‘What the hell?’ Becky made as if about to duck under the table.
‘It’s the doorbell.’
‘Wow. Sounds more like an intruder alarm.’
Which, it turned out, it might as well have been. Damson Farm was about to be invaded.
14
This time, Daniel got to the door before me. Due to my innate journalistic nosiness, I lurked a few feet behind him in the hallway to see who it was.
‘Ah, hello there!’ A man’s voice boomed. ‘Are we all right to leave our bags here?’
Then, as Daniel stood there looking a mixture of bewildered and incensed, the man wangled his way past him into the house, immediately followed by two women.
‘This is so not what we were expecting!’ One of them, dressed in what I knew to be a £2,000 coat, because I’d been given the exact same one in a different shade, muttered at the other, who scanned the hallway and stairs while unwinding a giant scarf from around her neck.
‘Well, in here’s not as bad,’ the scarf unwinder replied, grudgingly. ‘I mean, at least it’s authentic.’
‘Where do you want us?’ the man asked, who’d come to a stop by the kitchen door.
‘Um, how about back outside on the front step while we establish who you are and what you’re doing here?’ Daniel said, creaking the door open as wide as it would go.
‘Heh, heh! Very funny,’ the man chortled. ‘It’s the Stephe Winbrook party. Two doubles and a single. The other two will be arriving in an hour or so, they’ve got lost somewhere between back and beyond.’
‘I think you might be the ones lost, actually,’ Daniel replied, clearly losing patience. At that point, his phone rang from the study, and he quickly caught my eye. ‘I have to take that. Can you deal with this, please?’ He’d reached his study before finishing the sentence, firmly closing the door behind him.
‘I’m really sorry, but you must have the wrong place.’ Despite me knowing that this was true, I couldn’t help automatically taking the £2,000 coat when the woman held it out to me. You can take the girl out of hospitality…
‘Damson Farm?’ the man asked. ‘It’s taken us hours to get here. This had better be the right place!’
‘Uh, yes, this is Damson Farm. But can I ask why you’re here?’
‘We were invited! Booked the dates with Charlie yonks ago. She guaranteed a special advance rate for a midweek booking. Just the one night, like I said, three rooms. Perhaps you’d better check the system?’
My heart began knocking against my chest. Again, the hospitality in my blood kicked in. I smoothed down my jumper and stuck on my best smile. ‘Certainly, if you’d like to wait through here, I’ll do that right away. Did you say the booking was under Steve Winbrook?’
‘I most certainly did not!Steve!’ He let out a guffaw of laughter. ‘Steve!’The women tittered along with him, shaking their heads at my preposterous mistake. ‘It’sStephe.Rhymes with beef.Short for Stephen. With a ph. If you ask Charlie, she’ll remember me.’ He winked, and then winked again in case I’d missed it the first time.
I whipped open the living room door, hurrying in to scoop up a stray beer bottle left over from the night before, and straightening a couple of cushions. ‘Please, make yourselves comfortable.’
‘I already have.’ He gave me a deft full-body scan and winked again.
‘Right, sir.’ I couldn’t force myself to sayStephe.‘I’ll be back shortly.’
I hurried into the kitchen to check the non-existent system for a non-existent booking, instead grabbing my hair in both hands and frantically whispering a summary of the situation to Becky.
‘Well, you’ll just have to explain what happened.’ She shrugged. ‘I’ll do it, if you want.’
I ducked back through to the living room. One woman was perched on the same sofa as Stephe, mumbling into her phone, the other had her head in a cupboard. ‘Excuse me, you said you paid an advance rate? Can I please double check what that was?’
Stephe pulled his phone out and scrolled through it. ‘Two for the doubles, one-five for the single. That’s all meals and activities included. I did double check the offer on the website.’
There’s a website?
‘Right, £200, and £150. I’ll be right back.’
‘No, sweetheart!’ Stephe called after me. ‘Twothousand.’
