Theused to bewas telling me pretty much everything I needed to know. Still I said “yes” and waited for the rest of the narrative.
“He’d been doing the job for years—and very well, too, if I’m any judge—but then Bill Thomas, who’d been after the position since ’97, over the holidays, he managed to stir up enough discontent amongst the regulars to force a vote of no confidence.”
“What did Uncle Alan do?” I asked and, to my horror, realised I was actually interested.
“Well, he didn’t take it lying down. He rounded up his supporters and he said if that’s the way you’re going to be, then you’ll be forcing me to go independent. So now there’stwoSkenfrith Male Voice Choirs, and they’re both expecting a place at our next fundraiser.”
“We probably have room for two male voice choirs if it comes to it,” I suggested. “Actually, it might help because we’re a bit short on acts.”
Rhys Jones Bowen shook his head. “I don’t know, Luc. There’s bad blood there—the last thing you want is for your festival to be caught in the middle of a male voice choir feud.”
I was about to ask how bad it could be, but…we were talking about a group of middle-aged British men with a hobby they took seriously. It could be very bad indeed. “What if we just booked Uncle Alan?”
“That would look like nepotism,” Rhys warned me. “We might open ourselves to legal action.”
“Is that likely?” I asked, guessing the answer well in advance.
“Probably.” Rhys Jones Bowen gave an apologetic nod. “That Bill Thomas is a litigious bastard. He once sued the local pub for running out of crisps.”
Once again, some weird part of my brain wanted to know the rest of the story, but it was technically a workday and I technically had a festival to organise. “From a wider perspective,” I segued, “do any of us know anybody who might get the word out? Because right now our headline acts are a Rancid Sputum reunion that might not happen, some guys who do Ed Sheeran covers that I once nearly booked for a wedding that didn’t happen, and one or both of the two male voice choirs from Skenfrith.”
Silence answered. It answered at some length.
“Okay.” I tried to sound cheery. “We’ll work some things out. I’ll make some more phone calls. Alex, maybe ask if Miffy can—I don’t know—mention us on Instagram or something? Get photographed in front of a conspicuously placed CRAPP logo? Endorse dung beetles?”
Alex gave me an enthusiastic but painfully clueless salute. “Shall do, Captain. You can rely on meimplicitly.”
I gave him a sceptical look. “Rely on you to dowhat?”
“Oh, you know”—he gave an affable hand wave—“whatever it was you were talking about just now.”
That was very much as I’d expected. “Cool,” I said. “Good to know you’ve got my back. Now”—around my ankles, Spud started yapping his somebody-at-the-door yap. I glanced down at the clock on my screen. “Fuck,” I said unprofessionally aloud, “they’re early.”
“Who’s early?” asked Barbara Clench.
I hadn’t discussed the fostering thing much with the CRAPP crowd. It hadn’t seemed important, what with the whole we’re-probably-losing-our-jobs backdrop it was happening against. Unfortunately, that meant none of my coworkers really knew how to react when I said, “The, um, the people who are delivering my child?”
Chapter 18
Oliver and I were both painfully aware how bad an impression it would make to leave Esther and Jasmine—we knew the kid’s name from our rigorous pre-fostering briefings—waiting on the doorstep while we got our shit together, so we hustled Spud into his pen, gave each other silentThis is itlooks, and then dashed to the front door and threw it open wearing our warmest, most welcoming faces.
But it wasn’t Esther who greeted us. It was a man in a black polo shirt, short-sleeved despite the January weather, wanting to know if we were Luc O’Donnell and Oliver Blackwood.
“We are,” Oliver told him.
There was a van behind him—also black—and at a nod from Black Polo Shirt Guy Number One, some other Black Polo Shirt Guys opened the doors at the back and hauled out a young girl. She was pale with that kind of dishwater-blond hair, and she was…scrawnysounded mean. But there was a definite feral-cat vibe about her, like she was simultaneously hungry and wanted to kill you. Although the wanting-to-kill-you thing might have been at least a little bit to do with the handcuffs.
“Excuse me,” I said, “what the actual fuck?”
“Hmm?” replied Black Polo Shirt Guy as if he neither knew nor cared which specific fuck I was questioning the actuality of.
Oliver translated. “Why was she restrained?”
“She got violent.”
“There are three of you,” Oliver pointed out, “and she’s fourteen.”
Black Polo Shirt Guy shrugged. “We’ve got a zero-tolerance policy.”
