‘Really? I was kind of picturing you getting drunk and scoffing all the soft centres.’ He grinned.
‘Dammit, you know me too well…’
He followed me into the kitchen, where Mum and Daisy were dutifully waiting. It was so obvious that they’d been told to be on their best behaviour that it was embarrassing.
However, once we were all seated at the table, tucking into the fish pie, the atmosphere became more relaxed and we chatted easily. Whenever Tony came round for dinner (he was never exactly invited, he just quite often happened to be there doing an odd job for me right around the time we normally ate…) we’d known each other for so long, and my parents had known his parents for years too, it just felt like having another member of the family at the table. Increasingly though, at other times – like today, with the tight trousers – I wasn’t entirely sure what it felt like. But he could always gossip with my mum and with Daisy, too; he had a really nice way with her, despite not being a dad himself. He was certainly a better male role-model than her own useless, absent father.
But with Nathan it was bound to be different. We’d only become friends (initially, enemies) a few months ago, when I’d insinuated myself into a murder investigation, and we’d worked together on a few cases now. He’d laughed when I’d first called myself a private investigator (which I’d only done because he’d been arrogantly winding me up), but he’d come to respect and sometimes even ask for my input. I’d been a good copper; I’d never been CID, like him, but that had been through choice, because I’d loved being on the beat and talking to people out on the streets (and quite often running after and handcuffing them). I’d left the force to stop Daisy worrying about me, the way I’d worried about my dad when he’d been Chief Inspector of Penstowan Police Station, but there wasn’t a day that went by when I didn’t miss it. Well, maybe I didn’t miss it every day, but I missed it more often than I’d expected to. But Daisy was happier, so I didn’t regret leaving one bit.
Nathan chatted away, much more like his usual self than he had been in the supermarket, but then Mum and Daisy were at the table and he probably didn’t want to unburden himself in front of the whole family. He had seconds of the fish pie, but pushed his plate away when Mum offered him thirds.
‘No thanks, Shirley, I am stuffed,’ he said. ‘That was lovely. Fish pie’s one of my favourites.’
‘I know,’ I said absentmindedly, then cursed myself; this was supposed to be a casual dinner among friends, not a full-frontal culinary attack on a potential lover. ‘I mean, I was planning to cook fish and you know how some people are funny about eating fish, so I was a bit worried and then I remembered you saying how much you liked fish pie—’ Stop talking, Jodie! Daisy gave me a funny look, but Mum, bless her, leapt in and distracted Nathan’s attention from my inane babbling.
‘Jodie said you’d had some news from back home,’ she said. My gratitude at her distraction evaporated instantly. I glared at her.
‘I’m sure Nathan doesn’t want to talk about it,’ I said, sending her the telepathic message that I would slip a laxative into her bedtime cocoa if she didn’t change the subject. But I didn’t need to break out the Ex-Lax.
‘It’s fine,’ said Nathan, smiling at me. ‘Yes, my dad had a heart attack on Sunday morning. Quite a big one. But he’s had a stent fitted and he’s doing all right.’
‘What’s a stent?’ asked Daisy.
‘One of the things that causes a heart attack is when your arteries get clogged up,’ explained Nathan. He was so calm about it, not at all angry with Daisy for asking, and it reminded me of another dinner conversation when she was about five. She’d asked her dad to explain what made thunder and lightning and he’d curtly told her to google it, probably because he didn’t want to admit he didn’t know. ‘They can get clogged up with fat, stuff like that, if you don’t have a very good diet. Your mum makes sure you eat healthy food, but my dad likes his doughnuts a bit too much.’
‘I hate doughnuts,’ said Daisy. She obviously wanted to say something supportive but wasn’t sure what.
‘I quite like them. I’m a police officer, aren’t I? We’re supposed to sit in our cars and eat doughnuts.’ Nathan smiled at her. ‘Anyway, the doctors go in and clear all the crud out of your arteries, and then they slide the stent in. Once it’s in place, it kind of inflates and it holds your artery open, so it doesn’t get clogged up again.’ He shrugged. ‘Something like that, anyway. I’m not a doctor.’
‘So he’s recovering in hospital?’ I asked. He nodded.
‘Yes. I went up there after the attack to make sure he was okay, and I stayed with my mum until he was through all the surgery. I would have stayed longer but she told me not to waste my holiday on her.’ He laughed softly. ‘Who else am I going to waste it on?’
Me, I thought automatically, but then I could hardly bugger off to Torremolinos for a week of passion with him and leave Daisy at home with Mum.
I shook my head to clear it of thoughts of romance on the Costa del Sol and began to stack the empty plates up.
‘Well, you know where we are if you want some company,’ said Mum, and my heart swelled. Yeah, she was a bit dotty, she could talk the hind leg off a donkey, and she was always embarrassing me and dropping heavy-handed hints at random men about my lack of a husband, but
