Bet Your Life (10 page)

“Which one?” I leaned in to see. “Oh, that’s Mulberry, but it’s last season. I think it’s twenty.”

“Pounds?” Her voice was a squeak.

“Yeah. Too much?”

She dug in her pocket for her wallet. “Not what I was thinking. Here. Take this. Next time you open up, that bag is mine.”

“I’ll make sure no one else gets it.”

“I can’t believe I’m here and it’s not open.” Ella was actually pressing her face against the window now, desperately craning to see if she could spot anything else worth having. “You need an online shop. Although it would be seriously dangerous. Look at those shoes. Add to basket, please.” She gave a long sigh that fogged up the window in front of her.

“You don’t even know if they’d fit you—and can you get off the window, please? I’m going to wash it when I get the chance, but until then I’d like people to be able to see through the glass and your face is greasing it up.”

“How dare you.” She stepped back, though. “Jeez. You weren’t joking about being proud of this place.”

Some rubbish had blown into the shop’s doorway, making it look even more derelict than usual. I picked up the bits of paper and candy wrappers. There wasn’t a bin nearby, so I shoved them into the pocket of my parka. “It’s my pet project.”

“I thought that was investigating crimes.” Ella fell into step beside me as we carried on down Fore Street. We were making slow progress because we’d been stopping at almost every shop. Ella was examining Port Sentinel’s retail opportunities with extreme attention to detail.

“That’s just something that keeps happening to me. Or near me, really. I don’t go looking for crimes to investigate.”

Ella pointed at the other side of the street. “Is that the gallery?”

“That’s the one.” We crossed the road to the neat glass door and I peered in. “No sign of Nick but I can see Mum. Want to go in anyway?”

“Very much so.”

Mum was sitting behind a big desk in the corner of the gallery, leaning her chin on her hand and doodling. She looked up, beaming, when I opened the door and the bell jangled.

“People! People I know and like. Come in, come in.”

“We won’t stay too long,” I promised.

“OK. Probably wise.” She leaned back and peered into the back gallery. “Nick’s in there with some customers.”

“Isn’t that your job?”

“Supposedly.”

“Well, why doesn’t he let you do it?”

Instantly, Mum looked terrified. “Oh, I don’t mind. He’s better at it than I am.”

“How are you ever supposed to learn how to do it if he won’t give you a chance?”

“Jess, stop.” She looked at me and narrowed her eyes. “What’s different? Is that makeup?”

“I thought I’d make a bit of an effort, since Ella is here,” I said, blushing. “It’s just some mascara.”

“I can’t remember the last time I saw you wearing mascara.” Mum grinned. “You look good. You look like yourself.”

Meaning that recently, most of the time, I had not looked like myself. I got the picture.

Ella was wandering around the gallery, eyeing a particularly vivid shipwreck painting. “What is it about this place and violence?”

“Everyone loves a good shipwreck. In fact, the only thing better than a shipwreck is”—I turned her round to see the matching painting on the other wall—“
two
shipwrecks.”

“Where would you even put them? All that water. Your bathroom?” Ella shuddered. “Not keen. What’s out here?”

“The barn,” Mum said. “And my boss.”

“We’ll be quiet, I promise.”

We edged past a bronze statue of a deer with a four-figure price tag, and through the doorway to the back of the gallery.

“Wow.” Ella tilted her head back to take in the roof, which was half glass and wholly spectacular. Beams arched across the ceiling like the spars of a ship. The walls below were painted a dove-gray that set off the paintings and photographs to perfection. A glass flight of stairs in one corner ran up to a gallery where Nick had his office. I loved the mixture of ultra-modern design and the old, bumpy walls of the barn.

“Wow,” Ella whispered again. This time, she was looking at Nick, who was tall and dark and broad-shouldered, and had the rapt attention of a couple who seemed to be buying everything in the place. “Spectacular.”

Her voice was low and reverent, but Nick turned to glower at us.

“Let’s go,” I said, pulling Ella back.

“Wait. I want to see your mum’s pictures.”

I pointed at a collection of black-and-white prints hanging at the end of the gallery—landscapes, mostly, but also a close-up of Aristotle that made him look unbearably cute. “Those.”

“Can I have a closer look?”

