‘I cannot wait to install this in my hallway, you guys! It’s sleek. It’s discreet. Can you believe these are only like, 88.99? And you can get a special 20 per cent discount if you use my code CleanGirlAtHome.’
These words flashed onscreen, along with the ‘like’ and ‘follow’ symbols, but Peaches wasn’t listening to the woman now; she was staring closely at the gadget the woman was cradling.
Felton was nodding, like she was absolutely correct to be impressed. ‘Best thing is, I can write off a huge wodge of taxable income through our charitable arm, the cat rescues? Who doesn’t like cats, right? The animal centre gets a little under one penny from each sale, the taxman loses out, big time, and I get to shave 40 per cent off?—’
‘Oh no!’ said Peaches, taking his phone from him and pausing the video so she could look more closely.
‘It’s all legal, I assure you,’ he said, getting a little shirty. ‘The law’s practically designed to encourage tax loophole shenanigans. The government wants to encourage millionaires, you know?’
Fireworks were shooting in all directions above them now. Her mother was going spare in the distance, her voice ringing out over the sounds of drunken chaos and barking dogs, but Peaches couldn’t be put off.
‘That thing she’s got there?’ she asked, looking up at Felton. His expression sat somewhere between confusion and consternation.
‘Our intruder alarm? That’s our second biggest bestseller, after the doorbell cam. Do you want one? I’ve got, like, fifty pallets in the warehouse…’
‘Did you give a load of these to your mum?’
His shrug said,And so what if I did?
‘And Valerie supplied my mum with a load of these?’
He blinked, sniffed, seemed to have a think, before saying, ‘She may have bunged her a few complimentary gifts, to sweeten their design collab deal.’
‘And are they certified safe to use?’
He shrugged, attempted a dismissive laugh, but hooked a finger inside his shirt collar, loosening it enough to mask a gulp, telling Peaches everything she needed to know.
‘I have to talk to Mum, right now.’
Emerging from behind the tent, she scanned the field, looking from masked face to masked face, not seeing Carenza anywhere.
‘They’re safe…’ Felton said at her arm, making quote marks in the air. He’d followed her out into the open. ‘…until we’re forced to recall them, if that ever happens, and by then we’d have dissolved the company, started up again with a new name, same business model, but’ – he crossed his fingers – ‘so far, so good, right? Hey, listen, we don’t have to talk about work. How about we get out of here?’
‘Fire Officer Dunoon!’ Peaches had spotted the high-vis suit of the man supervising the bonfire, now that it was in full inferno. He was making sure no one passed the fenced ring around the flames.
She marched her way across the field towards him, at exactly the same moment Felton Cromarty decided to call his mum with a word of warning, abandoning their date to make himself scarce, the green leafy mask pulled down over his face once more.
Peaches told Dunoon her discovery. ‘I think the fire at one of Mum’s rentals the other week, the one they accused Euan Sparks of starting, was caused by a dodgy tech import. A knockoff device disguised in luxury packaging. Mum was duped by the Cromarty family into taking a whole load of them for her flats, and poor Euan installed the very first one. He told you it worked fine when he installed it, right? Showed you a video of it working? But it must have packed in or glitched or something after he locked up, andbang! He got the blame.’
Officer Dunoon, who’d been enjoying his third rum ball of the evening, received her dramatic news with a disappointing air of calm. ‘Ah, right you are. I’ll look into it in the morning.’
‘OK.’ Peaches caught her breath, feeling foolish. ‘I thought you’d want to know right away. You’ll want to go to the Cromarty Industries warehouse and seize the lot, won’t you?’
‘You’ve done well. I’ll pass it on to colleagues in TSS.’ He might as well have told her to run along now, there’s a good lass.
She swallowed her frustration and turned to look over the field. She was telling the wrong person. She had to find her mum and make her put things right with Euan, for the sake of his reputation and his business, but there was no sign of Carenza in the milling, noisy crowds.
She was only just realising that, in the time it had taken her to rush two hotdogs, get tipsy on a few sips of who knew what, and to unmask Felton Cromarty as an inside-trading conman, the whole mood in the field had shifted, and so, she realised as she ran, hunting down her mother, had the music.
It had been Shell’s idea, and if Jolyon got the blame, she’d be sure to stick up for him and confess, but, actually, the pair of them had probably got away with it. Jolyon had done it, quick as a flash, and she’d been the lookout.
A quick pull on the big yellow plug and the entire DJ table had powered down and the record that was spinning slowed to a stop.
That’s when the best friends had scarpered, their paper plate masks held down over their faces, not even daring to scream as they ran off to hide under the Gifford sisters’ sweetie stall to watch what happened next.
Carenza, of course, was the first on the scene, demanding to know what was wrong, stiffening each time another firecracker was set off, now the men had drunkenly waded over to the other side of the river, and so outside of her jurisdiction.
‘It seems the, eh, electrics have gone,’ Sachin had said cannily, having kicked the yellow plug and its cable right out of reach under the low stage.
