Just One Look At You

Chapter 1

Bristol

Disa O’Toole flipped the switch and flooded the garage with light. What a mess; she should probably be ashamed of herself at having left it like this for so long.

But time really did fly when there was a job needing to be done that you didn’t want to do. Plus, knowing her luck, there were spiders the size of Pringles waiting to leap out at her the moment she started prising open boxes and sorting through the contents.

The air was dry, dusty and tinged with the scents of motor oil and household paint.

It had been twelve years since her husband’s death and life as she’d known it had screeched to a halt.

Having promised never to leave her, after nearly forty years of marriage Declan had skied down a mountainside and crashed at high speed into a tree, doing just that.

One broken promise, one bereft widow and a house full of stuff she’d had no idea what to do with meant she’d hired a man to pack everything away into storage boxes and stack them up out here in the double garage, to be dealt with when she eventually felt up to it.

And at long last, today was the day. Disa wiped her hands down the sides of her jeans and prepared herself to begin the world’s most tedious task.

She tore the strip of packing tape off the lid of the first box with a satisfying rrrrrrrrrip and a flourish, sending a fine spray of dust into the air.

This one contained books, chiefly non-fiction, nothing she would ever want to read.

The whole lot could go to the charity shop.

Next.

Two hours later, ploughing through the assorted contents of yet another crate, she came to a fat padded envelope with Income Tax Receipts 2009 written across it in Declan’s instantly recognisable scrawl.

Since the charity shop was unlikely to welcome these with open arms, Disa chucked the envelope onto the bonfire pile, then reached over and retrieved it, because while HMRC stuff might be deadly dull, she didn’t want to destroy anything that might be important.

And what if there was something vital tucked away in there, like long-forgotten Premium Bonds or share certificates?

But opening the padded envelope revealed neither share certifi-cates nor income tax receipts. Instead, it held a sizeable collection of letters all addressed in the same flowing handwriting to Declan at the office where he’d worked.

A slow drumbeat of foreboding began to bump against Disa’s chest. The envelopes were yellowed with age, as were the letters inside.

It was midday, time for a break. Carrying the package into the house, she switched on the kettle and dropped a tea bag into a mug, then thought better of it and poured herself a tumbler of gin, tonic and ice instead.

Something told her she might need it.

Outside in the garden, the spring sunshine was bright, and clusters of daffodils dotted the lawn. She took a swallow of gin and sat down on the bench in the shade of the cherry tree whose cherries were always snaffled by birds before they had a chance to properly ripen and be picked.

The first letter, written in turquoise ink, began: My darling, every day without you is . . .

Oh, Declan, no.

Again?

When she’d first found out, all those years ago, she’d yelled at him and hurled expensive plates at the wall, smashing them one after the other until the living room had been awash with shards of silver-and-blue bone china that had taken for ever to completely clear up.

This time, she had no one to yell at, no one to see their favourite dinner plates being shattered and no one to apologise over and over, desperate to reassure her that she was the only one he loved.

Which was the most infuriating realisation of all.

Leon was busy causing havoc in the kitchen, sliding across the tiled floor in his socks and singing along to Taylor Swift while making cheese on toast in his usual slapdash way.

‘Hey, Nigella.’ Jamie marvelled at the spectacular amount of mess he was creating. ‘Second week in May. What are you up to?’

Sending crumbs flying over the marble worktop as he sawed the toast into uneven triangles – always triangles – Leon said, ‘Pretty sure I’m free. Why?’

‘I need a wingman.’

‘Of course you do. To give you a helping hand with the ladies. Mate, you’re about the last person in the world to need one of those.’

‘OK, wingman slash bodyguard.’ Heading for the fridge, Jamie took out a can of lager and cracked it open.

‘My agent’s confirmed me for the Venice trip and he thinks it’s definitely a good idea to take someone with me.

I don’t mind socialising with the guests, but if I’m on my own, it could get a bit much. ’

‘Is this the river cruise thing?’ Leon didn’t look enthused. ‘Full of geriatrics?’

