Nearly Almost Somebody (28 page)

‘And the night the surgery was burgled,’ said PC Hardy, ‘a witness saw someone at the back of the surgery around eight o’clock. Can you confirm Mr McBride’s location?’

Libby’s blushes worsened. ‘Patrick was at my house. We had dinner and sat out in the garden getting drunk. He left around eleven.’

PC Hardy nodded. ‘Thank you for your time, Miss Wilde.’

‘Is that okay?’ Libby asked. ‘I mean, Patrick’s not in trouble?’

Andy shrugged. ‘We’ll have to see. You’re not what we’d call a reliable witness.’

‘What?’ she asked. Of course, she was a reliable witness. ‘I’d never lie, even for a friend.’

With a disdainful expression, PC Andy looked her over. ‘Wouldn’t you?’

Andy stalked off, leaving her staring at the floor. Patrick hated her, the police didn’t trust her and she’d brought it all on herself. She’d left the door wide open for Michael Wray to embellish her life into front page scandal, but no more. What had been Patrick’s advice? Don’t get up to no good, and when your name’s trashed, don’t go getting wasted and making things ten times worse. That’s exactly what she’d done with Jack at the party. Why hadn’t she listened?

Well, no more. From now on, she’d remember the values her mother had instilled in her, and to hell with anyone who thought her morals were a little too stuffy. There was nothing wrong with being nice.

For the rest of the afternoon, Libby threw herself into her work, scrubbing shelves, rewashing seldom used glasses, welcoming the lunchtime rush that distracted her from her thoughts. But by six o’clock when she was getting ready to leave, there were no more distractions. She’d have to go home, back to Gosthwaite, and deal with the whispering and pointing.

‘Libby?’ Simon, the campest barman in town, came skipping in, fizzing with excitement. ‘You have a delivery. I’m totally green.’

On the bar sat a vast bunch of flowers. The peach roses smelled as pretty as they looked. Peach roses. Libby’s fingers shook as she opened the card.
Thank You. P.
Patrick had bought her flowers. And not just any flowers, he’d remembered these were her favourites. Oh please, let this mean he wasn’t cross with her anymore.

‘Who are they off?’ Megan said, eyeing the flowers with blatant envy.

Libby held her head high, flashing a smile. ‘One of my regulars. You know, from the brothel.’

Mourners stood around Oscar’s Bar and Bistro clutching glasses of wine or pints of beer as waitresses circulated with trays of canapés. Fee had been a popular and respected lady, it seemed. Patrick scanned the room, spotting Grace waving from a table at the far side. Good girl. The last place he wanted to be was near the bar where Libby was pulling pints. She had her pink plaits pinned over her head and he couldn’t help a little smile. What the hell was it with her?

Okay, so he fancied her, a bit anyway. If he could change a few things about her, like everything about the way she looked, then maybe next June, when his twelve months’ probation was over, then... well, maybe.

‘Is that the wee lassie who was in the paper?’ His father scowled towards the bar.

‘She’s called Libby and she’s very nice.’ Patrick loosened his tie, craving a pint. Funerals unnerved him.

‘Aye, but she’s trouble, mark my words, and don’t you forget you’re wearing a black tie.’

Patrick fought the urge to answer back and his father wandered away. Would he ever trust him or give him the benefit of the doubt? For months, Patrick hadn’t broken a single rule and he didn’t intend to start because of Olivia Wilde, no matter how cute she looked with her Heidi hair.

He slumped in a chair next to Grace, gratefully taking the coffee she pushed towards him. ‘So, on a scale of one to weird?’

‘Definitely off it. I daren’t not cry at the crem in case people thought I did sell her the Special K.’ Grace sipped her orange juice. ‘And is it me, or is it bloody inappropriate for the girl who copped off with the dead woman’s husband to be here? Fabulous shoes though.’

Zoë sat on the other side of the room, chatting with a couple of girls Patrick assumed were from the estate agents. The others wore cheap suits and struggled to even totter on the polished wooden floor in their high heels, but from her neat bun and pearl earrings to her five inch sling-backs, Zoë screamed respectability. Patrick wasn’t fooled and he hadn’t missed the fact that Jonathan Carr couldn’t keep his eyes off her, or that Zoë looked as if she hadn’t slept in a week.

‘Give her a break,’ Patrick said. ‘She’s here with the other estate agents. It would’ve looked just as bad if she hadn’t turned up.’

‘Where’s your mum?’

‘Using the dogs as an excuse not to be here. She’s upset.’

‘Where do you think she got the ketamine? Fee, I mean.’

‘No idea. But if it’s someone I know...’ He looked her in the eye, checking for the hair twiddles and pauses in conversation Libby had taught him to watch for. ‘Jack wouldn’t–’

‘He couldn’t turn off an alarm if you stood there giving him directions, let alone override it.’ Grace sighed. ‘And he wouldn’t do it. Neither would Sparky or any of the other Gosthwaite lot. They’re all too scared of you. Plus, Ket’s nasty. Jack and I did it last year.’

