Page 38 of The Monday Night Heartbreak Club
We had as good a chance as anyone else.
‘Right.’ Flynn bundled Fraser and I backwards until we were concealed in a little seating area behind a screen, obviously meant for businessmen to sit with their laptops between meetings. ‘She can’t tell me where he’s booked, obviously.’
Fraser frowned.
‘GDPR,’ Flynn explained.
‘What, like Russia?’
‘Data protection. But she did tell me that there’s a few talks, meetings and conferences going on here today, and that Eddie is most likely booked onto one of those. They all start at nine.’
All three of us looked across at the restaurant. Eddie was still there, drinking something that looked like a green smoothie. He was taking this ‘healthy eating’ thing as seriously as Fraser, I thought, looking at another table where a couple were working their way through a plate of eggs, beans and toast, and feeling my stomach give a little wriggle of hunger. The air smelled of coffee too, which didn’t help.
‘What are they?’ I asked.
Flynn took out a piece of paper. ‘Right. So, Meeting Room One is something to do with fashion design, Meeting Room Two is medical, Meeting Room Three is overseas sales, and the Hobson Suite, whatever that is, is a local arts committee meeting.’ He looked at us. ‘So,take your pick.’
We looked at the printed sheet.
‘Can we have breakfast?’ Fraser rubbed his stomach. ‘I’m starving here.’
‘In a minute,’ I replied, as distractedly as though Fraser were an annoying child we’d brought along.
‘Well, I need a wee then.’ Fraser headed for the toilets and Flynn sighed.
‘Why did we bring him?’
‘Because we can’t leave him at home alone, it’s not kind.’
We both grinned. ‘And he’s all right, is Fraser,’ Flynn said and winked at me. ‘I don’t suppose any of these meetings are undercover pork products.’ He bent back to the page.
‘What else does Eddiedo?’ I wracked my brain for anything that Annie may have mentioned. ‘He does the garden. He goes to the gym. None of those things are covered here either.’ A distant memory jangled. ‘But she did say that he was buying a lot of new clothes…’
‘Fashion design?’ Flynn said, with disbelief dripping from every syllable. ‘You think?’
I shrugged. ‘Could be. Perhaps our Eddie is a thwarted Ozwald Boateng.’
We stared at one another. Each of us was clearly writing Eddie an alternate history in another life. ‘Bit of a step from just buying new clothes though.’ Flynn clearly couldn’t reconcile Alternate Eddie with the one we had actually met.
‘True.’
Fraser wandered over. ‘He’s gone,’ he said. ‘Can we go in the restaurant now? If I don’t get at least some coffee and a sausage sarnie, I’m going to be ill.’
Flynn jumped up. ‘Bugger! I was going to follow him and see which meeting he went into, and we’ve missed him.’
I patted his hand. ‘We’re not professionals. It’s not our fault.’
‘Okay. So, we have to wait for him to come out.’ Flynn looked worried. ‘My delivery comes at twelve. Damn, I’ll have to put that off.’
‘We could go round all the meeting rooms and pretend to have walked into the wrong one?’ I suggested. ‘See which one he’s in. And if he’s with anyone,’ I added.
‘That’s me.’ Fraser straightened his back. ‘I’m born to walk into rooms I’m not wanted in. You should have seen our Chloe’s face when I walked in on her and…’
‘Good man,’ Flynn interrupted. ‘Well volunteered. We’ll be right behind you.’
‘But can we have breakfast first?’ Fraser wheedled. ‘Might not have the strength otherwise. Might not make it up the stairs.’
So, we all went and had breakfast. Eddie was, as Fraser pointed out, in here somewhere. All we had to do was find him, and it would be easier if we were full of bacon and egg, plus we had to give him time to get settled.
