‘Of course!’
He bent down and kissed me on the lips, and I watched his slim, muscular back retreat into the bathroom.
I padded into the kitchen and flicked on the kettle. A weekend away might be nice. Get some fresh air, some space from London, check out this wedding venue … Yes, it would be good. Christopher and I could have some time together, just the two of us, and start getting our heads around the idea of the wedding. I plonked a teabag into the mug I’d got Christopher last Christmas – a chipped blue affair with GOTTA RUN! emblazoned across the front (get it? Because he likes to … oh, never mind) – and poured in the boiling water. Maybe I could find a place with one of those big roaring fires.
My mind flashed back to the men on the Tube talking about weekends away in the Cotswolds. I couldn’t shake the image of a room full of bloated jackasses pouring schnapps down the throats of their giggling mistresses. I shook my head, hoping to dislodge the thought. No. The weekend away would be nice. A little getaway.
Maybe it was just what I needed.
The journey to work was blissfully without incident – no noses buried in armpits, no accidental-or-otherwise gropings, and no braying pack of idiots pontificating about shagging or cricket or both. I arrived just after nine, made myself a cup of coffee, and settled in to do some groundwork before I set off for Columbia Road that afternoon.
Jeremy seemed convinced that Bryant had been up to something, but so far I couldn’t find any concrete evidence of wrongdoing. His accounts were in order. He paid his taxes on time. Sure, he wasn’t answering his phone, and no one knew where exactly he was living now, but his house had just burned down. Who really felt like chatting over a cup of tea and a slice of Victoria sponge after a thing like that? Maybe he’d just had a really bad string of luck.
I pulled out the formal police report on the fire, along with the sheaf of photographs documenting the damage. The forensics all seemed to check out – the electrics were old, and the conclusion was that one of the fuses had blown and a spark had caught on the curtains in the back of the shop. I glanced at the photograph – a tattered, blackened piece of canvas hung limply from the metal rings. I held it up to the light. There, through a tear in the fabric, was what looked like a small silver dial ringed with black numbers. My heart lurched. It looked like the lock on a safe.
Maybe Bryant had left something in there. A will, or bank documents that might point to his wife’s life insurance money. There was no guarantee that it would lead anywhere, but there was the possibility, and that was enough to spur me on.
I was congratulating myself for being so eagle-eyed when Ben bowled into the cubicle, shouting good morning at me.
I started in my seat and stared at him. He was wearing a pair of dark denim turn-ups so tight I worried for the future of his unborn children, an artfully distressed T-shirt, and a pair of box-fresh Jack Purcells. His hair was styled within an inch of its life, and the cubicle immediately filled up with the scent – sorry, ‘oud’ – of Dior Homme. ‘He’s alive,’ I cheered. ‘ALIVE!’
He rolled his eyes, but couldn’t quite manage to wipe the cat-that-got-the-cream-and-the-salmon-and-hell-why-not-even-the-caviar look off his face.
‘Soooo,’ I said, grinning at him moonily. ‘I take it you heard back from Lucy?’
He shrugged. ‘She rang me last night.’
I couldn’t believe he was going to try to style this out all nonchalantly. ‘Annnnnnd?’ I prompted.
Another shrug. He’d somehow become French overnight. ‘We’re going out tonight.’
‘Tonight?!’ I crowed. ‘I thought you’d asked her out for Saturday?’
He blushed, a proper, deep crimson. ‘She said she couldn’t wait.’
‘Holy Mary Mother of God! This is great!’
He broke now, finally, like a flood against a dam of twigs. ‘I know! It’s so weird, because when she called I was all like, maybe she’s calling to tell me to leave her alone, you know? But then she was all like, hey, sorry I didn’t get in touch with you sooner, I was in Luxembourg.’
‘She was in Luxembourg?’
Another shrug. As if a jaunt to Luxembourg was a normal, everyday occurrence. As if it was almost surprising that we ourselves were not currently in Luxembourg. ‘She works in finance, so …’
‘Wow. She must be a high-flyer if they’re sending her to Luxembourg.’ I heard my father’s voice come out of my body, and yet I was powerless to stop it.
