Beneath the Moon and the Stars (18 page)

He knelt down. ‘Would you rather stay here with Joy? The pizza has been ordered, and I’ll be back really soon.’

Lily wavered. ‘What kind of pizza did you get?’

‘Your favourite, ham and pineapple, and there’s chocolate ice cream in the fridge.’

‘I’ll stay and we’ll save you some pizza.’

He smiled as he stood back up. He scribbled his number in lipstick on a piece of paper and gave it to Joy. ‘Thanks, there’s money on the table for the pizza.’

He quickly kissed her on the cheek and ran out the gate, wondering why he’d felt the need to kiss her. Maybe Joy wouldn’t notice.

He heard Lily giggle as the gate closed behind him. ‘Uncle Finn just kissed you.’

He winced.

‘Yes he did.’

‘Does he love you?’

‘We’re just friends.’

‘He doesn’t kiss Casey like that.’

Finn nearly stopped to hear what Joy would reply to that, but he imagined it would be quite a lengthy reply.

Chapter Ten

Finn stomped back towards his house almost two hours later with Billy at his side. He was in a foul mood. Some people were so rude and Mrs Browne was by far the rudest, stupidest person he’d ever had the misfortune to come across. Why would she walk all the way home with Billy following and not turn round and bring him back? How could she not ring to say Billy had followed her and her bitch home? Billy had his collar on, with Finn’s number on the tag. How hard would it have been to phone him? Why would she leave Billy sitting outside her house for two hours and not do anything about it? It was only sheer luck that Finn had been passing and saw Billy scratching at the back gate. Obviously the bitch had been in heat. Mrs Browne had come out and laughed about how Billy had followed her little Princess home. Finn, who had been frantic with worry, had wanted to throttle her.

The pizza would be cold, he was starving, he had a headache, he’d barely slept whilst he held Joy in his arms the night before and was now really tired and the lovely night he’d had planned with his niece had been ruined.

He walked back through the gate and heard giggling coming from Joy’s. He went into her garden and the temper that he had carefully reined in when speaking to Mrs Browne snapped when he saw Lily, covered head to toe in a thick layer of mud. She looked like she had been at a festival – her hair, her face, every inch of her clothes was splattered in it. Joy, also covered in mud, was chasing her up the garden, obviously pretending she was a monster. Lily was shrieking, laughing loudly, the biggest smile splitting her face.

Lily saw Finn and launched herself towards him.

‘Lily no…’ Joy started but Lily had already splatted against his trousers.

He wouldn’t explode at Lily, this wasn’t her fault.

‘Uncle Finn, did you find Billy, oh there he is. We’ve had the best time ever, we had a water fight and then Joy fell over in the mud and I slipped on top of her and then we were laughing and doing mud angels and the mud was so cold and Joy was shrieking. Oh and Joy said that we could do a proper goodbye thing for Granddad with balloons and we can send notes to heaven for Granddad to read, we can do that can’t we?’

He kept his voice calm when he spoke. ‘Lily, it’s nearly time for bed, get undressed and I’ll be up to give you a bath in a minute.’

‘But you promised we would watch Shrek.’

‘We will, in bed, but only once you’ve had a bath.’

‘Yay! Can we have popcorn?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can Joy join us?’

‘No.’

Lily obviously sensed the anger coming off him because she suddenly backed off. She waved at Joy uncertainly and walked into the house.

Joy approached. ‘Sorry about the mud, I was just about to give her a bath myself and… Oh you’re really angry.’

His head was pounding and he could feel his heart racing. ‘You’re supposed to be the responsible adult, I do not expect to come back and find her looking like that. I trusted you to look after her.’

‘I did, she had a great time. It’s just mud, it will wash off.’

‘And what’s this stupid goodbye thing you’ve planted in her head. It’s down to her parents to help her with her grief, you shouldn’t interfere. You think because your parents are dead it makes you some kind of expert. Well butt out, it’s got nothing to do with you.’

Instantly he regretted saying that. He wanted to take it all back. It was just mud, and Joy had made Lily laugh like she hadn’t laughed in ages. He wasn’t even angry at Joy, he should have shouted at Mrs Browne rather than coming home and taking it out on Joy. And he’d hurt her with that comment about her parents, he could tell that.

