The Key to Caroline E-Book

Peter Barlach

• Herausgeber: Aniara
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Caroline's dream tapas bar is finally open, but success comes with a price. When her elderly neighbour Nancy lies suffering in a care home, Caroline faces an impossible choice that will test everything she believes about compassion and justice. Between dodging a ruthless property developer, navigating a budding romance with her charming lawyer, and caring for those she loves, Caroline discovers that doing the right thing isn't always legal—and sometimes the greatest acts of kindness come with the highest cost.

Leseprobe

THE KEY TO CAROLINE

PETER BARLACH

Aniara, 2025

www.aniara.one

© Peter Barlach

Original title: Nyckeln till Caroline

English translation by Aniara

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by EU copyright law.

ISBN Print: 978-91-9002-025-8

ISBN E-book: 978-91-9891-338-5

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Acknowledgments

CHAPTER1

“You must stop the police commissioner,” Nancy says in a weak voice.

“I promise we’ll do everything we can,” I say.

As usual, I find it difficult to leave. The plan was just to pop by and give her a kiss, but I always end up staying. Today, apparently, the police commissioner has nicked Nancy’s purple velvet dress. I sit in the wooden chair beside her, holding her hand, my back aching because I’m sitting at an awkward angle, trying not to breathe in the faint smell of urine.

The clock radio, sitting next to photographs of her children and grandchildren who never visit, shows 11:39. I should be at the restaurant by now. I’m going to be more than forty-five minutes late.

Nancy was my favourite neighbour, and we often had coffee and pastries together. Last winter, she had a stroke whilst I was at her place. The ambulance arrived quickly, but her brain suffered some damage, and her entire left side is paralysed so she can’t walk. She’s practically blind now and lies in room 103 at the Sunset Nursing Home, never to return home again. Apart from me and the time-pressed care assistants, her only company is death anxiety. And her imaginary friends, of course: the police commissioner who takes her clothes, a kind elephant named Lukewarm who lives in the wardrobe, and a girl from Beckomberga who walks across Nancy’s bed at night – that’s why she wakes up with back pain. Most of the time she’s confused, but now and then she’s completely lucid. Last week she said: “If I’m reborn, Caroline, I want to come back as your child.” Perhaps the sweetest compliment I’ve ever received in my entire life.

I bend down and kiss her on the cheek. She sighs and tries to say something, but I have to leave now.

Maya comes in with a tray of medicines on a steel trolley. Maya, who is from the Philippines, is maybe fifty years old, five feet tall, and always laughing.

“Hello, Caroline, how are you?” she says with her melodic, Spanish-sounding accent.

“I’m fine,” I lie. “And you?”

“Very good, very good!”

Maya walks up to Nancy’s bed and gently pulls back the blanket.

“And how is little Nancy doing today?”

Nancy mumbles something about people nicking things here. Maya pulls off the cap of an insulin pen, as I’ve learnt it’s called. She takes out a needle from a small white packet, attaches it to the insulin pen, and turns the dial on top.

“We’ll just do a small injection here.” She lifts up the white silk dress and gently pinches the small fold of skin on the tummy before giving Nancy an injection, just below the navel. Nancy doesn’t even react. Maya withdraws the needle after a few seconds. With experienced hands, she gathers up the waste and the syringe, placing everything back on the tray.

“I’ll come back to feed you.”

She leaves and I say I need to go too. Nancy holds my hand in a firm grip. I know she can’t see anything, but it feels like she’s staring at me. She looks terrified. It’s as if she’s gathering strength to say something. I force a smile.

“Take me with you!” she says with only a slight tremor in her voice.

“I wish I could, but you know that’s not possible.”

“Please take me away from here.”

“That’s impossible, I’m afraid, and here you have everything you...”

“I don’t want to anymore...”

She sighs deeply and relaxes. It’s as if all her strength has been spent.

“What don’t you want anymore?” I ask, but Nancy appears to have fallen asleep.

I look out the window. As usual, the woman with amputated legs sits in her wheelchair in the leafy courtyard, chain-smoking.

What did Nancy mean by that?

I linger for a few seconds before saying goodbye. She doesn’t respond.

