Charlie Glass's Slippers (21 page)

“Mum’s shoes!” I’m so relieved that I almost pop my head up for a moment. “He found them!”

“He’s gone up to the shop,” Olly reports, now starting to sound a little bit like David Attenborough hiding out in a camouflaged tent and commenting to the camera on the hunting habits of the rare Afghan mountain snow leopard. “He’s trying the door . . . he’s trying it again . . . now he’s looking around . . . oh, now he’s heading for the beauty salon next door. Maybe he’s going to ask in there if anyone’s seen you . . .”

“No!”

I have to stop this in its tracks, before Jay tries the next store along from Galina’s, which is Chill (I don’t fancy the prospect of Jay running into Ferdy any more than I fancied the prospect of running into Ferdy myself ), or—even worse—heads over to the café. The trouble is that, even if I weren’t too much of a coward to go and actually face Jay after the stunt I pulled last night, there are some pretty major issues with my appearance that make facing him a total no-no. The issues being that:

1) I’m still in the sweaty (and now dusty) leggings and baggy T-shirt that I wore for my loathsome run this morning;

2) I’m wearing precisely
zero
makeup; and

3) a large and unsightly spot is swelling, slowly but surely, and probably thanks to the stresses of last night, in the dead-center of my chin.

“If it would help at all, Charlie, I could go over and take the shoes from him.”

“Oh, Olly! Would you do that?”

“Of course.” He’s already pushing back his chair. “Unless you’re avoiding him because he’s dangerous or something?”

“No, no. He’s not dangerous.” At least, not in any kind of a way that Olly might be imagining.

“Then you’re avoiding him because . . .?”

“It’s a long story,” I say, because I’m not especially keen to relive the Great (Drainpipe) Escape again, and certainly not right now, when I need him to go and get my shoes from Jay. “Please, Olly, if you could just go and . . . well, intercept him . . .”

He’s off, taking his polystyrene cup of coffee with him but—damn him—leaving behind the remains of the Kit Kat. I’ve just broken off a bite-sized piece from it, to calm my rattled nerves, when I hear my phone start to ring inside my handbag.

I grab it extra quickly when I see that it’s Olly calling.

“Olly, hi!” I daren’t peek over the edge of the window. “Has he gone yet?”

“Gone where?”

It’s Jay’s voice.

I silently curse Olly, who—now that I risk that peek out of the window—is at least looking slightly sheepish. He’s outside Dad’s store, standing next to Jay, who has propped the shoe box under one arm so he can talk to me on Olly’s phone.

“Jay!” I quickly adopt the sunniest, most carefree tone I possibly can. “Hi there!”

“Hi there,” he repeats. He doesn’t sound angry with me. In fact, he sounds rather amused. “I hope you don’t mind, but I asked this Olly guy if I could call you on his phone. To prove that he’s a friend of yours like he claims, I mean. For all I know, he could be working for them.”

“Working for who?”

“For whoever it is that’s kidnapped you.”

Okay, now I’m lost.

“Well, I’m assuming that’s what happened last night,” he
goes on. From my secret vantage point, I can see him moving a little way away from Olly. When he speaks again, he lowers his voice slightly. “Because I’ve racked my brains to think what other explanation there could possibly be for you doing a bunk while I was kissing you. I mean, I’m pretty sure I don’t have BO, and I’d been extra-specially careful brushing my teeth . . .”

I can’t see clearly, because a queue of three passing double-decker buses has just cut off my sight line across the road, but I think from the sound of his voice that he’s grinning.

“And of course, I immediately ruled out the possibility that you just didn’t fancy me. So quite obviously,” he continues, “the only explanation is that while I was off looking for a glass of water, you were carted off by a bunch of kidnappers. Now, just tell me what ransom they’re asking for, Charlie, and I’ll shell it out, every red cent. Ten million, twenty . . .?”

“Jay . . .”

“Because did I happen to mention, Charlie, that I’m absolutely loaded? I mean, if that changes the way you feel about me at all? I’m not proud. I have no dignity. If my money is the only reason you might want to go out with me, Charlie—I don’t care.”

He’s joking—at least, I assume he’s joking—but I’m too dazed by the charm offensive to laugh at the joke.

I mean, is he really—
really—
still interested in me? After the way I behaved last night?

And more to the point: did I mishear, or did he just say something about
going out
with him?

