Plan B

Chapter Forty-five

“Babe, look at me, would you?  I’ve brought you a watch.”

“I already have a watch.”  Fran held up her left wrist to show him.

“Ah, but you don’t have one specially made by me,” Bruno told her smugly, undoing the watchstrap before she could complain.  “Sheesh, are your hands meant to be this cold still?”

Fran just shrugged.  She’d been told so many symptoms of meningitis that she’d completely lost track of them.

“Anyway….”  Bruno dug around in his pocket for a moment or so and fished out a fancy-looking black box.  He opened it with a proud flourish.  “Ta-da!”

Fran looked from the watch to him, completely nonplussed.  “It looks like you’re trying to propose to me but going about it totally the wrong way.”

Bruno winked at her flirtatiously.  “It’s a couples watch, hot stuff.  Didn’t I tell you that?”

“I’m not hot stuff, I’m cold stu—  what?”

Smirking, Bruno shook back the sleeve on his left arm.  The first thing that caught Fran’s eye was an enormous and very ugly scar that ran from the base of his hand to his elbow.  Then she realised that he did indeed have an identical watch to the one in the box on his wrist.

“Very nice,” she said, returning her attention to the scar.  “What did you do to your arm?  Was that from the car crash?”

The merry spark in Bruno’s eyes died and he abruptly pulled his sleeve back down.

“I’d rather not talk about my arm.  I want to talk about the watch I made you.”  He pouted, and the playfulness was suddenly back.

Odd, Fran thought.  “Show me this thing of wonder, then.”

He took it out of the box and fastened the leather strap quickly around her wrist.  The watch face was analogue and bigger than any Fran had ever worn before.

“I’m confused again,” she admitted.  “It feels kind of heavy, too.”

“That’s because it’s got double what any normal watch would have in it,” Bruno said.  “I had to ask Conrad for a bit of help, I’ll admit, but I’m quite proud of the end result.”

Fran inspected it with renewed interest.  “Does it shoot poisonous darts and tasar people?”

Bruno chuckled.  “No, but I’m working on a fountain pen that does.  This watch is connected to a batch of watches that Conrad and I have just finished making.  We’ll give one to Piers and one to Brookie and one to your little brother.  I have one and so does Conrad, and there are two spares that you can give to two other people of your choice who know about your predicament.”

“And what does it do?”

“It helps us to find you if you’re ever in trouble,” Bruno said.  “We’re worried about you going off on your own since Brookie found you floating on that river after being shot, and Brookie was rather concerned about the fact that you might not always have your phone on you, so he wanted some way of being able to communicate with you if you, I don’t know, get attacked by some guys with chloroform and end up on the opposite side of the country.”

Fran was starting to have second thoughts.  “Isn’t that going a bit over the top?”

“Nope,” said Bruno flatly.  “This was my idea, not his, in any case.  Like I said, it’s to help us help you if you get in trouble.  It’s not a stalking device.”

“Really?”

“What do you take me for?!”

Fran grinned at him.  “A perverted creep.  Why d’you ask?”