The Tangled Web (26 page)

‘You were saying, Flic?’ Adam pressed, clearly not wanting
to get involved in a dispute between his sister and his friend.

‘As I was saying, it’s not the business we set out to
start.  The truth is that Vicky and I jointly took on the Goodbody case.  It
was my idea to accept it and Vicky helped me, against her better judgement. 
Even though she knew about it and didn’t tell you, I take full responsibility
for the case.’

Adam shrivelled his nose in disgust and turned his gaze
towards his sister.  ‘Vicky?  How could you?  You knew Flic and I were
together.  How could you keep this from me?’

‘Am I missing something?’ Pamela objected.

‘I think I am too,’ Magnus frowned.

Flic straightened the tensely hunched shoulders which had
instinctively appeared and removed all traces of emotion from her expression. 
She had to adopt the indifference she had worked so hard at cultivating again. 
She didn’t look at it as masking her hurt.  That would be admitting she was
hurt in the first place.  She saw it as a test of her acting skills.  This was
her time to take centre stage.  It was her time to shine.

‘Amy Goodbody is a former friend of mine.  We worked
together when I lived down in England.  She was my protégée,’ Flic began.

‘She stole your man!’ Pamela guessed.

Flic furrowed her brow, annoyed that Pamela had stolen her
thunder.  ‘It was a little bit more complicated than that.’

‘Go on,’ Vicky urged.

‘She met my ex-husband on a social networking site.  It was
the early days of MaisonNet.  Hardly anyone we knew used it, so we were all
short on friends and she added my now ex-husband, George.  They got friendly
and….the short version of the story is that he left me for her.  They gave me a
shit-load of money and I gave him the house and the business I owned down in
Torquay.  I left England and I never looked back.’  She lifted her chin proudly
and looked around to check that they had all got the gist of the story and were
suitably sympathetic.

‘You owned a business?  What kind?’ Magnus probed.

‘Take off your business head Maggie and pay attention. 
She’s not finished her story yet,’ Pamela snorted.

‘It was a block of holiday flats.  I managed them, as well
as owned them, but I had to work too.  The income from the flats alone wasn’t
enough to pay the bills.  I recently discovered George signed the whole
business over to Amy after a while and she then sold the apartments off one by
one to make more money.  Like she wasn’t rich enough to begin with!’

‘Bitch,’ blurted Pamela. 

‘That house had been in my family for generations!’ Flic
croaked. 

Vicky reached behind her onto the worktop, grabbed a sheet
of kitchen paper and passed it to Flic.  Flic accepted and wiped away an
imaginary tear.  Vicky pursed her lips together.  She thought Flic was possibly
laying it on a bit thick but she held her tongue.

‘What’s that got to do with this mystery case?’ panted
Pamela.  She was hooked.

‘Adam knew my history with George and Amy.  He decided to
track down Amy and send her a promotional email.  She got in touch and...’ Flic
trailed off.

Vicky decided to pick up the rest of the story, sensing
that Flic hadn’t wanted to admit she was drunk when she accepted the job.  It
wouldn’t strengthen her case for empathy. 

‘Flic wasn’t happy about everything that had
happened…George being a rat, Amy pinching him, Adam stirring it up…’

Adam folded his arms and twisted his lips.  He couldn’t
possibly defend his own actions, Vicky thought.  He had been stirring it up,
plain and simple.

‘The case was accepted and we honey trapped George
successfully,’ Vicky finished, omitting the finer details.

‘Did you use your picture?’ Pamela asked Vicky.

‘No, we paid a model.  Using mine was too risky in case he
traced me back to Flic,’ Vicky stated.

Flic looked nervously around the table.  Everyone was
staring at her.  Even Sasha, although her stare was probably more to do with
the sparkly earrings Flic wore.

‘Who was the model?’ Magnus wheedled.

‘Just a random,’ Flic answered quickly, hoping Pamela
didn’t press the matter.  She didn’t want to risk Pamela mentioning her own
investigation of Diana Dutkowiak - then Magnus would know too much and Lumi
could easily tell George about Flic’s part in all this, if she hadn’t already.