‘You better not have got it from my surgery.’

She shook her head. ‘You ever do it?’

‘Probably the only thing I haven’t.’

‘I totally thought I was talking to God. Had the whole out-of-body, floating down the tunnel experience. Couldn’t move. Just lay there like a bloody cabbage. Never again.’

Patrick picked up his coffee, looking towards the bar. A man walked away with a pint and Libby turned to her next customer, flashing a polite smile, but there was no sparkle. She looked up, catching Patrick’s eye. Shit. He stared, regretting shouting at her, regretting blaming her for dragging his name into the paper. How many times over the last week had he wanted to pop round, to take a bottle of wine and apologise? They were friends, they had been friends, and he wanted it back, but his dad was right, Libby was trouble.

‘It’s your round,’ Grace said and knocked back the rest of her orange juice. ‘And since you’re driving. I’ll have a vodka and fat free Coke.’

He took out his wallet and dropped a twenty on the table. ‘You go.’

‘She’s your bessy mate. You go. She’ll probably spit in my drink.’

‘Do me a favour, Gracey, and make friends with her?’

‘Bugger off.’

‘Come on, you’d like her.’

‘Hating her will give me a competitive edge in the race.’

‘Okay, then after the race.’

Grace tipped her head to the side, studying him. ‘If she’s so ace, why are you trying to avoid her?’

He snatched up the money and headed to the bar.

* * *

Fee Carr’s funeral was a day Libby had tried to avoid, but she’d swapped so many shifts to have the party weekend off, that the rota was starting to resemble a spider diagram and irritated her manager every time he consulted it.

Firstly, she wasn’t sure if she could face Jonathan Carr without giggling. Very inappropriate at his wife’s funeral, but the man got off on being spanked with a riding crop. He was fit though, somewhere between George Clooney and one of the guys from
Mad Men
. Shame she couldn’t dismiss an unpleasant mental image of him with a ball gag in his mouth.

The second issue was that Fee had worked for the McBride Veterinary Clinic, which meant Patrick would turn up. Libby hadn’t seen him since he’d told her that whatever was going on in her pretty little head was never going to happen. She hadn’t even had the chance to say thank you for the roses. She hadn’t dared go round, but she could’ve sent a text at least.

He’d arrived with an older man Libby suspected was his father. None of the women sitting with Grace looked old enough to be his mother though.

The first time she’d looked over to where he sat slouching in a chair next to Grace, Patrick had been looking her way. He didn’t smile, he just sat there staring until she’d overfilled the pint glass and spilled Cumberland Ale all over her hand. Genius. The other seventy-nine times she glanced over he’d been looking anywhere but at her. He still hated her.

She faux-smiled her way through the afternoon, praying for six o’clock. She’d agreed to wear ballet pumps instead of her usual boots for work and as a result, her feet were covered in beer – most of it spilled by Simon, who was the sloppiest – and campest – barman in town.

‘I hate funerals.’ Megan hovered next to him on her way out with canapés. ‘Half the people get pissed and cry and the other half get shit-faced and start fighting. Look at that bloke in the corner. He’s been knocking back whisky for an hour. Hammered.’

‘Fit though.’ Simon shrugged.

The guy was Ed, Jonathan’s youngest son. Who could blame him for getting drunk at his mother’s funeral? Crikey, Zoë’s Mr Coffee Shop was fit. All Jonathan’s good-looks, but in a dark-haired, thirty year-old package. Worryingly, for the fifth time, Libby had caught him staring at Zoë. Megan was right. Booze and fraught emotional times never went well together.

‘Hi.’

Libby turned, her welcoming smile faltering. Patrick perched on a stool, determinedly staring at the oak bar.

‘Hi,’ she replied. ‘What would you like?’

He barely looked up as he ordered a coffee and a vodka. Nothing had changed. He still hated her. She focussed on her job, making the best damned coffee Oscar’s had ever served, but wasn’t this her chance to build bridges?

‘Thank you for the flowers. They’re lovely.’

He nodded.

She put his coffee on the bar. ‘Diet Coke? Can or cheap crap that comes out of the pump?’

‘Can.’

‘Ice?’

He nodded.

Building the Panama Canal had required less negotiation. ‘Anything else?’

He shook his head and handed her a twenty. He was supposed to be the one she’d summoned, her true love, her Somebody. Had the spell not worked? Tears stung her eyes, but her own problems faded when she realised Ed was walking up to Zoë, and from his bitter scowl, it would be anything but a pleasant conversation.

