Page 45 of Read My Lips

“Play cricket at school did you?” I groused, cradling my arm for an allowable three-point-five seconds before forcing myself to man-up and ignore it. And the seeping wetness all along my leg from the puddle I sprawled in.

Simon flashed his teeth on a laugh, holding out a hand to haul me up. “Didn’t everyone?”

“No.”

“Well, it was either cricket or rugby. I’m far too handsome to risk the depths of a scrum, don’t you think?”

He laughed when I didn’t answer. He didn’t need me to.

And he was already knocking out the toothy glass around the edge of the shattered pane with the side of the rock. Sticking his hand through, he drew the key out, holding it up with a dramatic flourish. Once again, I’d failed the test to get the prize.

“Thought you didn’t want to get your hands dirty?” I grumbled.

“That was my suit Ben, pay attention. Besides,” his smile formed in slow motion, “you’re right — I shouldn’t have asked you. They’re my friends. Much more likely to tolerate minor vandalism from me.”

CHAPTER

THIRTEEN

Did it count as minor vandalism when you spent the next ten minutes picking up every micro-shard of glass?

The sun streamed in the tall windows behind us, making the broken bits glitter. Underfoot, tiny pieces gritted into the lacquered wood rectangles butted up against each other in school assembly hall criss-cross patterns.

But Heybourne came as close to being an inner-city comprehensive as your standard suburban semi was to having a whop-off ballroom tacked on the back instead of a kitchen extension. The gilding on the plasterwork around the edge of the ceiling had been severely lacking in mine, anyway.

“I can see why you wanted a taste of all this,” I signed.

“What does that mean?”

I gestured around at the stately home and all the trappings. But Simon wrinkled his nose.

“Think about the electricity bill. Wouldn’t touch a place like this with a bargepole.”

“Oh, right.” Shit. Had I really just called him a gold-digger? “Sorry.”

Simon shrugged. “Hungry?”

Subject officially changed.

“Starving.”

No innuendo lived here. Lunch hadn’t happened between being snared up in traffic on the M25, butchering my soft porn acting debut, and racing for a phantom train.

“Me too. Come on, kitchen’s this way.” Simon nodded to the far corner, already striding towards it. It looked exactly like the other three – panelled and painted from floor to ceiling. All wall, no doors. Definitely none. Until he conjured one into existence like he had an interdimensional portal-maker up his sleeve. Or, you know, knew the locations of all the secret pop-doors in the building.

“Oh thank Christ. Thought we’d walked into some kind of Jonathan Creek exitless murder room for a minute there.”

Simon tilted his head. “Sorry, did you say Jonathan Creek exitless murder room?”

“Er…” My face went hotter than the centre of the Earth. “Did I?”

He probably didn’t know who Jonathan Creek was. He probably spent his evenings doing humanitarian projects, not binge-watching 90’s crime drama with windmill-dwelling magicians in it.

Simon looked like he was trying very hard not to laugh. “You absolutely did.”

The semi-basement kitchen was approximately the size of my entire house. A small helicopter could have landed on the island unit.

“Bloody hell.” The range cooker was more locomotion engine than anything you’d reheat chips in. “Bet you could spit-roast a wild boar on that.”