Chapter 19 #3
‘Just a moment,’ I say, trying to hide my startled expression as he makes to come in the room.
I close the door slightly and mouth to Liam to hide the puppy.
He flees to the bathroom. ‘We’re ready now,’ I say, opening the door wide for him.
The butler wheels the trolley to the centre of the room.
We watch him in silence, praying that Louis doesn’t give himself away, as he takes an ice bucket with a bottle of Lovington in it and places it on the coffee table with a thump.
He arranges several flutes and platters of hors d’oeuvres and bowls of sweets beside it.
Then he proceeds to lift the silver domed lids of several trays of macarons and individual artisanal chocolates to show us what delights are hidden beneath.
It seems to take forever. You can hear a pin drop.
Even the girls are sitting rigidly, watching him like a hawk.
He nods courteously and leaves the room.
We all breathe a sigh of relief as Liam and Louis emerge from the en suite. Tash gets busy popping open the sparkling wine and handing us a glass. ‘No point in letting it all go to waste.’
We are all in our pyjamas, including Louis, who is the centre of attraction.
He is wearing a soft-as-butter onesie in buttercup yellow with tiny sheepskin doggy slippers.
Peaches snuffles and growls gently at him as though they have their own special language while Clementine playfully pulls his ears.
Louis seems to be enjoying the attention while he sucks enthusiastically on his dummy. Peaches is quick to pluck it from his mouth and pop it in her own. ‘No, honey.’ Cherry whips it out of her mouth and gives it back to Louis. ‘Germs, remember?’
Liam nods. ‘I agree. The vet said we need to keep him safe from germs. At least until the injections kick in.’
Cherry smiles tightly. ‘I meant the other way round. What if Louis has worms? I don’t want the girls catching anything.’
Liam raises his eyebrows. We’ve all heard Peaches complaining loudly about her itchy bum to anyone that’ll listen. Thankfully, he’s going to let it go.
‘What’s this?’ I ask, picking up one of the glass bottles full of dark purple liquid.
‘Oh, it’s prune juice,’ says Liam, nodding pointedly at the girls. ‘To help with… you know.’
Oh dear.
‘I’m not giving them that,’ says Cherry. ‘Besides, they’ll never drink it.’
‘Well, that’s the beauty of it, you see,’ Liam says with glee. ‘You just need to slip a tiny amount into their cola, or whatever they drink, and they’ll never know.’
‘It’s a hard “no” from me,’ says Cherry defiantly. ‘I’m not cleaning up after those two have shat themselves everywhere.’
Tash wanders over to the window and opens it. She puffs away on her vape. Pah. Pah. Pah.
‘I think you’ll set the alarm off,’ I warn her. ‘Can’t you just vape outside instead?’
She huffs loudly. ‘Christ, dial it down, hun. It’s fine.
Oh my God. Is that… No, it can’t be. Is it, though?
’ Tash is peering out of the window down to the gardens below.
She swings back round, a strange expression on her face.
‘Don’t look, Liberty, love. Nor you, Connie, babes. It’s probably nothing.’
Like lightning, Liberty races to the window. It’s very dark outside. ‘What? What did you see? There’s nothing there.’
‘It must have been a trick of the light. Or maybe they were just checking something in the chapel ahead of tomorrow.’
Liberty faces Tash. ‘Who did you see?’
Tash plonks her hands on Liberty’s shoulders. A cloud of sickly-sweet smoke blooms from her lips. ‘If I tell you, you have to promise not to go off on one. Do you promise?’
Liberty nods her head, eyes wide with trepidation. I think we all have a sense of what’s coming. ‘Was it Eddie?’
Tash bites her lower lip as she nods apologetically. She takes a deep inhale on her vape. Pah.
‘And was he with someone?’
Tash keeps nodding.
Pah. Pah. Pah.
‘And were they… Did it seem like they were…’
‘Well, she’s not hobbling on that fake sprained ankle any more, to put it that way.’
‘So you actually saw them…’
‘Christ Almighty,’ barks Cherry. ‘It’s like twenty friggin’ questions, this. Just tell us what you saw.’
‘Mummy,’ says Clementine, tugging at Cherry’s pyjamas.
‘Not now, Clem, darling. Mummy’s busy extracting information.’
‘But Mummy.’
‘I said not now!’
Cherry’s brisk tone snaps Tash into informant mode as she blurts out what she saw. Liberty lets out a wail of frustration. ‘I knew Birdie wouldn’t keep her hands to herself.’ She throws herself onto the sofa. ‘It’s not just Matteo she’s come back for. It’s bloody Eddie as well.’
‘Or they’re hunting for clues,’ adds Liam with a terrified expression. ‘My fingerprints will be all over that vase. I’m going to jail. I just know it.’
‘It was me that hid it in there. I’ll be the one paying for it until I’m dead,’ I wail.
‘Mummy,’ repeats Clementine. ‘I feel sick.’
The girl’s angelic face peers up at us. She has blue stains around her lips.
Cherry instantly drops to her knees to examine her child. ‘What’s this? What have you eaten?’
Clementine points to Peaches and Louis sitting on the rug in the centre of the room noisily chomping down on a pyramid of profiteroles like a pair of starving donkeys, a platter of half-eaten fondant fancies beside them and a near empty bottle of prune juice.
Their faces are smeared with chocolate. Louis is licking purple liquid from Peaches’ lips while she giggles good-naturedly.
God help us.
‘Jesus Christ!’ yells Cherry, just as the smoke alarm blares and the sprinklers go off, spraying the entire room with a fine mist.