Amy looked on wistfully as a half-filled jar of saffron disappeared. She’d decided that everything in her fridge had to go the minute she’d noticed half an apple pie missing and a dirty plate on the sink. The police had agreed.
‘The shoes? They said it happens all the time.’ She rubbed her arms briskly to warm herself up. Although she was wearing one of Scott’s hoodies over her blue dress from the night before, she still felt chilled to her bones. ‘They said the thief probably has a girlfriend with the same shoe size.’ She sighed. ‘Either that or it was a woman or a transvestite with small feet. Whoever it was, I hope their toes pinch. Let me do that.’
‘You go clean up the front room. I’ll take care of this. If I don’t keep busy I’m going to punch something,’
Nodding, Amy left him to it.
It took the rest of the day and a lot of hard work to get everything back into order. It would have taken longer, but Jo and Stephen arrived to lend a helping hand just before lunchtime, brandishing a couple of pizzas and a car full of groceries. While Amy was initially grateful for their presence, the feeling waned over the course of the afternoon as both Jo and Scott’s outrage over the burglary migrated to a relentless barrage of nagging about Amy’s reluctance to renovate. Finally, pushed to her limit, Amy retreated to her bedroom to curl up on her freshly made-up bed and indulge in a pity party that was cut short after only a few brief minutes.
‘Amy?’ Stephen’s deep voice rumbled through the door. ‘Can I talk to you a sec?’
‘Just give me a minute, m’love.’ Amy pushed herself upright and quickly wiped her eyes. ‘Okay.’
‘Does that mean I can come in?’
‘Yeah.’
Stephen opened the door and let himself in, closing it behind him with a quiet click before taking a seat on the edge of Amy’s bed. His big frame caused the old mattress to dip comically, but neither of them commented. Instead, Stephen’s blond brows were beetled, his expression concerned as he took in Amy’s appearance and her dejected expression.
Amy quickly ran her thumbs under her eyes to catch any smudged mascara.
‘Don’t bother,’ Stephen said as she reached up to tidy her hair. ‘I’ve seen you look worse.’ He smiled wryly. ‘Actually, a lot worse.’
Amy grimaced at the memory of the day he’d witnessed their family meltdown on her front porch two years before. She’d been a wreck that day. She and Jo had learned just how little they meant to their mother in the most awful way possible when she’d chosen their violent father over them. Their mum had walked away without expressing any remorse or regret that Jo had been injured trying to rescue her or that she was leaving devastation in her wake.
The memory was still fresh enough to stab through Amy’s chest, bringing the tears she had just been fighting to the surface again.
‘Although you’re lookin’ pretty scary now.’
‘Gee, thanks.’
‘You’re welcome.’ Stephen smiled gently. ‘How’re you holding up?’
‘I’d be better if everyone hadn’t spent the whole day acting like I’m some kind of idiot.’ Amy reached over to her bedside for a tissue and blew her nose. ‘Break-ins happen all the time, but Jo and Scott are behaving like I’ve been asking for this to happen.’
‘Yeah, they’ve been pretty awful.’ Stephen nodded thoughtfully. ‘But you know they’re acting like that because they’re pissed off on your behalf and they’re worried about you. So am I, for that matter, but it doesn’t seem to be helping you much.’
‘No, it’s not. I know this is a lot to ask, Stephen, but could you get Jo out of my hair for a bit?’ Amy asked, feeling a wave of gratitude wash through her when he immediately nodded. ‘I mean, thanks heaps for driving up here to help, but I really need some quiet time right now to deal.’
‘Say no more.’ Stephen got up. ‘Want me to get Scott out of here too?’
‘Yeah.’ Amy felt relief wash through her, followed immediately by a wave of guilt. ‘I sound like an inconsiderate heifer, don’t I?’
‘Nah. Just someone who’s had enough.’ He quirked his mouth, his clear blue eyes crinkling at the corners. ‘I’ll get the terrible twosome outta your hair if you promise me you’ll get some security lighting and better locks. An alarm would be the best but I can see by the way you’re already shaking your head—’
‘No alarm.’ Amy didn’t want to tell Stephen she couldn’t afford the cost of installation right now. Although her businesses were doing well, she still had salaries and bills to pay, not to mention the exorbitant cost of completely rewiring the building housing Babyface and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes earlier this year.
‘I had a feeling you’d say that. So instead, I’m going to ask you to do something else for me.’ Stephen looked up at the roof which, despite its current water fastness, featured the stains left over from the old leaks Amy had repaired.
‘What?’ Amy asked warily.
