Raindrops — Part Nine

What shall we use to fill the empty spaces
Where we used to talk?
How shall I fill the final places?
How should I complete the wall?
— Roger Waters, Empty Spaces

I spent the evening discussing my chat with Melissa with Mum. She'd returned a few days after I moved back home. I guess she missed me while I was staying with Tony and Melissa. It was the only reason I could think for her dramatic transformation. She was actually nice to me now, more chill, closer to how she was before Liam got ill. We'd spend the evenings having girly discussions and eating chocolate.

At least, I ate a lot of chocolate.

"What I can't understand, Mum," I confided, "is why I kept feeling so sorry for her. After the way she abandoned her own daughter — she has the chance to fix things and still won't — and the way she's treated Nafeesa's family, and the way she bullied and harassed me until the cops warned her away, you'd think I'd've hated her wouldn't you? But I didn't, and I couldn't really understand it. What do you think, Mum?"

"It's because you still haven't shaken off that saviour complex," Mum said absently.

"Crumbs, I never thought of that," I said. "That's probably it. But Melissa told me something today. I don't think Ash wants anyone else to know. Melissa only told me because she couldn't take me sympathising with Tina anymore."

"What did Melissa say?" Mum asked.

"Tina hit him," I said quietly, trying to keep the rage contained.

"She did what?!" exclaimed Mum.

"Yes, she hit him," I said, feeling my face flush. "Melissa told me about it. She didn't look after him, you know, the ten days or however long she was there. She'd be drunk nearly all the time, and he ended up having to look after her. While he was unwell and still in the cast! He gave her money for the food and she drank it all. And when he refused to give her any more she lost her temper, pushed him over and threw a bottle at him, then she stole all his cash and went on a massive bender. He bolted the door after her and told her he'd report her to the cops if she tried to come back."

"Mon Dieu," Mum exhaled. "That woman needs to be in jail!"

"How could anyone want to hurt him? He's such a gentle soul," I said, trying to keep the mental images out of my head. "I wanted to help her before, but after I heard that, I totally get why Melissa hates her. She can die in a gutter for all I care!"

Mum just looked at me mildly.

I remembered something. "I say, Mum?"

"Yes?"

"Do you ever see Liam?"

"Of course I do!"

"He never visits me anymore," I said sadly. "I've not seen him since... since I was 16."

"Well, that's because you moved to London, of course. You can't expect a little boy to travel all the way to London by himself."

"I think it was before that," I said. "I'm sure it was a while before that that he stopped visiting me. Well, I'm not in London anymore. Will you tell him to come and see me? Is he still the same age? Or did he grow up? You're looking younger every day." I laughed.

"Oh I'm glad you noticed, I've been working on a new beauty routine," Mum chuckled.

"Will you ask him —" I was interrupted by the doorbell. "You wait here," I sighed to Mum as I went to open the door.

It was Tony. "Hey, Jaz, do you mind? Melissa's somehow bricked our PC and I really need to get this report typed up. Do you mind if I use yours?"

I let him in. "Sure. Go ahead, just log on to the guest profile."

"Thanks, Jasmine. I owe you one. I'll only be a couple of hours at most."

Mum popped back again as soon as Tony was in my room. She started cleaning the kitchen.

"I wish you'd leave that," I whispered irritably. "You never do any good."

"If you weren't such a slob, I wouldn't have to," she replied, with a little grin.

I ignored that. "What were we talking about? Oh yes, Liam. So will you tell him to come and see me some time?"

"Okay."

"I'm planning on going to Silverstone one day," I kept my voice low. "I promised Liam I'd take him once he turned sixteen. Tell him to come see me, Mum, we can go together, me and him."

I jumped as I heard a nervous cough behind me. "Jaz?"

Tony.

My mouth went dry. I couldn't talk. I turned to look at him, guiltily. I looked back to where Mum had been standing. She'd gone. Back to Tony again.

"Jasmine? You all right?"

He knew, he knew.

No one was allowed to know, I panicked. She was my secret. If anyone found out, she'd go, just like Liam did.

He knew.

I recovered my composure. "Is there something you want, Tony?" I asked.

He looked at me steadily for a bit.

It's okay. He doesn't know, he didn't hear.

