StillWaters:Book4oftheSophieGreenMysteries (18 page)

“Yes. Well, I’m better now.”

“How better?” I asked cautiously. A reconciliation?

“I talked to Rachel a bit. She’s nice.”

If terrifying.

“And Harvey?”

Angel took in a deep breath and let it out shakily. “You know how you can be in a room with someone and just not talk to them?”

Oh dear.

“Did you tell him?” I glanced up at Luke, who looked nonchalant but was no doubt earwigging furiously.

“I couldn’t,” Angel said. “I just couldn’t. He stayed about twenty minutes, then took Rachel back to wherever he’s staying.”

“Hilton,” I said automatically.

“And he’s not happy with you.”

“He’s not?” Fantastic.

“I don’t think he wanted you to bring Rachel to my house. I don’t know why he brought her over if he didn’t want me to meet her. You know, she’d been travelling for twenty-four hours!”

Yeah, and if you believe that, I have some land in Atlantis to sell you.

“Okay,” I sighed. “So how did you leave it?”

“We sort of didn’t. He said to Rachel, ‘We should go and get something to eat, you must be tired,’ and they went. Not even a goodbye. Sophie, he doesn’t love me any more!”

She started crying again.

“Oh God, Angel—” I looked up as Luke tapped my arm. We were at the front of the queue and some guy was holding out a bike to me. “Hold on,” I said to him. “Angel, honey, he does still love you. He’s just hurt and confused. You need to talk to each other. Tell him. He’ll be really happy. And Rachel will too. Come on. I need you to get married so I can flirt with all your rich friends at the wedding.”

Angel let out a sob, but it sounded like it was filtered through a smile. Luke was scowling at me.

I got onto the bike. The saddle was too low but I ignored that and steered one-handed out of the compound, wobbling as I tried to hold my phone, gathering dirty looks from everyone. Is there a law about cycling while talking on a mobile? I probably ought to know that.

“Where are you?” Angel asked. “Sounds noisy.”

“Uh. Well. It’s sort of work…”

“Work? But I thought—”

“It’s about that girl. In Cornwall.”

“Sophie, you can’t investigate every murder you come across.”

I lowered my voice in case one of the five was listening. “I can when said murderer has also tried to kill me. Twice.”

Silence. Then, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Yeah, ’cos I’m that insensitive.”

“Oh, Sophie. Are you all right? Where are you? You want me to come over?”

“No, I’m okay. I’m, er, at Eden. With Luke.”

“Oh, then the trauma can’t be that bad?”

“Would you go on holiday with Harvey right now?”

She said nothing.

“There you go. Angel, honey, I have to go before I fall off my bike. I’ll call you later, yeah, and you can tell me everything.”

“I’ll call you,” she offered. “SO17’s not paying your bill any more.”

I love that girl.

I put my phone in my pocket and tried to catch up with Luke, but the path had an uphill slope and I’m crap at cycling. Two revolutions and my legs felt like they were going to fall off.

Luke was waiting for me at a junction. “Which way, oh Eden-knowing one?”

I half expected him to offer me an apple.

“Straight on,” I panted.

“The hill wasn’t that steep,” he laughed, taking in my distress.

I gave him the finger.

“Straight on, then first left,” I told him. He cycled off ahead of me, and I went past the first turning and down the next one. Hah! Let him get lost.

I was chaining my bike to the rack when he turned up, cheeks sucked in, looking pissed off.

“Did I tell you the wrong turning?” I said innocently. “It’s been so long since I’ve been here.”

He bashed my arm. “Just for that, you can buy the drinks.”

I saluted. “Sir, yes, sir!”

Inside the sports hall, we sat down on a sofa so squashy I almost fell into Luke and flattened him. The sports bar was big and funky, with a massive plasma screen showing football, and on the other side of a leafy walkway were rows and rows of courts currently set up for badminton.

I looked at my large Diet Coke and tried to decide whether to drink it or chuck it over my head.

“Hot?” Luke asked, taking in my state of extreme dishevelledness.

I scowled at him. His cheeks were pink, but he didn’t look like he was dying. He looked healthy and invigorated. I feared I looked like a stuck pig.

I threw the straw away and tipped half the Coke down my gullet.

“So now what’s the plan?” I asked when I didn’t feel like I was dying any more.

