Authors: Jill Mansell
Hester pinched a triangle of Marmite on toast.
‘All over, then?’
‘All over.’
‘Tuh. Lucky escape if you ask me. I knew that Muslim thing was never going to work.’
Millie shrugged.
‘It was worth a try.’
‘Are you upset?’
Honestly, some people.
‘Of course I’m not upset! If I’d wanted to live with him I would have said yes.’
‘Still.’ Hester sipped her tea and tried to look sympathetic. ‘It leaves you at a bit of a loose end, doesn’t it? What you need is a distraction.’
‘What kind of distraction?’
‘The cheering-up kind. I know, we can throw a party! A house-warming party.’
Millie rolled her eyes.
‘Hess, we’ve lived here for two and a half years.’
‘Really? Gosh, time flies when you’re having fun. Okay, we’ll go out then, have a good old Friday-night binge.’ Hester leapt excitedly off the polished wood loo seat, splashing tea on the bath mat. ‘We’ll hit the town, celebrate you finishing with numb-brain Neil, chat up hundreds of gorgeous surfers, and have the best time ever… a night we’ll never forget!’
Well, that had been the plan anyway. But then that was the thing with nights out, Millie reminded herself several hours later as she
took off her too-tight shoes and stuffed them into her bag. You never knew what kind you were going to end up with. It was a completely random thing. You could stop off at the wine bar for just-the-one in your awful office clothes and with your hair a disaster, yet miraculously end up having a truly fabulous time.
Then again, at the other end of the scale, you could spend four hours getting yourself tarted up, finally set out with adrenalin racing round your body and your hopes sky high… and what happened?
Precisely. Bugger all.
Which was, of course, exactly what had happened tonight. Oh, they’d had a good enough time, touring all the trendiest, most happening bars in Newquay and meeting up with loads of people they knew. But it had been, ultimately, a disappointment.
Like delving into your stocking on Christmas morning and discovering a year's supply of ravishingly wrapped… socks.
The moral of the evening had definitely been that you could meet a good-looking surfer but you couldn’t make him think.
It had been, Millie ruefully acknowledged, an evening sorely lacking in brain cells.
‘Ouch, my toes.’ Hopping along the pavement, clutching a postbox for support en route, Hester massaged her own feet. She knew from bitter experience that if she took off her shoes she would hurl them into the nearest hedge. ‘Still, that guy with the dark curly hair in the Barclay Bar wasn’t bad, was he? Did you fancy him?’
The guy with the dark curly hair in the Barclay Bar had punctuated every sentence with, ‘Know what I mean, man, yeah?’
‘No,’ said Millie, ‘I didn’t. He was awful.’
‘I thought he was cute.’ Reaching a lamppost, Hester leaned against it and kicked off her four-inch heels. ‘Ooh, bliss, that is sooo much better.’
‘Don’t take them off.’
‘I have to, I have to.’
‘Don’t throw them,’ Millie begged, though why she was even bothering she didn’t know. Hester had done this a hundred times, chucking her shoes into the nearest hedge or garden rather than carry them home. Sometimes, the next day, she would retrace her steps in search of them. If the shoes were still there, she fell on them with delight and treated them like returning prodigal children. If they were nowhere to be found, she popped into the police station—where they knew her well—to see if any had been handed in. Not that they ever were, but Hester enjoyed flirting with whoever was on duty at the time. And the policemen always seemed to enjoy it.
And after that, of course, Hester had the perfect excuse to go out and buy herself a new pair.
‘You like those, they’re your favorites.’ Millie tried to stop her, but it was too late—Hester was already in mid-fling. The first red and black patent leather stiletto sailed into the air, gleaming in the light from the street lamp. As it somersaulted back to earth, Hester hurled the second stiletto, letting go of the heel too soon. It shot like a guided missile into the bush next to them and—
‘MIAAOOWWW.’
‘Oh God,’ Millie's hands flew to her mouth in dismay, ‘you hit a cat!’
Hester, equally horrified, gasped, ‘I didn’t mean to! It was an accident—oh please don’t tell me I’ve killed it…’
Unable to look, she clamped her hands over her eyes as Millie crawled beneath the bush.
‘Is it dead? Is it dead?’ wailed Hester behind her. ‘I don’t believe this, I’ve murdered a cat, oh help, I feel sick…’
The next moment there was a rustle of leaves and a white cat snaked towards Millie, investigating her with elaborate caution before rubbing his head against her outstretched fingers and beginning to purr.