As soon as I close the door behind me, I start running. I run as fast as I can through the corridor that feels like a cross between a block of flats and a hospital. I suppose it’s meant to feel like home, but for me it only increases the sense of unease. And everyone knows what it means when a nameplate disappears.

I slow down when I reach the common room, or the “walker parking lot” as I call it. There sits Gösta who always wants to play chess, and for his sake I’ve even learnt how the pieces move. I’m checkmated or whatever it’s called within two minutes every time we play. But this time he sees I’m in a hurry so he doesn’t even ask. Barbro, though, keeps up her usual form. “Come and lick my pussy, little girl!” she shouts, her voice echoing through the hall. “Oh, do stop that nonsense!” mutters Rune, whose back is so crooked he looks like a semicircle. I politely but firmly decline the offer and hurry out onto the street.

Did Nancy mean what I think she meant?

CHAPTER2

I half-run to the restaurant whilst different scenes of me killing Nancy play out in my head. In the most absurd one, I strike her in the forehead with a hammer. No, Caroline. How can I even contemplate the thought of taking the old lady’s life? Whether she wants it or not, the risk of getting caught is huge, and she’ll probably die on her own any day now. Besides, I’ve promised myself never to do anything illegal again, and murder is still a crime as far as I know. I’ve already spent two days of my life on remand, and I’d rather die than go through that again.

“Sorry I’m late!” I pant as I burst through the restaurant door.

“It’s fine, you’re the boss, you make the rules,” says Bente.

Even though she’s doing her best to hide it, I can hear she’s irritated.

“We said eleven and now it’s quarter to twelve. Sorry,” I say. “But we’ve got everything under control, right?”

“Absolutely. When we go under, it won’t be because you showed up forty-five minutes late on some random Sunday.”

I choose to ignore that comment, but I get what she means. Bente and I opened Caroline’s Tapas on St Göransgatan just over a year ago. I love this little untouched piece of functionalist architecture in vandalised Stockholm, and we have customers every night, word of mouth is brilliant, we get top ratings in all the papers, but it doesn’t matter – we’re not turning a profit. I haven’t drawn a salary in a year. Bente gets paid, of course, she has Hannes to think about. But I live on leftovers. In a year, I haven’t treated myself to a single thing.

The catering business is doing best, but I don’t have enough space for it here. I signed a contract with the previous landlord for space in an empty warehouse connected to the kitchen. A carpenter named Jonas came by with a quote for three hundred thousand, including fixtures, but the bank wants to see better numbers before they’ll lend us more money. I’m not exactly sure what a Catch-22 is, but I think I’m stuck right in the middle of one.

“Is Hannes here?” I ask.

“In the office.”

Before greeting him, I always spy on him for a few seconds because he’s so adorable. He’s playing something on the tablet he got for his birthday a few weeks ago, wearing his new red headphones. He needs hearing protection in chaotic environments to avoid getting stressed, but in our sound-proofed mini-office they’re not really necessary, so I think he’s just wearing them because they were a gift from me.

The day before his birthday, he went along to buy all the presents, because he finds packages with unknown contents too unsettling. And Bente explained that she took a picture of the cake with the candles lit and showed it to him before she went in singing that morning. “He’s a young man who doesn’t like surprises and I respect that,” as Bente says. She does everything for him. For instance, he can’t stand squeaky doors, so she always carries a can of WD-40 in her handbag. And last winter, when she noticed how much he loved riding in cars, she took out a bank loan to get her driving licence and buy a car, despite having neither the money, time, nor inclination.

I open the door and stamp my feet so he knows I’m there. He doesn’t take off his headphones, but stands up and hugs me. A warm sensation spreads through my entire body.

I was here at seven this morning and put twelve kilos of spare ribs in a sixty-degree marinade with ginger, cardamom, bay leaves, garlic, onion, chipotle, chilli, tomato purée, white pepper, black pepper, pink peppercorns, and more. Now I lift them with my half-metre fork and let the steaming pink portions of pork drain before laying them one by one on the kitchen’s largest cutting board. They feel perfectly cooked, and the thick layer of fat tells the story of their happy lives that ended quickly, smoothly and humanely, or whatever that translates to in pig language. That’s how it should be done with Nancy too. A bolt gun to the forehead while she sleeps. Now those strange images are back in my head again. But unlike the pigs, Nancy thinks she’s lived her life to the fullest, and she has.

