I need to get them back in as short a time as possible so that their owners don’t become too attached to them and wear them to death and forget where they bought them from.’
‘Bingo,’ Jesminder agreed.
‘And if I don’t go and find them, then in time I’ll forget them and that would be horrible.’
‘Bingo again.’
‘And even if it’s impossible to find them I’ll be getting away and giving myself time to think things over.’
‘Bingo times three.’
‘And I’m due some holiday, having finished that big Morocco contract last Thursday ahead of time, so work might just about manage to stay afloat without me if I took off now.’
‘Uh-huh, we’ll muddle through somehow,’ Jesminder nodded, her voice full of mock-doubt. ‘Debbie and I will pull every string in the business and get you some disgustingly cheap flights, have no fear.’
Amy was circling the room, her hands fidgety. ‘The time is right!’
‘Is that really a decision?’ Jesminder asked. ‘You’re going to get your shoes back?’
‘I am. It’s show time!’ Amy gulped, flinging her arms out wide and feeling better than she had done in hours.
‘Don’t you mean shoe time?’
Laughing, Jesminder ducked to avoid the cushion that flew in her direction.
For the most part Amy was grateful to have Debbie, a Newcastle native, in the passenger seat of the crumbling 2CV as they negotiated their way into the city centre on a stuffy Friday evening. Debbie had swiftly arranged a weekend trip north to see her family, so that she could keep Amy company on the first of her shoe-finding missions, brushing off Amy’s gratitude with a gruff, ‘No, no, if it wasn’t for you I’d never get off my arse and come to see the old folks at all.’ Which was untrue, but deeply touching all the same.
The car hadn’t enjoyed the long journey all the way to the north-east of England, and the girls had had to make three unscheduled stops to give it rest time and allow it to cool down. Now, though, on the final stretch of the journey, stopping and starting at traffic lights, it wasn’t just the car that was overheating.
They were trying to find Delsey’s Gym, the first address on the hit list, and Debbie had spent a lot of motorway time bragging about her thorough knowledge of Newcastle city centre. Amy, her eyes and head aching from concentrating on the road for hours, was growing irritated at Debbie, whose skills as a navigator seemed to depend entirely upon the existence of familiar shops and nightclubs in the immediate vicinity.
‘Gottit!’ she exclaimed at last. ‘Go that way! There! Past the building that used to be TK Maxx!’
‘Used to be?’ Amy echoed, indicating right and turning the car into a bothersomely narrow side street. ‘Since when was that a help?’
‘You know my orange cashmere tank top? Fourteen quid? That was from in there – you had to go on a Tuesday, that’s when all the new stuff – Careful! You’ve gone too far. That was the next turning back there; you should have hung left into the lane that’s got Harley’s nightclub at the end! Look, there’s a garage with its door open. You can turn there.’
‘Oh, goody,’ Amy deadpanned, jamming the brakes on far too hard. The 2CV coughed its disgust.
‘There, look, on the left – Delsey’s Gym. Told you I’d find it. There’s an underground car park round the corner. We made it, kiddo.’
‘Thank goodness,’ Amy breathed, as the 2CV bumped down the ramp into the underlit car park. ‘My will to live was seeping away.’
‘You’re welcome,’ Debbie teased.
‘Sorry.’
Yawning and stretching, they sat still for a few minutes, summoning the strength to heave themselves out and make a start on their mission.
Amy’s brain was buzzing. ‘Do you know what’s really weird about this whole trip, Debs?’
‘Um, the fact that neither of us have discussed this year’s Big Brother yet?’
‘No, not that …’
‘No? What about my unusual good manners in not using the words “Justin” and “bastard” in the same sentence since, oh, first thing this morning?’
Amy smiled. ‘I hadn’t thought of that one – yes, but the other weird thing about this trip is having no idea which pair of shoes went to which address.’
‘What? I hadn’t realised that!’ Debbie exclaimed.
‘All I’ve got are the buyers’ addresses, but no information on what they actually bought, so in here, for instance, could be my Jimmy Choos, or my walking boots, who knows?’
Debbie frowned. ‘Or could it be an old tin of toy soldiers Justin decided to sell while he was busy flogging stuff on eBay anyway?’
‘No way!’ Amy’s heart lurched. Was this a flaw in the plan? Swiftly she tried to push the notion away. ‘If Justin was selling toy soldiers on eBay he’d have a label file on his computer titled “Toy Soldier Addresses”. I’m certain of it.’
‘What a bundle of laughs life with that man must be,’ Debbie said – in such a low voice Amy wasn’t sure she picked her up properly.
‘Come on, we’ve got work to do.’
They clambered stiffly up a bright yellow-painted stairwell, four steep flights to the door marked ‘Reception’.
‘I feel fitter already,’ Debbie panted. ‘Come on, let’s do it.’
Amy, bracing herself, pushed open the swing door and the girls entered the gym.
Here goes: Operation ‘Best Foot Forward’ commences right now …
The dark-haired receptionist, who was talking on the phone in a language Amy didn’t recognise, briefly pressed the receiver to her chest and glanced at them. ‘Ah, hello! So nice to see you back again!’
Achingly tall. Beautiful. Foreign. Insincere. She lobbed them a toothy smile, omitting to involve her eyes in the gesture, before returning to the telephone conversation from which they had so thoughtlessly deflected her.
Behind the reception desk, a frosted glass door decreed ‘Private – Staff Only’, and to the left a sign pointed to the saunas and steam room. On the right a corridor led to the male and female changing rooms and the ladies’ and gents’ toilets, then beyond those the gym. Amy could hear the thrum of running machines from behind the double doors and, briefly, she thought of Justin. He loved his four-times-a-week workouts.
Huh, if the staff at his gym look like this specimen here, then