‘You’re okay, the cat's here, he's fine,’ Millie called out. No blood, no broken bones, no apparent concussion; the noise he had made appeared to have been nothing more than a yowl of alarm.
‘Phew, thank goodness for that.’ Hester breathed a huge sigh of relief. ‘I thought I’d murdered it.’
The cat was now busy licking Millie's hand. He was definitely unhurt. Aware that she was kneeling on a damp, mulchy carpet of leaves, Millie began to wriggle out from under the bush bottom-first. As she did so, her left wrist brushed against something smooth.
‘White cotton knickers,’ Hester complained behind her, evidently having recovered from her shock. ‘You came out tonight wearing plain, white cotton knickers. Honestly, no wonder you didn’t meet anyone nice.’
Scrambling to her feet, Millie tugged her skirt down and shook damp leaves out of her hair.
‘I wasn’t actually planning on showing anyone my knickers.’
‘That's not the point. It's a state of mind. Wear sexy underwear and you automatically
feel
more attractive, so men will automatically
find
you more attractive, and before you know it you’ll have hordes of them panting at your heels—’
‘Unlike you, because you’ve just thrown your heels away,’ Millie pointed out. ‘Anyway, never mind my knickers. Look what I found under the hedge.’
As she held out the wallet she had knocked with her hand, Hester fell on it with a squeal of delight.
‘Wow! What if it's stuffed with cash?’
‘Hester,
no
.’ Appalled, Millie wrenched the wallet back from her. ‘You can’t steal someone else's money.’
‘Can’t we?’ Hester's face fell. ‘Okay, I suppose not. Tuh, you and your scruples.’ She tugged invitingly at Millie's arm. ‘Just think, there could be
loads
in there. Imagine if you opened it up and there was a hundred thousand pounds. And who would ever know we’d found
it?’ She gestured around the dark, deserted street. ‘We could buy a Ferrari and still have plenty left over for new shoes.’
Millie pressed the wallet to her cheek. The soft, well-worn leather was cold and damp and smelt of leaf mold; the wallet had clearly been lying there for a while.
‘We’ll take it to the police station,’ she announced firmly.
‘No!’ Hester let out a groan; the police station was in the opposite direction. ‘My feet hurt… they’re on fire… oh please, I can’t
bear
it.’
A mental image of Hester crawling on her hands and knees all the way back through the town flashed through Millie's mind. Not only crawling, but whingeing nonstop. Never mind the surfing championships; if Newquay ever decided to host the world whingeing championship, Hester would win it hands down.
Tucking the wallet into her bag, Millie said, ‘We’ll take it tomorrow.’
BY THE TIME THEY arrived home it was midnight and Hester was still fantasizing happily about how
she
would spend the contents of a wallet if
she
were ever lucky enough to stumble across one containing a hundred grand.
Except by now she was going to need twenty times that amount.
‘And a holiday, of course, have to have a holiday, maybe Florida, I’ve always fancied a trip to Disneyland… ooh, and a ring!’ She clapped her hands together with delight at the idea. ‘One with a massive diamond the size of a ping-pong ball, so heavy I can hardly lift my arm.’ As she spoke, Hester was pulling a bottle of Chenin Blanc out of the fridge, miming the impossibility of lifting the bottle
and
wearing the world's biggest diamond. ‘God, this is hard work, I don’t know
how
I’ll manage to drive my Ferrari, the weight of this ring's going to keep dragging my hand
right
off the steering wheel…’
‘Oh dear. Bump,’ said Millie, who was leaning against the microwave.
‘What?’
‘You. Crashing back to earth.’ Having opened the wallet, she now waved it at Hester. ‘Fifteen pounds.’
‘Fifteen?’ Hester's face fell several storeys. ‘Is that all? Are you
sure
?’
Millie wasn’t only sure, she was relieved. Hester could be horribly persuasive when she set her mind to it. And they were both deeply broke.
In the sitting room, over a tumbler each of white wine, they pored over the contents of the wallet.
‘Ha! And his name's Hugh! Perfect for you!’ Hester exclaimed, wagging a delighted finger at Millie. Then, peering at the full name on the driving license, she tut-tutted in disgust. ‘Fifteen
pounds
. Hugh Emerson, I hope you know you’re nothing but a lousy cheapskate.’
