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

‘Oh my God, I love it when you talk like something out of The Bill,’ I said. Nathan laughed.

‘That show is responsible for my entire career,’ he said. He turned to Gino. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to press charges? He caused you a nasty accident, and it could have been even worse.’

Gino looked at Lucy, but she shook her head. ‘No,’ said Gino, ‘we’ll leave it. He’s a big enough loser as it is.’ And with that he took Lucy’s hand (with his non-broken arm) and they walked away.

‘Okay…’ said Nathan. ‘Note to self: never try to stop your girlfriend leaving by taking out the opposition.’

I laughed, but it wasn’t me leaving, was it?

Chapter Twenty-Five

We slowly strolled back towards the food truck, but we were waylaid en route by Daisy and Mum, who had just finished filming. Daisy chattered excitedly and even Mum had a glow about her, so they’d obviously enjoyed the experience far more than I had.

‘Are you done for the day?’ I asked. Daisy nodded.

‘I am but Nana isn’t,’ she said. ‘Nana’s got a proper part!’

‘What?’ I cried, turning to Mum. She smiled and looked very proud of herself. Some might even call it smug.

‘I’ve got a line and everything,’ she said. ‘They’re going to let me speak.’

‘They’ll bloody regret that,’ I muttered, and Nathan laughed.

‘Nice one, Shirley,’ he said. She fluttered her eyelashes at him.

‘Thank you, Nathan. You can come round for your tea again.’

We all went to the food truck – I thought I should probably make sure the hot buffet was still well stocked, and we were all getting hungry – but when I got there I could hear singing coming from inside the van.

Gino stopped mid-line – something about a big pizza pie – and poked his head out over the counter.

‘You decided to come back, then?’ he said, but in a good-natured way; he seemed to be in a better mood than he had been earlier.

‘Have I been made redundant?’ I asked. He smiled.

‘Sorry, I can’t sit at home doing nothing, even with my arm in a sling. You can help with the washing-up if you want…’

‘No, you’re all right,’ I said quickly, although I knew I would end up feeling bad and helping him anyway. ‘In that case, I want some food.’

We all helped ourselves, including Nathan, who was showing no inclination to leave, which was okay by me. Then we found a spare table and sat down. Daisy looked cold in her pretty costume, so I took off my coat and draped it over her shoulders. Mum said she was fine, although it was a bit chilly, but the temperature went up several degrees when Nathan unwound the scarf he was wearing and wrapped it round her neck. I felt myself go all warm inside at such a caring gesture. That’s because he’s a good son, I thought, and immediately went cold again.

‘So much for my theory about the pranks,’ I said, after we’d filled our bellies with cheesy pasta, Mum had gone to the Make-Up trailer, and Daisy had gone off with Jade to get changed, Germaine bounding after her. I could only imagine the look on the sour wardrobe mistress’s face when confronted with my hairy dog next to her precious costumes… ‘The only ones we haven’t got to the bottom of are the most minor ones, the lightbulbs being smashed and the generator fiddled with.’

‘And wasn’t the home owner complaining about someone being in his garden?’ asked Nathan.

‘That’s right. It looked like whoever smashed the light bulbs climbed out of the window.’

Nathan looked thoughtful. ‘Maybe we should go and have a look at that flowerbed…’

‘The footprints were here, and then there were some shards of broken glass here.’ I pointed at the flowerbed in David Morgan’s kitchen garden. Nathan frowned.

‘Are you sure?’ He carefully worked his way around the remaining seedlings and plants, careful not to do any more damage. ‘So whoever was in the flowerbed stood about here? And the window was shut, so they must have turned around after climbing out, reached up, and closed it?’ I nodded. He reached up to the window above him and frowned again. ‘Okay, I know I’m not the tallest man in the world, but look how hard it is for me to even reach the window frame. The window would have to be open at least halfway to leave a big enough gap to climb through, and I don’t think I could close it from out here. The ground’s lower this side of the window than it is inside, isn’t it?’

‘I did wonder about that at the time,’ I said.

‘What’s going on?’ David Morgan stood behind us, looking annoyed. His expression changed to one of wariness as Nathan turned round and he realised he was addressing a police officer and not just the nosey caterer. ‘Sorry, officer, I can’t remember your name. Can I help you with something?’

‘DCI Withers, sir. I was just following up on the trespassing issue you had here a few days ago. My associate here’ – ooh, I was his ‘associate’ now, was I? That sounded official – ’believed that there could be a link between that and the vandalism of film company property.’

‘Oh, right.’ Morgan really did look uncomfortable now. ‘Look, there’s enough going on here. I don’t want to add to it by making a big thing about this, annoyed as I was…’

‘It’s absolutely fine, sir,’ said Nathan. I could see he’d picked up on the house owner’s nervousness. ‘I was just saying to Ms Parker here that our theory doesn’t add up. The footprints were in the wrong place. Even if they were closer to the window, I still don’t really see how someone could reach up and shut the window from the outside.’

I looked down at Nathan’s feet. The prints in the soil were rather larger than those left by his smart leather shoes.

‘What size are