The red curtains on the barge were still drawn when Kelsey reached Mirren’s bedroom window and tapped at the glass. ‘Wakey wakey, Mirren!’
Once Kelsey had roused her friend and got her to open the hatch for her to climb inside they stood looking at each other in the brash light from the sconces.
‘I brought you some breakfast,’ Kelsey said, handing a coffee to Mirren who was shivering in a baggy t-shirt.
‘We’re talking?’ she replied, sheepishly.
‘Of course we are. I’m sorry I was short with you on Boxing Day. I shouldn’t have told you to leave like that, but once I found the ring and everything… I just needed a bit of space.’
‘It’s me that’s sorry.’ Mirren looked dejected and as though she’d barely slept. ‘I didn’t mean for it to go like that. I swear me and Adrian had already decided to stop looking for information about Jonathan before we’d even found any but it was too late; Mr Ferdinand was suddenly there spilling the news and we couldn’t pretend we hadn’t heard it.’
Kelsey threw an arm around her. ‘It’s all right, honestly. It’s done, isn’t it? I shouldn’t have set you on looking for clues, I got carried away dreaming about reuniting Jonathan with his dad. I should have gone with my gut and told Jonathan our hunch right at the start instead of carrying on like a shit Nancy Drew.’
Mirren laughed with relief, grateful for the attempt at humour.
‘Have you heard anything from Jonathan yet? He must have landed by now.’
‘Hours ago. I tracked his flight online, but no, nothing yet.’
‘I returned Adrian’s phone, he must have found it by now, and I’ve left him messages. I told him how upset Jonathan is, how he ran off like that. I’ve no idea what Adrian’s planning to do. I don’t know how else to find him. I don’t even know where he lives!’
‘It’s OK. I don’t think there’s anything else we can do right now. Listen, you’ve got the day off, right?’ Kelsey wanted to change the mood before Mirren could start up with the apologies again.
‘I do.’
‘We’ve got work to do then.’ Kelsey unloaded the bags onto the little table in the gallery space, then rubbed her hands to warm them, scanning the empty walls. ‘Let’s get this exhibition sorted. It could take a few days. Reckon that’ll keep us out of trouble for a bit.’
Mirren grasped the hammer and the spirit level from Kelsey’s materials. ‘All right, you can be the gaffer. Just tell me what to do.’ She inhaled a breath, preparing to work. Kelsey only looked her over and laughed.
‘You can put some bottoms on for a start and then there’s bacon rolls to eat; can’t work on an empty stomach.’
Mirren gripped the hem of her t-shirt and they both smiled with the relief and the affection that stretched back to their girlhoods.
‘Oh, and have I got a tale to tell you,’ Kelsey called through the boat as Mirren went to get changed. ‘And it all begins with a beautiful Spanish matador!’
The two friends ate and talked and worked on all through the short winter’s day and into the night, music playing, voices chiming with different strategies to display the photographs to their best advantage, both trying to avoid giving way to the anxiety in their hearts and marvelling yet again at the strength of their friendship, their very own fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken.
After Kelsey left later that evening with the entire exhibition plotted out and the first of the pictures already displayed on the barge’s low walls, Mirren laid her tired body on her bed and for the first time that day reached for her phone. She’d have sat and stared at it all day long if Kelsey hadn’t turned up and she wouldn’t have missed the calls from Adrian. As she was deciding what to do with his voicemails – did she really need to hear any more lies? – the phone rang in her hands.
‘Jesus Christ!’ she flinched. She hadn’t realised how tense she still was from the revelations of the day before, even though she’d spent the night cursing herself for letting her resolve slip while nursing a growing anger for Adrian, the man who knew she had sworn off men but still pursued her, acting kind and considerate when really he was only after one thing, and he’d got a newspaper scoop into the bargain.
It didn’t matter how many times she flicked the phone to ‘busy’ he rang again and again until at eleven o’clock she gave in to her rage and answered, ready to unleash her worst words upon him.
‘Thank God! Mirren. It’s me, Adrian.’
‘You’ve got a lot of nerve ringing me all day. Where have you been since the twenty-sixth? I was trying to reach you? Do you know the trouble we’ve caused?’
‘I’m sorry, I’ve been working a lot of lates.’
‘At the paper?’ she interrupted.
‘Yes, but—’
‘Mr Ferdinand said he’d see you on the twenty-eighth, that’s tomorrow. What did you have to do at work that was so urgent yesterday?’
‘On Boxing Day I went back to the offices. I wanted to look into Wagstaff and Olivia a little more.’
‘So youaregoing to publish the story! No doubt you’ve told the whole thing to Mr Ferdinand too.’ Mirren’s nerves rattled and she found herself pacing through the barge. Thank goodness she’d kept Kelsey’s – mistaken, as it turned out – hunch about Blythe and Wagstaff to herself, or else Adrian would now be dead set on exposing her secrets too.
