Plan B

Chapter Twenty-seven

Freddie was still floundering like a fish out of water as he slid into the seat opposite Brookie at a low table in the corner and handed the movie star a mug of hot chocolate.  His hands were trembling so violently that he was in danger of spilling his own hot chocolate, and he couldn’t stop opening and closing his mouth.  There were so many things he wanted to say, but while many of them would have been appropriate as a fan, none were appropriate in context because of the reason Brookie had come.

“How is—?” he eventually stammered out, but Brookie began with a question of his own at exactly the same time.

“Why are you—?”

They both fell silent, Freddie looking awkwardly at the ground and Brookie contemplating the whipped cream on top of his hot chocolate.

“You first,” said the elder boy.

Freddie bit his lip.

“How’s Fran?” he asked quietly.

Brookie frowned at the cream and scraped a tiny bit of it onto a spoon and popped it into his mouth.

“I’m not totally sure how to answer that,” he admitted, “but physically, she’s in pain.”

Freddie looked up, distress clear in his eyes.  “It’s not bad, is it?”

Brookie grimaced and shrugged.  “She was shot in the leg.  The bullet skimmed the back of her knee.  It’s nothing drastic and she’s had stiches, but she was in the water for a long time, which caused her to bleed more and faster, and she passed out from shock and ended up hypothermic.  It was bad, but it could have been a lot worse.”

Freddie slumped down in his chair.  “I told her not to come,” he whispered numbly.  If the police had got involved while she was there and recognised her, it would have been disastrous.

Brookie spooned more cream into his mouth, pulled a face, and then began to drink the hot chocolate.

“I probably would have done if it was my little brother.”

“But she knew it was dangerous for her.”

There was a minute pause as Brookie surveyed him over the rim of the mug.

“And why was that?”

“Because she—”  Freddie came up short, his breath catching and his eyes widening in terror.  Can I actually trust him with this? he wondered.  How much does he know?  And has Fran told him anything?

Placing his half-full mug on the table, Brookie traced his index finger around its rim, wiping away any excess cream.

“Last night, she confessed to me that she thought dressing up as a boy and going to the same school as me would mean she could get close to me and thereby closer to Bruno Merton,” he said conversationally.

Drawing himself up, Freddie thumped a fist onto the table, making his mug jump.  “That’s a lie!” he seethed.  “She did it for her own personal safety because some weirdoes have been trying to get hold of her for the past ten months!”

Brookie’s finger slowly came to a halt and reversed.

“I know,” the movie star said.  “Just a little test.”

“You’re a b*stard,” Freddie grumbled, finally sipping at his hot chocolate.

To his surprise, Brookie chuckled.  “You two are definitely related.”  He hesitated, still grinning.  “Please don’t misunderstand me.  I wasn’t entirely sure whether or not to trust Frankie’s story, and she said that you were one of the ones in on it, so, naturally, you two should have corresponding versions of events.  I was just trying to throw you off.  You see, if the pair of you had fabricated her story and I said she’d told me something different, there’s a high likelihood it would have confused you and caused your confidence to falter as you’d no longer know if your story tallied with hers.  But you just look frightened and angry, which lends some credence to what Fran told me.”