The Split by S.E. Lynes

Author:S.E. Lynes [Lynes, S.E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-03-08T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 22

WILL

A little over a week later, Will finds himself in Smithfield. He is having dinner with Ian in a restaurant called St John. It is November, and cold. Street lamps haze in a charcoal sky; the smell of meat mingles in the air with detergent, traffic exhaust. Ian has called this meeting in response to Will’s desperate phone call this morning. He had just received a solicitor’s response from Sasha Coulson on behalf of his wife. Upon googling the name, he found a catalogue of articles and images featuring a celebrity divorce lawyer whose slicked-back hair and bright red lipstick appear to be some kind of trademark. On Wikipedia, a list of actors, directors and musicians she has represented. A panicked perusal was enough for him to ascertain that Sasha Coulson never loses. She doesn’t look like a woman who loses, that much is certain.

‘This calls for a real restaurant,’ Ian said after a moment’s pensive silence down the line. Minutes later, a text arrived giving Will the time and the place.

He steps into the restaurant, an elegant space with high ceilings, white walls and tablecloths, simple wooden chairs: understated and stylish, like Ian Robbins himself.

‘You ever done nose-to-tail dining?’ Ian asks now as they study the menu, his black designer reading glasses enlarging his pale cloud eyes, deepening his laughter lines. On the table, two glasses of claret, ordered, tasted and approved by Ian of course. The rest waits in its bottle, napkin folded around the neck like a cravat.

‘Er, no,’ Will replies.

At the top of the menu is a diagram of a pig divided into the various cuts. A list of dishes follows: roast bone marrow, fried tripe, something called Mangalitza loin.

‘Good. I like introducing people to new things. They use everything here. Literally everything. There’s no waste. I like that. Can’t stand waste.’

‘Me neither.’

‘And there’s none of that nouvelle cuisine nonsense where they pile it in a stupid tower. It’s good food, but like a lot of the best dishes in the world – your paella, your pizza, your trusty old hotpot – it has its roots in the soil of your honest working man. But it’s sophisticated.’

‘Sounds amazing.’ Will could not be less hungry.

‘I can order for you if you like.’ For some reason, this sounds less like a question than a demand.

Will raises his eyebrows to show he is open to the idea. ‘I guess if you’ve been here a lot, you know what’s good. Maybe not offal though.’

As if summoned, the waiter arrives, as immaculate as the rest of the place. Dealing with so much blood and guts behind the scenes, Will thinks, it must be important to keep the workings out of sight and out of mind with this front of starched cleanliness.

‘Mr Robbins,’ the waiter says and smiles. He is young, tall and skinny, with bright ginger hair.

‘Darren,’ Ian replies, leaning back in his chair, taking off his glasses and letting them loll from between his pinched finger and thumb. ‘Shouldn’t you be back at uni?’

‘Reading week.

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