I OFFERED TO BUY Wal a coffee and cake. He’d surprised me by acting pretty much the way I’d wanted him to: threatening but passive.
If that was the silver lining on my day then maybe I needed to reconsider the direction my life was going in.
I mulled over that, and other things, while I waited in the queue at the OBH cafe, one of the most popular hotels on the beachfront. On summer weekends the foot traffic completely outnumbered the cars as the stylish young ones migrated up and down to the different pubs, like gorgeous butterflies sampling pollen. I’d done it myself a few years ago, but now I preferred to avoid that area on Sunday afternoons.
I picked the OBH cafe because Wal wasn’t a Latte Ole kind of guy. And call me shallow, but I didn’t really want anyone I knew to see us and think we were together.
My message bank carolled when I switched my phone on. I’d missed calls from Mr Honey and Nick Tozzi.
My heart did a little bit of a hoola. I called him right back.
‘Tozzi,’ he answered.
‘Sharp,’ I snapped back.
He paused and I wished I could see what that warm aura of his was doing.
‘Are you alright?’ he asked.
‘Are you?’
He expelled a breath into the phone. ‘Hold on a moment.’ A few rattling, crunching moments later he came back on. ‘I’m not the one somebody tried to run over.’ It sounded like he was out in the wind with his hand cupped over the phone.
‘Oh that,’ I said airily. ‘No problem.’
‘I hear you made a social call on my mother?’
‘Umm . . .’ The conversation wasn’t going the way I’d hoped.
‘Whatcha want?’ interrupted the waitress in a timely manner.
‘One English Breakfast tea, one short black and two custard tarts,’ I replied. ‘I gotta go, Nick.’
‘Hang on a –’
I snapped my phone shut and stuffed it in my pocket. A light sweat had broken out over my body. I hadn’t expected that Eireen would tell Nick about her Sunday visitors – but in a way, it was kind of endearing that she had. And Joanna would approve – a son who talked to his mother.
Speaking of which, I didn’t think mine was talking to me. I sighed and returned to Wal, who was jiggling his leg and darting looks around.
‘Everything alright?’ I asked, plonking our number 23 table weight down.
He fixed on me for about a second before resuming his routine. ‘No offence or nothing, Teach, but don’t really wanna be seen with you.’
I nearly laughed. ‘No offence taken.’
‘It’s just . . . you’re OK and everything . . . but if any of me mates see me in a caff like this, with a chick like you –’
Chick? Right On? Wal was trapped in an eighties time warp.
The tea and tart arrived, delivered by a young guy who looked half asleep. After he’d shuffled away, Wal continued. ‘That stiff you just met works for Johnny Vogue, doesn’t he?’
I nodded unhappily.
‘I’m thinking that you’ll be needing my services again then.’ He picked up the custard tart in one hand and sort of siphoned it into his mouth like it was a line of jelly, then he swallowed the short black in a gulp. ‘Next time you might want to think about guns or knives. Later.’ He got up and slouched off.
My nerves, which had been starting to settle, took up with their own version of the salsa. ‘Later,’ I managed to whisper in his wake.
I ate my tart with a spoon, in ladylike bites that would have made Joanna proud. Each mouthful of custard seemed to soothe all that was wrong in my world.
By the time I’d squeezed three cups from the little Bodum teapot I felt calmer; enough to walk across the road and find a seat on one of the grassy terraces above North Cottesloe Beach.
I needed some time to think.
How was I going to get Delgado and Johnny Vogue off my case? Delgado was smart enough not to threaten me with anything specific. I could go to the police but then things would get out of my control – which meant I had to find out about Nick Tozzi. Why did Johnny Vogue want to ruin him? If I knew more, I might be able to figure something out.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. It was a text from Mr Hara. ‘Back Friday. Freeze.’
What in the sugar-daddies did that mean? He was freezing? Or he wanted me to freeze? When your boss writes less comprehensible English than he speaks, text can be a tricky way to communicate.
‘Pardon?’ I sent back.
‘Yes. OK,’ he replied.
Aaaagh!