Page 25 of Beyond Repair
Sam’s smile died abruptly and he scrubbed his hand down his face. ‘Don’t go there,’ he warned. ‘Don’t over-analyse this shit. I’ve got some stuff to get sorted, alright?’
‘Okay, okay, keep your knickers on,’ Rob said, and Sam could picture him holding up his hands in surrender. ‘Oh by the way, have you heard from Goodie? I was going to offer her the Somalia job but I can’t get hold of her.’
‘Goodie’s off the grid for the moment,’ Sam said evasively, and Rob sighed.
‘Okay,’ Rob said softly. Sam knew that Rob had likely guessed what Goodie was doing, but he also knew that when it came to this subject he needed to tread carefully. ‘It’s good you’ll be around for a bit anyway. We’ve missed you, you prick.’
‘I …’ Jesus, Sam thought as his throat unexpectedly tightened mid sentence; I’m turning into a hell of a pussy all of a sudden. ‘Yeah,’ he continued gruffly, ‘it’ll be good to be based somewhere for a change.’
‘Maybe …’ Rob began tentatively, ‘maybe you could think about some sort of … help … I mean …’
Sam cleared his throat. That was enough of the touchy-feely stuff for one day. ‘Listen, Rob, I gotta go set up for the battle scene at the set, make sure those meatheads know what their doing.’
‘Shit, yes, yes, please go!’
Sam smiled; he knew that as a distraction technique an impending fuck-up on the set was pretty much guaranteed to work with Rob.
*****
‘Thank God you’re here,finally,’ grumbled Frank, grabbing Katie’s arm and dragging her through the trailers and towards the beach. He was sweating profusely and looked in serious danger of some kind of cardiac event. The fact that they had only called the practice half an hour ago and Katie did not travel by helicopter seemed lost on him. ‘She’s gone totally nuts, nobody can control her.’
‘Right, so it’s Helen Sandham I’m here to see, right?’ Katie asked, her short high-heel-boot-clad legs struggling to keep up with him on the sand.
‘DameHelen,’ he told her, throwing an appalled look back over his shoulder at her.
‘Okay,’ Katie said slowly and with what she thought was considerable patience. ‘And what exactly has happened withDameHelen?’
As they rounded the corner of the cliff and came out onto a huge open part of the beach, Katie sucked in an awed breath. A battle scene was set up, with soldiers on both sides all dressed in medieval armour, some on foot and some on horses. The kids were sitting on their own ponies, and Davey, who had recovered well, looked savagely cute.
In the middle of all of this, an elderly lady dressed in full medieval-queen regalia was scrabbling around on her hands and knees in the sand, muttering distractedly. Katie vaguely recognized her from some sort of period drama. She was being gently contained and kept away from the horses’ hooves by Sam and another large security guard.
‘What happened?’ Katie asked Frank quietly as they approached Dame Helen.
‘Not sure,’ he replied. ‘She’s been strange for a couple of days, keeps nipping off to the loo every five minutes and talking about random stuff.’
‘Didn’t anyone think that something was off?’
Frank shrugged. ‘She’s eccentric you know; we just thought it was all part of her gig. But this afternoon she’s gone seriously loopy.’
‘Any family around?’
Frank gave one of the lackeys following him with clipboards a significant look and they scrurried off saying they would find out. Oh, to have that kind of authority, Katie thought wistfully. She was lucky if she managed to command the respect of her own cat, leave alone have actual lackeys hanging on her every word.
She approached Dame Helen carefully and knelt down next to her, making sure to avoid eye contact with Sam.
‘Hi there,’ Katie said. ‘Can I help? Are you looking for something?’ Dame Helen gave her a frustrated look.
‘Of course I’m looking for it, Lizzy,’ she said impatiently. ‘How the hell do you think we’ll catch the damn train without it! God, you never think practically.’ She went back to sifting through the sand. As she drew a little too close to the horses, Sam motioned to Katie, tacitly asking if he should physically remove her. Katie shook her head and laid a hand on Dame Helen’s arm.
‘Helen,’ she called softly, ‘there’s no trains here for a while. I think we’d better walk anyway.’ Dame Helen looked up and then around at the battle scene in bewilderment.
‘What the hell is going on, Lizzy?’ she whispered, grabbing Katie’s hand, obviously terrified.
‘Everything’s fine,’ Katie said in her most reassuring tone. ‘We just need to get you back somewhere where it’s warm so we can sort it out,’ she continued, eyeing Dame Helen’s sodden skirts. After a moment’s hesitation Dame Helen stood unsteadily and grabbed onto Katie’s arm hard, almost unbalancing Katie, which wasn’t too hard in soft sand on spike-heeled boots. Sam came around to Dame Helen’s other side and held out his hand.
‘May I be of assistance?’ he asked politely.
‘What lovely manners,’ she breathed, looking up at him dreamily. Katie rolled her eyes; if only Dame Helen knew. ‘Now, don’t be jealous, Lizzy,’ Dame Helen snapped. ‘You can’t have all the handsome ones to yourself.’
