Nothing to Lose (43 page)

‘And I’ll meet up with you all later to discuss the finer points.’ Brittany was beaming across at them. ‘But in the meantime, enjoy the rest of the night – and congratulations to you all for putting on such a splendid show.’

Peg and Roger and Allan were dancing round the table. Because Ewan was still missing, Clara was kissing Bunny and Gorf.

‘Jasmine . . .’ Sebastian’s voice filtered through the mayhem, just as the clock and the crowd started the midnight countdown. He was very close to her. ‘Well done. I’m so pleased for you – and you really deserve it. I bet your grandpa is having one heck of a party and – Oh, bugger . . .’  

Whatever else he was going to say was drowned out, not only by the gonging of the clock, but also by the loud skirl of the pipes, as a kilted bagpiper wailed in a file of waitresses carrying haggis and whisky and flutes of champagne.

‘Happy New Year!’

The banqueting hall erupted for a second time. Sorrows were being drowned with a vengeance. Now everyone was gulping whisky and champagne and eyeing the haggis with suspicion. There seemed to be a lot of kissing and hugging and dancing going on in a very small space. The noise was unbelievable.

Jasmine stood up and moved tentatively away from the table. The dress didn’t split. Sebastian was even closer to her. She smiled at him. ‘Happy New Year.’

He bent his head towards her, his hands reaching for hers. But the kiss didn’t happen.

‘Oh, no you don’t,’ Brittany said, grabbing Seb and kissing him thoroughly. She looked over his shoulder at Jasmine. ‘You got the Platinum – I think I deserve the celebratory snog, don’t you?’

Jasmine shrugged. ‘Seems like a bit of a consolation prize to me . . .’

‘Me, too,’ Brittany smiled, and wriggled away from Sebastian, who was looking slightly irritated.

Jasmine laughed. She decided that she liked Brittany. ‘Thanks – for choosing us, and everything. I still can’t quite believe it.’

‘You had everything I needed, and what’s more you did it all yourself,’ Brittany said. ‘Turned the stadium around, making it a going concern, but without taking away its unique atmosphere. I had the easy part, just playing my usual role, but you had to take giant steps. That’s why I so admire you. And believe me, there’s no sentiment in this game. I picked the best stadium for the event. It’s going to be wonderful – and because there’s only six weeks to go, we’ll have to spend a lot of time together on the organisation. Will that be OK – if I keep popping down to Ampney Crucis with my people?’

‘Of course it will.’ Jasmine nodded. ‘You’ll be more than welcome.’

‘And me?’ Sebastian looked from one of them to the other.

‘Sebby,’ Brittany patted his cheek, ‘for once in your life you re the loser here. As far as the Frobisher Platinum goes, that is. But if you’re offering your services, I’m sure Jasmine will find plenty of things to keep you busy in Ampney Crucis.’

Moving away to kiss Peg’s cheek and shake all the other Ampney Crucis hands, Brittany, Jasmine noticed with amusement, gave Martina the widest possible berth.

‘Do you want to discuss the win with Peg and the others?’ Sebastian asked. ‘Or can we dance?’

Jasmine gave her consortium members a rueful glance. ‘I don’t think there’s any point in discussing anything with any of them at the moment. They were plastered before the announcement – they’re totally wrecked now.’ She smiled at him. ‘And the dancing? I can dance, sort of. I don’t know about you. Whether the dress will stand it is anyone’s guess.’

‘I can’t wait to find out . . .’ Seb grabbed her hand, and tugged her through the brightly coloured, noisy throng towards the ballroom.

The corridors went by in a sort of blur. Vaguely Jasmine wondered if Ewan was still staggering about in the warren, looking for a way out.

The ballroom was three times the size of the banqueting hall, and seemed to be hung with battle banners and whole boughs of greenery and even more chandeliers. A forty-piece dance band was on the stage, expertly trumpeting out a selection of Glenn Miller favourites.

Jasmine shook her head. ‘There’s no way the frock will cope with jitterbugging.’

‘Good,’ Sebastian grinned, twirling her round. ‘That s just what I wanted to hear.’

You stupid bastard!’ April grabbed Ewan’s bow tie and pushed him back against the Frobishers’ pantry wall. A lot of tins clattered from the shelves and rolled round their feet. ‘What the hell did you think you were playing at?’

Ewan, making a sort of strangled gulp, tried to remove her hands from his throat. ‘I – um – for Christ’s sake, woman! Let go! I – thought the dog was being ill-treated. You’re bloody choking me! I’d – we’d – had a tip-off.’