‘Apparently not. It’s a mix of ages. OK,’ Jamie admitted, ‘it’s not eighteen-to-thirty. But we’ll be on a five-star ship. And it’s Venice.’ He pinched one of the triangles of cheese on toast. ‘In the city of luuurve.’

‘I’ve never been.’

‘Nor me. We can be Venice virgins together.’

‘But why are you asking me?’ Leon made a token effort to brush the crumbs off the worktop and into the sink. ‘If it’s the city of love, shouldn’t you be taking Zoe?’

It was Jamie’s turn to pull a face. ‘We’re talking two months from now.’ When it came to dating, two months was a long time.

‘Fair enough.’ Leon nodded in agreement, then broke into a grin. ‘But you’ll still love me.’

And in a funny kind of way, he did. They’d met on their first day of university, having been randomly allocated adjoining rooms in the same hall of residence.

Bouncing off each other from day one, they had become almost inseparable within weeks, despite being unalike in almost every way.

Jamie, the son of a loving single mother who worked as a nursing assistant, had grown up on a small council estate on the outskirts of Southampton.

Leon Spencer-Carr was the product of wealthy parents who lived in a Georgian mansion not far from Wotton-under-Edge in Gloucestershire.

Clever but distractable and not excelling at sports, Leon was as clumsy and overenthusiastic as a Labrador puppy, permanently upbeat, and prone to falling head over heels for the kind of women who adored having him as a friend but that was as far as it went because they preferred men with chiselled cheekbones and irresistible mouths who treated them as if they couldn’t matter less.

Which was, coincidentally, the reason Jamie was such a hit with the opposite sex, even though he never planned for it to be that way.

It absolutely wasn’t deliberate, just something that happened inside him, like the childhood sensation of being on a see-saw.

The more emotionally involved the women in his life became, the more he found himself losing interest and backing off, feeling the need to slide away.

And he didn’t even want to be like this.

It felt like a kind of Pavlovian reaction, and a failing on his part.

Which was another reason he was so glad to have a friend like Leon in his life, because women might come and go, but a best friend was for ever.

It was just a shame this best friend was so messy; if Leon ever learned how to clear up after himself and occasionally unload the dishwasher, he might actually be perfect.

Jamie made a grab for a second piece of toast, but Leon intercepted the move and whisked it out of reach. ‘Would we have to share a room?’

‘They call them cabins on a ship. And no, JD wangled an extra one. If you want it,’ Jamie added. ‘If you can’t make the trip, I’ll ask Bruno or Drew.’

‘Hold your horses, give me the exact dates.’ Whipping out his phone, Leon checked his calendar and appointments diary.

‘All good, nothing I can’t switch around.

We’re on.’ He high-fived Jamie, then did a triumphant sock-slide across the kitchen.

‘This is going to be so cool, you and me in a couple of gondolas racing each other down the Grand Canal.’

Jamie grinned. ‘Like the time we borrowed those canoes and almost got ourselves arrested? Maybe not. The gondoliers might not be too thrilled.’

Undeterred, Leon said, ‘We’ll do it at night when they’re asleep. Except they wear hats, don’t they? Damn, I’d look a right wally in a hat. Unlike you, of course.’ He pretended to smoulder and struck a model pose. ‘I can see it now.’

‘Don’t.’ When Jamie viewed himself in a mirror, it never occurred to him that he was good-looking; it was his face and he was used to it.

Yet he also knew it had opened doors for him that otherwise might have remained closed; a successful career playing rugby for England was all very well, but it had been his physical appearance that had caught the attention of viewers on TV, opening up opportunities that hadn’t been made available to others in the team.

Signed by one of the top agents in the field, he’d found himself in demand for personal appearances, ad campaigns and panel shows on TV because his quick wit and ability to poke fun at himself while also making others laugh had brought him millions of new fans.

According to JD Templeton, women fancied the pants off him and men wanted to be him, which basically made him a hot property.

For now, at least. Until the looks faded along with his wit, and he drifted into obscurity once more.

When he’d made a comment along these lines recently, Leon had said, ‘Mate, I’ll still love you when you’re ugly and boring. Don’t worry, you’ll always have me.’