‘You can leave these with me, I’ll deliver them to the big house right away,’ Izaak says, taking them back, and it’s dawning on me that now I’ve delivered my commission, my holiday’s almost over.
The moment’s cut short by Mrs Crocombe bustling across the field ‘coo-eeing’ at us. She’s out of her ice-cream shop apron and in a floral sundress, and she’s with her daughter, and a man, presumably her son-in-law, and three curly haired, very excited children, all dressed in their summery best and looking forward to the hunt.
‘Have you heard the news?’ Mrs C. shouts out, long before she reaches the booth.
‘I was just about to tell her,’ Izaak calls back and I watch her increase her speed so she can be the one to deliver the gossip.
‘They’ve had ’em, you know?’ She’s out of breath as she reaches us.
‘Who?’ I’m drawing a complete blank.
‘The ones that have been going round the shops, the distraction thieves! They’ve stolen from Borrow-a-Bookshop, Astral Breeks, the fudge concession, and half a dozen other places between here and Truro. Police nabbed them last night at Launceston.’
‘The bookshop money? So itwasstolen?’
‘Yes! Keep up!’ snaps Mrs Crocombe. ‘A youngish couple too, a man and a woman. They’re professionals. She keeps you talking, asks for stock in hard to reach places or out the back and while you’re busy,whoosh, he’s got his hand in the till. Career criminals, the police said. It’s in the paper this morning.’
She hands over the rolled newspaper from under her arm and, sure enough, it’s front page news. I’m struck by the thought that not even one ounce of my being is wincing hoping I’m not about to see a photograph of Elliot and some mystery woman being cuffed and dragged into a police van.
The couple in the picture, taken from CCTV footage, are strangers to me. I don’t recognise them at all. If theywerein the shop it must have been on a day when I wasn’t around. That’s when the guilty feeling hits me as I remember the day I skived off down to the waterfall and then to the Siren with Daniel. Elliot must have been too busy to notice the thieves at work. If I’d been there none of this would have happened.
‘Somebody needs to tell Elliot,’ I say, turning away, dazed and reeling. There’s no signal up here for my phone and my feet are already carrying me back towards the village where network coverage is better. Izaak calls out behind me, telling me to make sure I come back to say goodbye later, and I catch the fading sounds of Mrs Crocombe suspiciously asking who Izaak’s new friend is. I wish I could be there to watch as he explains and the nosey old matchmaker has to concede to even more lost bets.
I’m holding my phone at arm’s length, searching for a signal as I go, the crowds of happy holidaymakers and locals streaming past me as I walk against the tide. Anjali was right. Everyone seems to be going to the fox and field event. Just as I reach the visitors’ centre car park, my phone rings. When I answer, a voice that makes my stomach flip asks, ‘Where are you?’
‘Elliot! I’m up at the big house.’ I find myself rambling. ‘The estate hunt starts in a few minutes and I was delivering the cookies Minty ordered. What are you doing? Where on earth are you?’
‘I’m at the bookshop.’ His voice is grave and desperate. ‘I need to see you…’
My heart’s racing and my pace quickening. He’s here! He came back. Down the line I hear the sound of him locking the shop door and his boots clomping as he marches, presumably, towards me. ‘Hold on, did you say a hunt? What kind of hunt?’ he asks.
I think of my batches of gingerbread biscuits, Minty’s commission, sweet little foxes iced in orange and white, sixty pairs of black beady eyes behind individual cellophane wrappers. ‘Fox, I guess,’ with a shrug. I’m about to say, ‘Fox hunting’s banned, though, so it can’t be that, surely?’ but Elliot’s hung up.
What the hell? ‘Elliot?’ I keep the phone to my ear, calling out to no one at all. What’s he doing now? I don’t understand anything this guy does anymore. What I do know is that I’m running.
I clear the crowds entering Minty’s estate and I race across the visitors’ centre car park, where there are only a few stragglers unloading their kids and picnic baskets and making their way to the event.
I’m not even trying to remember when the last time I ran was or paying too much attention to my heart pounding and my lungs straining; all I’m thinking about is Elliot, and where he is, and why he’s here, and what he’ll do when we meet again.
I know what Iwantto happen.
I want him to open his arms and gather me up into the kind of hug that lifts you off the ground and I want to hear him apologise and explain where he’s been and what exactly the heck is going on with him and all his secrecy, and I’ll kiss him and there’ll be an end to this feeling of having been abandoned and not understanding why.
I’m dizzy at the thought of it, or maybe it’s the lack of oxygen reaching my brain as I run. I’ll be sweaty and red-faced when I see him and I don’t even care.
I make the turn onto Down-along, and to stop myself careering headfirst down the slope, straight past the bookshop and into the sea, I have to walk, slow and steady, gripping the garden railings and gates as I plod, trying to catch my breath.
Clove Lore seems even more magical for being utterly abandoned. Not one person is walking the streets or sitting in their tiny front gardens, and all I can hear are the gulls calling from the rooftops and the waves down below me, and my heart’s making my eardrums pound a loud rhythm too, and over all that, and getting louder, comes the sound of boots.
The approaching noise stops me in my tracks and I find myself frozen on the cobbles, gulping and flushed and not knowing what to do with myself. All my inhibitions want me to take cover and hide, let Elliot march past me unseen so I can’t be hurt again, but my heart won’t let me.
First I see black hair flowing as he runs up the slope, then the stern set of his brows, taut jaw and straight mouth. All I can do is watch him approach. I’m stuck here, wide-eyed and feeling like a child, unsure of myself, shy and bewildered all at once.
He’s all in black of course, with the poise of a boxer and a ballet dancer etched into his movements, those thighs powering him up the hill, his amber eyes trained on me. He’s not smiling, and neither, I realise, am I.
The closer he gets the less I can do. The ball is firmly in his court because I’ve suddenly lost control of all my cognitive and emotional faculties. He’ll have to do the talking. Yet, as he reaches me, it’s clear from the determined look on his face he’s not stopping to talk, in fact he’s going to run straight past me.
‘Come with me,’ he growls as he passes and I see him reach for my hand. Instinctively I take hold of him and he practically drags me back up the hill. ‘Can you run?’ His voice is deep and husky – and sexy enough – to somehow trigger my legs into running again, and so we stride up the hill together, going God knows where.
