“He informed me that Kendric house will be sold in the not too distant future.” He glares across the table at Evan. “Your brother advised me to get out before I become liable for any additional expenses. This is not what I signed up for so I’m afraid, I have to terminate to contract between us.”
He digs into his pocket and produces a bunch of keys on a ring which he shoves at me and marches out.
“Good riddance to pigeon shit,” Alex says, spooning more cheese on his baked potato.
Evan glances around the table. “Has my brother been in touch with anyone else?”
“All of us.” Llewellyn says. “This morning. We didn’t want to tell you since it was all hot air and had no legal value. But it seems to have worked on Watson.”
Haneen laughs. “I’m sure that wasn’t his intention but Owen has done us a favour.”
“I called it from the start about Watson,” the professor says. “You should have fired him months ago.”
“Don’t you think I would have if I could?” Evan says going back to his lunch. “You know the partnership agreements don’t work that way. At least they didn’t. I’ve learnt a valuable lesson. From now on, every new partner will have a probation period and performance bench marks. If they don’t meet them, the agreement is voided.”
“And that,” says the Haneen. “Is the only useful thing to come out of Watson.”
The professor says, “o bryd i'w gilydd, mae anlwc yn rhoi genedigaeth i bethau da.” He looks around at the baffled faces. “It’s an old quote, occasionally, bad luck give birth to good things.”
“Amen,” Alex says with feeling.
As if the departure of Watson is a boost, people finish eating quickly as if they can’t wait to rush back to work.
I catch Raff’s eye and smirk. “So, saying Macbeth brought us good luck after all.”
Laughing, he gets up too and hurries out to finish working.
How wrong I was, how so so wrong. But we don’t find out until later that night.
Chapter Thirty
Saturday, 17th December, Kendric House, Midnight
Raff is not one of those people always attached to their phones. So, it’s only because we get stuck on the fifth day of Christmas.
We can’t agree. I think it’s five maids a milking, he says it’s five geese a laying. He has to get out of bed, find his phone in some pocket and google it.
“We’re both wrong, it’s five gold rings,” he says with a wide smile.
He’s still standing beside the bed, looking down at his phone, when the smile disappears.
“What?”
“Text messages,” he says.
“Who are these rude people texting you in the middle of the night?”
He doesn’t answer as he quickly listens to a voicemail. Then very deliberately, he types something.
“What is it.”
“I have to go.”
He says this while coming back into bed. So I don’t get it.
“Now?”
“No, in the morning,” he says deadpan. “The filming schedule has been changed. They need me sooner.”
