Page 140 of We Chase Shadows

‘No,’ says Steve. ‘Not Georgie. But … you know.’

Rosie reaches out her hand and puts it on his. No smart remarks, no innuendo. It seems she does know.

The door opens again and Felicity Woollaston comes in.

‘Don’t shoot,’ says Rosie, throwing her arms in front of her face.

‘At some point we’ll have to stop doing that joke,’ says Felicity.

‘It might take a little while,’ says Amy.

‘The chicken wings people are here, Rosie,’ says Felicity. ‘They’re very excited to meet you. They say they’ve never filmed an episode in a hospital room before.’

Epilogue

TWO WEEKS LATER

‘I didn’t know people were dying,’ says Eric Jacobs. ‘I just enjoyed the travel.’

‘If you had known?’ says Georgie.

‘Would have really taken the edge off,’ says Eric, ‘I don’t mind telling you.’

Georgie had asked Eric Jacobs if they could meet. She had something to give him, and, besides, it would be lovely to meet up again after all these years. He’d asked if she was happy to come down to Sussex, as he’d been doing a lot of travelling recently, and she’d said she would be delighted. He wondered if she knew the Notcutts Garden Centre just outside East Grinstead, and she had replied that, while she didn’t know it, she was sure it would be easy enough to find.

So here they are. In the café. Georgie has a spinach flan and Eric has a vegan sausage roll. Thinking back all those years, Eric might have been the first vegan Georgie had ever met. They didn’t have any in Kensal Rise.

‘I’m sure of that, Eric,’ says Georgie. ‘Vern would just send you on little trips?’

Eric nods. ‘Never told me why. But I didn’t see there was anything to be gained in saying no. You and Mr Blackwood had always been very good to me. And, as I say, no word of murder.’

When Vern had first made a bit of money, they’d bought a place down in Sussex. Eric had looked after the garden for the previous owner – a pop singer who had been sent to prison for attempting to murder a jockey, but that’s a story for another day – and had wondered if Mr and Mrs Blackwood might be at all keen on keeping him on?

They had been. Eric was a very good gardener.

‘I’ve been all over,’ says Eric. ‘Finland, America, Czechoslovakia.’

It must have been nearly thirty years ago now. Eric would have been in his mid-forties, but already looked like Death himself. Bald, thin and gaunt. Georgie had once bumped into him at the side of the house carrying a scythe and had nearly had a heart attack. Eric had taken to wearing baseball caps after that incident.

‘Do you have money?’ Georgie asks. ‘Did Vern pay you well?’

Eric shakes his head. ‘£15 an hour. Same as before.’

Georgie had to laugh. That was Vern all over. Ask your old gardener to pose as the most dangerous man in the world so you could run an absurdly lucrative criminal empire, and pay him minimum wage. It wasn’t, as it turns out, the worst of Vern’s crimes, but it certainly added a layer to the man.

‘He let me keep my air miles though,’ says Eric. ‘If you know where you can spend air miles? I’ve never worked it out.’

Georgie wants to put things right for the old man. That’s why she’s here. To atone for Vern’s sins.

‘What would you do if you had a bit of money?’ Georgie asks.

Eric shakes his head. ‘I don’t know. Move out of my flat, I suppose. I’ve only got a window box. Can’t grow marrows in a window box.’

‘Find somewhere with a garden, then?’

Eric nods. ‘There’s a place I fancy. It’s got allotments, and you get to keep the gardens nice. That would suit me.’

‘Here in Sussex?’ Georgie asks.