Perfect Strangers: an unputdownable read full of gripping secrets and twists. Erin Knight
you better bloody well not have.’
Evie flattened herself against the utility door so Cleo could rampage through.
‘Cleo . . .’ Sam tried. He could smell an imminent explosion at a thousand paces. That and a sausage sandwich.
Cleo dragged a chair out from beneath the kitchen table that Sam had crafted for her out of old scaffold boards, and jumped up so she could reach the two terramundi jars sandwiched between her Nigella Lawson cook book collection and the twisted lump of driftwood she and Sam had found on their first dawn walk together along Mooner’s beach.
It was supposed to be a joke! Keeping the clay jars out of reach, as if the notes she’d been feeding equally into the two pots were chocolate chip cookies the kids couldn’t be trusted around. Harry’s jar was nearest, and Cleo didn’t bother giving it a shake; normally she’d feel a twinge of guilt but she was far too enraged right now for guilt. She hadn’t been feeding the two jars all that equally, but Harry was never going to need as much extra tuition as Evie. Cleo grabbed Evie’s jar and checked for signs of infiltration. Terramundi jars had to be smashed before surrendering their contents.
‘You sneaky little—’
‘You said it was for emergency purposes, Mum!’
‘Dressing up as a sodding ninja? Tuition, Evie! That money was for extra tuition! So you don’t end up flipping burgers for a sodding living!’
‘You flip pancakes.’
Sam shook his head. ‘Evie,’ he groaned.
‘I don’t need the tuition! Not if I do the extra classes Mr Hildred suggested,’ Evie bumbled. Evie always bumbled when she was lying through her teeth.
‘Oh, that’s your plan is it, Evie? So how come that’s the first you’ve said about extra classes? I’ll just ring Sarah now then, shall I? Ask Jon to confirm you’ve signed yourself up?’
Sam pinched the skin above his nose.
‘Well?’ said Cleo, balancing the jar Evie had deftly managed to chip the base from. ‘How much?’ Because, damn it, Cleo couldn’t remember exactly how many twenty-pound notes she’d fed into Evie’s pot.
Sam braced his arms against the countertop. ‘Cleo, she’ll work it off at Coast.’
‘She will not. She spends half her time there on her phone.
She can take those clothes back and get my money back.’
‘But—’
‘But nothing. You still have the labels in them. You’re taking them back. Now how much?’
‘About one hundred . . . and thirty . . . ish.’
‘I want that cash back in this pot tomorrow. Or else.’
Evie looked open-mouthed from Cleo to Sam. ‘But Dad . . .’
‘Cleo, I’m sure we can work something out.’
She glared, stopping Sam dead. ‘Do you know how long it takes me to earn a clear profit of one hundred and thirty pounds selling teacakes? Do you have any idea?’
Sam straightened. ‘No. But before tax it’s about nine hours of backbreaking work, digging footings in the pouring rain while some snot-nosed upstart foreman asks me from his Range Rover window how many tea breaks I’ve stopped digging for. How much did those fancy new cushions in the sun room cost us again, Cle? You never said.’
Was he backing Evie up? Again? Evie’s face said she couldn’t call it either. What happened to being on the same team, Sam? What happened to him being in Cleo’s corner?
Cleo stood there on the kitchen chair and reached out her hand as far as possible without overbalancing. She let the terramundi jar fall from her palm. It made a dull cracking sound like a thick egg before spilling its remaining contents on the kitchen tiles. ‘There you go, Sam. You two share what’s left between you.’
Her hand fell back to her side again. Sam’s eyes held something she hadn’t seen in them for years: the hardened look of an opponent.
Harry appeared in the doorway. ‘What’s going on? And why is Evie dressed like a funky assassin?’
Sam was still watching Cleo, working out where her next blow might come from.
She lifted her chin and looked at her daughter again. Evie steeled herself, sniffing back tears. ‘I just wanted to start jogging. Some boys at school . . .’ She blinked at her mother and Cleo felt another horrible penny drop. ‘They’ve started calling me the fat tranny.’
B e relaxed . . . walk confidently . . . even if it can’t smell fear, it’ll smell a sweaty armpit, so chill out . . .
Isobel had Googled the best way to get her rubbish across Arthur Oakes’ yard to the bins he’d instructed her to use. No sudden movements or noises, no encroaching on its territory . . . The list of things to aggravate an unfriendly, nervous, protective dog was alarmingly extensive.
She lifted the rubber lid of the dustbin and slung her recycling inside, not even looking at Arthur’s ramshackle cottage, or the spot Wolf-Dog exploded from whenever the postman gingerly clambered out of his van. She started back along the track but could already sense it, a dark mass sweeping across Arthur’s lawn towards the wire fence between them. Don’t run! screamed through her head. The dog flew at the fence with a couple of serious warning barks and finally, a disappointed huff. She froze in case the sound of panicky flip-flops tipped it over the edge.
‘Petal! Get back in here!’ Arthur’s gravelly voice carried from inside his cottage. Isobel gave the dog a sideways glance. Petal? Petal snorted at her and trotted off.
‘Ooo-kay,’ she breathed, heart hammering like a piston. ‘That’s enough of that.’
She flip-flopped the last hundred yards of stony path to Curlew Cottage, skipped up the steps and threw the door shut behind her. Her mobile was buzzing on top of the cottage’s stack of Come Boating! mags.
‘Soph?’
‘Isobel, you sound out of breath. You okay?’ Sophie’s new weirdly matriarchal tone again.
‘Yep. Good. Everything okay there? How’s Ells Bells?’
‘She’s fine. Anyway. So?’
‘So what?’
‘So it’s been nearly a week. Any more thoughts on when you might be coming home?’
It did suddenly feel like a long time. She’d been confident Sophie would’ve made a move by now, found the right words to bring her home. ‘What are your thoughts, Sophie?’ Maybe Sophie had the right words now.
‘You know what I think. Pack your stuff and get in your car.’
Of course that’s what Sophie thought. So it looked like Isobel was staying in Fallenbay. Fine. She was a new person here at least. A faceless tourist.
‘I’m ready, Soph.’
‘I had a feeling you were going to say that. Shit, Isobel.’
She filled her lungs. ‘It’ll be fine. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? To start off bricking it, only to find out the Bogey Man isn’t as scary as I’ve convinced myself?’ There was laughter in her voice, but there really hadn’t been anything to laugh about. Nathan had said sorry. He wished he’d never set up the camera. But it was still too late. Way, way too late for them.
‘What if the Bogey Man is that scary, Isobel?’
Isobel lobbed a salmon-coloured cushion with a white boat motif out of her way and sank down on to the hard wooden window seat. Arthur’s