Just as we’ve finished booking the car and three passengers onto the ferry between the islands tomorrow morning Martha wanders back in, tossing her phone onto the sofa.
“Everything OK?” I ask, thinking she looks annoyed about something. Maybe it’s something to do with her mystery guy.
“Fine,” she says in a non-committal tone. “What are you two up to?”
“Just booked us all on the ferry for tomorrow,” Charlie says, closing the computer.
Martha wrinkles her nose. “I hate boats. Isn’t there a flight over there?”
“Nope,” Charlie replies. “Anyway, it’s not a long crossing. Just an hour on one of those little inter-island ferries. They’re surprisingly well-equipped and comfortable. Once you’re on board head for the lounge seats. Just lie back, shut your eyes and it’ll be over and done with before you know it.”
“I bet you say that to all the women!” she laughs and punches him on the arm.
For a second I think there’s a flicker of irritation in Charlie’s eyes at her attempt at a joke at his expense. Then it’s gone and he’s back into normal Charlie mode.
“I have never uttered those words to a woman!” he says, feigning indignation, going along with her kidding around. “Not the shut your eyes bit anyway.”
Martha bursts into loud peals of laughter. “Anyway, enough of talking about your sex life. I’m going to do my money investigating stuff on this Isla. See what I can find out about her finances ahead of our little trip over there tomorrow.”
By early evening I’m in the kitchen trying to make us something decent to eat. We take it in turns to cook. In my excitement at identifying Isla as the mystery woman earlier I completely forgot to call at the shops and restock the cottage with groceries.
Which is why I’m trying to create a delicious meal using only peppers, onions and some potatoes.
“Eggs,” Charlie says, pulling a box from the fridge.
“What?” I frown.
“We’ve got enough eggs left to do a Spanish omelette,” he explains.
“Right, great, Spanish omelette it is then.”
“Or we could all go to the pub and eat there,” he adds casually.
Tempting. We could indeed. I know my cooking isn’t to gourmet standards and the local hostelry would definitely provide something much more appetising, especially given the contents of the kitchen cupboards.
“I’m starving,” Martha says, walking into the room. “What’s for dinner?”
“We were just debating going to the pub. There’s not much food in at the moment. Need to go shopping.”
“I thought you were going shopping earlier,” she says with a querying look at me.
“I was but then I came across mystery woman and forgot.”
“Pub sounds good then,” she says, sliding onto a dining chair. “Anyway, a few more pieces of the puzzle have just slotted into place. Isla has been depositing regular large amounts of cash into her bank account which tie in with the large cash withdrawals we know Garrison made when he arrived in Scotland.”
“So the money was going towards supporting his family on Skye,” I say, thinking about poor Isla and her son.
Martha nod. “Looks like it. A way of paying unofficial maintenance.”
“He was still doing that even though his name isn’t on the child’s birth certificate,” I say. “I checked the birth certificate and it just says father unknown.”
“I’d say it looks like he might have been trying to be one of the good guys in that respect. He was trying to make amends. When he found out he had a child he started facing up to his responsibilities, paying his way. But at the end of the day he’d still been cheating on his wife,” Charlie says quietly. “Having an affair for the last few years. So he’d got a lot of bad karma to try to cancel out.”
“Yeah,” I say, looking at Charlie who is putting the food back in the fridge. “Sometimes you just never can tell who the good guys are.”
“Do you agree with what Isla did, Charlie?” Martha says, taking us both my surprise.
Charlie frowns. “How do you mean?”
“I mean, if some woman was pregnant by you and going to have your child, wouldn’t you want to know about it? Regardless of the circumstances?” She waves her arms in a come-on gesture. “Would you seriously want a child of yours to be running around out there and you not know about it?”
My mouth goes a little dry at her awkward line of questioning. Charlie, looking like a rabbit caught in car headlights, is obviously uncomfortable with Martha’s questions too.
