by Fiona Leitch
‘By squirting superglue in the locks…’ I looked at Nathan meaningfully.
‘Do you think someone screwed with the lock on purpose, then? Why would they want to do that?’ he asked.
‘Eddie reckoned Vinnie must’ve upset someone. There were a lot of campsites nearby; I suppose they thought he was taking trade off them,’ said Mum.
‘No, I mean the caravan today. To scare Faith, maybe?’
‘If that was the intention it didn’t work,’ I said, remembering the predatory gleam in her eye when she saw Tony. ‘I think it would take a lot more than that.’
‘So what did it achieve?’
‘Other than wasting a morning’s filming and irritating a lot of people? Nothing.’ I stood up. ‘Pudding?’
Chapter Five
Nathan stayed for most of the evening. He helped me wash up the dinner things – my slave, Daisy, was taking advantage of a (not particularly) rare night off and hiding away upstairs – and Mum asked him about his parents, how old they were, what his mother was like… It was a pretty thorough grilling, but to be fair, it didn’t feel awkward or as if Mum was pumping him for information, and Nathan seemed quite happy to talk.
At 9 p.m. he got his coat on. I picked up the lead and whistled for Germaine, who had seemingly been fast asleep in her bed. She was at my feet in seconds, making me suspect she had been awake all along, just waiting for me to get my behind in gear and take her out.
‘I’ll walk you to your car,’ I said, and he laughed.
‘It’s literally outside your door, but okay.’
He said goodnight to Mum, called up the stairs to Daisy, and then we left the house.
It was chilly. The day had been bright and sunny, and not too cold – a perfect autumn day, in fact – but now there was a distinct nip in the air, a reminder that winter would be with us before we knew it.
‘This is me,’ said Nathan as we drew level with his car approximately thirty seconds after leaving the warmth of my house, and we both laughed. He shook his head. ‘Nah, come on, I’ll walk the dog with you.’
‘Are you sure? I’m just taking her down the road so she can have a pee.’
He nodded. ‘I’ve spent the last week either driving for hours at a time up and down the motorway or sitting by a hospital bed. It’ll be nice to stretch my legs properly.’
Germaine scampered on ahead, sniffing at lamp posts and the patches of weeds that had sprung up along the grass verge. She had a specific routine that never ever varied. She had certain places that she had to investigate thoroughly, just in case tonight was the night she would grace them with her pee; but she invariably ended up doing her business in the same spot, right at the end of the street. Sometimes she would even go so far as to cock her leg experimentally, as if calculating the angle of urination, but she would always find it wanting and move on to the next area. Strictly speaking, as a female dog she didn’t need to cock her leg at all, but I’d read somewhere that bossy female dogs do it to mark their territory. Germaine was involved in a long-running feud with the fat old Labrador a few doors down, and I reckoned she was showing him whose manor this was. I’d seen a few hen parties do much the same thing outside South London nightclubs on my old Friday night shifts in the Met…
‘It’s hard, being away from your parents when they’re getting older,’ I said, watching her pounce on a defenceless yellow-flowered weed. Germaine had a thing about yellow flowers. ‘I know what it was like when I was living in London, when my dad died.’
‘That was an accident, though,’ said Nathan. ‘It was so sudden, there was nothing you could have done. No chance to say goodbye.’
‘No,’ I said, turning away to watch the dog. He touched my arm gently.
‘Sorry, that was a really daft thing to say. I know how much your dad meant to you.’ He sighed. ‘My mum’s coping really well, and as awful as it might sound, I’m glad it’s happened this way round. Is that a terrible thing to say?’ He looked at me, his eyes suddenly watery. I shook my head.
‘No, it’s not. My dad was this big, strong copper, he’d banged up loads of wrong’uns, and was in charge of three stations, but if Mum had gone first he’d have been lost.’ I smiled at him. ‘Women of our parents’ generation are used to looking after everything and everyone, aren’t they? Our dads went out and earned the money, but our mums ran the home; they budgeted, they paid the bills, they looked after the kids and made sure everyone had clean pants…’
He laughed. ‘That’s exactly what I mean. My dad wouldn’t even know how to use the washing machine.’
