‘Can’t you guess, lady? Didn’t we three investigate something and weren’t we good at it?’
‘Ha, I guess so. Funny seeing Jordan at your wedding,’ said Kim.
‘Edward brought him. Luckily he found some non-cop clothes in his car boot or I would have assumed we were being raided.’
‘He came in handy.’
‘I actually wrote a letter of whatdyacallit to the chief constable of Devon—’
‘Commendation?’
‘—yep, a letter of commendation about Jordan Callintree because I thought Jordan was bloody superb, protecting us, getting Roddy in a headlock and disarming the bottle.’
‘I hate to disappoint you, but Jordan is now chief constable. So your letter about Jordan will have gone to Jordan himself.’
‘What? Knock me down with a feather.’
‘What sort of phrase is “Knock me down with a feather”, Stevie?’
The young woman looked surprisingly cheerful. ‘I’ve been having some counselling about my Tourette’s because it letsme down in appraisals and suchlike. I don’t even know if it is wanker fucking Tourette’s, and pardon my French. It’s just random filthy language that comes out as easily … as easily … I nearly did it there. “As easily as fucking breathing”. The counsellor says I need to try something called “substitution”, where I swap the swearword just as it travels along my tongue. It’s helped me stop saying the word “cunt” quite a few times.’
‘What do you say instead?’
‘Anything. I try “lemon”. That creates a problem ordering cocktails, I can tell you.’
‘You really are in good form, Stevie. Happiest I’ve seen you for a good long while.’
‘You were right. I’d rather be with myself than with any Roddy.’
‘Down with Roddies.’
‘Utter scumbag.’
‘Are you talking about me again?’ said Edward, arriving at the table and dropping a battered brown briefcase on the couch beside him. ‘Sorry, I thought I heard my name.’
The women laughed.
‘Did you get my message?’ Edward asked Kim. ‘I have something important for you both.’
‘I replied!’
He looked at his new phone blankly.
‘Oh,’ said Kim, realizing. ‘Maybe I replied to your old number.’
‘Somewhere on the rocks at the bottom of the Ladram Bay cliffs, a mobile just beeped.’
‘That sounds like the start of a novel,’ said Stevie. ‘Somewhere at the foot of the Ladram Bay cliffs, a mobile just sang to a seagull.’
‘I wouldn’t read any further if that was the first line,’ said Kim.
Stevie asked, ‘How come your old phone fell down a cliff?’
Kim glanced at Edward, and saw him deciding to avoid Stevie’s question. ‘Your wedding was lovely,’ he said, the most blatant evasion.
‘My “wedding”,’ repeated Stevie sarcastically, doing exactly the same as Kim and Edward had done privately, raising her hands and making rabbit’s-ears with two pairs of fingers.
Kim gulped at her own hypocrisy as she chided: ‘Hey, it was a real wedding! None of that, naughty.’
