Kisses for Lula (19 page)

A stranger looking right at me.

I couldn’t breathe.

He reached into his inside jacket pocket and images of gun shoulder holsters flashed through my mind. There was a faint rustle of clothing and then a barely discernible click before he said softly: ‘Subject has not progressed on mechanical project. Confirm halt in all this activity since programme commenced on March eleventh.’

Another click.

I hadn’t blinked and my eyeballs were starting to hurt, but the next second I squeezed my eyelids shut because the figure moved suddenly and then, thrusting at his jacket pocket, he flicked on one of those mini Maglite thingies that has, like, a floodlight glare from a torch the size of a lentil.

The bright light focused on the workbench and started moving over the body of the car. Any minute now he would see me sitting here like a corpse, and, who knows, maybe that’s how I was going to end up.

And then,
then
, someone chose that moment to ring my darling sister on her mobile, which was still in my pocket. The sound of ‘Kumbaya’ echoed loudly across the cellar and in a flash Mr Sinister was gone.

The back gate was vaulted with a clatter, then silence.

I rummaged for the phone in a state of shock.

‘Hello?’ I rasped.

‘Pen babe?’ said Fat Angus. ‘You okay?’

Now here’s why I should be a secret agent: even with adrenalin pumping, with white knuckles clenching, I had the presence of mind to take revenge on Pen.

‘Angus,’ I whispered, letting the shakes reach my voice, ‘I think I’m pregnant.’

No reply.

Then Fat Angus said, ‘Tatty Lula? Is that you?’

(Okay, so that didn’t work. Maybe not a secret agent. Maybe a secret agent’s shoe polisher.) Clearly Angus’s mangled ears are damaged only on the outside. And who said a rugby prop had to be a meathead? I was seriously impressed.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘I might tell Pen about this,’ mused Fat Angus.

‘I was just messing around,’ I muttered. ‘Listen, I need your help.’

‘Yeah? This plus my silence on the aforementioned pregnancy thing is going to, like, cost you big.’

I winced. ‘Fat Angus, does your brother still do the odd bit of detecting?’

‘Bludgeon?’

‘Yes. You’ve only got one brother.’

‘You saying I don’t know my relatives?’

‘Sheesh, Angus! Calm down.’

‘What you want?’

I paused. ‘I think someone’s following me around.’

‘Yeah right. Like you’re that hot.’

‘Pardon?’

‘I mean, no offence, you’re fit, but, you know, you’re not your sister. Proper brunette, like. Some guys I know like that beach-babe look, but I’m into au naturel, you know?’

Please. God. Stop me from speaking.

I climbed out of the car, noting that my hand and left foot felt sore but not totally damaged, and shuffled out of the cellar.

‘Angus,’ I said firmly, ‘someone has just opened up my –’

I was going to say
workshop door
, but news that I liked motor mechanics would not help my snog-a-boy plots. I’d be classed as WEIRD faster than Fat Angus could say ‘I like a good scrum’.

I chose my words carefully as I walked up the back stairs, and explained about last night and the night before. Angus didn’t sound convinced, but said he’d ask Bludgeon if he had any ‘thoughts on the matter’.

Crossing the courtyard, I found Pen waiting impatiently for me outside the annexe.

‘I knew you had it!’ she hissed, snatching the phone from me before I had time to say cheerio to her boyo.

‘Angus? Angus?’ she said, after a quick look at the screen. ‘Did you call me? You do know you’ve been talking to my psycho sister, not me, yes?’

I unlocked the annexe and stepped inside, shoving the door closed behind me, but before I could get the latch on, Pen’s fierce little shoulder had butted against the panelling and sent me staggering into the kitchen counter.

‘Bye-bye, Angus,’ she crooned, and hung up the phone. She backed the door closed behind her with a thud. ‘Right, Lula.’ Pen’s eyes were narrow and slitty. Yeesh. I was ever so slightly fearful. ‘What’s with the strange behaviour?’

Chapter Sixteen

‘Well?’ said my evil sibling, hip shunted out, foot tapping, like some Victorian chaperone on the rampage. ‘What explanations for your recent madness? Is it drugs?’

