I Put a Spell on You (24 page)

“There’s nothing going on between Jamie and me. We’re old friends, that’s all. He’s a mess, H. He’s staying in my spare room and brooding over the fact that the fiancée he adores has been kissing another man.”

“Esme says she saw you together,” I said, moodily, still gripping Louise’s hand.

“She probably did,” Lou said. “But she didn’t see us doing anything we shouldn’t have done. We’re mates.”

I really, really wanted to believe her but I still wasn’t sure.

“I’m gay,” Louise said in an exasperated voice. “I’m gay and I came here tonight to see if you wanted to go out for dinner.”

“Really?” I said.

“Really.”

Despite the aching tiredness in my bones, and the dread I felt about what was happening to my business and my family, I grinned.

“You were going to ask me out?”

“I was thinking about it, until you got all moody.”

“Go on then,” I was still holding Louise’s hand.

“What?” she said.

“Ask me out.”

“Well, I can’t now, can I?” she said, smiling back at me. “It’s a thing now, it’s all too embarrassing.”

I looked at her, standing under the orange light. Her short hair was immaculate and she looked stylish in her long camel-coloured coat. My stomach did a flip-flop.

I pulled her towards me so we were standing close together. She was taller than me, so when I leaned in to kiss her, I had to tilt my head upwards.

When we broke apart, I smiled at her again.

“I’m starving,” I said. “Did you mention dinner?”

Together, we walked down the hill and into Stockbridge, where we chose a quiet bistro for our first date. It didn’t feel like a first date though, I was so comfortable with Lou that I felt all my spiky edges softening. I remembered reading somewhere that hedgehogs’ spikes soften when they’re happy and thought that maybe I was like that.

When we’d finished eating, and were sitting back in our chairs, stomachs full and wine glasses almost empty, beaming at each other and drinking coffee, Louise reached across the table and touched my hand.

“What were you worrying about, earlier?” she asked. “When you were walking home, you looked awfully sad.”

In a rush I remembered the events of the day.

“Oh god,” I said, draining my wine glass. “I’d almost managed to block it all out.”

I explained everything that had happened – the email and the deleted client list. Louise listened intently, then she fished out her phone.

“I’ll get our IT guys onto it,” she said, dialling a number. “Claire,” she said as someone answered. “It’s Lou.”

I felt a momentary flash of jealousy as she laughed at something the woman on the line said, then quashed it as she outlined the problem and said it was urgent.

“Tell her all the details,” she said, passing me the phone.

Claire turned out to be a softly-spoken woman with a Welsh accent. Efficiently she asked me lots of questions, then asked if I had a laptop.

“Yes,” I said. “I’ve got it with me actually.”

“Could you drop it into the station?” she asked.

“Now?” I said, looking at my watch. “It’s late.”

“Crime never sleeps,” Claire said, then laughed as I stayed silent, unsure how to react; police humour was new to me.

“I’m on the late shift,” she explained. “I’ll be here until eight in the morning. It’s quiet, so I can take a look now if you like.”

I arranged to meet her in reception at the police station, then hung up and handed Louise’s phone to her.

“She’s going to have a look,” I said, feeling better about it all than I had all day. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Louise said, signalling for the bill. “Let’s wait to hear what she has to say first.”

Chapter 35

Despite my late night, I was up with the lark the next day. I was still in my yoga gear, my hair pulled into a ponytail when Louise arrived.

I grinned at her and she grinned back, then kissed me gently on the mouth.

“Morning,” she said. “I brought your laptop back.”

I grimaced. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know what had happened.

“And I brought you these,” she said, producing a bunch of daffodils from behind her back. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

I kissed her again.

“You old soppy thing,” I said. “I didn’t even know what the date was today. I can, though, offer you breakfast. Would you like some?”

“Ooh yes.” She said, following me into the kitchen. “I’ve eaten but it seems like hours ago now.”

I put two bagels in the toaster, and filled the kettle, then Esme wandered in.

I’d barely seen her all week though I knew she’d emerged for a while yesterday because the sheets from her bed had been in the washing machine when I came home. I’d hoped it was a sign that she might be getting back to the real world.

It seemed I was wrong, though, because she was still in her pyjamas, she hadn’t brushed her hair, and she smelt of stale sweat and heartbreak.