“Well?” she says, hands on hips, staring at him.
He glances across at me and swallows. “It’s not something I’ve ever thought about,” he eventually says.
“No, of course you wouldn’t, because you’re a guy and it’s every guys worse nightmare to find out they’ve made one of their former girlfriends pregnant, right?”
Why is Martha on her soap box about this? I so wish she hadn’t chosen this particular topic to get all moral about. I hardly dare breathe and I definitely daren’t look at Charlie. This is very much unchartered territory. I don’t know how Charlie feels about the prospect of marriage and kids in his life but I get the distinct impression he’s not in any rush to do either.
“Well?” Martha prompts.
Charlie shifts awkwardly from one foot to the other then shrugs. “I guess, yeah, I’d want to know.”
I still can’t breathe properly.
“And what would you do about it when you did find out? Would you want to be a part of your child’s life?”
I can’t stand this any longer. My appetite has well and truly gone and a trip to the pub doesn’t appeal at all now. Getting to my feet I mutter, “Well, it’s been a long day. I’m off to bed.”
Martha frowns. “It’s still early.”
“I’m tired,” I counter, adding an exaggerated yawn for good measure.
“Yeah, me too,” Charlie says, seizing the opportunity to escape from Martha’s bizarre interrogation.
I’ve got undressed and am just climbing into bed when the door opens slightly and Charlie pokes his head around it. “You OK?” he asks as I burrow under the duvet.
“Yeah,” I reply, feeling a bit flummoxed still.
He steps inside and shuts the door behind him. I glance meaningfully towards the cottage’s living area and Charlie interprets my look correctly.
“Gestapo Woman has gone to her room,” he says coming over and sitting on the edge of my bed.
“What was all that about?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Haven’t a clue.”
“She’s got a bee in her bonnet for some reason about this business of Isla not telling Flynn she was pregnant.”
“Yeah and I’m the one getting the brunt of her crappy mood.”
“So what’s the story with Martha? Why is she so…?” I pause, searching for the right word.
“Bitchy?” Charlie supplies before giving me a look of incomprehension. “How should I know?”
“Well, you’ve worked with her before.”
“Yeah, worked, being the operative word. I’ve worked with her but we’ve never felt the need to exchange personal histories.”
“So you’ve no idea what’s made her the way she is?”
“No and I don’t want to know either.”
“You’re not even a teeny bit curious?” I ask.
“Nope. Look, I just wanted to come in and check you were OK after all that. You looked uncomfortable.”
“So did you.”
He pushes a hand through his hair, making the front of it stick up. “Too bloody right I did.”
“So you’ve never been in that situation?” I swallow with difficulty. “Because, honestly, you can tell me if you have. I’d rather know.”
He leans back a fraction, surprise evident in his eyes. “Why on earth would you think I’d been in that situation?”
I shrug and stare at the duvet. “I’m just sayi
ng, you can tell me, that’s all.”
He reaches for one of my hands. “I promise you, I have never been in that situation.”
Nervously I ask, “How would you feel if you ever were?”
I see something flicker in his eyes. “You’re not…?”
“No! Absolutely not!”
I can see he’s diplomatically trying to hide his relief.
“Then why are you so interested in this particular topic of conversation?” he quizzes, curiosity in his eyes.
“I don’t know. We haven’t been together long and we’ve never really broached attitudes towards settling down, marriage, kids. I just wondered.”
This time he’s not quick enough to hide the flash of panic in his eyes. I have my answer. Charlie Huxton is not marriage and family material. Not yet anyway. Not that I was thinking along those lines myself but maybe, one day.
“Forget I asked,” I say, pulling my hand away and turning on my side to snuggle under the duvet.
He gets to his feet and heads for the door. I just gave him an easy way out of this conversation and he grabbed it with both hands. He didn’t even pause to give me a goodnight kiss.
