Randall #03 - Sherwood Ltd. by Anne R. Allen Page A

reckoned it would be better than nothing. It seems I’m the only one getting a proper paycheck around here.”
    As I popped open a beer, Liam explained that the Professor had a regular disability allowance from the government, and Peter got an editor at nearly no cost.
    Great. I was scrounging off a paraplegic’s disability check. I put two pound coins in the jar, picked up a knife and started peeling potatoes. Might as well make myself useful. As we chopped and peeled, Liam chatted. He told me he was of Jamaican descent and grew up in a small town in Yorkshire, where his family ran a fish and chips shop.
    “You know what they say—‘you can always tell a Yorkshireman—but you can’t tell him much’,” Tom said over his shoulder. “We’re a stubborn lot.”
    Liam said all of them but the Professor had been in a rock band called the Dire Weretoads, which Peter managed until he took off for the Caribbean. When Peter left, the band fell apart and they’d fallen out of touch until Peter showed up on Tom’s doorstep last September—mysteriously without luggage or funds.
    I found this a little odd. If Peter had gone into partnership with Henry with no money—that meant Henry had paid for everything. No wonder he was annoyed.
    “Was Henry Weems a Weretoad?” I was finding this hard to picture.
    Raucous laughter came from the couch.
    “Not him and not me,” the Professor said. “Henry knows Peter from the army. He was already a writer for Dominion Books and talked Peter into buying the company with him. The rest of us—Vera, Charlie, and me, we’re locals. Me dad runs the curry shop on the High Street. Charlie used to run the bookshop next door until Tesco put him out of business. Vera worked at the old Maidenette company years ago.”
    “You see why we call him the Professor.” Liam laughed. “He knows everything.”
    “Poor old Henry,” Davey said. He’s a public school boy—a throwback to another time—when riff-raff like us knew our place.”
    Tom let out a roar. “Poor old Henry? I’ll tell you when you can pity that wanker. When I kick his arse back to Nottingham, is when. Peter needs to get him sorted.”
    Liam gave me an eye roll while I turned the sausages.
    Davey opened another beer. “Don’t hold your breath on that. Remember last time Peter got a yen for sunny beaches—he was gone four years.”
    Tom jumped up. “Don’t say that, mate. Don’t even say it.”
    I didn’t like the fear I heard in Tom’s voice. It fed my own. A lot of things didn’t quite fit. Like the Professor saying Peter had been in the army, when Charlie said he was RAF. And Plant thinking he was an aristocrat, when Davey saw him as fellow “riff-raff.”
    I was going to have to do some advanced Googling when I got back to my computer. I hoped I’d find some explanation—and also the magical source of his funds.
    Liam dished the potato-vegetable mixture onto a platter with the sausage links.
    “Tea’s on.”
    “Bollocks!” Tom said. I had no idea if this was in reference to Charlie, tea, or the snooker, but I went ahead and set the table with an assortment of battle-scarred flatware, folded some paper towels for napkins and everyone came to the table cheerfully enough.
    I didn’t want to think what all the pork products I was consuming would do to my figure, but the food was actually quite tasty.
    The platter had been scraped clean and I was on my second beer when there was a heavy knock on the outside door.
    Everybody froze. I could tell we all had the same thought.
    Tom gave Liam a triumphant look.
    “Peter?” he called. “Decided to drop in on Lincolnshire, you jet-setting bastard?”
    My chest constricted as I felt equal parts apprehension, anger and…something more primal.
    Damn. Mr. Peter Sherwood definitely had a grip on my heart.

Chapter 24—Lost Boys

    After more agitated knocking, Tom opened the canteen door. But it wasn’t Peter—just Karaoke Alan, looking slimier than ever in a squeaky