Page 16 of The Monday Night Heartbreak Club
We followed Eddie’s car at a careful distance as he drove out of the car park and straight to Drayton’s. We didn’t follow him all the way in but turned for home at the entrance. ‘Bit of a bust, then,’ Fraser observed. ‘Unless he’s bonking someone at work,’ he added, hopefully.
‘Well, I’m not putting on a funny walk and pretending to be a factory inspector.’ Flynn gazed out of the window. ‘How would we find out?’
‘Wren says he can’t be, because Annie knows everyone who works there.’ I checked again on my page of handwritten notes that Wren had given me. ‘He’s worked there for nearly forty years and they haven’t even had any new female staff for the last ten. Plus, someone would have told her; she’s very friendly with the managing director’s secretary, andshewouldn’t have hesitated to spill the beans.’
‘You’ve got a crib sheet?’ Flynn took the notes from the centre console. ‘Wow. You’re all really going into this full throttle, aren’t you?’
‘Something to do, in’t it?’ Fraser piped up. ‘Otherwise, I’m just home gaming in my bedroom.’
‘I think Margot and Wren are using it as a distraction from their own circumstances too.’ I steered towards home. I was going to drop Flynn and Fraser and go straight to work. ‘And you offered.’ I snatched my papers back from Flynn.
‘So, what’s your excuse?’ He was giving me that look again, an almost heavy look, as though he and I were in on some secret that mustn’t be spoken aloud.
‘I’m bored,’ I said, surprising myself. ‘Work is rubbish, my best friend is moving away, and Dex – well, I’ve not seen him since Valentine’s Day and I don’t want to see him anyway,’ I added honestly. ‘So I’m at a lot of loose ends.’
Fraser and Flynn shared the last of the coffee as I drove back to town, with the sun climbing its reluctant way into the sky, using the grey clouds as a ladder. Dex still hadn’t tried to text me – obviously I had him blocked, but he usually messaged me through any app he had and I hadn’t blocked him on all of them; I needed to know when he wanted to come back. This time, it seemed, he didn’t. Or he was punishing me by maintaining radio silence; that thought had also occurred to me. Perhaps he thought I’d miss him more and be so apologetic that I’d let him trample all over me if he didn’t speak to me for a while.
Who was I kidding? I always let him back. It was just that this time I didn’t seem to be missing him as much as usual. By now I’d normally weakened and messaged him in the middle of the night, halfway through my second bottle of wine, begging him to come home, but I realised with a gut-punch that I hadn’t eventhoughtof him for a couple of days, except in a negative way.
I let the men out at the wine bar. Fraser was going to wait to get his breath and the bus back, and I immediately turned around and headed for work, where I was five minutes late.
My manager looked at me with raised eyebrows. I mouthed ‘sorry,’ and sat down, putting on my headset, logging in on the computer and wondering how long I could keep this up. Getting up at five thirty in order to be showered, dressed and ready for work, and then sitting in a car park for an hour while Fraser worked himself into cardiac arrest was notsustainable.
Maybe we could force Eddie’s hand somehow?
‘Phoebe, your light is on.’
I shook my head and took the call, yawning as I did so.
Eddie went to the gym, then straight to work. At least, he’d done thattoday. Perhaps he had to maintain a presence at the gym in case anyone checked up on him; everyone there clearly knew him and would vouch for the fact he went. But maybe there were days when hedidn’tgo…
‘Phoebe!’ The voice came from behind me and made me jump. ‘I think we’d better have a word, don’t you?’
Damn. My caller had hung up without my even noticing. I sighed, stood up and followed my supervisor into the dreaded Back Office.
8
‘So they’ve fired me.’ I slumped over my arms on the wine bar counter. ‘Which, in a way, is a good thing, because now the worst has happened. But in another way, obviously, it’s a very, very bad thing indeed.’
Flynn was mixing cocktails. It was cocktail night at the wine bar, although this little market town tucked into the dip before the land rose to the bleak heights of the moors wasn’t exactly inundated with mixology connoisseurs. ‘Have to keep my hand in,’ he said, as I watched him doing something fancy with strawberry syrup. ‘The tourists love this stuff.’
‘I’ve got the flat for another month, because I pay a month in advance,’ I said, still with my head down on the bar. ‘After that, I’m out.’
‘What will you do?’ A deft flick and he added ice cubes.
I sighed. ‘Tent on the roundabout?’ I thought briefly about my parents, the too-small house in York where photographs of my brother concealed the wallpaper in every room. Walking into their house, you wouldn’t even know I existed from the evidence. ‘You said you could offer me a job?’
‘Did I? I think I also remember saying that you wouldn’t like the conditions.’ Flynn shook the concoction until his hair bounced and his glasses slid sideways.
‘You’re not that bad. I can put up with you.’
‘What sort of job would youreallylike to do? If you could choose?’ A stream of slightly pink liquid foamed out into a wide-rimmed glass as Flynn poured and then pushed the results across the counter to a couple of young women, who giggled.
‘I dunno.’ I talked to my forearms.
‘What do you like doing?’ He smiled at the girls and they giggled even more, nudging one another and making ‘he fancies you’ faces.
‘I like cooking,’ I said. ‘I make great soup.’