I try to focus on tonight’s menu. The plan is to reduce the jus until only a dark, viscous mass remains, which I’ll season with extra ginger, cardamom, and honey. Then I’ll slice the ribs as thinly as possible, grill them on high heat just before service, and pour the sauce over them. We charge forty kronor per piece, and when it’s time to pay, I just count the bones left on the customer’s plate. Usually, we serve all our food with toothpicks. Like tapas-style bites, but this is more fun.

Bente pokes her head through the door to tell me I have a visitor. Before I can ask who it is, she’s gone. I wonder which salesperson wants to sell what.

At the bar sits a man in his fifties with a receding hairline. He brightens up when he sees me. “Caroline, how lovely to meet you!” he says in a sing-song voice.

“Hello,” I say.

“Let me introduce myself,” he says, hopping down from the barstool. He’s shorter than me. He takes my right hand in both of his, and shakes it. “Finn Bjurström, your new landlord.”

“Oh helloooo, how lovely! Welcome to the building, as they say...”

My contract runs for almost four more years so I don’t need to butter him up, but I know from experience how important it is to maintain good relations with your landlord.

“Can I offer you something?”

“No thanks, I really just wanted to say hello and see how you’re getting on.”

The Dalarna accent is probably my favourite dialect. We make small talk about the neighbours and he asks if I’m happy here. Then he tells me the tobacco shop next door is thinking of moving out, and that he’s planning some extensive renovations to the flats in the building because they’re so run down. Thankfully, Bente and I renovated when we moved in, so we won’t need that.

“They say you’re good at what you do, Caroline.”

“I’m the best at what I do,” I say, giving him a wink. He laughs and says that confidence is the second most important thing after talent.

I ask if we can continue our conversation in the kitchen since I have quite a lot to do.

“Of course,” he says, “I’d love to look around.”

I show Bjurström around but avoid going into our tiny office because I don’t want to disturb Hannes. “He’s very sensitive to noise,” is all I say. When we get to the kitchen, I can’t help but complain about how cramped it is.

“I have to bake the bread and make the stocks at home because there’s just no space here.”

“I understand,” he says, “that must be difficult.”

I tell him I have a contract for the storage space and we go there to look. Even though it’s only seventeen square metres, he can also see that it would be perfect for my catering business. “But I can’t afford it right now, and the bank is being rather cautious...”

“Why don’t you raise your prices then?”

“We’re charging as much as we can. Ever since we opened, the goal has been to keep our food affordable for everyone.”

“How very noble of you.”

On impulse, I put on my best country accent: “You wouldn’t happen to have three hundred grand you could lend me?”

He laughs.

Shame, it could have worked. We head back to the kitchen, and I’m already regretting asking. But at least I did it with the accent so it could pass as a joke.

“Want to taste tonight’s ribs?” I ask, eager to change the subject.

“Love to,” he says, eyeing the steaming pieces of pork on the cutting board. I tell him about the reduction, but add that the ribs should obviously stand on their own too. I give him a piece, and his reaction is exactly what I expected.

“Oh my God, this is incredible! It’s even better than I imagined, and I imagined a lot. Perfectly juicy. Brilliant. I’ll definitely be coming here often.”

It’s still fun to shock someone like that.

“Hey, Caroline, something just occurred to me. I might be able to solve your problems.”

“Oh, really?” I say. Maybe playing the martyr wasn’t such a bad move after all.

“I have an empty property in Axelsberg. It would be perfect for you. I’d say it’s twice the size and half the price.”

I shouldn’t have bothered hoping.

“No thanks, I don’t think...”

“Think it over – you don’t need to answer now. For your catering business, which I’m guessing is the most profitable part of your operation, it hardly matters whether you’re in Kungsholmen or just outside the city limits.”

This calls for absolute clarity.

“I’m happy here. It’s sweet of you to think of me, but no thank you.”

I walk out to the bar and he follows. He keeps pestering me until finally I go and hold the door open for him.

