A Sprinkle of Sabotage by Fiona Leitch (bill gates book recommendations TXT) 📗

then cheated on me with someone else – and for all I knew, he was cheating on her now too; being taken in by a man like that had not done much for my self-confidence. What if Nathan was the same? No, I knew he wasn’t. But what if it was me? What if we got together and I screwed everything up and drove him away? I couldn’t face getting my heart broken again, and of course it wasn’t just me now; it was Daisy too. What if he regretted not going for that job? It had much better prospects, and had to be more exciting than sleepy Penstowan. What if he resented me for keeping him here?

Oh my God, I wasn’t ready for this.

‘But it’s a great job,’ I said. ‘You’d have to have a really good reason to turn it down…’

‘Yes,’ he said, and I got the impression he was waiting for me to say something else. But I couldn’t. He sighed. ‘Okay, I’ve got to go. Talk to you later.’ And he put the phone down.

I gulped as I stared at my now-silent phone. He’d sounded … upset? Annoyed? I didn’t know. So much for us being in sync.

Germaine gave a little whine. I recognised what that whine meant; it meant we had to go outside pretty sharply and I’d better have a poop bag handy, or things could get messy. Not as messy as my love life, though.

It had started to rain. But of course it had. Germaine was about ready to burst but I dragged her around the side of the building, as even a doggy-friendly hotel has its limits and would not be impressed with her pooping on their doorstep. Most of the staff knew me by now – my investigations always seemed to lead me here, at some point – and the manager, Mr Bloom, turned a blind eye to me hanging around and harassing – I mean, chatting to – his VIP guests, but I didn’t want to push my luck.

On this side of the building, though, stood the white painted gazebo, covered with climbing roses which were now well past their best. A few months ago, when they’d been in full bloom, Nathan had led me there firmly by the arm and sat me down to have a go at me. He’d caught me trying to get into a hotel room to prove Tony’s innocence, and had been losing patience with me. But what had begun as an attempt to warn me off had turned into him confessing that I might actually be right. He’d given me a lift home afterwards, but not before taking me along with him to question a potential suspect. It had been the tentative start to our partnership, which, unlike the roses, had carried on blooming. Until now.

It was pouring with rain by now, but I couldn’t bring myself to step up onto the gazebo and get myself undercover, so I stood there feeling utterly miserable while Germaine did her business. At least with it raining so hard no one would be able to tell if I was crying or not.

‘Jodie?’ I turned round to see Tony standing there, looking at me quizzically. ‘What are you doing out here? You’re getting soaking wet, you muppet.’

I gestured vaguely to Germaine, trying to resist the urge to run over and sob all over my old friend. He’d never bugger off to Liverpool (or anywhere else, for that matter) just for a job. He’d never leave me or let me down; he never had so far.

He squinted at me through the rain and shook his head.

‘Come on, you idiot, you’ll get pneumonia.’ He took my hand and led me up the stairs into the gazebo. Germaine had done what she needed to do, so he took the lead from my hand and tied it to one of the wooden posts. ‘Poo bag?’ He held out his hand and I gave him the bag, and he went out in the pouring rain to dispose of Germaine’s unmentionables.

I sat down – not on the same bench I’d sat on with Nathan; that would be too weird – and watched Tony make a fuss of Germaine before joining me.

‘So what’s going on?’ he asked.

‘I’m fine. I just didn’t realise it was raining and I left my coat inside,’ I said. He laughed.

‘I know you’re all right; you always are,’ he said, and I felt a little pang. Even my oldest friend doesn’t understand me, I thought in a moment of self-pity. ‘I meant the shoot. You’re Nosey Parker; you always know what’s going on.’

I forced myself to laugh. ‘I thought we’d stopped using our childhood nicknames, Snot Face.’

‘Yeah, yeah, I know how to blow my nose now but you still can’t keep yours out of anything interesting. Is it true about Jeremy?’

‘Why, what have you heard?’

‘He’s dead. It is true, innit? You can’t hide stuff from me. You know that…’

I obviously can, I thought. ‘Who told you?’

‘Faith did.’ He had the decency to look a little bit embarrassed.

‘Oh yeah? You two are very chummy.’ A thought occurred to me. ‘Are you here to see her?’

He went all the way through ‘embarrassed’ and made it to ‘defensive’ in about three seconds flat.

‘Yeah, well, like you said the other day, she’s still a good-looking woman, and we’re both single, and it’s been a while since … since I lost Cheryl, and I’m a grown man; I’ve got needs, just like everyone else, you know.’ He stopped and then muttered under his breath, ‘And nobody else is bloody catering for them.’

I looked at him for a moment, stunned, and then laughed.

‘‘I’ve got needs too’,’ I mimicked. He laughed.

‘Oi! Cheeky mare.’

‘I’m sorry, I just can’t… I mean, Faith? Faith? She’s not… You can’t really fancy her, surely?’

‘Are you jealous?’ He looked very amused.

‘Of course I ain’t bloody jealous!’ But I kind of was… I stood up so I wouldn’t have to look at him, in this