Arse. Libby headed over to the till, eavesdropping on them. Zoë wasn’t in any fit state to deal with him. The 5:2 fasting had become 4:3, but even on the non-fasting days she appeared to consume nothing more than celery and black coffee. It was as worrying for Libby as it was wearing, with Zoë turning into a jittery, anxious bitch.

‘Sorry about your mum,’ Zoë said, folding her arms.

Sorry?
Libby frowned. In fourteen years, she’d never once heard Zoë utter it.

‘Of course you’re sorry,’ Ed replied, looking Zoë over with undisguised disdain. ‘Just devastated.’

‘Ed–’

‘Get out of here, Zoë.’

Her cheeks flushed with guilt and her shoulders sagged as she nodded. ‘Sorry.’

Two sorrys? Libby stared. What was it with this guy? If Zoë was prepared to apologise to him, why wouldn’t she admit she... bloody loved him?

‘Ed...’ Zoë asked, defiantly raising her chin. ‘Who do I look like?’

‘What?’

‘You said you knew, the minute you saw me, because I look like
her
. Who did you mean?’

‘You don’t know?’ Ed laughed and downed his whisky. ‘His first bitch. She was a total dominatrix apparently, and you look just like her.
She’s
why he gave you a job.’

‘Who?’ Zoë whispered.

But from her pale face, she’d already guessed. Libby prayed for it not to be true.
Please, don’t say it, Ed.

‘Your great-aunt Maggie.’

Oh God, no. Libby dashed from behind the bar, but Zoë was already striding across the room. A couple of elderly gents hampered Libby’s interception and Zoë made it to Jonathan.

‘You had an affair with Maggie?’ Zoë hissed.

Jonathan stuttered through a half-hearted denial as Libby reached them.

‘Zo,’ she said, ‘not the time.’

‘She was a hideous old bitch.’

Jonathan stared at Zoë. ‘No, she was–’

‘You gave me the job because I look like her.’

‘No.’

Zoë slapped him.

The room gradually fell silent around them.

‘Zo,’ Libby grasped her arm. ‘Let’s go.’

Outside, Zoë lit a cigarette, her hands shaking, and paced up and down.

‘He fucked her,’ she muttered. ‘And he wanted me as some... replacement fuck. For
her
. Christ, I feel sick.’

‘You’ll be hungry. I bet you haven’t eaten all day, have you?’

Zoë shook her head. ‘I’m fine. It’s a fasting day. I need to get out of here.’

But there was no point trying to talk to Zoë when she was like this and Simon was beckoning Libby back inside. ‘You can escape through the side lane. Will you be okay? I’ll be home as soon as I can.’

‘Expect me to be shit-faced.’ Zoë kissed her cheek. ‘Later ’gator.’

‘While ’dile.’

Libby sat for a moment, watching Zoë stride away. Jonathan and Maggie... who’d seen that coming? And Fee had known about it. Had she been another wife hell-bent on revenge?

‘It’s a never-ending drama around you.’ Patrick came out, perching on the table. ‘What the hell was that about?’

God, he looked good in a suit. He’d loosened his tie and undone his top button. ‘It seems Jonathan had an affair with Maggie. Zoë’s not too pleased.’

‘I can imagine. Hell of a slap.’

‘I wouldn’t worry. He probably enjoyed it.’ Libby giggled, miming flicking a whip. ‘He’s into a bit of that.’

‘The Silver Fox? Wow.’

They both laughed for a moment, but then an uneasy silence fell.

‘Patrick… I’m really sorry about the paper, but I honestly have no idea what happened with Miss Haverton. What was it?’

He pushed his hands in his pockets. ‘I was doing lines of coke off Miss Haverton. She was lying on the bar.’

‘
Off
Miss Haverton?’ Libby laughed. ‘Oh, is that what everyone thinks Jack was doing? For the record, it wasn’t coke. It was salt. We were doing tequila body shots.’

‘I was shocked, Miss Wilde. You’re supposed to be
nice
, remember?’

‘And look at the trouble I get into trying not to be.’ She stood up. ‘I ought to get back inside before I get sacked.’

‘How is work?’ he asked.

She shrugged. ‘I’ve been thinking about living up to my appalling reputation and introducing
Coyote Ugly
style dancing on the bar. If I could get any of the other girls to talk to me, I could teach them the routine. We’d make a fortune in tips.’

‘An interesting career plan. Why aren’t they talking to you?’

She wrapped her arms around herself and explained, before bravely facing him. ‘Look, I’m really sorry about... Halloween.’

‘Don’t be. Just don’t do it again.’ He looked at his feet, fighting a grin. ‘At least it proves I do have an off switch.’

‘Are we... friends again?’

He looked up and nodded slowly.

‘Thank you.’ She didn’t bother to hide her smile. He’d forgiven her.

‘Thank you for saving me from twenty to life.’ He grabbed her hand, bringing her wrist to his face. ‘What on earth is that perfume?’