‘God!’ April, suddenly realising that she was in serious danger of actually throttling Ewan, reluctantly released her grip on his tie. ‘I’ve been out of my head for the last week! I thought he was dead! I love him so much! I haven’t been able to eat or sleep or think straight – oh God! And now the dancing s started – and I’m supposed to be working until dawn – and I’ll never see him again! Oh, you stupid, stupid sod!’

Ewan took deep breaths. ‘Christ, if the dancing’s started that means it’s New Year’s Day now – and I didn’t kiss Clara at midnight – and, oh, shit – it means they’ve announced the winner.’

‘That’s the least of your worries.’ April glared at Ewan in disgust.

She’d recognised him straight away, as soon as she’d started serving the Ampney Crucis table at the beginning of the evening, and she’d smiled, feeling sad, because he’d been so good to them when Cair Paravel had run his first race all those months before – with the hare and the headscarf and everything. And Ewan had smiled back at her without much recognition in his eyes.

Which, April admitted, had to be a blessing with the Gillespies sitting so close. Then as her visits to the table increased, so did Ewan’s recognition, and her own suspicions. There was something familiar about him, and not just as dishy Ewan Dunstable from Ampney Crucis, especially when she caught him in profile against the candlelight. She’d been serving up the meat course when it had all snapped into place.

Sliding the vegetable tureen on to the table, she’d leaned towards him, pretending to straighten his napkin. ‘You’ve been watching me.’

‘What?’ Ewan had looked startled. ‘No I haven’t. I mean, well, I might have been, you’re very pretty, and I certainly didn’t expect to see you here, but it’s a small world and – ’

‘Not tonight,’ April had muttered under her breath. ‘At home in Bixford. You’ve been hanging around where I live . . .’ She’d looked across him at Clara. ‘I’m sure your girlfriend would be really interested to know what sort of pervert she’s mixed up with.’

The rest of the table, laughing and talking and exclaiming over the food, didn’t seem to have taken any notice of this exchange.

‘You’re mistaken.’ Ewan had shaken his head. ‘I’ve never hung around where you live – I haven’t got a clue where you live – and apart from seeing you at Ampney Crucis for that race – Oh, my God! Did you say Bixford?

She’d straightened up and stared at him. ‘Changed your mind, have you?’

Ewan had turned whiter than the tablecloth. ‘Christ, look, can we talk? Not here – I mean, later, outside somewhere?’

‘Oh, yes. You’d better start talking – but I’ve got no intention of meeting you anywhere. You’re seriously weird.’

‘I’m not. Believe me. Let me tell you . . . I’ve got to explain – ’

April had surveyed him. She didn’t want to be alone with him – he’d terrified her for weeks. And she’d thought he was so nice, as well. It just went to show that you never could tell. Daff always said it was the nice ones . . . But if he was her stalker – and she was sure he was – there had to be some explanation, surely. And she wanted to hear it.

‘Come out to the kitchens. There are about ninety thousand people out there to rescue me if you turn funny. But if the explanation isn’t twenty-four carat, then I’ll be calling the police first, and grabbing that mike from Brittany and informing the whole room, including – ’ April had looked at the huge engagement ring on Clara’s finger ‘– your fiancée, second. OK?’

So Ewan had eventually turned up at the kitchen door, and after getting one of the other Copacabana girls to cover for her on the Ampney Crucis table, April had dragged him away from the crashing, steaming, shouting mayhem of the cooking and dishing area towards the relative privacy of the pantry.

‘I said I was going to the loo,’ Ewan had tried, and failed, to look relaxed. ‘So they shouldn’t miss me for a while. Anyway, this won’t take long.’

‘Too right it won’t. Why have you been stalking me?’

And then, it had all poured out. April, who’d previously only thought that Ewan had been one of the dirty raincoat brigade, suddenly realised the full extent of his felony.

Desolate since discovering the loss of Cair Paravel, having tramped the streets of Bixford, putting up posters, and searching everywhere with Jix and Joel and Rusty and Sofia and Antonio – Noah had said he was far too busy doing sketches for a new series of paintings to become involved – she’d given up all hope of ever finding him alive.

Cairey must have somehow scrabbled over the wall because bloody Noah had locked him out in the yard, and probably run straight out on to the ring road, all laughing face, and lolling tongue, and silly splaying legs and – and she’d shut the rest of it out of her mind.

