‘Victor is one of the finest thinkers I’ve ever met,’ he says. ‘He’s got a wealth of experience from universities in the US, specialising in prisons in Central America. He worked with me in Oxford for a couple of years, gave me some incredible insights.’
Victor is nodding, his face lit up with enthusiasm. ‘It was a brilliant time. Cross-pollination of ideas, some truly revolutionary concepts that we were working on. I remember it so fondly.’
Lucy has finally put two and two together. ‘Wait, you’re Victor Machado? Sorry, I’ve only just clocked. I’ve read your book about prison and philosophy. It’s brilliant.’
Even more enthusiasm on his face, if that were possible. ‘I can’t believe you’ve read it.’
‘Lucy has read everything,’ Edgar says. ‘I told you she was brilliant.’
The love-in is getting silly. Any minute they’ll be suggesting a threesome. Lucy almost snorts at the thought, glancing between the two men and thinking, on balance, she wouldn’t be entirely averse to it. At that moment Edgar catches her eye, and she blushes to her hairline, paranoid suddenly that he can see what she’s thinking.
Mercifully the waiter arrives at that moment to pour the wine. Victor holds his hand over his glass, muttering about driving, but Edgar and Lucy’s glasses are filled. Lucy takes a huge gulp to cover her confusion, but in doing so, she ends up spilling half of it down her shirt before slopping the rest of it over the table when she puts her glass down too fast.
‘Let me help you,’ Edgar says, dabbing at her front with his napkin, his arm grazing dangerously close to her breasts. She jumps to her feet, muttering something about going to the ladies’, before escaping to lean her head against the cool wooden door once she’s locked it behind her.
She’s behaving like a fucking idiot, all clumsy and adolescent. They’re academics. Criminologists. Not rock stars. When she’s out of the cubicle, she splashes at her face with cold water, willing herself to cool down, reminding herself of quite how ordinary they are, how ridiculous she’s being.
It’s no good though. She can’t fight it anymore. She’s obsessed. She thinks about the way he’s described her to Victor –brilliant.Surely it must mean he’s got a thing about her, too, that he’s noticed she exists not just as a tool to summarise his work for him, but as something more than that, someone real.
Only too real. Her face is still flushed, her shirt stained with wine, and the eyeliner that she applied that morning is long gone, only a trace of it remaining to enhance the shadows under her eyes in the harsh light of the bathroom. She dabs at her shirt, drags her fingers through her hair, wipes off what’s left of the eyeliner, before giving it up for a waste of time. Edgar is so good-looking, his age a badge of honour that suits him more than she can say. He doesn’t need her to be beautiful, just brilliant. That’s how she’ll reel him in.
But the mood has changed by the time that she gets back to the table. Victor’s face is drawn, all smiles gone, while Edgar’s is flushed red, distress almost palpable in the air. Anger, too. She slips back into her chair and looks from one to the other before checking the bottle of wine which is almost empty. Edgar’s been hitting it hard, or so it looks by the flush on his face.
‘Is everything all right?’
Edgar is staring down at his glass, no reply forthcoming. Victor steps into the silence.
‘We were . . . We were talking about why I went back home,’ he says. ‘When I left Oxford.’
‘I was wondering about that, if you’d thought of staying on,’ she says.
‘There were reasons I needed to get back,’ he says. ‘Family stuff. Plus visas. My tenure was uncertain, and they wouldn’t extend the visa past the end of the last term of my contract. I was under threat of deportation if I didn’t get out.’
‘I did try,’ Edgar interrupts. ‘I did try. But there was so much else . . .’
Victor picks up the narrative again, looking at Lucy yet past her, his eyes sliding away.
‘Gabriela,’ he says, and at the name Edgar seems to shudder, huddling into himself. ‘That’s what was going on.’
‘Who is Gabriela?’ Lucy says, her voice low. The skin is crawling on the top of her scalp.
‘Gabriela was my wife,’ Edgar says, sitting upright. ‘She was killed.’
Victor puts his hand up. ‘Murdered. She was murdered. By an evil bitch of a stalker.’
‘We’re not going to agree on this, Victor. I know what you’re telling me, but . . .’ Edgar leans back into his chair, head slumped. His shoulders move up and down as he inhales deeply. ‘She was killed. That I will say.’
Soraya’s words,this dead wife in the background.No one said anything about her being killed. Or anything about stalkers.
Lucy’s scalp prickles. ‘She was what . . .?’
No reply.
She looks from Edgar to Victor, back to Edgar. Their faces are still. Too still. Lucy can see the tension sparking between them. Any minute, one of them is going to leap out of their seat, grab the other by the throat.
The waiter comes to the table, asks if they’re ready to order. The moment passes. Victor’s face relaxes, slightly. He shakes his head to food, orders another bottle of wine.
‘I think they’re going to need it,’ he says.