Chapter Sixteen
“So this is the place?” Martha looks less than impressed at the distinctly untrendy café on the coastal road in the village of Carnbost on the Isle of Skye. “Not much to look at is it? You’d think he’d have bought his family something better than that.”
“Flynn didn’t buy the café, he just helped Isla to purchase it. Plus, I suppose she might have wanted something which wouldn’t attract attention,” I say. “People might have wondered where she’d got the money from if she’d got somewhere that was a posh, lucrative business. The story she told everyone here was that she was a divorcee. She wanted to keep a low profile. This way she could buy a cheaper business and use her business degree to develop it.”
“Besides, we’ve all seen the state of his bank account. Money was going out as fast as it was coming in,” Charlie adds. “I think keeping his wife in the style to which she is so obviously accustomed in London used a fair chunk of his income as well. He might have ditched fame and fortune but clearly his wife still maintains a lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-famous existence. Plus there’s the large payments he’s been making to this Aspall Linton.”
“Even the name of the café is naff,” Martha says. “I mean, come on, Little Gem. You say those words and it just conjures up those little iced gem biscuits you used to get in your lunch box as a kid. I hated them.”
“The name might have something to do with Isla and Luke,” I explain. “She told me he said they were the most precious things to ever happen to him. Even called his mystery woman, his Precious Isla, so she said.”
“Could be,” Charlie says. “But I can’t help thinking there might be something else to it. It’s ringing a bell.” He shrugs. “I don’t know. I’ll have to have a think about it. See if I can dredge anything from my memory.”
“Off you go then,” Martha says, opening the car door. “Charlie, you and Amber better go and play at being tourists and see if you can engage her in conversation. You’re more believable as a couple.”
I ignore her comment as I climb from the car and follow Charlie up the path to The Little Gem. We haven’t been alone together much since I found out about the room sharing incident. Our little conversation about marriage and kids has left a lingering awkwardness between us to. He’s given me questioning looks from time to time but he hasn’t actually asked me if anything is wrong. Not yet anyway. If he does, well, I still haven’t decided what I’m going to say.
Inside the café it’s all fairly nondescript. Wooden floor which has seen better days, wooden chairs and tables covered in a cheerful red and green gingham cloth. There’s only a handful of customers eating cake and sipping coffee but it is a week-day not the weekend and it’s also outside the main tourist season.
We get a table and sit down to peruse the menu, unsure if we need to go up to the counter to order or if there’s waitress service. There don’t appear to be any staff around at the moment. I wonder if Isla has any help when it comes to running the café. What happened when she used to take the boy over to Farra to visit Flynn Garrison? Did she close the café or leave it in the hands of somebody else? After we’ve both decided on toasted cheese and tomato sandwiches and coffee I head to the counter to place our order and ring the bell near to the cash register to attract the attention of whoever is working at the cafe.
It’s a minute or so before a harassed looking Isla appears through a doorway behind the counter. She has black rings around her eyes and the air of someone who hasn’t slept much for the past few days. Once again I feel a rush of sympathy for her.
She blinks a few times then says, “Oh, it’s you! The woman from Farra with the broken rental car. I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.”
“It’s Amber,” I supply. “Yes, that’s right, we did meet on Farra. Thanks again for the use of your phone that day.”
She shrugs. “No worries. How’s the car?”
“Fine thanks, we got it sorted.”
“We? I thought you were travelling alone.”
“No, Charlie and I are doing a spot of island hopping.” I turn and point to Charlie who lifts a hand to wave back at us. “He was out on a fishing trip that day the car played up though so I was doing a bit of exploring on my own.”
“Boyfriend? Husband?” she asks, leaning on the counter, not showing the slightest bit of inclination to take my food or drink order.
“Boyfriend,” I reply carefully. I don’t want to upset her, talking about relationships.
“Mummy! Can I watch TV now?” A little boy, Luke I presume, dashes into the café’s counter area. He doesn’t have his mother’s dark hair, he’s blond like his father with the same bright blue eyes he had too. Eyes which made many a female fan swoon no doubt when Flynn was in the band.
