Chapter Nine
Cosima stabbed the chicken curry with her fork, taking a huge bite. The curry was wasted on her. Her mouth couldn’t taste anything but the last words she’d said to Edie.
I don’t want it either.
She looked at Edie’s green jacket, folded up beneath hers on the pub bench.
“Anything else, duck?” The Gregory Arms publican had a circlet of salt-and-ginger hair orbiting his head. His shoulders looked like they could toss full wine barrels. He’d attended her the moment she sat down in the scrupulously clean pub, giving her three specials to choose from and a surprisingly long list of nonalcoholic drink options, and after he’d served her meal steaming hot, he hadn’t returned until the moment she’d scraped up her last bite.
Cosima liked him for his predictable efficiency.
“A bourbon, neat,” she said. “With a slice of lemon.”
He nodded while taking up her plate and pint glass. “A square of the sticky toffee pudding alongside?”
“Yes.”
“Jug of custard?”
“Yes.”
“Right back.”
He disappeared just as a large party came into the other dining room, laughing as they’d been caught in the rain.
The rain was why Cosima was here and not at the inn, though she had half a mind to hire a ride to pick her up from this pub and rush her to the airport, full of just enough suppressed anger and curry to keep the tears at bay.
She would, too, if she knew what she would say to the agent at the airport ticketing desk when they asked where she wanted to go.
Cosima pulled her phone from the pocket of her jacket. There were four notifications on the screen, all from Duncan. His were the only notifications she still allowed to push. She opened the first one.
Had lunch with Corrine Lake, and it was a balm. I told her about your decoding and treasure hunt adventures. She was delighted.
Turned the corner on the east patio this morning with my coffee and was completely taken by the show your mother’s row of camellia was putting on.
So bright pink, the color of the sky and grass was glowing around them. I imagined it was Phoebe saying hello.
Remember when you and I put those in for your mother’s birthday? You were nine and so serious about sprinkling the rooting powder into each planting hole.
Cosima turned the phone over, her chest tight. Not a word about PFS. The impatient board. The stock price.I used to play with an action figure of your mother, Edie had said, but Phoebe’s oversized legacy was absent from these texts.
She and Duncan never said what they meant.
The publican appeared with a tray and arranged her whiskey, dish of lemon, plate of cake, and custard jug, along with a fresh set of cutlery. “There you are. My name’s Tam, if I haven’t said. Settle up or put in another order at the bar, duck.”
“Do you have vegan food?” Cosima blurted. She wrapped a hand around the whiskey glass. “I’m sorry, never mind.”
Tam shoved his hands in the pockets at the front of his apron. “You’re a friend of the Edie girl staying up there at Gregory’s Place with Morag, then.”
Cosima shook her head back and forth.No. “Yes.”
That made Tam smile. “Haven’t figured it out yet?”
“I don’t know.” Cosima looked down at the bourbon. She wasn’t sure why she’d ordered it. She didn’t often drink. Duncan didn’t, either. The idea of bringing the edge of the glass to her lips was a horrible one.
Tam put his meaty hand on the back of the chair across from her. “Do you mind if I take a load off?”
Cosima shook her head. Her stomach hurt, really hurt, the way it had before she came here.
