Ava chuckled into the stunned silence that greeted this remark. ‘Unless you’ve been thinking of your mother’s engagement ring, Gabriel?’ Ava sighed. ‘You probably haven’t been. You’re not given to gestures like that, but I know Alicia would have been so happy. But please forget I said anything!’ She waved one hand sheepishly while the silence pooled, gathered and collected until Gabriel broke it to murmur warmly.
‘You’ve never shown me my mother’s personal belongings.’
Ava’s eyes lit up and a she fairly leapt to her feet. ‘I never thought you were interested and I didn’t like to push anything.’ She began walking slowly to the door but not until she had patted Abby on the hand. ‘I’m so happy,’ she whispered. ‘You’ve made an old lady so happy.’
The door shut and for a few seconds Abby’s mind was a complete blank. Her mouth was open, and she dimly thought that she probably resembled a fish, gasping for water because somehow it had managed to find itself stranded on dry land. Maybe a motorway. Somewhere very far from water. Then she shot to her feet and stood right in front of Gabriel, hands on her hips.
‘What the heck is going on?’
‘Drink?’ He led the way out of the living room, pausing only to tell Ava, who was still shuffling off towards the side of the house, that she could take her time because there were one or two things he needed to chat to Abby about.
‘I’ll be for ever.’ Ava chuckled, while Abby wildly tried to shuffle her brain into doing something useful. ‘There’s a lot of stuff to rifle through. I’m a hoarder, my dear. For my sins. You two make yourself at home! I’ll come down to the kitchen just as soon as I have found the ring and other bits of jewellery. Such beautiful things. It’ll be wonderful seeing them worn again. It has been such a long time coming.’
‘Drink?’ Gabriel repeated, closing the kitchen door behind him. ‘Wine? Prosecco? Something with more of a kick?’
Abby looked at him without really focussing. She registered in some part of her brain that they were in the most enormous kitchen she had ever been in. It was dominated by an island, on which was a vase of wildly beautiful flowers that filled the room with a sweet fragrance that made her head hurt.
She wobbled her way over to the eight-seat rectangular table, which looked as old and weathered as the beautifully mismatched chairs around it, and plonked herself down while Gabriel poured them both a glass of wine.
‘You’re shocked,’ he said gravely, pulling a chair close to her so that he didn’t have to raise his voice.
‘Well-detected, Sherlock Holmes.’ Abby abandoned all pretence of being the detached, professional, self-composed PA she had spent the past two years cultivating.
She looked at him and took a healthy gulp of wine, grimacing for a few seconds, then following it up with another, more restrained sip.
‘Your grandmother thinks... She thinks that somehow... Why didn’t yousay something?’
‘I didn’t have a great deal of time to plan ahead.’
‘What doesplanning aheadhave to do with anything?’ Abby cried. ‘Your grandmother has somehow got hold of the wrong end of the stick, and now she’s dashed off upstairs tofind yourmother’s ringso that you canstick it onmy fingerbecause suddenlyI’ve turned into yourfiancée!’
‘I was on the phone to her consultant.’
‘What?’
‘The important call I had to take. It wasn’t work-related, as it happens. I’d made an appointment to see my grandmother’s consultant as soon as I got to Seville. It should have been a face-to-face meeting, but unfortunately he’s had to fly to Madrid because his grandson has been rushed to hospital with a medical emergency.’
‘What does this have to do with anything?’ Abby wondered whether she’d actually gone mad and was now inhabiting a parallel universe where normal rules no longer applied.
‘He had something rather sensitive to talk about, hence his insistence that we meet, but failing that he felt he should let me know that, a few months ago, my grandmother had to be rushed into hospital with a suspected overdose.’
‘What?’
‘She insisted at the time that she got confused and took more of her medication than intended but her doctor, whilst ninety percent sure that she was telling the truth, felt that he was obliged to let me know that she was on tablets for depression at the time, so there was a chance that she had, indeed, tried to overdose.’
‘My goodness!’
‘My grandmother is extremely proud and she would loathe me knowing this but, unfortunately, it has some bearing on what’s happening now.’
‘Why don’t I like the sound of this?’
‘Have another swig of wine, or would you rather something a bit stronger?’
‘Do I need something stronger? Brandy? Whisky? A slug of methylated spirits?’
‘Why have you spent two years keeping your sense of humour hidden away?’
Abby blushed and glared at him, and he held his hands up in mock surrender.
