Page 136 of Reinventing Cato
“What were you thinking of?”
“Chocolate brownies, chocolate chip cookies.”
“Sounds good. Do you need to text Sam to get more ingredients?”
Oh yeah.After Sam had told him to do that, he could hardly send Vigge out shopping.
“Shit! Talking of phones, where’s mine?” Vigge said. “Back in a minute.”
Cato knew he wanted the letter opener out of the house, and Sam and Pedro not to know it had been moved.
When Vigge came back, he made them both coffees. He wrapped his arms around Cato and hugged him. “I’ll take you out for lunch.”
Cato nodded, and began preparing food that he didn’t want to eat, for a party he didn’t want to attend. His mind was racing throughwhat ifs.What if only his fingerprints were on that letter opener? And the bag? It was an old sandwich bag that he might have touched. Had it been there since they last searched his room? Vigge had looked at his chest of drawers before, so had he missed it? If he hadn’t, then how had anyone gotten in his room without a key?
Vigge sat at the table with his coffee, messing around on his phone. He was still working on it when Sam came back with the tandoori powder.
“Anything else you need?” Sam asked. “Oh, are you making brownies?”
“Yep.” Cato checked the clock. “Two more minutes.”
“I bet they need testing, right?” Sam grinned.
Cato forced a smile onto his face. “Are you volunteering?”
“Absolutely. Thanks for agreeing to the party. I know you weren’t keen.”
“Invited anyone you want to impress?” Vigge asked.
Sam chuckled. “I might have.”
“Where’s your accent from?” Vigge cocked his head. “I can’t get it and it’s bugging me. Not quite London…”
“Brighton born and bred. I didn’t even get to escape when I went to uni.”
“Did you live at home?” Vigge asked.
“No way.ThatI did escape.”
Cato laughed. “I’ve often thought that if there was a university at Land’s End, it’d be oversubscribed. Getting as far away from home as I could was all I was thinking about when I was a teenager.”Not true.
“Did you go to university?” Sam asked Vigge.
“Bristol.”
“And where do you come from originally?” Sam asked.
“I was born in Denmark. I lived there until I was eight.”
“What line of work are you in?”
“Insurance.”
The timer went off on the oven and Cato lifted the two trays out.
“Oh my God, they smell so good.” Sam moaned.
“Let them cool down a bit first.” Cato quickly mixed up the tandoori powder with natural yoghurt, lemon juice and a touch of oil, then tipped the chicken he’d prepared into it and stirred it in. He washed his hands, covered the chicken with clingfilm and slipped it into the fridge.
