sharp as a blade.’
A ping of reply echoed out from the phone. Sean snorted and held the phone out to Dee, who looked at it as if he were offering her a small thermonuclear device. ‘I thought that might push his buttons. He needs your mobile number. Expect a call very soon.’
Dee stared at the phone and shook her head very slowly. ‘I don’t have a mobile phone. Never had one. No clue how to use one.’ Then she looked up at Sean and chuckled. ‘I could give him the number for the cake shop, but Lottie would probably put the phone down on him thinking it was a prank call. Would email be okay?’
Sean stood in silence for a few seconds.
‘No mobile phone?’
She shook her head again. ‘I live above the shop and rarely travel. My friends know where I live. No need.’
‘Tablet computer? Or some sort of palm top?’ She rolled her eyes and mouthed the word ‘no’.
Sean took back his phone and fired off a quick message, then laughed out loud when the reply came whizzing back.
‘Have I said something to amuse you? My life’s mission is now complete,’ Dee whispered and looked up and down the street as Sean bent over his phone as though she were not there. Then she spotted something out of the corner of her eye just around the next corner, glanced back once to check that Sean was fully occupied and took off without looking back.
Sean did not even notice that she had walked off until he had exchanged a couple of messages with Rob, who thought that the whole thing had to be one huge practical joke, and couldn’t believe that a girl who was willing to criticize his tea supplier didn’t have a phone. So he came up with another idea instead.
An idea so outrageous that Sean was sure Dee would turn him down in a flash, but hey, it was worth a try.
‘Well, it seems that you were right, it really is your lucky day. I have a rather unusual request from my brother. Rob is flying in on Friday for... Dee?’
Sean turned from side to side.
She had gone. Vanished. Taken off. Left him standing there, talking to himself like an idiot. What was all that about?
The girl was a mirage. A mirage who he knew had not retraced her steps to the hotel—he would have spotted that—so she must have gone ahead.
One more thing to add to his new client’s list of credentials: impatient. As well as a technophobe.
Sean strolled down the street, and had only been gone a few minutes when he turned the corner and walked straight into one of the local street markets that were famous in the area. Once a week stallholders selling all kinds of handmade goods, food, clothing, books, ornaments, paintings and everything else they had found in the attic laid out their goods on wooden tables.
A smile crept unbidden across Sean’s face.
His mother used to love coming to these markets and he used to spend hours every Saturday trailing behind her as she scoured the stalls for what she called ‘treasures’. Her collections: postcards of London; Victorian hand-painted tiles; antique dolls with porcelain faces; handbags covered with beads and sequins, most of them missing; cupboards-full of old white linen bedding which had always felt cold and scratchy when he was a boy. But to her eyes, glorious items which were simply in need of a good wash and a good home.
Each item had its own story. A silver snuff-box must have been owned by someone important like Sherlock Holmes, while a chipped tin car had once been the treasured toy of a refugee who had been forced to leave everything behind when his family had fled. Just as she had done when she’d escaped persecution when she’d been a small girl, arriving in London with her journalist parents and only a small suitcase between them. Simply glad to be safe from the political persecution from the new regime in their corner of Eastern Europe.
The horror of being forced to flee from your home to avoid arrest was one thing. But to start again and make your life a success in a new country was
A ping of reply echoed out from the phone. Sean snorted and held the phone out to Dee, who looked at it as if he were offering her a small thermonuclear device. ‘I thought that might push his buttons. He needs your mobile number. Expect a call very soon.’
Dee stared at the phone and shook her head very slowly. ‘I don’t have a mobile phone. Never had one. No clue how to use one.’ Then she looked up at Sean and chuckled. ‘I could give him the number for the cake shop, but Lottie would probably put the phone down on him thinking it was a prank call. Would email be okay?’
Sean stood in silence for a few seconds.
‘No mobile phone?’
She shook her head again. ‘I live above the shop and rarely travel. My friends know where I live. No need.’
‘Tablet computer? Or some sort of palm top?’ She rolled her eyes and mouthed the word ‘no’.
Sean took back his phone and fired off a quick message, then laughed out loud when the reply came whizzing back.
‘Have I said something to amuse you? My life’s mission is now complete,’ Dee whispered and looked up and down the street as Sean bent over his phone as though she were not there. Then she spotted something out of the corner of her eye just around the next corner, glanced back once to check that Sean was fully occupied and took off without looking back.
Sean did not even notice that she had walked off until he had exchanged a couple of messages with Rob, who thought that the whole thing had to be one huge practical joke, and couldn’t believe that a girl who was willing to criticize his tea supplier didn’t have a phone. So he came up with another idea instead.
An idea so outrageous that Sean was sure Dee would turn him down in a flash, but hey, it was worth a try.
‘Well, it seems that you were right, it really is your lucky day. I have a rather unusual request from my brother. Rob is flying in on Friday for... Dee?’
Sean turned from side to side.
She had gone. Vanished. Taken off. Left him standing there, talking to himself like an idiot. What was all that about?
The girl was a mirage. A mirage who he knew had not retraced her steps to the hotel—he would have spotted that—so she must have gone ahead.
One more thing to add to his new client’s list of credentials: impatient. As well as a technophobe.
Sean strolled down the street, and had only been gone a few minutes when he turned the corner and walked straight into one of the local street markets that were famous in the area. Once a week stallholders selling all kinds of handmade goods, food, clothing, books, ornaments, paintings and everything else they had found in the attic laid out their goods on wooden tables.
A smile crept unbidden across Sean’s face.
His mother used to love coming to these markets and he used to spend hours every Saturday trailing behind her as she scoured the stalls for what she called ‘treasures’. Her collections: postcards of London; Victorian hand-painted tiles; antique dolls with porcelain faces; handbags covered with beads and sequins, most of them missing; cupboards-full of old white linen bedding which had always felt cold and scratchy when he was a boy. But to her eyes, glorious items which were simply in need of a good wash and a good home.
Each item had its own story. A silver snuff-box must have been owned by someone important like Sherlock Holmes, while a chipped tin car had once been the treasured toy of a refugee who had been forced to leave everything behind when his family had fled. Just as she had done when she’d escaped persecution when she’d been a small girl, arriving in London with her journalist parents and only a small suitcase between them. Simply glad to be safe from the political persecution from the new regime in their corner of Eastern Europe.
The horror of being forced to flee from your home to avoid arrest was one thing. But to start again and make your life a success in a new country was
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