knees as three kids ran up to her and threw their arms around her. Gaz burst into tears and applauded, while Wayne clapped more sedately, seeming put out—though that might have been because one of Marian’s kids trod on his foot.
“The right baker won,” Gaz wept in his exit interview as Nick and Freddie and I lurked as close as we could manage. “Her tree was a work of genius. And perhaps it was karma that I lost by building a library I hardly went to at Oxford, eh? I knew I should’ve built the pub instead.”
With a laugh, the cameraman got one more shot of him hugging Cilla, and then trotted off to find Wayne, who seemed much happier now that his boyfriend had appeared.
“Jolly good job, Garamond,” one Niles Kensington said, striding up confidently and offering Gaz his hand.
“Thanks, good sir,” Gaz said, pumping Freddie’s hand absently. “Much appreciated.”
“Brilliant,” I added, coming up to Freddie’s right side.
Nick followed. “Rooted for you the whole way. It’s a crime.”
Cilla goggled at us. I sensed a lecture about to burst forth from her mouth but Gaz spoke up first.
“No, not at all, no miscarriage of justice here,” he said. “I should know, I’m a lawyer in my spare time.” He chuckled. “My sponge was a hair dry, and the cardamom in one of my fillings barely came through.”
“I’m sure it was wonderful just the same, Gaz,” I said, staring intently at him.
Gaz shifted under our collective gaze. “Taste it if you like—it’s over there,” he said. “Actually, I hope you won’t think I’m rude if I excuse myself to sample the other two cakes? I’m dead curious.”
Freddie blinked. “Er, yes, of course, one more handshake.” He clasped Gaz’s paw more firmly this time, and Gaz looked down at it, surprised.
“What a grip you’ve got,” he said, saluting Freddie and then walking off. Cilla, fighting laughter, trotted after him while flashing me the universal I’ll call you gesture.
“You know how all Superman does is change his outfit and put on a pair of glasses, and everyone’s fooled?” Nick said, watching them go. “I thought that was unrealistic. Then I met Gaz.”
Freddie and I laughed. I felt my phone buzz in my purse. Unknown number.
“There’s Annabelle,” I said, tapping the screen to answer. “Is the coast clear?”
“Hello, Rebecca. Are you enjoying the garden party?”
Clive. He’d found us. Somehow.
I looked around to my left and right as subtly as I could.
“Don’t panic in public. It’ll blow your marvelous disguise,” he said.
My skin crawled, and I fought my facial muscles into submission.
“Sorry, mate, wrong number, eh,” I managed in Margot’s bad Aussie accent, before hanging up with a flick of my thumb, keeping the phone up to my ear as if I were still talking—as if, by some miracle, Clive magically would think the woman he was looking at wasn’t me.
“It wasn’t Annabelle,” I rasped to Nick and Freddie. “We’ve got to get out of here. Now.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
But what did he want?”
I looked down at the phone in my lap. My fingers were still wrapped around it.
“I told you, I don’t know,” I said to Nick. “I hung up on him. I didn’t know what else to do. What if he was only guessing that we were there?”
Freddie drummed his fingers on the car door. “Yes, maybe that is what he wanted,” he said. “To mess with us. To remind us that he’s out there.”
“As if we could forget,” I said. “He wrote a story last week that I spend two thousand pounds a month on eyelash extensions.”
“We should’ve changed our mobiles,” Nick said. “I knew we should have. It just felt like a lot of palaver at the time.” He blanched. “What if he’s tracking yours? What if he’s hacked us?”
“If he was doing that, we’d know already,” Freddie said. “For one thing, his stories would be better.”
“We still need to change them,” Nick said. “You, too, Freddie. And perhaps even Daphne.”
“Hang on a sec,” I said, releasing my phone so I could hold up my hands. “Before we go crazy here, don’t we want to know what he’s up to?”
“I suppose so,” Nick said.
“Then why don’t we let him tell us?” I asked, swiveling so I could face them both in the Range Rover’s back seat. “Clive’s real nemesis is his ego, right? Bea said she thinks people are realizing he’s a one-scoop wonder. I bet he’s stirring the shit because he’s running out of options. So maybe it’s better if he can