‘No, I’m secretly enjoying the awkwardness of it.’
‘Then let’s go and see if our table’s ready. That way I can drip some soup down my shirt or spill wine over my lap and we can really make a night of it.’
‘Well at least you’re not having another one of your “love at first fart” moments.’
‘You don’t want to know what happens on my “love at second fart” moment.’
Ellie laughed. There were many things about Tim that Ellie found endearing: like the way his lips curled up at the sides a second before he’d break into laughter, the small grey flecks of hair peeking out from his beard, how his left ear stuck out a little further than the right, the way his entire face turned a deep shade of crimson when he became embarrassed.
While it was neither love at first nor second sight for her, she was sure of one thing. There wassomethingabout him she was falling for.
Chapter 31
MANDY
Mandy listened intently as Richard’s mother, Pat, recalled anecdote after anecdote about her son, filling in the many gaps in Mandy’s limited understanding of her Match and his life.
It was the second time they’d met in a week, this time in a garden centre coffee shop in a village halfway between their respective towns.
‘The women he trained at the gym loved him,’ chuckled Pat. ‘He was a handsome lad but there was something about his personality that they adored too. I think it’s because he gave them attention and listened to them. They might not have got that from their husbands. And, of course, some of them took this to mean he was more interested than he actually was.’
Mandy understood what it was about Richard these women were drawn to; the more she heard about him from those who knew him best, the deeper she was falling for him, against her better judgment.
She clung on to Pat’s every word as she described his childhood days in the cubs, how he’d inherited his sense of adventure from his father and how, no matter where in the world he’d been, Richard had always stayed in regular touch with his family by email or by phone. Shespoke of how, when Richard was just nine years old, he had lost his dad to a sudden heart attack and had immediately stepped up as the new man of the house.
‘I think Chloe told you about his cancer, didn’t she? The one that inspired him to go travelling?’
‘She mentioned it, yes.’
‘Well, he was seventeen when he found a lump in his testicle and at first he didn’t say anything … the last thing a teenage boy wants is his mum to know he has anything wrong down there. But when he finally did admit it, I dragged him to the doctors and within a couple of days he was in hospital having the lump removed. It was malignant, and he had to have a few sessions of chemotherapy, but within six months he was as right as rain.’
‘That must have been horrible for you.’
‘It wasn’t a great time, no. But it sparked a huge change in Richard. I think something inside him knew his time on earth might be limited and he wanted to make the most of it. And who can blame him? He was right, after all, and he managed to cram more into his years that many other people do in a lifetime.’
‘Certainly a lot more than me,’ said Mandy. Richard’s sense of adventure put her lack of one to shame. She couldn’t help but wonder what sights of the world they might have witnessed together if fate hadn’t intervened.
‘What about you Mandy?’ Pat suddenly asked. ‘Here I am rambling on about Richard and what he was like and I haven’t once asked you how it makes you feel to hear my stories?’
Mandy removed her fingers from around her mug of coffee and glanced at the customers around them lifting potted plants and sizing them up. An elderly couple caught her attention as they sat side by side on a bench holding hands and silently watching brightly coloured fish swimming in a pond. She and Richard would never get the chance to grow old together.
‘When you talk about him, it makes me feel that there’s so much I’ve missed out on,’ she replied. ‘A family man who wanted a family of his own … that’s my idea of a perfect Match. I feel torn – I’m so pleased to have been Matched with him, yet I feel so sad that we weren’t even allowed to meet or be together. They say you can’t miss what you’ve never had, but that’s not true. I miss him so much and I never even knew him.’
Pat placed her hand on Mandy’s. ‘For what it’s worth, I’d have been proud to have had you as my daughter-in-law.’
Mandy looked away and had to bite her lip to stop it from trembling, but it wasn’t enough to stop the many tears cascading down her cheeks.
Chapter 32
CHRISTOPHER
The extra shot Christopher added to his espresso put a pep in his step.
He was still buzzing from the smooth, uncomplicated kill of Number Ten in the early hours of the morning, and wasn’t tired enough to go to bed. There were too many plans to be made which were swirling around his head. So he put on a pair of shorts and a tight sleeveless vest and slipped on his trainers – lacing them up so the loops were identically sized – and left his house for a run. When his thoughts became jumbled, exercise helped to balance his mind.
Christopher relished being the object of attention and he didn’t care from which source it came. His killings were anonymous, so he searched for it from other means instead, such as wearing his best tailor-made Savile Row suit and test-driving cars he had no intention of buying, or making appointments to visit multimillion pound turnkey properties he couldn’t afford. He’d often walk around the gym changing rooms naked for longer than necessary, showing off his toned physique that he was confident other men would envy. And when he ran, he purposely wore no underwear, so passers-by could see his penis in his shorts bouncing from side to side.
His top-of-the-range Nikes pounded along the busy London pavements and took him towards the greenery of Hyde Park. As he ran, he questioned what it was about his condition that made him seek this attention, and with it the challenges and complications. Life would’ve been much simpler if, after he killed, he’d leave their homes and wait for them to be discovered. But, he’d chosen to make things more interesting by taking a risk and returning to the scene of the crime to leave his trademark: a photograph of the next victim and the spray-painted stencil outside.