For once, Joy didn’t have some smart comeback. After staring at him in shock she just turned away and walked back into her house.

Damn it. He really was scum.

*

Joy was waiting for a call from Alex. She knew he was out rigging explosives and some big car stunt for the latest James Bond film, but he had promised to call her as soon as he got in.

She had been in Bramble Hill nearly a week now, and though she had promised herself that she would make a go of it, the long term prospects weren’t good. There had been more poo posted through her letterbox that morning. She had popped down to the local shop earlier and had been pelted with eggs before she so much as put a carton of milk in the basket, and the volatile ‘friendship’ she had with Finn wasn’t really a selling point.

But where to go next? What was it exactly that she was looking for? How would she find it if she didn’t know what ‘it’ was?

Maybe she could move to Casey’s village. She had a good friend there and that at least was a start. Though if Arielle or him decided to make a go of this marriage, she guessed she wouldn’t really be seeing him a lot.

And what of Finn? With Casey still in her life, then seeing Finn would be quite likely too, and after tonight’s little episode she didn’t think she could cope with that anymore.

Idly, she sat on the bed, picked up her notepad and started sketching ideas for her next strike. A stag soon stood proud on the page, its liquid eyes staring out from the stark white background.

The phone rang and as she added the detail of his fur, she flicked it onto loud speaker.

‘Hello.’

‘Hi, you ok?’ asked Alex.

She stopped drawing for a moment. ‘Yeah, a bit worried, but I’m ok.’

‘Does Casey know? The conversation I had with him earlier about the CCTV was very vague, but reading between the lines, he knows.’

‘Yeah he does. I’ve not confirmed it but he knows. Al, I don’t want you to lie for me. Especially not to Casey, he’s your friend and CID, you could get into trouble. Just… if I’m on the CCTV, just give me some warning before you tell him so I can prepare myself.’

‘Of course I’ll lie for you; I’ll do anything in my power to protect you. Casey’s my friend but you come first.’

She smiled with love for him. ‘No, just tell me if you find anything and I’ll tell Casey. Then he can choose what he wants to do with it.’

There was a cough from the other side of the wall and she went cold suddenly, realising that Finn had heard every word they had been saying. Had she mentioned The Dark Shadow? No, she hadn’t, but still she had to be careful in case Finn put two and two together.

She quickly snatched up the phone and took it off loud speaker. ‘Hang on Al, let me take this call downstairs.’

She really didn’t need to give Finn any more ammunition.

*

Joy stared sleepily at the saucepan and its contents that smelt and looked like vomit. She had carved intricate pieces that were twenty feet long on fallen trees, she had scaled trees with very limited equipment to carve into the tallest limbs, but something as simple as cooking, was clearly beyond her. Maybe if she chopped her vegetables with a chainsaw she might have more luck.

Her puddings were legendary; crumbles, pies, cakes, trifles, tarts – she could do them all with her eyes closed. But something like soup just seemed to be beyond her capabilities. She had tried many times over the years to teach herself to cook, but whatever she made tasted disgusting. She had thought soup would be easy. But even she wasn’t tempted to try the vomit smelling soup de jour before her.

The back door was open and the black acrid smoke was drifting out, probably creating another hole in the ozone layer. The smoke alarm had finally stopped, though it was still echoing in her ears. It seemed she would have another microwave meal for lunch again.

Just then there was a knock on the back door. ‘Is everyone still alive?’

She turned round to face Finn, not sure whether she should still be angry with him. She really couldn’t hold a grudge for long but she was certainly still hurting over the whole Lily incident. He was holding a huge bunch of flowers and she felt herself soften almost immediately.

He stepped in, blocking out all the light temporarily with his enormous frame.

‘I’m really sorry about last night. I wasn’t even angry with you, it was the whole Billy situation that had riled me. I said some really hurtful things and I’m so sorry.’

He offered her the flowers, which she took. They weren’t even shop bought ones, these were handpicked from his garden – which just made them so much more personal. They smelt divine and were arranged beautifully.

‘Was Billy ok?’

‘Yes, he’d followed some bitch home and the owner didn’t think to call me and tell me Billy was sitting outside her house for two hours. I was so annoyed.’