He smiled shyly. ‘Yeah, I think she’s quite senior. Anyway, she was all, sorry I’ve been MIA, let’s go for drinks tomorrow, and then I’ll stay at yours, and we can go out for brunch or whatever on Saturday.’
‘And you said yes?’ I gripped the arms of my chair. This woman was not pulling any punches. I scanned Ben’s face for signs of The Fear. The old Ben would have changed his phone number and deleted his Snapchat if a woman had proposed they share a cab, never mind a weekend. But the new Ben was just smiling idly at two interlinked paperclips on his desk, as though they were representative of the powerful cosmic nature of true love.
‘’Course I did,’ he said, clasping his hands behind his head and leaning back in his swivel chair. ‘Why wouldn’t I?’
And that, my friends, was the moment that hell froze over. ‘Well,’ I said, reaching over and catching him on the shoulder. ‘I’m really happy for you.’
He shrugged again. Seriously, he’d gone so Gallic that at any moment he was going to throw a string of onions around his neck and declare that he was going on strike. ‘It’s cool,’ he said casually. ‘I figured it would work out.’
‘Sure you did.’ Poor little Satan and his minions, so very, very cold down there.
‘How’s it going on the Bryant case?’ he asked, tipping back in his chair.
I opened my mouth to tell him about the safe in the photograph, but decided against it. Best to wait until I had concrete evidence. ‘Nothing new,’ I shrugged. ‘Hopefully one of his neighbors will have seen something.’ Or, I thought, I’d see something for myself.
The rest of the morning sped by, and before I knew it, I was finishing up my Pret sandwich, brushing the crumbs from my chair, and gathering up my belongings.
Ben glanced up as I slung my bag over my shoulder. ‘You off to do your sleuthing?’ he asked through a mouthful of All Day Breakfast.
I nodded. ‘I’ll probably be back before the end of the day,’ I said. ‘I have to file a few things for that hit-and-run claim.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Christ, you’re such a spod.’
I shot him a saccharine smile. This was only half-true. I was definitely a goody-two-shoes when it came to work, but I’d also failed to look into a single B&B for the weekend, and I knew Christopher would ask when I got home. I figured I could come back to the office and do a quick Internet search so I’d at least have something to offer over dinner tonight.
I waved goodbye to Ben and shot out of the office. I checked the time on the way out: ten past two. My mind whirred with mental calculations. Fifteen minutes on the Victoria Line. Change at King’s Cross or Highbury and Islington? Getting the Overground might take a little longer, but it would save me the walk from—
I heard a low whistle, and a deep voice call out to me from across the street. ‘You look like you mean business.’
I looked up to find Jackson leaning against the wall opposite, jacket slung over one arm, booted foot cocked against the bricks. He gave me a sly grin, and made his way across the street towards me, neglecting – as ever – to look out for traffic. A car beeped as it swerved to avoid him. He didn’t so much as blink.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked as he arrived safely on my side of the street.
‘We had a deal, didn’t we?’
‘I know,’ I spluttered, ‘but I left you a message –’
He waved me away. ‘I never listen to my messages.’
‘That’s very irresponsible,’ I asked. ‘What if it’s important?’
‘My theory
is that if someone has something important to say to me, they’ll call back.’ He reached up and plucked a bit of fluff from my hair. My mind flashed to the feeling of his palm cupping my chin in the bar the other night. It had seemed so clear-cut the night before, but now that he was standing here in front of me, holding a biscuit crumb he’d fished out of my hair between his thumb and forefinger, I was wavering. ‘Anyway,’ he said, blowing the bit of fluff from his fingertip, ‘I know how much you hate talking on the phone, so I figured I’d show up in person and save you the agony.’ He smirked at me. ‘So what was your message about?’
