Steel’s voice groaned in his earpiece.‘This is a bust.’
Yeah.
Charles MacGarioch was officially a no-show.
Logan pressed the talk button. ‘OK, we’re calling it a night. Tufty’s got tickets, if anyone wants to catch the rest of the show.’
Can’t say they didn’t try.
He wandered over to the big top, where Tufty waited, all on his own.
The wee loon handed him a ticket. ‘Did our best, Sarge.’
‘Don’t think the Boss gives out participation trophies.’
Biohazard emerged from the dwindling crowd, dressed like a middle-aged man who thinks he’s still got it, but clearly hasn’t. He accepted the proffered ticket. ‘Look on the bright side: we’re still getting paid.’
Then it was Doreen and Barrett’s turn – grabbing a ticket from Tufty before slipping in through the entrance.
The world’s daftest tiger hooked a thumb at the big top. ‘Can I...?’
‘Go on then.’
‘Woot!’ And away he scarpered, into the fun and the lights and the—
‘Me and Spudgun are off to the pub. If you promise no’ to be a misery-faced old snudge, you can buy the first round.’
Tempting.
He pressed the button. ‘Better not. Got Tara and Elizabeth here.’
Steel’s voice softened.‘It happens, OK? Sometimes the buggers show, sometimes the buggers don’t. We pick ourselves up and we have another go.’
‘Yeah, you’re probably right.’ A smile. ‘And that’s two quid in the swear jar.’
‘Oh, for...’
Then silence. She’d gone.
Logan stepped through the entrance into a tented foyer festooned with fairy-lights, where a tattooed hipster in a ridiculously tall hat tore Logan’s ticket in half and ushered him through a velvet curtain into the Rumplington Brothers’ Circus of Delights.
A large semicircle of tiered seating surrounded the central ring, broken into six sections of about eighty seats each. And nearly every one was filled.
High above the audience’s heads a trapeze and high wire stretched from one side of the big top to the other, caught in the sweeping beams of spotlights. Down below, clowns worked the crowd, while acrobats tumbled and boinged across the sawdust arena.
Logan moved down the aisle, between two blocks of seats, scanning the faces for Tara and Elizabeth.
Which was a bit more challenging than usual, because of the face-paint. In the end it was easier to spot their clothes than their features – middle tier, on the left. And they’d even saved him a seat.
Logan worked his way over there, excuse-me’d past a handful of people and thumped down beside Tara.
And stared.
Tufty’s mate, Courtney, might have turned the wee loonand his bidie-in into little-big-cats, but Tara had received an elaborateDía de los Muertosface-and-neck paint job, made up of swirls and patterns and leaves and dots, and she looked...stunning. Elizabeth, on the other hand, was a full-on kid/velociraptor hybrid – grinning away as a clown whooshed a bucketful of confetti over some poor unsuspecting member of the public.
Tara leaned in, voice raised over the hubbub and laughter. ‘No joy?’
He forced a smile. ‘Worth a go, though.’