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to know.’
    ‘Look, you can throw your weight around all you like, but I still don’t know. Once we finished, I had nothing to do with her. It was easier that way.’
    ‘What about at work?’
    ‘She said she was going to transfer to another shift. I didn’t see her and after a while I assumed she’d got herself another job.’
    ‘Away from work?’
    ‘I never saw her again.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘My wife found out about us..’
     
     
    Lauren skipped out of the kitchen, smiling and headed in the direction of the front room.
    ‘It’s a good job you can do maths’ said Sarah.
    I smiled. ‘It’s maths for nine year olds. Besides, you’re supposed to be our book-keeper.’ I needed to catch up with Sarah and going to her house was the easiest option. ‘I don’t remember learning that stuff at nine.’
    Sarah playfully punched me on the shoulder. ‘It’s hard stuff.’ She collected up the plates from the dining table and placed them in the sink. ‘Sure you’re not hungry?’
    I said I wasn’t and told her not to change the subject. ‘It’s only percentages.’ She’d text me earlier in the evening, asking if I wanted to come round to help with Lauren’s homework. The text said I owed, but I was pleased to help. I was pleased not to be sitting by myself in the flat and was determined I’d take the leftovers home with me. I was passed a coffee refill. ‘‘You’re exaggerating’ I laughed. ‘It’s not quite that difficult.’
    ‘You want to try explaining why you can’t help to her teacher.’
    ‘Not at all..’ Everything’s easy if you know the answer, I thought.
    I took the coffee off her and set it down on the kitchen table. Sarah switched the television off.
    ‘Donna Platt’s first boyfriend’ she said, passing me over a neatly typed report.
    I glanced at the in-depth information. ‘Tell me about him’ I said.
    ‘As we know, Tim Nicholson met Donna at the shop his parents own. They both worked there part-time. Donna was seventeen when they met, Tim was twenty. A bit of a difference when you’re that age, but he tells me it wasn’t a problem to them.’
    ‘What does Tim do now?’
    ‘He’s an account’s clerk for a local builders merchants.’
    It didn’t sound too exciting to me. ‘I’d have thought he would have stuck with the family business.’
    ‘They’ve got three off-licences around the city but he said he wanted to strike out on his own. To be honest, I think he was under his parents thumb in the shop and he wanted away.’
    ‘Did they approve of Donna?’
    ‘At first, but it became fraught. Tim was quite open about it. When they first started dating, everything was fine. Once the band started, her attention turned to trying to be famous. It turned his parents off. His father had worked on the docks as a bobber, unloading the fish off the trawlers when they came home. When the work dried up, he used the money he’d saved to put a deposit down on the first shop. I don’t think they had much time for Donna’s dreams. They were more traditional. Hard work got you what you wanted. You didn’t achieve it through pipe-dreams; that kind of thing.’
    ‘What did Tim think about it?’
    ‘They drifted apart. She wasn’t the girl he first started dating. She changed; she became high maintenance. She was loud and difficult for him to deal with. He didn’t like what she had changed into.’
    ‘Who dumped who?’
    ‘She dumped him. Said he was too boring for her.’
    ‘Did he get to meet her family?’
    Sarah nodded. ‘He was a regular visitor to their house.’
    ‘How did he get on with them?’ I wanted to know more about Donna’s background.
    ‘He said it was difficult at first. Donna’s dad, Ron, was part of a crew that’d go out to sea for weeks and come back loaded up with fish. Because Tim’s dad worked on the docks, they vaguely knew each other.’
    ‘Did he approve of them being together?’
    ‘Tim said he was keen to see his daughter settled down;