Page 57 of Play Our Song

Her dad stood up and stretched. “Right, after a day like today, I’m off for a pint. Gio’s probably already propping up the bar. You coming down the pub?”

“No,” Sophie said. “Not yet. I’ve got a few invoices to finish and then I need to do some choir practice.”

“I tell you what, I’m looking forward to this concert of yours,” her dad said with a grin.

She smiled back. “It won’t be long now.”

She bent her head down and got on with some work while her dad finished putting tools away and then bid her goodbye. She waited until he was truly gone, door closed, before she sat back in her chair and looked around.

She didn’t think they’d done anything. But thinking wasn’t enough. Not if this place was going to be hers one day. If she was going to own the garage, she wanted to know that everything was legal. She wanted to make sure there was nothing to find here.

And she had one advantage over the police. She could go anywhere she liked.

She started with the large tool boxes with their pull out drawers.

IT WAS ALMOST eight, and she’d found nothing when her phone started to ring. Tired, dirty, and aching, she went back to her desk, flopped onto her chair, and answered the phone without thinking.

“I thought we were going to sing.”

Sophie sighed. “I thought we had an arrangement.”

“Me too,” said Tilly. “To sing. But you’re not here?”

She’d been avoiding this conversation, she realized. Okay, so she had wanted to check the garage for possible contraband. She’d wanted to make sure that if the police came back, they found nothing. But, more pressingly, she’d wanted to avoid seeing Tilly. Because she was angry.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Ah,” Tilly said. There was a silence on the other end of the phone. When Tilly spoke again, her voice was soft but clear. “I’m not going to apologize, Sophie.”

“You could have rung.”

“No,” Tilly said. “No, I couldn’t. That was police work. I had information that led me to believe the garage could be involved in the stolen car ring. I could not inform you, the daughter of the owner, that we were preparing to come and have a look around. How would that have looked in court?”

“We’re not in court,” Sophie said stubbornly.

“Listen, we agreed. I have a job to do. You have a complicated family. Those two things are going to coincide at points. There’s nothing I can do about that. What would you have liked me to do?”

“I’d have liked some warning.”

“You’re being unreasonable.” There was a pause. “Sophie, I know that you know this.”

She did know it. She was being unreasonable. “I suppose.”

“These things are going to happen. I’m not going to compromise my job for you. And in the same way, I don’t expect you to compromise your family for me.”

Sophie bit her lip. Tilly was right, she knew she was right. “It was just… it was a shock, that’s all. To see you here, to see you so soon, just… just looking.”

“Looking and finding nothing,” Tilly reminded her. “And just so you know, no matter what your brother might think, neither Max nor I would ever plant evidence.”

“I know that,” Sophie said. She did know it. She instinctively trusted Tilly. She sighed, the sound louder through the phone than she’d intended. “Have I messed all this up?”

“What?”

“This. Us. Have I been unreasonable and messed it all up?”

Tilly laughed a little and Sophie’s stomach eased. “I don’t think so. There are bound to be misunderstandings sometimes, aren’t there?” Tilly said. “And whilst I won’t apologize for doing my job, I will apologize for taking you by surprise like that. It wasn’t my intention, just an unfortunate side effect.”

“Right,” Sophie said. “Um, and I apologize for being weird about it.”

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