We say goodbye, and I head towards the kitchen. As I pass Bente, who’s washing glasses at the bar, she asks: “Are you sure?”

“Completely sure,” I answer. Strange that she’d even ask.

I go in to check on my beloved tender ribs. They’ve cooled down enough now that I can hold them with my hands without burning myself.

CHAPTER3

“I love you!” James shouts as I arrive with the fifth straight platter of spare ribs.

Caroline’s Tapas usually serves about ten tapas dishes per evening, focusing on one speciality. Today it’s the ribs, of course, though I’d say my parmesan mousse on homemade sourdough is just as brilliant.

James is leading the rib count with twelve. Unfortunately, he’s had nearly as many sangrias, so Bente and I have concluded it’s “one of those nights.” James Hansson is an alcoholic actor in his fifties. He’s always sweet and wonders aloud if God created me, but when he gets too pissed, he’s cut off. I’ve explained to him, like I do to all the lads, that they can objectify me all they want, but at the first sign of disrespect, I’ll kick them in the balls.

It’s a good night. Packed house and brilliant atmosphere. My favourite regular Rikard, with his big beard, thick black hair and beautiful eyes, is here. He runs some advertising agency and usually tips as much as the bill itself. He thinks I’m too cheap. The first time I saw him I nearly fell in love and flirted with him. But the next time he came in with his absolutely lovely and funny girlfriend, so my love died right there. I steer clear of settled men, and Rikard and his girlfriend are perfect together. Still, nice that he made me feel butterflies in my stomach. Otherwise, it’s been extremely cold on that front this past year. I barely even masturbate anymore.

During the rush, I have two zero-hours workers helping with dishes and prep work. We could use them for more hours, but we can’t afford it. Their names are Julia and Agnes, both around twenty years old. I’m only a few years older, but I feel twice their age. They’re nice, loyal, and do their job, especially Julia. Agnes is lazier and might even sneak a peek at her mobile during the rush. Plus, she’ll whinge about blisters or muscle aches from working out. I get irritated with people who complain about being in pain. What am I supposed to do with that information?

Unfortunately, they’re mates, so if I fired Agnes, Julia would follow suit, and I’d have a hard time finding anyone as flexible with their schedules. I long for the day I can hire proper restaurant veterans who can work full-time. And having a cleaning service come every morning would be a luxury. Right now, we’re not even close to that.

My best assistant was Ralf. But he died this spring when his aorta ruptured. Mid-step. Bang, boom, dead.

I spoke to his daughter at the funeral, and she told me they’d found him in the hallway, halfway to the bathroom. His arms were at his sides, which suggested he’d died instantly. He hadn’t even tried to break his fall.

I cried then, but I had to move on.

We’ve got a good flow going tonight. Working fast, but still staying one step ahead.

The hours pass and it’s time for last orders. “Caroline!” James calls out and I pretend not to hear him. I’m so tired of alcoholics. Maybe I’m an alcoholic too, but at least I don’t have to get shit-faced and make a fool of myself every night.

“CAROLINE!”

I turn towards him and put a finger to my lips. He makes an apologetic gesture.

“James, what’s on your mind?” I say quietly, walking over to him whilst taking the opportunity to wipe the bar where he’s spilled sangria.

“Caroline...” he mumbles.

I look into his eyes, trying to catch his gaze.

“Caroline... I just want to say... I know I’m too old for you... I know you don’t even... I’m just saying this so you know...”

“Come on now,” I say. He knows his time with me is always limited.

“You’re the most special woman I’ve ever met in my whole life... Not just the most beautiful I’ve seen. You should be a film star or a model...”

“Cheers,” I say with a smile. I understand it’s meant as a compliment, but I’d rather ride around in the back of a pickup truck my whole life than become a film star or model.

“You have such integrity, Caroline...”

“And I have a nice arse, and we’re taking last orders now. Want anything else, alcohol-free, before we close?”

James laughs and asks for a Diet Coke. Agnes wants to know if she can start clearing dishes, a group of diners asks to pay for what they say was the best meal they’ve ever had, and despite everything, I love my job.