“Another time,” I said, wary of annoying Nick any more. This time, Ella came to heel and the two of us slipped back into the front gallery.

“How’s he doing?” Mum asked.

“Selling. A lot,” I said. Working in Fine Feathers had made me a good judge of customers. These people were easy money.

Nick spent another half-hour with the couple, and at the end of it they’d spent upward of twenty thousand pounds. He walked them out to their car and Mum watched him go, her expression doleful.

“It should have been me.”

“It
could
have been you,” I said, “if you’d just stepped up.”

“Twenty grand. I can’t believe it.”

“Nor can I.” Ella cast a long, appreciative look at Nick. “He is a stunner. Those dark eyes. It’s funny, because I always like blue eyes, but his are pretty much black.”

“I know,” Mum said, stapling a copy of the invoice and sliding it into a file. “It makes it hard to know what he’s thinking.”

Nick came back and shut the door carefully. I was expecting him to look pleased, but his expression was unreadable.

“Not a bad morning’s work.”

“You should have let Mum handle it.” I blurted it out, ignoring the shocked gasp from Mum’s direction. “There’s no point in giving her a job if you don’t let her do it.”

“Were you waiting for an invitation, Molly?”

Mum looked down at the desk and rearranged the papers in front of her. I could tell she was trying not to cry. I felt terrible. If I could have taken back what I’d said, I would have done it, there and then. To fill the awful silence I mumbled, “She didn’t want to look as if you were desperate to make the sale.”

Nick glanced at Mum, then returned to me. “When are you going to come and work here instead of wasting your time in that dingy little shop?”

“I like Fine Feathers. Anyway, Mum’s doing a great job.”

“Jess”—Mum sounded tired—“it’s all right.”

“No, but you
are
.”

“She totally is,” Ella said, gazing at Nick, hypnotized. He did look like something from a catalog. A catalog of ultra-hot forty-and-looking-good-on-it men, specifically.

Nick set off toward his office without answering. Over his shoulder, he said, “Molly, come and see me in half an hour.”

Mum’s face had gone white. I started after Nick and she hissed at me to stop, to stay where I was. “I can handle this.”

“Handle what?”

“I imagine I am going to get the sack. I’m no good at it, Jess. And he knows it.” Mum started tidying the desk in front of her, shuffling pages together. “There’s nothing you can do. I’ll just have to find another job.”

“But didn’t Jack say there weren’t any?” Ella asked.

“He did, and he was right.” I bit my lip.

“Nick doesn’t have to employ me, Jess. If I can’t find a job, Tilly will probably let us stay until the end of the school year. Then we’ll have to go back to London.”

“Which would have certain advantages,” Ella pointed out. “You could come back to school. Pick up where you left off.”

For some reason, that didn’t sound terribly appealing. I liked my new life, heartbreak aside.

It was a shame I hadn’t realized that until it was too late.

*   *   *

The rest of the tour of Port Sentinel didn’t really happen. Ella and I were feeling subdued after what had happened in the gallery, so we made our way to Mario’s, a coffee shop on the seafront. It was a perfect time capsule, decorated in the 1950s and never refurbished. The red leatherette seats in our booth were ripped, with yellow foam poking out through the holes, and the round white light that hung over our heads was chipped, but it had character. We hadn’t been there for five minutes before Hugo made an appearance, sloping in with Petra behind him.

“What a surprise. Do you mind if we join you?”

“Of course not.” Ella scooted sideways to make room and he folded himself into the seat beside her.

Petra sat down beside me, hunched in her jacket. “I don’t know why Hugo said it was a surprise. We just asked Aunt Molly where you’d gone and she sent us here.”

“Shut up, Petra,” Hugo said calmly.

“He’s playing it cool,” I whispered to Petra, loudly enough for both Ella and Hugo to hear. Ella blushed and Hugo gave me a look that could char paper.

“I’m going to die of caffeine withdrawal if we don’t get a waitress over here soon,” he said.

“We’ve already ordered,” Ella said.

Petra’s nose was running and she kept sniffing.

“What’s up?” I asked quietly.

“I was just going to ask you that.”

“Mum has work trouble. She thinks Nick is going to sack her.” Even saying it made me feel sick. “Your turn.”

