The Great Turkey Sandwich Caper

The backstage fridge at the Leeds O2 Academy had exactly four things in it, and Soph Sparklemax knew this because she had memorized them like the setlist. Bottle of water, Tracy’s. Bottle of Lucozade, Bess’s. A sad-looking Tesco meal deal that belonged to nobody and had been there since the Newcastle gig two days ago. And on the second shelf, right at the front, wrapped in cling film with her name on it in Sharpie — Soph’s turkey sandwich. White bread, no crusts, extra stuffing, a thin layer of cranberry sauce. She’d made it herself at four in the morning in the Travelodge kitchenette while Ruby slept on the counter beside her.

She opened the fridge door.

The water was there. The Lucozade was there. The sad Tesco meal deal was still growing civilizations. The second shelf had a gap the exact shape and size of a turkey sandwich, and that gap was the worst thing Soph had ever seen in her life.

“No.”

She said it to the fridge. She said it to the gap. She crouched down and looked at the shelf from below, as though the sandwich might be hiding underneath it, playing some kind of game. She checked behind the meal deal. She checked behind the Lucozade. She opened the crisper drawer at the bottom, which had never been opened by anyone in the history of the O2 Academy Leeds, and found nothing but a single dry grape.

“NO!”

The dressing room door was open. Soph came through it at a speed that knocked Bess’s stick bag off the chair it was hanging on, which Bess did not appreciate, and she launched herself into the middle of the room with both arms above her head.

“Someone’s nicked me sarnie!”

Tracy Sparklemax was standing by the vanity mirror with her clipboard — the clipboard, the one she’d laminated a colour-coded schedule onto, the one she’d brought to every gig since she’d appointed herself band manager two years ago — and she was mid-sentence.

“—so soundcheck moves to four-fifteen, which means the line check shifts to four-twenty, and I need everyone on stage by four-oh-five, not four-oh-six, not four-ten, four-oh-five, because the venue’s got a second act soundchecking after us and if we run late they charge us — Soph, are you listening?”

Soph was not listening. Soph was standing in the middle of the dressing room with her hands on her head, fingers tangled in her own rainbow curls, staring at the ceiling as though appealing to a higher power.

“Me sarnie’s gone, Trace.”

“Your what?”

“Me turkey sarnie. The one I made this mornin’. White bread, no crusts, extra stuffin’, cranberry sauce. Had me name on it and everythin’. I put it in the fridge when we got here, right on the second shelf, front and centre, and now it’s gone. Vanished. Disappeared into thin air.”

Tracy looked at her clipboard. Tracy looked at Soph. Tracy looked at the clipboard again, as though consulting it for a protocol regarding stolen sandwiches. There was no protocol. The clipboard did not cover this.

“We’ll deal with it after soundcheck.”

“After — Trace, someone’s committed a crime against me lunch!”

Bess Sparklemax was sat cross-legged on the floor by the amps with a roll of gaffer tape and three drumsticks, wrapping the handles methodically. She looked up with a grin that was all teeth, the kind of grin that said she was about to enjoy herself at someone else’s expense.

“Crime’s a strong word, Soph.” She tore the tape with her teeth. “What’s the sentence for sandwich theft? Six months in bread jail?”

“Sod off, Bess, this is serious! That was me dinner, that was me pre-show fuel, that was — did you take it?”

“Did I take your sandwich.”

“Yeah, did you?”

Bess held up both hands, gaffer tape still stuck to her fingers. “I’ve been sat here taping me sticks for the last forty minutes. You’ve been sat in here with me, Soph. You watched me do it.”

Soph had, in fact, been sitting in the room with Bess for the last forty minutes. She’d been on her phone looking at fan art of herself that a fourteen-year-old in Doncaster had drawn. This did not help her case, and she knew it, but she was not about to let facts get in the way of an investigation.

“You could’ve got up when I went to the toilet.”

“I didn’t get up when you went to the toilet.”

“That’s exactly what a sandwich thief would say!”

Bess laughed — a proper belly laugh, head thrown back, sticks clattering onto the floor. “Oh, this is the best thing that’s happened all day. Soph Sparklemax, Sandwich Detective. Got a magnifying glass, have we? Gonna dust the fridge for prints?”

“Keep laughin’, Bess. Keep laughin’ all the way to drum prison.” Soph spun on her heel and pointed at the couch, where Ruby Sparklemax was lying horizontally with her bass guitar across her stomach and her eyes at approximately half-mast. “Ruby. RUBY. Did you see anyone go near the fridge?”

