Chapter 11 To Catch a Thief #2
So she’d just thrown in a summer dress and some sandals, a pair of jeans, a T-shirt.
She was hopeless at packing at the best of times.
She was always a sucker for those articles that appeared every summer in magazines and newspapers, telling you how to pack ‘a capsule wardrobe’ with a few rolled-up items. However, she couldn’t ever remember reading, ‘What To Pack To Confront The Man Whose Name You Refuse To Mention Because He Stole Your Entire Life’.
No one ever seemed to write those articles. So she’d just had to wing it.
They clambered off the bus with their wheelie suitcases.
‘Where are we staying?’ She looked over at Flick who was glued to her phone. The whole time they’d been passing all that lovely scenery, her travelling companion had been either asleep or nose-to-screen, continuously scrolling. Missing everything.
‘Is this the hotel?’
Maggie gestured across at the hotel opposite.
It looked nice. Quite swanky, actually. With flags flying outside and a uniformed doorman.
She felt a beat of something that, dare she even think it, was suspiciously like excitement.
After months of living in the caravan, just the thought of a nice bed, hot shower and lovely ensuite bathroom for one night made all of this worth it.
She couldn’t remember the last time she stayed in a nice hotel.
Well, actually, she could. It had been with Him.
Last year. For her birthday. He’d taken her away for the weekend – to one of those trendy boutique hotels in the country, with velvet sofas and quirky picture walls and a Michelin restaurant offering small sharing plates and overpriced cocktails – then accidentally forgotten his credit card.
Of course. At the memory, Maggie felt a painful stab.
‘Actually, no.’
Maggie snapped back. ‘No?’
Flick finally looked up from her phone, squinted in the sunshine, and shook her head. ‘All the hotels were full, what with it being peak season, but I managed to find an Airbnb.’
‘Oh, OK.’
Which was fine. Totally fine. But she must have looked disappointed as Flick continued.
‘Ideally I would have had more time to sort out accommodation, but this trip was spur-of-the-moment,’ she explained, reaching into her backpack and pulling out a pair of large tortoiseshell sunglasses, which she pushed up her nose until they almost covered her whole face.
‘Being a journalist, it’s almost impossible to plan as you never know where the story is going to take you.
It’s unpredictable and you’ve got to be able to move quickly at short notice.
To be flexible and spontaneous as you never know where you’re going to end up.
News is of the moment. Hence the term, breaking news. ’
Flick said this so seriously, and with such a sense of knowing it all, that Maggie had to almost stifle a smile.
She’d googled Flick after she’d paid her a visit and left her business card, mostly just to double check she was who she said she was.
Having gone through what she’d just gone through, Maggie found it almost impossible to trust anyone.
Fortunately Flick checked out. She was indeed a community reporter for The Local Echo.
In fact, she’d now read quite a few of her articles, not just the one about the cat’s whiskers.
However, as enjoyable as they were, she wouldn’t have classified them exactly as ‘breaking news’.
Unless, of course, Boy Scout brownie-eating competitions were making the headlines these days.
‘Before you called I was actually booked into a hostel in Nice, so it’s lucky I was able to find something here in Monaco.’
‘Oh, I would have been fine with a hostel,’ protested Maggie, looking at Flick and wondering why she wasn’t sweating.
She could feel it trickling down her cleavage, yet her companion looked as cool as a cucumber.
But then Maggie had that typical British freckly skin, a throwback from her Scottish ancestors; it came with the red hair, which had faded to a pale yellow as she’d grown older.
One sign of sunshine and her nose went pink. And not in a cute way.
‘You shouldn’t have worried about me. I could have slept in a bunk for a night. I remember my interrailing days roughing it around Europe with a backpack,’ she smiled, with a rush of nostalgia.
She was lying, of course. Nostalgia or not, the last thing she felt like doing was sharing a dormitory with a load of strangers. But she didn’t want this twenty-something thinking she was an old fart.
Flick suddenly looked a bit awkward. ‘Actually, I did try to book an extra bunk but there’s an age limit. You have to be under forty . . .’ She trailed off.
‘Oh, I see.’
Right, well, that told her. She was officially an old fart.
‘Anyway, the Airbnb is in a much better location,’ continued Flick, pinching the screen of her phone and peering at it in concentration. ‘In fact, it should be around here . . .’
Punching the address into the app on her phone, she pressed start and after a few moments of waving it around like a divining rod to see which way the arrow was facing, she set off with Maggie behind her.
Together they followed the directions, which led them along steep, winding streets.
Zig-zagging further and further away from the swanky hotels and seafront restaurants, they climbed up the hill, huffing and puffing.
Well, actually, Maggie noticed only she was huffing and puffing.
Flick seemed to be taking it all in her stride.
But then she was wearing trainers, observed Maggie, who resolved to change out of her flip-flips as soon as she got to the Airbnb.
They had no arch support. Podiatrists always tell you that.
It was obviously the reason why she was so out of breath, and nothing at all to do with the fact she’d lost her gym membership along with everything else.
