Page 77 of The Trouble With Love

‘You’re the centre of someone’s world?’ I looked behind me. Given the way the spell had worked for the rest of us, this probably meant that Isobel had become a supermassive black hole into which we would all be sucked.

Now pale, Isobel nodded. ‘I know he was your friend, and it shouldn’t have happened but . . . he was there.’

‘Whoa, hold on, back up a minute.’ I held up a hand to stop the cascade of meaningless words. ‘Start again, but slower. Who are we talking about here?’

Isobel blinked. ‘Oh, sorry. Did I not say? Sorry, my brain’s a bit scrambled these days, what with . . . oh, I see. From the beginning. Well, it was Aiden, obviously.’

I leaned against the draining board in a sudden state of flop. ‘Aiden?’

‘When you asked me to go round and let him out of the handcuffs.’

‘Ah.’ A quick memory of a naked, and overly-eroticised Aiden thrashing about chained to my bed. ‘Oh. Oh my God! Aiden — I should have thought. I am so sorry Isobel, I would never have sent you if I’d known, if I’d thought . . . God. Did you go to the police?’

She stared blankly. ‘Why would I do that?’

Suddenly shocked into awkwardness, I shrugged. ‘You know, sexual assault? But, how, if he was handcuffed — did he go for you after you let him out? Oh, this is all my fault, I should have made him wait, I was only trying to be humane about it and not leave him for too long and I should have thought, I know Aiden, what he’s like and he must have seen you as—’

‘He didn’t. He barely noticed me at all, just like everyone else. But then — something happened, something changed, I don’t know what. Maybe it was the spell. He was talking about how he didn’t really know why he’d come down from Scotland, didn’t know what he’d been thinking about to turn up at your door, and I just, sort of, listened, and he was . . . But when I told him, you know, about being a virgin and everything . . . He was very gentle, very sweet and kind. And, oh, Holly,’ a rapturous smile crossed her face, ‘it was fabulous. Better than I’d ever imagined.’

‘You wanted it?’

‘Oh yes. I’ve read the books and stuff but, they never really make it clear, you know? So when he — Well, he was naked and everything and — Holly, do you have any imagination at all?’

‘As far as Aiden’s concerned, I try not to have. So, let me get this straight, you’re dating him now?’

‘Dating?’ Isobel frowned. ‘No. Why would I do that? Besides, he’s gone back to Scotland, hasn’t he?’

‘But you said—’ realisation tapped on my shoulder and let incredulity come in as well. ‘Oh God. Isobel. You mean you’re literally the centre of someone’s world . . .’

She gave a shy smile. ‘Due in the middle of August, actually.’ Protective hands crossed over her lower stomach. ‘And everything going well.’

I flopped further, until both my elbows rested in a pool of water. ‘Oh, Isobel.’

‘And the oddest thing is, my parents are delighted! Can’t wait to be granny and grandad, and I’m still going to get the house next year, although obviously the makeover is going to have to wait until this little one is at least walking.’ Another half-hug around her middle. ‘And it’s going to be fantastic. Only I wanted to make sure you were all right with it, what with Aiden being your friend first, and then, if you could possibly tell him because I don’t know how to find him. Oh, it’s all right, I don’t want anything from him, but I think he should know he’s going to be a daddy, don’t you?’

I tried to put the image of Aiden, leather trousers and reckless sex addiction, into the same context as the word daddy, and failed oh-so-miserably. ‘I can try,’ I said feebly.

Kai turned up, accompanied by three policemen who all looked as though they topped up their salaries by playing extras in The Bill. Eve hugged him, tentatively.

‘Wow. Policemen aren’t just getting younger, they’re getting better looking,’ Megan whispered, tossing her hair and pouting at the nearest one. ‘Why have we never thought about committing crimes to find a boyfriend?’

‘Because I didn’t want one, you’re too intimidated by authority and we’d probably have got interviewed by the last remaining Gene Hunt on the police force,’ I whispered back, pretending to be immune to the glamour cast by the uniform. Kai winked at me from across the room and mouthed ‘You’re a Ladies’ Walking Group’ over everyone’s heads, which, with his height, was kind of a given.

‘We’re a Walking Group,’ I said to the blondest, youngest and, it had to be said, most attractive, of the policemen. ‘We were . . .’

‘Taking an early morning stroll, when those ruffians accosted us.’ Vivienne finished for me. Obviously, hearing that Richard still loved her had given her a brand-new, and paradoxically old-fashioned, vocabulary. The police wrote everything down earnestly, even when we elaborated rather more than was necessary, while Kai stood leaning against the wall and smirking, particularly when I mentioned my abduction at the hands of Big Helmet himself and managed to make it sound as though I’d escaped through my own ingenuity rather than by sending smoke signals and nearly asphyxiating myself.

‘So I do have to ask why you didn’t report all this at the time?’ Mid-hair-and-attractiveness-policeman asked.

‘Because they were threatened,’ Kai managed to involve himself without anyone telling him to shut up. ‘Holly told me, and I advised her to keep quiet, unless there was enough proof to stop the lads coming after them for revenge.’

‘They were going to say that we were witches, and they’d seen us doing black magic on the hill, with blood and stuff.’

All three policemen rolled their eyes. ‘Well, I guess it’s not surprising what drug gangs will come up with to keep people off their turf,’ said the one I was presuming to be a recent import from a big city. ‘Unless you actually are witches, of course.’

There was an inordinate amount of laughter at this, some of it rather shrill and desperate, and Kai managed to cause the interview to be terminated without seeming to do anything at all. When the door closed behind the last one, I stared at him.

‘You seem to know a lot about handling the police. Anything you need to tell me?’

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