Ruby did not move. Ruby’s eyes opened a quarter of an inch. One corner of her mouth curved upward.

“See anyone go near the what?”

“The fridge, Rubes. The fridge. Backstage fridge. Second shelf. Me turkey sandwich.”

Ruby blinked. She appeared to process the word ‘fridge’ over the course of several seconds, during which her expression shifted from vague recognition to mild pleasure to something approaching confusion.

“There’s a fridge?”

“There’s ALWAYS a fridge, Ruby, we’ve been usin’ it all tour!”

“Cool.” Ruby closed her eyes again. “Is there food in it?”

“There WAS food in it. MY food. Did you take it?”

Ruby appeared to give the question genuine thought. Her brow furrowed. She chewed her bottom lip. Her fingers idled on the bass strings, producing a low, formless rumble.

“I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember the last two hours?”

Ruby shook her head slowly, a movement that seemed to require significant effort. “I remember bein’ on the bus. I remember findin’ a crisp on the floor. I remember eatin’ the crisp. Then I was here.” She paused. “Nice crisp, though.”

Soph turned back to the room at large. “She’s useless! She’s absolutely useless! The one witness and she’s off her nut on Devil’s Lettuce!”

“I’m not off me nut,” Ruby said, eyes still closed. “I’m perfectly relaxed. I’m the most relaxed person in this room.”

“That’s because you’ve smoked so much you’ve forgotten what bein’ un-relaxed feels like!”

“Sounds ideal, actually.”

Tracy stepped forward, clipboard repositioned against her hip like a shield. She was shorter than Soph by a good four inches, which made the fact that she was currently radiating the energy of a headteacher about to confiscate a phone all the more impressive. Her blue hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail and her jaw was set in the particular way it set when the schedule was being threatened.

“Right. Soph. I need you to sit down, stop accusing people, and let me finish the briefing. We’ve got forty minutes until we need to be on stage. The sandwich will still be missing after soundcheck. It will still be missing in an hour. It will still be missing when we’ve done the show and we can deal with it then.”

“But someone ATE it, Trace! Someone’s walkin’ around backstage right now with me turkey sandwich in their belly, digestin’ it, turnin’ it into energy that should’ve been MY energy for the show!”

“Then they’ll have a good show, and so will we, because we’re professionals. Sit. Down.”

Soph did not sit down. Soph made for the door.

Tracy got there first. She stepped sideways with a speed that suggested she’d been expecting this exact move, planting herself in the doorframe with her arms out to either side, clipboard in one hand and the other hand flat against the wood. Her expression was calm, controlled, and absolutely immovable.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“To search the corridor! The thief could still be out there, Trace, they could still have the sandwich, they might not have eaten it yet —”

“You are not searching the corridor. You are not interrogating roadies. You are not turning this into a thing.”

“It IS a thing! It’s a THING, Tracy, it’s a sandwich thing, it’s a caper —”

“It is not a caper. It is a missing sandwich, and we have a show to prepare for, and I have spent three weeks organizing this tour and I am not going to let a piece of poultry derail the Leeds date. Do you understand me?”

Soph stared at Tracy. Tracy stared at Soph. They were close enough that Soph could smell the green tea Tracy had been drinking and could see the faint tremor in Tracy’s jaw that meant she was clenching her teeth.

Soph tried to sidestep left. Tracy moved left. Soph tried right. Tracy moved right. The clipboard tapped the doorframe.

“You’re blockin’ the door.”

“Yes. That is the point of standing in a doorframe.”

“I could pick you up, you know. I’m taller than you.”

“Try it and I’ll cut your set by two songs.”

“You can’t cut me set, it’s MY set!”

“I’m the manager. I can cut whatever I like. Sit down, Soph.”

Soph did not sit down, but she did stop trying to get past Tracy, because the look in Tracy’s brown eyes said the two-song threat was not idle. Tracy had cut a song in Manchester once because Bess was two minutes late to the stage, and the song she’d cut had been Soph’s favourite. She’d never forgiven Tracy for it, and Tracy knew it, and Tracy was using it.

“This isn’t over,” Soph said, jabbing a finger at Tracy’s face.

“It’s over for the next thirty-eight minutes, which is all I need.”