Luke shrugged. “We check out the schedules and book up a few things. Get them talking.”

He made it sound so easy. I am not good at talking to people.

“What things do we have to book?”

“Whatever they’re in charge of.” He took a wad of folded paper out of his pocket and smoothed it out. “Jonathan Dempsey, tennis instructor 10-2, lunch break, then he does something called 3-G in the afternoon…”

I paled. 3-G was the bungee park.

“Laura Jones, beauty therapist. Does everything from facials to massage.”

“I bags her.”

“Thought you might. Where’s the spa?”

I waved a hand. “Not far from here. I’ll go and book some stuff in a bit. And I’ll pay for it,” I added, wincing internally, but some stubborn streak in me prevailed. It wasn’t that I was proud—I’d been sponging off my parents for years—but there was a relic of shame in me that I was taking too much from Luke and I’d never pay it back. No, screw that, I was proud. I wasn’t going to owe him anything.

The fact that I already owed him my life weighed heavily on me, and I tried to ignore it as Luke turned another page.

“Eleanor Duvalle, fitness instructor. Classes ranging from aerobics to yoga.”

“You can have her.”

“I’m sure you could manage half an hour of aerobics.”

I rummaged through my bag for the welcome pack and flicked open the activities booklet at the fitness page. “An hour,” I informed him.

“You used to do much more strenuous things with me for longer than that,” Luke said, and my whole body—I swear—went pink.

“Who’s next?” I asked, trying to sound unaffected and failing somewhat.

“Michael Varley, restaurant manager. In charge of The Host venue. What’s on there tonight?”

I flicked through the book. “Nothing. Mondays are quiet—all the guests are either coming or going. Tomorrow night is a medieval feast.”

“Oh, marvellous. Fancy some syllabub, Mistress Green?”

“Why, certainly, Master Sharpe. Who does that leave us with?”

“Gavin Beasley,” Luke flipped to the next page. “Childcare assistant at the crèche.”

“If you tell me I have to pretend to be a nine-year-old I’m going to have to hit you.”

Luke grinned. “There are not many nine-year-olds shaped like you.”

I took that to be a compliment.

“Do we know what any of them look like?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I guess we just have to take potluck we’ve booked the right one. Speaking of which…” He gestured to a snooker table. “You want a game?”

“I can’t play snooker.”

“Rubbish. When was the last time you tried?”

“Last time I came here. On my birthday. Chalker beat me 176-12. And all of my score was his fouls.”

Luke laughed. “Come on, I’ll teach you.”

He was a good teacher, as they went, but I’m still hopeless at anything that requires the faintest bit of co-ordination. It took me over a year to learn to drive, and I failed my test twice before scraping through with thirteen faults.

When Luke potted the black, his score was 216. Mine was 37.

“Not
as
bad,” he said fairly, and I did the mental arithmetic.

“You still beat me by a bigger margin.”

“Yeah, but you potted four balls.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Can we agree right now that you get the sports guy?”

He grinned and patted my head. “We can.” He looked at his watch. “What time do we have to get the car back by?”

He cycled off to return the car to its holiday spot in the big car park near the entrance, while I wandered down the path and up to the grand, Romanesque spa. Checking out the list of available treatments, I booked Wednesday for an entire day of pampering, including access to the various saunas and steam rooms on offer. It cost a hell of a lot, but hell, I needed it.

“Last time I came here,” I said to the girl behind the counter (her nametag, thankfully, did not say Laura), “I was treated by a girl called Laura. Is she still here?”

The assistant nodded. “Laura Jones? Yes, and she can probably do…let me see…pedicure and facial for you?”

“Not the other things?”

“Mmm, well, she’s got a bit of a busy day… I might be able to rearrange some things… I’ll see what I can do.”

I handed over my credit card and prayed forgiveness from my bank manager. Then I got back on my bike and made my way back to the villa. Luke wasn’t back yet, so I went upstairs and unpacked a few things, fed Norma, and sat down with a glass of wine in front of the TV.

Luke came in and scowled at me.

“It’s nice to see you too.”

“You shouldn’t be drinking.”

“I can have a glass of wine. It honestly won’t hurt me. Besides, I’m on holiday.”

“And you can’t get sick on holiday?”

“No.”

He rolled his eyes and got a beer out of the fridge. “What’s on?”

