Last Orders at the Star and Sixpence Page 28

  ‘Ah,’ Lydia said thoughtfully, once she’d turned the card over. ‘The Moon.’

  Nessie gazed at the image, which featured a woman’s face in a full yellow moon. A wolf and a dog howled beneath it. At their feet, water lapped at a path that led into the mountains, and a scorpion waved its pincers as though trying to nip them. ‘What does it mean?’ she asked, before she could stop herself.

  Lydia tilted her head. ‘Illusion. Duality. Something is not as it seems. Or perhaps someone.’

  Blinking in surprise, Nessie gazed into her clear blue eyes. ‘What?’

  The tarot reader pointed at the two towers that flanked the mountains. ‘These can sometimes represent good and evil, and the difficulty of deciding which course of action will place us on the right path.’ She sighed and peered more closely at the card. ‘There is uncertainty and anxiety in your future, but you must trust in the light of the moon to reveal the truth to you. Your intuition will show you the way, if you allow yourself to trust it.’

  Nessie nodded, trying to find some meaning in Lydia’s words in spite of her determination not to. When it seemed there was no more to be said, she smiled. ‘Thank you.’

  Sam stepped forward eagerly. ‘My turn,’ she said, taking the gathered pack from Lydia and closing her eyes to shuffle it.

  Lydia’s face brightened as she turned Sam’s card over. ‘The Lovers,’ she said, beaming with approval. ‘A happy union is in your future.’

  Was it Nessie’s imagination or did Sam blush? ‘Oh. Er . . . good,’ she mumbled, firing an embarrassed look Nessie’s way.

  Lydia’s finger tapped at the colourful image, coming to rest on the handsome man. ‘This card suggests a strong and lasting relationship is about to enter your life – a partnership that will both empower and enrich you. But it can also mean there is a choice to be made – perhaps between two potential suitors – and you must take the time to consider the options before making your decision.’

  Sam’s blush deepened. Nessie had no doubt what her sister’s question had been, and she was clearly hoping that the happy union might be with Gabe, although there was the small matter of being pregnant with Joss’s baby to consider. And the strangest thing was that it was unexpectedly accurate, Nessie thought; Lydia’s prediction for Sam had been very near the mark, even though Nessie was sure the other woman couldn’t have any idea what was going through Sam’s head.

  ‘Does that mean anything to you?’ Lydia said, gathering up her cards.

  Sam nodded. ‘Yes. Thanks for doing it for us.’

  Lydia smiled as she slipped the pack into a velvet bag and reached for her coat. ‘A pleasure. Thank you for having me here tonight.’

  ‘That wasn’t at all weird, was it?’ Sam asked when Lydia had left. ‘Do you forgive me for making you do it?’

  ‘Just about,’ Nessie replied, smiling. ‘No prizes for guessing what yours means.’

  ‘No,’ Sam admitted. ‘I’m not sure I like the bit about making a choice, though. My baby brain is so bad that I can’t even decide which socks to wear most mornings.’

  Nessie pulled a face. ‘Consider yourself lucky,’ she said ruefully. ‘At least you don’t have a scorpion snapping at your feet.’

  They finished clearing up. Yawning, Nessie made her way towards the door. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  ‘Sleep well,’ Sam called back. ‘Wait. You didn’t tell me what your question was.’

  ‘That’s because the card I pulled didn’t make any sense,’ Nessie said. ‘I wanted to know what to do about Laurie.’

  Sam frowned. ‘Oh. Yeah, that doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘Just as I expected,’ Nessie said, shrugging. ‘Night, Sam.’

  Chapter Thirty-one

  ‘Have you got a minute, Nessie?’

  She looked up to see Connor hovering in the office doorway, his large frame taking up most of the space. He was frowning in a way that made Nessie’s heart sink; as an ex-firefighter, Connor usually took everything in his stride and it was rare for him to trouble Sam or Nessie. Something must be wrong.

  ‘Of course,’ Nessie said, twisting in her seat to face him. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘That delivery that arrived from the brewery just now . . .’ He paused and looked even more puzzled. ‘Is there any reason you ordered double what we needed?’

