“Right.” Why would she want to see the gardener? “Well, maybe I could have a look around the inside of the inn first? Meet the staff here?”
“You mean Jacob.”
“Jacob. And Jacob is…?”
“The chef.” Izzie’s smile turned a little softer talking about Jacob. Carrie had a feeling she wasn’t getting the receptionist’s full attention any more.
“Okay. Is there anyone else working here?” Like a manager, or someone who could tell her what had been going on at the Avalon since Nancy got sick, for preference.
Izzie looked thoughtful. “Well, there’s Henry, the part-time barman, but he doesn’t work today.”
“Why don’t we start with a tour of the inn?” Carrie asked with a sigh. Maybe they’d stumble across someone more useful on their travels.
But Izzie shook her head. “You really should wait for Nate for that.”
“Izzie, this is my inn.” She leant across the reception desk, just a little, in a ‘just between us girls’ way. “I think I can look around it without the gardener, don’t you?”
Izzie bit her lip, but eventually nodded.
“Right, then! Why don’t we start through here?” Carrie pushed open the door to the left of the reception desk, which led, if she remembered right, to the dining room. “Oh!”
She stopped in the doorway to take in the scene. One woman - who had to be eighty plus - in a flamenco dress. One fiddling with an iPod. And one old boy coiling up a line of red and black bunting.
“Hello!” The woman in the flamenco dress stepped down from the chair she was standing on, where she’d been taking down another line of bunting. “Are you here for the flamenco lesson? I’m sorry, we had to cancel it. The instructor got stranded in Aberarian when her car broke down. I thought we’d called everyone... But our next dance night is on Monday, and we could definitely do with some new blood!”
“Ah, no. I’m—” Carrie started, but Izzie interrupted her.
“This is Miss Archer, Cyb. Carrie Archer. Nancy’s—”
“Nancy’s granddaughter,” the man with the bunting said. “Well, well. They said you were coming, but we didn’t know when.” He gripped her hand hard enough to burn, and Carrie focused on the light reflecting off the row of military medals pinned to his knitted waistcoat. “Stan Baker. Pleased to meet you.”
“Yes, very!” said Cyb, the flamenco dancer. “I’m Mrs Cybella Charles. Widowed, of course. Almost everybody is these days, it seems. But we’re just so excited to have you here with us. Do you play bridge?”
Carrie blinked at the onslaught of words. She vaguely recalled a New Year’s Eve at the inn, ten or so years ago, when Nancy had tried to teach her over too much whisky. “Um, badly, I think.”
Mrs Charles gave a wide, still-toothy smile and clapped her hands together. “Wonderful!”
“And I’m Moira Green,” the lady with the iPod said, her voice reassuringly gentle. “I was your grandmother’s best friend. But I don’t suppose you remember me. It’s been a long time.”
“Five years,” Carrie said, feeling that ping of guilt again. Ever since her dad started trying to persuade Nancy to give up the inn and move in with him. And ever since she took the job at Wedding Wishes and gave up her weekends for all time. “But I remember you.” Vaguely, anyway. Had Moira been one of those women in silk gowns dancing at Nancy’s parties, when Carrie was a child? She wasn’t sure. But she remembered some things. “You and Nancy used to take tea in the front parlour together, every afternoon.”
“That’s right!” Moira beamed. “And I remember you running in here with grass stains on your knees and your hair full of twigs from climbing the trees in the woods.”
Carrie winced. “I like to think I’ve grown up a little since then.”
“Of course you do,” Moira said. “Now, I suppose you’ll be wanting to see my Nate.”
“Your Nate?” What was it with this guy? Why did everyone think he was so important?
“Nate is Moira’s grandson,” Stan explained. “And I think he was in the kitchen with Jacob, last I saw.”
“I’ll take you!” Izzie said, too quickly. “We were headed that way anyway.”
Carrie allowed herself to be dragged across the dining room, and through the side door that led to the kitchen corridor. When she’d stayed at the inn the chef had been a terrifying woman called Frieda, so Carrie had never really spent much time in the kitchens.
But it seemed as though Izzie had.
“You’ll love Jacob,” she chattered as they walked. “He’s great. And his beer-battered fish and chips with homemade tartar sauce is to die for!”
Carrie’s stomach rumbled. Maybe food wouldn’t be such a bad idea…
“Who were those people?” she asked, to distract herself from her hunger. “Stan and Cyb and Moira, I mean?”
“The Seniors?” Izzie shrugged, which looked odd while she was still walking. “Just friends of Nancy’s.”
But Nancy was gone, and they were still there. “But what, exactly, do they do around here?” she asked.
But it was too late. They’d reached the kitchen door and Carrie no longer had any of Izzie’s attention.
Unfortunately, neither of them seemed to have the much-lauded Jacob’s either.
“I know that, Sally. But she promised...” The guy Carrie assumed was Jacob stopped shouting into his mobile and ran a hand through his disordered hair. “Look, I’m at work. Can’t you just—?-” Looking up, he spotted them in the doorway and abruptly fell silent.
“Don’t mind us,” Izzie said, smiling too brightly as she shuffled Carrie into the hallway. “We’ll come back later.”
“Who’s Sally?” Carrie asked, glancing back over her shoulder.
Izzie’s face clearly showed the debate that was raging in her head as she tried to choose between telling her new boss the truth and protecting Jacob. Carrie raised her eyebrows and waited patiently.
“Childminder,” Izzie said eventually. “Sounds like Jacob’s ex wasn’t able to pick Georgia up today. Bloody woman. She’s only supposed to have her daughter two afternoons a week. Not exactly hard to arrange, now, is it?”
“Happens a lot, does it?” Carrie asked. This was the kind of information she needed. She needed to know where things at the Avalon were weak. Not to use it against them, as Anna would have, but to help. To improve things.
God, what would Anna have made of a chef who kept having to run off to collect the kids? Her ex-boss had never been big on people having a life outside work.
“God,
