Mr. Townsend smiles. “I’ll speak to Uma,” he says, planting his stick and setting off into the lobby. “She can never say no to a guest, that one.”
* * *
? ? ? ? ?
“isn’t this nice?” Izzy says from the back seat of my car. “A team trip to Budgens!”
Things have escalated. I’m not sure Mr. Townsend is very pleased about this—his aim, I suspect, was to get Izzy and me together outside the hotel, having observed the way I looked at her in the dining room and decided to play matchmaker. But Ollie overheard us talking about the trip during lunch service, and was so determined not to be left manning the front desk again that he made up an obscure ingredient he had to get—himself—for Arjun. And then Barty overheard him and said he was coming to get some doughnuts. I believe Mrs. SB is managing the front desk, which she hasn’t done for approximately forty years. I wonder if she knows how to work the computer.
“Are you all right, Lucas?” Mr. Townsend asks me kindly from the passenger seat.
“Absolutely,” I say, though there is sweat prickling between my shoulders.
Right now, in this car with me, I have Izzy, plus one elderly guest, one kitchen porter, and my boss. And yet every time I glance back in the mirror, all I see is her. The wicked heat in those palmeira-green eyes. The way she seems to know every time I’m looking at her. How her gaze meets mine fast, hard, like we’re crossing swords.
She said she’d torture me today, but she’s hardly had to—it’s the day itself that’s torturous. Every slow minute that stands between me and a night with Izzy.
* * *
? ? ? ? ?
Upon our arrival at Budgens, things go smoothly for an impressive ten minutes. I feel calmer here, away from the hotel. It is easier to think about something other than Izzy Jenkins—even if she is in the same aisle.
We select a box of doughnuts after a long discussion about which of the available flavours is best （all are overrated; doughnuts are just bolinhos de chuva with too much sugar and no personality）。 Mr. Townsend chooses the first of his snacks （shortbread biscuits of a very specific shape）。 Barty shouts “Mrs. SB likes it rough!” across the chilled aisle （he was referring to puff pastry）。 And then Izzy opens her rucksack and pulls out the Tupperware of rings, right there by the fridges.
I breathe in sharply.
“Why do you have those here?”
“I wanted to talk to Mr. Townsend about the emerald one when we go for coffee after this,” she says, trying to unclip the lid. She presses the box to her stomach, hunching over, nails working at one corner. “He was staying at the hotel when it was lost, and he might remember something, but I’m just going to check that one’s definitely in there, because I did take it out to have it cleaned, and . . . Argh!”
The lid pings off. The two remaining rings go flying.
“Shit. Shit!” Izzy drops to the ground, as though under enemy fire.
“What? What?” Barty yells, looking around wildly.
“Nobody panic!” says Izzy, commando-crawling across the floor of Budgens. “I’ve got the silver wedding ring! It’s just the emerald . . . one . . .”
She lifts her head slowly. The ring is between Mr. Townsend’s sensible brogues. He is staring down at it with open astonishment. A member of the Budgens staff pauses behind him, clearly contemplating asking questions about Izzy’s position, and then makes the sensible decision to move on and pretend he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
I am also trying to pretend that there is nothing out of the ordinary about seeing Izzy in this position, mostly by staring fixedly at the ceiling.
“Mr. Townsend?” Izzy says.
“That ring,” he says, voice shaking.
Izzy stands and holds it out to him. The bright supermarket lights hit the ring’s emerald and it sends green light scattering across the vinyl floor.
“That’s Maisie’s ring,” Mr. Townsend says, almost breathless. “That’s it, right there. She was buried with that ring. What the devil is it doing in your Tupperware box?”
* * *
? ? ? ? ?
We all make our way to the café, sitting around a circular table, eating our Budgens doughnuts with our café-bought coffees. I feel quite uncomfortable about this, but Barty has no shame, and he was the one who paid for it all.
Izzy explains what Gerry told her over the phone. How the woman who lost that emerald ring had a replica made so as not to upset her husband. How much she’d loved him, and how she hadn’t wanted to hurt him by admitting she had lost his precious ring.