Bess, from the floor, raised a drumstick in mock salute. “Justice for the sarnie. We’ll fight another day, Soph.”

“Shut up, Bess, you’re not helpin’!”

“I’m not trying to help. I’m trying to watch.”

The dressing room door opened behind Tracy — or rather, Tracy had to step aside to let it open, which she did with the expression of someone being physically removed from a defensive position — and Kristy Sparklemax walked in.

Kristy walked in like she always walked in: with her shoulders back, her pink hair freshly tousled, and the look of someone who had been doing something interesting and wanted everyone to know about it but didn’t want to volunteer the information. She had her phone in one hand, screen down against her thigh, and her lips were curved in a smile that was trying very hard not to be a smile.

Soph saw the smile. Soph locked onto the smile the way a missile locks onto a heat signature. Soph forgot about the corridor, forgot about Tracy’s clipboard, forgot about the thirty-eight minutes, and took three steps across the room.

“What’s that face for?”

Kristy looked up, the smile flickering. “What face?”

“That face. That face right there. That smug little — you’re grinnin’, Kristy. Why are you grinnin’? What’ve you done?”

“I’m not grinning. This is my face.”

“That’s not your face, your face doesn’t do that unless you’ve done somethin’.” Soph’s eyes dropped to the phone. “What’s on the phone? Who were you talkin’ to? Were you talkin’ to someone about a sandwich?”

Kristy’s eyebrows rose. She looked at Bess. Bess shrugged, grinning. She looked at Tracy, who pinched the bridge of her nose. She looked at Ruby, who appeared to have fallen asleep.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kristy said. Her accent curled around the vowels in that particular Belarusian-Russian way that made everything she said sound faintly conspiratorial, which Soph would normally find charming but right now found deeply suspicious.

“You come waltzin’ in here with a face like the cat that got the cream — or in this case, the cat that got the turkey sandwich — and I’m supposed to believe you’ve got nothin’ to do with it?”

“I genuinely do not know what has happened. I’ve been in the merch area for the last twenty minutes.”

“Doing WHAT?”

Kristy’s smile came back. She held up her phone. “Texting.”

“Texting who?”

“That is none of your business, Soph.”

“That is absolutely me business if you’ve been textin’ someone about me sandwich!”

Kristy laughed — a low, warm sound, nothing like Bess’s braying cackle. “Soph, darling, I promise you, I have not texted anyone about your sandwich. I was texting the girl who runs the merch table.”

Soph blinked. “What girl?”

“The girl. With the nose ring. She’s been at every date on this tour and she always comes to watch us soundcheck and she gave me a free hoodie yesterday. She’s very sweet.”

“You were smilin’ because of a GIRL?”

“Yes, Soph. I was smiling because of a girl. Not because of your sandwich. I did not take your sandwich. I had a protein bar in the van an hour ago and I am not hungry.”

Tracy seized the moment with the efficiency of someone who had been waiting for a gap in the chaos. “Right. Kristy’s cleared. Ruby’s unconscious. Bess was here the whole time. I was here the whole time. Can we move on? Can I please, please finish the briefing?”

Soph opened her mouth. Soph closed her mouth. Soph looked at the fridge, visible through the open door to the next room, sitting there in the corner with its cold, empty, sandwichless second shelf.

“Someone took it, Trace.”

“Someone probably did.”

“And we’re not gonna find out who?”

“Not in the next thirty-seven minutes, no.”

Soph sat down on the arm of the couch. Ruby’s foot twitched against her thigh. Bess picked up another drumstick and started taping. Tracy turned back to the mirror and began reading off the clipboard in the clipped, efficient voice that meant the briefing was resuming whether anyone wanted it to or not.

Kristy sat down at the vanity beside Tracy and began restringing her guitar by ear, her phone face-down on the counter, the smile still there.

Soph stared at the fridge.

Someone had her sandwich. And she was going to find out who.

Tracy had exactly thirty-four minutes of scheduled briefing time remaining. She had allocated seven of those to setlist order, nine to the lighting cues the venue tech had botched in yesterday’s email, four to the backstage guest list discrepancy, and the remaining fourteen to what she privately classified as “buffer for Soph doing something.” The buffer had been generous. The buffer had not been generous enough.

She watched, clipboard in hand, as Soph crossed the dressing room with the focused determination of a woman who had decided that the next thirty-four minutes belonged to turkey, not to Tracy.

