"How's the hand?" Nics asked.
"Well," said Chas wryly, "much as I hate to give the lie to my macho and hard exterior, it bloody hurts."
"It's alright, I won't let on. Let me have a look. In the kitchen, where we can sit down and have a coffee."
Chas' hand was badly swollen; one knuckle in particular had turned a very nasty shade of red and purple.
"Alright," she said, handing him back the bag of peas. "Who did you hit?"
"Look, I told you, it went and turned into a bloody riot last night. Nothing to do with me. A Maldovan supporter told a Slovenian supporter that his team was so crap they couldn't hit the ground if they fell over, let alone the ball. The Slovenian took a swing at him, and that's how it all started."
"And you had to get involved..." Nics looked very disapproving indeed.
"Had to, babes, it's my job."
"Well, you're calling in sick tonight," she said, in no uncertain terms. "And we're going to see the doctor. I think you might have broken something there."
Chas winced, tried whining.
"But babes, you know how I feel about doctors..."
She just looked at him, and he shut up abruptly.
A thought struck him.
"You've got flowers!" he said brightly. "In the living room."
"What?" she said, totally surprised.
It was a huge bunch of flowers, mostly carnations, but with a few lilies and roses chucked in with the greenery for good measure. It was gloriously tacky in its extreme focus on one colour - pink.
Nics opened the card and looked at it. Her brow furrowed in confusion, and a tiny bit of worry.
"Someone's having a laugh," she said as she handed Chas the card to read.
It read, in very angular black fountain pen script:
"Dear Nicola. Please hide the locket immediately in the safest place you can. Yours with best wishes, Mr James Bradford (deceased). PS. Sam says hello."
"Who's Sam?"
"Just a dog I know from choir practice. What's so special about that bloody locket?"
All three pieces of it were still in her bag, she got them out and spread them across the coffee table.
"Just looks like only a locket to me," said Chas, poking desultorily at it.
"Then why would someone go to the effort of sending me flowers telling me to hide it? In the safest place I can? And pretending the message is from a dead guy we've never met?"
"Dunno," said Chas. "But you should have seen the weirdoes showing up at the door all afternoon. I've never seen Spud look so worried about a fruit basket before."
"I know," said Nics. "I got a phone call from that firm in London I was telling you about. They want me to go up to see them on Monday. I could bring the locket with me then, get it appraised or something at a jewellers, see if they can shed any light on its origins."
Chas pulled a face and nodded.
"Yeah, sounds good. What time you got to go down? I might come along, for the ride, so to speak."
He grinned at her and waggled his eyebrows. She giggled.
"Alright then, we'll make a day of it. It'll be fun. I only have to see them for an hour or two as it is."
"Sorted."
She stood up, gathering the pieces of the locket up.
"In the meantime, let's put these back in my bag, so we don't forget them. And I'm starving. You hungry?"
"Yup!"
"Ok, I'll make us some dinner."
Chas heaved a big inward sight of relief. Looks like she'd forgotten the whole doctor thing.
"It'll be easier to hang around the hospital waiting room when we're both fed," she continued.
His face fell. Damn.
She took a step towards the door, and felt something squidge under her foot. She looked down to see a mess of mango chutney and semi-solidified egg yolk spurt out from underneath her shoe.
"Spud!!"
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