He returned half a minute later with a basin of cool water. I put my foot in it and he pulled up my dressing-table stool and sat on it, hands on his knees, leaning towards me with clear and eager expectation.
‘Well, then,’ he said. ‘You promised me something.’
‘It’s nothing really,’ I said, fidgeting with the keyboard.
He shook his head sternly.
‘I don’t think so, missy,’ he said. ‘Spill, or there’ll be trouble.’
Trouble, eh?
Despite my nerves, a spark ignited between my tired legs.
‘What sort of trouble?’
‘You don’t want to know,’ he said. ‘You’re not too grown-up to go across my knee, young lady.’
Oh, my God! Did he actually just say that?
All I could do was stare foolishly at him, my jaw apparently frozen.
‘You think I’m joking?’ he said, his voice now low and seductive. ‘Come on, Foxy. Out with it.’
He was joking. He must have been.
I held my breath for the time it took to log on, a torrent of possible things to say rushing through my mind, all of them inappropriate and embarrassing.
‘So there was this blogger,’ I said, much too fast, my words pouring out with the long-held breath. ‘She seemed to be getting into some kind of weird stuff. And she was about to go on this maybe quite risky, uh, journey, and then she never updated and her blog has been taken down.’
‘And you think something’s happened to her?’
I nodded.
He put a hand on mine.
‘Hey, sweetheart,’ he said, so gently I wanted to cry. ‘You’re shaking. You’re really that worried about her?’
I shrugged. ‘Maybe,’ I said, running a fishnetted forearm across my eyes. ‘Dunno. It’s probably nothing. Anyway.’ I made a dive for the off switch, but Tom was having none of it.
‘You’re worried,’ he said firmly. ‘So it isn’t nothing. And you can’t leave it there. You haven’t told me anything yet.’
‘I…it’s difficult,’ I muttered.
‘Why is it difficult? What’s the weird, risky stuff you were talking about? Is she an undercover journalist or something? Getting in deep with criminals? Terrorists? The government? MI5? Old TV personalities of the 1970s?’
I snorted despite my anxieties.
‘No,’ I said. ‘You’re miles off track. It’s nothing like that.’
My ears burned. They must have been bright red. I could always put it down to the vigorous activities we’d recently engaged in, but somehow I didn’t think he’d fall for it.
‘Oh!’ He clapped his hands. ‘Online dating. Meeting strange men off the internet? I’m right, aren’t I?’
I stared at my Ripper Street wallpaper. The lawmen of Whitechapel stared accusingly back out at me. They would have guessed it by now, I bet.
‘I’m right,’ said Tom, sitting back with a self-congratulatory grin. ‘Oh, Foxy. You haven’t resorted to Plenty of Fish, have you? You only had to call me.’
‘No,’ I said crossly. ‘Wrong again. It’s not online dating…not exactly, anyway.’