“Where are you going?”

“Gonna sort this out, ain’t I.”

“Soundcheck starts in——”

“Thirty-four minutes, yeah, I heard you the first four times.” Soph was already at Bess’s stick bag, rummaging through it with both hands. Drumsticks clattered to the floor. Bess looked up from her taping with her mouth half-open, a piece of gaffer between her teeth.

“Oi. That’s my kit, that is.”

Soph produced a black permanent marker from the bag’s side pocket, uncapped it with her teeth, and turned to the dressing room mirror.

“Don’t you dare,” Tracy said.

Soph pressed the marker to the glass.

“SOPH.”

The first word appeared in thick, wobbly capitals: SANDWICH. She underlined it twice. Then she drew a line beneath it and started writing names.

Kristy looked up from her guitar strings. Ruby lifted her head off the couch cushion. Bess pulled the gaffer from her teeth and sat forward. Tracy stood frozen with her clipboard, watching her carefully maintained schedule slide down the mirror in black ink.

“What are you doing?” Tracy’s voice came out tighter than she intended.

“It’s a suspect board, ennit.” Soph didn’t turn around. She was writing KRISTY in block letters now, with an arrow pointing to the word SMIRK. “Like off the telly. Detectives do it.”

“We’re not detectives. We’re a band. You’re writing on venue property with permanent marker.”

“It’ll come off.”

“It will not come off. That’s why they call it permanent.”

“Bess, you got any nail polish remover in that bag?”

“Why would I have nail polish remover in my stick bag?” Bess held up her hands—calloused, nicked, the nails bitten down to the quick. “Look at me. Do I look like I do nails?”

Soph was already moving on. She’d written RUBY on the mirror with an arrow to FRIDGE ACCESS, and under Bess’s name she’d put OPPORTUNITY AND MEANS. Tracy recognized the phrase from some detective show, repeated with the confidence of someone who’d watched three episodes on a tour bus at two in the morning.

Then Soph wrote TRACY and drew an arrow to the word MOTIVE.

“Motive?” Tracy set the clipboard down on the vanity with a click that made Kristy flinch. “What motive could I possibly have for taking your sandwich?”

“You’re always telling me I eat too much before shows, ain’t you? Always going on about ‘vocal health’ and ‘dairy before singing’ and all that.”

“That’s because you eat cheese and onion crisps before every gig and then complain your throat is dry. That’s not motive for theft. That’s dietary advice.”

Soph tapped the marker against her chin, leaving a small black smudge. “Still. It’s a lead.”

“It is not a lead. It’s slander. Written on a mirror. In permanent ink.”

But Soph had already turned to Ruby, who had propped herself on one elbow and was watching the proceedings with the heavy-lidded patience of someone for whom time moved at a different speed.

“Ruby. Did you go near that fridge today?”

Ruby considered this. Her eyes drifted to the ceiling. She appeared to be consulting some internal record that was filed in no particular order.

“Might have done, yeah.”

“When?”

“Dunno. Before? After?” Ruby scratched her neck. “I put me gummy bears in there. The green ones. Had to keep 'em cold or they go all soft, don’t they.”

“You opened the fridge.”

“I opened the fridge, yeah.”

“Did you see my sandwich?”

Ruby’s brow furrowed. The effort of recollection was visible and slow. “Sandwich. Turkey one? In the cling film?”

“It was in a sealed bag, Ruby. Sealed. With my name on it. In marker.”

“Right, yeah, that one.” Ruby nodded, then shrugged. “Saw it this morning, I think. Or lunch. What time is it now?”

“Quarter to four.”

“Then yeah, probably around lunchtime. Give or take.”

Tracy pinched the bridge of her nose. The setlist order was not being discussed. The lighting cues were not being reviewed. The guest list discrepancy sat uncorrected on her clipboard, which was now face-down on the vanity next to Kristy’s phone.

“And you didn’t take it?”

“Why would I take a turkey sandwich?” Ruby shifted onto her back again. “I’ve got me gummy bears. I’m sorted.”

“But you opened the fridge. So you had access.”

“I had access to the fridge, yeah. Didn’t have access to wanting a turkey sandwich.” Ruby yawned. “No offense, Soph, but turkey’s bare. Boring. Like eating cardboard that’s pretending to be food.”

