Giant Days Page 6

  A tantrum. Much more on brand.

  Another message followed that.

  Sorry. Really I am. I’m out with the medical lot. Try Ed Gemmell. You know he’ll take any excuse to make you happy.

  Esther looked with disgust at the little winky face with which Susan had punctuated that sentence and wondered whether her friend was feeling all right.

  Susan was very definitely not feeling all right. The friends sitting at a corner table of the pub were very definitely not medical friends and they were very definitely not supposed to be in Sheffield.

  It had taken some very quick thinking on Susan’s part when she’d received a horror story in three photos from two of her closest friends from back home:

  Tiny little Beebz, her dreads squashed under the hood of a bright orange anorak, jerking a thumb at the departures board of Birmingham train station and looking delighted.

  Madeleine, all silk scarves and a Cossack hat, pressing a red-lipped kiss onto a train ticket from Leeds.

  The two of them, united, outside a sign welcoming them to Sheffield, looking utterly delighted with themselves and the caption SURPRISE! As the midpoint between where the two had moved since leaving their hometown, Sheffield was the natural choice for a reunion.

  One that had been kept secret from Susan, because her friends knew she’d never have agreed to it. That was the problem when people knew you too well—which was exactly the reason Susan had wanted to keep them away. If there was one thing being a private investigator taught you, it was that knowledge was power. No need to share it with more people than necessary.

  Still. They were only here for the day.

  And Susan was resourceful. Picking up three glasses, she made her way back to their table. No one was going to turn down an all-day boozing session, not when Susan had cracked open her emergency stash of fifties and tucked three of them into her bra.

  Daisy stood on the driveway that led up to the House of Zoise and looked at the address on her phone doubtfully.

  The houses on this road weren’t typical of student accommodations. They were tall and redbrick—Edwardian, maybe—with high windows and gabled roofs, the kind of house a parent or a grandparent might live in, but not someone Daisy’s age. Maybe it was a ploy? Maybe someone had hijacked the mailing list for the Brethren of Zoise? A serial killer who lured yoga fans to his house and murdered them halfway through a Sun Salutation?

  Maybe she should skip this and have a bite to eat before attending Late-Night Pool Club . . . but she was still stuffed after having afternoon tea with the misnomered Ladies Who Brunch, and, having walked all the way here, it seemed a shame to give up. Approaching the front door, Daisy was reassured by the paint flaking off the window frames, the algae in the mortar, and the weeds poking up through the paved driveway. And wasn’t that a Che Guevara poster she could see in the front room?

  Daisy took a fortifying breath. She was good at doing things on her own, but that didn’t mean it was easy. Especially not when she’d conceded the possibility of getting murdered.

  Grasping the satisfying heft of the lion’s head knocker, she announced her arrival.

  The door opened to reveal a young man about Daisy’s height with shaggy ginger hair and bare feet. Daisy thought he might have been with Elise at the booth. He wore a dressing-gown-like black robe and a slightly bemused expression.

  “Hi, my name’s Daisy. I’m here for the Zoise meeting?” She gestured at her mat.

  “Of course, come in. You must be here for the taster session. My name’s Jasper.” Jasper’s hair curled up over his ears and onto his neck, and he had a splatter of freckles across the bridge of his nose and the tops of his cheeks. As Daisy stepped past him, she had the feeling that this was exactly the sort of boy Esther would find very attractive indeed.

  “This house is really nice,” Daisy said. “I didn’t realize there was any student housing this far out of town.” Daisy followed Jasper down a hallway. The floor was hardwood, and fairy lights wound up banisters that looked like an original feature of the house. Coving on the ceiling, picture rails . . . if it weren’t for the socks drying on the radiator and the pizza boxes and take-away trays littered about, she could have stepped into the last five minutes of Property Brothers.

  “Yeah, we’re really lucky. This place came up for sale a few years ago, and my dad bought it so me and my brother would have somewhere to live.”

  “Does your brother do yoga, too?”

  Jasper laughed. “Finn spends ninety percent of his time getting high in the attic—says yoga’s too energetic. And there’s Mei, but you’ll never see her—she basically lives with her boyfriend these days.”