I clear my throat and try to sound cool. “But I thought you said you were tired of girls only wanting you because you”—what was the phrase he used yesterday?—“have a couple of quid in the bank.”

“Ah, yes. But that was before you rejected me.
If
you rejected me, that is. Because I’m still pretty certain that kidnapping is the only explanation here.”

“Excuse me.” The café owner (a small but terrifying Cyp-riot woman who looks as if she could be a distant relative of Galina’s) has suddenly appeared at my table. Hands on hips, she gestures down at my empty coffee cup and the leftover fingers—okay, half a finger—of Kit Kat. “You finished?”

I gesture frantically at her to be quiet, but evidently she’s not quite aware of the magnitude of this situation.

“I have people waiting to use this table. It’s Saturday afternoon, you know,” she adds, returning to her counter, satisfied she’s put sufficient pressure on me. “King’s Road is full of shoppers.”

“Ah,” Jay is saying now, on the other end of Olly’s phone, “so you’re being held on King’s Road somewhere, then? Tell me where, Charlie, and I’ll come right down and rescue you. Teach those kidnappers a thing or two. I mean, I don’t know if you’ve happened to notice, but I’m six foot two and I’ve still got shedloads of upper-body strength from the time when I was this hotshot Formula One driver . . .”

“World champion,” I blurt, before I can stop myself.

Jay is silent for a moment, before saying, in a more amused tone than ever, “Been checking me out, by any chance?”

“No! My friend just happened to mention . . .”

“So you’ve been discussing me with your friends! Even better! What did they have to say about me? Do they reckon, for example, that you should come out to dinner with me one night next week?”

“Dinner?”

“Yes. It’s a meal, Charlie. People generally eat it at the end of the day, sometimes with friends, sometimes in a place called a restaurant . . .”

I can see him lean, casually, against a letter box on the other side of the street, and rake a hand through his hair in a way that makes my stomach lurch with desire.

“Anyway, you have to see me sometime, Charlie,” Jay adds,
“if you’re ever going to get your shoes back. You know—the ones I found, funnily enough, at the bottom of a drainpipe.”

“God, yes, thanks so much, Jay. They were my . . . Well, I’m really grateful you found them.”

“Look. Charlie.” His voice is suddenly lower. He sounds more serious. “Joking aside. If you don’t want to see me, then please, just say so. I can handle rejection. I’m not
used
to it,” he adds, “but I can handle it.”

“Jay, you’ve got it wrong.” I grip the edge of the sticky Formica table, to prevent myself from jumping to my feet, running out of the café, leapfrogging buses, and throwing myself into Jay’s strong, sexy arms. Which would be heavenly, and very dramatic. But probably not advisable, for the road safety of the general public as much as anything else. “I’d love to see you again.”

“Really?”

“Really,” I say.

His face lights up with a grin and he gives the top of the postbox a thump of triumph.

“Excellent,” he says, sounding—deliberately?—a lot more blasé than he looks. “Does Monday night suit you?”

Monday . . . Okay, is that enough time to fit in at least two more ninety-minute workouts, deal with the spot in the epicenter of my chin, get one of those spray tans, get a professional pedicure, and work up the courage to ask Galina to do that showgirl wax she’s been threatening me with?

I brush aside, hastily, the realization that I’m sounding a bit like Robyn. After all, the endless preparations she wanted to do before Jay’s birthday party were, for her, just unnecessary icing on the cake. For me, they’re the cake itself. (Though it’s very important, right now, that I
stop thinking
about cake
at all
.)

“Um, actually, Tuesday would be better.”

“Tuesday it is. So can I get this very nice Olly bloke to give me your number?”

“You can,” I tell him, “get that very nice Olly bloke to give you my number.”

“Good. I’ll call you, then, to arrange what time and where I’m picking you up.”

“God, no, there’s no need to pick me up!” I feel, for the first time ever, ashamed of my little flat, at the wrong end of Old Brompton Road (at the wrong end of the whole mansion block, if we’re being really honest about it). “I’ll meet you wherever we’re going for dinner . . .”

“Charlie, I’m picking you up. If you don’t want me to know where you live—if you really do lead as much of a double life as it seems—then I’ll pick you up right here, okay? At eight thirty, at your so-called shoe store on King’s Road.”

It’s thrillingly masterful—not to mention a perfect suggestion—so I agree.