‘But a kind-hearted lousy cheapskate,’ protested Millie, ignoring the dig and leaping to his defense. ‘Look, organ-donor card. Only nice people carry organ-donor cards. That makes up for him having no money.’
‘Speak for yourself.
Nothing
makes up for having no money.’
‘Petrol card, AmEx card, Barclaycard,’ chanted Millie, flinging them down like a poker hand. ‘Don’t get excited, he’ll have canceled them by now.’
‘Video card,’ Hester shuffled on through the pack, ‘railcard, receipt from Computerworld… Good grief, Hugh, you’re a total geek! Get yourself a life, man! You’re how old?’ She checked the driver's license again. ‘Twenty-eight, for heaven's sake. You should be carrying condoms, not railcards. What kind of twenty-eight-year-old doesn’t keep a condom tucked away in a corner of his wallet?’
‘Um, the married kind?’ Millie had found the photo tucked between two petrol receipts. She held it up for Hester to see.
‘Good grief.’
‘Hmm. So what's the final verdict on wallet-man? Not quite so nerdy now?’
Together they peered more closely at the couple in the photograph. The girl, in her twenties, was startlingly beautiful. Her dark hair swung around her face as she laughed into the camera, her eyes sparkled with fun, and she had the figure of a model. She was wearing three things: a bikini, a scarlet hibiscus flower tucked behind one ear, and a ring on the third finger of her left hand. Her right hand, meanwhile, was busy making bunny ears behind the head of her
companion. Hugh—it had to be Hugh—sported an emerald green beach towel slung around his hips, a pair of dark glasses concealing his eyes, and windswept, streaky blond hair. Unaware of the bunny ears poking up behind his head, he was grinning broadly and holding a tropical-looking drink up to the camera. His other hand was around the girl's slender waist.
‘Yuk,’ Hester groaned. ‘The picture of happiness. Doesn’t it make you want to be sick?’
‘But you can’t call him a geek. You have to admit, he's gorgeous.’
Phew. Realizing she was in danger of drooling, Millie sat back on the sofa. Hugh might be wearing dark glasses, but there was no disguising those looks.
‘Fancies himself,’ Hester snorted. ‘Those kind always do—think they’re God's gift. I bet he sleeps around.’
‘You are such a cynic,’ Millie complained. ‘You don’t know, they could be the happiest couple in the world. They
look
as if they’re the happiest couple in the world.’
‘Men like that are never faithful. They don’t know the meaning of the word.’ Hester gave her a pitying shake of the head. ‘They cheat on their wives for the sheer hell of it, just because they can.’
‘In that case, why hasn’t he got any condoms tucked away in his wallet?’
‘Ha, probably just used the last one.’
Millie looked at the address on the driver's license.
‘He's from London. He must have lost his wallet while he was down here on holiday.’
‘Good,’ said Hester. ‘Serves him right for being unfaithful.’
Millie took another look at the photo; reluctantly, she decided that Hester was probably right. She had leapt instinctively to Hugh's defense because she so wanted to believe he was devoted to his wife and utterly faithful.
But it was like wanting to believe in the Loch Ness monster. You could believe all you liked, but the chances were, such a thing didn’t exist.
As she knocked back the last of her wine, it occurred to Millie that she actually knew quite a bit about Hugh Emerson… the charming, cheating, silver-tongued bastard.
But still kind-hearted, she reminded herself. Otherwise he wouldn’t be prepared to pass on any useful secondhand organs in the event of his death.
‘Never trust a man with better legs than yours, that's what I say,’ Hester declared. To listen to her, no one would ever think she had a perfectly good boyfriend of her own. Nat was lovely in all respects, his only drawback being the punishing restaurant hours he worked as a chef.
Plus, of course, the fact that the restaurant in which he worked happened to be five hundred or so miles away, in Glasgow.
Idly, Millie turned over one of Hugh Emerson's business cards. There was his mobile phone number. And right here, by amazing coincidence, was their phone.
‘What are you doing?’ said Hester.
‘Seems polite to let him know we’ve found his wallet.’
‘So why are you trying so hard not to snigger?’
Millie gave her an innocent look.
‘No reason, is there, why we can’t have a bit of fun first?’
It was half past midnight but the phone was picked up on the second ring. Anyway, Millie reasoned, good-looking twenty-eight-year-old Lotharios were hardly likely to be tucked up in bed and fast asleep by twelve o’clock on a Friday night.
In bed maybe, but definitely not asleep.