Page 32 of The Plot Twist

‘Yeah yeah,’ Allie said somewhat sulkily, ‘I thought you’d be happy that I’d decided to go with the flow and see Will.’

‘I am. Of course, I am. But just make sure youaregoing with the flow, and not doing this because of some half-baked idea that you need him in order to deliver your next novel.’

‘Right, well, thanks for the advice,’ Allie said in a tone that suggested she was in no way thankful to receive anything Jess had just said. ‘I’ve got to go meet my mentor now.’

‘Ooh fancy! And Allie? Iampleased for you, you deserve this…’

Allie thanked Jess and ended the call. She quickly cast her eye over everything she had written that morning and then slid her laptop into her bag and headed out the door.

The Tube was filled with school kids out on an outing, jostling each other with their rucksacks and running their teachers ragged by the sounds of it. Allie shuffled down in her seat, hid behind her book and hoped they would all depart at South Kensington for the museums. She sighed in relief when they did, and prayed for the safety of their teachers. She spent the rest of her journey re-reading the notes she had made for Martin, worrying they weren’t half as good as her euphoric typing earlier had led her to believe, but realising that it was too late to do much about it now.

John Lewis was its usual respectable self and Allie had absolutely no trouble finding a quiet, clean table on which she laid out her laptop and allowed herself some downtime daydreaming about Will before Martin showed up.

‘Hello.’ Martin did a double take, obviously noticing the dreamy expression on her face and not quite knowing whether he was allowed to comment on it. ‘You look…’

‘Happy?’ she suggested.

‘Yes, that’s it.’ He smiled gratefully at the lifeline she had thrown him, and sat down in the chair opposite her. Martin had chosen their first meeting place, and although you couldn’t really go wrong with the John Lewis cafe, it hardly screamed ‘grand romantic gesture’, making Allie realise she was probably going to have to point this out to Martin if this was top of the list of places he planned to take his wife. Still, Allie was in charge of where to meet next so for now she’d suck up the middle England comfort of John Lewis and pump Martin for information on what had made him choose this place over everywhere else in the whole of London town.

She waited for him to settle himself, which seemed to take some time. Finally, he pulled out a notebook and pen.

Allie frowned. ‘Didn’t you bring your laptop?’

‘No,’ harrumphed Martin who went back to searching through his bag for something. He looked up, sensing the note of disapproval in her voice. ‘What?’

‘I thought you might have brought it, that’s all. I mean, we’re here to write, aren’t we?’

‘I mainly use longhand at this stage in my writing. And then I type each chapter up when I finish it.’ Martin sounded defensive.

She smiled at him in what she hoped was a reassuring manner, a smile that said –no judgement from me on your archaic habits. Martin went back to patting down the many pockets in his, yes tweed again, jacket before settling on the one just inside the left-hand side. Triumphantly he pulled out a pair of glasses and put them on. ‘Right, better, OK.’

‘Did you want to get something?’ Allie asked, gesticulating at the extensively stocked cafe counter.

He frowned at her from behind his spectacles. ‘How about we make a start, and then I’ll go get us something when we need a break?’

This sounded reasonable. Business-like. To the point. Exactly as Allie had hoped. Their relationship as writing mentors was entirely professional. No need for Martin to know the real reason she was dreamily smiling to herself when he arrived. No need for him to know anything about her private life at all. It was completely irrelevant to their writing that Allie kept having to suppress a ridiculous smile. That her thoughts kept wandering back to Will. Memories of his lips, his arms, his…

‘Allie?’ Martin sounded concerned. ‘Are you OK?’ He peered at her, his face creasing in frown lines.

‘Sorry, right.’ Allie tried to focus, to peel her mind away from the hotness that was Will, to wipe the goofy grin off her face every time she thought about… It was tough, but necessary. She needed to concentrate if she was ever going to get this next book written.

‘Why don’t I start?’ she suggested. ‘I’ve been thinking about your book and I’ve made some notes. Do you want to take a look at this…’ She swiveled her laptop round so that Martin could see the screen and nervously held her breath. He peered at it, his eyes squinting slightly. He began patting his pockets again. There was a long pause before he produced a second pair of glasses, carefully took the first pair off, and put the new pair on. ‘There, right, now I can read it.’

Allie did a massive internal sigh. It wasn’t Martin’s fault that he was older and had bad eyesight, and she shouldn’t hold it against him, because before long it would be her carrying around several pairs of glasses, not knowing which pocket she kept which pair in. Although hopefully she wouldn’t be wearing tweed. She made a mental note to add ‘wearing tweed’ to the regularly updated list of reasons which gave her and Jess permission to shoot each other.

‘What is this?’ Martin asked, taking his glasses off and looking up at Allie. For a moment Allie was thrown off balance by his eyes, she hadn’t noticed before how intense they were when they were focused on something. Especially when that something was herself. And there was something familiar in them, almost as if Allie had looked into these eyes before. Except not quite these eyes. There was something… but Allie couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was.

‘It’s a chapter breakdown of your next book,’ she said, tearing her eyes away from his and looking back at her laptop. ‘Well, at least it’s the first ten chapters. I haven’t quite worked out how and when the detective finds the second body. It’s a work in progress.’ She shrugged and turned the laptop back towards her.

‘It’s amazing Allie, I’m impressed.’ Martin was cleaning one of his pairs of glasses, Allie couldn’t tell which. ‘Are you sure you’ve never written crime or thrillers before?’

‘Far as I know,’ laughed Allie. ‘I don’t think Waterstones would shelve any of my novels anywhere other than the romance section.’

Martin smiled at her, his eyes disappearing underneath his overly shaggy eyebrows. Allie couldn’t help staring and wondering if they had always been this shaggy, and if not, how quickly growth like that creeps up on you and what Angie thought of them. And at what point in a marriage it became acceptable to request that the other party start trimming their facial hair. Her hand went unthinkingly to her own face, feeling for random stray hairs.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to use this yourself?’ Martin asked with concern. ‘It’s really good, you know.’

Allie thought for a moment. It could be fun to write something different, publish it under a different name. But she knew where her heart lay and it wasn’t at the bottom of a shallow unmarked grave, it was in the pink-tinged section of romance, or at least it would be, once she had managed to revive it. ‘No, it’s the start of an outline that’s all. Just a collection of initial thoughts. If I ran with it I’d probably end up with the detective falling in love with the killer and that would be sick and wrong.’

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