The Chocolate Collection. Trisha Ashley

me back a gift at all, because my own mother never did…and I wondered if Mum really was in Goa, as I suspected, and that was the reason Mags kept jetting off there for solitary holidays, just like she used to do to Jamaica right after Mum vanished.

      That started me thinking about Mum’s blackmailing activities and wishing I hadn’t seen the letters and still thought Chas was my father, instead of all this uncertainty. I wanted it to be him, but I couldn’t just sweep under the mat the possibility that it might not be.

      By the time I put on my jacket and went across to the Falling Star, David’s red sports car was already parked outside. This was a wiser move than parking in the courtyard, because it doesn’t have a lot of manoeuvring room, due to the small meteorite, after which the pub is named, sitting right in the middle of it.

      There was no sign of Mrs Snowball behind the little desk that evening but her son, Clive, lifted the flap and came through from the busy public bar just as I entered the snug. David was the only person in the room and had been sitting in the window, but got up when I came in and kissed my cheek.

      ‘Hi, David. I hope you haven’t been here long?’

      ‘No, I’ve only just arrived. What would you like to drink? I thought I’d wait until you got here.’

      Behind Clive, who is a small, portly, middle-aged man with hair like grey wire wool, something hissed fiercely. He shifted to one side, proudly revealing a gleaming monster of a coffee machine.

      ‘You might like a coffee, Chloe?’ he suggested. ‘We’ve got one of these now. The tourists all seem to want coffee these days, don’t they? And I thought there’d be a lot more of them once your grandfather’s museum opens. It’ll be right good for business at the Star.’

      ‘Yes, I suppose it will, I hadn’t thought of that. And I’d love a coffee!’

      ‘Wouldn’t you prefer a glass of wine?’ suggested David.

      ‘No, I’m not much of a wine drinker and it’s too early in the day for me anyway. Coffee’s fine.’

      ‘Right you are,’ said Clive, then bellowed at the top of his lungs, ‘Mother!’

      We must have looked startled, because he explained that Mrs Snowball was the only one who could understand the instructions for the coffee machine as yet. ‘I haven’t had time and Molly doesn’t come in today.’

      Mrs Snowball shuffled in, wearing her tartan slippers with the pompoms on the front.

      ‘Customers for coffee, Mother.’

      ‘I wouldn’t have disturbed you, if I’d known,’ I apologised.

      She gave me a gappy smile and subjected David to a more prolonged inspection, before saying amiably, ‘That’s all right. What’ll it be then, my loves? Capuchin? Express? Frappy-latty-thingummy?’

      ‘I think we’ll have two monkeys,’ David said facetiously, and she looked blankly at him.

      ‘Two cappuccinos please, Mrs Snowball,’ I said.

      ‘And a brandy, if you’ve got a decent one,’ David added.

      ‘I don’t have no complaints about the brandy from my regular customers,’ Clive said. ‘You sit down, I’ll bring the drinks over.’

      ‘One-horse sort of place,’ David said, ‘and they’ll never get the tourists in if they don’t smarten up. I can’t imagine why you prefer it here to the Green Man.’

      ‘We like it just the way it is,’ I said defensively, ‘and we often have the snug to ourselves even in summer, while by mid-evening the Green Man is full of Hooray Henry types and tourists.’

      ‘I often meet my friends there,’ he said slightly stiffly and I remembered that in the past he’d introduced some of them to me, and they were loud Hooray Henry types.

      ‘I’ve heard quite a lot of local people from that end of the village go there too,’ I said quickly. ‘Poppy says you can find half the gardeners from Winter’s End playing darts in the back bar most nights.’

      ‘Well, any bar that has you in it is better than one that hasn’t,’ he said with a smile. ‘You look lovely, Chloe – and not a day older than when I last saw you.’

      ‘You don’t look much older either, David,’ I said, feeling flattered, though my attention was slightly distracted just then by catching sight of Mrs Snowball’s reflection in the mirror behind the bar. She had presumably completed her magic trick with the machine and now removed something from her pinny pocket and sprinkled it over the top of one of the cups. It seemed an odd place to keep the chocolate, or cinnamon, or whatever it was…

      ‘I feel older, though,’ David was saying ruefully. ‘Lately I’ve realised that the time has come to settle down – and finally move out of the city too. It’s better for bringing up children, for a start.’

      ‘I – I didn’t think – I mean, you didn’t say you’d got married, David!’ I said, startled, though I don’t know why I was so surprised.

      ‘I haven’t. There hasn’t been anyone serious since we broke up, Chloe, though it took me quite a while to accept what a big mistake I’d made in letting you go.’

      ‘Oh, no, I think in retrospect it was a good thing,’ I assured him cheerfully. ‘We just weren’t right for each other and it wouldn’t have worked out.’

      I wonder if all single men, when they get to a certain age, start to think of settling down? If so, maybe it’s more a practical impulse than a romantic one and what they really want is someone on tap to look after them as they get older. I certainly didn’t believe he had been living a bachelor existence for the last six years!

      He gave me another warm smile, his teeth so unnaturally white they probably glowed in the dark and saved him a fortune in light bulbs. ‘Somehow, I seem to have been thinking about you a lot lately, Chloe, so it was a wonderful surprise to run into you again.’

      ‘Yes, it’s lovely to see you again, too,’ I replied, though actually from Zillah’s readings I should have guessed it might happen.

      Clive brought the coffee and David’s brandy just then, on an old battered tin tray painted with the Guinness toucan. His mother hovered anxiously at his elbow.

      ‘This looks lovely!’ I said, though I could see mine had missed the sprinkle treatment entirely, while David’s seemed to have got a double dose.

      ‘Enjoy! That’s what they say on American telly, isn’t it?’ she cackled, then shuffled off back to whatever she’d been doing before Clive summoned her, and he went back through into the public lounge.

      ‘Strange people,’ David commented, one eyebrow raised quizzically, then took a sip of his coffee and pulled a face. ‘Strange cappuccino, too!’

      ‘Mine is fine, so I expect she just overdid the sprinkle on yours,’ I suggested, though now I came to look at his coffee, it was speckled with greenish stuff that looked more like powdered herbs than anything. ‘You’ll hurt her feelings if you don’t drink it. Here, let me scrape some of it off with my spoon.’

      ‘You’re too soft-hearted, Chloe,’ he said, but even after I’d skimmed the top off it he still emptied the cup into a jaded aspidistra behind him after a couple of sips. It would probably perk it up no end.

      David removed the aftertaste with a good gulp of brandy. ‘I wonder if I could ask you a favour, Chloe.’

      ‘A favour?’

      ‘Yes, I’m looking for a house around here and I thought you might come and see some of the possible ones with me. I’d appreciate another viewpoint.’

      ‘Poppy’s the one who could be really helpful, because her cousin Conrad works in an estate agents and so she—’

      He leaned forward and laid his warm hand over