Squirrel & Swan Curious Things

  S & S Investigations: A Prequel Novella

  M. D. ARCHER

  SWARM Publishing

  First published September 2021 by SWARM Publishing

  Auckland, New Zealand

  Copyright © 2021 by M. D. Archer.

  All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN (kindle): 978-0-473-59128-1

  ISBN (epub): 978-0-473-59127-4

  Squirrel & Swan Curious Things is a work of fiction. Names, places and incidents, except those clearly in the public domain, are products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, names, places or incidents is purely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

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  Dear Reader

  Acknowledgements

  1

  Marigold Mathers, assistant extraordinaire, stood at the luggage carousel of Auckland International Airport and watched the bags trundle past. She sighed. There was nothing extraordinary about running around after a celebrity, especially when that celebrity hadn’t booked a job in over three years and had way too much time on her hands. Her favourite way to spend this time? Sending the poor creature who’d made the mistake of signing an employment contract on meaningless errands or to carry out soul-destroying chores.

  Anita Fairway—the entitled celebrity—and Paul, her doting husband, had left her here while they first enjoyed a glass of ‘arrival champagne’, and now stood at the tourist information kiosk picking out pamphlets of the activities they wished to partake during their visit to New Zealand. After a few days in Auckland resting and recovering from the long-haul flight from LAX, they would go directly to the Coromandel, a beachy area of the North Island that was a ‘must-see’ by all accounts.

  Marigold’s eyes latched onto the Louis Vuitton case that had appeared: Anita’s. Classic and stylish but looking a little worn these days—how appropriate, Marigold thought with a wry grin as she stepped forward to retrieve it. And she’d known this was what the job would be like, she’d literally signed up for it, but it was still somehow worse than imagined and she was already counting down the days left in her one-year contract. But Marigold had goals and she had to keep her eyes on the prize. Her vision of her future relied heavily on—

  “Marigold!” Anita’s voice, quite incredibly, had pierced the considerable airport din. “We’re ready to go.”

  “Waiting for the bags,” Marigold called back in reply.

  “What? Still? Why are you taking so long? Can you hurry it up please?”

  Marigold waved and turned away so that she could roll her eyes. With many, many international flights under her belt, Anita had to know how little control travellers had over the baggage retrieval process.

  “Marigold?” Anita repeated.

  “Sure, I’ll climb onto the carousel and retrieve your bags myself,” she muttered under her breath.

  “Pardon?” Anita said crisply, suddenly standing right next to her.

  Marigold turned to give her a nervous smile. “Why don’t you and Paul relax and have another glass of champagne. I’m sure we’ll be out of here in no time.” She forced a smile.

  The sooner she got her plan on track the better.

  2

  Paige Garnet and Sophie Swanephol took their glasses of champagne to a sunny spot in the courtyard patio of Portland Bar in Kingsland, a small but bustling city-fringe suburb of Auckland.

  “Cheers.” Paige clinked Sophie’s glass.

  “We really did it.” Sophie beamed and took a sip.

  Less than 24-hours ago, they’d both submitted their doctoral theses. Although their PhD journeys were not quite over yet, it was certainly cause for celebration.

  “Has Richard said anything to you?” Sophie asked, bracing herself for the answer. She wasn’t sure how great she’d feel if Paige had already lined up post-doctoral work.

  “About what?” Paige said bitterly. “How awesome he is? How the studies I painstakingly designed were actually his? At the core of it.” Paige put on a voice.

  Professor Richard Thinton, Paige’s doctoral supervisor, was publicly well-regarded but privately loathed. At least, by Sophie and anyone else who’d been on the receiving end of his attention, whether it be his leering or his bullying.

  “Didn’t he say something about a Marsden grant and a research position?” Sophie asked.

  “There were murmurings, I guess....”

  Sophie frowned. Paige was being vague, and for Paige-no filter-Garnet, this was unusual.

  “Let’s not talk about what’s next,” Paige continued. “Not yet. I want to enjoy a break from thinking. I want to slob around and chill out and do nothing for a while.”

  Sophie nodded, aware that the odds of ants-in-her-pants Paige Garnet slobbing around were slim to none. Sophie, on the other hand, was looking forward to wearing pyjamas 24-7 and watching all the TV in the world. For a couple of weeks, at least.

  And so, they sipped champagne and caught up on department gossip and what TV shows they planned to watch now they had some free time.

  Sophie drained the rest of her glass. “Hey, I’d better go. I want to get there first. I do not want to have to make an entrance.”

  Sophie’s next social engagement was a date, which in itself was bad enough, without having to walk into a bar and try to immediately identify the person you were meeting. It wasn’t just that it could be hard to spot the not-yet-familiar face of someone you’d met only once—or worse, match blurry profile photos with the real-life and possibly quite different faces in front of you—you had to do this with an audience, most likely. All the other people in the bar enjoying their “people watching” from the comfort of their already secured seats. Sophie often felt as if she had a neon arrow above her head alerting everyone in the vicinity to the possibility of witnessing an awkward and entertaining first encounter. All of this was something Sophie could do without, thank you very much. And if she arrived early, she could make sure they wouldn't be sitting on barstools—who needed the added threat of toppling over backwards? —and be the one to watch her date arrive.

