Chapter 46
‘I can’t believe it,’ said Alyssa, as she stomped through the door of Rufus’s flat after her first morning of private investigating, disguised in a slightly dodgy wig and wearing one of Rufus’s ginormous fake designer tracksuits.
‘I’m pretty sure the troll wasn’t any of the people I’ve hounded or snooped on this morning.
Now I feel stupid as well as exceedingly cross. What the hell am I meant to do?’
‘Give my tracksuit back and make me a cup of tea?’ Rufus suggested. ‘Seeing as I’m not charging you rent. Did you bring my Maccy D’s?’
She threw the now-greasy paper bag at him, still confused at how he thought he was going to tone up his bum cheeks if he was still eating three Quarter Pounder meals as a mid-afternoon snack.
‘It can’t be Gary Pratt,’ she said, flopping down on the sofa next to Rufus and grabbing a carton of fries.
‘I turned up at his place and his new girlfriend was really nice. They’re actually quite sweet together.
She said he recently dropped his phone down the toilet and hasn’t bothered with social media since.
And in any case, she’s been keeping him “far too busy” in the boudoir.
I mean, I’ve no idea if that’s true, but I haven’t had any crap from his usual profile for at least a week, and I can’t see why he’d bother trolling me if he’s found his own happiness. What would be the point?’
‘Maybe she’s in on it?’ Rufus asked, through a mouthful of beef patty. ‘Like a dastardly duo.’
Alyssa shrugged. ‘It’s possible, but instinct tells me they were being truthful, and they did show me his ruined phone and the live parcel tracking for the replacement that hasn’t yet arrived.’
‘And that latest ex of yours? Arnold?’
‘Arnaud. Nope. I didn’t get stalkerish vibes when I quizzed him either.
Anyway, he’s been out of the country for a month so he can’t have been hiding in Hartglove’s bushes, and he was on a plane without Wi-Fi yesterday when those messages came through.
He showed me his tickets. He’s moving to LA with work soon, and he’s just got a promotion.
Arnaud’s in such a good place. Again, I can’t see why he’d make trouble for me after all this time. ’
‘Lover boy Devan?’
‘No way!’ Alyssa bit back. Even the sound of Devan’s name reminded her how desperately she’d been missing him. She’d been in touch through messages, but she hadn’t wanted to ruin his work trip, so she’d kept her words light. And she certainly hadn’t dropped any bombshells.
‘Well, something’s not right with him and his obsession to be around you.
You know, when I racked my brains, I recalled something.
I didn’t want to freak you out after you’d started the Love Tasks.
But I remembered he came to London trying to hunt you down, when you first got popular as The Love Coach.
Wanted your address and everything. Married man, he was, according to his Facebook status.
I told him to get lost. Potential lurker vibes right there.
Just saying.’ He held up his hands, in a don’t shoot the messenger pose.
‘He came to London looking for me?’ Wow. Now that she hadn’t known. But that didn’t make Devan lurker-ish, did it? Even if he hadn’t mentioned it.
Rufus scribbled Devan’s name onto the list of suspects she’d left on his mug-stained coffee table. She glared at it and promptly crossed it off. She still hadn’t confessed to Devan that she’d disappeared from Hartglove, but it wasn’t because he was a suspected crook.
‘The waitress?’ Rufus asked, pointing to the next person on her list.
‘Princess Trudy? Well, she does have form,’ said Alyssa, remembering how the bored-looking, plastic-tiara-wearing waitress from the grim café where she used to meet Rufus had once posted to her forty-three followers that Alyssa Heart was full of ‘bullshit’.
‘But I got a message from the troll while I was questioning her. And in fairness, she did look genuinely confused by my allegations.’
‘A new troll message? What did it say?’ Rufus was already on his second burger, red relish dripping down the side of his goatee, making him look like a sports-gear-donning werewolf.
‘It asked when I’m going to declare that I’m pulling out of the love tasks and the ’Appy Together gig.’
‘When are you doing that? Is this going to affect my cut?’
‘I’m not, Rufus! Have you been listening to me since you picked me up yesterday?’
‘Not so much.’ He pulled a face, like that was obvious.
She couldn’t fault his honesty.
