Page 54 of We Chase Shadows

And yet, and yet, really, what has Vern done to earn all that money? Off the back of an awful lot of hard work on her own part?

And there must be a few big houses in the area on streets with weekly bin collections? Perhaps Georgie could have the best of both worlds?

She looks at Rosie’s number. Should she get involved? See where it all leads?

Georgie punches Rosie’s number into her phone. It is answered quickly. It sounds like Rosie is in a pub garden.

‘Georgie,’ says Rosie. ‘I was hoping you’d –’

‘Did you go into Vern’s kitchen?’ says Georgie. ‘In Italy?’

‘His kitchen?’ says Rosie. In the background Georgie hears a tray of drinks being dropped and an entire pub garden cheering. ‘I’m sure I did.’

‘Did he have a kitchen island?’ Georgie asks.

‘He had two,’ says Rosie.

Georgie nods to herself. Of course he has. ‘And how many kitchen islands do you think a billionaire would have?’

‘Oh, limitless,’ says Rosie. ‘I’m glad you called, we’re about to head to –’

Georgie ends the call. So Vern has two kitchen islands and she has none. That doesn’t seem quite right somehow.

Georgie makes up her mind. She will stay involved. Has to. A quiet life is all well and good, but it’s important not to undersell yourself.

She has a plan forming.

And, if you want to separate the professional from the personal, perhaps she has two plans forming?

Because it won’t do her any harm to get more acquainted with Rosie’s sidekick, Steve, will it? You rarely saw a man that dependable who was also that handsome.

Handsomeness usually sucks the dependability out of men. The two things cannot survive in the same host body. She and her friend Sue from Pilates had tracked Steve down on Facebook. Only two posts in ten years. One entering a competition to win tickets for a Metallica concert, the other thanking people for all their messages after the death of his wife. While Georgie would wish widowerhood on no one, that’s a man she could see slipping his legs under her kitchen island in the near future.

The professional plan she really will have to keep to herself. And she will have to tread very, very carefully. When there are bullets flying around, you mustn’t walk down the middle of the street, you must keep to the shadows. Kitchen islands and handsome widowers are all well and good, but there’s something much bigger at stake here.

Does she know Jakob Eriksson, Rosie had asked her? Well, of course she does. She has known Jakob Eriksson a long time. Has sat around a table with Vern and Jakob Eriksson. Even knows his real name.

And now it seems he’s a billionaire.

Which means that she, of all people, surely has a great opportunity here?

How to play it with Steve and Rosie though? That’s the big question.

She can continue to pretend to be the ditzy housewife, but neither Rosie nor Steve seems the type to be fooled by that for long. She just needs to get close to them, to find out what they know and, more importantly, what they don’t know.

Most importantly of all, Georgie needs to find the man himself. The man they’re all calling Jakob Eriksson. Even Vern, it seems.

She knows it won’t be easy. But the two of them do really need a talk.

29

‘It says the minibar is free,’ says Amy, as she lies back on the huge bed in her room at The Hunter’s Rest, by some distance the New Forest’s most expensive hotel. ‘But it can’t be, can it?’

‘If it says it’s free, then it’s free,’ says Adam. ‘Some hotels do that. Very classy ones.’

‘This one feels classy,’ says Amy. ‘The slippers aren’t even wrapped in plastic.’

She’s glad she rang Adam, they haven’t spoken for a few days, and now she has stuff to tell him. Will he be interested? Amy isn’t sure. He always says he is, but all her life people have said all sorts of things and ended up breaking her heart regardless. Why should her husband, in the long run, be any different?