‘Nothing,’ I muttered. ‘It wasn’t important. And what makes you think I hate talking on the phone?’ Not that it wasn’t true. Phone conversations, even with people I knew – even with Isla! – made me break out into a sweat. I always ended up pacing around the room like a panther, talking in a too-loud voice usually reserved for football matches, or trying to communicate with people who didn’t speak your language. If I was forced to call the gas company or book a doctor’s appointment, I would mentally rehearse what I was going to say before I dialed. I don’t know what I thought was going to come out of my mouth if I didn’t – a confession about a sexual deviance? Some sort of strange verbal tick? – but attempting to apply logic to the situation was pointless. Still, I didn’t remember telling Jackson as much.
‘You told me about it in Vegas.’ He shook his head. ‘I still can’t believe how much you don’t remember from that night.’
‘Don’t remind me,’ I groaned.
‘It seems like I don’t have much of a choice. Anyway, you told me how much you hated the phone, so I figured it was futile to try to talk any sense into you that way.’
I bridled at this. ‘What do you mean, talk sense? I’m the one who’s being rational here, not you.’
‘Hey there, no need to get all defensive.’
It was enough to spin me off into another dimension of irrational rage. ‘And what exactly do you think you’re doing, just showing up at my office like this? I get that you don’t have a normal job – that you like to “live free” or whatever, like a poor man’s bongo-playing-era Matthew McConaughey, but some of us actually take our jobs seriously, and it is totally inappropriate of you to keep turning up like this.’
He gave me a long, even look. ‘You done?’
I huffed. ‘Yes.’
‘Glad to hear it. Now where are we off to?’
My stomach clenched. ‘We?’
‘Sure. We missed our dinner last night, which means we’ve got time to make up.’
‘I’m not having dinner with you tonight,’ I blurted out.
‘Even more reason for us to spend the afternoon together. Come on, where to? Anywhere you’re going, I’m going.’
‘What if I said I was going to get a bikini wax?’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘I’d say I’ll buy you a whiskey now and one when you’re done. But that’s not where you’re going, is it?’
‘It’s a work thing,’ I said. ‘I have to go to Columbia Road and try to get this guy’s neighbors to tell me he’s a crook.’
‘Sounds like fun. Besides, I’m great at getting people to tell me stuff.’
I looked at him sceptically. ‘You are?’
He crossed his arms. ‘You want me to tell you what your nickname was in high school?’
Oh God. I couldn’t have! There was no way I would have told him. Only Isla knew the story about Brad Tompkins stumbling over my soccer cleats in the middle of a make-out session. Even today, the humiliation of it was enough to make my gorge rise. Whatever a gorge was.
He winked at me then, the bastard. ‘Let’s go, Garbage Feet. We’ve got neighbors to grill.’
I groaned. ‘What the hell else did I tell you that night?’
He tapped the side of his nose with his finger. ‘That’s for me to know and you to find out. You thinking of changing at King’s Cross or Highbury and Islington? The Overground will take longer but—’
‘It will save the walk,’ I said, ‘I know, I know.’ We set off towards the Tube. ‘So you didn’t have to work again today?’
He shrugged. ‘They don’t need me much.’
‘Pretty sweet gig. What did you say the movie you were working on was?’
‘I didn’t,’ he said. ‘It’s some big budget dystopian thing. They’re still scouting locations and they wanted me to come along to check out possible camera angles. Anyway, let’s not waste our time talking about boring stuff like work. Why don’t you tell me about the time you tried out for the cheerleading squad?’
I stopped short. ‘Oh my God! I didn’t.’
‘Relax. I’m sure they thought you had tissues stuffed in your bra because of your hay fever.’
‘Shut up,’ I hissed.
‘Just a shame you didn’t think of it before you did that cartwheel …’
‘Arghhhh! You know, some people might class this as harassment.’
‘Some have,’ he reached over and tucked my hand in the crook of his elbow, ‘but the charges have never stuck.’
We ended up taking the Northern Line. We emerged at Old Street, the traffic of the roundabout drowning out our conversation even in the middle of the day, and gazed up at the enormous cranes lifting steel beams into place on flashy new blocks of flats called things like The Apothecary and The Old Printing Press.
