Cressida McLaughlin - Open for Business – Part 1

Harper

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

The News Building

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Harper 2016

Copyright © Cressida McLaughlin 2016

Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2016

Cover illustration © Alice Stevenson

Cressida McLaughlin asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © December 2016 ISBN: 9780008219246

Version 2016-12-01

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Harper An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd The News Building 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by Harper 2016 Copyright © Cressida McLaughlin 2016 Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2016 Cover illustration © Alice Stevenson Cressida McLaughlin asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Ebook Edition © December 2016 ISBN: 9780008219246 Version 2016-12-01

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Cressida McLaughlin

About the Publisher

Even with its cloak of December grey, Campion Bay was beautiful. Robin Brennan tucked her gloved hand through her mother’s arm and slowed her pace. The sand was compact beneath their feet, and Robin wanted to take her boots off and feel it against her bare soles, despite the blistering cold.

She had been back here for three months; back in her childhood town, with its quaint teashops and Skull Island crazy golf course and the sea stretching out alongside them, never the same, today a dark, gunmetal grey with barely a hint of blue. It was the last day of the year, a time to think about starting afresh and promised resolutions, but Robin felt in some respects like she’d gone backwards.

‘It’s encouraging that we’ve got a full house for the New Year,’ she said to her mum. ‘We can celebrate properly tonight.’

‘Yes, darling.’ Sylvie Brennan patted her arm. She was trying to inject enthusiasm into her voice, but Robin could tell her mind was elsewhere. ‘No empty rooms for the first time in … well, months.’ She gave Robin a quick, unconvincing smile.

‘Maybe things will improve now.’ Robin bent to pick up a pebble polished smooth by the sea, the thin sliver of quartz running through it glinting in the weak sun. ‘I know there are going to be fireworks later, but it’s not exactly an extravaganza. Most people like to spend New Year’s Eve in big cities or at house parties, not the Dorset seaside, so the fact that people have booked to spend it here means that … that they want to come here.’ It was a pathetically obvious statement, but Robin was finding positivity as hard to come by as her mum was.

The Campion Bay Guesthouse, Sylvie and Ian Brennan’s pride and joy since the family had moved to the area when Robin was four, was in trouble. Robin had returned from London because of her own problems, feeling like she had nowhere else to turn, and had discovered that she wasn’t the only one who was suffering. She’d thrown herself into helping out, managing the changeovers, baking fresh bread for the breakfasts, setting up Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts. She’d used her experience to try and give the guesthouse a boost, and it had taken her mind off her own struggles for a time, but then her parents’ worries about the business – the worries they had obviously been trying to keep from her – had become her own. Now it was New Year’s Eve, they were hosting a party for their guests and for a few friends in the bay, and if her mum and dad were feeling anything like she was, it would be hard to muster up enough celebratory spirit to pop a single champagne cork.

Sylvie steered her daughter left, angling them towards the water, and the icy December wind met them head on. Robin felt her dark, shoulder-length curls tugging out behind her, her cheeks burning from the cold. She squinted against the assault, wondering why her mum had brought her out for an impromptu walk when the weather was so hostile, and whether she could encourage her back home, or perhaps to the Campion Bay Teashop. It was a few doors down from the guesthouse along Goldcrest Road, the seafront street of houses with an unimpeded view of the English Channel.

The seafront was colourful despite the December gloom. Most of the three- and four-storey buildings had, over the years, been converted to guesthouses, or businesses on the ground floor and accommodation above. As well as the Campion Bay Guesthouse and the teashop there was an Italian taverna, its façade in sunny greens and yellows, the candyfloss-pink door of Molly’s beauty parlour, and the cornflower trim and net-curtained windows of the Seaview Hotel, run by Coral Harris.

A couple of the buildings had remained single dwellings, and Robin could just make out the gleam of blue glaze on the clay plaque next to number four’s front door. Tabitha Thomas had lived there, observing everything that had happened on Goldcrest Road with a quiet watchfulness, until her death earlier that year. Robin felt the familiar twinge of regret when she thought of Tabitha, who she’d known so well growing up, but who had become a distant memory after Robin’s move to London.

‘Robin,’ Sylvie said, raising her voice to compete with the whistle of the wind, ‘I wanted to have a chat with you about something.’

‘Righto,’ Robin said warily, her shoulders tensing. ‘Fire away.’ Her mother was the more serious of her parents, but this tone was especially solemn, and Robin felt that whatever was coming was the reason Sylvie had brought her out here. It wasn’t likely to be about the fireworks. She tried to interpret the expression on Sylvie’s face but found that it was unreadable, her features scrunched up against the wind. Her mum was a couple of inches shorter than she was, her frame more fragile. She’d always said that Robin was lucky to have been gifted her delicate features and her dad’s long, lithe limbs in equal measure.