The Good Priest Page 23

  ‘Don’t be flippant, please. It’s serious. He’s trying to batter me with blooms – court me with carnations, woo me with weigelas, seduce me with salvias. Such horrid flowers too, the lot of them. Now he’s riling me with roses – if he but knew it.’

  ‘When did this happen?’ he asked, putting out his plate for the slice of cake she was offering him.

  ‘Hard to say, really. I gave him dinner myself that first night he came to stay, and I think he got quite the wrong idea. I thought he seemed all right then. He’s in dog food, so to speak. Actually, he could bore for Britain about canine nutrition, dentition … perdition for me, of course. His hobby, I discovered, if you can believe it, is plotting all the radio masts in the country, and he’s trying to persuade me to go out on “reccies” with him. He’s just odd, very, very odd.’

  ‘Frankly,’ he said, parroting her words about Sarah Houston back to her, ‘I’m amazed you were taken in by him. I saw it immediately.’

  ‘You never even spoke to him!’

  ‘I didn’t need to …’

  ‘Vincent,’ she replied, giggling out loud, ‘I am so glad that you are back. Now, tell me what happened to your face, and don’t give me any of that nonsense about a hammer, eh?’