“Can you believe the critics panned this film?” I said.
“Clearly they didn’t appreciate the subtlety of the performances. Which are so subtle, I’m not even sure they meet the dictionary definition of the wordperformance.”
“Who gets the best-actor gong?”
“What’s the car called again?”
“The General Lee.”
“The Oscar goes to General Lee.”
On-screen, Jessica Simpson was flirting with two police officers like someone who had learned how to flirt by watching bottom-shelf offerings on Pornhub. Ludo was in fits of laughter. It shook the bed and made the empty crisp packet crinkle loudly in its hidey-hole between our legs on the duvet. When we got too cold, we had jumped under the covers, propping ourselves up against the headboard with pillows. Ludo’s sleepwear was, predictably, actual button-up pyjamas. I normally just wore pants to bed—of the boxer-brief variety, rather than American-style boxers—which seemed a little too revealing for the occasion. So I had pulled on a pair of grey joggers and a sweater, which I’d brought in case the evenings got cold or I felt like walking along a beach giving free dick print to the local lads. (Hey, a girl’s got to eat—and I’d be fresh meat up here.)
Ludo roared with laughter. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. We were sitting apart, but I could feel the warmth of him. He might have been a posh knobber with absolutely no idea how the world worked, and we might have had absolutely nothing in common except our jobs, but it felt nice being this physically close to another boy. How long had it been? Three months? Six? The sound of engines revving and wheels spinning filled the room. I felt Ludo move, and I turned to find him looking at me. His face was just inches from mine, his eyes sparkling pools of indigo.
“Do we have any more crisps?” he asked, breaking the spell.
“No, we’ve eaten all Mrs Gallacher’s fucking crisps.”
“Right. Onto Mrs Gallacher’s fucking biscuits, then,” he said, pausing the film and launching himself out of bed and over to the dresser, where the kettle stood. “Cup of tea?”
An hour later, the film was finished and Ludo was fast asleep. I climbed out of bed. He looked cute in his rumpled grampa pyjamas. I gently removed his glasses and put them on the bedside table. Then I grabbed my laptop and slipped out the door, reasonably confident I’d fixed the mess I’d got myself into by making an enemy of Ludo Boche.
Chapter16
Ludo
Sunny and I sat beside each other at Mrs Gallacher’s kitchen table while she made the kind of fry-up that sends my arteries screaming in search of a salad.
“You boys want any more fucking coffee?” she said.
“Yes please, Mrs G,” Sunny said.
“Help yourselves, dearies. The pot’s on the side.”
It was the kind of filter coffee that sends anyone wholikescoffee screaming in search of a hipster café. The kind I vomited all over Krishnan Varma-Rajan. My stomach churned. It would have to do. I wasn’t terribly sure they did hipster cafés in Shetland. I was pretty sure all the beards and plaid shirts I’d seen around the island were probably just, you know, actual fishermen and farmers.
Sunny was reading the newspapers on his tablet. It was a very domestic, very homely, scene. If you ignored Mrs Gallacher’s language. I got up, grabbed the coffee pot, and topped up our mugs.
“What page did you get?” I asked.
“They didn’t run it. It might be on the website. You?”
“Picture story on page nine,” I said. I’d checked the online edition before coming down for breakfast. “I think the photo of the puffin sold it. They didn’t use much of my copy.”
“Surely Torsten and Carstairs didn’t drag us all the way up here for bloody puffins,” Sunny said.
“Language,” Mrs Gallacher said.
Sunny was incredulous. Behind her back, we shared a smile.
“Sorry, Mrs G.” Sunny stirred his coffee, and I put the pot back on the side.
Sunny continued his train of thought. “We’re political reporters. They better have something big for us today or JT will string me up from the rafters in Westminster Hall and use me as bait for a story about sex pest MPs.”
“Your mind is a dark place.”
* * *
