‘Let’s step on it, then,’ he said briskly. ‘It’s freezing.’
The warmth and the mouth-watering smell of freshly baked pastries enveloped us as we pushed through the door into Otto’s. Inside it was dark and narrow, with four old-fashioned booths on one side and some stools at a bar in the window.
The coffee and sandwiches were so good that first thing in the morning and at lunchtime there was always a long queue out of the door, but it was relatively quiet now. We lined up behind three executives exuding testosterone as they compared bonuses, a German tourist, and a pair of middle-aged women carrying on a conversation that veered bizarrely between some terrible crisis that a mutual friend was enduring and whether a Danish pastry was more or less fattening than a blueberry muffin.
Phin picked up a tray and hustled me along behind them. ‘What about something to eat?’ he said. ‘I’m going to have something. I’m starving.’
I eyed the doughnuts longingly, but there was no way I was going to eat one in front of him. ‘Just coffee, please.’
‘Sure?’ I could almost believe he had seen the yearning in my eyes, because he leant suggestively towards me. ‘You don’t want a piece of that chocolate cake?’ he said, rolling the words around his mouth suggestively. ‘A scone with cream? One of those pastries? Go on-you know you want to!’
I gritted my teeth. ‘No, thank you.’
‘Well, you’re a cheap date,’ he said. ‘I’m going to have one of those doughnuts.’
I had to press my lips firmly together to stop myself whimpering.
Ahead, Otto’s ferocious wife, Lucia, was making coffee, shouting orders back to Otto, and working the till with her customary disregard for the service ethic. Lucia was famous for her rudeness and the customers were all terrified of her. I’ve seen senior executives reduced to grovelling if they didn’t have the correct change. If the coffee and the cakes hadn’t been so good, or if Lucia hadn’t been so efficient, Otto’s would have closed long ago. As it was, she and the café had become something of a local institution.