  Nessie felt her mouth fall open. ‘Double? What are you talking about?’ She reached for the lever arch folder where she kept copies of all the pub’s orders. ‘It should have been a standard Monday delivery.’

  Connor shrugged. ‘And it was – just twice as much as usual. I’m struggling to find room for everything in the cellar – come and see for yourself. It’s like Tetris down there.’

  She shook her head in bewilderment as she flicked through the paperwork. ‘No, I believe you. But I don’t understand how it’s happened – I placed the order on Friday morning, right after the Tarot Evening.’ She pointed at a sheet of paper in the folder. ‘Look – here it is.’

  Connor took a few steps forwards and dutifully scanned the order. ‘Looks like exactly half of what came. I had to send three barrels of Thirsty Bishop back.’

  ‘Maybe the order was duplicated somehow,’ Nessie said. She picked up her phone. ‘Let me give them a ring.’

  The mystery was solved by the brewery’s sales rep a few moments later: the email containing Nessie’s order had been delivered once, at nine-twenty on Friday morning, and then it had arrived again just after midday. The automated ordering system hadn’t been clever enough to realise the same order had been placed twice, hence the double quantities.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ the sales rep’s voice crackled on speakerphone. ‘The system is programmed to flag up two identical orders that come through within seconds of each other. But there were a few hours between these two, so it would have treated them as separate requests.’

  Nessie ran a weary hand over her face. ‘I’ve got no idea how it happened. A glitch in the matrix, I suppose.’

  The sales rep apologised again and Nessie rang off. ‘It’s not the end of the world, I suppose,’ she said to Connor. ‘We can probably find somewhere secure to stash the wine and spirits for a week or so. It’s a good thing you sent the Bishop back.’

  ‘No choice,’ Connor replied. ‘There’s not enough room to swing a cat, let alone squeeze in three barrels of beer.’

  ‘Squeeze in as much as you can,’ Nessie said sympathetically. ‘I’ll see what I can sort out for the stuff you don’t have room for.’

  A few calls later, Nessie was satisfied that she’d found a secure location for the excess alcohol and set about going through the Star and Sixpence messages to see if she could work out what had gone wrong. Sure enough, there were two emails showing in the Sent Items folder, their date stamps matching the times given by the brewery’s sales rep. Nessie had no idea how they’d come to be duplicated; it had never happened before. But hopefully it was a one-off anomaly – no real harm had been done.

  ‘At least it will come in handy for the cider festival,’ Sam said later that morning, when Nessie explained what had happened. ‘It’s not as though alcohol is perishable.’

  ‘True,’ Nessie replied. ‘But I’m not sure there’s space for Connor in the cellar.’

  Sam shrugged cheerfully. ‘We’ll just have to think of a way to encourage everyone to drink more. It shouldn’t be a problem now that the weather is warming up.’

  It was true; after a dismal rainy May, the sun seemed to be winning the battle to bring summer to the country and the Met Office was predicting soaring temperatures for the end of June.

  ‘Maybe our new member of staff will help too,’ Nessie said with a smile. ‘When are you picking him up?’

  Sam’s eyes gleamed. ‘Tomorrow morning. Gabe and I will drive over to the shelter first thing. I think we’ll keep him upstairs for a few days, until he gets used to being around us, and then we can bring him downstairs for short bursts.’

  ‘I hope he’ll be allowed
visitors,’ Nessie said. ‘I know a nine-year-old boy who is – and I quote – “epically excited” to meet him.’

  ‘Of course,’ Sam replied. ‘And we’ll need to give him a new name – maybe Luke can help with that?’

  ‘I’m sure he can,’ Nessie said, imagining how thrilled Luke would be with the news. ‘As long as you don’t mind him being named after some weird character from an online game that no one over the age of fifteen understands?’

  Sam laughed. ‘Good point. Maybe we’ll take suggestions and put it to a vote.’

  ‘Very wise,’ Nessie said. She paused. ‘How did Laurie react when you told him?’

  ‘I – erm – thought we’d surprise him,’ Sam said, not quite able to meet Nessie’s gaze.

  Nessie blinked at her sister in dismay. ‘That’s possibly the worst idea you’ve ever had. What if he’s dog-phobic? Or allergic to them?’

  ‘He told me he had a dog when he was growing up. So he can’t have a phobia or an allergy.’

