Free The Disappearance of Emily Marr by Louise Candlish Page B

being crowned the Queen of Sheba. ‘Would I need my own cleaning materials?’ This could be a deal breaker; she couldn’t afford to buy products, and even if she had the cheek to ask to borrow some from Emmie, her new friend would surely need them for herself.

‘No, it’s all stored in the individual houses. If you need to get something urgently, you buy it and I’ll reimburse you when you submit a receipt.’

Tabby prayed that wouldn’t happen before she was paid. Having given Emmie twenty, she was down to her last few euros now.

A thought occurred. ‘I wouldn’t be taking work fromEmmie, would I? She would still get first refusal?’

Moira eyed her with interest. ‘I’m impressed by your loyalty, though, as I say, there should be enough jobs to go around.’ She paused. ‘How do you know her? You came to the island together, did you?’

‘No, we just met a few days ago, actually. I’m staying in her spare room in Saint-Martin. I came along just as she was thinking of getting a lodger. I’ve been very lucky.’

‘Yes.’ Moira drew her lips between her teeth and bit down. Tabby wondered what she was trying not to say. ‘Emmie’s not everyone’s cup of tea,’ she offered finally, ‘she keeps herself to herself. But if you’re as diligent as she is, I’ll be very happy.’

‘I will be.’

‘For your first job, I’ll come along and show you the ropes. There’s a bit of juggling at first but you’ll soon get the hang of it. What’s your phone number?’

‘My phone isn’t working at the moment,’ Tabby admitted, ‘and I don’t think we’ve got a landline.’ Nor was there an internet connection in the house, Emmie had told her, and sooner or later she was going to need to find a way to get online. ‘Should I call in every so often instead?’

‘Yes, or I can get you on Emmie’s mobile, presumably? I’ve been texting her her client details a day or two before each job. It’ll be easier in a few weeks when you get regular slots and keep a set of keys yourself.’

‘I’m sure that would be fine,’ Tabby said.

As she pedalled back to Saint-Martin on the bicycle she’d borrowed from Emmie, she marvelled once more at her extraordinary reversal of fortune. As if those inauspicious beginnings had never occurred, Emmie had in the space of forty-eight hours assumed the role of landlady, colleague, even mentor. That a sensible private citizen should take in a penniless drifter, offer her a home and expect rent only in arrears; that she should find her work and share her only means of transport: it was almost too good to be true – and at exactly the point at which Tabby had thought things too awful to believe.

What was it that had made Emmie choose to trust her? For that was what it was, a deliberate choice, that almost magical moment when she had turned to Tabby with the mugs of tea, her face alight with the decision that she was going to give her the benefit of the doubt. She was going to give her a break. Tabby was not at all certain that she herself would have been so generous had their positions been reversed. Well, she would learn from Emmie, she vowed. Just because kindness had become a rare commodity, it didn’t mean it should be treated with suspicion.

Besides, she had a good feeling about the island generally. Not yet swollen with the throngs she knew to expect in high season, it was a tranquil place, a haven from the Atlantic, which at full tide lashed savagely at the sea walls. When the tide was out, the shores heaped with glossy black seaweed and scarred with oyster beds, it felt more as if the place was forgotten, abandoned even by the ocean, a mood that suited her circumstances perfectly.

Her walks over the last two days had revealed a join-the-dots trail of small, low villages with old cobbled streets and handsome stone churches; she’d seen an antique bandstand, a medieval market, row after row of shuttered fishermen’s cottages. By chance, Saint-Martin appeared