‘I could tell.’

He winced at the dig. ‘I am sorry. Lily didn’t stop talking about you all night, how wonderful you are. You really made her happy.’

Joy smiled into the blooms and Finn obviously took this as a good sign as he came further into the kitchen.

‘Still friends?’

She hesitated but found herself nodding anyway.

He moved to the saucepan and pulled a face as he poked the contents. ‘What is that?’

‘Soup,’ Joy said, defiantly. ‘A… Moroccan recipe.’ She took a big spoonful and swallowed it. As suspected, it tasted like vomit as well. She kept the smile on her face. ‘It’s delicious, probably not to your taste though.’

He looked around at the chaos in the kitchen, the remains of chopped up vegetables sitting in pools of water or gravy and every single bowl, plate, pan, jug, knife, fork and spoon littering the surfaces. It was quite obvious to even the untrained eye that she had no clue what she was doing. She had looked in recipe books but they spoke of techniques and ingredients that she had never even heard of before, so in the end she had made it up, which was now obvious to Finn.

He started picking up the mess and loading the dishwasher. She supposed she should feel embarrassed but she couldn’t find it in her. ‘Do you want me to show you how I cook my soup sometime? I’m sure your Moroccan masterpiece is delicious, but… well it’s always good to have alternatives.’

She sniffed. ‘Well it would be nice to add to my wide repertoire of delicious recipes.’

‘Of course.’ He moved round her kitchen, tidying and wiping the sides and she realised that he still felt guilty. ‘How about tomorrow night, we’ll cook together and then we can eat it.’

Joy blinked at the sudden offer. They had gone from a vague ‘sometime’ to an actual date. The thought of working companionably alongside him tugged at her heart.

‘As friends,’ he quickly said.

‘Of course as friends, I’m not your type.’ She tried to supress the smirk.

‘Definitely not.’ His mouth twitched as he turned away busying himself with some imaginary stain. ‘I prefer blondes.’

She felt the smile growing at the stupidity of it all. ‘Good, I don’t really like big men.’

He turned back. ‘You don’t?’

‘No, not at all, I prefer my men quite short.’

‘That’s er great, I’m glad we’ve set the parameters. So tomorrow night we’ll just be two friends who aren’t remotely attracted to each other, cooking together.’

She nodded and he bit his lip to stop himself from laughing.

He suddenly took her chin in his huge, strong hand which sent another wave of desire crashing through her.

‘You look exhausted, didn’t you sleep last night?’

She wrestled with whether to tell him but didn’t have the energy or the incentive to lie.

‘Someone threw a brick through my window last night, when I came running downstairs I found this.’

She passed him the note she’d found wrapped around the brick telling her to ‘fuk off’. She didn’t know which was worse, if it was a kid, influenced by his parents to hate her or that the residents of Bramble Hill were illiterate morons.

‘What the hell is this?’

‘The villagers hate me.’

‘Right, this is going to stop. I thought the dog shit was a childish prank, I didn’t realise it had escalated to this. I should have done something before.’

‘I don’t need you to fight my battles for me.’

‘Well that’s good, what are you going to do about it?’

She had nothing. A fair few practical jokes and tricks had entered her mind – from writing rude messages in bleach on their perfect lawns to stealing all their garden gnomes or posting an ant nest through their letterboxes – but although it might make her feel better, it wasn’t going to solve anything.

‘Right, do you have a copy of your lease or the contract for the house, naming Joe as your landlord and you as the client?’

She went to a drawer and sifted through a pile of envelopes. ‘I thought about doing this myself, but they won’t give me a chance to talk.’ She passed him the contract.

‘Let me take care of this.’

‘Finn…’

‘You don’t have to be so fiercely independent all the time. It’s ok to ask for help now and again. You’re my friend, let me help you.’

At this stage she was willing to try anything. She nodded and he strode out, a man with a purpose.

*

Joy was on her way back from walking Darcy when she saw Casey up ahead, obviously on his way round to Zach’s again. She called him and then caught him up as he waited for her. She smiled to herself when he greeted her with what seemed a habitual hug and kiss.

‘How goes the wedding plans?’

Casey rolled his eyes. ‘That woman changes her mind faster than I change my underwear.’