“Right, right, that tracks.” Soph drew a small check mark next to Ruby’s name, then crossed it out, then drew a question mark. The mirror was becoming a forensic nightmare. “But you saw the sandwich. So it was there this morning.”

“Give or take.”

“Who else was near the fridge?”

Ruby stared at the ceiling for a long moment. Then her face changed—a small lift of the eyebrows, the closest thing to urgency her expression could manage.

“Oh. Yeah. There was a bloke.”

Every head in the room turned.

“A bloke,” Soph repeated.

“Roadie bloke. Big lad. Beard. One of the venue lot, not ours.” Ruby gestured vaguely toward the door. “He was just standing there, didn’t he. By the fridge. I thought he was getting water or whatever.”

“How long was he there?”

“Dunno. Didn’t clock it. I was focused on me gummy bears.” She paused. “He looked hungry, though.”

Soph was already moving. The marker clattered to the floor. She was through the dressing room door and into the corridor before Tracy could get a word out, her boots echoing on the concrete floor of the Leeds O2 Academy backstage passage.

Tracy looked at the clipboard on the vanity. She looked at the mirror, now covered in permanent ink and accusation arrows. She looked at the open door.

“Someone should go after her,” Kristy said, still restringing.

Bess had returned to taping her sticks. “Not me. She’ll calm down in a minute.”

“She won’t calm down,” Tracy said. “She’s chasing a bearded man through a venue she’s never been in before. She’s going to get lost, or arrested, or both, and then we’ll have no singer for soundcheck.”

She picked up her clipboard. She put it down again. She picked it up.

“Bloody hell.”

The corridor was long and grey, lined with coiled cables and flight cases. Tracy found Soph at the junction near the stage left loading area, standing on tiptoe to peer around a corner.

“Did you find him?”

“No.” Soph’s ponytail swung as she checked the other direction. “There’s like three doors down here. Where do roadies even go?”

“Roadies go where the gear is. Are you listening to yourself? You’re hunting a man because Ruby—who can’t remember what day it is—said he looked hungry.”

“He was lingering, Tracy. Lingering by the fridge. That’s suspicious behavior.”

“That’s a man waiting to use a fridge. This is what roadies do. They stand near things.”

Soph ignored her completely and pushed through a fire door into a stairwell. Tracy followed because the alternative was letting Soph roam unsupervised through a venue she didn’t know, and the last time that happened in Manchester, Soph had ended up on the roof arguing with a pigeon.

“Soph. Soph, stop. Listen to me.”

Soph stopped on the landing. “What?”

Tracy hesitated. The words had been building in her chest since she’d noticed it—since she’d opened the fridge for a bottle of water twenty minutes ago and found the second shelf bare in a way she hadn’t expected.

“I had one too.”

Soph’s face changed. “Had one what?”

“A sandwich. Turkey. I packed one this morning at the hotel. Same deli, same bread.” Tracy looked at the fire exit sign above the door. Its green glow reflected off the concrete. “It was my backup.”

“Your backup sandwich?”

“For after soundcheck. If the catering’s bad, which it usually is at these academies, I like to have something.” She could feel Soph’s stare and resented it. “I’m not explaining myself to you. I’m telling you I had one, and it’s gone as well.”

“So there’s two missing sandwiches.”

“Apparently.”

“Two turkey sandwiches, both from the same deli, both in the same fridge, both gone.” Soph’s eyes went wide. “It’s a serial killer. A sandwich serial killer.”

“It’s not a serial killer. It’s someone who was hungry.”

“Or someone who knew. Someone who clocked both of us buying turkey sandwiches at the deli this morning and followed us here and——”

“That is the most unhinged thing you’ve ever said, and you once suggested we hire a psychic to bless the tour bus.”

They stood in the stairwell. Tracy could hear the distant thump of the venue’s house system testing low-end frequencies through the walls. Soundcheck was in twenty-six minutes. She was not going to make her buffer.

“Come back to the dressing room,” she said. “We’ll figure it out after the show.”

“After the show? Tracy, someone in this building has our sandwiches.”

“Someone in this building has your sandwich. I’m starting to think I misplaced mine.”

“You never misplace anything. You once emailed me a revised schedule at four in the morning because you’d found a typo in the previous version.”

“That typo would have cost us fifteen minutes at the Bristol gig.”

Soph threw her hands up. “Right. So if you didn’t misplace it, and I didn’t misplace mine, then someone took both of them. Which means this is a conspiracy.”

