Page 12 of A Good Heart is Hard to Find
‘Pity they didn’t catch you in one of your brief mad-for-sex times then.’
‘But until recently I was only mad for sex with Max, and if I’d gone with anyone else I would have felt horrible, and unfaithful, and all the rest of it.’
‘You’re such a Puritan! Why don’t you lighten up a bit?Icertainlydon’t feel like that.’
‘But you were faithful to Mike while you were married, weren’t you?’ I said, because it had always seemed to me that she had only gone off the sexual rails since the divorce. She and Jason used to flirt quite a lot before Tanya vanished but it was just harmless fun.
Orla went faintly pink. ‘Sort of. Now I don’t have to be faithful to anyone.’
‘I’m conditioned by my upbringingand it’s too late to change now, even if I found a man I fancied, I think,’ I pondered doubtfully, for who knows where desperation will lead us? ‘And after charting my ovulation cycle I’ve come to the conclusion that my sex drive switches on only around the time I might get pregnant – assuming my eggs aren’t cracked, addled, or blown – so presumably when I stop getting the urge at all it’llmean I’ve run out for ever.’
‘Jump on Jason at the right time then, Cass. You like Jason.’
‘Of course I like Jason: he’s big, cuddly, attractive – and afriend.’
‘He’s not cuddly when he’s in a rage,’ she pointed out. ‘Though that’s whenIfind him sexiest.’
‘You have him, then. He always seemed to fancy you more than me, until he saw me dressed as a vampire. Worryingly kinky.’
‘Interestinglykinky,’ she amended. ‘And it’s me he only sees as a friend these days. Marilyn Monroe obviously doesn’t do it for him …’
She sighed and I looked at her sharply, because there had been a certain tension between them just after Tanya disappeared that I’d never quite understood, and although they were the best of friends again now there was no more flirting.
‘Wonder where Tanya went?’ she said,obviously pursuing a similar train of thought.
‘You know, I was just thinking that a few days ago, and how odd it was that she’s never contacted Tom, at least. And although we know Jason argued with her the night she disappeared, before he came down to the pub, he’s never said what about. You don’t think he did anything to her in one of his rages, do you?’
‘There was that witness who saw hercar on the Kedge Hall road out of Westery in the early hours of the morning,’ she reminded me.
‘They might have seen the car, but maybe it was Jason driving it with the body in the back,’ I suggested.
He drove fast along the road, conscious of the limp, bloody thing in the back that had lived and laughed and loved – once too often.
Then he heard a soft scuffling noise, the scratching of longfingernails on fabric, as some travesty of Lara began to drag itself between the rear seats…
Orla gave me a sharp nudge with her elbow. ‘Come on, Cass! If Jason had hurt her, it would have been accidentally in the heat of an argument, and he’d have been ringing the police and ambulance two seconds later!’
‘Yes, you’re right,’ I said. ‘And he did report her missing to the police.’
‘There youare, then. And he walked me home from the pub that night because Mike was away, and when we passed his house Tanya’s car was still there,’ she reminded me. ‘And he stayed for coffee and a chat, so that by the time he got home not only had she vanished but her car had been seen. She took a load of her things, too.’
‘Jason could have done that, though,’ I pointed out stubbornly. Not that I wantedpoor old Jason to be guilty, it just made for a more interesting story. ‘He might have—’
‘Shhh!’ she warned. ‘There he is!’ She waved, and Jason, looking very bear-like in a hairy brown jumper, ambled over.
‘There might have been an argument and an accident,’ she whispered hastily before he reached us, ‘but you don’t think he’d ever hurt someone on purpose, even in a temper?’
‘No, of coursenot,’ I assured her.
‘What are you two looking so furtive about?’ Jason asked, sitting down in the chair opposite.
‘Cass wants a baby,’ Orla said quickly. ‘Before it’s too late.’
‘Orla!’ I protested, going pink.
‘Anything I can do to help, you can count on me,’ Jason said, eyeing me speculatively from his deep-set brown eyes, and my heart sank.
Thanks to Orla, I was going to find him evenharder to handle than before. It was easier when we were all just friends: Mike and Orla, Jason and Tanya, and odd-girl-out me. (Max never mingled on his visits.)
