‘Brilliant. Unfortunately. Now’s the time to get him, before he ends up in rehab. Or perhaps prison for some sort of sexual pestering.’
‘Should I be worried?’
‘Nah, be grand. Just don’t try to save him. He has …’ she lapsed into a thoughtful pause ‘… a repulsive sort of charm.’
‘Repulsive charm. Gotcha. Are we getting another fishbowl of gin?’
‘I’d better go. Thanks for the gin.’
‘Thanks for the info.’
Jessie was scoping out the street, looking for her taxi, when her phone rang. Unknown number.
‘Jessie Parnell? Karl Brennan. Mary-Laine was on to me.’
‘That was quick. Did she explain?’
‘Some. We should meet. Is now good?’
‘Christ, you’re dynamic! Is that a management-consultant thing?’
‘Always.’
‘I’m on my way home. Tomorrow evening?’
‘Jack Black’s in Dawson Street. Seven o’clock? Email me your accounts for the last three years. I’ll text the address.’
‘Cara,’ Raoul said. ‘A word.’
What now? Today had been absolutely insane. Zachery was sick so they were down a receptionist. Plus every possible thing that could go wrong had gone wrong. Guests arriving early. A departing guest developing a strange stomach complaint and being too ill to leave. A half-empty bottle of red wine accidentally spilling on the white carpet of the Honeymoon Suite forty minutes before the happy couple arrived.
Cara had been firefighting for hours. No sooner was one drama resolved than another blew up.
Just now a guest who’d checked out this morning had called saying they’d left a pair of diamond cufflinks behind in a drawer – but the new guests were already in situ, with a Do Not Disturb sign on the door. The caller had talked wildly of injunctions and it took every fibre of Cara’s energy to persuade him to calm down.
The phone rang again, as Raoul said, ‘Don’t answer. What about your snack?’
‘My …?’ Oh, my God, her snack. She felt sick with embarrassment. ‘What time is it?’ It was two fifty-five p.m.: she hadn’t eaten in almost six hours.
‘I’m fine. Too busy to be hungry. Anyway …’ She indicated the phone.
‘Henry says you have to eat.’ Raoul sounded irritable. ‘We’ve a duty of care. But be quick.’
It seemed easier to comply than to stand there and argue, so she hurried towards the stairs, to eat her handful of nuts in the locker room.
‘Where are you going?’ Madelyn looked angry. And well she might. It was hours since anyone had even had a bathroom break.
‘Be back in a second.’
Cara scooted away, but not before she heard Ling say, ‘Where’s she off to?’
Several lone men haunted Jack Black’s, all looking a little post-work desperate. But the one who stood out sported sharply cut, silver-fox hair, a paunch, bloodshot blue eyes and a look-at-me suit with a faint but worrying metallic sheen.
Don’t be Karl Brennan.
‘Jessie?’ Mr Dodgy Suit asked. ‘Let’s grab a table!’
‘Before we go any further, are you very expensive?’ Jessie asked, when the drinks were ordered.
His smirk was lazily confident. ‘I charge in six-minute intervals. My rate.’ He scribbled a figure on a piece of paper, like he was in The Wolf of Wall Street, and slid it across to her.
‘Not your hourly rate?’ She had to check. ‘I’d better talk fast. Retail is dying, so everyone keeps telling me. Online is the future. Change or die.’
‘Yeeeaah. Something tells me you’re not crazy about making this change.’
‘My husband’s the one who wants to.’
‘What’s worrying you?’
‘A lot,’ she said.
‘Meter’s running.’
Quickly she spilt it all out: her fear of the banks, her fear of irrelevance, her fear of losing everything. Her belief and pride in the current set-up, her conviction that her chef-pestering was a lucrative endeavour.
‘I did something similar for AntiFreeze,’ he said. ‘Bespoke, high-end adventure clothing operating from a lone store in London. It was all about the personal – hand-fitted boots, goggles, everything. Converted the entire business to online. Managed to recreate some of the one-to-one dynamic, using computer scanning, instant messaging. Not perfect, admittedly. But turnover is up by over 2000 per cent.’
‘That sounds … hopeful. What now?’
‘I send you a contract. You pay a retainer. I’ll look at your accounts, do my research, pull together a few different proposals.’
‘Will they work? I won’t go out of business?’
He rolled his eyes. ‘I’m good. I never said I was bullet-proof!’
‘How long will it take? I’d like to have something for Johnny’s birthday, which is four weeks away.’
‘That’s insane,’ he said. ‘Too soon.’
‘So how long will it be? Because at your six-minute rate, I’ll be bankrupt if it goes on much