‘If you’re not gonna get an alarm, at least get a dog, eh? Something with a loud bark and big teeth.’ He levelled a serious look at her that said he meant business. ‘Not a wimpy little rat thing. A proper dog. Burglars usually check out a place they’ve done over a few months later to see if the owner’s gotten a whole lot of new stuff. Make sure you have something that makes a ton of noise by then.’
Amy frowned. The police had said the same thing but still . . . a dog? ‘I don’t know . . .’
‘You want me yelling at you too?’ Stephen’s tone turned no-nonsense, his expression shifting to a formidable frown.
‘Nope,’ Amy said straight away. ‘I’ll think about it. Does that work for you?’
‘Nope. How’bout you just do it or Jo and I will get one for you?’ He smiled but his determination was clear. ‘Knowing Jo, she’ll buy you a psychotic Doberman.’
‘No thank you.’ Amy grimaced. She climbed off her bed and gave her soon-to-be brother-in-law a peck on the cheek. ‘Thanks, sweetie.’
‘My pleasure. Take your time. I’ll sort’em out, alright?’ With that, Stephen opened the door and stalked back down to the kitchen, booming, ‘Jesus Christ! Give it a rest, you two. You’re painful!’
Amy used the ensuing blissful minutes of stunned silence to pull herself together before venturing back out to the kitchen.
Stephen had snagged Jo around her waist with one well-muscled arm and was whispering something into her ear. From Jo’s scowl, Amy guessed her sister wasn’t too happy about what she was hearing. Scott was leaning against a kitchen bench gripping a cup of coffee and looking just as disgruntled. A foot shorter than everyone else in the room and dreading yet more confrontation, Amy forced a smile. ‘Any coffee for me?’
Scott thrust his cup at her. ‘Here.’
‘Gee, thanks.’ Her words were liberally sprinkled with sarcasm.
‘Amy?’ Jo asked, ignoring Stephen’s squeeze around her ribs.
‘Yeah.’ Amy looked from Jo’s face to Scott’s, her stomach sinking. They’d obviously gotten themselves worked up again in the few minutes she’d been out of the room.
‘What’s this about you having a one-nighter with a British comedian?’
‘Ben!’
‘Colin.’ Ben swiftly stalked across the Heathrow Terminal Five arrival hall to greet his long-time personal assistant, who looked like a sharply dressed marshmallow in a black Paul Smith suit and strawberry pink shirt. Not bothering with pleasantries, Ben continued speaking. ‘Before you ask, the flight was shit and I’m knackered, so you can save the excuses for why I’m here to fix this gargantuan cock-up until later.’
Well versed in Ben’s moods, Colin nodded, smoothing a hand over his neatly side-parted mousy brown hair. ‘I’ve got the car parked not far from here. Can I take that?’ He reached out a hand for Ben’s black leather Tumi carry-on.
‘I’ve got it,’ Ben growled, but thrust the duty-free bag he was carrying in his other hand towards Colin’s chest. ‘Laphroig Quarter Cask and a bloody massive Toblerone that I felt like an idiot buying. My gift to you.’
‘And the moisturiser?’ Colin enquired with a wide grin as Ben made a beeline for the exit.
The doors opened and Ben’s scowl turned positively feral as the ball-shrinking chill and oppressive greyness of home sweet home greeted his senses. Summer in England, wasn’t it grand? He spared some of his displeasure for his long-time friend and employee. ‘In the bag too. Never again, Colin. I know you love the man but he’s a sadistic fiend. You can tell Sharif that was the last time I buy him any duty free. If I had to rank excruciating experiences on a scale of one to ten–which way?’ Colin gestured to the right. Ben veered off and continued walking at the same pace. ‘On a scale of one to ten, buying male moisturiser in Dubai airport was a ten. Possibly the most unmanning experience of my existence.’
Colin chuckled, causing his second chin to wobble somewhat endearingly. ‘Sounds like fantastic material to me. Sharif says thanks.’
‘Yes. Well, there is that.’ Ben came to halt in front of his Mercedes SLK Roadster and held out a hand. ‘Keys.’
Colin handed them to him. ‘I’ve set up a meeting with Bright Star for four this afternoon and Ross wants you to drop in and see him over lunch.’
‘Ross say what was taxing his shimmering intellect?’ Ben slid behind the wheel, waited for Colin to climb in, then roared out of the car park.
‘Something about your last column getting a lot of positive attention. Wants you to do a series of sorts. There was something else too . . . not sure what it’s all about. He wouldn’t tell me.’ Colin averted his eyes from the road, wincing as Ben pulled out onto the M4 heading towards London and slammed his foot down on the accelerator.