  “And Elise?” Daisy said, trying not to sound too hopeful, although Jasper gave her a curious look when he said, “Oh, you’ll see a lot of Elise. She and I, we’re the yoga buffs. Through here . . .”

  Jasper waved Daisy toward the back of the house, where the smell of baking—earthy and nutty and delicious—intensified. The room into which Daisy stepped was so far from the bubbled plasterwork and linoleum of Catterick Hall that to use the word kitchen to describe both rooms would be blasphemous.

  The floor was tiled in terra-cotta, the walls painted the same lush creamy white as the wooden cabinets, and the counters were wiped clean enough to gleam. On the far side of the room, beyond the chunky farmhouse table, Elise extracted a tray of biscuits from a sprawling range oven. When Elise stood, petite and perfectly curved in a loose vest and tropical print leggings, Daisy felt as if she’d stepped into a photo shoot for some trendy lifestyle magazine.

  “This is Daisy,” Jasper said. “I think she could use a beginner’s infusion if you’ve any left?”

  “Oh, I know Daisy.”

  Under the beam of Elise’s smile, Daisy disappeared inside the neck of her sports cardigan, almost relieved when Elise turned away to set things on a tray—enamel-lined clay cups and plates heaped with warm cookies. As Jasper turned toward the sink, the Eyes of Zoise embroidered onto the back of his black dressing gown twinkled happily at her.

  Elise nodded toward a door that Daisy had thought was a pantry. “We’re down in the basement,” she said.

  Opening the door, Daisy found stone steps leading down to where a pool of warm, wavering light welcomed her. The steps were cool beneath Daisy’s feet, but on reaching the bottom, she stepped onto a thick, plush rug. The basement was huge—the house must have been built on a hill, the front higher than the back, because the entire back wall was nothing but glass-paneled doors looking out onto what Daisy presumed was the garden, although it was too dark to see more than a hint of a greenhouse and some trees. The floor was so densely layered with rugs and mats that when she stepped forward into the studio, it was as if she were walking on a spongy cloud. Spotlights in the ceiling were turned down low, and all around the walls, jars and vases with candles burning inside hung from nails embedded in the brickwork.

  The smell from the kitchen permeated the room, mingling pleasantly with the low murmur of friendly voices and whatever was burning in a gently smoking stone basin. Something about the room, the people in it, and the prospect of some social yoga made Daisy feel at ease.

  As she took a sip of the brew that Elise had given her, she realized this felt a lot like coming home.

  Esther remedied rejection the way she remedied everything: with loud music and a lot of makeup. Who needed Susan and Daisy when Ed Gemmell was around? All Esther needed to do now was locate him.

  Where are you?

  Nanoseconds later: Catterick bar.

  Excellent. See you in 5.

  Not bothering to read whatever he’d sent in reply, Esther grabbed her coat and hurried across the quad. The bar was busier than when they’d been there last, which wasn’t surprising, given the time of day, and Ed Gemmell was hard to find in a crowd. McGraw, however, was not, and Esther wriggled her way to where the two of them stood by one of the barred windows.

  “Gentlemen!” Esther flung her arms out in
ecstasy, squeezing a wheeze of welcome out of Ed Gemmell and turning uncertainly to McGraw. “Do we hug?”

  McGraw looked at Esther, then at the full pint of beer in his hand. “Another time, perhaps.”

  Probably for the best.

  “Right. Well, Ed Gemmell, I’m here to hijack whatever plans you have for the evening and whisk you away to Rock Night.”

  She’d already looped her arm in his when Ed Gemmell made a strangled noise that sounded like, “I can’t.”

  “What?”

  “I—er—not sure—I can—”

  “Of course you can.”

  McGraw, who had been standing there silently like a sexy statue, chose that moment to clear his throat.

  “McGraw! Why don’t you come, too?” So what if she was fraternizing with the enemy? Susan only had herself to blame. If she’d been there . . .

  “No, thank you. I have plans. With Ed.”

  “To come dancing with me.” Esther snuggled closer and gave Ed Gemmell a hopeful pout.

