I doubt the birds are her main concern. Barbara knows everything about the neighbours’ goings-on and nothing about the difference between a seagull and an oystercatcher.
Rupert’s grin returns. “Well then, Brandon. You’d best hurry inside and make yourself presentable. Go on—or at least try not to look like a man in his pyjamas.” He slaps the wooden plank back into place, disappearing from sight.
Barbara’s already scurried away, no doubt to intercept her target.
I gather my papers unhurriedly. I’ve no intention of changing, though I do try in vain to smooth my hair.
Barbara’s voice rings out from the front of their house, pitched to carry: “He’s on the patio, Lily! No, go right ahead, love. He’s just procrastinating!”
I silently groan. One day, I’ll learn to stop underestimating Barbara’s enthusiasm for announcing my private business at full volume. It’s why I don’t often have visitors.
The side gate clangs and Lily-Anne appears, a cardboard tray of takeaway cups balanced in her hands.
I rise to meet her. “Hello.”
“Hi! I brought soup,” she greets.
“Would you like to join me?” I scrape my chair back several inches, angling it towards the garden so I’ll be less likely to pass on my cold.
She joins me at the table and nods to the gleaming bowl.
“That’s really beautiful,” she murmurs.
“It was my mother’s. It’s kintsugi—Japanese repair work.”
“Honouring the cracks,” she murmurs. “I like that.”
She passes two cups to me. “Soup and coffee. Sorry it took so long. I had trouble finding anywhere that still serves soup this time of year. I actually ended up at Willoughby’s…you know, the café from last night?” She hesitates, watching me.
I hold myself still, tone carefully blasé. “Oh yes?”
“Mm. And I saw the owner again—Jack Willoughby. He said you two used to be close friends…?”
I glance down at the cups, the café’s logo staring back at me. ‘Friends’ isa stretch, but it would seem ungracious to contradict the claim. “I see.”
Lily-Anne fidgets with her takeaway cup, turning it in place. “Is that…not alright?”
“No, it’s fine,” I say quickly, taking a sip and forcing a smile. “Pumpkin?”
She nods.
The taste is smooth, buttery, and at odds with the tightness in my throat as my thoughts drag to the last person who saw Natalie alive.
Swallowing the stuff takes effort, but I drink another mouthful, stalling.
The air shifts, and the acrid thread of cigarette smoke brushes past. My skin prickles with the sense of Nova nearby, but I cannot see her. I blink, turn my head to focus on Lily-Anne, and the smoke is gone.
“Thank you for getting these—it was kind of you,” I tell her, and I mean it.
“You’re welcome. I was happy to go.”
“Did you see anything interesting in town?” I ask, eager to change the subject.
I can tell she’s still concerned, but she brightens as she recounts her walk along the promenade, the galleries she wants to visit, and a server at the café with pink hair who would apparently make a perfect fancast for someone named Nymphadora Tonks.
“That’s quite the name,” I observe.
“Yes, she’s a character from—”
