Chapter 38
A few days later I’m stocking the new outdoor bookshelves and hoping they’ll draw a crowd.
The maintenance team have put so much effort into making the shelves and erecting a bright yellow shade sail.
I lug another box of preloved paperbacks outside when the three Lucys turn up.
‘Bonzour, ladies. Here for more feminist serial killer thrillers?’
Despite the intense heat of the morning they’re wearing black hoodies, thick towelling hats and dark oversized sunglasses, not their usual style of floaty floral dresses or frangipani sarongs.
The way they flick furtive glances over their shoulders is a little odd but I’m coming to learn that oddities are a part of life at the Last Chance Resort.
‘Did you ladies rob the breakfast buffet or something? Is that a bagel in your pocket?’ They don’t reward me with a laugh, a grin, or even a twitch of the lips. Tough crowd.
‘We heard about your troubles.’
‘Which ones? I’m sort of dealing with a lot so could you be more specific?’
‘The AI author issue,’ Lucy says.
‘How did you hear about that?’
Lucia pulls her sunglasses to the bridge of her nose and looks over the top at me. It’s all very bizarre. ‘We have our sources.’
‘OK, what’s with the secret squirrel vibe you’ve got going on here? The shady black outfits make you stand out, if you were in fact trying to blend in.’
‘I told you!’ Lucy Lou throws at Lucia.
‘You did not! You said we needed the hats!’
‘No, I said we needed the sunglasses!’
‘Ladies,’ I say, before it can dissolve into another petty squabble. ‘What did you hear?’
Lucy crooks her finger and beckons me closer. ‘Rumour has it that you were a successful Bookstagrammer who called out a certain Tia Amboro and have since been cancelled, dumped and doxxed and you’re hiding out on the island because your reputation is ruined…’
‘I also got fired.’ My face falls. ‘Does everyone around here know?’
‘Don’t be embarrassed, dear, the same thing happened to Taylor Swift after that KimYe debacle when the poor poppet went into hiding in London and look how successfully she bounced back.’ Lucy gives my arm a supportive rub.
Lucia eagerly nods. ‘The Eras tour, case in point. Iconic.’
‘Ah – thanks, I guess.’ Imagine Xavier finding out all of that. It doesn’t exactly paint me in a good light. He knows parts but not all of it – I think.
‘The thing is, we have a specific set of skills, if you get my drift.’ Lucy lifts her eyebrows up and down, so I don’t miss her very clear point.
‘You do?’ It takes all my willpower to keep a straight face. What could they possibly be suggesting? What skills could three seventy-five-year-olds have when it comes to my problems? ‘I’m all ears.’
‘We do. We could solve your little problem…’ Lucy slips a knife from her handbag. ‘Oh, how did that get there?’ Is she implying she’ll use violence? If so, why does she look genuinely confused about how the knife got there?
‘You and your sticky fingers, Lucy!’
‘You stole the knife?’ I ask. ‘To sort out my problems?’ I’m kind of awed and terrified at the same time.
Lucy blanches. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Harper! I likely stole the knife because I get a thrill from taking things that aren’t mine, but I have no recollection of slipping this into my bag, though that’s not to say I didn’t do it. It is a beautifully serrated bread knife…’
‘How many cocktails have you had?’
‘Four,’ she says affirmatively.
‘Actually five,’ corrects Lucia.
‘Six if you count the Bloody Mary at breakfast,’ Lucy Lou adds.
‘I stand corrected,’ Lucy says. ‘This knife could really do some damage, all those serrated edges, the length of it.’ She drags her sunglasses atop her head and stares me down.
I’m confused by the mixed messages. Or Lucy’s confused.
I glance at the other Lucys who seem to be waiting for confirmation of just what is going on here too.
‘Are you ladies suggesting… a murder for hire plot?’
They gasp. ‘We are suggesting no such thing!’
The hot sunshine is addling my brain, and the three Lucys are only making it much worse. ‘Then what?’
‘We are simply saying if you have a problem, we can fix it.’
‘How?’
‘The less you know the better.’
‘Are you murdery murderers?’
‘Only on weekends,’ Lucy trills.
What!
She makes a show of rolling her eyes. ‘That was a joke. No, we’re three little old ladies; of course we’re not murdery murderers, but we could do a bit of digging for you.’
The cogs click into place. I’m dealing with voracious readers here. ‘Ah, you see yourselves as characters from The Thursday Murder Club, is that it?’
‘How little you think of us,’ Lucy Lou pouts. ‘We happen to know a thing or two about the dark web and what one might procure if stuck in a bind like you are.’
‘What would you procure?’ I swing my gaze to Turt, who I swear shakes his head as he ambles into the bookshop as if he’s heard enough for one day.
‘Information, of course!’ Lucy Lou says. ‘What else?’
‘Right, right. Well, let me think about it.’
‘She doesn’t believe us.’ Lucy sniffs. ‘This is ageism at its finest!’
