pretty like Santo. Unless, naturally, one knew how to use it.
-Cade?"
He swung round. Pooh squawked and shifted position.
Kerra had materialized from somewhere. Alan was with her. Cadan knew they were a couple, but he couldn't reconcile the matter. Kerra was sun and sinew with, unfortunately, tree-trunk ankles.
Alan looked like someone who'd take exercise as a last resort and then only if threatened with disembowelment.
A few words among them had sorted things. Although Alan on the surface might have looked like small change, it turned out he was on top of almost all that was going on at the place. So before Cadan knew enough to make a spurious excuse about the delicate condition of his lungs should they ever be exposed to paint fumes, he found himself with drop cloths and a paintbrush in one hand and two gallons of glossy white in the other. Alan made an introduction between Cadan and the project, and that was that.
Four hours later saw Cadan deciding he was owed a break outdoors. Pooh, he noted, had grown ominously silent. Likely the parrot had a headache as well.
The ground was still sopping round the crazy golf course, but Cadan didn't let that deter him.
Guiding his bike, he climbed the slope to hole number one, where he quickly saw that doing a few tabletops just now in this location had been something of a pipe dream. He set his bike to one side, established Pooh on the handlebars, and gave the crazy golf course a closer look.
This wasn't going to be a simple project. The course looked at least sixty years old. It also looked like something that hadn't been maintained in the last thirty of those years. This was too bad because otherwise crazy golf could have been a little moneymaker for Adventures Unlimited. On the other hand, this was also a plus because an unmaintained course made it far likelier than otherwise that anyone in the position of making a decision about the future would climb onboard once Cadan laid out his plans. But the idea of laying out plans necessitated having plans, and Cadan wasn't a having-plans sort of person. So he walked round the first five holes of the course and tried to reckon what needed to be done aside from ripping out miniature windmills, barns, and schoolhouses and filling in the holes.
He was still considering all this when he saw a panda car pulling from St. Mevan Crescent into the car park of the old hotel. The driver - a uniformed constable - got out and went inside. A few minutes later he departed.
Shortly thereafter, Kerra came out of the building. She stood in the car park, hands on hips, and she looked about. Cadan was squatting next to a tiny shipwrecked rowboat that acted as an obstacle on hole number six, and it came to him that she was searching for someone, possibly him. His modus operandi was generally to hide, since if someone was seeking him, it was usually because he'd bollocksed something up and was presently going to hear about it. But a quick evaluation of his performance in the painting department told him he'd been doing a class A job, so he rose and made his presence known.
Kerra headed in his direction. She'd changed from what she'd been wearing earlier. She was decked out in Lycra, and Cadan recognised the kit: She had on her long-distance cyclist's gear.
Odd time of day to be going for a ride, he thought, but when you were the boss's daughter, you made your own rules.
Kerra spoke to him without preamble when she reached the ruins of the crazy golf course. Her voice was clipped. -I phoned the farm, but they told me she doesn't work there any longer. I phoned your house, but she's not there either. D'you know where she is? I want to speak with her."
Cadan took a moment to think about the remarks, the question, and the implications of each. He bought time by going to his bike, removing Pooh from the handlebars, and settling the bird on his shoulder.
-Blow holes in the attic," Pooh remarked.
-Cade." Kerra's voice was patient but with an edge. -Please answer me. Now would be preferable to sometime in the future."
-It's weird you want to know, is all," Cadan told her. -I mean, it's not like you're friends with Madlyn any longer, so I was wondering..." He cocked his head so that his cheek touched Pooh's side. He liked the feeling of