  Why she put herself through the ordeals of dating on a regular basis she had no clue.

  “Tim said you should come by our place afterwards. To spill the tea.” Paige grinned. “He loves getting the gossip maybe even more than I do.”

  Right, Sophie thought, that’s why she did it. Tim Chan, Paige’s sweet boyfriend of four years was a constant reminder of the kind of relationship bliss possible with the right person.

  “What number date with Jake is this one? You must be getting into,” Paige waggled her eyebrows, “you-know-what, territory.”

  “Uh, actually, tonight’s date is with a guy called Simon.”

  “What happened to Jake?”

  “Nothing. Jake and I were talking about how we both want to give the whole ‘dating’ thing a proper go. Date like they do in America. Hang out with different people and then decide whether you want to take things to the next level or not.”

  “But we’re not American. We don’t have the training for that kind of dating.”

  Sophie threw her eyes skyward. “Yeah, I’m painfully aware.”

  “But you’re still giving it a go?”

  “I guess. And I’m still not sure about Jake, anyway. Not really. I don’t even know how into me he is.”

  Paige grinned. “He’s probably already obsessed with you. At least, he definitely wants to hit,” Paige gestured to Sophie’s face and body, “this. They all do.”

  “Paige—”

  “I know, I know, you don’t like it when people acknowledge what a hottie you are. But you’re The Swan, remember.”

  “We’re Squirrel and Swan,” Sophie corrected. “Our nicknames are Squirrel and Swan; together. You can’t have one without the other.”

  “Sure, whatever.” Paige waved her hand.

  Paige had been ‘christened’ Squirrel by their colleagues in the graduate programme first—her frizzy brown hair, her brown, almond-shaped eyes, and her tendency to fidget were all very squirrel-like—but calling Sophie the ‘Swan’ was equally appropriate. Sophie had spent most of her teenage years in a chrysalis phase, her future beauty almost completely concealed by teenage acne and being horrendously uncomfortable in her body, not to mention her tendency to grimace awkwardly whenever she felt awkward—which was most of the time. The current head-turning, traffic-stopping version of Sophie Swanephol—dark hair, deep blue eyes and beautiful skin courtesy of her Māori and Dutch heritage—wouldn’t emerge until she entered her twenties, and it takes a while to shed the trauma of adolescence.

  “So, Jake isn’t the one?” Paige continued.

  Sophie shrugged and looped her bag over her shoulder. Paige finished her glass and set it down, rising to stand as well.

  “Don’t forget about my rescue call,” Sophie said as they made their way to the exit.

  “As if. They’re my favourite part of you dating. Especially if I have to show up and rescue you.” Her eyes sparkled.

  Sophie eyed her friend for a moment as she marvelled, not for the first time, that she and Paige, as different as they were, had become best friends. “Aren’t you having dinner with your mum and Tim?”

  “If you need me, I will come,” Paige said solemnly.

  “Thanks.”

  Outside, Paige and Sophie crossed New North Road together but then went their separate ways: Sophie to the location of her date, only a few feet away at Citizen Park, and Paige to retrieve her car on Sandringham road, right behind the Kingsland train station.

  “Good luck,” Paige called out.

  AN HOUR LATER, Paige was at her mother’s house in the very familiar process of getting into an argument.

  “Mum.” Paige rolled her eyes.

  Her mother, Mrs Alice Garnet, dropped her chin and lifted one eyebrow, as if about to claim a moral victory. “Well? Do you have a job yet?”

  Paige scowled. “Are you serious? I literally, literally, just handed in my thesis. I haven’t done the oral. I haven’t finished yet.”

  “Oh.” Alice looked put out. “Well, are you looking for a job at least? For when you are finished?”

  “No, I am not.”

  “Shouldn’t you get cracking? How many jobs are there for a,” Alice paused to wave one hand in the air as if grasping for a suitable description, “‘psychologist’ can there be?”

  “Um, heaps? Heaps of jobs. Mental health is a big deal. But I’m not a psychologist. I’m a researcher. God, Mum, how many times have we had this conversation.”

  “Honestly, Paige there’s no need to be so sensitive. I just never know what to tell the Bridge Club ladies when they ask what you’re doing.”

  Paige stared at her. “How about, “my daughter is getting her PhD in psychology”? You know, some mothers would actually be pretty proud of me.”

  “Of course I’m proud of you. Darling, of course. I suppose I don’t know what you hope to achieve with all this.”

  “I’ll be Dr Garnet, for one.”

  “Well, I’m not sure that counts,” Alice murmured.

  “Right, you mean like the way all your “achievements” count?” Paige air quoted.

  “Hey,” Tim said, leaping up from where he’d been staying-out-of-it-until-intervention-was-necessary on the couch. He came to stand beside Paige, gently squeezing her elbow. “Everyone has different paths,” he continued. “No need to compare.”

  Paige usually brought Tim to visits with her mother. With his easy-going manner he generally—usually—calmed the waters between the two. Tim was good company, but an excellent buffer.