"I was looking for Word," he said faintly. "But you don't seem to have Office on your PC..."

"I use different office software," I said calmly. He didn't know, he hadn't seen. "I'll set it up for you, come on."

My fingers were trembling as I loaded up the application for him and showed him how to use it. "It's pretty much the same thing, just a few minor differences..."

I hadn't been talking to my mum, of course I hadn't. I was on the phone, or — I was reciting poetry, or reading aloud. Yes, that's it, I was reading aloud, that's all.

He didn't know. It was okay.

He didn't say anything when he left, he was just normal.

He knew.

Melissa asked me to have lunch with her a couple of days later. The first thing she did was ask me if I was okay.

"Of course I'm okay," I said. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Then she said quietly, rather uncomfortably, "Jasmine, emm, Tony said he heard you talking to your ma the other day."

He knew. He'd told her.

I didn't say anything.

"He said you did the same thing when Liam died?" she coaxed gently. "That you used to see him and talk to him...?"

I felt myself redden. I was angry. "What are you trying to say?"

"Nothing! I mean, I'm just checking you're okay, Jasmine, that's all." Her voice got more and more gentle. "Saffron said you saw my da that day, the day you — and he wasn't there, and Tony seeing you talking to your ma, I just thought, maybe —"

"You're calling me mad?" I spat at her. I was furious. "Poor old Jasmine's finally lost the plot? Well, I'm not mad, and I didn't come here to be insulted, Melissa!" I stormed off.

She could pay for my lunch, since it was her fault I didn't eat it.

Melissa phoned me on Friday. She said she was planning a day out for Ash's birthday on Sunday and would I like to join them?

I told her I'd come down with a cold and was stuck in bed, but I'd send him a card. On the way back from therapy the previous Thursday, I'd seen that Series 3 of The IT Crowd had just been released on DVD. I'd bought a copy, even though I didn't want to watch it anymore. I got it out from the back of my wardrobe and wrapped it up for Ash. I gave it to him the following Wednesday.

"Happy birthday," I said to his foot.

He looked at me, confused. Maybe he wasn't into the show anymore. "Thank you, Jasmine."

"This place is driving me nuts," I complained to Saffron later that week. "I've got Melissa and Tony on one side calling me a basket case, Candy Summer moaning that she's going to fail her AS Levels and do I think she'll look nice in a nun's habit, Dad just wants to play carrom all the time and Ash keeps looking at me like a lost puppy. I can't take this stupid town sometimes."

"Poor you!" She laughed. "But aren't you glad you and Ash are kinda pals again?"

"Well, I'm not sure that we are—"

"Maybe we should go away for a bit," she suggested. "Hey, I know! Let's go up to London for a few days, catch up with Angel. I've not seen her in ages."

"What, you mean you and me both go?"

"Yeah, for the weekend, why not?"

"But what about Joe Milano?" I asked.

"I'm sure he can look after himself," she said simply. "Some of us are quite capable of lasting a weekend without our significant others, Jasmine Elemita."

She and Joe seemed happy. Maybe she'd get her dream of a white wedding and a family with him. It was about time she picked someone nice, after that muppet Johnny Bravo. I suppose I felt how she felt after I picked Ash after all the other losers I dated. Joe Milano was lovely, a real sweetie. In fact, he was almost a younger version of Ash. Quiet and shy and polite and well, just a bit boring.

Well, I mean that in the nicest way. They'd actually let me tag along to their precious lab one time, before Ash and I got together, "to watch the masters in action" and it was honestly one of the most baffling experiences of my entire life.

You should have listened to the pair of them, getting all excited over molecules and formulae and leaves and such like.

"Do you see, Jasmine, how this leaf is clear, and this other one has the black spots on it?" Ash said all enthusiastically, while Joe struggled to contain his excitement. I had no freaking clue what they were on about — Ash's nerding out intensified by a thousand when Joe was around — but I suppose it was kind of charming watching them get so excited about it.

But anyway, the idea of escaping for a while was an inviting one. A very inviting one. So the next Wednesday, Saffron and I announced that we were going to London for a long weekend, and that none of them were invited.

I looked for any sign of disappointment on Ash's face, but he just looked at his glass blankly.

