Page 62 of The Price of Love
I couldn’t think of any.
‘I’ll have to bring up the big guns then. He’s working behind a firewall, so I can’t piggyback a virus in to rewrite the passwords. Besides, he’d know then that someone had got at his files. So . . .’ He tapped away. ‘I’ll run a decryption program. That should break it. Let’s face it, this is a guy who uses his birthday as a phone code. He’s not exactly security conscious, our man.’
‘I don’t suppose he’s ever thought anyone would want to break in.’
‘Everyone should have security systems. You never know. There. We’ll leave that to run a while. Do you fancy a glass of wine?’ One of the boxes in the barn turned out to be a chiller unit, stacked with everything one might want, from Coke to champagne. Cal pulled a bottle of white wine out without even looking.
‘Very smooth.’ I accepted a glass.
‘It’s regular party time in here sometimes. The team and I, when we finish a job, we often have a drink together.’
‘Together?’
‘Figuratively speaking. Like the dress, by the way. Did it not come in your size?’
Had I dressed up to go and see Cal? What do you think? The dress in question was turquoise, halter backed and short skirted. It showed off my brown legs and arms and made my shoulders look slim and elegant. ‘What’s wrong with it?’
A long glance. ‘Nothing. What there is of it, is fine. And, just for the record, what there is of you is fine, too.’ He raised his glass to me and smiled, but I could no more tell what he was thinking than I could read Greek. His eyes said he wanted me. But hadn’t he told me, in no uncertain terms, that hedidn’t? Was I reading things wrong here?
‘Do you ever get lonely, Cal? You seem quite happy on your own, but sometimes you look as if . . .’Where the hell had that come from?I looked at the glass of wine in surprise, almost as ifithad spoken. ‘Blimey, this is strong.’
‘No.’
‘Oh, I think it is. Bloody hell, I’ve only had one, all right, one and three quarters of a glass and I’m already talking bollocks.’
‘I meant, I’m lonely all the time, Willow. Goes with the territory, really. I can’t talk to people properly in case it comes out what I do, which would mean gangs might try to get at me. Ialways have to be on my guard. I never know who I can trust. Are you ready for another story?’
He refilled my glass and led me out of the barn and through the yard to the house, where the air was cooler now. ‘Three years ago I met Hannah. Oddly enough, it wasn’t the palindromic nature of her name which attracted me. She was bright, funny, pretty — not, in fact, unlike yourself in a lot of ways, with the same sparky kind of personality. Quick, you know the sort of thing I mean? Anyway, I’d got a job writing software, she worked with kids at a play scheme, after-school clubs and such and we were happy, I thought. She didn’t seem to mind the war wound. At least she never said.’
There was a deliberately bland expression on his face, and he avoided meeting my eye. He carried on speaking as though talking to his glass.
‘She moved in with me. I lived up on Petergate then. Nice flat, but too many stairs. I loved her. Loved her, but couldn’t talk to her. She didn’t . . . she wouldn’t have understood the implications, thought that the computers were just . . . She loved me anyway, even if I was a bit secretive.’
Now he did look at me. It was a look that dared me to pity him.
‘One day I got in and she’d gone. Left to go and live with someone she’d met at work. I thought the only people she met at work were under the age of fifteen but apparently not. I never found out. She left me a note saying that she couldn’t cope with me not talking to her properly. We’d lasted a year, and I hadn’t realised anything was wrong, so I decided . . .’ he tailed off, coughed, and took another mouthful of his wine. ‘I promised myself, I wouldn’t deal with anyone I couldn’t trust enough to tell. That I wouldn’t have a relationship again until — wow, that makes it sound like the women are queuing up for me, doesn’t it?’ A dark, hollow sort of laugh. ‘I tried a bit of online dating,’he continued, staring down at the table, picking at a split in the wood. ‘Turns out you can’t code your way out of a disability. Soon as I mentioned a problem with stairs — voom — I was out of there. So I threw myself into running the team and setting up my own business.’
‘I’m sorry.’ It even sounded inadequate as I said it. But, can you think of anything to say in this situation?
An inclination of his head, either acceptance of my sympathy or dismissal of it, I wasn’t really sure.
‘I think you’re gorgeous.’
A half-laugh. ‘Thanks for that.’
‘Katie thinks you’re gorgeous, too. And Ash likes you. Which you should take as a massive endorsement because Ash usually only likes shiny things and Benedict Cumberbatch, so. You know. We can’t all be wrong, can we?’
‘Unfortunately. I’m a geeky guy with a weak arm and a leg that won’t do as it’s told. No social graces. I’m shy, I’m awkward and I stutter when I don’t know people. It’s not exactly the way to sweep women off their feet.’
‘And you’re funny and kind, and you have the most fabulous eyes I’ve ever seen.’
‘I’m nothing like Luke, you know. The only six pack I possess is out there, in the cooler.’
‘Luke is a first-classbastard.’
‘But one you’ve fancied for ten years. You’re only finding me attractive because I’m skinny and dark and introverted, and he’s hurt you so badly that you don’t want anyone who reminds you of him, even obliquely.’
‘That’s therapy talk. You can’t presume to tell me who I find attractive and why. I’m not thinking of Luke at all.’ I let Cal refill my glass again, feeling our knees bump against each other as he carelessly leaned across the table. It was true, Luke and all his treacherous deceits were far, far away. From horizon to horizonall I could see was Cal’s huge, dark eyes and sculpted face, pencilled with stubble and lined with remembered pain.