  “I . . . maybe . . .” He swayed a little as if hypnotized before peeling his eyes from hers and mouthing a desperate “Help me!” at McGraw.

  “Stop this black magic.” McGraw put his pint down, covered his friend’s glasses with one hand, and extracted him from Esther’s grip with the other. Once free, Ed Gemmell glanced desperately between them like a dog torn between two owners, and McGraw fixed Esther with a stern stare.

  “The man said no.”

  “No, he didn’t.” Technically, he’d said, “I can’t,” which wasn’t the same thing at all. “Come on, Ed Gemmell, come on . . .”

  “This is beneath you, Esther.” McGraw drew Ed Gemmell away from her reach. “Leave him be.”

  Esther’s Hail Mary was a Fail Mary. Storming back across the bar, bruised by her lack of success, Esther turned to shout, “Susan was right about you!” at McGraw. “You are an awful human being!”

  But McGraw just gave her a cheery wave, one arm still clamped on Ed Gemmell’s scrawny form.

  Susan decided to switch pubs. It was a risk, but the one they’d been in didn’t do food, and they needed something other than liquid sustenance.

  “Why can’t we see where you live?” Madeleine asked, sounding peevish as she wound her scarf tightly and tugged her Cossack hat farther onto her head. “I want to see this famed student lifestyle I’m missing out on by actually gaining relevant experience in the workplace.”

  “And meet your friends!” Beebz added before giving Susan a doubtful look. “Assuming you have any . . .”

  “What do you think?” Susan shot back, playing into her friend’s expectations with a little misdirection before hurrying in the opposite direction of Catterick Hall.

  “The old Susie P would have been perfectly happy for us all to hang in her room, smoking her way through a bottle of whisky in her PJs,” Beebz muttered.

  “What kind of host would I be if I didn’t show you the sights of Sheffield? Look”—she pointed down a nearby alley—“a fox dragging a trash bag across the street. Bet you don’t get that kind of wildlife in Birmingham.”

  Susan knew that Beebz and Madeleine would love Esther and Daisy just as much as she did. Well, actually, probably not; Susan was a lot fonder of those two scamps than she liked to admit. But that wasn’t the point.

  Beebz and Madeleine had known Susan a long time—and with a long-shared history came long-shared memories. With Esther’s unquenchable thirst for gossip and Daisy’s innocent charm, it would take all of five minutes of shared conversation for Susan’s past to spill over into her present, muddying everything up and making things messy.

  This was her shiny new life, and for a while at least, Susan wanted to keep it that way.

  As they passed a crowd standing outside one of the chains, Madeleine—conspicuous in her tall boots and bright clothes—drew a chorus of wolf whistles. In perfect synchrony, Susan and Beebz flipped the boys off.

  “Good to know Sheffield has its fair share of skeevy lads for you to wreak vengeance upon,” Beebz said with an impish grin.

  “Mate. You have no idea . . .” Susan slung an arm around her friend’s shoulders, ready to regale her with what had happened when a disgusting group of tosspots had posted Esther’s picture on a website called Bantserve, when Madeleine slowed her pace and turned to give Susan a shrewd look.

  “And I hear that a certain Graham McGraw is one of them?”

  Susan didn’t miss the look that passed between her two friends.

  “How’s he doing these days?” asked Beebz.

  “Don’t know.”

  “You know he broke up with Kylie Traynor, right?”

  “Don’t care.”

  “It’s a shame you and he never—”

  “Don’t.”

  Ushering Beebz and Madeleine into the first pub she could find that advertised food, she hoped that the crush of the crowd and the stress of finding a table might prove sufficiently distracting, but once they were sitting down, food ordered, and drinks in hand, the conversation continued in the same hateful direction.

  “Don’t think you’re getting away that easily.” Madeleine clinked her glass against Susan’s and nudged her in the side. “Not when we’ve come all the way here to find out the gossip on your love life.”

  “There is no gossip. Me and McGraw hardly have anything to do with each other. Which is exactly how I like it.”