I was watching the Simpsons, but Luke started flicking through the channels.

“Hey, stop that.”

“This is boring.”

“It’s not boring! How can you say the Simpsons are boring?”

“You’ve seen every episode a million times.”

“You’ve seen every Buffy a million times, but you still watch them.”

“Comfort viewing.” He found a cricket match and left it on. I pretended to snore.

“Sophie, don’t be a baby.”

“How can you watch cricket? Cricket is the most boring sport known to man. They take breaks for tea, for God’s sake!”

“Cricket is about skill—”

“It’s about inventing stupid names for people failing to catch a ball.”

We glared at each other, then I stood up. “I’m taking Norma out.”

“Fine.”

I walked fast, with no particular sense of direction, but found myself outside the village centre anyway. I could hear the splash of running water, smell the chlorine from the outside pool. Tomorrow, I thought, I’m there. Hot pool, steam rising, stars above you—I swear, it’s magical.

I sat down on a bench and breathed in the crystalline air.

“…on Thursday?”

“Yeah. Bloody buggers wouldn’t give me the day off. It’s only sodding Christmas Day.”

“Jesus. I’m on a late Wednesday, early on Friday. They are such mean buggers.”

I looked around. Three employees in their fat green Eden parkas were standing on a bridge over the outdoor pool. A girl with curly hair rested against a lifebelt, scanning the water. The other two stood hugging themselves in the cold. One, a man, tall and possibly broad under his parka. He had brown hair and nice eyes, but he wasn’t that good-looking. The third was another girl, blonde hair escaping from its ponytail and whipping her pretty face as the wind caught it. All three wore the Eden sports uniform of green sweatpants and chunky trainers.

“What about Harriet?” the blonde girl asked the boy. “You seeing her this week?”

“This
arvo
,” he replied. “Can’t do much but I figured I could go for a ride. Abuse my discount.”

“Horse riding in this weather?” the lifeguard exclaimed. “You must be mad, Jon.”

Jon? Hello.

“No, he’s in lurve,” the blonde teased. “She coming up here on Thursday?”

“Not allowed,” Jon said miserably. “She’s only my bloody girlfriend, and I can’t see her on Christmas Day.”

The two girls made noises of sympathy.

“Makes you glad to be single, eh, Laura?” the lifeguard said, and my ears pricked up again. Jonathan and Laura? Nah, too good to be true.

They talked a little bit more, then Jon said he ought to be going. He had one group of insane bungee jumpers, then he was free to go and see his girlfriend.

Tying Norma to a bench, I raced inside the complex and found the nearest booking point. “Horse riding,” I gasped. “This afternoon.”

“Which level?” the assistant asked. “Beginner, intermediate, or advanced?”

Shit. Last time I rode a horse was abut ten years ago, it was ninety feet tall and I was fucking terrified every time it tossed its head. I’ve never really progressed from those pony parties a couple of my snootier friends had when we were seven or so. No doubt Jon and his horsey girlfriend would be excellent riders.

And then inspiration struck.

“One second,” I said, and got my phone out, to the visible annoyance of everyone around me. “Luke, remember we were going to book a pony trek this afternoon?”

He sounded sleepy. See, I said cricket was boring.

“What? Pony trek? Are you okay?”

“Only I couldn’t remember if you wanted the intermediate or advanced level. You ride a lot, right?”

“Er, well not recently, but—”

“So I’ll put you down for the advanced trek?”

“Sophie, what are you—”

“I’ll meet you outside the sports café in an hour, okay?”

“Uh, okay…”

I snapped off my phone and looked up sweetly. “One beginner, one advanced,” I said. That only left one uncovered, and either Luke or I would have to fake enough to get into that class if it was the one Jonathan was in.

There was a place left on each trek. I paid up, then realised I’d have to take Norma Jean back to the villa.

When I went outside she was being petted and fussed over by a group of children all bundled up like they’d been inflated, and although I didn’t mind and Norma was clearly loving it, I felt a flash of irritation that the parents of these kids had just let them crowd in on a strange dog. No doubt if they annoyed her and she bit them, I’d be in trouble. It was a good thing Norma was such a placid creature.

I unhitched her and yanked her away from her admirers, and we walked back up to the villa, where Luke was waiting for me, looking confused.

“Pony trek?”