“I was hoping we could grab lunch?” I said, rather lamely.
Sonia instantly brightened. “Yeah, sounds great. I’ll go freshen up.” She hopped across the room to a door at theback, which I assumed led to the staffroom and toilets. “Hope you’re taking me somewhere fancy.”
Just as she disappeared, the bell above the door in the room next to us chimed as Trevor led his customers out. “I’ll be in touch about the house on Stinkbottom Lane. In the meantime, do give our website a peruse, okay, bye for now.” The door closed, and Trevor’s very fine form walked up the steps to the room we were in. He saw me and gave a big smile.
“Mr Forrest,” he said, offering a huge hand. I took it and felt a guilty twinge in my nether regions. “How nice to see you, I was saying to Son the other day, ‘We haven’t seen your mate Arden in a while, how’s he keepin’ on?’, wasn’t I, Dhaps, love?”
His accent was as strong as his sister’s, and somehow the deepness of his voice meant it had a bit more aplomb.
“You were indeed,” she said, folding her arms and leaning forward in her chair.
“Dhapinder has been telling me how busy you’ve been,” I said.Too busy for early morning shagfests on your runs, I bet, I thought. She must have you on a tight leash these days.
Thinking of Trevor on a tight leash did nothing for my suddenly too-small boxer shorts, and I wiped the thought from my mind.
“Very,” he said. “But who complains about business being good, eh?” He gave me a twinkly smile that lit up his perfectly shaped, perfectly clean-shaven face.
“Right,” said Sonia, bustling back in. “I’m off for lunch, back in an hour.” She came over to me, grabbing her bag as she passed her desk and barging Trevor out of the way.
“Take all the time you need,” her brother said.
Sonia was taken aback by this. “Oh, no, I’ve a million and seven things to do this afternoon.”
“No, no, take your time,” Dhapinder agreed. “Bye, Arden, lovely to see you again.” She gave a small wave.
I meekly offered a wave back, and with a final surreptitious (at least I hope it was) glance at Trevor’s crotch, I dragged a confused Sonia outside.
Once we were in my car, I started in on them. “Good God, those two are like being interrogated by the Gestapo.”
It was nothing they said – quite the opposite. But it felt like being circled by sharks. First sign of blood, and they would have you.
Sonia gulped the last of her Coke. “I know, Trevor’s gone from being a laugh to dead serious the last couple of months. Him and Dhaps have all sorts of plans for the business they’ve been working on. Never mind that I own half the company, and Dhaps doesn’t own a thing; they act like it’s theirs.”
“I see,” I said. “But you wanted out anyway, right?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s the family business. I don’t want to leave. Just felt like I was never any good at it. But those two … they’re being dead secretive. All – what’s the word – furtive.”
She shook her head and shrugged again. “Right, where are we going for lunch?”
I hesitated. “So, I may have lied.”
“Arden!” she said, her tone severe. “I am not breaking and entering again.”
I laughed. “No, nothing like that, this is all legal,” I explained the situation.
“Politics?” she said in disgust as I drove the short distance from Compney Parva to Sittingston. The view across the land was of parched fields that desperately needed rain, but even the farmers had shut up for once and were keen to enjoy the once-in-a-generation summer.
“Look, we both need to socialise more,” I said firmly.
“Speak for yourself.” She folded her arms.
“Fine, I need to socialise more, and I’m dragging you along for moral support.”
She gave a small nod at this.
“Please?”
“Well,” she said. “You’ve already kidnapped me, so I can hardly say no, can I?”
