‘You got this list?’ she said. I nodded and reached under my chair to pull the piece of paper from my rucksack.
Jaz smoothed it across her thigh with the side of her hand and read it.
I counted them off on my fingers. ‘One, he dressed well. Two, he was into books. Three, his mother collects cats. And he made me laugh, so he’s funny too.’
‘What was his bum like?’
‘I didn’t see. He looked like he was in pretty good shape. But what if it’s like that Tom Hanks film?’
Jaz snapped her head up and frowned. ‘Which one?’
‘The one where he makes a wish and it comes true, and he’s an adult when he wakes up in the morning. What if this is like that?’
‘You think you’ve written a list describing your perfect man and now it’s come true?’ Jaz looked at me sideways. It was the sort of look you’d give an adult who’d just announced they’d believed in fairies. ‘Girl, you need to get laid.’
‘Yes, all right, so everyone keeps telling me,’ I said, remembering Eugene’s joke about his mum as I snatched the piece of paper back. I felt a flash of bad temper. Yes, I was unpractised when it came to dating, but it wasn’t as if Jaz was the relationship oracle. After Leon, there’d been a succession of boyfriends and the last one, who she insisted was ‘the one’, turned out to have a wife and kids in Solihull.
‘Just be careful, babe,’ she went on, making me feel guilty for such mean thoughts. ‘Listen, why don’t you tell me where you have this coffee, and I’ll come along too? I can sit at a different table like a bodyguard? You won’t even notice me. I’ll be totally incoherent.’
‘Incognito.’
‘Exactly.’
Luckily, Stephen called out Jaz’s name and asked if there was anything she wanted to share, to show Paul how it was done ‘as a valued and long-standing member of the group’. Jaz, inflated with pride, stood up and started explaining her story, beginning with how she knew she had to get help when she was eating Bird’s Eye chicken jalfrezi for breakfast. I sat in my small chair thinking. Should I be worried? He didn’t seem like a psychopath. But maybe that’s what psychopaths wanted you to think? I folded the list before shifting in my tiny chair. Jaz was just being overprotective. I’d meet him in a public place and all would be fine. I just had to remember not to wear my work shoes.
The shop was already unlocked when I arrived the next day. I dropped the keys in my bag and pushed open the door.
‘Hello?’
I expected to hear Norris’s voice from downstairs but no reply. Then I noticed the counter. Usually it was tidy. Order book in place, the previous day’s Post-it notes thrown away, pens in the pot, any paperwork that needed to be looked at by Norris in the in-tray. But the till drawer was open and loose papers covered the counter, held down by a motorbike helmet.
I glanced at the rest of the shop. Books had been moved, too. The biography table was a mess and a pile of hardbacks had cascaded to the floor. I stepped towards it and noticed a mug rolled on its side, its contents making a dark pool on the floorboards. ‘Oh my God,’ I murmured. A burglary! This was a crime scene!
I froze as I heard steps behind me.
‘Hello,’ said a male voice.
I spun round to see a stranger looming over me, a mop in one hand and a bucket in the other.
‘Are you a burglar or a new cleaner?’ I asked, confused. He was huge and, in my defence, dressed like someone who operated mostly at night: black T-shirt that stretched across his broad shoulders, black jeans and black Doc Martens boots. He also had wild, curly black hair and black tattoos that snaked down both arms.
‘Neither, as it happens,’ he went on, brushing past me with his cleaning equipment and stepping down into the non-fiction section. ‘But I dropped my coffee while checking this place out so thought I’d better clean it up before Norris gets in.’
How did this giant know Norris?
‘I’m Zach, by the way, nice to meet you.’ He put down the bucket and held out a large hand, forcing me to step towards him and shake it. I felt annoyed at his casual manner. What was this man doing in here throwing coffee?
‘How do you know Norris?’
He started mopping but he was an inefficient mop wringer who transported more water from the bucket to the floor than vice versa, moving it around the floorboards, before dunking the mop back into the bucket and repeating the process. I couldn’t bear it.
‘Give it to me,’ I said, holding my hand out.
‘OK,’ he said, handing the mop over. More dripping on the floorboards. ‘I’m going to make another coffee. Want one?’
‘No thanks. And I hope you don’t think me rude but who are you exactly?’
‘I’m Zach.’
‘Yes, you said. But what do you mean? There isn’t a Zach who works here.’
‘Norris’s nephew,’ he said. ‘Did he not mention me? I’m coming in for a bit. To help with the website. And the social side of things. I’m a photographer but between jobs at the moment and he needed help so, here I am.’ He flung his arms wide as if to demonstrate his physical presence even further.
‘Right,’ I said, as I bent over and tried to get the water from the floorboards back into the bucket. ‘Did you need help with the till?’ I nodded at the counter.
‘Yeah, sorry,’ he said. ‘I was trying to find Norris’s password.’
‘Password?’
‘For his computer, downstairs.’
‘Oh. It’s bottom123.’
‘Bottom?’
I looked up from the mop. ‘It’s the donkey in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, my colleague’s idea of a joke.’
‘You guys sound wild. I’ll be in his office if you need me.’
He headed for the stairs before I could reply and left me mopping with the fury of a woman who’d just found an alien pair of knickers in my marital bed. Such an air of entitlement! And how typical of Norris not to have mentioned him. Improving the shop’s website and social media had been my idea. If this tattooed nephew couldn’t even wield a mop, how was he going to improve our financial situation?
Eugene came through the door minutes later. ‘Good morning, fair colleague,’ he said, sweeping an arm out in front of him. Then he stopped and frowned. ‘What are you doing?’
I wrung out the mop for the last time. ‘Cleaning up after our new colleague.’
‘What new colleague?’
‘Norris’s nephew. Called Zach.’
‘I didn’t know he had a nephew,’ said Eugene, rotating his arm around his neck to unpeel his silk scarf. Then he snapped his fingers at me to get my attention. ‘Maybe he’s related to Shirley?’ he whispered.
‘No idea. Didn’t ask him.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Downstairs.’
‘I might go and say hello.’
I followed him downstairs to stash the mop and bucket back into the cupboard. Zach was hunched over Norris’s computer in his cramped office, muttering at the keyboard.
‘Zach,