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

the whole meal?’ Nathan made notes on his pad, which Mancuso was eyeing uneasily. I wasn’t sure if it was a sign of guilt (guilt about what, I didn’t know), or if he was just generally a shifty character. He was a New York movie producer, so my money was on the latter.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Oh, except right at the beginning, before we started eating. I got a call from my daughter, so I went outside to take it. She’s staying with me during the shoot.’

‘Okay…’ Nathan wrote that down, then looked up with a smile. ‘So what happens now?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Are you closing down the shoot? Or can you keep going without Jeremy?’

‘You’ll lose money if you just shut down,’ I said. ‘Or are you insured against stuff like this?’

Mancuso looked a bit put out. ‘Why do you wanna know?’

‘She’s an ex-copper,’ said Nathan. ‘She’s nosey, like me. Humour us.’

I held my hands out in defence. ‘I’m just interested, that’s all. Half the town signed on as extras, so they’ll all want to know what’s going on.’

He didn’t look too keen to go into details and for a moment I thought he was just going to ignore me, but then he obviously decided I wasn’t a threat and gave me a big, false smile.

‘Of course we’re insured; it’s standard for all big shoots. It covers your losses if you’re forced to stop filming, whether it’s temporarily or for good.’

‘So if a member of the cast or crew is accidentally killed during filming—’ began Nathan.

‘It pays out, yeah.’

‘But Jeremy didn’t die as a result of an accident during filming, did he?’ I said. I could see Nathan looking at me keenly, although I wasn’t even sure myself what I was getting at. ‘Kimi told Sam he should have stopped Zack serving the fish, but you said you’d okayed it. I’m sure I read something once about movie stars wanting to do risky stuff like, I dunno, motor racing or water-skiing during breaks between filming, and the production company forbade them to do it because it was dangerous and would jeopardise the movie.’ I looked at Mancuso thoughtfully. ‘But this was dangerous, and you okayed it. Why would you do that?’

‘Because the caterer – Gino, the real caterer – assured me it was safe. He said he would make sure it wasn’t dangerous.’

Nathan and I exchanged looks.

‘How was he intending to do that?’ asked Nathan.

‘Jeez, I don’t know!’ Mancuso sounded exasperated. ‘I guess he was going to watch over Zack and make sure he prepared it properly.’

‘But then Gino broke his arm,’ pressed Nathan. ‘You didn’t think maybe you should advise Zack against it, without Gino there to watch him?’

The producer laughed, but it sounded forced. ‘Hey, you sure you don’t work for the insurance company?’

Nathan laughed as well, and his didn’t sound any more genuine. ‘If your insurers are anything like mine, they’ll give you a much more thorough grilling than that. You should’ve heard the fuss they made over a simple fender-bender. And me an honest copper, too.’

Mancuso stood up, obviously hoping we would follow suit and leave, but both of us stayed seated.

‘Look, okay,’ he said. ‘Maybe I should have thought about stopping Zack, but cards on the table, I got a lot on my mind during a shoot and it didn’t occur to me there could be a problem. I’m a busy man, so sue me.’ He went to the door and opened it. ‘Now, like I said, I’m a busy man, so if you don’t mind…’

‘I don’t mind,’ said Nathan pleasantly, not moving immediately. ‘Oh sorry, did you want us to leave? What am I like? Of course, you’ve got important things to do. I’ve just got to find out for certain how one of your main actors died.’ He stood up and I followed his lead. Nathan took a business card from his pocket and wrote a number on it. He walked to the door and handed it to Mancuso. ‘Here’s the case number, if the insurance company asks for it. Thank you for your time.’

He stepped through the door but I knew Nathan, and I knew he wasn’t done yet – and I was right. He stopped and turned back to Mancuso. ‘I wouldn’t file that claim yet though, if I were you. Bye now.’

Nathan strode down the stairs leaving Mancuso glaring after him. I smiled my most charming smile, said, ‘Bye!’ and followed, picking up Germaine as her little legs had trouble with the stairs. I knew how she felt.

Nathan was almost back at the food truck before I caught up with him. He turned and grinned at me, a mischievous grin that turned my knees to jelly and (if I’m being honest) loosened my knicker elastic a little.

‘That was fun, wasn’t it?’ he said. I laughed.

‘What was that all about?’ I asked, and then added, mimicking his accent, ‘‘I wouldn’t file that claim yet if I were you.’ Oh my God, I nearly died.’

‘What can I say? I didn’t like the bloke.’

‘Really? I couldn’t tell…’

Nathan laughed, then stopped and looked at me. ‘We make a good team, don’t we?’

‘You mean, like, ‘good cop, bad cop’?’

‘I was thinking more, ‘wannabe cop, actual cop’…’

‘Oi!’ I lifted my hand to slap him and he caught it.

‘Again with the hitting. Do I need to handcuff you?’ He pulled me towards him, and I thought, Oh my God, AT LAST, he’s going to kiss me. And then I thought, and then he’ll bugger off back to Liverpool… Nathan hesitated, and then—

His phone rang. He sighed. ‘Every. Single. Time.’ He let go of my hand and dug his phone out of his pocket. He looked at the caller ID, then declined the call.

‘Who was that?’ I asked, thinking, That’s the second time he’s declined a call in front of me…

‘My old super,’ he said.

‘The one back in Liverpool? You should probably talk to him if he’s going to be your boss again.’

He shook his head,