  Beebz’s eyes lit up. “Interesting how Madeleine was asking you about your love life, and you went straight to McGraw.”

  “Shut up.” Susan’s grip on her tumbler tightened, her knuckles turning white.

  “So, what I’m deducing from this”—Madeleine indicated the scowl that had blackened Susan’s expression—“is that if there were any juicy liaisons, then those liaisons would not be with some new and sexy foreign student, but with a tall and taciturn gentleman you’ve known since you were a scrappy little tween.”

  “Stop talking now.”

  Beebz picked up where Madeleine had left off. “Someone who already knows all your darkest secrets. Someone who knows where the bodies are buried because he helped dig the graves . . .”

  Susan slammed her tumbler down so hard that the whisky slopped out and onto the tabletop.

  “What did go wrong there, anyway?” Madeleine asked, and the two leaned over the table in a remarkably good impression of Esther.

  “I need the loo.” Susan stood abruptly and shoved her way through the crowd.

  It wasn’t until she was leaning over the sink and glaring at her own reflection that Susan realized that when Esther had last looked at her like that—only a week previously—Susan hadn’t stormed off in a huff.

  She’d told her the same thing she’d told Daisy earlier that morning.

  Not quite the full story, as such. She’d let her friends assume that the rift arose from wounded pride, but that wasn’t it, not really. It was that she’d thought McGraw was more than just some cute boy. He was her friend, her ally; yet he’d left her to battle with her feelings on her own.

  It wouldn’t be this way if McGraw had called Susan just once two summers before . . .

  God. Even silently admitting this to her reflection in the privacy of the ladies’ bathroom was excruciating.

  And yet there was a part of her that could imagine how easy it would be to tell Esther and Daisy. After all, she’d already told them things about herself that she’d never told anyone else.

  A most discomfiting thought. And also . . . kind of a nice one.

  Friendship: so bloody confusing.

  When Esther pulled the door open, expecting the sweet aural embrace of angry music and a vision of sweaty bodies, she was met with a roomful of people seated around many small tables, lights bright and voices low.

  “Hello!” A boy wearing a long fake beard, a pointed hat, and a sparkly muumuu waved from the stage, microphone in hand and a stuffed bird on his shoulder. “I see we have another Death Eater! Put your entry money in the Goblet of
Fire and pick a team!”

  Esther looked down at her T-shirt in confusion. The skull and snake logo was that of a band called Victuals, who had a reputation for throwing rubber snakes into the crowd during the chorus of their cult hit “Snake-rifice.”

  Death Eaters, goblets . . . She took another look around the room, at the scarves and broomsticks and cloaks and preponderance of people in round glasses.

  This was not Rock Night. It was Harry Potter Quiz Night.

  It was Ed Gemmell’s fault. Tapping someone on the shoulder while they’re getting money out is never a good idea.

  Still, Daisy was profuse in her apologies as she followed the map on her phone to Late-Night Pool Club. After her fiftieth variation of “Sorry,” Daisy switched to reassuring. “You’ll be able to breathe in a minute—a chop to the windpipe is more about shock than damage.”

  Ed Gemmell gave a small, nervous nod and pointed along the road before miming a very strange dance.

  “Ooh, are you going swimming, too?” Daisy gave the small record bag he was carrying a doubtful look. Hopefully the fancy leisure center that the Pool Club used would offer their patrons towels. Walking along, Daisy wondered aloud about what to expect. Was this going to be competitive? Or perhaps it would be like one of those parties with inflatables? That would explain why the meeting was being held so late . . .

  All the while, Ed Gemmell made frantic flapping gestures that betrayed a very poor technique.

  The leisure club was so exclusive that there wasn’t any of the usual ostentatious glass, just a set of plain black doors under a backlit sign indicating the entrance to The Club.

  “Two for the pool, please,” Daisy said. The man behind the desk was an unorthodox but effective advertisement for whatever personal training was on offer, since he looked as if he regularly ground bones to dust. “And can you tell me where the changing rooms are?”

  “Change is through there.”

  Concluding that despite his Yorkshire accent, English must not be his first language, Daisy thought better of correcting him and pushed open the double doors.