“Great. Then I’ll see you on Tuesday, Charlie. Assuming you’ve managed to escape from the kidnappers by then, that is.”

This time I manage a flirty little giggle—well, my version of a flirty little giggle; Lucy would be falling over herself to stop me if she were here—and then I quickly hang up before I do or say anything to destroy the moment.

Outside on the street opposite, Jay heads over to Olly to return his phone. A moment or so later he’s climbing back into that sleek, dark blue sports car and driving away—just a fraction too fast—down King’s Road.

chapter fourteen

I
’m starting to see
why Robyn never appears to do a day’s work and why Gaby, who does do a day’s work, is always looking so stressed. It’s the grooming. How could I not have realized, at the age of almost twenty-nine, that grooming is pretty much a full-time job? And I’m not even talking about the optional extras: facials, and Botox, and laser skin resurfacing, and all the other things I haven’t the time, money, or inclination to get involved in. I’m just talking about the basics. Or rather, what seem to be the basics, nowadays, for any self-respecting woman wanting to walk down the street without being chased down it by angry villagers bearing flaming torches and pitchforks.

You need hair without visible roots. You need a thorough wax, seeing as it’s summer. You should have a pedicure, for feet that won’t shame your sandals. You need non-bushy eyebrows. You need to be free from any hint of (what I’m still reluctant to call) mustache and sideburns. And all of this is to be fitted in around a workout schedule that would make an Olympic athlete weep, and on an energy-sapping, low-carb, low-fun diet that’s starting to make me feel like weeping, too.

I’m actually starting to think that there should be some
kind of government subsidy for basic female grooming needs. Or at the very least that it would be nice of them to make it tax deductible.

Not to mention the fact that it’s just so bloody difficult to
schedule
it all. I have to fit in enough of those Olympian workouts (vital, because I’m not going out for dinner with Jay Broderick feeling like the largest potato in the sack), which negates any notion of getting a pedicure until I can stop stuffing my feet into my trainers. I’m too busy to go to Galina for the wax until tomorrow morning. And this lunchtime—Monday’s—is spent, for two and a half boring and heinously expensive hours, flicking through old magazines at the hairdresser’s while a very nice girl called Louisa obliterates any pesky hint of mouse-brown root from my newly blond hair.

I’m almost starting to wonder if going out with Jay tomorrow night is worth all this faff and hassle.

I said
almost
.

Anyway, it’s not as if I haven’t got about a million better things to do with my time than whirl endlessly around on this carousel of beauty upkeep. I’ve already spent the morning unpacking every single pair of Dad’s shoes from the crates in the storeroom, photographing them and cataloguing them all in a file on my computer. I need a full inventory of what’s actually available to show to Maggie—and to the directors, of course, if the project ever gets that far. And not only this, but on the (safe) assumption that Diana is going to put every possible wrench in the works to prevent Glass Slippers
from selling Dad’s vintage shoes, I’ve decided that it would be a good idea to start work on the vintage-inspired line that would, anyway, follow. Maggie has put out some feelers and found three or four freelance shoe designers who are young, talented, but—most importantly of all, if I’m going to win over my fellow directors with this project—cheap. A couple of them are
meeting us for a chat at the store this afternoon, so as soon as the Hair Appointment that Time Forgot is over, I jump on the tube and head for King’s Road.

I’m just opening up the door to the store when there’s a tap on my shoulder and I turn around to see someone I haven’t seen in ages.

It’s DI Wright. I mean
Martin
. Ferdy’s dad.

He’s a tall but lean man (Ferdy once told me he gets his own chunky build from his Italian mother) who, with his kindly, concerned face and thoughtful manner, always looked more like a genial math teacher than a senior policeman. He looks more like a math teacher than ever today, in fact, as he’s wearing a rather battered corduroy jacket and what you might call “Dad” jeans (although wax-coated Japanese skinnies were more my Dad’s jeans style until he got too ill to hoik himself into them, and bright-colored silk pajamas after that). He looks, also, rather surprised at my own appearance—as well he might, seeing as the last time he saw me I was a fat brunette—but years on the force have left him with an inscrutable air that means you never know quite what he’s thinking.

“Charlie,” he says.

I don’t need to decipher his tone of voice to know why he’s here.

I mean, I’ve known what date it is ever since I woke up this morning. Known what date is approaching, however resolutely I try to ignore it, for the past few weeks.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he says, “the surprise visit. But Ferdy told me you were setting up shop here and so I thought I’d pop by the next time I was in the area. You know, to see how Ferdy’s new premises are doing.”