“Give me a minute, sweetheart,” Isla says. “I just need to serve this lady then I’ll come through and put one of your favourite DVDs on.”
The little boy turns on his heels and heads back through the doorway.
“Your son?”
Isla nods. “He’s off from school at the moment. Not feeling well he says, stomach ache.” She lowers her voice. “He’s picked up on me being upset I suppose and it’s naturally affected him too.”
The only other people in the café get up to leave, waving their thanks as they pull on coats and make for the door. Once they’re gone and there’s only Charlie and I left in the room with Isla she starts talking again.
“He keeps asking if we’re going to visit Uncle Flynn this weekend, says he’s missing him. What am I supposed to say?” Isla shakes her head and frowns. “For now, well, I told him he’s too busy but eventually…”
“Uncle Flynn?” I say. “You mentioned before he called him that. He didn’t know who he really was then?”
She shakes her head. “We couldn’t have Luke calling Flynn daddy, not in the circumstances. Over on Farra we kept a low profile anyway but if anybody had overheard us on the beach or something it could have got complicated.” Sighing she adds, “As far as people on Skye are concerned I’m divorced remember? Technically I have nothing to do with their father now so we had to call Flynn uncle. I couldn’t even list him as his father on the birth certificate.”
“That must have been awful, having to keep that secret.”
“I had to say father unknown on the birth certificate. To protect Luke as much as to protect Flynn and me. If the media had found out all hell would have broken lose.”
She straightens up. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I’m telling you all of these things. I suppose I’ve just been feeling so alone and well, you know, a friendly face, and suddenly I’m pouring my heart out.”
I reach across to place a hand on top of one of hers. “It’s fine, honestly. I don’t mind at all.” I feel dreadful, she trusts me and here I am pretending to be a tourist to try a
nd get information from her. Again.
“What can I get you?” she says, turning to the coffee machine. “A drink? Food?”
“Two toasted cheese and tomato sandwiches please and two coffees, one black, one with milk.”
She nods and gets to work on the order.
“Flynn didn’t mind the fact he isn’t named on the birth certificate?” I venture.
“Yes he minded. Very much. He understood it was a necessity though. For Luke’s protection. He told me he’d provide for us properly, you know, financially, if anything…” She stops and gulps, staring at the floor. “If anything happened,” she finishes.
Slicing tomatoes and then cheese she begins preparing the toasted sandwiches.
“Don’t you have any family you’re in touch with? Any friends?”
She shakes her head. “My family disowned me when I got pregnant. I told them and they wanted to know who the father was and why we weren’t married. That was enough for them to cut me out of their lives. They’re religious and traditionally-minded and were ashamed of my choices. As for friends, it was difficult in the circumstances. People ask questions and well, it was tricky, trying to be friends while having to keep secrets, tell lies.”
She fetches some plates as the toasted sandwiches are cooking.
“You say your parents regret your life choices. Do you? It’s obviously been very difficult for you since you met Flynn.”
“No. Not at all,” she replies with a proud tilt of her chin. “We loved each other. Always have. His real life was here on Farra with us. His life in London - that was the false one. The life he had for media purposes. I once met his parents you know. They came to stay on Farra for a weekend to see him. He introduced me as a friend. They met Luke and loved him. They were nice people. I think they probably knew the truth but never spoke of it.”
“That must have been tough for you all.”
“I wonder if the truth will eventually come out. You know. Now,” she says, a faraway look in her eyes. “He said he wanted to leave a letter confirming Luke was his son in case anything ever happened to him but I told him no good could come of it. We would all be hounded by the press in horrible circumstances. He did set up a fund for us though with a solicitor on the mainland. I have all the paperwork for it.”
Precious: A Humorous Romantic Cozy Mystery (Amber Reed Celebrity Crimes Investigation Agency Mystery Book 2) Page 14
