‘Freak!’ he spat, viciously, in Ru’s direction, ramming his hands into the pockets of his jeans and turning to follow his fast-disappearing buddies.
‘Wait!’ Honor’s voice rang out before she’d realised she was going to speak. ‘Apologise to Rufus!’
‘What?’ He swung around, wearing an expression of ludicrous astonishment.
‘I said, apologise to Rufus,’ she repeated, weakly.
Martyn’s mouth twitched but he said, ‘You heard the lady. Apologise to Rufus.’
‘Get stuffed,’ said Frog, instead. And, with a final flip of his fingers in Ru’s direction, disappeared around the corner of the nearest shop, like an angry bear.
‘You may have pushed a little too hard with the apology,’ Martyn observed.
‘I hope I haven’t made things worse,’ she said, anxiously, to Ru, who was staring at her, clearly bemused.
‘Dunno,’ he said. Then added, honestly, ‘Probably.’
‘Oh, crap.’ She felt a sinking sense of shame. ‘Are you OK?’
He rubbed his shoulder where his shirt was torn but nodded. His huge dark eyes, so like his mother’s above his high cheekbones, were unfathomable. ‘Thanks.’ He flicked a shy, awkward glance at Martyn. ‘Thanks,’ he repeated.
Martyn dismissed him with a nod, then frowned down at Honor, as if wondering what the hell to do with her. ‘I’m cookingpasta. You’d better come and have some in place of your fish and chips. It’ll give the neighbourhood thugs time to clear the area. You didn’t exactly diffuse the situation.’
‘I didn’t know how to.’ Anxiety was squirming unpleasantly, now that the heat of anger had cooled. ‘If I’d called the cops Ru would have been black and blue by the time they arrived.’
‘It’s really tough to defeat a pack,’ he agreed, turning and beginning back up the metal stairs, his shoes making atung, tung, tungnoise on the treads. ‘They’re hyenas, opportunistic pack hunters, skulking in the bush until they can isolate vulnerable prey.’
Honor began up the stairway behind him. But halted as she realised that Ru was just watching.
At the door, Martyn looked back, frowning to see Honor only a few steps up the stairs. His gaze switched to Ru and he sighed. ‘You’d better come, too.’
And when Honor set off again,tung, tung, tung,she could hear the echoes of Ru’s footfalls behind her.
‘Wow,’ she breathed, when she stepped in through the black-painted door.
She could see clear through the apartment from the wooden floor and cream walls of the entrance lobby, past a stainless steel kitchen area lit, it seemed, by twenty concealed lights and divided from the living area with a wide expanse of polished silvery black granite, over the cream carpeted lounge area to four French doors in the end wall. A long way off.
It was huge. The apartment extended over the entire block of shops at Starboard Walk.
And a couple of doors and a black-painted spiral stairway leading from the entrance way indicated that there was more to be seen.
‘This is quite a place,’ she observed inadequately. In a rush, she remembered about Martyn not being just Martyn but beingMartyn Mayfair the Model. She kicked off her tennis shoes before stepping on to the carpet.
Martyn was busy throwing handfuls of penne pasta into bubbling hot water and combining tinned tomatoes in a pan with a jar of sauce — no doubt to make it stretch to serve three. She took one of the tall chrome stools on the other side of the counter, checking that there were no studs or zippers on her jeans to damage the butter-soft black leather seat. Beside her, Ru silently followed suit.
Whenever Martyn flicked a glance at Ru, Ru dropped his eyes. Most of Martyn’s glances were actually glowers, so Honor wasn’t too surprised Ru was abashed.
Martyn moved economically around his — clearly expensive — kitchen and Ru looked like a piece of trash someone had forgotten to take out, shirt ripped, a dirty graze on his arm and his hair hiding his face as he stared down at the silver-black granite counter as if it were showing a brand new movie. Honor’s usual effortless flow of conversation dried up. Feeling almost . . . yes,shyof Martyn; Martyn as he really was. All she could think about was that she’d seen him in his skivvies. Like a god up there on the side of the bus, so perfect and at ease with his perfection that he could allow his image to be blown many times life-size and flaunted before the public.
Whoa. She actually felt her palms get hot.
It was ten awkward minutes before Martyn placed glasses, forks and a pepper grinder on the counter, then, from an impressive bank of stainless steel appliances on the far wall, brought out a bottle of chilled water. He dragged a stool up to the other side of the counter and began spooning out pasta on to square white plates.
‘Wicked. Thanks,’ mumbled Ru.
‘That looks great,’ agreed Honor, picking up her fork. The sauce was rich with chunks of chicken and studded with broccoli.
Silently, Martyn began to eat.
