“Hello, Holly,” he says cheerfully. “Mum said you’d popped in earlier. I must have missed you. Got yourself some bacon rolls, I see.”
“Martin, you have a car, don’t you?” I say, hope suddenly sparking in my chest. “You couldn’t drive me to the airport, could you?”
Martin’s china-blue eyes widen in surprise.
“The airport?” he says, sounding like he’s only just heard of the concept. “I don’t know, Holly. That’s over an hour, even in good traffic. Mind you, if I took the motorway, I suppose that would shave off a few minutes. We’d have to come off at Hawkesbury, though; the junction after that’s closed. Roadworks, apparently.”
“Right,” I reply, barely listening. “Please, Martin,” I add, aware that I’m begging, but not really caring. “I wouldn’t ask, but I’m desperate. I really need to get to the airport.”
“Well—” Martin pauses, and I can tell he’s torn between the need to feel important, and his reluctance at undertaking a journey by road without meticulously planning it first.
“You’re my only hope,” I say, remembering he’s a big Star Wars fan, and this is something Princess Leia says in the movie. It works for her — at least, as far as I remember — and, to my knee-sagging relief, it works for me, too.
“Well, I suppose I’m not doing anything this morning,” Martin replies, his chest puffed out with importance. “We’ll have to stop to fill the car up, though. It’s unwise to start a long journey without a full tank. And I should probably check the tire pressure, too.”
“Sure, sure,” I say quickly, grabbing his arm and starting to steer him towards the road, where I know he normally parks. “I’ll pay for the fuel. And your time. I’ll buy you new tires, even. Anything you like. You can have both of the bacon rolls. Just … please, can we go? Right now?”
Martin nods, his cheeks turning even pinker at the sight of my hand on his arm.
“Anything to help a damsel in distress,” he says gallantly. “To the airport we go.”
And that’s exactly what we do.
23
Okay, it’s not quite amillionpieces. It’s more like three, really. But in the long moments that pass after the wooden snow globe box hits the floor, it seems to me that this is the kind of tragedy that can only be adequately summed up with the generous use of hyperbole; and, luckily, that’s one of the things I’m good at.
“Oh my God, Elliot, I’msosorry,” I gasp, tears pricking dangerously at the back of my eyes as I kneel down to inspect the damage. “Seriously, I can’t believe how clumsy I am. I’ll … I’ll pay you for it, though, I promise. I know that’s not going to make it any better, because it’s basically irreplaceable, but … Oh God, this is awful.”
I sit back on my heels, looking at the broken pieces of Evie’s work box. As luck would have it, the glass globe somehow landed on the sofa, so it miraculously survived the fall. And the little people, and other small pieces, are obviously okay too. But the lid of the box has come off, as has the base, and I reach for it now, wondering if there’s some way it can be fixed.
“I really am sorry,” I say again, glancing up at Elliot, who’s suspiciously quiet for a man who’s just watched the one thing he came all this way for, fall apart right before his eyes. “I’ll take it to … someone … as soon as I get home, and see if it can be fixed. A carpenter, maybe. Or … an antiques dealer, maybe?”
Elliot, however, doesn’t answer. I’m not sure he’s evenlistening, actually.
Maybe it’s the shock? Maybe I should get him a glass of water? Or brandy, if he has it? Isn’t that what people on TV always use for shock?
“What’s that?” he says suddenly, breaking the silence.
“What’s what?” I look around in confusion as he drops to the floor beside me, looking much more excited than I’d really have expected him to be about buying something only for his ex to instantly break it.
“Look, Holly. Look at this!”
Elliot reaches out and picks up the wooden base of the box, which I haven’t dared touch yet, because I’ve been so busy trying to figure out how to reunite the lid with the sides. But now that I look at it properly, I see what’s got his attention.
“Is that …?”
I shuffle closer as Elliot turns the wooden base over in his hands, revealing a large gap at the bottom, through which something thin and papery can just be seen.
“There’s a compartment in the bottom of this,” he says, examining it. “Look.”
I look. And he’s right. What appeared to be the bottom of the box, is actually a kind of lid; one which Elliot carefully pries open with his fingertips.
“A secret compartment,” I breathe, feeling like a little kid again, hiding in a corner of the bookstore with one of her favorite mystery stories. “I can’t believe there’s a secret compartment.”
There is, though. And, all of a sudden, it springs open, spilling a bunch of folded paper onto the floor, all of it a distinctive pale blue color.
Letters.
