Mr. Giffard looked profoundly unimpressed. “Am I supposed to know who that is?”
“Odile O’Donnell’s son,” Saint told him. And the look that flowed, just briefly, over Mr. Giffard’s face was equal parts affirming and uncomfortable. Because I hated trading on my mum’s name but I always kind of liked it when people remembered her. “My friend here is putting together a music festival. Wants Sputum to headline.”
The idea that the son of a rock legend wanted a completely unknown and defunct punk band to headline a new music festival wasalreadyso sus that I wouldn’t have blamed Mr. Giffard for calling bullshit. Add to that the fact that he’d actuallymetSaint, and it seemed very likely that his crapometer would be pinging off the charts.
He gave me a but-most-of-all-you’ve-let-yourself-down look. “Is that true?”
“I mean,” I hedged, “wantis a strong word. I work for the Coleoptera Research and Protection Project and—”
For the second time in the short conversation, recognition gleamed in Mr. Giffard’s eyes. A much more comfortable, much more natural kind of recognition. But also a much less expected one. “Oh, you’re with C.R.A.P.P.?”
I consider it a massive tribute to how fucking great I am at my jobactuallythat I took this completely in stride. “Yes. I don’t recognise you from the donor list, but…have we done outreach work with you?”
“Year six did a project on you last term,” he explained. “That Welsh guy who does your social media is amazing at getting kids excited about conservation.”
Okay, so being fair, I suppose I had to take that as a massive tribute to how fucking great Rhys was at his job as well. It didn’t mean I had to like it. “Yeah, I think it’s because he’s got the mind of a ten-year-old.”
Mr. Giffard took that more seriously than I intended. “It’s a good quality to have in some lines of work.”
“The beetles,” Saint explained with a level of contempt I could accept from Jaz but not from somebody nearly five times her age who owned half a county, “were the old man’s thing.”
“They were a good thing to have,” said Mr. Giffard, not helpfully from the point of view of someone who didn’t want Saint madeincredibly angry. That someone being me. Then, even less helpfully by those standards, he went on, “At least he cared about something other than himself.”
Saint took that about six different kinds of badly. The only question was which he’d act on first. “You never reallygotSputum, did you, Mix?”
Beside me, Jaz laughed the laugh of someone who found the idea of “getting sputum” as absurd as I did and didn’t have a job that relied on her hiding it.
I was beyond relieved that Saint ignored her. I was less relieved that Mr. Giffard didn’t ignore him. “First,” he said, “it’s Michael. Mike to my friends, which youaren’t.” Saint looked like he was about to object to this, but Mr. Giffard didn’t give him time. “I have a school to run. I have kids to look after. I’m sorry…Luc, is it?”—he turned briefly to me—“I actually think C.R.A.P.P. does good work, butthisman f—messes up everything he touches.”
At which point Saint shoved the deputy headteacher of Celvestune Primary School in Droitwich Spa full in the chest. “Fuck you, Mix.”
“Oi,” commentated Jaz from the sidelines, “manage your emotions, Granddad.”
“Ruff,” agreed Spud.
I tried to deescalate, butdeescalatewasn’t in Saint’s vocabulary, so I got as far as “I don’t think this is…” before Saint and Mr. Giffard had gone tumbling into a display of year three art and crashed to the ground amidst a cloud of brightly coloured cut-out hands.
“Youfuckingtraitor.”
“You arrogant manchild.”
It was around the “arrogant manchild” stage of the encounter that Saint threw the first punch.
Chapter 31
To my unbelievable relief, only Saint got arrested. Because Mr. Giffard explained very kindly that I’d had nothing to do with my patron’s behaviour and had, in fact, been trying to smooth things over.
“Don’t worry, Luc,” Saint had told me as the police were telling him he had the right to remain silent and I was wishing to God he’d exercise it. “All part of the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle. Now go get Rik Jism, and we can still make this happen.”
I gave a can-do nod. “Sure. But just to be clear, if by some strange million-to-one chance, the guy who called you a ‘narcissistic shitbag’doesn’twant to be part of the big Rancid Sputum reunion?”
“Then”—Saint was giving me it’s-not-you-it’s-me vibes, which were not vibes you wanted to be getting from the guy in charge of whether you and your entire office would have jobs at the end of the year—“honestly, I might not be feeling the whole festival thing. Like, if you can’t make Sputum happen, how’re you going to pull together the rest of it?”
I had a number of answers to that, but most of them involved pointing out to Saint that the other acts, caterers, and the like didn’t have specific reasons to hate him personally. But I didn’t think that would go down well. So I mustered a weary “You can count on me” instead.
As Saint vanished into the distance with his police escort, I realised that I wasn’t strictly—and bystrictly, I mean in any way at all—insured to drive his car.
His car that Jaz was now fiddling with in ways I should probably have been worried about. “What are you—”
