Chapter 5 Le Rendez-vous #3
Flynn felt very much in need of reviving, but doubted that smelling salts would be able to do the trick.
In the end he accepted a little glass pot of lavender balm, thinking what a shame it was that Miss Ogilvie didn’t carry a hip flask in that bag.
For a moment he was almost tempted to confess to everyone—the perplexingly missing hours, the mysterious punch-up—but then Miss Ogilvie said, “I think someone’s looking for you,” nodding in the direction of the open doorway, where a Norwegian girl called Frida, who worked in Homes and Gardens, was hovering.
The Boy gave a low wolf-whistle at the sight of Frida’s wholesome curves, before dodging Evans, who fulfilled his threat to lob Trevelyan at him.
“You are Harry Flynn, aren’t you?” Frida said, as if it was an accusation.
“I am.”
“Can I have a word?” She silently indicated that he should accompany her out into the corridor. It seemed an oddly hush-hush way of approaching a request for Homes and Gardens—and he couldn’t think of any other reason she would have sought him out. “What happened to your face?”
“It’s nothing.”
She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “You smell of lavender, like an old woman.” The Scandinavians—there were quite a few working at the Festival—always seemed unnecessarily candid with their opinions.
“Is something up?” he asked.
“It’s about your girlfriend.”
Not about Homes and Gardens, then. “My girlfriend? I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“Delphine Dubois?”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“Well, she said she was going on a date with you.”
“No…well, yes,” Flynn protested, “but not a date—it was just a drink.”
“So a date, then. Anyway, can you give her a message?”
“Me? Why can’t you?”
“Because she didn’t come into work today.”
“So how can I give her a message if she’s not here?” Flynn puzzled.
“Didn’t she go home with you?”
“No.”
“She’s always going with different men. Trying to make her ex jealous.”
So he had been right, Flynn thought—Delphine had been putting on a performance for someone’s benefit. “I don’t know where she is. She’s probably in her flat.”
“She’s not. I got Clerical to phone her landlord, and there was no answer when he knocked on her door.”
“Maybe she’s sick and couldn’t answer. Where does she live?”
“Longridge Road—Earl’s Court. Why don’t you know that? What kind of a boyfriend are you?”
One that was too old to be called a “boyfriend,” for a start, Flynn thought. He was growing exasperated. “I don’t know anything about her. Except that she’s French—and, to be honest, a pain in the neck.”
“Hmm.” (What did that enigmatic sound mean? Flynn wondered.) “We’ve got a lot on, and I really need her at work today. It’s all hands to the pumps.”
“Your English is very good,” he said, in an attempt to mollify her.
“Pff,” she said, or something similarly dismissive. “What have you done with her?”
She seemed to be making a lot of fuss about someone who was simply late for work.
“I have no idea where she might be,” he said, struggling for patience. “Like I said—we had a drink, and then she left the pub and got into a taxi. I didn’t see her again. If she’s been in someone else’s bed in the meantime, then it certainly wasn’t mine.”
Frida tutted irritably, still apparently holding him accountable. “Well, when you do see your girlfriend, tell her to get her lazy derrière into work, will you?”
—
“Trouble?” Badger asked, seeing the frown on Flynn’s face when he returned to his desk.
“No, something and nothing,” Flynn said. “Apparently that woman, the one I had the drink with—Delphine Dubois—didn’t come into work this morning. Her friend’s got a bee in her bonnet about it, although I’m not sure ‘friend’ is the word for her. She seems to think I’ve got her locked up in my flat.”
“Have you?” Badger asked with such seriousness that Flynn burst out laughing.
“No, I think I would have noticed.”
“You know I’m your friend, don’t you, Harry?
” Badger said with unusual gravity. He rarely used anyone’s first name, and it felt surprisingly intimate when he said Flynn’s.
“So you can tell me anything,” he continued earnestly.
“And I mean anything. Think of me as a priest, sworn to keep the secrets of the confessional.”
“What is it that you think I need to confess, Badger?” Flynn frowned.
“Oh, you know,” Badger shrugged.
“No, I don’t.”
Badger nodded slowly as if he was disappointed in Flynn’s answer. He was silent for a while and then said, “Put it like this—I’d be happy to help you out if you’ve got yourself into hot water over something.”
“I’m not in hot water.” (Was he? Had something happened in those long-lost hours of the night that Badger knew about and he didn’t?) He was feeling unnerved, certainly, but he put that down to the cavernous space in his memory and the fact that someone—a complete stranger, presumably—had seen fit to attack him.
Either one of those things was enough to make him feel off-kilter.
“I’m not in trouble, Badger,” he said, more assertively this time.
“Keep saying that, old chap. Never admit to anything. That’s the Badgley family motto.”
“I thought it was Truth and Loyalty.”
“That too.”
Flynn raised his hands in a gesture of innocence (or perhaps that of a guilty man surrendering) and said, “My conscience is clear, Badger.”
Never one for the fray, Badger retreated. “No, no, of course. Sorry. Have to go, helping to choose uniforms for the waitresses in the Turntable Café. Bear in mind what I said though, won’t you?”
Miss Ogilvie, wearing her outdoor clothes, swept into the office on a cold breeze and said, “Are you ready, Mr. Flynn?”
“Ready for what, Miss Ogilvie?”
“It’s Judgement Day, Mr. Flynn. Had you forgotten?”