Stiff Lips

The first thing I noticed was that it hadn't been the dimpled window that had rippled Sophie's hair: she really had crimped it into Pre-Raphaelite waves. It was reassuring to see that she was taking care over her appearance again, but the style struck me as very un-Sophie, as did the dark smudges of Cleopatra-style kohl around her eyes.

But she looked a lot healthier. She was as skinny as ever, but had definitely turned some sort of corner. The spark that had died the day she'd learned the truth about Robert Jamieson had returned to light up her eyes.

If anything, she was now looking at me a little too brightly. 'Oh, hi!' she said, with rather too much enthusiasm.

I looked down at the cigarette end smouldering in the ashtray. 'Are you with someone?'

Sophie followed my gaze. 'Oh, he had to get back,' she said, flipping the stub over and crushing the last wisps of smoke out of it with her thumb.

I parked myself in the chair opposite. 'Then you don't mind if I sit here.'

For a moment, Sophie looked as if she was about to say she did mind, but instead she said, 'Sorry about the other day in the hall. I'd been, er, having a peculiar dream.'

'That's OK,' I said.

'Things have been a bit… strange recently,' she said, smiling to herself.

'Tell me about it,' I said rhetorically. 'But you are looking a lot better.'

'I feel so embarrassed,' Sophie said, bending forward so the Pre-Raphaelite ripples cast lacy shadows across her face. 'I expect you thought I'd gone bonkers.'

'Not at all,' I lied. 'What did the doctor say?'

'He referred me to a therapist,' said Sophie. 'She blames it all on Miles, of course. And on Hamish.'

'Too right,' I said. 'Men are always to blame for everything.'

'There's some interesting stuff coming out. Heavy mental baggage I had no idea I was lugging around.'

I said how I'd always rather fancied being in therapy, because it would be nice to have someone really listen to me, but Sophie went on as though I hadn't spoken. 'I tell her my dreams,' she said. 'And she never gets bored.'

'I never got bored when you told me your dreams,' I protested. 'Even the one about the piglets and the bumblebees.'

'But you're not a professional,' said Sophie. 'You can't tell me what they mean. What? What's the matter?'

I'd been grimacing with the effort of trying to dredge up something I'd only just half-remembered. 'I had a dream about baked chocolate souffle,' I told her.

'Lucky old you,' said Sophie, but expressed no interest in hearing more. As other scraps of the dream filtered slowly back into my brain, I realized I didn't want to describe it to her anyway. I didn't want Sophie thinking her influence over me was so enormous that I even followed in her footsteps in my sleep.

We strolled back to the house together. As we drew nearer to Hampshire Place, Sophie saw something up ahead and checked her pace.

'Don't look now,' she whispered. 'It's the ashoo boys.'

I assumed she was referring to some local Asian or West Indian family, but all I could see were a couple of skinny teenagers lollygagging around on a louvred installation which I gathered had something to do with the cable company that had left lumpy furrows in all the pavements. They were both wearing red anoraks with the hoods up, which made them look like mutant hybrids of Little Red Riding Hood and the homicidal dwarf from that thriller set in Venice, and they were kicking their heels in oversized sneakers from which the laces dangled loose. They were the sort of people I would normally have crossed the road to avoid.

As we approached them, Sophie explained, 'Couple of weeks ago they came up to me and said, Ashoo. So naturally I replied, Bless you.'

She paused, waiting for a reaction.

'I don't get it.'

Sophie sighed impatiently. 'I'd heard it wrong. It wasn't ashoo, it was ash. Hash. They were selling dope.'

I asked if she'd bought any. Sophie said she never touched the stuff, but let out such a loud and dirty laugh that the teenagers looked up and saw us. Sophie greeted them cheerfully. 'Hey,' she said. 'Whassup.'

Whassup. I nearly died with embarrassment.

'Bless you today?' one of them shouted as we passed.

'Not today, thank you,' Sophie called back.

'I thought you said you never touched drugs,' I said.

'It's a standing joke,' said Sophie. 'After that business with the sneezing, they started calling me the Bless You Lady.'

I said they probably called her lots of other things too, when her back was turned.

Chapter 6

I'd considered inviting Carolyn and the others to my housewarming, but the idea of the invitation being turned down had struck me as so mortifying that I'd chickened out. Normally I would have asked Graham as well, but I didn't think it was wise to put him in the same room as Sophie, just as I thought it prudent to save Dirk and Lemmy for a separate occasion. Miles, I knew, was spending the weekend with his parents in Ottery St Mary (where he'd never dared take me, though Sophie had always looked on it as a second home, and I'd heard Ligia had already been made welcome there), but I had mixed feelings about the prospect of him and Sophie getting back together again and probably wouldn't have invited him anyway.

So in the end it was just me, Sophie and Marsha. All girls together, plus a bottle of Australian Chardonnay.

'Very nice,' Marsha said, when she saw what I'd done with a lick of paint, a few hand-woven rugs and a couple of floor cushions. 'You've made it quite habitable. I must say I wasn't happy about this place being empty all that time.'

'Surely you're not frightened by a few ghosts,' purred Sophie. Purred was the operative word here; I had detected a slight cattiness in her attitude to Marsha ever since the Robert Jamieson business. Sophie never passed up on an opportunity to compliment Marsha on what she was wearing, even if it was something with patchwork inserts, or sequins sewn into amusing patterns on mohair jumpers, or beasts of the jungle appliqued in silver and gold — flourishes which I knew Sophie would have swallowed strychnine before allowing into any wardrobe of hers.

It was obvious to me that she was being the bitch of all time, but Marsha either failed to notice or chose to ignore it. 'No such thing as ghosts,' she said jauntily.

'Who knows?' said Sophie.

Marsha obviously thought it was time to change the subject. 'It's just the three of us?'

'Who else is there?' I said, though as soon as I'd asked the question I realized it sounded wistful, rather than blasé, as I'd intended.

'I thought you might have invited your gentleman friend,' said Marsha.

I was perplexed by the twinkle in her eye. 'You mean Walter? He couldn't make it.'

'I meant the bloke you were with the other night.'

I had no idea what she was talking about, and said so.

'You were in the Duke of York on Friday?' asked Marsha.

I thought back. 'Yeees.' I remembered popping in to look for Dirk and Lemmy, and staying for a gin and tonic, though I hadn't run into anyone I knew.

'I thought as much,' said Marsha. 'I thought I'd seen you through the window.'

'You should have come in. I would have bought you a drink.'

'Didn't like to interrupt,' Marsha said with a funny little smile. 'The two of you were getting along so well.'

I scoured my memory again, and came up with a resounding blank. 'But I was on my own.'

'Sure you were,' said Marsha, winking broadly.

Sophie was looking from one of us to the other, like a Centre Court spectator.