Page 62 of Best Summer Ever

‘You do?’ Nick asked.

‘Well,’ I conceded, ‘the beginning of one. Just leave it with me.’

Chapter 14

Mindful that I was increasingly in danger of being accused of using Mum and Dad’s place as a glorified hotel and needing peace and quiet in which to further develop the idea I’d come up with after losing spectacularly at the pub quiz, I decided to drive home that night rather than stay with Josh in Wynmouth.

He was a bit sulky about it, but only in a play-acting kind of way, and I wondered if Marguerite’s earlier supposition that he was mad for me might actually be true. I didn’t currently have the bandwidth to think too deeply about it, or what my own feelings for him might be morphing into, so focused instead on what most needed my immediate attention.

When the cottage phone rang early the next morning, it turned out to be Algy.

‘There, look,’ he said a short while later when I had joined him at the manor and we were watching the cat-cam footage on his computer screen. ‘That’s her. That’s little Luna.’

Filling the screen for just a few seconds was a small, scrawny black cat, wolfing down the food that Algy had put out at an alarming rate.

‘I wonder what scared her off,’ he tutted, peering even closeras the feral feline looked in one direction, then bolted out of view in the other.

‘Maybe it was the panther,’ I suggested while stifling a yawn.

I hadn’t slept particularly well, but I had almost made up my mind about my plan and as far as I was concerned, that was hours awake in bed well spent. Though perhaps not as well spent as they would have been if I had been awake with Josh…

‘Hardly,’ tutted Algy.

‘And you’re absolutely sure that’s her?’ I asked him.

He gave me a withering look.

‘Of course, I’m sure,’ he said gruffly. ‘I’d recognise her anywhere. Though she’s much thinner than I remember.’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘at least you know she’s still here and getting some of the food you’re putting out. Even if she isn’t exactly looking like a picture of health, you know she’s still alive.’

Algy nodded at that.

‘My concern now though,’ he sighed, ‘is that she possibly isn’t getting as much of the food as I thought she was. My guess is that whatever scared her off could have snaffled the rest and that potentially means she’s barely getting more than a few frantic bites each time she comes to eat.’

Annoyingly, the batteries in the camera, which obviously hadn’t been fully charged, had gone flat right at the wrong moment and that meant it hadn’t recorded whatever had come along next, but we knew something had because Luna had pelted off.

‘I was going to suggest we try and set something up to catch her,’ I told Algy as I set the batteries to charge, ‘but having seen her in action, she seems so flighty and nervous, I don’t think she’d fall for whatever we came up with.’

‘I think you’re right there,’ Algy said forlornly. ‘First, we need to focus on a way of getting more food to her. Just to her.’

‘Any idea how to do that?’

‘None,’ he sighed heavily. ‘It might help if we knew where she kept disappearing to…’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘let’s set the camera back up with fresh batteries and think further about that once more footage has come in. I’m sure we’ll think up something between us.’

‘Perhaps a walk around the garden might get the ideas flowing,’ Algy then suggested.

‘Nice try,’ I said, standing up. ‘But no dice.’

‘You can’t put it off forever, you know.’

‘Thankfully,’ I said, ‘I’m not going to be here forever.’

Algy looked hurt, but it hadn’t been my intention to upset him; I just wanted him to talk about something else. Anything other than the garden.

‘Are you really in such a rush to leave Wynbrook again?’ he asked sadly, but he didn’t give me time to answer. ‘Because I wish you weren’t. It’s so wonderful having you back here, Daisy. You know I think of you, and your parents of course, as family, but you especially. You’re the granddaughter I never had. It’s really put some pep back in my step knowing there’s some young blood here and about the place.’

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