Chapter 49
49
WAVE BAR, KASSIOPI
‘Did your phone just go off really loud?’ Siobhan asked, looking at the screen of her phone as Molly came back to the table.
‘I don’t know,’ Molly said, pulling up her chair. ‘I didn’t take my bag to the toilet.’ She picked it up, desperately rummaging for her phone. Maybe if it was her phone making a noise, it was Christos. She had gone to his apartment after she had left her mum but still there had been no one there. Four more calls to his number had also gone unreturned and she had no clue what to say if she left a voicemail…
‘Well, mine made this crazy noise like “weeeeeeeeeeee waaaaaaaaa” a cross between air raid and ambulance and now it’s got this weird thing on screen in Greek writing with warning symbols.’
Molly picked her phone out of her bag, hopeful, wanting to see Christos’s name. She checked the screen and all that was there was the kind of warning Siobhan was talking about and it wasn’t going away.
‘Hold on,’ Molly said. ‘I have some in English further down.’ She scrolled. ‘Oh no!’
‘What? What is it? Not a volcano,’ Siobhan said, crossing her fingers.
‘It says there’s going to be a major weather incident, storms and heavy rain and they say don’t go out unless you really have to.’ She looked at the sky. There were clouds darkening but it didn’t look like there was going to be any desperate Armageddon any time soon.
‘Really?’ Siobhan said. ‘Do you think it’s a hoax?’ She tapped at her phone. ‘One time I got an email saying I’d won the Postcode Lottery but the postcode was somewhere in County Durham, not very bright. Ooo, look it’s gone. Nothing to worry about.’
Molly wasn’t so sure that’s how warnings worked or, in fact, life, but she put her phone down for now and focused back on Siobhan’s where they had been writing information in the notes app.
‘OK, so, let’s go again,’ Molly said. ‘I need to know all this information off by heart for any connection I get with anyone close to Freya Johnson. They need to know I know what I’m talking about with regards to the products and I need them to know I’ve done my research and that she is who I need to speak to personally.’
‘Names of her children,’ Siobhan fired.
‘Emma, McClane and Nicholas Junior.’
‘Where did they go on honeymoon?’
‘Kefalonia, Lefkada and here, Corfu.’
‘Freya’s favourite charity.’
‘There’s two. The Every Day Project and The Nicholas Kaden Foundation.’
‘How long have Freya and Nicholas been married?’
‘Eek, um, ten years?’
‘Twelve.’
She shook her head. She knew all these facts but were they even going to get Freya Johnson on board as her brand ambassador? An unproven, unknown nobody who had started something from absolute scratch and didn’t really know if it was going to be successful. But then, did anyone know when they were first starting out? All you had was a great idea and a whole lot of hope.
‘Don’t mention her dad,’ Siobhan said.
‘Obviously not. It sounded like he was like one of the Krays.’
‘Don’t mention prison,’ Siobhan continued.
‘She actually does some work with prison rehabilitation and making sure they have a chance to get access to employment opportunities. One of her best trainees at the photography studio was in prison.’
‘And one of her assistants tried to kill her. Wouldn’t mention that either.’ Siobhan slurped at her frappé. ‘So, when we go up there we are going to ring the doorbell and wow whoever opens it. Please, Greek gods, let it be the sexy husband.’
That was the plan. Face to face, selling herself and her brand on the doorstep to whoever was looking after the property in the hope she could convince them she deserved an audience with Freya herself, even a virtual one or a written one. And then something on the road drew her attention away from the task. Was that Armeena? She watched the cat she owned a portion of slink across the road towards the water and then, out of nowhere a huge ginger cat appeared, snarled loud and slapped Armeena in the face.
‘No!’ Molly exclaimed, jumping up.
‘What is it?’ Siobhan said, jumping too. ‘Is it the storm? I didn’t hear anything.’
‘It’s Armeena,’ Molly said. ‘That bigger cat just hit her and she’s running off. I’m going to get her.’
‘What? But, Molly, you said Armeena’s not a picking up cat. How are you going to…’
But Molly wasn’t waiting to hear the rest of Siobhan’s sentence, she was going to make sure Armeena was OK and she was going to take her home.