  Alice lifted her chin. “It was different in my day.”

  “Fine. In an ideal world, what would I be doing right now? Instead of ‘fluffing about with psychology’, as you call it. What?”

  Her eyes lit up. “Well.” She hurried over to the manila file waiting at the edge of the counter. Paige watched with alarm, already aware of where this was going. “I clipped this article a couple of days ago. It’s about modern fertility rates and how you really have to plan for extra time when trying.”

  “I am not even thirty years old, Mum.”

  “But nearly.” Alice nodded eagerly.

  Paige threw up her hands. “We are not having this conversation again.”

  She stalked out of the room. As she started up the stairs of her family home, she heard Tim clear his throat and say cheerfully. “What’s the plan for dinner? Can I chop some veges or something?”

  At the top of the stairs, Paige went directly to the master bedroom at the end of the hall and opened the doors to the large wardrobe in the corner. There, she kneeled in front of Alice’s neatly organized shoes, reached into the depths to pull out a large cardboard box, and retrieved her favourite family photo album. She liked to do this when she argued with her mother. As if to remind herself of the old days when her father was still alive. But before she could start flicking through the photos, her phone rang.

  “Why are you calling me?” she muttered warily, eyeing the display. “This can’t be good,” she added to herself as she answered the call.

  SOPHIE, SITTING ACROSS from her date Simon, nodded slowly, trying to seem interested in his lengthy speech. He appeared to be attempting to argue that one’s heritage—no matter how distant—and coffee preferences were fundamentally, inextricably, linked.

  “Yeah… it’s pretty cool, because I’m like, part Colombian, part Irish and of course, Kiwi.” He nodded meaningfully, as if divulging information he hadn’t managed to shoehorn into the conversation twice already.

  Had he recently gotten his ancestry.com results back, Sophie wondered.

  “But it’s the Colombian part that really resonates with me, you know?” he finished, squinting his eyes as he picked up his cup and took a sip. “Yeah, this is good coffee,” he concluded as if he’d been flown in from South America to judge the Auckland coffee situation.

  Sophie, having watched him struggle to drink his espresso for several minutes now, was almost certain he’d ordered it purely to prove his own point. But his difficulty hiding his winces of disgust as he drank the inky black liquid detracted from his credibility as a coffee aficionado, somewhat. Then again, Sophie, a literal expert in human behaviour, wasn’t as easy to fool as the average person.

  He set the cup down, his mouth clearly still full of coffee, then pushed it away as if to stop himself from picking it up again. “It’s pretty cool,” he repeated once he’d managed to swallow.

  “Yeah,” Sophie murmured, wanting to shout: "You live in Takapuna. Your ancestors might be South American, but you’re a Shore Boy”. She’d seen his car. She’d seen the motocross sticker on the back. Sophie suppressed a sigh and the urge to double-check her phone. Had she left it on silent by mistake? What time would Paige save her with a mercy call?

  Finally, she felt her phone buzz. "Oops, better check that," Sophie said, already feeling a blush climbing her cheeks as she prepared to white-lie her way to freedom.

  “So, Simon’s a no, then?” Paige said as she pulled up outside Sophie’s flat in Pt Chevalier.

  “It wasn’t terrible, but who has time for mediocre dates?”

  “Um.” Paige glanced at Sophie. “You. Literally, you do.”

  “Let me rephrase. Who has the emotional energy?” Sophie nodded to herself. “I think I’ll just see what happens with Jake.”

  “Oh my god, I almost forgot,” Paige said. “Guess who called me during dinner.”

  Sophie raised her eyebrows. Paige stared back, clearly waiting. Sophie let out a sigh of exasperation. “Really? I have to actually guess?”

  “Here’s a hint. The last time we saw him his fake tan looked a little on the orange side.”

  “Richard?” Sophie’s stomach rolled. Was Paige about to tell her she’d already snapped up a job opportunity? Forged ahead with her career to leave Sophie in the dust, wondering what she wanted to do with her life? While Sophie knew it wasn’t up to Paige to figure out her career trajectory, part of her hoped she would.

  “Yup. He’s offered us his bach for a couple of weeks.”

  “He has? Where is it?”

  “Coromandel. Whangamata.” Paige beamed. “I already said yes. Come on, it’ll be great.”

  “Hmm,” Sophie said.

  A week lounging around near the beach without her flatmates hanging around sounded pretty great. Sophie was about to say this when Paige added one further piece of information.

  “Tim’s going to come for the weekend.”

  “Oh. But that would mean I’m third-wheeling it.”

  “Hardly. We’re so far past that. But why don’t you invite Jake?”

  Sophie widened her eyes. “What?” she hissed.

  “It’ll be fine. One weekend. Two nights. And I’ll be there. What could go wrong?”

  Lots of things, Sophie thought. Lots. Of. Things.

  They could realize they’d already run out of things to talk about on the first night and she’d have to endure awkwardness for nearly 48-hours. He could use the toilet straight after she had, potentially ripping away the façade one erected during the early stages of dating. She could—

 

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