CHAPTER4

“Why does the play continue when the curtain has fallen?”

I sigh and restart my response several times in my head. I so desperately want to say something good and comforting. But there is no such answer for a blind, confused, paralysed ninety-year-old who no longer wants to go on. So finally I just say: “I don’t know, Nancy. I don’t know.” I gently squeeze her thin, cold hand. I understand what she means. She is blind and has stopped living. The curtain has fallen.

I used to offer her wine sometimes, but she doesn’t even want that anymore.

Apparently, they put in a pacemaker a few years ago. So incredibly stupid. Her heart stops maybe once a day, and then the heart starter kicks her back to life. If it were up to me, they should just take it out.

But thank goodness it’s not up to me, and I’m relieved she’s stopped insinuating that I should “help her out of here.”

I glance at the clock and stand up. Today, I won’t be late.

Sometimes I wonder why I sit here. We’re not even related. Sure, the nursing home is on my way to work, but still. Am I visiting because I’m an exceptionally good person, or do I have a guilty conscience about something? I don’t have a good answer, and until I figure it out, I keep Nancy company.

An old Volvo is carelessly parked in the no-parking zone outside the restaurant.

When I walk through the door, I spot Bjurström straight away. He’s perched on a barstool, leaning over the counter talking to Bente. He turns towards me, breaking into a wide smile.

“Hey, Caroline, how’s it going?”

I feel myself getting irritated that he’s here again. Not even his charming accent can improve my mood. Without being rude, I tell it like it is – that I’m stressed, have a lot to do, and don’t have time for him.

“I know, I know, Caroline, but I’ve talked to Bente and it’s all good.”

Bente nods.

I don’t like this at all.

I walk into the office and set down my bag. Bjurström follows me in and leans against the doorframe, as if he owns the place. Which, technically, he does.

I pretend he’s not there and sit down in the chair to change into my comfortable black trainers with their ridiculously expensive custom insoles.

“Sometimes the stars align, Caroline. Sometimes the stars align.”

“Is that so,” I sigh.

“And today, that’s what they’re doing!”

He pauses briefly as if expecting me to burst out with excited follow-up questions. I stay quiet and he continues.

“Give me half an hour and I’ll give you a new life.”

“I don’t have half an hour and I don’t need a new life. But thanks anyway.”

“I’ve been talking to Bente, who’s just as brilliant with numbers as you are with ingredients.”

I don’t respond.

“And I know exactly where you stand, and I respect that, and maybe Axelsberg is a bit far from the city, but I’m going to make you a new offer you can’t refuse.”

He spreads mafia references around and reeks of expensive cologne. I’m getting bad vibes.

“And what if I’m not interested?”

“You can’t know that!” I hear Bente shout from outside.

Is she eavesdropping? This two-against-one thing is seriously pissing me off.

“Let me take you for a drive, Caroline. Half an hour, forty-five minutes tops, and all of them purely pleasant?”

I fix my eyes on him, about to deliver my firm no, when I glimpse Bente behind his shoulder. She’s smiling and looking at me encouragingly. As if I’m seven years old and Bjurström’s about to take me to the amusement park.

She nods eagerly.

I sigh heavily.

She’s done so much for me and we’re actually in this together. Damn it.

“Okay, where are we going?”

Bjurström smiles as if he’s won the lottery.

“You won’t regret this,” he says.

“I already have,” I say.

CHAPTER5

As always when I cross Västerbron, Stockholm’s highest bridge, I contemplate what it would be like to jump. Ever since I was little, I’ve fantasised that this is how I’ll die. That I’ll jump from a great height.

Suddenly I find myself in Bjurström’s light blue Volvo, heading to some space in Midsommarkransen that he and Bente are convinced would be perfect for us.

It’s late September, and when you both live and work in the city like I do, it’s easy to miss the changing of the seasons. Only now do I notice that autumn has arrived. It’s as if the oak trees on Långholmen just below us have painted their crowns yellow.

I think Stockholm is at its most beautiful from here. I love all the spots where you can see City Hall and the Munich Brewery at the same time. They must have been built in different centuries and completely different styles, I wouldn’t know, but they complement each other so perfectly, with the water, the Central Bridge, and the skyline of Riddarholmen and Old Town in between.