I looked him up and down in mock judgement. ‘It’s about time you learned how to, as well.’
He held his hands up. ‘Woah, Ms Parker, that sounds suspiciously like a sexist comment to me. I’ll have you know I am a dab hand at the laundry and I know one end of a Dyson from the other.’
‘You can’t cook, though.’
He grinned. ‘That’s why I’m friends with a chef. Sorry, a private investigator who can also whip up a dessert in less than two minutes. Chocolate lava cake in a microwave? Genius.’
I waved away his praise with a big show of modesty. ‘Oh really, it was nothing. I’m hardly going to go to a lot of effort for the likes of you, am I?’
He laughed. ‘And that’s me firmly in my place.’
‘You’re welcome.’
We stopped as Germaine finally found the spot worthy of her very special attention and lifted her leg. I turned away – I didn’t expect the poor thing to be able to perform in front of an audience – only to find that Nathan was a lot closer than I’d thought, and I almost ended up in his arms.
We smiled at each other. It would have been romantic, but for the sound of Germaine going at it like a canine fire hydrant. Even so…
Nathan’s mobile rang and the mood (such as it was) was over before it had even really begun. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and glanced at it.
‘It’s my mum,’ he said, looking concerned.
‘Do you want me to leave you alone?’ I asked. He shook his head and answered.
‘All right, Ma, everything okay?’ His Liverpudlian accent came through more strongly than when he spoke to me. ‘Is Dad—? Oh, no, no that’s cool. Hang on.’ He held the phone away from his mouth. ‘Everything’s fine; she just rang to say goodnight.’
‘I’ll leave you to it, then,’ I said, and he nodded. He brought the phone up to his mouth.
‘Yeah, I’m still here. I’m with a friend. Just saying goodbye now…’ He grinned at me, and I felt myself going hot. That grin did things to me. ‘Yeah, her… Hang on.’ He held the phone down again as I turned to leave. ‘Jodie! Wait. Thanks for tonight. I really needed to be with someone.’
‘I’m glad it was me,’ I said, not even caring that it sounded a bit much for two people who were supposedly just friends. I leaned in and gave him a peck on the cheek, then yanked at the lead and dragged poor Germaine away mid-stream.
Daisy was in bed when I got home. I was pleased to see that she hadn’t taken major advantage of our dinner guest’s presence and attempted to stay up past her bedtime, but had got herself ready and was patiently waiting for me to come back with the dog.
She was sitting up reading one of my old Agatha Christie novels, carefully marking it with a bookmark bought during a school trip in London (from the gift shop at Tate Modern) before laying it on the side table. She’d been taught well: no bending over the corner of the page to mark it or (heaven forbid) breaking the spine of the book. She loved books, just as I did, and just as Mum did. You could tell a lot about someone by the way they read a book, my mum had told me once, and she was right. I’d lent one to a guy I was going out with, years ago. It took ages for him to give it back, and when he did I discovered that he had WRITTEN HIS NAME IN THE FRONT, like a monster. I was horrified. He said that it was because he’d taken it to work to read during his break, but I suspected it was because he’d not intended to give it back. Reader, I dumped him. Richard (t
he cheating swine) had never, in my recollection, even read a book, which told you everything you needed to know about him and more.
‘Good book?’ I asked.
‘You know it is; you’ve read it,’ she said, and I laughed.
‘True. Lie down then. Time to go to sleep.’
She patted the bed and Germaine jumped up to snuggle against her feet. I’d started out with such good intentions about not letting the dog even come upstairs, and yet here she was sleeping every night on Daisy’s bed. She occasionally got up in the night and cuddled up to me as well, and although I hated being woken up, I never minded when it was the dog because it was nice getting some affection, even if it was from someone even hairier and smellier than my ex-husband.
‘I like Nathan,’ said Daisy abruptly. I looked at her in surprise.
‘Do you?’
‘Yeah. So does Nana.’
‘Nana likes all men, particularly if they’re good-looking and single.’ I leant down to kiss her on the forehead.
