CHAPTER 5
Normally, Eddie cycled into the city if he wanted fresh air and lunch at Gregg’s the bakers. He’d lock the bike to a cycle rack, pocket his cycle clips and either buy a takeaway cheese and ham baguette or an eat-in coronation chicken and lettuce baguette. He much preferred the coronation chicken but they dripped yellow curry and carrying it on the bike meant that only half was left by the time he returned to the laboratory.
That day, the rain of earlier having stopped, his lunch companion, Baroness Isobel Johnson, trotted beside him in her red high heels.
They weren’t talking because Eddie was feeling self-conscious and looking the other way hoping he wasn’t being watched by someone he knew. When he occasionally glanced at Isobel he felt as if he was accompanied by some sort of alien, a creature from a different world. He was also calculating the speed of walking. Normally, by bicycle, it took two and a half minutes but today it would be fifteen and a half. By the time they arrived at Gregg’s he’d already decided it had to be coronation chicken.
Isobel chose smoked salmon.
Fortunately, there was a spare table at the back next to a couple of old ladies with shopping bags on wheels so they scraped up two plastic chairs and settled with their baguettes on paper plates.
“Good?” Eddie asked with his mouth full.
“Delicious,” Isobel replied dabbing at her lips with a paper tissue.
Eddie bucked up courage. “So, what do you plan to do about the situation?” Such was the crusty texture of a fresh Gregg’s baguette that, as he spoke, fragments of bread flew across the table.
“Perhaps, I should speak to your private investigator friend,” Isobel said.
“Good idea,” Eddie replied putting his baguette down and extracting his faithful old Nokia from his jacket pocket. “This is his phone number. Do you want to call him?”
“Perhaps later.”
“No time like the present,” Eddie said pressing buttons. Isobel wiped her lips and opened her mouth as if to delay matters but she was far too late. The phone was already ringing in the Asher and Asher office in London.