If he’d been run over she supposed the driver hadn’t stopped. She and Jix had made terrified searches of all the bushes and waste ground round the road and not found a body. April, distraught, knew this meant that Cairey must have crawled away somewhere else to die, alone and in pain . . .

And now her fury was so incandescent that she could hardly breathe – now this bloody stupid man was telling her that he’d stolen him! No – not even that – rescued. Rescued! As if Cairey, the most spoiled canine baby that had ever lived, needed rescuing!

And there was worse to come. Not only had he been ‘rescued’ but he’d also been practically rehomed!

‘I could kill you!’ She hissed at Ewan. ‘I really could kill you!’

‘I’m so sorry. We had a tip-off – a telephone call – to say that he was being kept in a flat, and not looked after properly, and that he was left howling in a confined yard in all weathers. I followed it up. Everything I saw seemed to confirm it. What was I supposed to do? Ignore it? It’s what my life has been for ages – rescuing dogs in that position.’

‘He didn’t need rescuing!’ April screamed for the hundredth time, wondering again who’d made that phone call. ‘And didn’t you have anything better to do on Christmas Day, for Christ’s sake?’

Ewan looked at her. ‘If you’d seen some of the sights that I have, you wouldn’t ask that.’

‘No, OK,’ April had conceded. ‘But still, Christmas Day – ’

‘I didn’t do the – er – rescue personally. We have a network of people. They know exactly what to do and when to do it.’

‘And that makes it better, does it? Stealing a dog that is perfectly well cared for and much loved and – ’

‘He was shut outside in the dark and in freezing temperatures when my colleagues found him.’

‘But I didn’t know that! That was my – um – boyfriend. Not me.’

Ewan frowned. ‘What? Jinx, or whatever his name was? I thought he seemed like a nice bloke.’

‘Christ! Not Jix! Jix isn’t my boyfriend! Jix wouldn’t do anything like that – he loves Cairey as much as I do. Noah – I live with him – he shut Cair Paravel out without me knowing.’

Ewan shook his head. ‘Look – um – oh, yes, Beatrice-Eugenie – I didn’t mean – ’

‘Who?’ April frowned, then laughed. ‘Oh God, that’s not me. My name’s April. Beatrice-Eugenie is my daughter. We registered Cairey in her name because – oh, well it’s a long story. All I want to know is how do I get him back?’

Ewan looked first confused, and then worried. ‘I know where he is, of course, but as I said, he’s been earmarked for rehoming.’

‘Ah, there! I bet you didn’t check that, did you?’

‘What?’

‘The earmarking! Cairey’s got his ear tattooed, like all registered racing greyhounds! I bet you didn’t even think -’

Ewan looked completely crestfallen. ‘I honestly have no idea. We’d do a check normally, naturally, but I don’t know if my colleagues have or not, with it being the holiday period. Anyway, now you know he’s OK, it’s New Year’s Eve – and I really should be getting back in there and – ’

April shook her head. ‘You’re going nowhere until I get Cairey back. How far away is he? Oh God – not down in Dorset?’

‘No, it was some of our local people who rescued – er – well, you know – um – took him. We have a network of safe houses all over the country. He’s in Barking. No – really . . .’

‘Barking?’ April’s head reeled. ‘That’s not far from Bixford – but it’s bloody miles away from here, isn’t it? Where are we, anyway?’

‘Somewhere in the leafy glades of poshest Surrey. Er, sort of Epsomish, I think.’

April walked away. The pantry was almost the size of her flat at number 51. She stared at four shelves of bottled plums. It was wonderful to know that Cair Paravel was alive and well, of course it was. He must be so bewildered, though. Being yanked away from the yard and whisked off by strangers: people who wouldn’t know that he loved egg sandwiches, or having his tummy tickled, or that he had to have his blanket tucked under in a special way so that he could slide his nose into it while he slept.

She whirled round on Ewan. ‘We’re going to get him. Now. Where’s your car?’

‘In Ampney Crucis. We had a minibus up here – and, anyway, I’ve had far too much to drink to be able to drive anywhere. Look, if I give you directions, you could go and – ’

‘We came on a coach!’ April yelled. ‘From Bixford! I don’t even know where I am!’

‘But at least you haven’t been drinking . . . and anyway, it’s the early hours of the morning, so my – um – Barking counterpart is probably asleep and – ’

‘Ring him and wake him up, then.’ April flapped her hands. ‘You’re bound to have a mobile. People like you can’t exist without mobiles. Ring him, tell him you’ve made a mistake – tell him you’ve scared the shit out of me and pinched my dog. Tell him we’ll be there!’