Most of my so-called friends pretended to not even remember who I was. And though I kind of knew it before, it hurt to realise they never really cared about me, that they were just a bunch of crawlers, saps and hangers-on — only interested in me while I was married to a rich and successful actor.

Although David Fortier Quinn was not quite so successful as he used to be, in neither his career nor his love life.

"Serves him right," sneered Saffron.

Angel was still a mate though. We still phoned and emailed, and I'd see her the few times I had to pop into the office in London for a work meeting that could have been an e-mail. I'd been avoiding London as much as possible since I moved here, and had kept my visits there brief — I got recognised in a shop during one of my trips there and I wasn't sure if the media had forgotten me yet.

Angel had grown up in Cloud Magna with us. She was a couple of years older than me and Saffron, the cool girl of the village. She was to me what Jack Faerie was to Tony. When she'd finished sixth form, she'd said she was off to uni in London and out this backwater. I'd insisted on going with her. She'd promised my parents she'd keep me safe and that her older cousin had a house we would be staying in; she'd omitted the part about it being a squat. My parents had known that if they banned me from going, I'd just run away to London alone, so they agreed as long as I stayed with Angel and wrote and phoned regularly.

It was Angel who let me move in with her when I found out about David's extracurricular activities, and she persuaded me to divorce the loser instead of thinking I could change him, unlike the saps who realised it would be the end of all the freebies. And it was Angel who put me on the train back to my parents when I started to break.

"David's career is in the doldrums," she laughed. "You know the public always had a soft spot for you, Jasmine: the loyal, wholesome wife." We all laughed at that, because we all knew I was never wholesome. "So there was a major backlash against him when they found out what a loverat he was."

If I hadn't been living in the backwater that was Cloud Magna, I would have known that already.

This was great! Finally something to cheer me up.

We had great fun that weekend, visiting all our old haunts, but strangely enough, none of us were quite the party animals we once were.

"We're getting old," Saffron sighed.

"Old enough to know better," I said sadly, for want of anything better to say.

"Old enough to get completely out of our heads, wahey!" cried Angel.

Saffron threatened to throw her in the Thames if she said that again.

The day of our arrival back at Cloud Magna, Melissa was waiting for me at my place (I really needed to gather up all those spare keys one day).

"For a moment, I was worried you weren't going to come back," Melissa said.

"Why would you think that?"

Melissa shrugged. "You don't seem to be yourself anymore. Maybe you miss London like my da misses Sligo."

"I wouldn't just up and leave without warning," I said. "I wouldn't do that to you."

Melissa was quiet. "I have too many people I care about here," I said.

"Not Da, though," Melissa said, so quietly that I almost didn't hear.

"What do you mean?"

"You don't care about Da anymore. I've seen the way you act around him." And to my surprise, a tear fell down Melissa's cheek.

"You haven't a clue," she continued, sobbing now. "You have no idea, Jasmine. He never wanted to come here. He never wanted to leave Sligo, but I needed to get away, and he promised he'd never leave me the way she left us."

Where was this coming from?

"He's never really been happy here. You don't know, you have no idea," she went on. I tried to soothe her. I had a feeling this outburst had something to do with Tina. I couldn't — just couldn't — for the life of me understand how Tina could hurt Melissa this much.

"You don't know what he was like before he met you. You don't know how much you've changed him," Melissa continued when she'd calmed down a little. "Back in Sligo, he used to be so cheerful and chatty. Even when things weren't so good between them, even when it should have been obvious to us that she would leave him, he was always still chatty and up for some craic. But then she left us, and all the life went out of him," she looked at me.

"Go on," I said gently.

"He couldn't make sense of her leaving like that. He's never been good with change, he didn't know what to do with himself. The kids thought it was hilarious what happened to us. They started to bully me. I just needed to get away and start again. Lots of people in Sligo moved to London, but I picked this town, because it was nearer to the countryside, for Da. I expected Da to protest, but he just asked if I was sure and had I thought it through, then agreed immediately.

"So he sold off most of the farm to the uncles and aunties, and we came here. Da wilted even more. I changed who I was. I played up for attention. I'd sneak out and do things I shouldn't. He let me get away with so much, Jasmine. I used to be such a good girl back in Sligo, he didn't know how to deal with this rebellious teen. I broke his heart. But he kept strong for me.

