Part 10 (1/2)

'Your sister said she didn't know where you were.'

'She was telling the truth.'

'How did you do that?' Cam still wasn't looking at her. 'Just leave everybody. Not just me: your whole family, your whole life. Didn't you miss it?'

'No,' Gwen lied.

They stood like that, almost touching, sipping their drinks and watching the flowers and vines writhing over each other.

After another couple of hits of her wine, Gwen was beginning to see figures in the pattern. The writhing was beginning to look distinctly suggestive. She stepped away from Cam and backed out of the room. 'Let's sit down.'

The kitchen would be better. The kitchen was bright and clean and didn't have p.o.r.nographic wallpaper. They sat at the table and Gwen opened the cake tin.

Cam pulled a face. 'Not with booze.'

'It's dark fruit cake. Got enough brandy in it to sink a s.h.i.+p.'

She watched as he took a bite and then realised that she was just staring at his mouth. He swallowed and she had the impulse to lean over and smell his neck. Oh, sweet Jesus.

Cam put the cake down and took a long drink of his wine. He looked tense again. 'Why did you think you had to leave? I thought everything was fine-' He broke off. Shook his head slightly. 'Actually, forget I asked. I don't want to know. It's in the past now.'

Before Gwen could react, Cam said, 'So. Tell me what you've been up to for thirteen years.'

Gwen blinked at the change. Okay.

'Come on,' Cam said, leaning forwards and fixing her with a look of total focus, 'I'm interested. Really.'

The look seemed sincere and, for once, he wasn't scowling at her, so she did. She sipped her wine and told him about her work. She talked about Curious Notions and how she'd started out by selling her own creations and then, in the course of seeking out vintage miniatures for her shadow boxes, she'd started to pick up loads of other cool pieces and decided to put them on the stall too. 'I was just messing about, really. Killing time while I worked out what I was really going to do with my life and then, one day, I saw this silk scarf.'

Cam's eyes glazed over slightly.

'Stick with me. This was a thing of beauty.'

'Scarf. Beautiful. Got it.'

'This obnoxious guy had it on his stall in an antiques fair in Peterborough. He knew it was a Missoni and had it priced up accordingly, but as soon as I touched it I knew it was the last of its kind.'

'You knew it?' Cam frowned.

Gwen was too excited, reliving her moment of triumph, to care that she sounded crazy. 'It was such a rush. I bought it and put it on my stall. Sold it for ten times what I paid for it.' It was one of the moments when the Harper family intuition had seemed like a blessing rather than a curse.

'Wow.' Cam straightened up. Suddenly interested. 'So there's money in this-' he paused '...stuff.'

'I know it probably looks like junk to you, but I love it. Some people hate the idea of secondhand, but I love the history, the hunt, the way everything is unique. It's so much more interesting than the same boring ma.s.s-produced c.r.a.p that everyone else has bought from Argos.'

'I don't buy things in Argo,.' Cam said.

'Not you. You're rich. I mean normal people,' Gwen said. 'Anyway, you just buy things in the expensive version of Argos. It's still not individual or anything.'

'I see,' Cam said politely.

Gwen put her gla.s.s down carefully and said, 'What about you?'

'Not much to tell. Paperwork. Court. Paperwork. Court.'

'You don't like it?'

He shrugged. 'Actually, I kind of do. I like the puzzles and I like the challenge. I like arguing and I like winning.'

Gwen smiled. 'I still can't quite get used to the idea of you as a lawyer. I mean, you were in a punk band. Weren't you going to go to London?'

'I did,' Cam said, suddenly serious.

'What happened?'

Cam drained his gla.s.s and poured another. 'I'm sorry about the other day. In the car. I just wasn't ready to-' He broke off and ran a hand through his hair, 'I don't know. Jesus. I just wasn't ready to talk to you, I suppose. Do you still want to hear about your aunt?'

Gwen jerked back to the present.' Yes. I do. Yes, please.'

Cam settled back in his chair and closed his eyes. After a moment he said, 'Don't take this the wrong way, but she was kind of odd.'

Gwen stiffened. Odd. That was one of the many words used to describe her family over the years.

Cam opened his eyes and looked right at her. 'She was a very strong person. She told the truth. If someone was in need, she always tried to help. Always.'

'Oh.' Gwen swallowed. That sounded better.

'She wasn't a tactful person. Didn't suffer fools gladly.'

'I've never understood that phrase,' Gwen broke in. She waved her gla.s.s. 'Who does suffer fools gladly? Some kind of fool-fancier?'

Cam ignored her. 'She put a lot of people's backs up. Didn't play the politics game. I heard that when the police chief's wife went to see her, Iris insulted her shoes.'

'I thought she helped people?'

'Oh she did,' Cam said. 'You just couldn't be too choosy about the kind of help you got.'

Gwen opened her mouth to say something about people in general being too choosy for their own good, when she heard knocking.

Cam raised his eyebrows. 'Expecting someone?'

Gwen sighed. 'Increasingly, yes.'

She opened the door with a sense of resignation.

The woman on her doorstep was clutching a blue dog bowl with a cartoon-style bone engraved on the side. 'Are you Gwen Harper?'

Gwen nodded.

'Oh, thank G.o.d. I'm Helen Brewer.' The woman tucked the bowl under one arm and stuck out her hand. She had brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and looked older than Gwen. Although Gwen always a.s.sumed people were older than her. Ruby would probably tell her it was down to her essential immaturity. Arrested development and all that.