  ‘Unless they developed recently,’ Nessie suggested. ‘All I’m saying is that you should mention it anyway, to be on the safe side. I’m sure you’ve told Connor and Tilly.’

  ‘Neither of whom had a problem,’ Sam said, raising her chin in a defiant gesture Nessie recognised well. ‘And, actually, I don’t need Laurie’s permission to get a dog.’

  Nessie raised her hands placatingly. ‘Of course you don’t. But this is about common sense and courtesy, not permission.’

  ‘You tell him, then,’ Sam said. ‘I think he’d accept it coming from you.’

  The idea was so ridiculous that Nessie almost laughed. ‘Don’t be daft. I don’t think Laurie sees either of us as being in charge.’

  Sam fell silent for a moment. ‘Doesn’t that strike you as odd?’

  And now that she came to think about it, Nessie had to admit that it did. ‘A bit.’

  ‘Me too,’ Sam said. ‘So you’ll understand why I’m not prepared to let him stand in the way of something that will be good for everyone else involved.’

  It was a fair point, Nessie had to concede; there were lots of plusses to having a pub dog and only one negative. Perhaps Sam was right and Laurie would come round to the idea eventually. The question was, how long would it take him to get there?

  *

  ‘You can’t call him Stumpy,’ Sam told Luke on Tuesday evening, as he reached down for the hundredth time to ruffle the Border collie’s ears. ‘I don’t care how much he looks like something from your game.’

  Luke looked disappointed and Sam thanked her lucky stars that Nessie had given her a heads-up about the kind of names he might put forward; the suggestion had been innocent enough, but Sam could just imagine the outright sniggers among the pub’s patrons if they named the poor creature Stumpy.

  ‘Keep thinking,’ Nessie said, with an encouraging nod. ‘If you had a dog of your own what sort of name would you choose?’

  He leaned back against the sofa and screwed up his freckled nose in concentration. ‘If he was a girl, I’d say Twinkle. Like the star in the Star and Sixpence.’

  Sam gazed down at the dog, remembering the way he’d bounded around the village green earlier that day, apparently determined to sniff every blade of grass and greet every passer-by he saw. He was already looking much healthier than he had when she’d first found him; his brown eyes shone and his coat was glossy. But regardless of sex, Twinkle didn’t seem like the right name for him.

  ‘How about Blackheart?’ Luke suggested. ‘After Elijah.’

  He meant the ghost who was rumoured to haunt the pub, dating back to the sixteenth century when it had been a coaching inn and allegedly frequented by one particular highwayman. Sam had spent many nights alone in the building and had never noticed even a hint of a supernatural presence, but she wasn’t above encouraging the rumours for the benefit of ghost-hunting guests in the bed-and-breakfast rooms in the attic.

  ‘But he’s so friendly,’ Nessie said, as the dog thumped his tail on the floor. ‘Blackheart makes him sound like a villain.’

  Luke glanced impatiently around the living room. ‘I don’t know. Spidey. Hawkeye. Steve.’ His eyes brightened. ‘Bucky.’

  ‘Bucky isn’t bad,’ Sam said, slowly. ‘Is that from your game too?’

  ‘No, from the Marvel comics. He’s Steve Rogers’ best friend,’ Luke said, the words tumbling out fast. ‘He’s loyal and protective and looks after him . . .’

  ‘Those are good, dog-like characteristics,’ Sam mused, casting a covert sideways look at Nessie for confirmation.

  ‘And then he gets captured by Hydra and they give him a metal arm,’ Luke said, warming to his theme. ‘He becomes this deadly assassin who no one can defeat, except for Steve when he becomes Captain America. And he almost kills Nick Fury but he escapes at the last minute.’

  ‘Maybe we won’t mention that bit,’ Sam said, laughing. She tilted her head at Nessie. ‘What do you think – is Bucky a good name?’

  Nessie opened her mouth to reply, but the dog cut her off with a single enthusiastic bark. ‘I think that’s a yes,’ she said, grinning. ‘Welcome to the Star and Sixpence, Bucky. I think you’re going to fit right in.’

  Beaming, Luke jumped off the sofa to bury his face in the dog’s black-and-white fur. ‘This is going to be awesome!’

