The closer she got to Doreton, the bigger the knot of dread in her stomach grew. She expected to see Suranna throwing bricks at the right house this time, but there was no activity other than a kid racing up and down the pavement on a bike. Still, her skull prickled with anxiety as she zapped open her garage door and it was only when she was safely inside number 34A that her nerves began to settle.
She was a wreck. She texted Lilian to say that she was home and safe but she was neither. This wasn’t her home and she didn’t feel safe. She felt on edge and stressed and tense and terribly guilty about what had happened to Melissa’s house and car. She felt mad with worry about what she was going to do about her job. How could she possibly go back there? She couldn’t. So what the buggery bollocks was she going to do?
*
Somehow, in the wee small hours when Marnie was forced to finally shut down and recharge, her brain gave a great sigh, put its hands on its hips and set out to build something from the broken pieces of her life, then attempted to present it to her as a dream. It cobbled old memories of Mrs McMaid with new information about Jessie and her pie-making in Little Raspberries. It pulled in Wychwell and Lilian Dearman and their first meeting in Skipperstone in the Tea Lady tearoom then sat back and waited. It was as worthy a plan as Marnie brought to the corporate table in Laurence’s boardroom.
Marnie woke up at just after seven a.m. with her head spinning. She sat at the kitchen table with a very strong coffee and raked over the ridiculous notion that was resolutely sitting in her little grey cells. She couldn’t. How could she? It was stupid. Wasn’t she supposed to be an intelligent woman, and here she was having the thoughts of a madwoman. But desperate thoughts came to desperate people.
She got dressed quickly. She had emergency shopping to do in Tesco.
Chapter 12
That afternoon Marnie sat at a corner table in the Tea Lady in Skipperstone trying not to believe that she was about to make the biggest tit of herself imaginable. Then again, how much worse could it get? She tried to concentrate on the menu in front of her because if she started thinking about what she was about to do, she would walk out.
A young waitress in a liveried black dress and white apron emerged from a door behind the till counter and waved to her. ‘Mrs Abercrombie will see you now,’ she said. Marnie stood up on shaking legs and picked up the large food container she had brought with her. She followed the waitress down a short corridor and knocked on the door at the end.
‘Come in,’ boomed a deep, smoky voice.
The waitress opened the door for Marnie then left her to it. Marnie walked into the small office balancing the plastic box with one hand, the other extended towards Fiona Abercrombie, a large buxom woman with short, cropped white hair and long dangly earrings.
‘Mrs Abercrombie, Marnie Salt. Thank you for seeing me at such short notice.’ Marnie’s own voice was a confident act belying a jelly interior.
‘Do sit down.’ Mrs Abercrombie indicated the chair at the other side of her desk.
Marnie sat and rested the box on her knee.
‘Ten out of ten for balls,’ said Mrs Abercrombie. ‘You intrigued me.’
Marnie had rung her that morning with the opening line: ‘Mrs Abercrombie. I have to say that as much as I love your tearoom in Skipperstone, your cheesecakes are appalling.’ She’d expected the phone to be slammed down. It hadn’t been.
‘Are those samples?’ Mrs Abercrombie pointed to the box.
‘Yes.’ Marnie peeled the lid from the large square container and lifted out the contents. Squares of cheesecake sat on foil. Marnie took her through the various flavours as every one was different.
‘Lime and ginger, white chocolate and raspberry, trillionaire’s shortbread, old English trifle, chocolate rum truffle, prosecco and strawberry, honeycomb and caramel.’
‘Goodness. You are inventive,’ said Mrs Abercrombie with a note of surprise in her words.
‘I can also do a gin, tonic and lemon one, pina colada, dark chocolate and coconut . . . well, any flavour you like. Even liquorice.’ Marnie handed her a plastic spork from a packet which she’d also brought.
Mrs Abercrombie dived straight into the trifle cheesecake.
‘The fruit didn’t have a lot of time to sit in the sherry so the flavour will be lacking, but I usually soak it overnight,’ Marnie explained, trying to read from Mrs Abercrombie’s expression what she thought. Was that a slight nod of approval?
Mrs Abercrombie moved on to the trillionaire’s shortbread now. There, a definite ‘mmm’ sound of appreciation.
‘Discretion absolutely guaranteed,’ said Marnie, which was obviously the wrong thing to say as Mrs Abercrombie shot her a look.
‘Erm . . . I mean that I have no idea what your present set-up is,’ Marnie quickly amended, ‘but, if you bought your cheesecakes from me, no one need think anything other than that they are made in the Tea Lady’s own kitchens.’
Crisis averted. Mrs Abercrombie moved on to the next sample.
‘Who else do you supply?’ she asked, after swallowing a mouthful of the chocolate rum truffle.
‘No one. I was taught by the best cheesecake maker in the world, who trained under Gaston Lenôtre in Paris,’ Marnie lied. ‘Family circumstances prevented me from pursuing my chosen career as a patisserie chef, but I have finally decided that I can no longer deny the reason I believe I was put on earth for. I have no interest in opening up a café or a shop, I don’t want to deal with the general public, only business to business.’
Lies came so easily when you half-believed them yourself, thought Marnie. No wonder Justin was so seasoned at them.
‘Interesting,’ said Mrs Abercrombie, studying the taste. ‘I detect something quite unusual. Too subtle to interfere, but a definite presence. What is it?’
Mrs McMaid’s secret ingredient, that’s what it was.
‘Ah, a pinch of something Lenôtre passed down to my mentor, and she to me. I would be breaking a solemn vow if I revealed it.’
‘Intriguing,’ mused Mrs Abercrombie. ‘They are excellent. What are your hygiene standards like?’
Marnie forced an affronted look. ‘Exemplary,’ she said. ‘You could do operations on my kitchen table. I have the highest standards.’
‘I would insist on a contract being drawn up, of absolute discretion. I would insist on a visit to your kitchens and the possibility of spot-checks. All cakes must be boxed at your end in my packaging which vans will collect and distribute. I have fifteen outlets. Have you time to sit down now and discuss full terms and conditions?’
‘Yes,’ Marnie said with a dry throat, so she coughed and repeated the word. ‘Yes.’
Mrs Abercrombie pressed a buzzer down on an old-fashioned intercom system on her desk. A crackly voice answered, ‘Yes, Mrs Abercrombie.’
‘Janet, have two teas sent through, please.’
Mrs Abercrombie drove a ridiculously hard bargain, but the profits would give Marnie a living wage – just. Nothing like what she earned at Café Caramba, but enough so that she didn’t have to survive on Cup-a-Soups and tins of tomatoes as she had for a spell in her first bedsit.
She sat in the car and took lots of calming deep breaths before setting off back home. Her mother’s voice was shouting in her inner ear, even more furious than usual: ‘What are you thinking, you stupid girl?’ She wasn’t thinking, was the honest answer. She was going with the flow, albeit a very strange flow.