‘No, no,’ I hurry to reassure them.
‘It bloody well is.’ Lucia shakes her head. ‘Once a woman summits the hill towards eighty everyone automatically thinks she’s past her best-by date. It’s downright offensive. According to society a man ages like fine wine, when women are seen as less. It’s criminal.’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. I’m well aware how clever you three are. I bet you had interesting careers before you retired.’ And I’d like to know because I’m not sure if they’re pulling my leg or if this kookiness is real. You just never know on this island.
‘Wouldn’t you like know?’ Lucy smirks.
‘Yes.’
‘It’s classified,’ Lucia says in a huff.
‘You worked for MI5?’
Lucy tuts. ‘What a cliché, no we did not. This is not a Hollywood movie, Harper, this is real life. MI5. Honestly.’
‘OK, I’m just so confused.’
‘If you must know, detail-driven person like you are, a few months ago we had a man come to the resort to offer ancestry classes to build our family trees – you know, before we kick the bucket and the information is lost—’
‘Like all we do is think about our impending deaths or something.’
‘Anyway, it was as tedious as you can imagine, hunting out my great-great-grandmother Gertrude whose greatest claim to fame was having eleven children with her husband Alfred, an alcoholic farmer from Somerset.’
‘Terrible stuff. She should have been the one drinking herself into an early grave with all those children attached to her hip.’
‘The responsibility always lies with the woman, doesn’t it?’
‘I’m not following?’ I gently direct them back to the matter at hand.
‘Well, the ancestry class was dead boring. Even the facilitator Matteo’s good looks couldn’t ease the ennui.’
‘Handsome, he was.’ Lucia grins.
‘Wasn’t he?’
‘Handsome, sure. But he gave me the ick,’ Lucy says.
‘The ick?’
‘You know, made my skin crawl.’
‘Why didn’t you just say that then?’
‘Why should I not express myself the way it comes naturally?’
‘Ladies.’
‘Sorry, Harper. Lucia does go off on these tangents when men are involved.’
‘Me? It’s because Lucy insists on using Gen Z speak.’
‘I’m only keeping my finger on the pulse.’
‘So you did the family tree ancestry class and…?’ It’s impossible to keep them on track.
‘Right, well, in the end it was only us three in the class so Lucy Lou had a brain wave and asked him what else he could teach us, since adding branches to our family tree wasn’t exactly stimulating.
He, too, had a touch of the ageist about him, so we parried for a while until Lucy Lou practically dared him to show us how to access the dark web.
Men are so easy to manipulate; she basically insisted he didn’t have the brains to know such a thing and next minute we’ve added a new skill set to our repertoire. ’
‘The dark web?’
‘The untold depths of depravity where you can find hitmen.’
‘Hitpeople,’ Lucy corrects.
Lucia grunts. ‘Assassins.’ She gives Lucy a pointed look.
Lucy’s expression is a little too gleeful when she says, ‘And uranium.’
I frown.
‘For nuclear weapons.’
‘Right.’
‘There’s even a corner dedicated to time travel tourism.’
‘Now I’ve heard it all.’
‘All we’re saying is, Harper, we have these skills and we’re prepared to use them.’
‘For an assassin? Take her out, pew pew pew.’ I make finger guns and shoot.
They exchange a worried glance with each other. ‘Is it any wonder she got herself into a spot of bother like this? She doesn’t listen, does she? Why is she so obsessed with murder?’
‘Sorry, I’m joking! I appreciate the offer but I’m OK for now.’
‘You’re so na?ve, Harper, of the ways of the world and honestly, it’s the best way to be. Protect that innocence. Let us go down the deep dark rabbit hole that is the dark web and find out everything there is to know about this Tia character.’
‘Who told you about it?’
‘Oh, about ten people. It’s all anyone’s been talking about for days.’
‘Why are everyone else’s secrets around here so hush-hush, yet mine are bandied about with no concern?’
Lucy sighs. ‘Because you’re new, therefore interesting.’
‘So if I asked would you tell me what actually happened to Doris’s husband?’
Lucy Lou gives a frustrated shake of her head. ‘He got eaten by a black-tipped reef shark when the boat capsized.’
‘Nice try.’
They frown.
‘And Gus, why did he retire?’
Lucy huffs. ‘He stole a bunch of money and took a speedboat to Mahé.’
Clearly all the expats have colluded to come up with that silly story, like they want me to grow weary of asking about it. ‘So you’re not going to tell me? What’s with all the secrecy around here?’
‘We’re not gossips, Harper! We’re going to read on the day beds, outside.’
‘Enjoy.’ My mind is spinning. They must be addled by cocktails or else suffering a bout of heat stroke.
I can’t make sense of why they all insist on hiding things, yet my past is openly chatted about.
Sure, it was nice to offer… whatever the hell they were offering, uranium, assassins, or genealogy, but I think I’ll stick to my own plan.
Avoidance. And lurking on Reddit forums.