Good Husband Material. Trisha Ashley

James Drew – younger member of Drew, Drune and Tibbs – lives in a basement flat. No children. She has a part-time position in a university library.’

      ‘A librarian?’ I repeated. Tish?

      ‘And she writes.’

      ‘That’s more like it. Poetry, I suppose,’ I said, an errant memory flitting through my mind of long afternoons spent in my flat – me painting, Tish wrestling with a poem, or lying on the rug with her A level books spread around her.

      So I was surprised when he said, ‘Not poetry, Mr Rocco. She writes romantic novels as Marian Plentifold.’

      ‘Romantic novels?’

      ‘She seems to be doing quite well with them, too.’

      ‘Inspired by her husband, no doubt,’ I said, and something in my voice made him cast a doubtful glance my way.

      ‘Mr Drew seems to be a respected member of the firm, which was founded by his grandfather. He’s older than Mrs Drew by about ten years. His father lives in South Africa with his second wife and family.’

      ‘So – happily married then?’

      Mr Rooney emitted a small dry cough. ‘General opinion among the office staff – obtained from one of the secretaries, a Miss Sandra Walker – is that there was some disappointment when he married. Hopes had been cherished, especially by one of the secretaries, who’d been having an on/off affair with him for some considerable time. According to Sandra, Mr Lionel Drew, the senior partner, didn’t think she was the right material for a solicitor’s wife. She married someone else, but she’s now divorced and has recently rejoined the firm. Apparently she’s been making a play for Mr Drew again, but apart from the occasion of the office Christmas party he hasn’t responded.’

      ‘So what did he get up to at the office party?’

      ‘Having drunk a little too much, he retired with Mrs Vanessa Grey into the small photocopier room.’

      ‘I see.’

      ‘There are thirty-four blurred photocopies in existence.’ He passed me a folded sheet. ‘I expect in the heat of the moment, as it were, the button …’

      ‘Yes.’ Well, it was a minor peccadillo, I suppose, compared with what I’ve got up to in the past. But then, I’m not a married man.

      ‘He seems to be able to keep his trousers on generally otherwise, then?’

      ‘There was no hint of anything else,’ Mr Rooney said primly, ‘and he’s been trying to distance himself from Mrs Grey ever since – very hangdog and worried his wife will hear.’

      I suppose every dog is allowed one bite. Or one photocopy.

      ‘That was the extent of my brief, sir, but if you’d like me to proceed further?’

      ‘No. No, that’s fine, thanks,’ I assured him.

      ‘Who was that?’ enquired Carlo a few minutes later, passing him in the doorway.

      ‘A private eye. I set him on to find out what became of Tish.’

      Carlo has big, liquid dark eyes, and can look indescribably sad-spaniel sometimes. It goes over well with the girls. He looked like that now.

      ‘Tish? After all this time you still care about her?’

      ‘No, it’s just my curiosity was stirred by seeing her at the gallery – as I suppose hers was in coming to see the show. I just felt I’d like to know how she was, what she was doing.’

      ‘Yeah, and I’m Titania, Queen of the Faeries,’ Carlo said sceptically.

      I grinned. ‘Well, that’s what I thought I wanted, only it seems deep down I wanted to find her miserable, separated, divorced – you know? In need of rescue, anyway. So what does that make me? A complete bastard?’

      ‘Human. Do I take it she’s happily married and living in suburbia with two point five children?’

      ‘All except the children. And she’s turned into a romantic novelist.’

      ‘Really? So, what now? Drop back into her life like a particularly dangerous spider and invite her to jump into your web?’

      ‘No, of course not. I’m going to keep well clear. And I don’t think much of your metaphor, though I might just use it. I’ve got this idea for a song …’

      ‘I wonder if she ever feels the drain of you sucking your inspiration from her over so many years? Did the detective comment on whether she looked like the dried-out husk of a woman?’

      ‘Ha, ha!’ I laughed hollowly. ‘Now I’m some sort of vampire.’

      ‘Don’t you find Nerissa something to write about?’ he asked curiously.

      ‘She’s a distraction, admittedly, and she’s got more sticking power than I expected. But Pop’s threatening to cut her allowance off if he sees one more tabloid photo of his daughter with her hands all over me.’

      ‘She’ll be moving in with you before you know what hit you.’

      ‘No she won’t. You know,’ I struck a Garbo-esque pose, ‘I often vant to be alooone.’

      ‘Yes, and you also often say you want to settle down and raise a family. Speaking of which, you haven’t forgotten it’s my engagement party tonight?’

      ‘Of course I haven’t forgotten. But I just want to rough out this song while it’s running through my head.’

      Carlo regarded me sombrely. ‘OK, as long as you’re not going to stay here brooding. It’s pointless. You can never go back.’

      ‘Of course not. “That was another country, and besides, the wench is dead?”’ I quoted lightly. ‘Something like that.’

      Dead to me, anyway.

       Chapter 4: Wild in the Country

      While I didn’t quite achieve my dream of having my own country cottage before my thirtieth birthday, we moved in only a couple of weeks later, though early on the very first morning, when I was jerked rudely from the sound sleep of exhaustion by a deep coughing roar like a sick cougar, it struck me that Nutthill, and 2 Dower Houses in particular, was not going to be quite the quiet haven of my imaginings.

      Heart pounding, I started up and stared wildly round the strange room, where James and I lay marooned among the flotsam of our possessions.

      Dismal February light from the uncurtained window greyly furred every outline, but there was no cougar among them, sick or otherwise, and I’d just snuggled thankfully back into the warm embrace of the duvet when the noise was repeated, this time growing ever louder until it rumbled and snarled itself off into the distance.

      Must have been a tractor – or something.

      This was not the first thing to strike me about country living, though: the sliding door between the bathroom and the kitchen had already done that, very painfully, in the night. This extra barrier was due to some legal hygiene quibble about the two being next to each other, and while I’m all for germs being kept out, I don’t see what notice they’ll take of a sliding door.

      Once the roaring had died away I could hear birds twittering, a muted cackling, and a faint, faraway foghorn of mooing. The walls between us and our only neighbour are so thick that yesterday, while we were moving in, I heard nothing from her, though her front curtains were twitching like mad – but now there was the slam of a door and shuffling footsteps going in the direction of the back garden.

      The muted cackling was suddenly released into a cacophony of squawking, clucking and crowing, accompanied by the rattling of a bucket. Then the slow, dragging footsteps retraced their path, the door slammed, and there was silence … apart from the newly released hens,