A Sprinkle of Sabotage by Fiona Leitch (famous ebook reader TXT) 📕

I looked at him, trying not to think of the six-pack lurking under his (clean and dry) frilly shirt, and snorted. ‘You? Lucky? Does she know about your track record with women?’ I saw him stiffen and immediately regretted it. Why was I being nasty to him? He was my best – certainly my oldest – friend in the world. It wasn’t like I was jealous of him spending time with Faith or anything – why should I be? And to bring up his past relationships, both of which had ended in disaster, was just mean. Being Mrs Penhaligon, it seemed, wasn’t a job for the faint-hearted, but that was hardly his fault. ‘I am so sorry. I didn’t mean it to come out like that.’

‘I know you didn’t,’ he said shortly, but I still felt bad.

‘So how come she needs a lucky charm?’ I asked, hoping to smooth things over by charging on with the conversation and ignoring it.

He smiled. ‘Actors are so superstitious. You know how you have to say ‘break a leg’ instead of ‘good luck’, and how you’re not allowed to say the name of the Scottish play—’

‘Macbeth,’ Debbie and I chorused, loudly. A couple of cast members nearby gave us murderous glances and we giggled.

‘I thought that were just in the theatre?’ asked Debbie. He nodded.

‘It is, normally. But everyone’s on edge here now because of the curse.’

Debbie and I exchanged looks.

‘What curse?’ I said.

‘It’s proper daft,’ said Tony, ‘but Faith and some of the others have got it into their heads that the production’s cursed. You hear about some film shoots being really unlucky, people having accidents, even dying—’

‘What a load of rubbish,’ I scoffed, but he shook his head.

‘No, you should google it. You know Poltergeist?’

Debbie and I looked at each other and grinned. ‘They’re here…’

‘I knew you’d do that. There’s this bit in a swimming pool, where all these skeletons pop up—’

‘I know the bit you mean. Do you remember, Tone, we got it out of Blockbusters when it came out on video and watched it round mine while my mum and dad were at a dinner party.’ I suddenly also remembered that it had been during the two weeks in 1994 when we’d been boyfriend and girlfriend. We’d been fourteen and had held hands and kissed, but no tongues. He certainly hadn’t had a six-pack back then. I swallowed. ‘It scared the bejesus out of us.’

‘Of course I remember…’ He looked at me and I knew he was also remembering the first few awkward moments after deciding that we were officially going out together, when we’d sat on the sofa, neither of us knowing what exactly being boyfriend and girlfriend entailed. We’d given up trying to work it out after a while and had just watched the film, throwing Maltesers at each other during the scary bits, exactly as we had done a thousand times before when we were just friends. ‘Anyway, they used real skeletons. Real live dead people. Not a good idea. Lots of unexplained accidents, even deaths.’

‘That’s horrible,’ said Debbie.

‘And then there was The Omen, and The Crow, and—’

I shook my head. ‘Tony, love, you need to stop looking up rubbish on the internet.’

‘It’s all true! Anyway, the thing is, these stories spread, don’t they?’

‘Because people look them up on the internet,’ I pointed out, pointedly.

‘Well, yeah. But what with Faith getting locked in, the dog escaping and nearly drowning, and now Gino falling down the stairs and breaking his arm…’ He leaned in conspiratorially. ‘They think this shoot’s cursed too.’

Debbie and I stared at him, then at each other, and then burst out laughing.

‘Oh, come on! The Omen and that, they’re horror films with loads of spooky stuff going on, but this film…’ Debbie threw her hands up in exasperation. ‘The scariest thing about this film is your frilly shirt.’

‘Thanks a lot…’

‘Honestly, what does this remind you of?’ I said.

He looked mystified. ‘I dunno, what’s it supposed to remind me of?’

I put on a terrible American accent. ‘‘I’d have gotten away with it too, if it hadn’t been for them pesky kids!’’ He still looked mystified and I felt indignant. ‘It’s all a bit Scooby Doo, innit?’

‘The local sheriff’s been dressing up as the ghost of Polvarrow House and terrorising the actors with phantom pasties,’ said Debbie, laughing.

‘Exactly,’ I said. Tony looked at me, his eyes narrowing.

‘You know something. What do you know?’

‘Nothing…’ I didn’t really want to mention my suspicions until I spoke to Nathan. But then, if I was right, I should warn them… I looked around to make sure no one else was listening, and then beckoned the two of them closer. ‘I think maybe someone is trying to sabotage the shoot.’

Nathan looked at me keenly. ‘What makes you say that?’

The cast and crew, including Debbie and Tony, had finished lunch and gone back on set. A few stragglers hung around, chatting, but other than that Nathan and I had the picnic tables to ourselves.

I held up the broken-off piece of step. ‘What do you think of that?’

He studied it, then looked up at me. ‘That’s a suspiciously clean break, if we’re meant to believe that it broke under someone’s weight.’

‘Someone sawed through the middle of the step, didn’t they? Not all the way through – someone might have noticed that – but just enough that when a certain amount of weight was put on it, or someone stood right on the cut, it would split in two.’

‘Do you think someone was out to get Gino?’ Nathan put down the wood and picked up his mug of tea. I shook my head.

‘I don’t think so. Why would they be? He’s the caterer; everyone loves him because he feeds them. And it’s a bit of a hit-and-miss method, isn’t it? There’d be no telling when it would break, or even if it would be Gino who stood on it. There