You need a holiday.
The Jekyll and Hyde smelled of coconut milk and spices. A comforting, safe smell. The specials board promised Thai Green Curry with aromatic rice. No quirky name.
Beth appeared from the kitchen carrying plates, her hair pinned back loosely. She looked tired.
She looked gorgeous.
‘Hi,’ she said, when she spotted him.
‘Hi yourself,’ Kieran replied. ‘Can a starving man get a plateful of Tantalising Thai Curry with a side of torture?’
Beth laughed. ‘We’re over the daft descriptions, in case you hadn’t noticed. Simple is best.’
‘Then I’m your man. Simple runs through me like water through a pipe. Which is a completely rubbish analogy.’
Beth nodded. ‘Stick to what you’re good at.’
‘Have you got … a minute?’
She glanced towards the kitchen. ‘I can steal one.’
They moved into a small room to the side – half pantry, half breathing space for staff. Its shelves were crammed with dried ingredients and jars containing unknown substances. A smell of paprika and washing-up liquid permeated the air.
Kieran ran a hand through his hair. In a film, it would look sexy. Right now, he suspected he resembled a well-used pot scourer. ‘This might sound stupid.’
Her mouth curved faintly. ‘Try me.’
‘I fell asleep at my laptop last night. I was working on the app, trying to make it better.’ He huffed out a breath. ‘Trying to makemebetter.’
She didn’t interrupt, just nodded for him to carry on. He liked that.
‘I dreamed,’ he said. ‘But not like normal dreams. It felt … completely bonkers. As if a theatre group were improvising inside my head.’
‘Didn’t you once tell me that Kate Bush broke your sunglasses, and something else off the wall about Black Sabbath?’
Kieran shrugged sheepishly. ‘I might have made that up. But this dream… It felt so real.’
Beth’s shoulders stiffened.
‘I could hear people. Conversations. Voices I don’t even know how I recognised. People I barely know. Jinnie. Jo. Wilma. Sam.’
Beth said nothing, but her eyes widened.
‘They were talking about Cranley. About something … old, I think. Or powerful. That’s all I can remember. Not details, just thefeelingof it.’
Kieran waited. Beth stayed silent.
‘It made me feel like I’d walked into a story halfway through. Like I’m a bit-part player who doesn’t know their lines or what they’re supposed to do.’
Beth wrapped her hands around her mug. ‘Strange things do happen here,’ she said quietly.
‘Like what?’
She paused. Her face was inscrutable: a bit like Yoda. Hard to understand, in a deliberately annoying way.
She glanced towards the stairs, then back at him. ‘Electrical quirks. Machines not behaving normally.’ A beat. ‘That pinball table Ed dragged upstairs … it’s temperamental.’
‘Temperamental how?’ Kieran felt lost, as if he’d been tossed into a turbulent river and forced to swim against the tide.