She glowered at Lou as she came into the room.

“What is she doing here?” she asked.

“Good morning,” I said, all sweetness and light. “Louise has come to see me.”

Esme pulled her dressing gown cord tighter round her waist.

“I don’t want her here,” she said, ignoring Louise. “Please ask her to leave.”

Louise was still holding my laptop. Now she put it on the table and turned to Esme.

“Esme,” she said. “I know you’re upset, but listen to me.”

“No,” she said. She turned to go, and gasped as I shot a shower of sparks over her head and slammed the door shut in her face.

“Open the door, Harry,” she said.

“No, I won’t,” I said. “Sit down, shut up and listen to Lou.”

Out of options, Esme pulled out a chair and looked up at Louise.

“Go on then,” she said rudely.

Louise sat down opposite Esme.

“I don’t know what you think is going on between me and Jamie,” she began. “But you’re wrong. I’m involved with someone else.”

Esme shrugged her bony shoulders.

“Is that it?”

She stood up, then sat down again in a hurry as I propelled the chair into the back of her knees.

“Stop it, Harry,” Esme said.

“Listen to Louise,” I said. “Listen.”

“Jamie’s staying in my spare room,” Louise said. “He’s in a terrible state. He keeps listening to your voicemails…”

“Does he?” she said, sensing a glimmer of hope. “Really?”

“He does,” she said. “You need to sort things out.”

“I know,” Esme said, burying her face in her hands. “But I don’t know how.”

I put my hand on her shoulder.

“We can help,” I said. “But you need to help yourself. Have you heard from Xander?”

Esme nodded.

“I’ve not replied,” she said. “I’ve been ringing Jamie, over and over, but not Xander. He’s been emailing me. I’ve had at least one email from him every day, saying that he was sorry Jamie had found out about us the way he had.”

She looked at me, huge purple smudges under her eyes, and whispered: “There is no us.”

“I know,” I said. “I know, sweetheart. Carry on.”

“He’s been saying that he wants to see me and he can’t stop thinking about me.”

I pulled out a chair and sat next to her, taking her hand.

“Are you thinking about him?” I asked.

“Kind of,” she admitted. “I feel sort of unsteady on my feet, like I used to when we were wee and we’d get the ferry over to Orkney for our holidays, you know?”

I nodded; it sounded to me like my worst fears were being realised.

“It’s Xander who makes me feel that way. All I want is to win Jamie back, but when I’m around Xander, and even when I open his emails, I feel strange. My skin crackles like there’s static electricity in the air and I can only focus on him.”

“Magic,” I said. “It’s bloody magic.”

Esme looked doubtful.

“You can’t enchant someone to fall in love with you,” she said. “I know that for a fact.”

“This isn’t love,” I said. “It’s lust, infatuation, obsession. It’s not love.”

“Who would do that?” Esme said. “Who would enchant me to fall for Xander?”

It was a fair question, and the only answer I had was Xander. He was the only person I could think of who would benefit. But once again, I wondered if he had the magical ability. And, of course, the timings didn’t work – Esme hadn’t started teaching him magic until after this whole infatuation began. My head hurt just thinking about it.

Louise shifted slightly in her chair.

“Erm,” she said. “About Xander.”

Esme and I looked at her. She bit her lip.

“The emails from yesterday,” she said. Esme looked lost – of course she didn’t know what had happened.

“I sent an email out saying we were reopening,” I said. “But it was swapped for one saying we were closing for good.”

“Shit,” Esme said.

“Anyway, when I went to resend the email saying we were definitely open, our client database had been wiped.”

“Shit,” Esme said again.

“My colleague’s been having a look,” Louise said. “And she found something.”

I felt queasy with nerves.

“What?” I said. “What did she find?”

“The emails were sent from the spa,” Lou said.

“But there was no one there except me and Xander,” I said. “Oh…”

“What?” Esme said. “You’re not seriously suggesting Xander would do this?”

“No,” I said, uncertainly. “Of course not.”

“But that’s definitely where they came from,” Louise said. “It’s all on the server. The deleted mail, and the replacement. So it makes sense to think the client database was deleted from the same place.”

