Love You Dead

24 Tuesday 24 February

The couple facing each other across a table in the restaurant of the Grand Hotel in Brighton had eyes only for each other.

Through the window beyond them, beyond the lights of the promenade, stood the dark, rusting silhouette of the ruins of the West Pier, like some monster that had risen from the seabed, and the tall structure of the i360 tower under construction. But neither Jodie Bentley nor Rowley Carmichael looked at the view. For some moments they didn’t even see the waiter hovering with their digestifs — vintage Armagnac for him, Drambuie for her. Their eyes were locked. His smitten eyes.

Her dangerous eyes.

He reminded her of someone but she couldn’t think who.

Rowley Carmichael, a good three decades older, was elegant and suave, and smartly attired in a handmade suit and silk tie. His raffish hair was too long for any stranger to reckon him to be a banker or a lawyer, and certainly not an accountant — more likely someone from the media, or perhaps the art world, which he was.

He leaned across the table towards her, raising his glass, gazing hard through his horn-rimmed lenses at her blue eyes. They had an intensity about them that made any man she stared at feel he was the entire focus of her universe. He was feeling that now, and it was deeply stirring. ‘Cheers,’ he said. ‘It’s such an amazing coincidence that we both have homes in Brighton!’

Mirroring him, as she had been doing all evening, copying his exact movements, Jodie leaned across the table towards him. ‘Cheers,’ she said. ‘It is, an amazing coincidence. Sort of meant to be!’

‘You know,’ he said, ‘I feel so incredibly comfortable with you. Although these past months we’ve only communicated by email, I feel as if I’ve known you for years.’

‘That’s exactly how I feel about you, too, Rowley,’ she replied.

He leaned back a little.

She leaned back a little.

‘Call me Rollo!’ he said.

‘OK!’ She smiled seductively then added, ‘Rollo!’

‘Have you ever done this dating agency thing before?’ he asked, slightly embarrassed.

‘No, no, I’ve never dared. I’m really a very shy person.’

‘Well, yes, that’s me exactly. I’m immensely shy, too.’

She put her glass down, crossed her arms and leaned forward. Without realizing why, he did exactly the same.

She was leading now and he was following. That was the intention of mirroring. If she bided her time and did it right for long enough, it always worked.

‘I just got so lonely after my husband died,’ she said.

‘Me too, I’ve been very lonely since my wife passed away. We’d moved to Brighton for our retirement, but hardly knew anyone here, other than one close mate who sadly died unexpectedly. A friend of mine convinced me to give internet dating a go. But because of my shyness I couldn’t pluck up the courage to contact any of the people I looked at on the website. Until I saw you. You just looked so warm and friendly in your photo, so I thought, hey, what’s to lose by giving it a go, she can always say no!’

‘That’s exactly what happened with me! A friend convinced me to give it a go. I wasn’t at all sure — and, actually, I didn’t really like the look of anyone who contacted me — until your photo popped up. I thought exactly the same about you! You just looked like someone I could trust. In fact, more than that — I had the most strange feeling — when I looked at your picture I was thinking that you’re a man who would make me feel safe.’ Feigning nervousness, she twiddled with the chain of the silver heart-shaped locket she always wore round her neck.

‘I’m flattered!’

She slipped her hand forward across the table and touched his, gently. ‘I’m glad I plucked up the courage.’

‘So am I,’ he said. ‘I’m so glad. But you know, you wrote in your profile “of a certain age”. I think you’re doing yourself a disservice. I would take a certain age to mean someone in their sixties. You look decades younger than that!’

She grinned. ‘Maybe it’s because I changed my hair! But, hey, I’ve always been attracted to older men,’ she said, and squeezed his hand. ‘So tell me, how did your wife pass away?’

‘Alzheimer’s. She had a particularly brutal strain of it that killed her within five years.’

‘How dreadful.’

‘It was. How about your husband — how did he die?’

‘Cancer. I nursed him for two years. Then he had a bad fall.’

‘A fall. That can be a big setback for elderly or ill people. It can be the thing that precipitates death.’

‘That was exactly the case,’ she replied.

‘I’m so sorry to hear that.’ He shrugged and then gave her a smile that was full of hope. ‘Must have been hard for you. How old was he?’

‘Fifty-two. Started with colon cancer and then it spread everywhere.’

‘Fifty-two? That’s no age.’ He shook his head. ‘You know I’m a lot older than that?’

She smiled. ‘I don’t feel any age difference. And — as I said — there’s something about you, you make me feel secure.’

‘It’s so beautiful that connection I’ve felt through our emails, Jodie. It’s as if I’ve been given a second chance. And now I’ve found you, I would die happy.’

‘Don’t die too soon, please! We’ve only just met.’

‘I’m not planning to,’ he said. ‘I’m hoping to be around for a long time yet!’

She smiled again.