They walked back to the dressing room in tense silence. Tracy’s mind was running calculations—setlist time minus soundcheck delay minus the fifteen minutes it would take to scrub permanent marker off a mirror, assuming it was even possible.

When they got back, the room had changed.

Kristy was standing at the vanity with her phone in one hand, staring at the mirror. The suspect board had been augmented while they were gone: Soph had apparently added a section at the bottom labeled EVIDENCE, under which she’d written “fridge = crime scene” and “Ruby = unreliable witness.” Kristy’s phone was face-up on the counter, the screen showing a text conversation with someone saved in her contacts as “Merch Boy Tom 🎸.”

“What’s that?” Soph pointed at the phone.

Kristy picked it up. “This is why I was smiling. Earlier. When you accused me of sandwich theft.”

“That’s not what I——”

“You said, and I quote, ‘What are you smiling about, thief?’” Kristy held up the phone. “I was texting Tom. From the merch stand. He’s very sweet. He gave me a free patch for my jacket.”

“You were smiling because of a boy?”

“I was smiling because of a boy, yes.”

Soph squinted at the phone. “Let me see.”

“No.” Kristy locked the phone and set it face-down on the vanity. Then she picked it up again and tried to stick it to the mirror, which didn’t work because mirrors aren’t magnetic and phones aren’t magnets, but she tried anyway with the confused logic of someone who wanted to be cleared of suspicion and had run out of ideas. The phone slid down the glass, leaving a faint streak through Soph’s marker, and landed on the counter with a clack.

“You’re cleared,” Soph said, with the gravity of a judge. “But I’m keeping your phone as evidence.”

“That is my phone.”

“Evidence.”

Kristy looked at Tracy. Tracy looked at the ceiling.

“Give her back her phone, Soph.”

Soph placed it on the vanity with exaggerated ceremony. “Fine. But I’m noting that she had means and opportunity, and her alibi is a boy.”

“Her alibi is a verified text conversation with timestamps,” Tracy said.

“Means and opportunity.”

Bess, who had been silent through all of this, stood up from her drum case. She’d been using it as a seat while she taped her sticks, and now she was lifting the lid to put them away. The case was the big one—the kick drum flight case, battered and stickered from three tours and a ferry crossing.

“Hang on,” Bess said.

Everyone looked at her.

She was holding something between her thumb and forefinger. A sandwich wrapper. Clear plastic, smeared with something that might have been mayonnaise, folded in half and tucked into the foam padding of the drum case.

“Is that——” Soph crossed the room in three strides.

Bess held it up to the light. The wrapper had been torn open at one end, not peeled, and there were bite marks along the edge where someone—or something—had gripped the plastic to pull it apart.

“Those are teeth marks,” Soph whispered.

“That’s not human teeth.” Bess turned the wrapper in her fingers. She had the focused look she got when tuning a snare head—precise, analytical. “Look at the spacing. Way too narrow. And there’s only one row. Human bites have upper and lower.”

“Are you telling me you know bite mark analysis?” Tracy stepped closer.

“I watch a lot of true crime, don’t I.” Bess dropped the wrapper into Soph’s outstretched palm. “Whoever took your sandwich, it weren’t one of us. Unless one of you’s been holding out on having a very small mouth.”

Soph held the wrapper up to the dressing room light. The bite marks were small, crescent-shaped, evenly spaced. Mayonnaise smeared the inside of the plastic. A single shred of brown bread clung to the torn edge.

“There’s a wrapper in Bess’s drum case,” Soph said slowly. “With tiny bite marks. And both sandwiches are gone.”

“Which means,” Tracy said, and she could feel her scheduling brain giving way to something far less organized, “whatever took your sandwich came through this room.”

“And went through Bess’s kit.”

“And is possibly still in the building.”

The room went quiet. Ruby, who had been lying on the couch throughout the entire investigation with her eyes at half-mast, sat up.

“Should we be worried about that? Like, is there a rat or something?”

“It’s not a rat,” Bess said. “Rats don’t open sealed bags. And rats don’t close drum cases behind them.”

“Then what——”

“I don’t know.” Bess closed the drum case and sat on it. “But I’d like to find out before I put my kick drum in there, yeah? Don’t fancy sharing my case with whatever’s been having its lunch in it.”

Tracy looked at the mirror. The suspect board stared back at her—names, arrows, accusations in wobbly permanent marker. None of them accounted for this. She looked at Soph, who was still holding the wrapper like it was a holy relic.

