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

‘Well, he’s a dark horse, ain’t he? Has he told his ex?’

‘No, no, he said he’s not in touch with her anymore. I believe him. But it’s a really good job, and it’ll be near his parents.’

Debbie leaned back in her chair, shaking her head. ‘Still, I really can’t believe it. I thought … you and him… Tony’ll be pleased, though.’

I looked down at the table. Tony wasn’t the one I wanted, was he? There were good reasons why Tony would be the perfect man for me. Daisy loved him (but then she’d given Nathan the seal of approval after he’d eaten with us the other night), Mum loved him, Germaine loved him… And there was the small matter of that six-pack and his sudden, completely unexpected Darcy-esque hotness. Germaine gave a little whine and lay her head on my feet.

As if she knew what I was thinking, Debbie said, ‘One thing’s for certain, Tony’ll never leave Penstowan.’

No, I thought. That was probably the main reason we’d only ever been friends, apart from those two weeks in 1994.

‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘I don’t really want to talk about it. And that’s not what you ambushed me for, is it? You want the skinny on the shoot.’

‘Yeah,’ said Debbie, although she seemed less interested about it now. She clearly wanted to keep discussing Nathan and Tony but I made it equally clear that I didn’t. ‘So what’s going on?’

‘You have to keep this to yourself for the moment. It will get out, but you are sworn to absolute secrecy for now.’ She laughed and went to speak but I stopped her with a serious look. ‘No, I mean it.’

‘Okay, I promise. I won’t say anything.’

I told her what had happened. She let out a loud ‘WHAT?’, but then shut her mouth and listened intently.

‘So what’ll happen to the movie now?’ she asked. I shrugged.

‘No idea. I suppose it depends on how many of Jeremy’s scenes they’ve already shot. If it’s only a few, they could just recast the part and shoot them again.’

‘Yeah…’ she said. ‘Or they might be able to use a stand-in and CGI. They CGI’d Carrie Fisher into a scene in one of the newer Star Wars films, didn’t they? They might be able to do that.’

‘Maybe. But the one thing they probably can’t do is just stop. They must’ve already poured a lot of money into it, and they won’t get that back unless they finish shooting and get the film out there.’

We finished our coffees and said our goodbyes, Debbie pulling me in for a hug that took me by surprise and made me feel a bit weepy. Then Germaine and I made our way to Polvarrow House.

I was horrified to discover that I’d left the food truck in a much worse mess than I remembered. The lights had gone out while I’d been in the middle of washing up, and then Nathan had turned up, somewhat drenched and windswept and looking a little bit Heathcliff, if truth be told (although, as book boyfriends go, Heathcliff didn’t really do it for me; he was a bit of a bully); it had taken all my strength to not trot out some cheesy line about ‘getting out of those wet things’. And then we’d heard a scream (Kimi), and the night had descended into chaos…

I apologised to Germaine as I tethered her to the caravan steps, leaving her a long enough leash that she could have a sniff around. I left the door open so she could see I was still there, but she was too busy nosing around in the grass, following all the exciting scent trails as far as she could before being restrained by the lead.

‘Sorry, sweetheart,’ I said. ‘I will take you for a good long W. A. L. K. later, I promise.’

I pulled the plug on the sink full of cold water and refilled it with hot soapy bubbles, putting away the bottles of cooking oil, soy sauce, and so on while I waited for it to fill. Thank God I’d remembered to turn the deep-fat fryer off the night before, otherwise there might not have been a food truck to come back to. Germaine gave a little yap and I knew someone was there before they spoke.

‘All right?’ I looked up to see Zack standing hesitantly in the doorway. He looked awful. I smiled sympathetically at him and motioned him inside.

‘How are you this morning?’ I asked. ‘Were you ill last night?’

He nodded. ‘Yeah, a little bit. Threw up once and felt better. Not like Aiko.’ He grimaced. ‘She was up nearly all night being sick, and she had a splitting headache.’

‘Oh no! Is she all right now?’

‘She’s fine now, just really wiped out,’ he said. ‘They discharged her and she’s back at the hotel now, resting.’ He smiled, but it was a sad, almost tearful smile. ‘It was pretty scary, if I’m honest. I thought I might have killed her too…’

‘Oh Zack…’ I gave him a big hug and we stood like that for a few seconds, while I patted him on the back and he got himself together. I stood back and looked at him seriously. ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself…’

He snorted. ‘Who else is there to blame?’

‘I know, I know, but it was an accident, wasn’t it?’ Like all the other ‘accidents’ that have been happening, I thought, but what else could it be? We might not have had the test results back yet, but it had definitely been something Jeremy had eaten, and one of the things he’d eaten had been the notoriously poisonous pufferfish. It had to be that. And yet…

And yet it niggled at me. Something had niggled at me when I’d spoken to Nathan earlier, but I hadn’t known what it was; it had felt like a vague uneasiness, or a faint itch inside my brain. No matter how hard I