‘If you ever wanted a boyfriend, I wouldn’t mind, you know,’ she said. ‘I want you to be happy.’
‘Oh, sweetheart, I am happy!’ I blinked furiously. I am such an emotional old baggage at times. It doesn’t sit well with my police training but there seems to be bugger all I can do about it. I sat down on the bed and held out my arms for a hug. She sat up and actually hugged me back, which doesn’t happen anything like enough when your kids hit their teenage years, and then Germaine’s nose appeared under my arm as she wormed her way in. We laughed and made room for her.
‘How could I not be happy with you two in my life?’ I said, kissing her again. ‘I’ve got everything I need, right here.’
I left her to sleep, and Mum went up to bed an hour later. I sat on the sofa, wrapped up in a blanket and with a mug of cocoa in my hands, thinking over the events of the day.
I thought about Tony, busting the door down in Faith’s caravan. Had the lock really been tampered with, or was it just faulty? If it was faulty the locksmith should have been able to pick it, but if it had been sabotaged … why? It hadn’t achieved anything.
I thought about Zack Smith. He had a nice smile, and if I were twenty years younger I would no doubt have been rendered speechless during our earlier encounter, but I’d reached an age where it was entirely possible to admire the beauty of something without wanting to possess it. Still on the subject of possessing things, I thought briefly about Tony’s tight trousers, but quickly steered away from that as it seemed to be leading me into dangerous and unfamiliar territory (I mean, come on, this was Tony I was thinking about!).
I thought about Nathan, and about how nice it had been to spend some time with him as a friend, to just hang out rather than be working on (or arguing over) a case. I hoped he wasn’t worrying too much about his dad; I really did know what it was like to be miles away when a loved one was sick. Mum’s increasing amount of health problems (although they were all fairly minor) had played a big part in us moving back to Penstowan.
Another less welcome thought occurred to me. What if the same worries led to Nathan moving back up North?
But when my eyelids started to droop and I made my way up to bed, the last thought that popped into my head was of his phone call, just before we said goodnight. What he’d said to his mum. ‘I’m with a friend… Yeah, her.’ Nathan’s told his mum about me, I thought, and I fell asleep with a warm glow enveloping me that wasn’t just down to the duvet.
I woke the next morning to a text message from Debbie, asking for a lift to Polvarrow House. I dropped Daisy off at school and found my fellow but rather more glamorous extra lurking at the gates, having dropped off her own offspring.
She chattered excitedly about yesterday’s shoot – she’d stayed on in the afternoon and had actually seen some action. I thought about telling her that I’d had dinner with Nathan the night before, but I knew she’d blow the whole thing out of proportion and make it sound like it was a date or something (and it so wasn’t, not with Mum and Daisy there, and with Germaine and her fussy bladder).
We pulled up on the gravel driveway and started towards the wardrobe trailer, where doubtless there was another magnificent gown waiting for Debbie, and another potato sack for me.
‘You came back, then?’
We both whirled around at the voice behind us. Zack Smith was standing outside another caravan, having a crafty puff on an e-cigarette. He gave me a friendly smile. He was dressed in a fancier though no less tight version of Tony’s costume from yesterday, but whereas Tony had looked like a cross between a camp pirate and an Eighties New Romantic pop star in his, Zack looked like—
‘Sex on a stick!’ breathed Debbie, mouth open. I nudged her hard and she pulled her jaw up with a snap.
‘I told you, I need the money. Where’s your friend?’ I asked. He looked around quickly, suddenly alarmed.
‘What? Oh my God, I’ve lost it…’ He looked back at me and winked. ‘Nah, I told Kimi I nearly got it – sorry, her – run over by this madwoman and she had a fit. She won’t be asking me again…’ He gave me a broad smile, and I could see he wasn’t exactly upset at having his dog-sitting duties revoked.
‘What a shame. It looked to me like you and the dog were starting to become friends.’ I smiled. ‘‘Princess and Zack’. Got a nice ring to it.’
