She nodded, deciding that was just what she would do, and returned to the photograph room to finish up.
She slipped the Blake print into a cardboard envelope, resolving to ask Stephen about it tomorrow. After all, he had worked in the collection for over ten years and had an encyclopedic knowledge of every explorer and map-maker in the last three hundred.
She flipped off the lights, checked that everything was locked and pulled on her jacket.
‘See you tomorrow, Mr Bramley?’ she said, swinging her bag over her shoulder as she walked through the research room.
‘Oh, I shouldn’t wonder,’ replied the old man. ‘Off out?’
‘Yes, actually. Just drinks with a few friends.’
He smiled. ‘You enjoy yourself, Abigail. You deserve it.’
She grinned in reply. She hadn’t been looking forward to her night out with the girls, but now she decided it was just what she needed. She ran up the basement stairs to the ground floor, where light flooded the Institute’s atrium. Back to civilisation, she thought, glancing at her mobile phone and seeing that she had missed a call in the signal-less basement.
She dialled to retrieve the message, and felt sick to the pit of her stomach when she heard it.
‘Abs, it’s me. Nick. Call me back. We need to talk.’
Chapter Two
‘Can you believe he wants to talk?’ said Abby from her bar stool in Hemingway’s cocktail lounge in Wimbledon Village. She felt sure she was slurring her words, and she had only been here twenty minutes.
‘What do you think he’s got to say for himself?’ said Suze spearing a bright green olive with a tooth pick.
‘Nothing I want to hear,’ said Abby, feeling more and more provoked by the phone call from her husband.
‘Look. The manager has found us a booth,’ said Anna, jumping up and grabbing the pitcher of Pimm’s. ‘Come on, before a gaggle of sexy tennis players beats us to it.’
‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ smiled Abby, although her heart certainly wasn’t in laughing.
It was Wimbledon fortnight, and there were always celebrities or famous sports stars to be seen around the smart SW19 postcode after the day’s play at the All England Club had drawn to a close.
Anna, Suze and Ginny, Abby’s three closest friends, had decided that she had been hibernating far too long, and that a night out in Wimbledon’s buzziest fortnight was just the ticket to resuscitate her social life.
Normally she would have agreed. Normally this was her favourite time of the whole year, a time to sit out at pavement cafés, joking with her friends and watching the world go by. But tonight it had been tempting to head straight for home when she got off the tube – her little terraced house was just off the foot of the hill on the walk up to the Village – just as she had done every night for the past six weeks.
Leaving work, Abby had felt some enthusi
asm for her night out, but now she was here, she knew she wasn’t in the mood for laughing, drinking cocktails or pretending that she was carefree. She didn’t want to see anyone, talk to anyone. Deep down, she knew that she couldn’t stay a recluse for ever. She knew she had to get back out into the world and make some decisions. She knew that she had to man up and finally talk to her husband, because she couldn’t carry on ignoring his messages. But if the time had now come to confront Nick Gordon, she still didn’t know what to say, and she was hoping that a conversation with the girls might provide her with some answers.
‘Ginny’s here,’ said Suze, as they all slid into the cream leather booth. Abby groaned silently at the sight of the tall brunette walking into the bar. Any other time she would have been delighted to see her old friend; along with Anna, a high-flying lawyer, Ginny was her most capable mate, a kick-ass, no-nonsense financier, the sort of person you wanted on your side in a crisis. But she was also Nick’s sister, and even though she had made all the right noises about her ‘idiot brother’, calling Abby every few days, sending details of counsellors and therapists and little parcels of macaroons and biscuits, Abby never felt as if she was entirely on her side.
‘What have I missed?’ asked Ginny, sliding in next to Anna.
‘Nick’s rung,’ said Suze, looking up from her cocktail.
‘And did you speak to him?’ asked Ginny, as if she were addressing a boardroom.
Abby shrank into her chair and shook her head.
‘He’s called six times already this week. I haven’t spoken to him but he won’t leave me alone. At this rate I won’t be needing a divorce. I’ll need a restraining order.’
Her friends laughed politely, but she could tell that the D word was like a grenade thrown into the conversation.
‘Have you at least spoken to any of the counsellors I told you about? Melanie Naylor is particularly excellent,’ pressed Ginny in her no-nonsense style. ‘Very high-profile client list.’
‘But counselling would mean I want to save my marriage.’