by Jules Wake
‘I’ll see you later. I’ve got a meeting in the West End later this morning which is going to last nearly all day. I’ll take the car and park up in Portman Square, it’s right behind the store. Quarter to six outside.’
I bit my lip and nodded.
‘Take care, Olivia. I don’t like the thought that Peter’s still out there.’
‘Well, at least he hasn’t got keys.’
‘Yeah, but …’ He shrugged and took a step forward. ‘Just be on your guard,’ he muttered, giving me one last kiss before I slipped down to the front door, grabbing my jacket on the way.
The shiny new lock, which glinted at me as I pulled the door too, was an unwelcome reminder of another thing I had to sort out. Barney.
God, he was going to be so pissed off that the police were involved.
I flicked open my mobile as I walked down the street, a spring in my step and a fierce glow in my chest. The postman looked distinctly amused when I gave him a big grin and gave me a knowing wink.
‘What – this had better be good,’ snapped Barney in my ear, as I finally connected with him.
‘It is. Remember the guy that I spoke to you about. Things have escalated – he’s broken into our flat and left a dead cat in the fridge.’
There was a gratifyingly stunned silence for a few seconds before he breathed a heartfelt, ‘Fuck.’
‘Fuck indeed. Emily found it.’
‘Emily? Oh God. Is she all right?’
I felt ready to scream. Emily was bloody fine, lapping up the sympathy, while muggins here had to sort everything out.
‘Have you told anyone about this?’
‘The police came round yesterday. Sorry they needed your details to contact Peter.’
To my surprise, he didn’t object. ‘Fair enough. They haven’t called yet, but I’ve got Peter’s address. I dug it out last time you called. Olivia, I’m really sorry. It never occurred to me that this might happen.’ His voice dropped and for one second I almost believed he was sincere. ‘Mind you, if I did vet everyone, it would make us so much better than all the rest. Great marketing.’
‘As long as no one hears about this,’ I snapped.
‘’Spose so.’ There was a pause before he asked, ‘You haven’t told your mother have you?’
I sent a silent appeal heavenward. As if.
‘No, you’re off the hook. Mum doesn’t know, so you’ll still be the blue-eyed nephew.’
‘Do you know, Olivia, sometimes you’re a shrew. I meant that I could reassure her that I’m checking Peter out.’
Bugger, I hated it when Barney showed his kinder side. I always assumed people like him had no conscience.
Chapter Nineteen
To my surprise the bored tone of the man at the council offices never altered as I recounted my tale when I phoned him from work that morning. For a very reasonable fee he offered to send someone round to collect the fridge.
This still left the question of what to do about Charlie. I couldn’t let the council dispose of him as well. I’d knocked on his owner’s door after speaking to Barney but to my relief there’d been no answer. Telling them that Charlie’s body was in my fridge was going to take some explaining. I was going to have to buy some industrial rubber gloves and a face mask to remove him. It would have been easier to leave his body in a shoebox on the doorstep but I couldn’t do that to Mr Gregory.
‘Where’s Emily?’ From the way Cara’s eyebrows were creased over her soft brown eyes, she must have overheard some of my bizarre conversation.
‘She’s going to be late in this morning,’ I answered shortly, not wanting to go into details, especially as over her shoulder Helene and Camilla were both listening avidly. It was obvious Emily had already told them she was leaving.
Cara stepped back, giving me a mild look of reproach. Bugger, she didn’t deserve that. She’d been my first ally on the beauty team. Easily worth ten of Emily.
‘Sorry, Cara. Didn’t mean to snap. Been an eventful weekend.’
‘I kind of gathered. If there’s anything I can do …’ her voice trailed off weakly as she gave me a sympathetic smile and went back to her desk, absently flicking at the Arsenal pennant stuck to her computer.
Arsenal. Football. I suddenly remembered. I was supposed to be taking Ned tonight.
‘Actually, Cara, there is something …’ Was it a bit of a cheek to ask her to go to a football match with a complete stranger?