Magnus appeared to accept their explanation.  He leaned
forward and rested his arms on the kitchen table.  He was clearly about to say
something but mulling over the words in his head before he spoke them.  Vicky
wished he would just get on with it.

‘Obviously, you’re not going to accept the follow-on
assignment, ladies.  It’s much too risky.  It would mean getting this random
model of yours involved too.  That’s not a good idea,’ he said.  ‘We don’t want
her any more involved than she already is.  Does she know what her pictures
were used for?’

‘Yes,’ Flic replied, unsure exactly how much information to
divulge.  If it hadn’t been for the fact that George didn’t appear to know he
had been trapped yet, she would have told them all everything.

‘Ok.  Adam or I will email Amy Goodbody declining her
offer.  You ladies are released from all HunE-trap Investigations jobs with
immediate effect.  Pamela, it’s your time to take on more work,’ Magnus
instructed.

‘No can do.  I’ve coaching the drama group’s junior members
all summer.  I’m not interested,’ Pamela grunted.

‘But Adam and I can’t do them!  We’re busy with the plans
for the gym!’ blustered Magnus.

‘Tough titty,’ Pamela retorted.

‘But we’re legally obliged to do these jobs!  What are we
going to do?’ he continued panicking.  ‘I can’t possibly do the trapping
myself.’

‘Chill daffodil.  Just get your tart to do it,’ Pamela
sniggered.

Adam rubbed his hands over his face.  ‘Come on, lets go for
a pint and we’ll work this out,’ he suggested to Magnus.

Magnus nodded an acknowledgement and the two of them left
the room without a verbal farewell to anyone who was left.

‘I’ve got my nails to paint, and a Cypriot sleazebag to
trap.  I’m going to my room,’ Pamela announced.

‘You don’t have to carry on with that case now, just let it
go.  I’m sure Magnus wouldn’t push you to finish it,’ Vicky worried.  She had
almost forgotten that Pamela was still trying to get Christos to virtually
cheat. 

‘Tell Magnus I’ve started so I’ll finish!’ Pamela called
back as she thumped up the stairs.

‘Wine?’ Flic looked at Vicky hopefully. 

Vicky turned to see Sasha rubbing her eyes.  ‘Give me a
minute and I’ll put Sasha to her bed.  Then we can talk.’

*****

Vicky clipped the baby monitor onto the waistband of her
jeans and opened the fridge door.  She chose a bottle of white wine, and picked
up two glasses from the cupboard above the fridge.  She didn’t see Flic around
and assumed she must have gone outside to sit in the garden.

Vicky opened the door to the back garden and couldn’t see
Flic, so she walked around the side of the house to the front garden.  There
was Flic with her father, playing golf.

‘Vino?’ she called out to Flic.

‘Fab!  Just let me finish up here.’  Flic putted her ball
through the miniature Arc de Triumph and got a hole in one.  She and Bob
cheered loudly.

‘Think you’ve earned a glass of wine for that!’ Bob
exclaimed.

‘I think I have!’  Flic passed the club back to Bob and sat
down on the front step next to Vicky, accepting the glass from her.

‘You know, they’ve got a pretty good crazy golf course near
Paphos.  Did any part of you consider taking Amy up on her offer?’ Vicky asked,
sipping on the cool wine.

‘Nah,’ Flic replied.

‘I was tempted.  Christos is flying out to Cyprus in a
couple of days.  It would have been lovely to be there at the same time,’ Vicky
smiled.

‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m tempted by the free holiday.  But
we’d have to involve Lumi again.  We definitely don’t want to do that,’ Flic
sighed.

‘Not necessarily.  We don’t NEED Lumi.  If we went out
there we could just follow him around and hope he gets up to no good,’ Vicky
winked.

Flic shook her head.  ‘If we didn’t come up with anything
there’s the chance she would ask for proof of the work we did.  And she’d
possibly even get in touch with the boys again.  Not worth it.’  She shook her
head again, more forcefully this time.

