Page 5 of Blow Down (The Plumber's Mate)
“Um. Maybe?”
“I knew it.” She didn’t exactly purr. It was too reptilian for that. “You’ll have to come round again. I’ll call you.”
I made a mental note to call-screen from now on.
“In the meantime, there’s something else you can do for me. As you’re no doubt aware, I’m organising this year’s Harvest Fayre. I’m sure I can count on your support?”
“Uh . . .”
She smiled, all teeth and no sincerity. “Excellent. I’ll be in touch with further details. Now, I’m sure you have work to do.” She didn’t actually say chop-chop, but axes were definitely implied as she chivvied me out the front door.
Flippin’ marvellous. I stomped down the drive to the van, wondering just what I’d managed to sign up for without ever, at any point, saying yes. Hopefully it’d just be a stint manning the barbecue or working the beer tent. I could handle that, particularly the latter. Just as long as it didn’t involve me having to put on any sort of themed costume and make a prat of myself.
Oh God. Harvest Fayre? She’d better not be expecting me to dress up as some kind of humorous vegetable. A leek, maybe? It’d better sodding well not be a pea.
I slammed the van door a bit harder than I needed to and shoved the keys viciously in the ignition. This was not turning out to be my day. Still, at least I’d be able to console myself with a few rounds of cake at the Old Deanery. And maybe wring Cherry’s neck while I was at it for putting me through all this. I switched on my phone to check the time—Sis had said come round at four—only to find a text from her saying, Dont come rnd sprise bishp.
After a moment’s head scratching, I took it to mean she’d been surprised by a visit from the imperial overlord and didn’t want me coming over to show her up. Rather than, say, she just didn’t want to see me and was suggesting I go play pranks on His Right Reverendness as an alternative activity. Great. So now I wasn’t even going to get any cake. As I watched, a second text pinged through with a belated, Sry.
I wasn’t in the best of moods after that, so seeing as it was Friday, it was around teatime, and it was a nice day and all, I popped in at Phil’s office on my way home to see if I could persuade him to knock off early too and go grab a pint.
Alban Investigations Ltd. (director and sole employee, Phil Morrison, Esq.) has its registered address on Hatfield Road, St. Albans, above a firm of no-win-no-fee lawyers of the sort my barrister big sis likes to look down her nose at. It’s a cosy little place, by which I mean cramped, but then all he really needs is a desk and a couple of parking spaces: one for his shiny silver VW Golf and one for clients. Or, as might be, my van. I slotted it in neatly and rang the bell for him to buzz me up.
Phil had a file open on his desk when I walked in the door, but I was fairly sure that was just part of the window dressing to impress any potential clients who might drop in unannounced how busy he was. ’Specially seeing as he also had the paper open to the puzzle section and a cup of tea by his elbow. He gave me the raised-eyebrow treatment when I walked in, but I could tell he was pleased to see me.
“Fancy a pint down the Cocks?” I asked, dropping into one of his client chairs, because it’d been a while since I’d had a good swivel.
Ye Olde Fighting Cocks is a pub down by the park in St. Albans. Despite the name, it’s not a gay bar with a particularly violent rep, just your average watering hole with an extra bit of history.
It claims to be Britain’s oldest pub and to have been serving beer since around the time Vikings first made the happy discovery that monks in Lindisfarne didn’t fight back, but if you ask me, any place that feels the need to put “Ye Olde” in its name is definitely calling its authenticity into question. Normally I’d prefer the Devil’s Dyke in Brock’s Hollow, but it was presently undergoing major renovations on account of having been gutted by a fire back at the start of the summer. The landlady, Harry Shire (who’d also been pretty gutted about it all), was keeping her business going out of the downstairs room in a local restaurant, but on a sunny summer evening, you want a beer garden, don’t you?
Harry would understand.
Well, maybe not, ’cos I wasn’t planning on being daft enough ever to mention it to her, but, well, in principle she would. Probably.
“Some of us have to work for a living,” Phil muttered. Still, he closed the file.
“Hey, does that mean I get to be a kept man when we tie the knot?” I grinned at him. We’d got engaged the day after the fire, which had happened to be my thirtieth birthday, and the ring he’d given me still felt a bit weird on my finger. In a good way, mind. Definitely in a good way.
“In your dreams.” He smirked. “People are always telling me there’s a load of money in plumbing. Maybe I’ll be the kept man.”
“Yeah? Which people are those, then?” I mean, I’m not on the breadline or anything, but if plumbing’s the way to make your fortune, I’ve been doing it wrong all these years.
“Jase, mostly.”
“Like he knows his arse from anyone else’s elbow.” Jase was Phil’s brother, and a first-class graduate of the school of talking bollocks. We’d only met a couple of times so far. He seemed to like me for some reason, but I can’t say the feeling was all that mutual.
“Yeah, well, that’s not the only thing he’s been mouthing off about. I got a call from Mum this morning.” Phil imbued this dire pronouncement with the gravity it deserved, which was more than you’d think. “Something you want to tell me about?”
“Uh, right.” I tried to look like it’d genuinely slipped my mind. “You mean, like me bumping into Jase the other night down the supermarket, and him noticing the ring?”
I’d been a bit surprised Jase had realised the significance at the time, seeing as I was wearing it on my right hand—the plan was to switch it over to the left when we were official. Then again, maybe that’s what Phil had done when he got spliced to the Mysterious Mark?
That not being a subject I was too keen on thinking about, I preferred to speculate that Jase just wasn’t too hot on the difference between left and right.
Phil grunted. “That might be the sort of thing I was thinking of, yes. So I got a right ear-bashing from Mum, and we’re going round on Sunday for a bit more of the same.”
I winced.
