Asking For Trouble by Ann Granger Page B

the landing. A net of oranges lay on the top stair by him.
    He greeted me with, ‘I came to see how you were getting along in this place.’
    His voice and manner were more sympathetic than when we’d last spoken at his shop, and put me vaguely in mind of someone visiting a friend in hospital. Dealing with a person who is ill and one who’s having trouble must be similar. The oranges, presumably, equated with taking flowers to the patient. I’ve always thought that it was nicer to take fruit to the sick than flowers. Fruit doesn’t make you think of funerals.
    ‘Don’t ask!’ I said as I opened the flat door to let us in. ‘I’ve been trawling Camden with Inspector Janice, trying to find an alibi.’
    ‘And did you?’ Ganesh dropped the string of fruit on the table and gave me a sharp look.
    I told him what had happened. ‘It’s something,’ I finished.
    He shrugged and looked disapprovingly round the flat. ‘I’ll make us a cup of tea,’ he said and went out into the kitchen whence I could hear him rattling crockery.
    Whilst it’s always nice to have a lover, sex can get in the way and sometimes what’s needed is just a friend. That’s what Ganesh is, a friend.
    A friend is someone you can tell your troubles to, argue with, not see for weeks and then meet again and take up where you left off, all without getting tied up and wrung out emotionally. Problems, I think, are what constitute the basis of the friendship between Gan and me. He has his problems and I have mine. I don’t entirely understand his, nor he mine, but it doesn’t matter. I listen to him and he listens to me. It doesn’t solve anything but it certainly helps.
    Of course, I’d be fooling myself if I told you the familiar man/woman chemistry played no part at all. Sometimes I see Ganesh looking at me with half a question in his eyes, and I dare say he catches me looking at him in the same way from time to time. But that’s as far as it’s ever got. Things between us work well as they are and you know what they say, if a thing’s not broke, don’t fix it. Sometimes I think it’s a pity, though.
    Right now I felt absolutely whacked. I really didn’t want to talk to anyone, even Ganesh, but I needed all the support I could get.
    As we sat in the kitchen drinking the tea he said, ‘I’ve tried asking around too, Fran, customers, mostly. But it’s hard to get anyone to talk about it now. It was a nine-day wonder. Now all they do is moan about our prices. If they ever knew anything they’ve forgotten it.’
    ‘My impression exactly,’ I said gloomily. ‘But thanks for trying, anyway.’
    ‘Dad says, he still needs someone in the shop on a Friday and Saturday, if you want to earn some extra money.’
    I told him I didn’t think his father really wanted me around the place. I was a bird of ill-omen, filling Gan’s head with ideas of independence and a free lifestyle, consorting with suspicious types, at odds with the police.
    ‘They like you,’ Ganesh said obstinately. ‘You personally. The other – it’s a clash of cultures. They don’t understand but they still like you.’
    ‘They think I’ll lead you astray,’ I said unwisely.
    He got angry then. ‘For God’s sake, Fran! Do you think I want to spend my entire life flogging spuds and bananas to old women with string bags? Listen!’
    He leaned across the table. ‘I’ve been thinking. We both need to get out of where we are. There is a way. If I’ve learnt something from the shop it’s the basics of running a business. You and I together, we could run any kind of business we liked! We can go to the bank, get them to put together a small business package for us! Get one of those Start-Up grants! I’ve been keeping my eye open, looking for a suitable place. And if we needed help with the accounts, to start off, Jay would do that for us, no charge, family.’
    It was the most hare-brained idea I’d heard in a long time and coming from Ganesh, whom I saw as