Sandra Field - The Dating Game

The Dating Game

Sandra Field

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

HE WAS in a foul mood.

Teal Carruthers rolled down his car window. Several vehicles ahead of him, at the traffic lights, a delivery truck and a taxi had collided at the intersection; a tow truck and a police car were adding to the confusion without, as far as he could see, in any way ameliorating it. Behind him the cars were lined up as far as he could see. He looked at his watch. Five to five. He was going to be late home.

Today was Monday. On Mondays Mrs Inkpen came to clean the house and stayed with his son Scott until he, Teal, got home at five. Scott liked Mrs Inkpen, whose language was colorful and whose cooking bore no relation to the rules of good nutrition. Teal had gotten in the habit of taking Scott out for supper on Mondays, in theory to save Mrs Inkpen the trouble of preparing a meal, in actuality to protect himself from hot dogs adorned with anything from cream cheese to crunchy peanut butter. Even Scott, as he recalled, had not been too crazy about the peanut butter.

Mrs Inkpen didn’t like him to be late.

The driver of the tow truck was sweeping up the broken glass on the road and the policeman was taking a statement from the truck driver. Teal ran his fingers through his hair and rested his elbow on the window-ledge. It was the first really hot day of the summer, the kind of day that made Scott, aged eight, complain loudly about having to go to school. Heat was shimmering off the tarred surface of the road and the smell of exhaust fumes was almost enough to make Teal close his window.

The policeman shoved his notebook in his back pocket and began directing the traffic. Teal eased the BMW in gear and inched forward. Bad enough that he was late. Worse that he had had an interminable day in court. Worst of all was the fact that he had enough work in his briefcase to keep him up past midnight.

The traffic light turned red. He should never have trusted Mike with the brief today; that had been a bad mistake. A really bad mistake. Particularly with old Mersey presiding. Mr Chief Justice Mersey had been trying to trip Teal up for the last three years, and today he had more than succeeded. And all because Teal had left Mike, his brilliant but erratic assistant, to cross-examine one of the prosecution’s main witnesses.

Mike, Teal now suspected, had been suffering from a hangover. In consequence he had been erratic rather than brilliant, and had committed not one but two errors of procedure. Mersey had had a field day chewing him out and Teal had been left holding the bag. Which meant he now had to rebuild their case from scratch. The only good thing about the day was that court had recessed until Wednesday. Tonight once Scott was in bed he’d have to get a sitter and chase down his two main witnesses, and tomorrow he’d catch up with the rest of them. Both nights he’d be burning the midnight oil to come up with Wednesday’s strategy.

Who was he kidding? The three a.m. oil was more like it.

But Willie McNeill was innocent. Teal would stake his life on it. And it was up to him to produce enough doubt in the minds of the jurors so that they couldn’t possibly bring in a guilty verdict.

It wouldn’t be easy. But he could do it.

The light turned green. The traffic began to move and the bus that was two cars ahead belched out a cloud of black smoke. The policeman was sweating under his helmet, while the cabbie and the truck driver were laughing uproariously at some private joke. Very funny, Teal thought morosely. It was now ten past five.

By the time he turned into his driveway it was twenty-five past and Mrs Inkpen was waiting for him on the back porch. She was clad in a full-length pink raincoat with a hat jammed on her brassy curls, her pose as militant as an Amazon. Before Teal had married Elizabeth, Mrs Inkpen had cleaned for Elizabeth’s parents, and he sometimes thought she should have been included on the marriage license. Although she was now well over retiring age, his tactful suggestions that she might prefer to be home with her ageing husband were met with loud disclaimers; she was fanatically loyal.

Bracing himself, he climbed out of the car. Mrs Inkpen tapped her watch ostentatiously. ‘This’ll cost you overtime, Mr C,’ she said. ‘If I’d known you was goin’ to be this late, I could’ve cooked you a nice supper.’

At least he had been spared that. ‘There was an accident on the corner of Robie and Coburg.’

Her eyes brightened. ‘Anyone hurt?’

He shook his head, almost hating to disappoint her. ‘A lot of broken glass and a traffic tie-up, that’s all.’

‘Drugs,’ she said, nodding her head sagely. ‘That’s what it is, all them drugs. I said to my Albert just the other day, what with crack and hash and pot you can’t trust no one these days. Never know when someone’s goin’ to creep up behind you and bash you on the head.’ She rolled her eyes theatrically. ‘Course you know all about that, Mr C, you bein’ a lawyer and all.’

Mrs Inkpen’s vision of what he did all day was drawn from television, and bore little resemblance to reality. He said hurriedly, before she could ask him about his day, ‘Can I give you a drive home to apologize for being late?’

‘No need for that, I got to keep the old bones movin’,’ she said, her good humor restored. ‘Smell the lilac, Mr C; ain’t it a treat?’

Elizabeth had planted the lilac the year Scott had been born. Its plumes of tiny blossoms were a deep purple, the scent as pungent as spice. She had planned to plant a white lilac for the daughter that was to have followed Scott...

Wincing away from all the old memories, for there had been no daughter and now Elizabeth was dead, Teal said evenly, ‘Lovely, yes...we’ll see you next week, then, Mrs Inkpen.’

She gave him a conspiratorial grin. ‘That nice Mrs Thurston phoned, and so did Patsy Smythe. It must be great to be so popular, Mr C—you don’t never have to worry about a date on a Saturday night, do you?’ The yellow daisies on her hat bobbed up and down. ‘It’s because you’re so handsome,’ she pronounced. ‘Like the men in the soaps, is what I tell Albert—the ones the girls are always falling for. If I was twenty years younger, my Albert might be in trouble.’ Cackling with laughter, she set off down the driveway between the tangle of forsythias and rose bushes.

The bushes all needed pruning. Scowling, because when was he supposed to find the time to get out in the garden and besides, Mrs Inkpen couldn’t be more wrong—it was a damned nuisance to be so popular—Teal grabbed his briefcase from the back seat and went into the house. ‘Scott?’ he called. ‘I’m home.’

The kitchen, starkly decorated in white and grey, was abnormally tidy. Mrs Inkpen achieved this effect, so Teal had realized soon after Elizabeth died, by opening the nearest drawer or cupboard and shoving everything inside. Any normal man would have fired her months ago. But he was fond of her, and loyalty worked both ways.

The telephone sat on a built-in pine desk by the window; the green light on his answering machine was flashing twice. His scowl deepened. One of those flashes, he would be willing to bet, was Janine, wanting him to confirm their date this weekend. Janine was nothing if not persistent. He didn’t want to know who the other one was. He sometimes felt as though every woman in Halifax under the age of fifty was after him, each one certain that all he needed was a wife, a mother for his son, or a lover. Or a combination of all three, he thought with a twist to his mouth.