That made him glance up, just for a moment.
‘Believe me, I know exactly what he is capable of.’ He finished the glass and set it down on the counter.
He stared at her for a long moment. Then he turned, picked up the bottle, and poured himself another glass.
‘I just need some space. Let’s talk tomorrow,’ he said quietly, walking out of the kitchen.
Pippa nodded. She listened to his footsteps creak across the floorboards as he climbed the stairs, and a moment later his door closed softly.
The silence that followed felt huge as Pippa shook off her coat, sank onto the settee, and rummaged through her bag. She heard the faint, irregular tick of the pocket watch. It had started up again. She pulled it out and held it in her palm. The last time she’d checked, at the restaurant, it had stopped dead, right in the middle of dinner. Now, back at the cottage, it was ticking as if nothing had happened.
‘It definitely has a mind of its own,’ she muttered under her breath, slipping it back into her bag.
She rummaged deeper until she found her phone, unlocked it and fired off a text to Rose.
I’ve gone and got myself in another fine mess.
Almost instantly, Rose replied.
Ring me if you can.
ChapterSeventeen
Pippa lay curled under the duvet. The bedside lamp cast a soft yellow glow across the room, picking out the faint steam curling from her mug of tea on the small table next to the bed. The book she’d bought from The Story Shop,The Real Inside Story of the Vale Brothers,, rested open across her lap and she was just about to start reading.
The house was silent. Theo’s door hadn’t opened once since he’d disappeared upstairs. She took a slow sip of her tea and thought about the conversation with Rose earlier, whispering into the phone in the living room with the door slightly ajar in case there had been any movement from upstairs. Rose had picked up on the first ring.
‘What fine mess have you got yourself into this time?’
Pippa had told her. About the restaurant, about Sebastian, about the absolute car crash of the conversation that followed.
Rose hadn’t held back. ‘I never liked him,’ she’d declared. ‘That man could charm the paint off a wall if it got him what he wanted. I told you years ago, he’s all ego and ambition, and didn’t I say he had an unhealthy obsession with Theo? I told you to have a conversation with Theo back then and if you had…’ Rose had paused. ‘Maybe you would be getting married under a clock tower!’ she’d teased.
‘I know,’ Pippa had admitted. ‘But Sebastian made me feel like I had earned my place at Cambridge.’
‘He manipulated you,’ Rose had corrected her. ‘Now he’s taken Theo’s wife? So that unhealthy whatever-it-is is still festering. Have you any idea why he hates him so much?’
‘No,’ Pippa had replied. ‘He’s never said anything to me.’ Pippa had shared the details of Sebastian’s outburst during the Horace Vale interview, filling in the blanks of what Rose had seen reported online.
‘Whatever Sebastian’s gripe is, I don’t think he’ll sit on it much longer. It seems like it is going to erupt any time now, and with the three of you being rained in on the island, it could be sooner rather than later.’
After they’d hung up, Pippa had sat in bed for ten minutes, replaying the night in her head. How good it had been, how easy it was being in Theo’s company– him teasing her about her overexcited reaction to seafood; the quiet warmth between them after he’d opened up about Clara. Then, in one smug, perfectly timed bombshell, Sebastian had blown it all to hell.
There was nothing she could do about it now, so, trying to distract herself, Pippa picked up the book and looked at the cover, then Googled A. Wetherby.
Of course there were many articles about him being the Vales’ apprentice, but she was most interested in the link at thetop of the search to an article from 1965 titled ‘Clockmaker’s Apprentice Convicted of Theft’.
The piece was short, but it included all the key points. Andrew Wetherby, apprentice to Horace and Walter Vale, had been prosecuted for stealing several items from the brothers’ workshop on Puffin Island– most notably, a prototype watch the brothers had supposedly been developing in secret for a private client.
No details of the project itself were given, but the tone was sensational, hinting at scandal.
Pippa scrolled further and discovered that the prototype watch had never been recovered.
According to the article, Wetherby had always protested his innocence, claiming he’d been framed, but the evidence found in his home– tools, gears, and sketches matching the Vales’ designs– had been enough for a conviction. Pippa had been aware of the allegations against the apprentice, but the scandal had slipped from her memory over the years.
She tapped through to another link: a small write-up from a local heritage site. It filled in more of the story.
After the trial, Wetherby’s life had fallen apart. His wife had filed for divorce and left the area with their two young sons. The article said she’d been ‘ostracised by the village community’ and forced to start over somewhere else.
