’t rest until he’s made me suffer.’ That awful flash of thought that I’d had the night Dex had broken his way in – he’s like my brother. ‘I know men like him.’

Flynn regarded me carefully from over a toasted cheese sandwich.

‘You really do have a pretty shit family,’ he said, as though he knew exactly what I was thinking.

But then, I had gone into some detail about my parents and their somewhat sideways approach to bringing up children, which mostly seemed to involve pitting them against one another and siding with the boy until the girl was a broken shadow with no conviction in herself.

‘Yes, that has occurred to me once or twice.’ I made a rueful face. ‘But it was my normal. I didn’t know any other way of being and I’m only gradually making my way out from it. I thought that’s what men are like,’ I finished.

Flynn pointed at himself. ‘Me too?’

‘You were different. You weren’t trying to pick me up, for a start.’

‘And you thought I was gay. And, before you go down that line again, I’m not responsible for the flat. I got interior designers in.’

‘Stop it.’ He made me laugh, that’s what it was.

That was why Flynn was so different to every other man I’d ever known.

He didn’t mind looking silly, he didn’t mind poking fun at himself.

Most other males of my acquaintance would have drowned themselves off Flamborough Head rather than reveal any weaknesses or vulnerability.

Flynn didn’t seem to mind looking a bit daft now and then.

‘You are the most together man I’ve ever met. I’m having trouble adjusting.’