"He loved the farm, he was never really happy here. He wanted to be out on the fields and with the family. But I couldn't go back. I didn't want to be anywhere near her, and anyway, I had Tony and all my friends here. I didn't want to leave," she sighed. "But then he met you. He was so happy with you, Jasmine. He was so happy. It was like he got his spark back. You got him to start going out and doing things again, instead of just staying at home reading like a boring eejit. I hadn't seen him like that since we left Ireland. Don't you see? If he's unhappy it's my fault. I just want you to both be happy again and if only I can get you back together, everything will be all right."

"But Melissa —" I started. She was taking the blame for Ash's choices and putting all of his happiness onto me. That wasn't how it worked. I was about to say something, but she spoke first.

"But now, she's back and she's hurting him all over again." She stopped and looked me straight in the eye. "She didn't just hit him the once, Jasmine."

"What?"

"I wasn't gonna tell you..." She started crying again. "It wasn't just the time she threw the bottle. She hit him more than that. She punched him in the stomach, and hit him across the face... she might even have done more," she sobbed. "But it was hard enough just getting him to tell me that much. He said it wasn't a big deal, but he's a crap liar."

I was seething. How dare she? How dare she hurt Ash?

"I hate her, Jasmine," Melissa growled. "I really hate her. If she was to walk in here now, I'd kill her. I would. I'd beat her to a pulp. She'd better stay away from me, because I won't let her get away with what she did to my da, no way."

And I knew what she meant.

The next day, I'd just returned from the newsagents to get some cherryade when I noticed Tina on my street. The cops had warned her to stay away from me. What was she doing here? She was talking to Corin. Looks like she's made a new friend, I thought wryly.

She noticed me. "Hello, there, Jasmine," she smiled. "I see you've finally decided to wash your hair."

She didn't upset me anymore. I felt nothing for her but contemptuous pity.

At the same time, I decided that I wasn't going to take any more of her nonsense from now on.

I smiled pleasantly. "Why don't you come in, Tina? I'd like to talk to you about something."

How dare she hit Ash? How dare she?

That surprised her. She thought I was up to something. She was scared now, but she wasn't going to let it show. "Ah... em... okay," she said as she followed me inside.

She took a seat at the table while I made us coffee.

"Listen — Tina," I started, handing her a mug. "Don't you think it's about time you ended this nastiness? We're both grown-ups. If you have a problem with me, why don't we talk about it?"

She didn't speak for a while. She took a sip of her coffee cautiously, her eyes fixed on me the whole time.

I took the chance to look at her properly. Close up, she was not as beautiful as I had first thought. Her hair, which I had thought healthy and shiny, was in fact lank and greasy. Her skin was blotched with red and there was something funny about her eyelids. She looked a mess.

I cleared my throat, and she finally spoke. "I really don't know what you're talking about, Jasmine. Sure, haven't I always been polite and concerned about you?"

I detected the uncertainty in her voice, the fear. She didn't trust me. She didn't know what I wanted.

But I knew.

"I'm sorry I misunderstood you, Tina—" I said. If she was going to play calm and innocent, then so was I.

I hadn't forgotten what she did to Ash.

"—but I'm glad there's no ill-feeling between us anymore."

"Why would there have been any ill-feeling?" She paused and looked at me again. "This coffee tastes funny," she muttered.

"Yes, it's some fancy artisan thing Ash insisted on me trying," I said, sweetly. "Aztec spice or something. Don't you like it?"

She kept looking from me to her mug of coffee, and back again. This was something new to her.

But I hadn't forgotten what she did.

"You don't like it?" I asked again.

"Yeah. Look. Em, I've got to go," she stammered. "I've — I've a delivery due in the — in a few minutes." She put her mug down and walked — almost ran — out the door.

I don't think she'll be bothering me again, I thought with a triumphant smile.

I threw her mug out. I wasn't going to drink from it after that.

An hour later, the phone rang. It was Ash. He asked if I could come see him. He said he wanted to talk to me in private. I didn't want to go, but I decided it was better to get it over with than spend the rest of the day worrying about it.