Bjurström surprised me by having such a knackered car. I thought he’d be a Beemer or Merc sort of bloke, but he drives a grubby Volvo with broken Happy Meal toys and old parking tickets scattered inside.

He bangs on about what a cynical industry he’s in and how important it is to “keep your heart in the right place.”

“I try to take care of my tenants as if they were my own children.”

“What, do you treat your tenants to Happy Meals too?” I ask, and he laughs.

“You’re funny, Caroline, I like you. And I really want to help you.”

Even though I’m pleased and it feels like he means it, I’m not about to return the compliment. But he does make me feel relaxed, and my psychologist Bo and I have talked about how I shouldn’t judge people so harshly and quickly. I have good intuition, but of course I can be wrong, and when that happens, I need to give people a chance.

And I have to admit that I know bugger all about economics. Bente does, and she says we can’t afford to stay.

We pass Hornstull’s Galleria, which I’ve never visited and never will. I think of Ralf, who called himself a “guerrilla soldier in the mall society.” I miss him. Miss his monologues. “Shopping centres are evil incarnate in this top-40-obsessed push-button society,” he might have said.

“The shopping centre here turned out really well,” says Bjurström. “It’s given such a boost to Hornstull. Well, to all of Söder actually!”

Ralf would have hated me for even getting into this car.

We turn onto the Liljeholmen Bridge and Bjurström continues his monologue about his tenants.

“Well, some people want to live in a museum, so let them.”

“Who lives in a museum?”

“People say they love functionalist architecture. But they don’t know what functionalism is. Functionalism means functional. But what was functional in the fifties isn’t bloody functional today. It costs twelve times more to fix a leak in a fifties kitchen than in a modern one. And it leaks twelve times more often too. Twelve times, Caroline!”

“How did you work that out?”

“I can’t tell you how many meetings I’ve sat through trying to explain to people that it doesn’t matter how lovely those built-in glass bowls for sugar and flour from the fifties are, they’re not functionalist anymore. They’re not functional!”

He gets as worked up as Ralf used to, except Ralf was the tenant.

Ralf would have said: “That soulless property shark wants to tear down our cultural heritage to grease the wheels of Mammon – as if they weren’t already fucking each other day in and day out.”

Even though I don’t get as worked up as Ralf, I’m still rooting for him.

As we cruise into the Midsommarkransen area, Bjurström says confidently: “Look at that. It took eighteen minutes! Eighteen minutes. In America, they consider Hudson a suburb of New York even though it’s two hours north. Americans would call this city centre. This isn’t the suburbs, this is the city centre.” He looks around and has to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting a yellow car with the number plate HAJ in front.

“What are you going to do with our place if I move?” I ask whilst he parallel parks outside a spot with white paper in the windows that says FOR SALE. “I do mean IF I move,” I add so he won’t think he’s got me.

“I’m only thinking of you. It’s important that you’re happy, and I don’t think you will be when I renovate.”

Bjurström rushes around the car and opens the door for me.

“You’ll at least preserve some of the fifties character?” I say.

“It’s in my genes, Caroline, it’s in my genes,” he says, bowing as I step out of the car.

CHAPTER6

On the journey back, we barely exchange a word. I’ve declined the offer, but he’s forbidden me from answering straightaway. The premises were in the newly built part of Midsommarkransen and utterly charmless. He noticed I wasn’t remotely impressed. Now he’s on the phone discussing drainage around some property, and all I can really gather is that he absolutely refuses to pay for it.

Meanwhile, I’m texting Mum about the vendace roe dinner at hers on Monday evening. She’s finally cottoned on that she shouldn’t cook. Nobody can mess up vendace roe.

We approach from the wrong direction on St. Göransgatan, and I offer to cross over to the proper side, but he makes a U-turn in front of a van that honks at us.

“Cheers for the lift,” I say the moment he stops in the no-parking zone outside my restaurant. “I need to dash in and get to work,” I add, fumbling for the door handle.

“I understand,” he says, and I hear him unbuckling his seatbelt. He runs round the car, but not to open my door. What’s he going to do now? What’s he up to?