My name is Poppy Fields. When we got pulled out of school for a few days and whisked off to a tiny Greek island, my friend Graham was none too pleased about what he described as “the potential long-term damage to our education”. I, on the other hand, was absolutely delighted – and not just because we were missing a whole bunch of End of Term Tests and Assessments, although I have to admit that helped. No, it was because we were going to meet Bill Strummer, real-life rock star … and witness his wedding! Right up close and personal. The world’s press had worked themselves into a frenzy about it and I knew it was going to be a mind-blowingly sensational event. But little did I know quite how sensational…
It was July and the end of the school year was approaching fast – although nothing like fast enough as far as I was concerned. My mum, Lili, who’s a landscape gardener, was away doing demonstrations at a flower show and I was staying at Graham’s. His dad was at some IT conference in France so his mum, Sally, was in sole charge of us. We were sitting in their kitchen on a Sunday afternoon, and this being a typical English summer, the weather was dismal. The rain was lashing against the windows and the wind was howling around the house. We’d been doing the “Hubble, bubble, toil and trouble” scene from Macbeth at school and for homework were meant to devise a witch’s spell. Graham was writing a list of ingredients but I couldn’t concentrate. I was watching his mum prepare the tea with a sense of impending doom.
Sally is a freelance chef. She does all kinds of stuff: private parties, big business events, weddings, christenings, funerals. Sometimes she’s really busy and sometimes she’s not. This was one of the slack times and she’d taken a local butcher up on his offer of work. She was putting together a recipe leaflet for him, entitled Offally Fine, which highlighted the million and one lovely things you could do with innards and entrails – liver, kidney, heart, tongue, that kind of thing. She’d been experimenting on me and Graham since I’d arrived, and while the olive-and-kidney tartlets had proved surprisingly tasty, the tripe-and-onion trifle had been a real stomach turner. At that precise moment she was pouring raw minced liver from the food processor onto a baking tray. It looked like she’d just committed a particularly nasty murder and the tea situation was not looking good.
Then the phone rang and the world turned upside down.
Sally rubbed her hands on her apron and plucked the receiver off the wall. She hadn’t even opened her mouth to say hello when a voice blasted down the line, so urgent and demanding that we could hear it right the way across the room.
“Sally? Sally, is that you?”
Sally held the phone at arm’s length to avoid damaging her eardrum. “Erm… Yes, it’s me. Who is this?”
“Tessa! Tessa Whittam. You remember. From college?”
“Oh, Tessa,” Sally looked puzzled. “Yes, of course. I haven’t spoken to you in… Gosh, how long is it?”
“Never mind that. I didn’t ring for a chat,” snapped the invisible Tessa. “I’m desperate. You’ve got to help me.”
“Well … yes…” said Sally, sounding apprehensive. “I suppose so. If I can. What’s the problem?”
“I’m Bill Strummer’s personal assistant.” Tessa paused, clearly expecting a reaction. Sally’s mouth had dropped open but she didn’t make a sound. Graham and I looked at each other, eyebrows raised. All thoughts of Shakespeare and spells were instantly wiped from our minds.
“You have heard of him?” asked Tessa suspiciously.
“Hasn’t everybody?” squeaked Sally.
You’d need to have been living in the darkest depths of the Amazon for the last fifty years not to have heard of Bill Strummer. In fact, even that might not work: he was always doing stuff like campaigning to save the rainforests.
“Ohmigod!” Sally sighed girlishly. “I had the biggest crush on him when I was at school!”
“Well, you’ll know about his wedding, then.”
“Yes, of course. It’s been in all the papers. Tomorrow, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Twelve noon. Now look, my head chef’s gone down with some hideous bug. I need someone competent over here right now, and I seem to remember you being fairly sensible. I’ve got all the staff and all the ingredients: I just need you to take charge. I’ll email the details – you have got a laptop, I take it? I’ve booked you on the 19.14 to Athens. Bill’s helicopter will meet you when you arrive. I’ll send a car to collect you now.”
“But I’ve got Graham…” protested Sally limply.
“Who?”
“My son. And his friend Poppy is staying with us… I can’t just—”
“Bring them,” snapped Tessa.
“It’s term time. They’re at school.”
“Where?”
Sally told her.
“Leave it to me, I’ll sort it out.”
“But…” Sally insisted. “I can’t just drop everything.”
“There’s a fee involved.” Tessa’s voice dropped and a note of low cunning crept in. She muttered something. It was too soft for me and Graham to catch, but whatever she said, it was enough to make Sally clutch the work surface for support. First the colour drained from her face and then she flushed scarlet. “Yes, well,” she said briskly, “that sounds more than generous. We’ll be ready and waiting. See you in Greece.”
Twenty-three minutes later a stretch limousine pulled up outside and we all piled in. Sally hadn’t even had time to clean up the kitchen – we’d only just managed to dash over to my place to grab my passport and swimsuit. The last thing we saw as we left were her bloody fingerprints on the phone.
If I’d been the superstitious type, I might have taken that as a bad omen.