We all looked at each other. And then the doorbell rang.

Esme went into the hall and picked up the entry phone.

“Hello?” I heard her say. Then her voice went wobbly. “Come up.”

She buzzed open the door then came back into the kitchen.

“Speak of the devil,” she said, in a shaky voice. “It’s Xander.”

Chapter 36

As soon as Xander came into the kitchen, I could tell Esme was lost again. She rubbed her arms in her pink pyjamas and I looked at her. Was her skin crackling?

Most worrying was that Esme couldn’t stop smiling at Xander. He winked at her and she giggled. I shot her a look that could have stopped traffic.

Xander sat down, somehow fitting his long legs under the table, and looked at me.

“What’s up, H?” he said. “Why does everyone look so serious?”

I took a breath.

“That email, the one saying we were closed,” I said, diving straight in. “It was sent from the spa.”

Xander looked back at me.

“What are you saying?” he said, his eyes narrowed. “Are you saying I sent it?”

“There was no one else there,” I said.

“You were there,” he pointed out.

“Why would I sabotage my own business?”

“Why would I?”

He had a point.

“It’s not your business, though, is it,” I said. I wondered how much I should say. “Maybe you’re jealous.”

Xander looked at me for a minute, his eyes dark with rage. Then he laughed.

“Jealous?” he said, chuckling. “Darling H, no.”

I was confused.

“I adore you and I adore working for you,” he said. “But I don’t want to be the boss, and I certainly don’t want to ruin the best job I’ve ever had.”

“What about the emails?” I said.

“A hacker?” he suggested. “God, if they can delete our whole database it’s got to be someone who’s a bit handy with computers.”

Louise nodded.

“It could be,” she said. “I’ll get Claire to do some more digging.”

“So are we good?” Xander said, grinning his gorgeous grin at me.

“We’re good,” I said, smiling back.

But we weren’t. Not really. Despite what I’d said, I was becoming more and more convinced that Xander was behind all this. I just couldn’t work out how he’d done it, or why, or how I was ever going to prove it.

Meanwhile, Esme was furious.

“No we’re not good,” she said. “How can you just accuse Xander of doing something so terrible?”

I squared my shoulders and reminded myself that if I was right, this wasn’t the real Esme at all.

“I didn’t accuse him,” I said in a falsely calm voice. “I just asked him if he knew anything about it.”

“You accused him,” she said. “You can’t just keep throwing the blame at everyone you meet, Harry.”

“Ez,” Xander said. He put his hand on her arm, and I watched in shock as she shivered in delight at the closeness of him. “Leave it.”

“No,” she said. “I won’t. First Harry thought I was to blame, now she’s accusing you. She’s lost her mind.”

“For god’s sake, Ez,” I said. “Calm down.”

“Calm down?” she wailed. “How can I? This is all such a mess. I had nothing to do with all this, and nor did Xander. For all I know he was right – the only other person in the spa when the email was sent was you. Are you doing this in some sick attempt to get attention? Is that what this is?”

There was silence. I looked at her in disgust. Magic or no magic, she’d gone too far.

“The only thing that’s a mess is you, Esme,” I said. “Have a wash, get dressed and think about how you’ve broken Jamie’s heart. Maybe that will help you grow up a bit.”

I picked up my laptop.

“Come on, Louise,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”

Louise went to work, and I went to the spa and waited until Xander slunk in, much later. I didn’t want to think about what he and Esme had been doing back at home.

I was hopelessly out of my depth and I needed expert help – I needed Mum and Tess. It looked like I would be heading back to Claddach again. And somehow I needed to get Esme to come with me.

When Xander arrived, I tracked him down in his office.

“I’m taking Esme away for a couple of days,” I said, pretending I was just a concerned cousin. “Can you take care of stuff here?”

Xander looked delighted.

“Of course I can,” he said. “That’s a great idea.”

“I’m going now,” I said, screwing up my nose. “Like right now. Is that okay?”

Xander almost did a little dance.

“A-Okay,” he said. “Don’t worry about a thing.”

With my heart in my boots, I picked up some bits, said goodbye to Nancy, who was becoming indispensible on reception, and went home. As I walked along the main road, wondering about how to get Esme to agree to come to Claddach, my phone rang.