Page 9 of Fe
“Yes, he was.”
What?Fen had lost track of the conversation.
“Thank you for returning the medal.”
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?”Keep your mouth shut, Fen!“It gets easier the more you say it. Slips out more smoothly, as though it’s second nature. Tip of the day from me—saying please and thank you makes it more likely you’ll get what you want.”
Even me. Maybe.Oh look, an imaginary bull charged into the shop and nothing got damaged. Fen had many sayings that meant the same as pigs might fly. He needed a whole lot more to remind him to keep his thoughts to himself.Loose lips sink ships.Apt in the wrong way.
“I’m sorry. I was too busy thinking the medal might have been lost and I wouldn’t have known where.”
Sorry had been said, now guilt pounced. So maybe the man wasn’t a complete arsehole. Just a bit of one.
“Tell you what,” the bit-of-an-arsehole said in a quiet voice. “Meet me for a drink tonight. Bring everything then. Give me your phone.”
Fen bristled at the tone but still found himself handing it over.
“I’ll let you know where and when.” He handed back the phone and left the shop.
Why the hell would I want to meet you for a drink? Except he did want to.Take every opportunity offered.That was what Fen had told himself the moment he’d been informed his life had gone off track. Think twice before he said no.
“What was all that about?” Charles barked. “How dare you speak to a customer in that way! What on earth were you thinking? Have you gone insane?”
“He wanted a lot I bought at the auction. It should have been withdrawn with some others, a number of which you wanted. I found a George Cross inside a wooden box. I called the auction house earlier and they told me they’d given him this address. I knew he’d come. The only reason he bought the globe was to irritate me.”
Charles rolled his eyes so dramatically, Fen wondered if his pupils would disappear. “People don’t spend hundreds of pounds on the spur of the moment to irritate someone.” He didn’t say the wordslike youbut Fen heard them and he thought that was exactly what the guy had done because it had worked. Fen was now irritated for all sorts of reasons. One of which was a globe he loved was now in the hands of someone who wouldn’t love it anywhere near as much as Fen did.
Fen spent the rest of the day rerunning the conversation with…Ripley, trying to read more into it than there was. Part of him wanted to text and tell Ripley to come to the shop tomorrow to get the rest of his stuff because why should Fen have to make the effort?
But he asked me for a drink.
Which was merely a thanks for Fen being amenable. Nothing more.
Do I want it to be more?
Why was he even bothering? This man was so far out of his league, he might as well have been on another planet and not one in this solar system.
But when the text messageBarCalypso Covent Garden 7.00arrived, Fen was way more excited than he should have been. Forget that it was a trek for him to get thereandhe had to carry all that stuff, Ripley hadn’t needed to ask him for a drink but he had.
I am officially an idiot.
Fen had finished the revolving bookcase by mid-afternoon and asked Alistair to check it over.
“Can you tell which slat is new?” Fen was really pleased with the job he’d done. He’d found the perfect colour match for the stain.
Alistair looked at it carefully, spun the unit three times and shook his head. “I can’t tell. Well done. Want a hand lifting it down?”
“Please.”
Fen went to tell Charles it was ready, then returned to one of the jobs he’d been doing before the bookcase had been deemed a priority. He was repairing the model of a cargo ship, something made by a German prisoner of war who’d been held at a camp in the UK. Alistair had bought it for forty quid in a house sale and Charles reckoned he was going to be able to ask over two hundred pounds when it was restored.Maybe more ifyou don’t bollocks it up.Fen chewed his cheeks. Charles always had to say something nasty.
His mother phoned just before he was due to leave work.
“Hi, Mum.”
“You all right, sweetheart?”
“Fine, thank you.” He never said anything different regardless of how he felt.