‘Next time, get out the thumb screws. It’s what I pay you for and we both know Ross likes it,’ Ben said with his first smile of the day at the thought of a gentle soul like Colin trying to go head to head with Ross Crankshaft, newspaper editor and amateur rugby player extraordinaire. ‘What’s the time?’
‘Eleven.’ Colin closed his eyes and clutched his pudgy hands around Ben’s briefcase as Ben veered sharply around a slow-moving lorry.
‘Add seven hours onto that . . . six p.m., she might still be there,’ Ben mumbled to himself, pulling his phone out of his pocket and thrusting it at Colin. ‘Look up Babyface in my contacts for me, will you? Thanks.’ He cursed himself for not asking for Amy’s phone number, or her email address at the very least, before she’d scampered off on Saturday night. Now he was stuck trying to call her at work, the only number he had for her, with a seven-hour time difference.
He’d been looking forward to driving around on Monday and surprising her with flowers and a nice lunch if she was amenable, but instead he’d ended up trying to get sleep on an international flight back to the motherland. Not that he’d actually slept. Instead he’d been shadowed with a faint feeling of panic that in leaving Australia so soon after Saturday night, he may have cocked up on a grand scale. It shouldn’t matter after only knowing the lady for such a short time, but it did.
‘Got it,’ Colin announced. ‘Want me to call on speaker?’
‘Yes, please,’ Ben replied curtly, then cursed a few minutes later when the call rang out.
‘Try again?’
‘No,’ Ben sighed. ‘Let’s just get these meetings out of the way so I can get some sleep. I’ll have to try again later. For now, I need a shower and a shave. Reschedule my meeting with Ross to two. If he complains tell him I’ll have my lunch when I’m bloody well ready, then book me on a return flight to Perth tomorrow morning round ten. I don’t care which airline. I just want to get back.’
‘Ten?’ Colin’s incredulity was palpable. ‘That means you would have to be up around six. Six a.m. Are you sure? You haven’t been up before ten since you tried out breakfast radio for that week in two thousand and six.’
‘I have recently, as a matter of fact, and I’ll have you know that I did two weeks for that breakfast gig . . .’ Ben ignored Colin’s snicker. ‘And open that Toblerone while you’re at it. I’m hungry.’
A few hours later, Ben strode into Ross Crankshaft’s offices at the
London Enquirer
to find his editor lurking in his dull grey office, reclining on a battered leather chair, his feet up on a utilitarian desk as he munched his way through what looked to be salmonella in a pie shell. On the walls were framed, yellowing front pages that he kept around, along with his unnecessarily tired and weary furnishings, to fool the public into believing he was an impoverished, hardworking martyr devoted to spreading the truth to the nation. Ben knew otherwise.
‘You summoned me, master,’ Ben spoke from the doorway before making his way to the desk and warmly shaking Ross’s hand. Out of respect for their long-standing friendship, he did his best to refrain from grimacing at the tomato sauce that had inadvertently been transferred in the process.
‘Ben, you bastard!’ Ross grouched, picking up his pie again and settling into his chair. His wrinkled white Oxford cloth shirt had pulled out of his suit pants but he didn’t bother to tuck it back in. ‘We should be doing this in a posh pub.’
‘At my expense, I bet.’ Ben shoved a pile of books off a cracked and battered Chesterfield before taking a seat and truly taking in his surroundings. ‘What on earth have you been doing in here? It looks like hell after a nuclear holocaust. Suzy quit?’ He referred to Ross’s secretary of five years.
‘She left me.’ Ross’s expression turned morose.
‘A holiday, or eloping with someone with more hair?’ Ben ran his hand over his own head to take the sting out of the jibe. Ross had started going bald when he was twenty and now sported a clean-shaven pate that actually suited his mangled rugby player features, complete with off-centre nose, cauliflower ears and soulful blue eyes that never failed to impress the ladies.
‘Job over at the
Daily Mail
.’ Ross grimaced. ‘I’m still trying to replace her. Anyway, we’ll do the pleasantries later. Colin said you were strapped for time so I’ll get to the point.’
‘Is that possible?’ Ben feigned amazement as he propped an ankle on his knee and relaxed back in his chair.
Ross ignored him. ‘Your column last Saturday, about Alex Crane and that barber woman–what’d you call her? Babyface?–has gotten incredible feedback. The readers loved her and, as usual, loved to stick it up you. Gave you a complete roasting in the Letters to the Editor and in the Comments this week, both in print and online. It was brilliant. I want you to do more.’