Page 100 of Meet me at the Seaside Cottages

So Dwight will lose everything – and it will probably go to some dodgy Edinburgh bloke who had invested money he could well afford to lose, years back. And if it truly is a Ponzi, to someone who had probably been benefiting all along, making money right from the start.

She closes her eyes. It just gets worse and worse.

‘So Essie didn’t know,’ says Jean.

Janey shakes her head crossly. ‘Of course not! She wouldn’t do that in a million years!’

There’s a pause as, blank-faced, Carrie the baker lets Janey beep her phone to pay. Nobody says anything. But Janey canfeel it, hanging in the air, and it’s unbearable. Essie still brought those men to Carso.

Alasdair phones as Janey is leaving and she answers the phone, grateful to have something to distract her from all the eyes behind her, watching her go.

‘Fuck a duck,’ he says, which at least has the bonus of being concise, as well as appropriate.

‘I know,’ says Janey in a low voice. ‘There’s nothing good to say about it.’

‘These are those stains Essie worked with, aren’t they?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So she . . . ’

‘Oh, God,’ says Janey. ‘She didn’t know. Nothing about it.’

‘Oh, come off it,’ says Al. ‘They were so obviouslydickheads.’

‘Yes, but I’m not sure that’s unusual when it comes to bankers. It doesn’t mean she could know they were crooks.’

‘Oh, my God,’ Al says. ‘You know what it took Dwight to earn that money.’

‘I do,’ says Janey. ‘I know what that family went through.’

Al sighs. ‘Oh, God, Essie, the stupid, stupid . . . ’

‘Al.’

‘No, but, Mum . . . ’

‘She’s made a mistake . . . ’

‘No,’ says Al. ‘Making a mistake is when you put on the wrong colour of shoes or accidentally knock someone’s wing mirror.That’sa mistake. This is a fucking disaster, and it’s not even her disaster. It’s Dwight’s.’

Janey sits on a wall, holding the cooling bag, talking to Al until she feels herself calming down. But she doesn’t know what to do, and Al hasn’t a clue. He hasn’t heard from Dwight; it doesn’t sound as though anyone has.

Oh, God. She’s not going to lose her house, is she? No. She can’t. Essie has nothing to do with it. Apart from opening the door to Carso: inviting the wolves in.

She drags herself home.

‘Essie?’ she yells. ‘Sweetie? Come on, let’s eat.’

But there is no reply. Essie has gone.

38

Lowell answers the banging at the door, and sees Essie has come back again. He’s read all the news reports now.

‘Essie,’ he says. ‘You have to go and talk to Dwight.’

‘No time,’ she says.

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