‘Um … Actually, I’m meeting Penny for a drink.’
‘Oh, right. Okay.’ Regan couldn’t hide that she was slightly miffed not to have been included again. They’d only met each other thanks to her, and now she was being left out.
‘You can join us if you like?’ said Cleo, belatedly.
‘I need to get Elvis. He’s probably been driving Charlie round the bend. Another time?’
‘Sure.’ Everything felt a little uncomfortable. They said their goodbyes and went in different directions.
Regan spotted Charlie and Elvis on Black Rock Beach. She watched them unnoticed. Charlie was throwing stones and Elvis was chasing after them like a demented greyhound, going slightly potty every time one landed andseemingly disappeared into all the other stones on the beach. He was like a child watching a magician. As she drew closer, she could hear Charlie’s laughter carrying on the breeze – it was a wonderful sound.
At last, as if Charlie sensed her watching, he turned to look straight at her and she waved. This was a big mistake. Elvis followed Charlie’s gaze, clocked Regan and set off towards her at high speed, skidding slightly on the pebbles. On any other beach this wouldn’t be a problem, and Black Rock was a designated dog-friendly beach, but it was also home to Brighton’s naturists, which meant that Elvis was now careering through their small section of beach quite literally willy-nilly. Naked people were diving out of the way and body parts were swinging in all directions. Charlie didn’t know where to look. Elvis leapt straight over a sunbather, spraying him with sand. ‘Sorry!’ shouted Regan, which only seemed to draw the attention – and full-frontal views – in her direction. Elvis slowed down when he neared Regan, but instead of barrelling into her, something caught his attention: an elderly, naked gentlemen was bent over, folding up his picnic rug. Momentarily distracted, Elvis gave the gent his usual greeting of a nose in the nether regions. Regan thought the poor man was going into space, he jumped so high. But then a cold, wet nose up your bottom was always going to be a shock. The man turned around quickly and Regan just managed to grab Elvis’s collar and stop him from having another sniff. Goodness knows what the poor man was going to say; he must have been furious.
‘I’m very,verysorry,’ she said, shielding her eyes from the dangly bits and trying to drag Elvis away, which was virtually impossible one-handed.
‘That’s all right,’ said the man, with a chuckle. ‘You’reonly saying hello, aren’t you?’ Regan peeped one eye out to see the elderly man was now making a fuss of Elvis. How awkward. She’d rather the old man were furious – that would have been far easier to deal with than his being friendly and chatty. ‘What’s his name?’ He smiled at Regan.
‘Elvis.’
‘Well, he’s got his sideburns all right.’
She stifled a nervous giggle and dragged the dog away. ‘He’s very sorry. Bye!’
Charlie was running towards them, holding his sides from laughing at the same time. ‘That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.’
‘You were no help,’ she scolded, before bursting into hysterics. They held onto each other for support as the giggles gripped them. Elvis sensed the excitement and began barking and leaping around.
‘Come on,’ said Charlie, putting an arm around Regan. ‘It’s your turn to cook. What are we having?’
She started to laugh again. ‘I was thinking of sausages but now I’m not so keen.’
The next morning Regan was dropping her jars off at the café and Penny was giving her a hand. ‘Have you got CCTV here?’ asked Regan.
Penny laughed. ‘Come on, you know how tight Mr Hughes is.’
‘What’s that then?’ She tipped her head at what looked like a bubble camera on the front of the coffee shop.
‘It’s a fake. Why do you ask?’
‘Me and Bernice are doing a bit of sleuthing. The police don’t seem that interested in tracking down Kevin’s killer … actually, that’s a bit unfair. They have done quite a bit, and they’ve checked the road cameras, but there’snothing that covers the crossing so we thought we’d do some investigations of our own.’
‘Ooh, good idea. The nursery a few doors down has a camera. A real one. But you wouldn’t want to see most of the footage they catch on it.’ Penny gave a chuckle.
‘It’s a start though. We need to see if we can catch a glimpse of the car speeding off. I can pinpoint the time so we don’t need to trawl through hours of tape like they do on the cop shows.’
‘I can ask them to check,’ said Penny. ‘We all want to catch this bastard.’
Regan shut the boot and paused for a second. Penny was looking tired. ‘Are you all right?’
Penny tilted her head to one side and pursed her lips. ‘Not great.’
‘What’s up?
‘Mr Hughes called me last night. He’s selling up.’
‘But you’ll still have a job, won’t you? This place is a gold mine.’
Penny was shaking her head. ‘He’s hoping to sell to a big chain.’ She slapped a fake smile on her face. ‘But at least he’s given me lots of notice so I’ve got time to look for something else.’
