Cal’s stare turned cold. ‘No.’ Then he turned to me. ‘Let’s get out of here. It’s beginning to smell bad.’ The room started to empty as everyone began to filter out into the corridor, chatting and even laughing. It had begun to take on the air of a Women’s Institute outing, several people banding together and talking about going off to Betty’s for tea as though this had been a coach trip to a stately home rather than, well, what it had been.
‘Hey, Willow. You can’t leave me here!’ Luke writhed on the bed. ‘At least unlock the cuffs, eh, babe? Come on, for old time’s sake?’
I hesitated. Tried to think of a pithy leaving statement, but settled for ‘fuck off, Luke’ before following Cal out of the door and into the corridor, where I leaned on the wall and panted with relief.
Cal held my hand until I calmed down. ‘You were incredible there, Will,’ he said. ‘Just incredible.’
‘I didn’t do anything, it was the others. How the hell did the boys manage to find them?’
‘Give Dix anyone’s email address and he can find their phone number. Don’t ask how, best not to know. We got hold of most of the women that Luke had done the bad thing with, I’m only glad that they were all keen to stand up and tell their stories. Looks like they’re all feeling better about themselves now they realise that he was pretty much a professional at scamming women. Except Nadine, of course. I think she still half-believes he was telling the truth.’
I shook my head. ‘Poor Nadine.’
Cal smiled. ‘Oh, I don’t know. She was getting on quite well with Clive while we were waiting for you to give the nod. I don’t think she’ll be alone for too long.’
Katie and Jazz bounced up alongside us. ‘Way to go, Will.’ Jazz high-fived me. ‘That’ll show men that they can’t fuck you for money.’
A momentary silence. ‘I don’t think that’squitewhat you mean.’ Katie pulled a face. ‘But we understand.’
‘I think,’ I added.
‘Right.’ Cal rubbed his hands together. ‘I’ve got this shockingly good recipe for lamb passanda that I’m really keen to try out on people who aren’t likely to die of it, so, all back to our place?’ And he closed his arm around my shoulders, leaning on me slightly to keep his balance.
Ash came alongside me. ‘So, where’ve you been then, you dirty stop out?’ I asked.
‘You aresonot going to believe it.’ Ash leaned down to whisper. ‘But you know what Flint was saying? About Ganda’s inheritance?’
‘What, the waders stuffed with tenners were they?’
‘Better than that. While I was dumping them this guy came up to me — oh, gods, Will, he wasgorgeous— and asked if he could have them. Turns out, he’s a shoe designer, right. His name’s Simon, he lives in Leeds, he wants to work on some designs based on my rubber waders and, I can hardly believe this myself,he’s invited me to help him.’
‘And you know what about shoe design?’
Ash shrugged. ‘I can learn. Anyway, for Simon I’d learn to slaughter pigs with my teeth. I really think’ — and he lowered his voice even further, with a furtive glance at Cal — ‘that he might be The One.’
Without looking over, Cal squeezed my shoulder, very slightly. ‘I think that’s fantastic, Ash,’ I said honestly.
‘Fantastic? It’s a bloody miracle.’ We’d arrived at the cars by now. ‘Are you really going to leave that guy naked and tied to the bed, Will?’
‘Of course. He deserves it. Why?’
My brother gave me a sidelong glance. ‘Do you think we should scare him a bit more? Just to make sure?’
‘What are you planning? Ash?’
‘I’m not going todoanything.’ Ash turned round and headed back inside. ‘He issonot my type. I’ll just, you know.’ He scrabbled about and dug his phone out. ‘I reckon some YouTube footage, a bit of naked babe there chained to the bed with some of your women there telling what happened to them? Just in case the whole court case sinks. We’ll keep it in reserve, but — should make sure he can’t get off with the whole thing if everyone changes their minds about giving evidence in court.’
Brandishing his phone, Ash disappeared back towards the honeymoon suite.
‘You’ve got to admire a mind as devious as that.’ Cal gave my shoulder another squeeze as we found the Micra hidden away behind a convertible Mercedes.
‘Yep. Not just bent, totally warped,’ I said happily. ‘Right. To the lamb passanda, Jeeves, and don’t spare the horses.’
Cal doffed a non-existent hat and muttered, ‘Yes, milady.’
Sitting in the front of the Micra as we led a procession of cars down the hotel drive, I closed my fingers around the matchbox in my bag and heard the slight, distinct rattling of the nose within. I slid open the tray a fraction and smiled inside.
‘What are you grinning at?’ Cal risked taking his eyes from the road for a second.
‘Just my good luck nose.’
‘Hey, don’t try to outweird me.’
I closed the box up and let it fall back to the bottom of the bag. ‘Wouldn’t dream of it, Cal.’ I rested my head. ‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’ But in the back of my mind a tiny thought took wing. Ganda had known what I needed. Somehow. And it wasn’t what I thought Iwanted. Wasn’t money, it wasn’t Luke — it was this skinny, dark-eyed lunatic currently hunched over his steering wheel, blowing imaginative curses at the trafficand occasionally throwing brilliant glances my way. Ganda had known, and somehow he’d got it for me.
As Katie would have said, I was one lucky, lucky bitch.
THE END