I’d underestimated the power of the Arsenal football team.
Cara’s eyes lit up. Ned could have been Quasimodo for all she cared. All that mattered was that she going to ‘the Arsenal’ as she called it.
‘Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Olivia. Sure you don’t want to go?’
‘It’ll be wasted on me. Plus I need to do something urgent this evening,’ I said, turning back to my to-do list, adding Ned’s name to the bottom. With a million phone calls to make, a bulging inbox of emails and a feature deadline to meet, my day was going to be hectic. My phone never stopped ringing that morning. David, to tell me that Fiona was due to return, so was popping in for a meeting later today; journalists chasing photos, printers wanting artwork and … I still had to talk to Ned.
Thank God for work. If I’d had time to think my brain would have melted into a puddle. It had been an eventful few days.
I should have worked diligently through my to-do list, but thanks to considerable procrastination, it was late afternoon before I managed to get hold of Ned and then I bottled it. How could I tell him?
‘All set for the big game tonight?’ he asked, when I finally got through to him.
‘’Fraid not. Sorry, Ned, I can’t make tonight. It’s a bit complicated.’
He didn’t say a word, so I ploughed on quickly. ‘Don’t worry. You can still go, but you’ll have to go with a work colleague of mine. She’s a big Arsenal fan. In case the client asks, it’ll look better if someone from our company is there.’
‘OK,’ he said slowly. I could tell he was pissed off. Not that I blamed him but my emotions were like glitter in a snow globe. They were so mixed up I couldn’t summon any guilt.
‘Look, I’m really sorry,’ I explained dropping my voice. ‘It’s been a hell of a weekend. My sister lost a baby.’
Immediately I could tell he perked up. ‘Shit, sorry that’s bad news.’
‘Yeah, well. She’s in hospital.’ I didn’t add ‘in Australia’. Thank God she’d got Bill with her. And Ned didn’t need to know about Daniel, just yet. Let him enjoy his Arsenal match. Not that I was big headed enough to think that he was smitten with me but telling him now would only hurt his pride unnecessarily.
Feeling relieved to have avoided any unpleasantness, I arranged that he would come to the office to meet Cara at 6.00 p.m., by which time I would be long gone.
At five-thirty on the dot, I switched off my computer, handed over the tickets to Cara without a grain of guilt and left the office. My mind was on other matters.
Anyone seeing me skipping down Oxford Street might have questioned how much coffee I’d been drinking. Anticipation and excitement had added an extra bounce to my step.
As I spotted Daniel outside the front of John Lewis, my stomach twisted with nerves. I speeded up and he looked up, catching my eye as I got closer. For a moment we looked at each other without saying a word. My mouth went dry as one corner of his mouth quirked.
‘Hi,’ he said softly. My heart lurched as I smiled shyly back.
‘Hi.’
Giving his head an amused shake he stepped forward and slid a hand across my cheek, into my hair and pulled my head towards him for a kiss.
‘That’s better,’ he said afterwards, putting his arm around me and steering me inside. ‘How was today?’
‘Busy,’ I said. ‘I didn’t g
et a chance to speak to Emily as she wasn’t around much. How did she take it?’ I asked, our hands linked, as we sailed upwards on the escalator.
He winced. ‘My ego feels as if it’s been ripped out, chewed up and spat out again. Be gentle with me.’
‘That bad?’
‘Hell hath no. The worst boyfriend on the planet.’ He sounded reasonably cheerful about this as he pointed to himself. ‘Rubbish relationship material.’
She hadn’t pulled any punches then.
‘I’m a boring old git with an unhealthy obsession with ball … sports.’
‘Have I made a terrible mistake?’ I teased.
‘I never go to decent restaurants.’
‘What never?’ I asked, in mock outrage as we stepped off the escalator.
He drooped his head in dejection. ‘Nope.’
We wound our way through the electrical department to find the fridges.
