He was just some lad with a lilting Edinburgh accent and brown eyes like the cold water of the Nithy burn when it ran slow and languorous in summer. Nothing special. And since The Thing with Gray she wasn’t looking for anything else, special or otherwise.
‘I actually have a repair job for you,’ he was saying, cutting through her thoughts, none of which she hoped were showing on her face.
She watched him open the bag and look inside. He was hesitating like he might change his mind. He lifted his eyes to hers as he reached a hand in.
Sadness, she thought. There was only a tiny flash of it in his eyes, but she caught it. She could feel something in him aching too, could picture him with tears on his cheeks instead of raindrops.
Why was she frightened all of a sudden? Not of him, but of catching these feelings coming off him.
‘It’s not tech, is it?’ she managed to ask, pleased she’d made it sound so casual.
‘No, it’s…’
To her surprise, he pulled out a hairy coo, small in his hands, strangely sweet held against his broad chest. The contrast sent her nerves into a grand fireworks finale and she grabbed her bag off the floor to avoid him noticing.
‘Then that’s definitely not for me. Repairs go to Sachin for triaging first, anyway. Mum,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘I’m off to do some work at the library.’
If she left now she could smarten up her CV and do a job search before lunch. That was her big plan for abandoning her workbench and Jamie Beaton and his plushie, and all this… weirdness. Yes, she told herself decidedly. That would be a good use of her time.
‘It’s not like anyone’s coming in…’
The crunch of footsteps on the gravel contradicted her. Still her feet didn’t stop conveying her towards the door. She didn’t make it far, pushed back inside by the woman stepping in.
‘Ah! It’s just yourselves? No customers?’ she was saying in a well-to-do voice. The woman was fastening up a golf umbrella. ‘I’m Peaches’s mother, Carenza.’
Ally recognised the woman from the letting agency signs that were popping up across the region. Carenza McDowell’s face, framed with poker-straight white-blonde hair, smirked out from all of them.
Roz had crossed the floor in seconds and shaken the woman’s hand and introduced herself before asking if Peaches was poorly today.
The woman straightened her neck and stood tall. ‘I’m afraid her father and I took the decision to discourage Peaches from attending today.’
Ally steadied herself. She was staying to hear this, for sure.
‘Willie won’t be coming either. His mother and I were of one mind. We’re members of the same Women in Business association. We talk.’
‘And what mind is that?’ asked Ally, making Carenza turn to face her.
Still the woman wouldn’t be flustered. She set her head at an angle, looking down her fine nose at Ally. ‘We wouldn’t want them getting side-tracked from their studies, volunteering here.’
Roz made her way to Ally’s side and stayed her from saying anything further by gently taking her hand.
‘I see,’ Roz said. ‘We thought they were happy here? And getting valuable work experience.’
‘So did we,’ Carenza replied. ‘Until it became clear there was a… criminal element at work.’
‘Oh, now!’ Senga huffed from across the shed, coming out from behind her counter.
‘News reports, photographs online,’ Carenza went on. ‘These are things that can tarnish a young person’s reputation before they’ve even completed their studies. Imagine if their names had been printed in the reports. That could follow them around for a long time, and those two are destined for the very top.’
Roz squeezed Ally’s hand once more, cutting off the indignant things her daughter wanted to blurt in this woman’s face.
‘We understand,’ Roz said. ‘Young people today have enough standing in their way of success without being tarnished with… guilt by association, but you should know we were absolutely absolved of any wrongdoing. It was a case of the repair shop being used by opportunistic thieves. We really had no idea.’
‘That’s as may be,’ Peaches’s mother went on. ‘But for now, it’s best they concentrate on their summer design showcases, I’m sure you’ll agree. Anyway, I’d best be off. Lots to do.’
Roz moved to let the woman leave, gently tugging Ally aside too.
‘Tell them we’ll miss them very much, especially me,’ Roz said as Carenza went. ‘They were such wonderful helpers, and they’ll leave a big gap at the repair shop.’
