Angels of the Flood Read Free Page B

parts were shrouded by grey veils of rain. While they wandered the paths they stuck to the normal births, marriages and deaths topics two people talk about who haven’t seen each other in years. Kate told him briefly about her first marriage, to Martin, who was an architecture student. That had broken up soon after the birth of their son, Luke. ‘Martin couldn’t really deal with being a father,’ she told him, ‘though he and Luke have got closer recently.’ Her second marriage, to a civil servant called Ben Lumins, had ended three years ago. Tara, the daughter from that marriage, was currently at art school.
    ‘And since then?’
    ‘Since then I’ve rather enjoyed being single. How about you?’
    David stared out over the city. ‘Three kids, married twenty-five years, divorced eighteen months. But I’d rather not talk about it.’
    ‘I’m sorry.’
    ‘No, Kate. You misunderstand me. Recently the whole subject has become pretty much of an obsession. I’ve lived and breathed and probably talked about my chaotic private life non-stop. I expect I qualified for great bores of today ten times over. But since your lecture this afternoon I haven’t thought about it at all. And that’s a relief, believe me.’
    Kate looked at him to see if he was teasing her. She’d never known the topic of Conservator as Detective have such a profound impact on any member of an audience before. But so far as she could tell, he meant what he said. She wondered briefly if he had expectations of more than a bottle of wine and a meal when they went back to her house. She hoped not. Distracting someone who was still raw and bruised from a recent divorce was not part of her plans for the evening. Especially not when the recently divorced someone kept reminding her of a time and place she’d long ago made it her business to forget.
    She was about to concoct a story about a previous engagement for that evening when the first large drop of rain landed on her wrist. And then half a dozen more. All about them people were scattering to the edges of the park. Within seconds those first raindrops had turned into a deluge. Kate’s jacket was soaked almost before she’d hooked the collar over her head. David was only wearing a shirt and it was plastered to his shoulders and upper arms by the time they reached the gates.
    The streets were deserted. Pedestrians huddled for shelter in doorways and peered out as water cascaded off awnings onto the pavement. The rain was so fierce it bounced up again, each drop a vigorous tick of water. The gutters were streaming. Cars swished by, their headlights sparkling in the sudden dark.
    Kate and David stopped and looked at each other. ‘Do we take shelter too?’ he asked. His face was shining with wet.
    She shook a halo of water from her hair. ‘What’s the point?’
    They were both laughing as they hurried back to her house, then stood in the hallway and dripped generous puddles onto the mat.
    ‘Don’t move!’ said Kate. ‘I’ll throw you down a towel.’
    She hurried up the stairs, found a couple of towels for David, then peeled off her jacket and skirt and roughly dried her hair. She pulled on a pair of loose trousers and a zippered top that were draped over the back of a chair in her bedroom. When she went back downstairs it was obvious that David’s towels weren’t having much impact on the rain damage. He followed her to the second bedroom where she found him a tracksuit of her son’s, which was too small, but dry at least, and he retired to the bathroom to change.
    By the time he reappeared in her kitchen she’d poured two glasses of wine and was hunting through the fridge for the makings of a meal. ‘You’re in luck,’ she told him. ‘I can do you smoked salmon pasta and salad.’
    ‘Sounds good to me.’
    The drama over the rain had caused a shift between them. Kate forgot she’d been planning to invent another engagement for the evening. Now that David was standing in her kitchen