‘I don’t have to answer to you!’ I spat back, outraged. Pen took a breath. ‘And don’t even
think
,’ I hissed, ‘of saying you speak on behalf of your client, Dr Anne Bird, because I have currently lost my sense of humour. And
she
has lost her mind.’

Pen came towards me, wagging her index finger. ‘Tallulah, Mum is seriously worried. She thinks you may need a spell at Fort Norland for drug addiction. She sent me to check on you.’

‘
What
drug addiction?’

Pen paused. ‘Okay, that’s pushing it, but you’re
not far from it
, Lu!’

‘Would you please leave?’

‘Not until you tell me what you were bothering F– I mean Angus about.’

‘He didn’t tell you?’

Pen examined the perfect cuticles on her right hand. ‘We didn’t really have time to converse. He had to go.’

‘Hm,’ I said. I was, again, a little impressed by Fat Angus and his discretion. Maybe the guy had hidden depths.

I walked behind the little kitchen counter and yanked open the door of the minuscule empty fridge.

‘You got chocolate?’ Pen leaned over the counter from the other side and tried to look down into my fridge.

‘Why are you still here?’ I asked, pushing the fridge closed with a thud.

Pen paced restlessly. ‘I know you’ve got Maltesers somewhere. What happened to
sharing is caring
?’

‘Hgrph,’ I snorted. ‘You threw that lesson on its ass the day you poured out all Dad’s booze from The Green Box. Couldn’t you have left him a tipple to keep him happy?’

Pen whirled round, her face outraged. ‘
I was trying to help him!
’

We stared at each other hotly. This was an issue we’d never truly thrashed out.

I turned the kettle on with a snap of the switch. ‘Dad has to help himself,’ I said to Pen. ‘You meddling just makes it worse!’

‘You doing
nothing
makes it worse,’ retaliated Pen. ‘You know, I was here to help you too, Tallulah. WELL. You can FORGET IT.’

I felt bad instantly. But what’s a girl to do when an apology can’t come out in the nanosecond it takes for a
younger sister to slam out the room? Heaving a heavy, shaky sigh, I headed for the armchair and reached under the heirloom quilt. The bag was fantastically heavy. I sighed again. I’d been doing so well. I pulled the heirloom back in place and collapsed on the chair, taking a hit of five Malteser balls in one go. Soooo good. Munch, crunch, munch, crunch. Mmm. I had another two mouthfuls and stopped only when all the surfaces of my teeth were levelled by impacted honeycomb.

Just as the sugar high was about to kick in, Pen turned the hot tap in the kitchen on full throttle and the pipes went berrrsERK.

WUGGABANGWUGGABANGBANGBANG!

I bit my cheek with the shock of the first WUGGA and the rusty taste of blood killed all the comfort of the chocolate binge.

My hand strayed back for another hit, but I restrained myself and moved to lock the door, then checked all the windows and made sure every curtain and blind was completely closed.

The pipes were quiet now. As my heart slowed I got behind my computer and logged on, simultaneously thumbing out a text:

Goils, I’m online.

I put the phone down within fingers’ reach and ran through my messages. Nothing exciting, sob sob. I keyed in a quick one-liner:

T
ATTY
B
IRD
:
I’m being stalked.

And within seconds I had a reply. But not the one I wanted.

C
ARRIE
:
Fantastic!

T
ATTY
B
IRD
:
Er, nooo. I thought I was going to
die
earlier.

C
ARRIE
:
Who is it?

T
ATTY
B
IRD
:
Dunno. Bludgeon’s going to find out.

C
ARRIE
:
You called Bludgeon? You didn’t! Fat Angus’s brother? That guy with no neck?

T
ATTY
B
IRD
:
You should know. He’s no. 3 on The List!

C
ARRIE
:
We thought you’d get lucky with that maimed guy long before no. 3!

T
ATTY
B
IRD
:
Well, no, actually. There’s no way I’d kiss Bludgeon. NO WAY. But him helping me now is a good thing.

