MEAL OF FORTUNE/BLOG TOUR/EXCERPT

Hello Lovely book people!

Today I am on the amazing blog tour for The Meal Of Fortune.

This is quite an unusual book, but for all the right reasons! Please enjoy(as much as I did) Chapter 2 of this engaging book. You will see what I mean!!

The Meal of Fortune

Chapter 2

The purse hit the floor of the Tube train with a slap. Anna was already on the move as the man reached for it. She grabbed his arm, twisting it up behind his back and forcing his grubby face into the slightly dirtier glass of the carriage door. It all took a second, maybe less. The sort of move she’d practiced hundreds of times over on the judo mat, although admittedly there’d not been any train windows there.

‘Gerroff me.’

He tried to throw an elbow round to catch her face. Hardly the most chivalrous move Anna had seen.

Or the most effective.

She dodged easily and shoved his head against the door again, perhaps a touch harder than was strictly necessary.

‘Think it’s big, do you? Stealing from old ladies?’

Up close she could smell him: cheap cider, sweat and three-day-old piss.

‘Yer what?’ The feigned outrage was laughable. He squirmed again but he was built for stealth and snatching. No match for Anna.

The old lady in question stared at the purse on the floor, only just beginning to cotton on. A man was at Anna’s side now. Youngish and Australian from the accent; little more than a teenager. ‘Are you OK?’

Clearly new to London and the world’s most antisocial public-transport system, he seemed blissfully unaware of that golden rule – don’t get involved. Nobody else ever did.

Except Anna, of course.

‘I can handle it.’ She cringed at the D-list action-hero dialogue. ‘Could you please just give the purse back to the woman over there?’

The Australian obliged and sat back down again, trying not to look too put out.

It was mid-afternoon and the Tube was still pre-rush-hour quiet. Anna had noticed the snatcher the moment she’d stepped into the carriage. There was just something that made her look twice. A certain slyness; little ratty eyes darting around, nose on the sniff for any kind of opportunity.

He’d made his move at the next stop as the old woman got on, dipping a quick hand into her bag and coming up with the purse. A jolt as the train started up had shaken it from his grasp at the crucial moment.

‘It fell out. I was just picking it up for her.’

Yeah right. She spun him round and grabbed at the greasy lapels of his jacket; a short sharp knee to the balls was practically her civic duty. But of course she had to show restraint.

‘Let me go, please.’ The earlier indignation was gone and he was just desperate now, sweat starting to run down his skinny, dirty face.

Anna felt her anger swiftly morph into something closer to pity. Just another hopeless junkie trying to fund his next score. But what should she do now? Involving the police would only make things… Her mind stretched for the type of euphemism her bosses might use.

Complicated.

Yes, that was it.

She kept a tight hold of him as the train slowed for the next station. Then, as the doors opened, she pushed the man out onto the platform, far more gently than he deserved. But he stumbled and fell all the same, shouting the odds as his scrawny arse hit the floor. The small cluster of passengers waiting impatiently to get on let out a collective gasp before stepping around him and boarding as if nothing had happened.

Back in the carriage all eyes were down as the train pulled away. Books, phones, tablets, newspapers and even fingernails had suddenly become ever so much more interesting. Anything to avoid eye contact with the mad woman who’d just…

PUSHED A MAN OUT OF THE FUCKING TRAIN!!!

The OMGs would be clogging up Twitter the minute they got their phone signals back. And the old woman whose purse she’d saved was far too busy thanking the nice Australian boy to give her a second glance. Anna was wondering quite why she’d bothered when she spotted Kate Barnes at the other end of the carriage.

Really? Oh, for fuck’s sake.

Staff of Kate’s grade rarely slummed it on public transport. Anna cursed the dumb luck that had put her on the same train as the junkie, the old woman’s purse and now her sodding boss.

Kate looked at her down the carriage and gave a slow shake of her head. Anna could well imagine how the incident must have looked from her boss’s point of view. ‘Headstrong’, ‘impulsive’, ‘emotional’ – those were the words that people had used to describe her when she’d had her last little issue. Right before they’d shoved her into her current dead-end desk job.

They’d be saying the same again when this got round.

Anna started to move down the carriage: better to talk to Kate immediately; make sure her boss understood what had just happened. But then she stopped herself and turned away.

What was the point? Kate would see it exactly as she wanted to.

Their stop was up next so Anna turned and moved towards the doors instead for a quick getaway. Eyes down, she was first off the train, hurrying for the exit, resisting the temptation to run. One old woman had got her purse back. Great, maybe the ungrateful old hag could learn to keep her bag shut in future. Why couldn’t she have stayed out of it?

Just three short weeks ago Anna had got back from her holiday with Scott, happy and relaxed (and looking pretty tanned and gorgeous, she thought). She’d headed into work that first morning, adamant she’d give the job one more go, to try to put everything into it.

Now it had all gone to shit.

She reached the escalator, taking the steps two at a time, determined not to give Kate the satisfaction of seeing her cry.

I WAS VERY EXCITED TO GET INTO THIS READ!

PHIL BRADY WROTE AN IMPECCABLY INTERESTING READ.

ONCE AGAIN, THANK YOU ANNE CATER FOR INCLUDING ME , AS ALWAYS, I AM INCREDIBLY THANKFUL TO BE APART OF THE BLOG TOURS.