Jackson shook his head as he took it all in. ‘Things sure change fast. When I lived here, it was all council flats and artists’ squats.’
I shot him a sceptical glance. ‘Didn’t you say you lived here ten years ago?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I’m pretty sure Old Street wasn’t exactly a shanty town back then.’
He laughed. ‘Okay, you got me. Maybe I’m looking back with rose-colored glasses.’
‘More like a rose-colored telescope,’ I said.
‘Still,’ he said, gesturing towards a skyscraper built like a jackknife, ‘all this glass and steel wasn’t here, and I’m damn sure there wasn’t a fancy coffee place in the middle of the roundabout.’
I tugged on his arm. ‘C’mon, gramps. Let’s go before you start telling me about how you used to walk three miles to school every day.’
‘In the snow,’ he added.
‘Uphill both ways.’
We grinned at each other before setting off down Old Street. We passed glass-fronted cafés stacked with people pecking away on MacBooks, pubs with late lunchers sneaking in a pint before returning to their flexible work space, and boutiques displaying collections of what looked like extortionately priced sticks.
He stopped short when we got to the intersection with Curtain Road. ‘Do you mind if we take a little detour?’
I checked the time. It was ten to three. ‘Sure,’ I said, and we hooked a right.
He shook his head and tsked as we passed former dive bars that were now fancy tapas places, skate shops that were now salons, and a pub that was now a Foxton’s. ‘At least the tattoo place is still there,’ he said as we looped around on ourselves, ‘but I don’t think I’m ever going to get over that American Apparel.’ He stopped outside of Rivington Street and pointed up at the top floor of a nondescript brick building. ‘There,’ he said. ‘That’s where we used to live.’
I followed his gaze. ‘We?’
‘Me and my girl,’ he said quietly. We both stood there for a minute, staring up at the building, before a man with a handlebar moustache pushed past and stirred Jackson out of his reverie. ‘Come on,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘No use standing around here looking for things that are long gone.’
I wanted to ask him about this girl – his girl – but the look on his face told me not to push him on it. At least not right now. We walked the rest of our journey in silence, crossing the melee of Kingsland Road and into the relative quiet of Hackney Road. I stopped him just before we got to Columbia Road.
‘Okay,’ I said, brushing the hair back from my face. ‘So here’s the deal. I�
��m going to go knock on some doors and hope that one of this guy’s neighbors wants to invite me in for a cup of tea and a chat.’
‘The lonely old woman ploy,’ Jackson said. ‘I like it.’
‘What I need you to do is to not talk.’
‘Hey now!’
‘I mean it! This case is a big deal at work, and I can’t have you going around ruining it.’
He folded his arms across his chest. ‘Are you calling me a ruiner?’
‘Based on evidence to date, yes, I am calling you a ruiner. Why don’t you go have a cup of coffee or something?’ I spotted a café done out to look like a 1950s tea parlor and pointed to it. ‘There! Go sit in there and have a piece of Victoria sponge, and just don’t – don’t—’
‘Do anything?’
I nodded gratefully. ‘Exactly.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Fine. But if you get into any trouble, just let me know. I’m telling you, I can charm the birds out of the trees if necessary.’
‘Leave the birds in the trees and the snakes in the grass and all other animals exactly where they are. Got it?’
‘Got it.’ I watched as he walked, whistling, across the street and pushed open the door to the café. A bell chimed his arrival and I heard him calling out a greeting to the waitress. God help her.
I decided to take a walk down the street to get the lay of the land before approaching anyone – or, as Jeremy would say, to case the joint. Victorian terraces lined the street, most of them with shopfronts painted in pretty shades of blue and green and pale yellow. There was an old dairy on one side, its ground floor now a posh bakery, and a school set back from the road and guarded by a wrought-iron fence. Most of the windows on the houses were lined with flowerboxes overflowing with blooms in bright reds and pinks.
In short, it looked like a postcard of a place rather than a real one, and I was certain I’d never been in the vicinity of so many artisanal throw pillows in my life.
Jenny Sparrow Knows the Future Page 19
