Chapter 033

Chapter 33: IMBALANCE

Lou heard his wife come in the front door and glanced at the bedside clock. It was almost half-past-two in the morning. Could have been worse, he supposed. She’d warned him it would be a long session. He couldn’t be the one to talk, he’d only just got over the headache from old Barrington’s retirement party. He waited in a pleasant state of semi-consciousness for the sound of her feet on the stairs, water running in the bathroom, the rustle of undressing, the shock of cold air as she pulled back the duvet to climb in beside him.

But as the drowsy minutes slipped by there was no further sound from downstairs. Maybe she was making herself a cup of coffee to clear her head. Those hen parties could be pretty wild affairs, he had been told. He opened his eyes and glanced at the clock again. Forty minutes had passed. He became fully awake. Forty minutes? It doesn’t take forty minutes to make a cup of coffee.

He sat up and listened hard, but all he could hear was the br