High Tide Read Free

crew or passport control.
    To her horror, she made an unladylike choking sound as she tried to get the words out.
    ‘God, are you all right?’ Sam put down the cardboard cup he was about to fill with coffee and came round to her side of the counter.
    Kate put her hands to her face, mortified.
    ‘Sorry … It’s just … I’ve come back for my mother’s funeral. It’s tomorrow. In St Mary’s.’
    She pointed vaguely back down the road to the church.
    She’d had no idea she was going to react like this. Why now? She hadn’t cried yet at all. And she wasn’t going to now.
    Sam could see she was upset, but he didn’t seem unduly perturbed. He put an arm round her and led her to a table.
    ‘Come on. Sit down and I’ll bring you your coffee.’
    She sat down, half laughing at herself. ‘I feel such an idiot.’
    ‘You’re not an idiot.’ He patted her shoulder. ‘Go on, have a good howl. I don’t mind.’
    He was so solid, so kindly, so English. One of those people you immediately felt comfortable with, as if you had known them for ever.
    ‘I’m fine. Honestly. It just suddenly hit me,’ she told Sam. ‘Jet lag, I suppose. And lack of food.’
    ‘You don’t need an excuse,’ he said.
    Moments later he put the bagel, bulging with salmon, in front of her, together with her drinks, and pulled up a chair opposite. He sat there with her while she ate and drank. As she licked the last of the cream cheese from her fingers, he stood up, lifted a chocolate brownie from underneath a glass dome, and put it on a plate.
    ‘On the house,’ he said.
    She stared at it as if he’d handed her a pipe of crystal meth.
    ‘It’s a brownie,’ he said helpfully. ‘Not a gateway drug.’
    ‘I never eat stuff like this usually.’
    ‘Well, you should. There’s nothing much that can’t be sorted by a triple-chocolate brownie.’
    Kate had a strict healthy eating/fitness regime. After all, you didn’t fit into size four jeans by eating brownies. But it looked darkly delicious and comforting. And she felt that to reject it would be the worst kind of uptight and, above all, rude.
    So she picked it up and bit into it. Sweet but salty, crumbly but moist, she could feel it giving her strength. She crammed the last bite in and washed it down with the remaining drops of coffee. While she ate, Sam moved around the café, wiping down tables and putting the chairs up on them.
    ‘I’m not hassling you,’ he told her. ‘But I need to get home in time for supper …’ He flicked the coffee machine off. ‘It’s the only chance I get to see my kids before they plug themselves in.’ He mimed thumbs moving over a games console.
    ‘Ah. The twenty-first-century epidemic has reached even Pennfleet.’
    ‘There is no escape.’
    Kate dug in her handbag for her purse, pulling out a twenty-pound note. She laid it on top of the counter.
    ‘My name’s Kate, by the way,’ she told him. ‘You’ll probably be seeing a lot of me over the next few days. Cooking’s not my strong point.’
    ‘I’m Sam,’ he confirmed as he handed over her change. ‘And I do the best breakfast in Pennfleet. Home-cured bacon, free-range eggs, forest mushrooms and vine-ripened, slow-roasted tomatoes.’
    Kate groaned with anticipatory pleasure. ‘Sounds amazing.’
    ‘Or we can rustle you up a super-food salad for lunch. Quinoa … whatever.’ He made a face.
    ‘To be honest,’ said Kate, laughing, ‘I wouldn’t care if I never ate quinoa again.’
    ‘Come and have one of my toasties, then. Equal measure of fat and carbohydrate.’
    ‘Deal.’
    He smiled at her. ‘Good luck with everything.’
    She gave a sigh, and nodded. ‘Thanks. I guess it’s going to be tough, but I’ll get through it.’
    She turned to go.
    ‘Wait a minute.’ He grabbed an empty cake tin and went over to the window display, filling it with a selection of things Kate would never usually eat.
    He handed her the tin.
    ‘Have these. I won’t be able to sell them here