“You’ve had a tough day, kid. I’m kidnapping you for a drink.”
Ellie hesitated, looking back at the mountains of work still to be done. But the ache in her back and the heaviness in her eyes made the decision for her. She nodded, grabbed her coat, and locked up Meadowfield Books for the night.
“So,” she said, looping her arms through her backpack as they set off up South Street. “The Drowsy Duck or The Old Bell?”
“It really has been a while, hasn’t it?” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “The Old Bell’s got a new landlady, Sammy. She’s turned the place around completely. The Duck, on the other hand...” He trailed off, shaking his head.
“What do you mean?” Ellie asked, curiosity piqued. “Why’s it so scary?”
Oliver shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “I don’t know, to be honest. I haven’t actually gone in there myself, but people say it’s… gone to the dogs. I don’t see many families heading there these days, let’s just say that.”
Ellie followed Oliver into The Old Bell, and the pub was packed. For a moment, she hesitated as heads turned in their direction and eyes from the past squinted in recognition at the returning Meadowling. Before she could turn around, Oliver unglued her from her spot and guided her to a small table in the corner.
“What’ll you have?” he asked, settling her into a chair.
“Half a cider,” Ellie replied, thinking back to the previous night. “Whatever I had a few sips of with Daniel was nice. Sammy might know what he ordered for me.”
“Cider. Hmm.” He hummed, his bottom lip puckering out. “I’d have put you down as a wine girl.”
Wondering what that meant as Oliver made his way to the bar, Ellie took in the room. People weren’t staring at her as much as she thought. Perhaps they hadn’t been when she walked in. That’s what you did when you walked into a pub, wasn’t it? Turned to see if you knew the person. But she remembered what Sylvia had said days ago when she’d given away that people had been discussing her in The Old Bell.
Trying not to overthink it, she looked at the bar to see how Oliver was getting on with their drinks and spotted PC Finn Walsh. He was once again hovering near Sammy, the young blonde landlady with the bubbly giggle. His attentiveness was almost comical. In the opposite corner of the bar, DS Angela Cookson sat slumped in her chair, a large glass of white wine clutched in her hand as she rolled the cool glass against her slender neck.
Oliver returned with their drinks, sliding Ellie’s cider across the table. He’d gone for a gin and lemonade.
“Our gran’s just around the corner, by the way,” he said. “Talking with some young lad all dressed up with nice hair.”
Ellie nodded, a bit taken aback by two things. She rarely thought about the fact that she and Oliver shared a grandmother. It was a stark reminder of their complicated family dynamics. The second thing was that her gran had promised her she’d walk straight home, and that had been over two hours ago.
“You know,” Ellie said, taking a sip of her sweet cider, “they all tried really hard to keep us apart as kids, and it worked. Each of us had separate access to Dad’s side of the family. We were never at Gran’s at the same time. Never with Dad at the same time.”
“Have either of us spent that much time with Dad?” Oliver’s eyebrows rose as he sipped his drink. “That man has the emotional intelligence of a housefly, and he’s far too obsessed with filling up his little bird book to be here when our gran has a broken hip.” He held his hands up as though to say ‘but I’m saying nothing.’ “Does he know you’re back?”
“I haven’t told him yet, and I don’t know if I’m back.”
Oliver rolled his eyes. “It seems like you’re back to me.”
“Back to our forced separation as children,” Ellie said, stamping her finger down on the table.
“Mmm, diving headfirst into the childhood trauma on the first drink. I love it. I wish my dating life went more like this.”
“I can’t tell if you’re talking.”
“Me neither.” He shrugged, nudging her. “Go on then.”
“Well, which of our mothers came up with that brilliant idea that we couldn’t co-exist without the village collapsing in on itself?”
Oliver considered his response for a moment, glancing over his shoulder at his mother as he slurped through his straw. “Both of them. They’re both weirdos in their own way, but got to love them for it.” He toasted before tilting his glass towards Ellie. “And to you being back. You should tell Dad. It might get him back in the village. You’re his favourite.”
“I’m not.” Ellie laughed at the suggestion. “Am I?”
He sipped his drink again, raising his eyebrows as though to say ‘I’m saying nothing.’ Ellie liked Oliver in the café, but she liked Oliver in the pub a little more.
“You have to stay though,” he said, putting his drink down for the first time. “I’m starting to get invested in this having a sister thing. I know it’s only been a few days, but you might be the most normal person I’ve ever met in Meadowfield. It’s refreshing.”
“I feel far from whatever normal is,” she said as she squinted at Angela Cookson. The detective sergeant was on her phone, her face a carving of confusion. After hanging up, Angela downed some wine and strode over to Finn across the bar, shaking her head as she said something. Finn repeated, “Invisible ink?”
Ellie stood up, just as Maggie appeared from around the corner. Her grandmother looked surprised to see her, as if caught doing something she shouldn’t. Behind Maggie, Charles Blackwood emerged, fiddling with his glasses, causing Ellie to arch a brow at her gran.
But there was something more pressing.
“Invisible ink?” Maggie asked, taking the lead. “What’s going on, Angela?”
“You shouldn’t be eavesdropping.” She paused, then added, “The manuscript I confiscated from your master criminal granddaughter earlier,” she paused to glare at Ellie out the corner of her eye, “was covered in enough fluorescent dye that the whole thing lit up like a Jackson Pollock under testing.”
“Invisible ink?” Maggie echoed. “How? Like, a spill, or writing?”
“I don’t know yet,” Angela replied, irritation clear in her voice, already bored with explaining herself. She turned to Ellie. “And where is this Roman coin that you stole from my crime scene? I’ve still got grounds to arrest you.”
“Play nice, Mother,” Oliver teased. “Keep frowning like that those lines between your brows will stick.”
Angela made a quick effort to relax her face. Not that she took her eyes off Ellie as she tried to figure out a way to avoid outing herself as being the biggest klutz in Meadowfield—nothing came to mind.
“Its current location is unknown to me,” Ellie admitted. “But it will be somewhere.”
“Somewhere isn’t good enough!”
Oliver joined the group, asking, “Roman coin?” He reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out the very thing. “I thought it was fake or something. Found it on the café floor this morning. Was going to look it up online if nobody claimed it.”