He was a lot more mobile now. He barely needed the crutch. He asked me if I'd like a snack, or something to drink. I asked for a glass of water. It was easier this time to let him go over to the fridge and get it. He poured himself a glass too and we made our way to the sitting room. This time, I still sat on the other settee, but I sat a little closer to his side.

"How's your physio going?" I asked, looking at his foot. The first time that we'd met up since the accident, it was me looking for acknowledgement and he who avoided my gaze. It was reversed now. I could feel him looking at me, looking for some recognition.

He nodded. "It's tough, I feel like me leg has lost all its strength, but we're working on it. And yourself, how are things?"

I shrugged, still looking down. It was back to the awkward small talk again. I picked up the glass from the coffee table and took a sip.

He pointed to a card on the mantelpiece. "Lookit, the kids from the college sent me a card. Even the cheeky red-haired wan signed it. She graduated last summer."

"That was nice of her," I said listlessy.

"You know, I wanted to let you know you can come and work on the car any time you want. I'll give you the keys to the garage. All the tools and parts are still in there. Just don't try to drive it until it's been checked, okay?"

I should have been happy, but working on the car meant being closer to Ash. I nodded. "Thanks," I said monotonously.

"The kids took me to that chocolate place in Canterbury for my birthday," Ash started. "I was sorry you couldn't join us. Remember when we went there? On my birthday last year?" He was trying to reach out to me, to make me remember him.

"Yeah, it was nice," I said lifelessly.

"It was meant to be a date," Ash said shyly. "Melissa told me to go for it. You were so stylish and pretty, I thought you were way out of my league, but Lissa said you weren't shallow like that. That maybe you even liked my culchie ways a bit. She was giving me all this advice, but when I saw you, I got so nervous that I bottled it. So I just asked you out as a mate."

I said nothing.

"She'd taken me shopping a couple of weeks before, helped me pick out some new clothes. Said I need to make an effort for a city lady like you." Ash wanted to connect, but I wouldn't let him.

"I've started swimming with Lissa again on Sundays," he said. "We had fun swimming together, didn't we? You and me?" He was trying so hard. I wished he wouldn't.

Ash cleared his throat. "The last time you were here, you said you wanted to be honest with me," he started. I felt my heart sink. I wondered where this was going. His voice got quieter. "But you left before I got the chance to be honest with you."

Oh God. I felt an ache in my chest. I really didn't want to be here. Ash continued, "Ah, it's probably just as well, I probably would have said a whole lot of things I'd've regretted."

I clutched the glass in both hands, feeling the cold against my palms. I felt myself withdrawing.

Ash picked up a pen and started fidgeting. "It was the day after I told Tina not to come back. That's when I got my first memory back," he said. "The one of the day she walked out on me and Lissa. After that, other memories started coming through. That memory of you," he said nervously. "I remember feeling affection for you, but it was like a film. Like I was watching an actor. I don't know how to explain it. It was just facts, I suppose."

Ash stopped. He looked at me. I was still looking at my feet, but I could see him in my peripheral vision, craning over to get a look at my face. I realised how much I'd slumped over. I sat up a bit, sipped some water again.

"We don't have to do this if you're not ready," he said. I shook my head. I couldn't keep running away when things got tough. And Ash was right, I'd told him about my struggles, but then didn't want to know about his. I had to do better.

"No, it's okay," I croaked. "Please continue."

Ash nodded. "Well, these memories were coming back, little snatches of my life in this town. I tried to call you, but there was never an answer until that night. I'd already talked to Max about what I'd say if you agreed to meet me. It was simple. I'd explain that remembering I had feelings wasn't the same as having feelings and would you like to be friends again?" I nodded.

Ash looked at me again. I avoided his gaze. "But when you arrived, when I saw you, it wasn't what I was expecting. I suddenly remembered I knew how soft your hair was. I didn't know how I knew. I just knew that I did." Ash smiled. I felt my self break out into a cold sweat. I tried to focus on my breathing instead of his words. "And when you got closer, I could smell the rose cream you use on your face and suddenly I had a flash of kissing your neck and the scent of roses, but I didn't have time to think about it."

