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said.

7
    Rachel felt as excited as she had done on her very first date. Almost as excited. She wasn’t a teenager any more, so her excitement was tempered by a touch of trepidation. She knew all about disappointment, knew that reality rarely lived up to the dream and that hopes always outweighed expectations. She knew the agony of having your heart fed into a shredder. The red dress clung to her in all the right places and that made her feel good. She kept getting hit with little wafts of her favourite perfume and that made her feel good, too.
    She stepped out of the Tube station into the cold night. The snow had slowed to a light flurry and the flakes drifted lazily, dancing and turning, blown on the breeze. Rachel had loved snow as a little girl, and had never really fallen out of love with it. Snow turned the world into a place of magic and romance. By tomorrow it would all be slush, but for now things were perfect. She pulled her coat tighter and picked up the pace, her bag banging against her side in time with her hurried footsteps.
    The bar they’d arranged to meet in was large and anonymous. Tall wooden stools along the bar, wooden chairs and tables in the middle of the room, comfy leather sofas and coffee tables around the outside. Rachel scanned the customers. It didn’t take long. There were only a couple of dozen people in a space that could easily fit a couple of hundred. They were spread throughout the room, mostly in groups of threes and fours. There were only a couple of solo drinkers. Rachel’s eyes moved quickly from person to person. Tesla was in his mid-thirties and had short brown hair. He said he’d be wearing a long black woollen trench coat. The only person who came close was a man on one of the tall stools at the bar. He had the right sort of coat, but was too old by at least twenty years.
    Rachel ordered a lemonade. Her plan was to stick to soft drinks until after they’d got through the preliminaries, then alternate her drinks, one lemonade for every glass of wine. She wanted to make a good impression, and to do that she needed a clear head. If tonight went well then Tesla might want to see her again. She really wanted to believe this was the start of something. A new beginning, a new chapter.
    She took a sip of her drink and checked her watch. Ten minutes early. Rachel found a table with a good view of the door and sat down on the leather sofa to wait. The table was tucked away at the back, cosy and intimate.
    Eight o’clock came and went. Twenty past eight. By half past her nerves were in tatters. She went to the bar and ordered a glass of red wine. Nine o’clock came and went. One wine became two. Rachel glanced over at the old guy in the black trench coat. Could it be him? Had Tesla lied about his age? The old guy paid no attention to her. He hadn’t even noticed she existed. All he was worried about was the glass on the bar in front of him.
    She checked her watch again, checked her mobile. Maybe Tesla was stuck at work, or maybe he’d been held up by the snow, or maybe he’d been involved in an accident and was in intensive care hooked up to a life-support machine.
    By quarter past nine the excuses weren’t working and Rachel was feeling foolish and angry. Her first date since for ever and she’d been stood up. She picked up her phone and checked again for messages. No texts, no missed calls. Not that she expected any. She’d thought Tesla was different, but he wasn’t. He’d got cold feet and hadn’t even bothered to contact her.
    Rachel considered getting another wine, she considered getting a whole bottle, but that wouldn’t solve anything. If anything, it would just make a bad situation worse. She’d wake up tomorrow with a hangover and nothing would have changed. Her life would still be a pathetic mess, and Jamie would still be the biggest mistake she’d ever made.
    She drained her glass, pulled her coat on, grabbed her bag and headed outside. The pavements were still