And, no, walking a few springer spaniels a couple of times a week for the local kennels and living on frozen pizza did not replace Body Pump three times a week.
‘This must be it!’
Finally Flick stopped climbing endless stairs and came to a standstill outside an incongruous-looking building. Puffing up the stairs behind her, lugging her wheelie case, Maggie felt a wave of relief. All she could think about was taking a cold shower and being horizontal.
‘Perfect,’ she panted.
Note to self. When flying to the Mediterranean in the height of summer, do not dress for a northern climate in jeans and a thick sweatshirt with nothing underneath but your T-shirt bra which is now glued to your under-boob sweat.
‘Is there a code to get inside?’
‘Yes, it’s keyless entry, hang on,’ replied Flick and then, after punching in a few numbers, the door released with a buzz, and they entered.
OK, so she wasn’t expecting five-star but as Flick opened the door and surveyed the dingy room before her, her heart sank to the bottom of her vegan trainers.
Oh God, this was beyond awful. This had to be one of the grottiest Airbnbs she had ever stayed in, and there had been some grotty Airbnbs in her time.
Thanks mostly to Rory, who was not exactly known for pushing the boat out when it came to accommodation, his favourite phrase being ‘It’s just a bed for the night. ’
As the two women squeezed inside, their backs to the wall, she was momentarily lost for words.
Which, for anyone who knew Flick, was almost unheard of.
‘Oh well, it’s just a bed for the night,’ she said cheerfully.
But as she said it out loud, she couldn’t bear to look at her travelling companion.
When Maggie had offered to come with her on this madcap scheme first chance at investigative journalism, she was delighted by her support, but nervous as hell.
She was flying by the seat of her pants, but she couldn’t let Maggie know that.
She wanted to look like a professional journalist – someone proficient and capable, who had a handle on every situation.
Someone with experience, whom Maggie could trust.
And yet there they both were, standing in a room with a bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.
The kind of room that wouldn’t look out of a place in a TV crime series about drug smuggling and kidnapping.
As for the size – bijou would be one word; broom cupboard would be another.
And all with a view of someone’s dirty washing and a brick wall covered in graffiti.
‘Is that a penis?’ Maggie gestured towards it now.
‘Um, maybe a rocket ship?’ said Flick, hopefully.
You know those nightmares? Where you’re running down the high street naked and everyone is looking at you? Well, this is worse, thought Flick. Much, much, worse. She glanced across at Maggie, who gave her a reassuring grimace.
‘It’s not so bad.’
‘It’s awful,’ groaned Flick. ‘It didn’t look like this on the website.’
‘What? You mean, there were no photos of giant graffitied penises?’ joked Maggie and Flick felt herself relax ever so slightly.
‘I’ll take the sofa; you can have the bed, obviously.’
‘I don’t think there is a sofa.’
‘Huh?’
Flick looked around the broom cupboard. Maggie was right. There was no sofa. Just two small stools, a table and some misshapen wire hangers. The wardrobe door was missing.
‘I’m happy to share the bed, if you are,’ suggested Maggie. ‘Unless of course you want to call your editor and see if he can find you something else? Surely it’s the newspaper’s responsibility if they’ve sent you here to try and get an exclusive?’
And that was another thing.
Flick hadn’t yet told Maggie that she’d gone rogue and was here under her own steam, which included paying for it all herself, including both their airline tickets. That when she’d pitched the story to her editor, he’d almost laughed her out of his office.
She’d get round to that later.
‘Well, it is only for one night.’
‘Exactly.’
They both sat down on the edge of the bed, then winced.
‘Bit soft and lumpy.’
‘The story of my thighs,’ quipped Maggie.
Flick smiled. She couldn’t help it. And she suddenly felt a blast of gratitude towards this woman she hardly knew. A woman who’d had the shittiest thing happen to her, and who was trying to make her feel better. Who’d trusted her enough to fly out here and face her fears.
She also felt a huge weight of responsibility. She was the one that got her out here.
Maggie’s voice cut into her thoughts.
‘So, what’s the plan of action?’
‘Well, first, I thought we’d get showered and changed.’
But even as she was saying it, it crossed Flick’s mind that there might not even be a shower and frankly she was almost too scared to look as otherwise it was going to have to be a flannel wash, as her nana used to call it, and God only knows how she would explain that to Maggie.
‘Then let’s go out and get something to eat for lunch and I can talk you through it. ’
There. Hopefully that sounded professional. Plus, it gave her a bit more time to think.
Because, in truth, she’d been so preoccupied with making arrangements to fly out here, while making excuses to Rory, her stepdad and her editor, that she hadn’t thought much further ahead. But now she was here she had to think and she had to think fast.
Still, this was part of the job description. As a journalist she’d been taught to use her initiative. To think on her feet. To multitask, be flexible and formulate, and to be prepared to travel at short notice to get the story.
In other words, Flick’s plan of action was currently called Winging It.