'Yes.'
'He was an old flame. We hadn't seen each other for years and years, and one night we bumped into each other in a club, and... things started up between us again. He was out of work. I took him on as favour.'
'And he's let you down rather badly?'
'Yes. A couple of months is about the longest my boyfriends ever last. The sexual interest waned, but we hadn't fallen out or rowed. We carried on being friends and his work was okay. The first signs of a problem came a few weeks ago when he began to slip out more and more frequently to the betting shop.
He worked in a betting shop before I took him on. People in that line usually stay in it. I should have suspected something. If we hadn't been sleeping together maybe I would have made a few 'phone calls and checked him out more. Suppose that's what happens when it's not your brain that's making the decisions.'
'We all fall into that trap. A winning smile robs us of all our powers of judgement.'
A little more relaxed now, he nodded. 'Thanks for saying that. It's the sort of thing Andrew would have said. There's more. Jamie ran up gambling debts, and the two men who came into the shop yesterday were looking for him. They were threatening to make trouble unless I gave them his address or paid what he owed.'
'He's the one who got himself into a mess; if he came to us, told us he was in trouble... we might be able to help... but as things are...'
'The two men who are after him came back to the shop today, asking where they could find him, talking about him owing money. They stood staring at the till.'
'What did you do?'
'Told them if he owed money it was nothing to do with the business, that he'd disappeared.'
'Is there much cash here now - if they tried to break in?'
'No, not even in the safe. I took everything down to the bank last minute. We've got a good alarm system, with an automatic dial up to the police. It's not like a jewellers, there isn't a lot of small high value stuff on the shelves. You don't get dodgy people in the pub coming up to you and asking if you'd like to buy a nice garden trowel or a bag of potting compost, do you?'
'Actually, no one has ever offered to sell me anything in a pub. Must be something about me.'