Falling Sideways by Tom Holt Page B

faction inside his brain, the one he’d started thinking of as the People’s Front for the Liberation of David Perkins. In fact, we’ll go further. Hooray, yippee and good riddance. Alex can take her away and you can get back to real life. Hey, what the hell are you cribbing about now?
    Like most PFLDP statements, it was hard to argue with. After all, hadn’t he made a serious error of judgement, and wasn’t he, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, being let off the consequences for the laughably cheap price of £12,750 (plus buyer’s premium and VAT) and the cost of a few groceries and frocks? It was perfect; not only was she about to walk out of his life for ever, she was also going to visit her unique blend of bewilderment and financial haemorrhage on the person he liked least in the whole world. Couldn’t have turned out more pleasingly if he’d written the script himself.
    Except that . . . He lifted his head, catching sight of her profile, and realised that he was still in love with her. God alone knew why: force of habit, masochism, a hidden strand of lemming DNA buried deep in his genetic matrix. Whatever it was, the thought of never seeing her again was more than he could bear.
    Idiot, screamed the PFLDP, or words to that effect. He thanked them politely for their entirely helpful and sensible suggestions, and dismissed them from his conscious mind. Love, after all, made the world go round; one of many things it had in common with severe concussion. ‘Oh,’ he said.
    â€˜Anyway,’ she went on, ‘thanks for all your help. It was very kind of you.’
    â€˜Not at all,’ David grunted into his torte shrapnel.
    â€˜And I think it’d be really, really nice if you’d be Alex’s best man at the wedding,’ she went on, remorseless as a slender, golden-haired young Sherman tank. ‘I’ll have a word with him as soon as I see him and remind him to ask you. You will do it, won’t you?’
    â€˜Oh, sure.’
    â€˜That’s splendid. Would you mind awfully if we got a taxi back? Only, we might be late for meeting Alex if we wait for the bus.’
    Before he could point out that her chances of finding a taxi at this time of day were on a par with stumbling on the secret of the philosophers’ stone on a wet Thursday in Stockport, she’d skipped to the door and hailed one, and it was waiting outside, its door obligingly open. There was just enough room for him in it, along with all the shopping.
    All this fancy food. The insight came down on PFLDP headed notepaper. The Normandy butter and quails’ eggs and ricotta cheese. It’s not for her, it’s for him. Alex. You know what a pig he is about food. David closed his eyes and managed not to make a groaning noise.
    â€˜Would it be all right if I used your kitchen when we get back?’ she was saying. ‘Only, I did tell Alex I’d fix him some lunch.’
    Bloody hell, David thought. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Please, go ahead. I won’t be joining you, I’m afraid. Got some work I really should be getting on with.’
    â€˜All right.’
    All right? Is that all you’ve got to say for yourself, all right? ‘That’s fine, then,’ he said. ‘Oh, good, we’re here.’
    He’d never previously thought of his flat as excessively small; quite the opposite, in fact, since he had to clean it himself. It had a fair-sized bedroom, a modest but adequate living room, more than enough kitchen for someone whose philosophy of cooking was centred around a holy trinity of microwave, tin-opener and electric kettle, and a functional bathroom with deceptively good acoustics. Plenty big enough for one hermit geek; too small to accommodate two people trying to keep out of each other’s way (though of course the same could be said of the Albert Hall or the Mojave Desert). All the computer stuff was in the living room, so he