Page 69 of The Merry Christmas Project

‘On it.’ He smiled faintly to himself as he went to find her phone ; he wasn’t at all surprised that she had a locksmith in her contacts. She struck him as someone who got herself into scrapes on a regular basis.

The kitchen was warm and inviting and really did smell strongly of gin and tonic. On the kitchen worktop were two electric hotplates glowing red and rows of still-warm candles. He switched off the hotplates and then for some reason dotted his fingertip on the wax of one of the candles. He winced as his finger came away coated in wax ; he’d ruined it.

‘It’s on the table somewhere,’ she shouted. ‘Please hurry up, I prefer it when I know you’re on the other side of the door.’

‘Give me a second.’

He turned back to the table and knocked over a whiteboard which had been leaning against the leg of a chair. The whiteboard that he needed to hang for her, he presumed. At the top was the word schedule, which she’d underlined. Then there were three cloud shapes full of illegible scribble. He thought of his schedule of works on a spreadsheet on his laptop and suppressed a smile. Hers was very … Merry.

He found her phone on the table, under a pile of handwritten thank-you cards which looked like they accompanied her orders. The phone screen had a crack in it and was covered with notifications and messages. None from men, he noticed, but a couple of them were from Nell. He felt a bit guilty for prying but justified it by telling himself that he was only checking that the way was clear before he asked her out for that coffee. Although he’d have to pick his moment carefully before he did that ; tonight was definitely not that moment.

Cole went back to the bathroom door ; he could hear her singing ‘The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow’ under her breath and his heart flipped.

‘Merry ?’ he said softly, ‘you’re going to have to give me your passcode.’

She blew her nose. ‘One-two-three-four.’

He shook his head. That had to be the worst passcode ever ; this woman was unbelievable. Adorable, but totally crazy.

‘I’ll have to change it now, which is a shame.’

‘Yeah, might be an idea,’ he said, trying not to smile. ‘What did you say the locksmith was called ?’

‘Olek Dowmunt. Pronounced Doffmunt. He’s Polish.’

Cole scrolled through the numbers but couldn’t see anything vaguely like Olek.

‘He’s under N for Nell,’ she added after a few seconds. ‘Hurry up.’

Cole was confused but found Olek’s number under N and called it. The phone was answered immediately.

‘Thank the Lord !’ Cole recognised Nell’s voice from the market. ‘Are you OK ? Why are you calling Olek, not me?’

Cole switched it quickly to speaker phone. ‘Nell, this is Cole,’ he explained. ‘I’m calling Olek because we need an emergency locksmith.’

‘COLE ?’ she screeched. ‘Why have you got her phone ? Is Merry there ? Is she OK ?’

‘Nell !’ Merry yelled from the other side of the door. ‘Send Olek immediately, please ! I’m locked in the loo in the dark on my own and I’m literally wetting myself.’

That made two of them, thought Cole.

‘And I’m in the corridor outside the bathroom,’ he added.

‘What a nightmare !’ Nell gasped. ‘That’s awful. Hold on, I’ll shout him.’

She moved the phone from her mouth and her voice was muffled but still very loud as she yelled. ‘OLEK ? Get dressed again, Merry needs unlocking.’ She lowered her voice. ‘He’s just had a bath but he says he’ll get dressed and be with you asap.’

‘Thank you,’ said Merry with a sniff.

‘Listen, Cole,’ said Nell, ‘this is very important. Merry gets anxious in the dark, please look after her, stay with her.’

‘Sure,’ he replied. ‘I’m not going anywhere. And please tell Olek that the front door is open, he can come straight up, he’ll find us on the first floor. Oh, and the light’s not working outside the bathroom either, tell him he’ll need to bring a torch.’

With reassurances from Nell that Olek was already pulling on his jeans, Cole hung up.

‘So Nell’s partner is Olek the locksmith,’ he said, checking he’d got his facts right.

‘Yeah, they’re probably worried,’ she replied in a small voice. ‘I said I’d be back by ten o’clock.’