The Garden of Forgotten Wishes - Trisha Ashley Page 0,144

waiting for me.

‘I saw Wayne pass you something as you came in,’ she explained. ‘It looked like a piece of paper.’

‘Did anyone else see?’ I asked quickly.

‘No, I’m sure they didn’t. What is it? You look a bit weird.’

I fished out the note and handed it to her and she stared down at it, puzzled.

‘This seems to be a bill for something called pig nuts …’

‘Other side,’ I said, but she’d already flipped it over.

‘It’s from Saul – he must have told Wayne to give it to me,’ I said. ‘They know who I am – or at least, Saul does, but I expect Wayne does now, too.’

She gave it back and I tucked it into my rucksack.

‘What are you going to do? You’re surely not going to go there on your own tomorrow night?’

‘Well, it would be a chance to have it all out, wouldn’t it? I can make it clear that I don’t want anything from them, not even to tell anyone I’m related to them, so there’s no need to threaten me with telling Ned.’

‘Maybe, but you’d be much better off telling him the truth yourself, and then ignoring them.’

‘But if I can make them see reason tomorrow night, I might never need to tell him,’ I said obstinately. ‘That would be an end of it.’

‘Your mum was too terrified of her family to ever return here and warned you not to, either,’ she pointed out. ‘They must have threatened her with something bad, to make her so afraid.’

‘Her parents might have done, but they’re dead now. Besides, it’s the twenty-first century, not the Dark Ages, so what can they possibly do to me, except rant a bit, before I can explain?’

‘I don’t think you should go on your own,’ Treena said stubbornly. ‘I’ll come with you. I’m not on duty tomorrow evening.’

‘If you’re with me, Saul probably won’t talk to me at all!’

‘Then I’ll drive you there and wait in that layby near the farm gate with the bus stop,’ she said. ‘You’ll have your phone and if you haven’t come back or rung me in half an hour, I’ll call Luke and then come and get you.’

I have to say, this suggestion came as a relief, because the whole scenario was starting to feel just a bit too much like a horror movie. You know, the ‘please don’t go down in the basement on your own’ moment.

‘I’m sure you’ve got other things you’d rather do tomorrow evening, Treena.’

‘I expect Luke will still be in the pub waiting for me afterwards, and we could probably both do with a stiff drink by then.’ She looked at me. ‘I really do think the best thing you could do is tell Ned right now. You’re making too much of it and I don’t think it’s going to be the horrible shock to him that you imagine.’

‘Yes, but he loathes Wayne and doesn’t much like the rest of them,’ I said. ‘And having kept it from him so long, I think he’s going to be angry about that, too … and just when we’re getting along so well. No, I’ll give tomorrow a shot, first.’

‘I know that stubborn expression,’ she said, with a sigh. ‘OK, I’ll pick you up at the bridge tomorrow about ten to eight.’

We went back to our table together. There was no sign of Wayne, and Ned and Luke didn’t seem to suspect anything was amiss, even if I wasn’t very chatty for the rest of the evening. Eventually I pleaded a headache, which by then was the truth, and went back to the flat, telling Ned not to bother when he would have come with me.

He gave me such a puzzled look and I think would have come with me anyway, except that Treena said something to him just as I was getting up and I made a fast getaway.

When I got back to the flat I asked Caspar (once he’d finished telling me off for being out) if he thought I was doing the right thing.

If only I spoke Russian Cat, I might have had the definitive answer.

I had dark circles round my eyes next day and Ned commented that, apart from the fact that I hadn’t got a tail, I looked like a lemur.

This made me laugh, but though I tried to behave normally, my mind kept going back to where I was going that evening and wondering if I was doing the right thing … But it couldn’t do any harm