Chapter Ten
‘So, if you don’t mind my asking,’ said Jago, ‘what’s the matter?’ He had a collection of foil-wrapped parcels on his lap, given to him by Gilly as he got into the car.
Helena slowed down a little. ‘Sorry. I’m just a bit upset.’
‘I can see that, but why? Leo was OK, wasn’t he? Not my type, obviously but—’
Helena had been fighting with herself from almost the first moment they had arrived at her mother’s house. ‘Do you mind if I tell you why I don’t like him?’ Jago’s quickness to pick up on her feelings encouraged her to confide in him.
‘Of course not. I don’t think he’s ever going to be my best friend.’
‘Why do you say that?’ asked Helena sharply.
Jago shrugged. ‘As I said, not my type. So why don’t you like him? He seemed to be pretty much a ladies’ man.’
‘Maybe I should wait until we get home. It’s a bit weird.’
‘So? Your place or mine? I quite fancy having the third portion of pudding your mother gave me. Her pastry is amazing.’
‘Yours – mine – I don’t care really.’
‘Let’s go to mine,’ said Jago.
Ten minutes later, Jago had settled Helena down with a mug of tea – having offered her wine and been refused – and pulled the sofa round so it caught the sunshine. Then, having put both portions of different sorts of pudding on to the same plate, he said, ‘Spill.’
Helena sipped her tea, wondering where to start. ‘It does mean telling you something rather weird about me.’
‘Which is?’
‘Do you know what a super-recogniser is?’ she asked, desperately hoping for an affirmative.
‘Nope, never heard of it.’
Helena exhaled. She hated having to explain this unusual ability: she felt it made her sound a bit strange. ‘You obviously don’t read enough crime fiction. It means I can recognise faces, even if I’ve only glanced at them, and remember them, even years afterwards. Or even if I see them at a funny angle.’
‘Oh. That is a bit weird. But useful at parties,’ he added solemnly.
She laughed. ‘Very useful at parties but it has its downsides and this is one of them.’
‘What is?’
‘Recognising that the man my mum has started to go out with, and obviously is already quite into, is the man who nearly got her and me killed years ago.’
Jago sighed now. ‘That is awkward. What were the circumstances?’
‘He was driving a car towards us on the wrong side of the road, far too fast. If Mum hadn’t reacted so quickly he’d have crashed into us and we’d both have been killed.’
Jago didn’t speak for quite some time. ‘Are you sure?’
Helena bit her lip. ‘I’ve had the whole of lunch to think and rethink and I can’t make the answer different. If I could I would. Yes, I am sure.’
‘And he was driving too fast?’
‘For a motorway, no, but for the country lane we were on, definitely. If Mum hadn’t pulled out of his way into the ditch, really quickly, we’d have met head on. He didn’t stop although he’d obviously seen us. He just drove on.’
‘That’s outrageous.’
Helena drank some more tea. ‘We don’t know why he was driving so fast. He may have had a sick child on the back seat, or a dying dog.’