  Sam watched Bucky lick his face and smiled. All they had to do now was convince Laurie . . .

  *

  Laurie’s face was stony when Sam took him to one side later that evening.

  ‘It doesn’t look like I’ve got much choice,’ he said, when she explained. ‘Although an employment tribunal might take a dim view of your actions.’

  She stared at him, genuinely shocked. ‘An employment tribunal? What on earth are you talking about?’

  He shrugged. ‘You failed to ask whether introducing a dog to the workplace might cause me health problems. For all you know, I might be allergic or have mental health issues that might be triggered by having to face a dog every day.’

  It was so ridiculous that Sam wanted to laugh. And yet she could tell from her brother’s expression that he was serious. ‘You told me you had a pet dog when you were younger,’ she said. ‘I assumed that meant you weren’t allergic to them. Are you?’

  ‘No, but that’s not the point,’ Laurie said, frowning. ‘You didn’t check – you just went ahead with your own plans. And, as it happens, I do like dogs. Just not that dog.’

  Sam shook her head, nonplussed. ‘So you’re going to take us to an employment tribunal over it?’

  ‘Of course not,’ he replied, glaring at her. ‘My point is that you didn’t ask, Sam. It’s like I said the other day – what I want or think doesn’t seem to matter around here. And I’m sick of it. I think you owe me an apology.’

  Sam took in the self-righteous anger behind Laurie’s eyes, battling her own irritation. Was that all he wanted – an apology?

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t check with you first,’ she said, after a long calming breath. ‘I’m sorry we overlooked your feelings.’

  His smile was instant, transforming his face from sulky to sunny in less than a heartbeat. ‘There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?’

  Sam had to dig deep to find an answering smile. It felt thin and insincere. ‘Bucky will be upstairs for the next few days, so he won’t be under your feet.’

  ‘Good,’ Laurie said, turning his back to leave the office with an air of finality. ‘The less our paths cross, the better.’

  Chapter Thirty-two

  ‘If it’s no good, you can always send it back.’

  Nessie stopped pushing the steak and kidney pudding around her plate and blinked at Owen. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The food,’ he said, nodding at the fork in her hand. ‘You’ve hardly eaten any of it. Isn’t it up to standard?’

  Nessie felt the start of an embarrassed blush creep up her cheeks. Owen had booked a table at the Prancing Pony on her request, because Gabe had raved about the chef and his menu,
and here she was behaving as though the meal she’d been presented with wasn’t melt-in-the-mouth delicious. ‘No, it’s fine,’ she said, glancing guiltily around the busy restaurant in case the staff had noticed her less-than-enthusiastic response. ‘How’s yours?’

  Owen waved a hand at the almost empty plate in front of him. ‘I’ve no complaints.’

  With another wary look at the Friday night diners around them, Nessie took another mouthful of the pudding, savouring the steak that fell apart the moment she began to chew and the suet pastry that had no business being as light as it was. Gabe had been right: the food was to die for. And now she felt even more guilty for giving it, and Owen, less than her full attention.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, once she’d finished chewing. ‘I’m terrible company tonight.’

  Owen’s forehead creased as he regarded her with concern. ‘You couldn’t be bad company if you tried. Quiet, maybe. A little preoccupied.’

  Nessie groaned. ‘I’m sorry. Our first date in over a month and I’m ruining it.’

  ‘Stop,’ Owen said, reaching across the pristine white tablecloth to take her hand. ‘You’re not ruining anything. I know work has been getting on top of you lately – that’s one of the reasons I suggested a night out, to give you some space. And I’m always happy to listen. You know what they say – a problem shared . . .’

  ‘Is a problem that has two people worrying about it instead of just one,’ Nessie said, but she felt the start of a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. Maybe talking to Owen about the mountain of mistakes she seemed to be piling up would help to get things in perspective. ‘You’re going to think I’m a total idiot.’

  ‘Never,’ Owen said solemnly, squeezing her fingers.

  ‘Not even when I remind you that I somehow managed to send the same order twice to the brewery,’ Nessie said. ‘Or that I forgot I’d reset the password for their online portal and locked myself out yesterday.’

  Owen sipped his pint. ‘Worse things happen.’