C
ARRIE
:
BLUDGEON? A good thing?! How?!

T
ATTY
B
IRD
:
Hey! He has his finger on the pulse of crime in our town.

C
ARRIE
:
Oh ha ha. Finding out that Jessica is snogging Jason Ferman and ratting her out to Dennis Wiseman is not a finger on the pulse. Everyone knows about recent activity in the 000s.

T
ATTY
B
IRD
:
Fine, fine, but he’s my only hope.

I filled them in on what had been happening and demanded their immediate return. I n
eeeee
ded them.

C
ARRIE
:
Look, Lula, we’d be back asap, but – hang on. This is going to take too long. Tam says she’s got free minutes on her phone.

A second later my mobile rang.

‘You think you’ve got problems,’ said Tam in answer to my ‘Hello?’.

‘I
know
I’ve got problems, babe!’ I exclaimed.

Tam’s hand went over the receiver. ‘
She just called me babe
,’ she said to everyone with her, clearly concerned.

‘I can hear you, Tam!’ I yelled.

She came back. ‘Sorry.’

‘Forget it. What’s going on there?’

‘I’m going to give you a five-second version of Alex’s latest, okay? Ready?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Alex’s dad took us all out to dinner and Alex snuck out and snogged the dishwasher guy.’

‘Everyone is kissing except me!’ I wailed. ‘Is he hot?’

‘Who?’

‘The dishwasher, Tam, the dishwasher! Geez!’

‘Who cares. Mr Thompson saw them and he’s seriously peed off. We’re grounded.’

‘Ouch,’ I said.

‘Don’t even. Ever try earning a pfennig busking from a second-floor apartment?’

‘Oh. Geez. That bad?’

‘You have no idea! This holiday is a total washout!’

‘It’s not my fault!’ came Alex’s voice over the line.

‘It’s never your fault!’ Tam yelled back. Then nothing.

‘Tam?’ I ventured. There were snuffles on the end of the line. Could have been sobs of frustration. Could have been hysterical laughter. ‘I’m going to go now,’ I continued in a lonely tone. ‘I might call a few people here to see what they think. I’m probably overreacting.’

Tam squeaked goodbye and I quickly keyed through my phone contacts, hitting call when I found the name I was looking for. There’d been something niggling at my subconscious and it was time it got out in the open.

‘Tallulah Bird?’

‘Hi, Jack. Are you really an investigative journalist?’

‘Yep. Need anything exposéed?’ I could hear the smile in his voice.

‘
Why are you creeping around me and my house?
’ I demanded.

I was convinced I was right in my suspicions, but the shock on the other end sounded real enough. ‘Wha–? Wha–? Lula – Wha–?’

Either he’d thought he was deep undercover, or he really didn’t know what I was going on about.

I didn’t give him a chance to explain. Bludgeon would find out the truth, I was sure of it. Hanging up with a hard pelt of thumb to red-receiver button, I deleted his number, thumped my mobile down on the desk and logged off from the computer.

I needed a bath.

Time for Pen to hear dem pipes.

All the lights were out and I was keeping my eyes closed to persuade myself that I was drifting off after a relaxing bath when my mobile rang. I snatched it up.

‘’Lo?’

‘Hi, Tatty, it’s Bludgeon.’

‘Wow. Didn’t expect to hear from you so soon. Or’ – I checked my watch – ‘so late.’

‘A sniper never sleeps.’

‘Okaaaay.’

‘’Eard you got lurker problems.’

‘Stalker, he’s a
stalker
. Why won’t anyone believe me?’

‘Oh, I believe you, darlin’. We been followin’ up on somethin’ that’s been goin’ down in your neck o’ the woods. Not high on the pile at the mo cos of other stuff, you know, goin’ down.’

Purlease spare me the Hollywood speak
, I thought.

‘That Mr Kaplinsky from the wrinklies over your road –’

‘Mr Kadinski?’

‘That’s ’im. ’E’s been on the blower every five minutes about some bloke ’angin’ about. I ’ad to put my best boy onnit. Yeah?’