‘You don’t need to worry then,’ I said cheerfully, sailing past the televisions, tugging at his hand as he stopped briefly. ‘It’s your kitchen I’m interested in – we can eat in.’
‘It gets worse …’
Playing along, I sighed heavily and stopped. I turned to face him. ‘What there’s more?’
‘I’m crap in bed.’ His eyes twinkled, his lips twitching.
‘That’s it then. Sorry …’
‘Oy,’ he tickled my ribs. ‘You’re supposed to be on my side.’
I lowered my voice, there were other people around. ‘Perhaps you just need practice?’
‘Are you volunteering?’
That took the wind out of my sails.
‘Well, surely you must have some good points,’ I said bracingly, as I turned and pulled him along towards the household appliances.
He sucked in his breath. ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘Not one.’
‘Sure? No redeeming features at all.’ I thought for a moment. ‘I might have to reconsider.’
His arm snaked round me and pulled me closer, his warm breath teasing my neck. ‘I’ve been through the verbal wringer. I need first aid and sticking plasters, woman. What are you going to do about it?’
‘Depends. Are you young, free and single again?’
‘Resoundingly, yes. Emily never wants to set eyes on me again. Mind you, she’s not overly fond of you either at the moment. What have you done to upset her so much?’
‘What? Apart from breathe?’
‘I asked her about your married man but she stuck to her guns. Insisted he existed – even after I said I believed you. At which point she spat your name out, reminding me, I might add, of an indignant llama, and said you wouldn’t know the truth if it came and slapped you.’
I laughed. I could so clearly picture Emily’s face. ‘And what did you say to that?’
‘Well,’ he hedged slightly.
‘Daniel,’ a note of warning creeping into my voice.
‘I didn’t mean to let on about us … but I might have been a bit … vocal in support of you.’
‘Can I help?’ A small man stepped out in front of us, his wrinkled neck reminding me of a tortoise.
I gave Daniel a look, my heart filling with a little burst of pride as he gave me a little wink. ‘Er yes, we’re looking for a fridge,’ I said self-consciously. Shopping for white goods in John Lewis wasn’t quite how I’d envisioned spending my first proper date with Daniel but I felt a little definite thrill. Shopping for two made a change.
Our little man was a mine of useful information. He really knew his fridges, although discussing the merits of automatic defrost when your libido is on fire takes some doing.
Everything went swimmingly until we got to the taking possession of our chosen model part of business. It turned out choosing a fridge was easy. Having it installed before the milk went off was another matter. Delivery took at least a week.
‘Dad’s got a spare fridge in the garage we use at Christmas,’ volunteered Daniel as my face fell. ‘Let me give him a call. I could bring it over tomorrow after work.’
Our helpful assistant beamed at this, although looking at my credit card clutched in his hand, it would have been a fight to the death to get it back from him.
Having someone to look after me, after years of self-sufficiency was rather nice. In fact it was blood tinglingly gorgeous. We went for a drink, strolled hand in hand through Covent Garden and stopped for dinner. It should have been perfect but annoyingly thoughts of Peter kept intruding. I did my best to keep them at bay by telling myself that he wouldn’t dare do anything else now. Would he?
Although I didn’t mention it to Daniel I was conscious that he too kept surreptitiously scanning the crowds as we walked along.
As it started to get dark we headed towards the river and both relaxed as we left the crowds behind. We made extremely slow progress across Waterloo Bridge. Daniel kept pointing out landmarks.
‘Look.’
‘Where?’ I asked, stopping only to find his head dipping towards mine and his lips brushing my mouth.
‘The London Eye,’ he said grinning as he lifted his head. I soon joined in the game.
‘Look, Big Ben.’
It took half an hour’s sightseeing to get over the bridge and ten minutes to get up the stairs into Waterloo station.
‘Daniel, you don’t have to put me on the train,’ I said, as we looked up at the departures board, standing arm in arm, cheek to cheek. ‘You’ve still got to go all the way back to the West End to get your car. I’ll be fine, honest. There’s a train in five minutes.’
