Cambridge Blue - Alison Bruce [64]
‘So, if it’s that simple, how does “Emma” fit in?’
‘Let’s worry about that tomorrow. We’ll start with Jackie Moran first thing.’ From within his pocket, Kincaide’s mobile bleeped. ‘You need a bit of sex to distract you,’ he added as he fumbled for his phone.
Goodhew looked down at his coffee. He didn’t care for his colleague’s phraseology, but had to admit that it was a fair point.
He glanced up in time to see Kincaide unlock his phone, then smirk as he read the message on it. ‘And speaking of which,’ he said, dropping it back in his pocket, ‘I’d better go.’
Somehow Goodhew knew that Kincaide’s text hadn’t been sent by his wife. He took his time finishing his coffee and he wondered how it was that the Bryns, Kincaides and Victorias of the world seemed to have no qualms about entering into casual liaisons, whereas he couldn’t seem to separate the physical from the emotional.
He guessed that those were the signals he gave out too; the women he attracted weren’t the one-night-fling kind. And even looking back at school, he could see that the ‘Just Say No’ anti-drugs campaign had been wasted on him; he oozed so little irresponsibility that, until he was eighteen, he’d never even been offered a cigarette.
Goodhew counted the months back to the last of the half-dozen or so dates he’d shared with Tasha, a gap student from Sydney. More time had passed than he’d realized; no wonder he’d even had a moment of finding Victoria attractive. And the idea of indulging in a quick fling had a certain appeal, but he knew it wouldn’t be happening. In fact, he couldn’t imagine a time where it would ever be his thing.
On top of that, he couldn’t totally grasp the concept of opening up that much to just anyone, so for the time being at least, he knew that any desires he felt were illogically attached to Mel.
He checked his watch and saw it was time to track down his grandmother. Perhaps he could even admonish her for saddling him with a rogue sexual ethics gene.
He dialled her mobile and, as it rang, it occurred to him that she was far more likely to urge him to make the most of still being single. In which case the gene must have come from his granddad, because it certainly didn’t come from his mum’s side of the family tree.
TWENTY-SIX
His grandmother lived on the first floor of a two-storey art deco block of eight flats on the Fen Causeway. The building was white with curved windows, sweeping balconies and rooms so large that they would have dwarfed even the bulbous deco furniture they’d been designed to house. Connaught Villas lounged across a plot big enough to accommodate two streets of ‘affordable’ housing and, although the road outside was often clogged with city-bound cars, the main view was of the lush marshy fields of Newnham Common. This was undoubtedly high-quality city dwelling.
Goodhew arrived there within ten minutes, and having his own key, let himself into her apartment. A small lobby led into the single large reception room.
‘Hello, Gran, it’s me,’ he called out as he entered. The room was warm, feeling slightly humid but not in an unpleasant way. A yucca tree thrived in a large pot halfway between the kitchen door and the french windows, enjoying both the steam from the kitchen and the sun from the south.
He draped his jacket across the back of his favourite armchair and checked the time on the grandfather clock as it clunked through the seconds. It struck the hour with a single dainty chime. As a child he’d wondered why it didn’t count out the total hours like every other chiming clock he had encountered, and that began a thought process that led him to wonder why most things in his childhood seemed to be so different to other childhoods.
Then he’d grown