Then You Were Gone (32 page)

I laughed. Thank God. A girlfriend who knew more about sport than I did would be far too demeaning. Not that she was going to be my girlfriend of course.

‘Well, maybe I’ve got something else for you to concentrate on instead.’

‘Oh no, you haven’t brought me work have you? And I thought you just wanted an excuse to see me again.’

‘Well, that too, I mean, of course, you know…’ I stuttered to a halt.

‘What have you got for me then?’ She obviously felt sorry for me and was willing to gloss over my ham-fisted attempts at charisma.

‘Would you be able to tell me any more about Edgarsbridge pit? Just a bit of info on, I don’t know, productivity, particularly during the strike, how many were employed there, how many were working during the strike. Any photos, any reportage – anything really.’

‘You think we were onto something with that “other” Peter Milton?’

‘I don’t know.’ I liked the way she said ‘we’, as though we were colleagues working on a joint assignment. ‘I want to try and find out a bit more in case we are heading in the right direction.’

‘Have you spoken to anyone else?’ She was making notes as she was talking. ‘Did you manage to get in touch with his mother?’

‘No. I was right, she’s dead.’

Tash nodded. ‘OK. Any other family still around that you know of?’

‘Maybe his sisters. Or, you know, maybe brothers, who knows?’

‘Yeah.’ She was nodding slowly. I couldn’t tell if the raise of one eyebrow was her trying to be languidly charming or because it was so painfully obvious that I was lying. Or at least avoiding the truth. ‘Yeah, you should look into that. Check the electoral roll and whatever.’

‘Right.’ I nodded. ‘I will do. So, do you think you could find me any more stuff about Edgarsbridge?’

She stuck out her bottom lip. It was an oddly sexy mannerism she had. Or maybe it was that I was beginning to find everything about her oddly sexy. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I would have thought so. I’m not sure what exactly, but I’ll have a dig around and see what I can find.’

I smiled. ‘Excellent.’

‘OK, then.’ She looked up at me, one eyebrow raised again. Languidly charming, I decided. ‘Don’t tell anyone though – they’re very strict about us not doing people’s research for them.’

‘They’d rather you were watching cricket on the internet?’

‘No, they’d rather I actually got some work done, but they can’t have everything.’

I smiled. When was the last time I met a woman like this? One who made me laugh on purpose, rather than because I suddenly realised how comically mismatched we were.

‘So, when do you need this by?’

I took a breath. ‘How about tomorrow night? Seven o’clock outside again?’

She nodded with what appeared to be genuine enthusiasm. ‘OK. I’ll look forward to it.’

‘Me too. Especially if you wear that short skirt again.’

This time she raised both eyebrows. ‘OK,’ she said slowly. ‘See you then.’

I cringed to myself as I walked back to the door. If only she were ugly and boring, I would have slept with her by now.

CARINA™

ISBN: 978 1 474 03647 4

Then You Were Gone

Copyright © 2015 Claire Moss

Published in Great Britain (2015)

by Carina, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

CARINA™ is a trademark of Harlequin Enterprises Limited, used under licence.

www.CarinaUK.com