He shrugged.
‘I’d rather …’ He looked round at the busy concourse before kissing my cheek. His lips worked their way to mine. ‘Plus I’m not going to see you ’til tomorrow night.’
I pulled a face and kissed him back, eyes closed, revelling in the warm glow of his words, as I ignored the little voice that wondered what Emily would have to say when he turned up tomorrow with the fridge.
I missed that train and the one after.
When I got home, to my massive relief, Emily didn’t emerge from her room although she was clearly awake as I could hear drawers and wardrobe doors rattling as if she was feverishly searching for something.
As I quickly made myself a cup of milk less tea, I resolved to tackle the contents of the fridge. Tomorrow.
When the train arrived the next morning it was packed. As I squeezed my way on, I couldn’t help checking every face even though it meant raising my head. My mascara stained eyes must have looked a sight. On the way to the station I’d finally caught up with Charlie’s owner.
Handing over the box that had once contained new boots made me feel like a murderer. Mr Gregory answered the door in a royal blue sweatshirt and half-mast jogging bottoms, which revealed skinny grey haired ankles.
‘Chew know what time it is?’ he growled, throwing the door open and stepping towards me. Glaring down at me, I felt positively small which doesn’t happen often.
‘Ssorry, I …’ Without thinking I offered him the boot box.
‘You the new postman,’ he snapped, looking me up and down as he started to open the box.
‘No, no.’ I put my hand on the box. ‘It’s Charlie. Your cat.’
He looked at the box in his hands and then sharply at me.
‘Know where Charlie is, d’ya?’ His voice softened. ‘’Ees been missing for a coupla days now.’
I took a deep breath, hoping it might stop me bursting into tears. No such luck. ‘I’m …’ A sob escaped as a tear slipped down my cheek. ‘So,’ I sniffed. ‘Really sorry.’
Mr Gregory’s bushy eyebrows drew together under a deeply furrowed frown. He grasped my arm firmly and for a horrible moment I thought he might think I was responsible.
‘Now, now love.’
I nodded towards the box. ‘He’s dead. I … I found him.’
He lifted the lid of the box and his face crumpled, his mouth drooping and his eyes disappeared into crinkled creases as he blinked furiously.
‘Charlie lad, Charlie,’ he murmured, reaching into the box and stroking the black fur with one bony finger. He looked back at me, nodded, turned away and with his shoulder closed the door leaving me on the doorstep.
Talk about shitty start to the day. Not getting a seat on the train only made things worse. My eyes felt tired and gritty and I had the beginnings of a headache. Bloody Peter. Slipping my phone out of my pocket I tapped in a quick text to Barney. ‘Any joy in tracking P down?’
Five minutes later just as the train pulled into Vauxhall, my phone rang.
‘Barney?’
‘Olivia. Thought I’d let you know. I’ve spoken to the police and gave them Peter’s address.’
‘Great. So you spoke to the person who recommended him? What did they say?’
‘Not much. But I gave him short shrift for being so casual about it all. He was horrified. Got a feeling he might have words with Peter, even though I told him to leave it to the plods. I’ve drafted up some new terms and conditions to make sure this doesn’t happen again.’
That was unexpected. ‘Thanks,’ I said, voicing my surprise.
He sighed. ‘Olivia, you’re family. This guy’s been terrorising you and it’s indirectly my fault. I’m not all bad you know.’
‘No,’ I said grudgingly. ‘I suppose you have improved a bit since you were eighteen.’
‘Don’t overdo it, will you.’
‘I wouldn’t want you to get big headed,’ I replied sweetly, and then more sincerely. ‘Thanks Barney.’
‘Speak to you later.’
Emily made a brief appearance in the office and then left just after lunch to go to the dentist, which I thought was odd as she’d not mentioned it before. Taking advantage of a client meeting finishing early, I decided not to go back to the office. It wasn’t like I didn’t put the hours in normally.
When I got home, I surprised Emily.