jostled baby Bill on her hip. He felt substantial and there was something comforting about his weight and the way he kept reaching for her cap and grinning his broad, innocent grin. Ignoring Finlay’s theatrical attempts to appear injured, Trudy turned to Imogen. ‘You’ve not yet been up to Boui-Boui.’ She tried not to make the words sound like an accusation.
‘No,’ Imogen admitted. She took the baby from Trudy’s arms and busied herself with checking on him. ‘Baby Bill’s not been up to travelling these last few weeks,’ she explained. ‘You know how kids get at this time of year.’
‘He’s a sickly child,’ Finlay added. ‘I think he gets it from that sickly specimen of a father he had.’
Imogen shot him a reproachful look.
Trudy tried not to smirk.
‘You must come and visit the restaurant soon,’ Trudy insisted. ‘It would be great to see you up there and I know Bill would really love to see how his grandson is developing.’
Imogen’s silence was noncommittal.
It stretched to the point of being uncomfortable.
‘Doesn’t Hart spend a lot of time in the city now?’ Finlay asked.
‘He’s there three days a week,’ Trudy said. ‘He’s usually away on Thursday, Friday and most of Saturday.’
Finlay nodded. ‘So, if someone wanted to visit Boui-Boui to see you, but to avoid Hart …’
Trudy fixed him with a venomous glare.
Finlay pretended to ignore her obvious anger.
‘… that person would be best visiting on a Thursday, a Friday or a Saturday.’ He paused and then smiled to himself. It was obvious that he was trying to contain a lot of mirth behind his huge beard. ‘Should I get Imogen to write this down for me, so we all know which days of the week are best for avoiding Hart?’
Trudy was going to say something scathing but she stopped herself. Her phone chose that moment to announce that she’d received a message. She pulled it from her bag to see who was texting her.
‘It would be nice to visit the restaurant again,’ Imogen admitted. She said the words in a soft voice that was little more than a whisper. ‘I made some good friends at Boui-Boui. Is Kali still pâtissier?’
‘Kali’s still making the best carrot cake in the world,’ Trudy said. ‘And I know she’d love to see you. Nikki asks after you too. She lost the purple-pink hair for a while and went raven black. But now she’s back to one hundred per cent fuchsia. I think the colour suits her.’
She was checking her mobile as she spoke.
There were two texts. The first had come from Harvey, asking if she could furnish him with a draft article by the end of the day. Trudy wondered if she would be able to manage that task during her lunch break while she was at Sweet Temptation. She was still puzzling over what to write about when she read the second text.
It was another message from Donny and this one seemed more threatening than his previous text: You’re about to find out that there’s a bigger bitch than you – it’s called payback.
She returned to Bill’s cottage, still trying to decide how to deal with Donny’s latest message. With the prospect of a beautiful day blossoming from the pastel-blue sky, she didn’t like the idea of dwelling on his juvenile threats. But she knew, if she didn’t do something, the situation was likely to get out of hand.
‘Bastard, bastard, bastard,’ she grumbled. She repeated the words as she ran, using their rise and fall to help balance her pace. ‘Bastard, bastard, bastard.’ It didn’t help to maintain a great rhythm but she felt a growing sense of satisfaction from condemning Donny as she ran.
The last leg of her run took her past Aliceon’s cottage on the outskirts of Bill’s estate. It was a pretty building, steeped in the rustic charm of a thatched roof and surrounded by a dry stone wall. There were lemon trees on either side of the cottage’s bright-green doorway and wild roses, yellow and peach, climbing ivy-like up the walls.
Trudy wasn’t sure she was comfortable with the woman living so close. She told herself that was more because Aliceon was cold and unapproachable than because her previous relationship with Bill might affect Trudy’s developing attachment to him. But she wasn’t entirely sure she was telling herself the truth.
Admittedly, living so close to the restaurant meant Aliceon was always available to work at Boui-Boui whenever she was needed. But the fact that she had a key to Bill’s cottage, and no qualms about bursting in when she felt the situation merited such an unwanted intrusion, meant that Trudy lived with the constant worry of her making an unexpected appearance.
The racing-green convertible outside Aliceon’s cottage was blocked in by a large dark sedan. There was a man at Aliceon’s door. Dressed in a dark suit he looked as formal and foreboding as the menacing vehicle he had been driving. He carried an impressive looking briefcase and wore an austere frown.
Trudy thought of stopping to ask if Aliceon needed help. She knew it would be a neighbourly and considerate action. It was the sort of thoughtfulness she herself would have appreciated. But she had yet to see a situation where the maître d’ needed assistance from anyone. Aliceon could handle complaints, drunks, threats and the media with ease, confidence and self-assurance. Trudy thought it unlikely that the woman would be shaken by one surly-looking man on her doorstep.
Nevertheless, as she jogged past, Trudy tried to catch Aliceon’s eye, just in case she did need assistance. She could see Aliceon lurking within the shadows of her doorway. Her frame was slender when she was wearing her suit in Boui-Boui, but it looked spindly here wrapped tight in a towelling bathrobe. She was shaking her head in small terse gestures. Her lips were pursed into a solemn sneer of disdain.
When she did make eye contact, and Trudy found her gaze being met by Aliceon’s defiant glare, Aliceon simply ushered her guest into the cottage and slammed the door.
The rudeness didn’t trouble Trudy. Making a note to mention the anomaly to Bill, she jogged unhurriedly past and headed back to the cottage.
She slowed her pace further as she passed the chicken runs where the restaurant’s resident Black Rock chickens clucked and pecked. They were substantial creatures, beautiful with their scarlet combs, golden capes and silky black bodies. But, like all chickens, they were easily unsettled and Trudy didn’t want to cause them any distress.
Slowing her pace only served to remind her that she had done too much this morning. Weary from the effort, and close to staggering, she stumbled into the kitchen.
The room was noisy with the sound of the hissing espresso machine. Bill had been listening to a radio programme but he turned the volume down when she entered the room.
‘You took your sweet time this morning, didn’t you?’ He was glancing at his wristwatch. ‘How many miles are you running nowadays?’
‘I went to the market to see Finlay,’ she explained. She held up the bag that contained her cinnamon and the other ingredients
