I Owe You One: A Novel(82)

“I thought I’d never see this again,” I say dazedly. “I thought I’d— Wait.” A new thought grips me. “How? How did you get this?”

“Good vigilantes never tell,” says Seb in mysterious tones. “This will go with me to the grave.”

“No. No.” I shake my head vigorously. “You can’t turn up with this, with this”—I brandish the hairbrush at him—“and not tell.”

“OK.” Seb capitulates at once. “Actually, I’m longing to tell. Our story begins when you let slip the name of your hairbrush’s abductor,” he says in dramatic tones. “Sarah Bates-Wilson. At once I knew I could track this villain down. She still lives in a ground-floor flat,” he adds more conversationally. “Which was handy.”

“Did you break-and-enter?” I stare at him, aghast. “Oh my God.” My gaze drops to his foot. “But you couldn’t have!”

“I knew my injury would hamper me,” Seb continues in his dramatic voice. “I therefore enlisted an accomplice: my faithful sidekick Andy. We hatched a plot in which I would distract Sarah B-W at the door, asking her questions about her political views, while he crept round the back. Her bedroom window was open; the hairbrush was on the chest of drawers. It was a matter of mere seconds for him to reach in and pinch it,” he ends with a flourish.

I’m silent for a moment, digesting this.

“What if the window hadn’t been open?”

“We would have tried again another day. We were lucky,” adds Seb, in his normal voice. “We’d only gone along to case the joint. Getting the hairbrush first go was a bonus.”

“I don’t know …” I stare at the hairbrush, feeling suddenly conflicted. “I mean, this is amazing, but … you broke the law.”

“She broke the law first,” points out Seb. “She stole your hairbrush.”

“Yes, but … you broke the law!”

I’m clutching stolen goods in my hand, it occurs to me. Oh my God. If Dad taught us anything besides Family first, it was Stay on the right side of the law.

“I didn’t break the natural law,” says Seb with assurance. “Think about it, Fixie. All those companies legally siphoning off money offshore to avoid paying tax. All those executives legally awarding themselves mammoth pensions while their workers get nothing. All abhorrent. I go to jail for restoring your hairbrush to you—and they don’t?”

He sounds so certain, so honest, so good, that I feel a bit of confidence seeping back into me.

“The law doesn’t always know what it’s doing,” he adds for good measure. “Humans have a far greater instinct for what’s right in life than lawyers do.”

“The law is an ass,” I volunteer. I heard that once, and I’m not sure where it comes from but it seems appropriate.

“The law is a wuss, if you ask me,” counters Seb, “but that’s another story. Or maybe it’s politicians who are wusses.” He grins at me disarmingly, his green-brown eyes shining. “Don’t let me get onto my hobbyhorse. You’ll die with boredom.”

“I won’t!” I laugh.

“Oh, you will,” he assures me. “Many have.”

“Well, anyway … thank you,” I say, giving the hairbrush a loving pat. “Thank you for breaking the law for me.”

“Anytime.” He grins. “It was fun.”

A thought occurs to me and I reach into my bag. I pull out the coffee sleeve, and Seb laughs with appreciation. I take out my pen and start to write Paid, but Seb puts a hand on mine.

“Paid in part,” he says. “Only in part.”

“Don’t be silly.” I roll my eyes.

“No, I mean it. I haven’t even begun to pay you back,” he says, and now there’s a serious tone to his voice. “What you did—”

“I told you. It was nothing.”

“You saved my life,” contradicts Seb. “In some cultures we’d be bound together forever now,” he adds lightly. “Bonded for life.”

And I know it’s a joke, but my stomach stupidly flips over—and suddenly I’ve lost my cool. I can’t find a witty answer. I gaze back at him, at his honest handsome face, and he’s silent too, but unreadable. And I’m thinking desperately, Say something, Fixie, for God’s sake, say something—when there’s a cry from the rink: “Yoo-hoo!”

We both turn our heads and there’s Briony, waving to catch Seb’s attention. She sees me and her face instantly tightens and Seb calls out easily, “Remember Fixie?”

“Of course! How’s it going?” says Briony, her smile dazzling and her voice so acid it could strip paint.

“Fine!” I say. “I should go,” I add automatically to Seb.

“Don’t go! You want to skate?” he adds, bringing a ticket out of his pocket. “I can’t use mine, obviously. Go on, have a go!”

I stare at the ticket silently, all kinds of thoughts shimmering around my brain. The music is thudding and the lights are twinkling and Seb is asking me if I want to skate.

It’s kind of irresistible.

“Sure,” I say at last. “Sure. I’ll have a go.”