He laughed loudly. ‘Yeah, right. One of them little dogs really goes with the image, you know what I mean?’ He finished his smoke and pocketed the cigarette. ‘Anyway, better get on. Laters.’
He went into the trailer and shut the door. I headed for Wardrobe, leaving Debbie open-mouthed behind me.
‘Wait! How do you—? What was—? Oh my God!’
I smiled to myself and kept walking. I might have a crappy costume but I was mates with the lead.
So yeah, I did still have a crappy costume, but at least today Debbie had the dubious pleasure of wearing a stupid Pound Shop tiara that was too big and had to be pinned into her hair with about eleventy billion hair clips to stop it slipping over her eyes. Apparently, director Sam, who as far as I was aware hadn’t even made it into the ballroom yesterday, felt that the scene needed ‘more sparkle’, so every woman and her dog was having their outfit blinged up. Everyone except the downtrodden domestics, of course. We left the caravan, both grumbling about chafing and with her clutching onto her tiara to stop it falling off. She looked like a little girl dressed up as a Disney princess. It might have been mean-spirited and petty of me, but her daft headgear made me feel a lot better. I hoped it would look more realistic on screen.
‘Morning, ladies!’ Tony looked very chipper. I wondered what he’d been up to last night, when I’d been having dinner with Nathan. I’d half expected a knock on the door, or at least a text, telling me about his afternoon with the stars and asking to be fed.
‘They mended your trousers, then?’ I snorted.
‘That wardrobe woman with the frizzy hair did start having a go at me about the split, but then Faith waded in and told her I was her hero, so…’ Tony grinned. I ignored the little voice that said, her hero??? It was pathetic and didn’t deserve any attention. But it still wouldn’t shut up.
The sound of raised voices across the gravel courtyard made us all look over towards the stars’ trailers. It was a young female voice that held the unmistakeable trace of an American accent mixed with something else that I couldn’t quite pin down… A hint of Japanese, maybe? What I could pin down, however, was that the owner of that voice was very, very angry.
‘I give you one job, that’s all, just one job, and what do you do?’ There was a pause when presumably the person being shouted at answered back, probably in a cowed tone of voice. ‘You left her locked up in here? Then where is she? Where’s my –’ there then followed a stream of terribly unladylike but quite inventive cussing – I mean, I worked on the mean streets of South London for nearly twenty years, so if it shocked me it had to be bad ’– baby? Where’s my Princess?’
‘
Oh God, has Zack been dog-sitting again?’ I said, shaking my head like the two of us were besties and this was a common occurrence. Tony should know he wasn’t the only one who was friends with the stars. Tony looked at me, puzzled, then turned to Debbie, but she didn’t answer because the door to the trailer burst open and out flew a harpy – a young and beautiful one, yes, but a harpy all the same.
‘And that’s Kimi Takahashi,’ I said. We watched her stride across the courtyard, calling, ‘Princess! Princess! Momma needs you!’ ‘So, she seems nice and not at all unbalanced…’
Kimi, dressed in a flowing silk wrap and with her hair scraped back from her face, disappeared around the corner of the building. Behind her, in the doorway of her trailer, stood an almost identical but somehow less glamorous version of her – a sister, I guessed, maybe even her twin. She saw me looking at her and stared back, waiting for me to look away, so on principle (of course), I didn’t. She gave up and let out a big sigh – I could tell by the exaggerated way her shoulders shrugged up and down – and then followed Kimi.
‘So,’ I said, enjoying the fact that Tony still looked confused at the casual way I’d mentioned Zack, like we were besties, ‘I suppose we should find Lucy and see when we’re due on set…’
We wandered about for a bit, nodding to the other extras who were all hanging around looking lost, until we came across Lucy, who was looking harassed. Tony opened his mouth to speak but she interrupted him.
‘You haven’t seen a dog, have you?’ She sounded like she was incredibly fed up but trying hard not to show it.
‘Kimi’s dog? No,’ I said.
‘It’s a Pekinese.’
‘I know. We haven’t seen her.’
‘We’ve seen Kimi though,’ said Tony with a grin.