“I just can’t stop thinking about Seb. I mean, what if he dies?”

The waitress was leaning over the table, setting Ella’s hot chocolate down in front of her. As Petra spoke, her hand jerked and the cup overturned. A tide of brown, steaming liquid spread across the table. I grabbed a handful of paper napkins from the dispenser and tried to mop it up before it ran over the edge. The waitress had pulled a cloth out of the waistband of her apron and was dabbing at the other side of the hot chocolate lake. She looked as if she was going to burst into tears.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“No harm done,” Ella said nicely. “At least you missed me.”

“I’ll get you another one straight away.” Her hands were shaking, I noticed.

“And a coffee for me, Lily. Black.” Hugo was playing no active part in rescue operations, which was typical. He was leaning back with his arms folded, staying well clear of the sticky mess.

“Anything else?”

“A Coke for me,” Petra said. “But there’s no hurry.”

Lily nodded, biting her lip. At Mario’s the waitresses wore their hair up with little white caps perched on top. It was a properly old-fashioned look, and it suited her, even if it didn’t really go with her nose stud. The hoo-ha with the hot chocolate had distracted me, but now that I looked at her properly, I realized that I knew her from school. She finished wiping the table and hurried away to the counter.

“Lily Mancini. Mario’s daughter?”

“Granddaughter,” Hugo corrected me. “She works here at weekends and during the holidays.”

“Nothing like a family business to keep you busy. Still, I’m sure they’ll forgive her for spilling a drink on us.”

I watched her fiddling with the enormous coffee machine. In school she was all dark eyeliner and attitude. At work, she was scrubbed clean, and the only things that hinted at rebellion were her piercings. She had three in her left ear and five in her right, mostly through the cartilage at the top. I had only been able to endure getting one there, it hurt so much. I admired her commitment. Without the heavy makeup I could see how pretty she was, with a cute snub nose and a beautiful mouth. She had classic Italian coloring—dark hair, brown eyes, and skin that tanned easily. I’d always seen her looking sulky, but currently she looked more worried than touchy.

“It’s just typical that it was my drink,” Ella said sadly. “I attract disaster.”

“No one died.” Hugo dropped an arm around her shoulders, ultra-casually, and gave her a quick, comforting squeeze. Under the table, Petra’s foot connected with my anklebone and I bit the inside of my cheek, trying not to react.

It was one of the other waitresses who brought the drinks in the end. I looked around and saw Lily standing by the kitchen door, talking to the manager who, on closer inspection, had to be her mother. Lily had one hand to her head and looked upset. Her mother nodded and walked away as Lily took the cap out of her hair. Going off duty early, with a bad headache. I felt sorry for her, and glad that we hadn’t made a fuss about the hot chocolate, when it had just been an accident.

“So have you found anything out?” Petra’s eyes were fixed on me as if she was waiting for me to perform some sort of trick.

“Since this morning? I haven’t had much of a chance. I’ve been a bit busy with Ella.” I glanced across the table, but Ella and Hugo were deep in conversation and weren’t paying attention to us. “I was sort of counting on starting with Seb’s phone. Has Beth had any luck with getting hold of it?”

Petra shook her head.

I considered my next move. It involved the customers sitting at a table in the window, and it was almost certain to be a failure. I levered myself up to stand on the seat and climbed out of the booth, more or less over Petra.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

Mario’s was full of people from school. I was aware of them watching me as I walked across the café—out of the corner of their eyes or with frank, open interest. Port Sentinel was that sort of place. Everyone would be hoping for a scene, and I just hoped they weren’t going to get one.

I don’t think either Claudia or Immy were aware I was in the café in the first place, and even if they’d noticed me, they would never have expected me to come and speak to them, let alone pull up a chair. They were sitting with Darcy Gray, who had been Freya’s best friend, and owed me, big time. She was wearing bright patterned trousers and brogues and a white shirt buttoned up to the neck: very much the fashion student, which was exactly what she wanted to be. Dress for success was her life plan in a nutshell. I made eye contact with her as I sat down.
Help
.

They had the remains of their lunch in front of them and I hoped they wouldn’t just get up and leave. The first thing Claudia and Immy did was turn and stare at me with matching expressions of shock and disapproval. Darcy just looked surprised, and more than a little intrigued.