I stifled a sob. I didn't want to remember. Remembering was pain. I wrapped my hands around the glass tighter. I felt myself shutting down.

"I felt something — it was different with you being there in front of me. When you left, I had time to process it all. The memory of you being cheeky on the car, I remembered it better, more clearly. I remembered how funny you were, the way we used to tease each other. The way you used to try to get a rise out of me." He paused, then smiled at me sadly. "That's what he said." I knew I was meant to laugh at that, but I couldn't.

"I'd felt like we were connecting again, but then you left in a hurry. The times we spoke alone, you seemed comfortable with me. You were joking and everything. But ever since I started visiting your place, you've been getting colder and colder. And now it feels like I'm remembering more and more about you, but you're trying to forget me. You keep pushing me away and I don't know what I've done wrong," his voice wobbled. "I just need you to be straight with me, Jasmine. I need to know where I stand. If you don't want me in your life anymore, then tell me. Don't keep up with the Wednesdays just because you feel sorry for me."

Please stop talking. Please stop being vulnerable. I took another sip of water. Emma's voice flashed in my mind. You withdraw when you feel threatened. So work out what that threat is first. Put a name to it.

I knew what the fear was. I'd cried in my last session with Emma. She'd kept badgering me, asking me why I kept pushing Ash away, only to keep inviting him on the Wednesdays. Why couldn't I be honest about how I felt, she'd asked me. What was the worst that could happen?

"I feel like I'm losing you, Jasmine," Ash said plaintively.

Please stop. I closed my eyes. Ash sounded like he was crying. "You won't even sit next to me anymore. It's like you can't bear to be around me."

That he'd reject you? Emma had asked.

I gripped the glass so tight I was afraid I'd smash it. Part of me longed to, to feel that sweet release of the sharp glass against my skin, seeing my wound in the physical realm instead of in my soul. Make it tangible, real, treatable.

I had to get a grip. My mind was swimming with a thousand different thoughts and I was drowning. I opened my eyes, my vision blurry, and carefully set the glass down on the coffee table. I clenched my fists on my lap, trying to keep my breathing under control. My cold sweat had turned into a hot flush of fear. My heart was racing.

"Catnip," Ash said desperately. "Look at me." He hesitated, then slowly held his hand out towards me.

I glanced at his hand. I could smell his body spray. Cedarwood. I didn't want to remember how warm his chest felt against my cheek. I won't remember I won't remember I won't remember—

"You don't have to be afraid," Ash said.

I shook my head, scrunched my eyes shut tight, whimpering, trying to block out the alarm bells in my mind. I remembered the way I'd grip his hair as we kissed, his lips soft against mine. The way he'd touch my waist in just the right place and drive me wild with desire.

Stop stop stop stop stop stop—

I didn't want to think about the way his breath tickled my ear when he'd whisper romantic phrases to me in Irish. I didn't want to remember how he could catch me off guard with a cheeky joke in the most random of moments. I didn't want to remember the feel of his cheek against mine. I didn't want to remember the way I'd feel so safe and loved when he held me.

No, I'd told Emma. My greatest fear is that he'd say yes.

The alarm bells got louder. I wanted to scream, run away, run far away from all of this.

Stop stop stop stop stop stop—

I took a breath, still feeling dizzy. When I opened my eyes again, he was still holding his hand out to me. I can't, I can't. Ash was loss. Ash was pain. Ash was danger.

"Catnip," he said again, gently, softly.

He edged his hand a little closer to mine. I paused, swallowed. Ash's hand was shaking now. I wavered. Then gingerly, I reached out, slowly, carefully, letting the tips of my fingers touch his. Feeling the warmth of his skin, listening to him breathe. We stayed still for a moment, before I wrapped my hand around his.

Ash was love.

Ash looked at me. I finally met his gaze.

"Ashley," I sobbed, unable to stem the tide anymore. I gripped his hand tight. He gently pulled me to him, embracing me, stroking my hair.

"My sweet Catnip," he whispered, soothing me as I clung to him, finally letting the fear go.

"I love you so much, Ashley," I whimpered.

Ash stroked my hair, holding me close. "I love you too, my darling Catnip."

