The Accidental Mother by Rowan Coleman Page B

that probably have nothing whatsoever to do with your Louis Gregory?” Sophie had tapped her chipped nails on the edge of her bed. She was nervous about being in the bedroom when the girls were not, but she didn’t want them to know she was looking for their dad too. She wasn’t even sure they knew they had a dad. They hadn’t mentioned him since they’d arrived. She wasn’t sure what sort of an effect that kind of news might have on them, but if it was anything on a par with their reaction to the news that she did not have Cbeebies on her TV, she didn’t want to risk it.
    “Oh, come on, Cal. I need you here. It’s an emergency.”
    “Why don’t you do it?” Cal snapped. “You’re the one on holiday after all.”
    Sophie paused. She thought about telling him in detail about the inevitable demise of her laptop, involving a tube of John Frieda Sheer Blonde hair serum, the residue from an empty box of Coco Pops, and a pair of nail scissors, but she decided against it. She couldn’t stand the ridicule again; she could still hear the hysterical laughter of the IT support man ringing in her ears.
    “My laptop’s broken,” she said. “I’m not getting a replacement until next week. And anyway, if this was a holiday, it’d be an all-expenses-paid trip to the Siberian salt mines of the former Soviet Union. Cal, you’re my personal assistant—assist!”
    Cal tutted. “I think you’re taking the personal bit a bit too literally,” he muttered.
    Sophie paused. She never stopped to think about the nature of their relationship too closely, but she had made the assumption that the occasional weekend shopping trip, the odd after-work cocktails in the city meant that it was more than just a professional one, that it was a friendship of sorts. She hoped so, because Cal was the only friend she managed to see regularly, even if the fact that he worked for her did help the friendship along. Perhaps she was asking too much of him. Perhaps she was straying into things-you-can-ask-your-boyfriend-to-do-on-the-grounds-that-you-let-him-have-sex-with-you territory.
    “I’m sorry,” she said stiffly. “I didn’t mean to impose on you.”
    Cal huffed again. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, don’t pull the martyr act on me, love, I’m immune. Besides—I’ve got the answer to all of our problems.” He lowered his voice. “I know someone who can help.”
    “Who?” Sophie asked, touched and reassured by Cal’s reclassification of her problems as “ours.”
    “Maria Costello,” Cal said proudly. “Private detective. She’s not cheap, but she’s good—she always gets her man. We’ve got a lot in common in that respect.”
    For a moment Sophie didn’t know what to say. She’d associated Cal’s friends and acquaintances with a number of professions, from drag queen to car mechanic, but she would never have guessed he’d know a private detective.
    “A private detective?” she asked. “How do you know a private detective?”
    Cal’s voice was rich with drama. “Oh, you know. I’ve done a little…let’s call it ‘freelance’ work for her.”
    “Freelance work?” Sophie questioned him anxiously. “What sort of freelance work?”
    “Well,” Cal whispered. “Have you ever heard of ‘the honey trap’?”
    “Yes?” Sophie said uneasily.
    “Well, honey, I was the honey in the trap!” Cal giggled.
    “You’re lying!” Sophie cried, utterly scandalized. “Please tell me you’re lying. If this ever got out…you have to be lying,” she repeated.
    Cal sighed. “Yes, all right, I am lying—spoilsport. Her offices are in the shop below my flat, but that’s just boring. Anyway, she is very good, and I’ve told her all about you, and she says she can find him, no problem. She says it will be, quote unquote, a piece of cake. Do you want to see her?”
    “How much would it cost?” Sophie began uncertainly before she and Cal reached the same conclusion at exactly the same moment.
    “Actually, I don’t