‘Would it really be such a mistake to involve Lumi again?’
Vicky wondered aloud.

Flic could feel colour rising to her cheeks.  She knew she
had to tell Vicky about Lumi and Magnus before she found out some other way. 
Then there was a chance that Vicky would realise Flic had already known and
hadn’t told her. 

Flic set down her glass.  She looked over at Bob, who was
so involved in his putting that he wasn’t paying any attention to them.  She
turned her shoulders to face Vicky.

‘There’s something I have to tell you about Lumi.  I’ve been
waiting for the right time to say something, but I don’t think there will ever
be a right time,’ she announced.

‘What is it?’  Vicky looked appropriately worried.

‘You know how I said that Lumi had taken on the persona of
our honey?  And she’s been calling herself Diana?’

‘Yeah?’

‘And you remember that Magnus had left a message for Diana
that night we uploaded the pictures of Lumi?’

‘Yeah.’

‘He went to look for her the next day.  He found her.’ 
Flic eyed Vicky’s face for signs of realisation.  Vicky’s expression was
blank.  She wasn’t putting two and two together the way Flic had hoped.

‘Vicky…Magnus and Lumi are together now.  Lumi’s the live
in girlfriend.’

Vicky creased her brow. 

‘Except, he thinks that she’s Diana.  He thinks he’s living
with a Polish girl called Diana.  And the information on her profile about her
being a chambermaid and living in London was her previous life before she
became homeless,’ Flic disclosed.

‘I…I don’t understand…’ Vicky stammered.

‘I found out the day after I met her at that Polish class. 
She’s got one of Magnus’s stalls in the shopping centre.  She sells cupcakes
now.  I threatened to tell Magnus the truth about her and that’s when she said
she would tell George about me.’  Flic felt worse about herself now than she had
done previously.  Now that the whole situation had been put into words, she
realised just what a mess had been made.

‘So, how did they get together?  He just picked her up when
she was selling The Big Issue?’ Vicky boomed.

Bob looked up from his putting and eyed them with concern.

Flic squirmed.  ‘Not exactly.  He volunteers at the hostel
she was staying at.  He went to see her there.  I don’t think he realised how
pretty she was until he saw the pictures we took.’

Vicky stood up and paced the length of the garden a couple
of times.  She was desperately trying to make sense of the information she had
been given. 

‘Are you trying to tell me that if it hadn’t been for all
this Diana business, I wouldn’t have lost Magnus?’ Vicky growled.

‘To be fair babe, you never actually had him in the first
place.  You were just shagging…’ Flic was cut off by Vicky grabbing the wine
glass next to Flic and pouring the remains into the miniature Loch Ness in the
garden.

‘Oi!’ shouted Bob.

Vicky grabbed Flic by the arm and pulled her into the
house.  ‘Do you realise how many lives have been affected by this?’ she spat.

‘I’m sorry.  I never meant for all this.  I didn’t force
Lumi to steal your man!  And someone like him isn’t worth having in the first
place!’ Flic quavered.

Vicky pulled back and leaned against the front door.  She
took several deep breaths to quell her temper before looking at Flic again.

‘I don’t really want Magnus any more anyway,’ she admitted.

‘He’s an arse!’ Flic stated.

‘I’m due some kind of compensation for all this though,’
Vicky continued.

‘Like what?’ Flic wriggled.  She didn’t like where this was
going.

‘Cyprus.  I’m going.  I don’t care what Adam and Magnus
tell Amy.  I’ll email her and tell her I’m taking on the case myself as an
independent job, if she’s interested,’ Vicky asserted.  ‘My parents offered to
take Sasha away to Edinburgh with them in a couple of weeks time.  It coincides
with when George is in Cyprus.’  And Christos, she thought.

‘What about Lumi?’ Flic rammed home.

‘She’ll be coming with me.  Free holiday and the threat of
Magnus finding out what she’s all about?  She wouldn’t dare turn me down!’

‘She’ll tell George,’ Flic fretted.

‘That’s her leverage for blackmailing YOU.  Not me.  She’s
got nothing on me.’