Where Everything Seems Double by Penny Freedman (popular romance novels .txt) 📕

he looked as though he was wearing a costume. In place of his jeans, t-shirt and trainers he was wearing what she guessed were bits of his school uniform – a white shirt, grey trousers and black shoes. She couldn’t think why he would have brought those clothes with him on a holiday, but their family was Irish, after all, so maybe they were for going to church. He hadn’t, at least, been made to wear a tie, but his hair was slicked back instead of flopping forward in the way she liked, and he looked somehow as though he had got smaller.

‘OK,’ he said, and then Venetia gave him a hug and they all followed suit, and he looked more like himself when he said, ‘Wait for me here, OK, guys? If they arrest me, Gran will come and tell you.’

The four of them, Venetia, Micky, Fergus and Freda, watched them go and then sat down on the bench.

‘So,’ Venetia said, ‘we’d better tell you what’s going on. I know because I talked to Milo this morning, but Fergus probably knows more, so come on Ferg, spill the beans.’

Fergus looked uncomfortable being put on the spot, and he was obviously upset. Freda thought that he had been crying.

‘There’s not much to tell. Gran found Ruby’s phone in Milo’s pocket and she went apeshit about it. It was in his tracksuit top and she was putting it in the wash. That night Ruby went missing, she gave Milo her phone to look after. She’d taken it to the theatre by mistake and there was nowhere safe to leave it. He put it in his pocket and he says he forgot all about it.’

Freda found her voice. ‘If the police are looking for Ruby why haven’t they traced it? They can trace phones, can’t they?’

‘Not if it’s switched off,’ Micky said. He was sitting on the end of the bench and looked along at the others. ‘So what do we think will happen?’ he asked.

‘The police ought to be pleased,’ Venetia said, ‘because they’ll have the phone and they’ll be able to look at her texts and things and see if she was being like groomed or anything.’

‘But they’ll want to know why he didn’t give it to them before,’ Freda objected.

‘He forgot. He was upset. In shock. And it’s not as if he was hiding it, is it? It was just in a tracksuit pocket. That’s not a criminal offence, is it?’

They didn’t say much after that. Freda got out her phone and checked for messages. There was nothing but it occurred to her that there was plenty of signal here and she could ring her mum, only that felt a bit childish. Mum would be interested to hear about David, though, so she sent a text:

‘David is still Granny’s boyfriend!

Arriving today

All good here

loads of love

xxxxxx ☺

It was only as she pressed Send that she really thought about what David was coming for. Was he coming just to see Granny, or was he coming as a policeman to help to find out what had happened to Ruby? And, more to the point, was he coming as Granny’s boyfriend and where was he going to be sleeping? Because if he was going to be in Granny’s bed that would be just gross. It was weird enough having a grandmother with a boyfriend (you couldn’t use that word in front of Granny because she got mad, but what else was he?). Now was she going to have the two of them there together right outside her bedroom door?

She looked at Venetia, sitting beside her, wondering if she could confide her problem, and saw that she was busy with her phone too, and then she looked along the bench and saw that they all had their phones out, scrolling intently. It was quite a funny sight really and she wished there was someone else there to take a photo. Micky seemed to sense her looking and put his phone away.

‘Anyone want an ice cream?’ he asked. ‘I’m going down to the kiosk. Wanna come, Ferg? The lasses can keep the bench. What do you want, girls? Magnums all round?’

When they had gone, Venetia put her phone away and turned to Freda with a very bright-eyed look.

‘So who is David?’ she asked.

‘He’s a policeman,’ Freda said. Could she get away with not saying the words ‘my grandmother’s boyfriend’? ‘Actually, I think he’s a chief inspector or something – in London.’

‘Really!’ Venetia scanned her face. ‘And what’s he going to be doing here?’

Freda shrugged. ‘I suppose he’s just come to see my gran,’ she said, and when Venetia was clearly expecting more she added, ‘They’ve known each other for years.’

‘So they’re an item?’

‘I don’t think…’ Freda said, because Granny would have hated that expression as much as ‘boyfriend’.

‘So friends with privileges?’ Venetia suggested.

Freda wasn’t sure what that meant, and she was feeling squirmily uncomfortable about this conversation, so she said as firmly as she could, ‘I really don’t know, Venetia. Nobody knows. My mum doesn’t know.’ And then, in a bid to distract Venetia, she said in what she hoped was a creepy sort of voice, ‘It’s a mystery.’

But Venetia was not letting go. ‘Milo says your granny is the reason why the police keep questioning his grandfather about Ruby. And I’ve seen some of the stuff on Facebook. Was her boyfriend involved in that too?’

Freda stood up. ‘He’s not her boyfriend, and Granny doesn’t talk about it, and Milo shouldn’t either, and nor should you. It’s all fake news stuff, and it’s horrible.’

She started to walk away, furious and tearful and wanting to escape, but she found herself almost colliding with the boys, returning cheerfully with a Magnum in each hand, and in the business of finding the money for them, and unwrapping and taking that first crisp, cold bite she somehow managed to swallow her anger too, and though she avoided eye contact with Venetia she thought she did pretty well at behaving