Page 13 of The Custard Tart Cafe by the Sea
“It’s the best I can muster up atshortnotice.” I plonk the goods in front of him and Reggie eases a disc-shaped, paper-thin biscuit out, tutting at another awful joke. “Okay. It sounds as if I need to stand and take a seat again for this bit,” I say, and comically, I do. “Are you going to let me in on revelation number two now… or should I add a tot of whisky to my tea to calm my nerves?”
Reggie dunks and consumes three biscuits before he is ready to break the news.
“His name is Tiago. Tiago Willis.”
“Fu… uh… udge.” I stop myself from saying the swear word that’s sitting on the end of my tongue, remembering it’s not my style. “I mean heck, that’s rather Portuguese sounding! Well, not the surname, obviously… but… it really has to be him, doesn’t it?”
“’Fraid so, my friend.”
Reggie moves on to Rich Tea numbers four and five, and I tell him to take the packet home with him.
“Okay then.” I clap my hands together. “I’m soooo going along to spectate at the home match so I can throw a custard tart in his face.”
“Now that’s more like it, and a far more acceptable level of violence. I honestly think a scenario with you munching on a takeout box of custard tarts in the stands could prove a big enough threat alone and see him scarpering off the pitch. Failing that, an actual custard pie in the face, in the manner of a practiced and professional circus clown, would make for some excellent journalism opportunities for the local press (and alternative publicity for the café), scaring him off for good from taking any further petition action.” Reggie finishes the dregs of his tea. “Job done.”
I let out a deep belly laugh. The idea is so perfect it’s preposterous.
“I should really tell Lauren. It doesn’t feel right to keep this from her, what with all she and Todd have been doing to help us, but she’ll take it to the next level and get the police involved. I know she will. I’m not up for that. If this petition thing is just a lame ploy to slate us all over social media, let him get on with it.”
“Erm, Willow?”
“Yes?”
“You might need to do the standing up and taking a seat thing again. The other thing I found out about our mysterious mansplainer will probably come as a bit of a shock.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“What do youmean, he works at Muse Masters?”
But even before I’ve spat the entire sentence out, everything slots into place. So that’s how he knew about the café. But perhaps worse than his underhand behaviour towards his employer (and my brother-in-law) is the fact that he is, without a shadow of a doubt, the ‘hot new stuff’ that Lauren is currently smitten with. I conjure up his face again from the day he steamrolled into the café and he really does have Antonio Banderas lookalike writtenallover him. Even with his cap pulled down.
What a mess… of Hollywood movie proportions.
“We left the car park after the match at virtually the same time,” says Reggie. “But he was too wrapped up in post-match victory to sense anything untoward about my movements. So I took advantage and followed him around Bristol. Just to discover where he lives. Only he didn’t go straight home.”
I have terrible visions now of Reggie catching the guy in a tryst with my sister, and I await the inevitable revelation that he saw the two of them check into a city hotel together.
“He went to the marketing office in Clifton, where your Lauren works. Yeah, that place you just mentioned: Muse Masters. By the way, the night signage could do with some TLC; a couple of the lightbulbs were out and it looked more like a seedy bar than a sophisticated company. Anyway, I digress.” Reggie takes a bite of his umpteenth Rich Tea. “I hung about in the car on the double yellows outside and hoped he wouldn’t suddenly recognise me from the café. He came back out again within minutes carrying what looked to be a laptop bag, and taking a few too many glances over his shoulder. I guess he’d forgotten to bring it to training or thought it was safer to pick it up on his way home.”
Now I have visions of this Tiago character donning gloves to sneak my sister’s laptop out of the building so he can hack into password protected accounts and screw up certain marketing campaigns, although more likely he was simply taking his own laptop home to work on something. But then I recall some of the interim messages that had buzzed through that long night when Lauren was sending me her questionable marketing ideas. She’d apologised they were all via her mobile phone, because Jamie was the world’s most paranoid CEO. He expressly banned company laptops leaving the building overnight. He was fine with it during the day, for meetings like the one Lauren had conducted with me at the café. But other than that, he did not want to encourage anybody sharing MM’s top secret campaigns… or clients.
“Right. Where did he go after that?” I can’t take the suspense.
“I don’t know.” Reggie waves a new biscuit in exasperation. “That’s when the battleaxe of a traffic warden caught me.”
Dammit. I really need to know where Tiago lives. How am I supposed to figure that out now?
“Oh, Reggie. I’m so sorry. Let me reimburse you for the fine.”
“Nah, you’re all right. I sweet-talked my way out of it with one of those TCTC vouchers you suggested we always carry around with us. She let me off with a caution.”
“Good for you!”
Well, that warms the cockles, if nothing else has so far this evening. Not that traffic wardens would be my choice of customer but they have to be fed and watered like the rest of us, I suppose.
“I’ll just have to come along to the football match, then.” I shrug. It’s not like the universe is offering me up a more sensible suggestion. “And I guess I’ll have to bring several custard tarts with me in case I miss.”
“It would appear so, Willow,” Reggie agrees. “If we’re to keep Lauren out of this, and you’re sure you don’t want the police to get involved, then unless a miracle occurs, there’s probably nothing else for it.”