I spent the rest of the day with Ash. We caught up with each other's lives. He apologised profusely for Tina's harassment. I told him it wasn't his fault, but he was still distraught that her bullying had pushed me to almost dying.

He took me out into the garden until evening. He showed me his crops, told me how happy it made him to help things grow. I was quieter, not because I was withdrawing again, but because I was so mentally exhausted. I was glad that Ash could easily do the talking for both of us. All I had to do was ask him a question and he'd monologue for twenty minutes straight.

"Ashley, I always wondered, how did a family as Irish as yours end up with an English surname like Milton?"

His eyes lit up. "Oh, I can tell you this. My grandda was a great man, you know. The family says I'm the spitting image of him," he chuckled. "He was a fussy eater like me and our Aislinn. He was an amateur genealogist — people always pronounce that word wrong, Jasmine, promise me you'll never say 'genie-ologist' — and he traced the Milton line back to an English Catholic in Elizabethan times who fled persecution and ended up in Sligo. He married a good Sligo girl, and somehow, there was always a son to carry the Milton name, although it was spelt Mylton with a y back then."

I loved seeing the old Ash nerd out again.

"But do you know, Jasmine, the women of my family always keep their Irish maiden names? That's why my Lissa is still a Milton and my ma is still an Ó Fionnagáin. Ashley Caomhán Ó Fionnagáin Milton is my full name."

"That's a mouthful!"

"That's what she said!"

I laughed. "You know, I never thought of you having a middle name," I said.

Ash smiled. "Wait till I show you how to spell it. Have you a middle name, Catnip?"

I blushed. "Don't laugh, okay."

"I won't."

"Well, my mum chose my middle name. You know she was French, right? Don't laugh. It's Juliette. I know, it doesn't suit me at all! I said don't laugh! And yes, I used to go by JJ when I was twelve. It was the 90s, it was cool back then!"

As we had a picnic dinner on the lawn, I listened to him give the full history of how his granddad had traced the origin of this mysterious Sassenach ancestor all the way back to Maidstone.

"That's why Lissa chose this town. Though I haven't met another Milton here, have you?"

Then I listened to him talk about his garden again. He was working on turning one corner of the garden into a rose garden, and he'd planted sunflowers too, as he knew that scented roses and sunflowers were my favourites. He'd been working on his greenhouse, too. He couldn't wait till he could share his harvest with me. As we looked at the tiny little tomato plants starting to grow, inhaled the heady scent of the orange blossoms, I started to understand why he loved growing things. I understood why he missed his farm so much.

Slacking off work meant I had to pull an all-nighter. I was struggling to concentrate, my head still spinning with everything that had happened that day. I knew I wouldn't get anything done tonight. At midnight, I admitted defeat, and turned off my PC. I'd just have to put a Do Not Disturb sign on my front door tomorrow and work flat out.

I was interrupted in my sleep, half an hour later, by the phone. I wouldn't have minded at all if it was Ash, but it wasn't. It was Candy Summer.

"Jasmine, are you awake?" she gasped.

"What do you think, Candy?" I sighed wearily.

"Oh, Jasmine," she wailed. "Corin's ended it with me. He's... he's..." she choked. "He... he's..."

Would you ever ruddy get on with it? I thought in frustration.

"He's got a new girlfriend!" she cried plaintively. "He says I'm too immature and he wants a real woman! Oh, Jasmine, what am I going to do?"

"Candy there's nothing you can do at this hour of the night," I said, trying not to let my irritation show. "We'll talk about this in the morning, okay?"

"But, Jasmine, I love him and he said he —"

I hung up and went back to bed. That girl was going to be the death of me. All her talk of going into a convent... why didn't she put her money where her mouth was and actually do it?!

I was woken early in the morning by a fierce pounding on my door. Damn that girl! I thought, heaving myself out of bed. Why did she have to live next door to me?

Rubbing my eyes, I trudged to the front door and flung it open, ready to give Candy a piece of my mind.

It took me a second to realise it wasn't Candy at all. It was a woman. And a man.

I rubbed my eyes again.

"Jasmine Elemita?" they asked.

"Yes, that's me," I said, wondering what was going on.

And it was only then that I clocked that they were coppers.

"I'm arresting you on suspicion of murder."