“On July the sixth?”

“On July the sixth.” He clears his throat. “Just to see how you’re doing. But you look very well. You look . . . blossoming, actually.”

“You look great, too.” I realize, suddenly, that I haven’t given him a hug or kiss hello, so I do this now. He smells of Pear’s soap, exactly the way he’s always smelled. Exactly the way he smelled twenty-one years ago today, in fact, when he sat next to me on a sticky plastic chair in a hospital waiting room and tried to get me to play him at noughts and crosses to distract me while a few feet away, two doctors and a nurse tried to explain to Dad how Mum had died. I have to swallow back the lump that forms in my throat as the clean, soapy smell brings that evening back to me as if it were yesterday. “I’ve been meaning to call you for ages. I’m so sorry . . .”

“You’ve been busy, Charlie, love. Don’t worry about it.” He nods at the Cypriot café across the road. “Shall we pop in and get a cup of tea? If you have the time, that is?”

I tell him that I have just a few minutes—which I do, before Maggie’s prospective shoe designers arrive—and so we head over to the café, order a pot of tea between the two of us, and take it to a quiet table.

“Well!” I say, busying myself with tea pouring. “I’m really glad I can finally get to wish you a belated happy birthday! Honey mentioned it,” I add, when Martin’s brow creases.

“Ah. Honey. I wasn’t sure if you knew her or not.”

“Yes. Well, no. I mean, I don’t
really
know her. I’ve met her a couple of times when she’s been with Ferdy, that’s all.”

“Ah,” Martin repeats. “A common occurrence these days. And getting more common by the day! Honey being with Ferdy, that is,” he explains, when I look confused myself. “I was saying to his mother, only the other day, that I’m starting to wonder if Honey has patented some invisible technology that means she’s actually managed to surgically attach herself to Ferdy without him realizing it.”

This is such a Martin-like thing to say (this is a man, after all, who has devoted much of his retirement to reading science-fiction novels and pottering around in his shed trying
to improve on classic inventions like tin openers and Sellotape), not to mention such an accurate description of Honey, that I have to laugh. It intrigues me, too, because . . . well, is it just me, or does this sound as if Martin doesn’t like Honey all that much?

“Don’t get me wrong,” he continues, as though he’s read my mind, “she’s a . . . a lovely girl. Don’t you think?”

“Oh, yes! Lovely.”

“I just . . . well, Ferdy’s mother and I . . . well, it’s hard to say, isn’t it, if your children have found the right partner or not?”

“Um, I imagine so, yes.”

My phone rings, quite suddenly, inside my handbag. When I grab it, I see that it’s Lucy. Despite the fact that I’ve already been forced to ignore three calls from her today (hairdresser), I decide to let it go to voicemail and call her back later. This conversation about Honey is too intriguing to interrupt.

However, the ringing phone has obviously broken the moment, because when I put it back in my bag and look back at Martin, he just says, in an apparent non sequitur, “Ferdy was rather upset when you dropped out of touch a few months ago. You were in . . . America, was it?”

“America, yes. But I didn’t drop out of touch!” I can’t help feeling rather outraged at Ferdy for telling Martin this. “I mean, I emailed him. Several times, in fact! I just assumed he was too busy to reply.”

“Well, he certainly works too hard, that’s for sure.” Martin takes a sip of his tea. “I hope you and he still find the time to chat occasionally?”

“I’ve been pretty busy myself lately,” I say hastily, not wanting to make Martin any more wary of Honey by indicating that Ferdy seems to have had a bit of a personality transplant since starting his relationship with her, and that I’m not sure he and I will ever “chat” again. “I don’t know what Ferdy’s
told you, but Dad left me his entire share of Elroy Glass in his will. So I’m doing my best to bring a bit of Dad back into the business.”

Martin looks pleased. “That sounds terrific, Charlie! And I’m so glad your dad did that for you, in his will. Of course,” he adds, with a kindly pat of my hand, “I’m sure it doesn’t compensate you for all those years when he wasn’t much of a father to you.”

I blink at him. “Martin, he was terminally ill with motor neurone disease for the past ten years. How was he supposed to be any more of a father to me than he actually was?”