‘I’m not going to be pushed around by this loser. It suits me that they think I’m playing ball, in the short term. It buys me time to search them out and bloody well destroy them.’
Rufus started choking. ‘Steady on,’ he mumbled, after pulling a half-chewed piece of gherkin out of his mouth. ‘You’re no good to me in jail.’
‘That’s true. And I’m not going to physically annihilate them.’ Alyssa pondered it. ‘Though I’ll probably give them a good telling-off.’
‘Petrifying,’ Rufus joked.
‘And maybe some well-deserved payback.’
By the same time the next day, Alyssa had joined Rufus on his three takeaways on the sofa plan. Only this time she was lying down and sulking as she shovelled fast food into her mouth, and she’d opted for added bacon and cheese.
‘You do know you’re at serious risk of spots and cellulite,’ said Rufus, who was a fine one to talk. ‘You might be annoying, but I do need you half decent, if I’m going to get you more work.’
‘Who’s going to offer me work now?’ she asked incredulously, wriggling to get comfortable in another of Rufus’s old tracksuits, which were remarkably well-suited to her new pastime of wallowing.
He shrugged. ‘Might happen.’
She didn’t know how, because she wouldn’t be putting herself out there anytime soon, and she hadn’t seen Rufus do anything that looked like agenting since she’d arrived, nearly two days ago.
Oh, that heady time when she’d been powered by fury and full of fight, ready to confront her culprits, make one of them crumble and do something heroic to rectify things.
Then she would have had the headspace to work out what to do about this terrifying final love task.
The task in which she was expected to miraculously let go of her fears and perform a grand gesture of love, like something from a cheesy romcom.
Such gestures usually involved shouting from balconies or declarations in stadiums or running through the snow in your underwear.
Well, she’d eaten too many chips for that last one.
The problem was that none of her suspected trolls had seemed that guilty-looking.
And now she was out of ideas and her thoughts were spiralling.
What if she could never find this person?
What if she did find them, and another one popped up in their place, like a giant game of whack-a-mole? Would things always be like this?
‘Maybe I should withdraw from living my life so publicly. I’m bringing danger to myself and the people I care about.’
‘Calm down, love,’ said Rufus, snatching away her bag of fries.
‘You’re not exactly Cameron Diaz. Though if we’re ever going to drag you up the ranks a bit, you should probably brush your hair.
’ He nodded in the direction of the spare room where she’d been sleeping, amid various dusty fitness contraptions and a weird collection of plastic celebrity dolls.
‘Maybe I should take myself and my coaching business offline and advertise in the old-fashioned way. Did you know I got flyers printed? It didn’t go so badly.’
‘You have a face for TV.’ He squinted at her. ‘Or at least radio. And how are you going to make me any moolah if you aren’t out and about, taking on new gigs?’
‘I just don’t think I’m cut out for—’
‘Are you going to let an internet troll ruin your career? One that I’ve just resurrected! It might be about to take off. But not if you keep wearing that lousy tracksuit.’ He shuddered. ‘It’s so last year.’
She covered her face with her hands. ‘Oh God.’
Now she was taking pep talks from Rufus the bloody doofus. As much as it was sweet of him to put her up like this when she was down on her luck, he was hardly anyone’s life role model.
And worse than everything she’d dared to say out loud was the thing that was truly eating her.
What if it was love she wasn’t cut out for?
Maybe she was no good at this heart-on-your-sleeve stuff.
She’d tried to put herself out there as a more open version of herself and look what it had caused.
Somebody hated her for it and was determined to wreck her life and the lives of the people she cherished.
She was a disaster. Her trying to love and be loved was a catastrophe.
The people of Hartglove were better off without her.
She let out a huge sob, snotty tears dribbling onto Rufus’s sofa. He threw a box of tissues at her.
‘This is beneath my paygrade. And not to sound like your mum, but you could probably do with a scrub.’ He pulled another face. ‘So are you going to bin off the rest of this love app gig? Should I let them know, and see if we can still salvage our last payment?’
She blew her nose loudly and sat up. ‘Undecided. But I am going to use the bathroom.’
Wasn’t it when you showered that the best ideas came?