Fast And Loose. Justine Elyot

some kind of respected profession.’

      ‘Not a journalist, then?’ said Tom, with a twinkle. ‘I guess…doctor, lawyer…oh! University lecturer?’

      ‘They hooked up through some kind of private chat group, I think.’

      ‘OK, well, that’s what we’ll try to do, then.’

      ‘What? You have a plan?’

      ‘Follow in their footsteps,’ he said briskly. ‘Get on to some of these sites and make profiles and meet some other local kinksters. What? Don’t you think so?’

      I was staring at him, I realised. I blinked and looked back at the screen.

      ‘You want to do this?’ I said, referring both to the investigation of Mia’s disappearance and to the continuation of our mutual interest in her kink.

      ‘Why not? We’re ideally placed, aren’t we? If anyone can find her, it’s us.’

      I shook my head. ‘I’m not a detective,’ I said.

      ‘No, but I think we’d make a good team,’ he said. ‘You’ve got the attention to detail and I’ve got the understanding of people. You’re good at research and I’m good at persuasion. Come on. This could work.’

      ‘I don’t have the understanding of people?’

      He laughed.

      ‘No, Foxy, you don’t. You never picked up on Tilda and Miles? Seriously?’

      I bit my lip. Perhaps he was right. I tended to take people at face value and found it difficult to see anything beyond that. If you gave me something written down, though, I could read it every which way there was.

      ‘But you think we could work as a detective duo?’

      ‘Sure, why not?’ he said. ‘Holmes and Watson. Jeeves and Wooster.’

      ‘Jeeves and Wooster aren’t detectives.’

      He clapped his hands. ‘Like I said! Attention to detail. Flanagan and Allen. Porgy and Bess. The Master and Margarita.’

      ‘Fast and loose,’ I said. ‘A bit like you.’

      ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Perfect. Fast and Loose. We can have a little brass plaque on your bedroom door. OK, then. Email me over that document, will you? I’d better get going.’

      My dismay must have been palpable. He was going? Now?

      Apparently so, judging by the purposeful way he embarked on the search for all his discarded garments.

      ‘Sorry, kid,’ he said. ‘I want to stay. But I’ve got a breakfast meeting and I can’t turn up in a top hat and cravat.’

      ‘I could set the alarm for…’

      He shook his head, buttoning his shirt with fingers that must have smelled of me.

      ‘I’ve got stuff I need to look at first,’ he said. ‘Bit of business after pleasure. I’ll call you tomorrow, OK? In the meantime, come up with a fake profile for some of the kinky social networks. See if you can hook any professional types with a J initial.’

      ‘All right,’ I said, still feeling somewhat bleak at his sudden withdrawal. ‘Tomorrow, then.’

      ‘Tomorrow.’ He shrugged on his coat and grabbed the top hat and cravat. His kiss goodbye was sweet but too fleeting. ‘I promise.’

      And away he went.

       Chapter Four

      ‘Christ, Ella, you look knackered.’

      ‘Thanks.’

      I gave Tilda a sweet smile and a middle finger. But she was right.

      I should’ve slept like the dead, given the thorough workout Tom had put me through, but instead I had lain awake fretting about his sudden departure.

      Had it been something I’d said? I’d pulled together every scrap of our interactions from the recesses of my memory to analyse them for possible offence, but nothing seemed to make sense. Had he really only stayed for the Mia mystery? Had that been his whole plan in coming back with me? The sex was incidental. The discovery of our mutual kink was interesting to him, but only in terms of the investigation. He should have known I wouldn’t let him down.

      I should have known he would.

      ‘What’s the limp about?’ Tilda brought over a coffee from the machine and plumped herself down beside me.

      She was Tom’s ex. She’d never mentioned it.

      I found myself looking at her in a different light, picturing her with Tom.

      ‘Wrenched my ankle tottering about on high heels last night,’ I said. ‘Thought I’d sprained it, but it seems better this morning. Just a bit of a twist, probably.’

      ‘Oh, you went out? You didn’t tell me. Where did you go?’

      ‘Oh, just a bar. With my flatmates,’ I said, feeling sure my evasion hadn’t got past Tilda. She’d notice the colour that was heating my cheeks, for one thing.

      ‘Just A Bar. Yeah, one of my favourites. Cheap Street, isn’t it?’ she teased.

      ‘You know. My local. It wasn’t a big night out or anything.’

      Change the subject, for God’s sake.

      ‘If you say so. I’d have said it was an all-nighter, though, judging by those rings around your eyes.’

      ‘I need this coffee, that’s for sure.’ I lifted it to my lips and cast around the office, desperate for an alternative topic of conversation. ‘Is Miles in yet?’

      Tilda wheeled back her chair a fraction, giving me an uncomfortably keen look.

      ‘You weren’t out with him last night, were you?’

      ‘Miles? God! No!’

      The man in question appeared in the doorway, pulling his hood off his face, looking as unshaven and dishevelled as ever.

      ‘Ladies,’ he said, in his sullen Mancunian accent. ‘Did you get one in for me, Til?’

      ‘You can get your own. It’s Ella who looks like she really needs one.’

      ‘Yeah?’

      He sat down, yawning, on my other side and dumped his backpack under the desk before swivelling to stare at me.

      ‘Why’s that then?’

      ‘Oh, just thought she looked a bit tired, that’s all,’ said Tilda archly. ‘Like she needs a bit more sleep.’

      She gave Miles a meaningful look which was lost on him, but which I at last understood. Tilda had been making these weird oblique remarks to Miles about me for weeks. And now I understood why – everybody knew that he fancied me.

      It was nice to be in on the secret, even if I was the last to know.

      ‘Oh,’ said Miles. ‘Why’s that, then? Late one, was it?’

      This seemed to satisfy Tilda that we hadn’t been secretly at it all night long, and she turned to her desk to log in.

      ‘Just a few drinks with my flatmates,’ I mumbled, following suit.

      Miles grunted and lumbered off to the coffee machine.

      Not my type, I thought, following him with my eyes. Too simian, and that stoop – why didn’t he walk tall? Like Tom. Mmm. Tom. Bleurgh.

      My phone rang twice. An external ring. Unusual, especially for this time in the morning. Mum or Dad?

      I