“Er . . . I’m not talking about this past ten years, Charlie. I’m talking about the ten years before that. When he dumped you with your stepmother to go off on his travels.”

“It wasn’t like he was gallivanting around the world! He had a nervous breakdown. Totally understandable, when he was so shell-shocked about Mum. And he came back from Morocco after about a year, you know.” I realize that I’m talking louder than usual, and that my hands are getting rather sweaty. But I don’t like Dad being accused in this way. Not when he isn’t here to defend himself. Not when none of what Martin’s saying is even true! “He just . . . he just took off again quite a lot after that. But by then it was for work. Well, mostly. That’s why I couldn’t live with him. Not because he didn’t care about me! Not because he was . . .” I can hardly say the word. “. . . dumping me!”

There’s a rather awkward pause for a moment or two, before Martin continues.

“Anyway, Charlie, while we’re on the subject of your parents.” He sets his mug down. It’s time, I can see from the expression on his face, for his customary annual update on the case. “As ever on . . . on this day, I want to let you know that I’m still making sure the file on the accident is kept active. Obviously I can’t claim there’s a huge amount of police re
sources devoted to it! But I check in every now and then with a couple of my old colleagues who are still working at Battersea police station. And I drop in on old Jane Brearly every once in a while, too, to see if there’s anything fresh she might have remembered. Of course, she’s past ninety now, so I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to be able to do that.”

Jane Brearly is the only witness to Mum’s accident, and very far from an ideal one. If, God forbid, you should ever get into a bad accident, the kind of witness you want is some spry young person with 20:20 vision and a trigger-happy finger with the camera in his or her mobile phone. Either that, I guess, or functioning CCTV in the area. What you don’t want is a seventy-one-year-old lady with dodgy eyesight and an even dodgier memory. What you don’t want is Jane Brearly. She was sure about one thing only: that the sports car she saw speeding off after colliding with Mum was “Cadbury’s Dairy Milk purple.” She couldn’t be any help at all with the make or model, seeing as she kept making the vague claim that the car was “definitely named after a planet,” but whether Mars, Mercury, or Venus, she could never be completely certain. Not that it mattered which, seeing as—like Martin kept trying to gently remind her, back then and many times over the years—there
are
no sports cars named after planets.

“That’s okay, DI Wr . . . Martin. I mean, I appreciate you trying, and everything.”

“Well, I don’t want you to give up hope, Charlie.”

“No. Absolutely.”

Because I’m not going to tell him that I gave up hope years ago. That would just be rude, under the circumstances, wouldn’t it? Besides, I don’t know that it would make so very much difference if we ever
did
find out who’d hit Mum and not bothered to stop. Justice is all very well, but it isn’t going to bring Mum back.

“Old cases like these are being solved all the time! Though
obviously quite a lot of those,” Martin says, looking like he wishes he’d not started down this optimistic road now that he’s actually thought about it, “are cases that involve DNA testing.”

“I know. It really is fine, Martin. I’m realistic about this.” I can see, across the street, that a guy and girl in head-to-toe black and with matching John Lennon glasses have just arrived outside the store and are trying the door. They have to be Maggie’s fledgling shoe designers. Nobody but serious Fashion People would be dressed in black on a warm day like this. “Actually, Martin, sorry, but I really need to go now. Those guys over there have just arrived for a meeting with me . . .”

“Of course.” He looks rather solemn, as he always does when his duty has been done for yet another year. I think we both prefer the non-anniversary occasions, when he can just chatter happily away about the latest Ray Bradbury short story he’s just discovered, or about his recent strides in the race to create Ultimate Sellotape. “It was good to see you anyway, Charlie, love.”

I get to my feet and lean over to give him a hug. “Great to see you, Martin. Are you heading over to Chill?”

“I’ll just stay here for a bit, I think.” He reaches into the pocket of his corduroy jacket and pulls out a paperback with Isaac Asimov’s name on the cover. “Finish my tea. I think Ferdy is at the Soho branch today, anyway.”

Which pretty much gives away the fact that he wasn’t just “in the area” and that he came all the way over here just to mark the date of Mum’s death.

I bend down again and give him a kiss on the cheek, before promising that I’ll see him soon. Then I leave the Cypriot café and head over the road to meet the couple in the matching John Lennon glasses.

• • •

It’s a relief that, after my somewhat unsettling chat with Martin, the meeting with Maggie’s designers—Leo and Suzy—could not be going better.