Page 75 of The Black Trilogy

Next up, we hit the produce section. Recalling Toby’s insistence that I should eat variety, I tossed a vegetable of every colour into the trolley. I had no idea how to cook most of them, but I could work that out later. What was a Romanesco cauliflower? Was it supposed to be green like that?

“What do you th— Hey!” I hauled Tia out of the path of a speeding trolley pushed by a woman who could barely see over the handle. “Watch it.”

She gave me a barely apologetic shrug. “It’s every woman for herself.”

Tia clutched at a shelf for support. “I think I twisted my ankle.”

“Do you want to sit down? I’ll find somewhere.”

“I’m not abandoning you in this mayhem.”

Hmm… “Why don’t you sit in the trolley? It’s big enough.”

“Is that allowed?”

“Do I look like I care?”

Her giggles bubbled over. “Okay.”

With me lifting, Tia scrambling, and a bit of assistance from a handily placed vegetable rack, she ended up in the trolley with her leg stuck awkwardly over the top as I steered towards the dairy aisle. Now we were making faster progress. This was a good thing.

I added cream, milk, and ready-made custard to the trolley then leaned back against a shelf to take stock of the situation.

“What else do we need?” I asked.

Tia had made herself useful by googling the ingredients for a traditional Christmas dinner on her smartphone.

“I think we’ve got everything for the starter and main course, but we haven’t got anything for dessert. Head for the bakery aisle.”

I wheeled the trolley in that direction, dodging sprinting toddlers and lost husbands. A Christmas pudding whizzed past my ear, thrown by a red-faced man shouting at a harried-looking mother in an argument over the last carton of eggnog. I should have worn body armour. Honestly, this was worse than being on the frontline. At least the rules of engagement were easy to understand out there.

We finally made it to the checkout, and Tia passed the groceries up to me as I stacked them on the conveyor belt. The shop assistant gave her a dirty look for sitting in the trolley.

I pointed at her puffy ankle and cast. “She got wounded in a battle over cranberry sauce in aisle twelve.”

The shop assistant looked confused, but a couple of people behind us sniggered. After a nasty moment with an unreadable barcode, we got everything bagged up and paid for, and I called for an evacuation.

The car sped towards us, the chauffeur wearing the grim look of a man under siege. I hauled Tia into the backseat, threw the bags in the boot, and leapt in after her.

“Drive! Drive!” Tia shouted, then collapsed into a fit of laughter as the man stepped on it.

At times in my life, I’d wondered whether it was really necessary to employ someone to do my shopping for me. Never again. The first thing I’d do when I got back home was give my housekeeper a raise.

Luke arrived home that evening to find the kitchen looking like a crime scene. Tia and I had arranged stools in front of the oven so we could watch our cake cook through the glass window.

“I’ve just had mother on the phone,” he said. “Apparently Mrs. Wilkinson from the bridge club saw someone looking remarkably like Tia riding around Sainsbury’s in a trolley this afternoon, holding a turkey in her lap and wearing a Santa hat.”

“Really?”

“Mother was horrified, said it was most unladylike. You guys wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

“Of course not,” Tia said.

“Had Mrs. Wilkinson been drinking?” I asked, not daring to make eye contact with my partner in crime.

“Hmmph.” Luke didn’t look entirely convinced but chose to head upstairs.

“The Santa hat was a nice touch,” I said. “What did you do with it, anyway?”

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