Dottie pointed a sausage at him. “You can hush!”
She went around the tables collecting money, and the café slowly emptied. As she started the washing up a wall phone buzzed. Under cover of taking his crockery to the counter Randolph shamelessly eavesdropped, but it gained him little. Dottie's face, full of exasperation, was more revealing.
“I'll strangle Jack,” she said, hanging up. “Someone called Holsson made a reservation for tonight and Jack forgot to tell me, so I've got to get his room ready before I go. Oh blast Jack. I hope his milk curdles and his socks rot. And the same goes for Mr. Holsson, whoever he is.”
Chapter Two
“I'm afraid you have to go now,” Dottie said. “I'm locking up.” “Can't I help you clear away to atone for my crime?”
“Crime?”
“I'm the awkward Mr. Holsson,” he confessed.
“Oh heck!” She clasped her hand over her mouth, looking so much like a guilty child that he had to laugh. “Me and my big gob! I'm always doing it.”
“Don't worry. I won't tell anyone if you don't.”
“I'm not usually this disorganized.”
“It's not your fault if nobody told you.”
“Thanks. That's nice of you. Just give me a minute and I'll be over there to make you comfortable.”
Randolph felt that nothing short of a miracle could make him comfortable in this nightmarish place, but he held his tongue. He was growing to like Dottie.
She was loudmouthed, over-the-top and totally unsuitable to be a queen, but she had a rough good nature that appealed to him, and her ability to laugh in the face of her dreary life touched his heart.
She was just finishing the cashing up. “This is supposed to be Jack's job,” she sighed.
“But tonight he's giving you a wide berth,” Randolph reminded her. “That way you can't complain about his 'high crimes and misdemeanors'.”
“His whaters?” Dottie asked, her eyes on the till.