“Right,” Tracy said, and she heard her own voice shift into the tone she used when things were going sideways and someone had to take charge. “Right. We follow the trail.”

“You’re helping?” Soph’s face split into a grin.

“Don’t make me regret it. And someone bring that wrapper.”

The wrapper went into Soph’s back pocket. She could feel the greasy cling-film against her thigh through the denim, and she didn’t care. Evidence was evidence. She grabbed Bess’s torch from the stick bag without asking, clicked it on, and swept the beam across the dressing room floor.

“There.” Soph pointed at the lino near the door. Three brown crumbs and a shred of lettuce, slightly wilted. “Crumbs. We’ve got crumbs.”

“Those could be from anything,” Tracy said, already behind her in the doorway.

“They’re turkey crumbs, Tracy. I know my turkey.” Soph crouched, torch in her teeth, and squinted at the trail. A few more crumbs led out into the corridor, skirting the edge of the carpet runner. Something had carried those sandwiches along the wall, close to the skirting board, leaving a dotted line of devastation all the way toward the fire exit at the far end. “It’s like a crime scene. This is brilliant.”

“It’s not brilliant. It’s a health hazard.” Tracy had her clipboard pressed to her chest like a shield, pen jammed behind one ear. Her boots clicked on the lino as she followed Soph into the corridor. “And we’ve got soundcheck in——”

“Don’t.”

“In twenty-two minutes——”

“I said don’t. The sandwich comes first.” Soph swept the torch left. More crumbs, a faint smear of butter on the carpet edge. She moved fast, crouching every few steps to confirm the trail, and Tracy followed with the resigned gait of someone who knew she’d lost this particular battle. “Whoever did this went this way. Toward the loading dock.”

“Or whatever did this,” Tracy muttered.

Soph stopped. Turned. “What d’you mean, whatever?”

“I mean the bite marks on that wrapper were small. Bess was right. None of us have mouths that tiny. Unless Ruby’s been holding back on us.”

“It wasn’t a rat.” Soph said it firmly, the way she said everything. “Rats don’t open sealed bags, Bess said so. Bess knows about rats.”

“How does Bess know about rats?”

“I dunno, she just does. She knows about a lot of stuff.” Soph resumed her crouch-walk along the corridor, torch beam jittering across the crumbs. They thickened near the fire exit door, which was propped open with a wedge of folded cardboard. A warm draft rolled in from outside, carrying the smell of diesel and wet tarmac. “Through here. It went outside.”

“Why would a sandwich thief go outside?” Tracy pulled the clipboard tighter. “We’re performing in twenty minutes. This is ridiculous.”

“You volunteered.”

“I didn’t volunteer. I was drafted.”

Soph pushed through the fire exit into the loading bay behind the O2 Academy. The afternoon had gone grey and heavy, clouds sitting fat and low over the rooftops of Leeds. The loading ramp stretched out in front of them, a concrete slope leading down to the car park where the band’s transit van sat with its back doors hanging open. Two roadies were coiling cables near the van, paying them no attention. Soph swept the torch across the ground even though it wasn’t dark yet, because it felt right.

The crumbs thickened here. A proper trail, scattered across the rough concrete like breadcrumbs in a fairy tale. Soph followed them, hunched over, one hand on the ground for balance. Tracy walked behind her upright, arms folded, pen still behind her ear, radiating the specific discomfort of a person who could be doing six more productive things and was doing none of them.

“Heeeere, sarnie, sarnie, sarnie,” Soph called out.

“Stop that.”

“Heeeeere, sandwich thief. Come to mummy.”

“I will turn around and go back inside.”

“You won’t.” Soph grinned over her shoulder. Tracy didn’t grin back, but her jaw softened by a fraction. That was close enough.

The trail curved around a stack of flight cases and along the edge of the loading ramp. Soph rounded the corner first and stopped so abruptly that Tracy walked into her back.

“What——”

Soph pointed the torch.

Sitting at the bottom of the loading ramp, bathed in grey Yorkshire daylight, was a golden retriever. A big one. Its coat was the colour of toasted bread, thick and well-brushed, and it sat with the composed posture of a dog that knew exactly where it was and what it had done. A blue vest stretched across its chest with the words ASSISTANCE DOG — DO NOT PET embroidered in white block letters. Beside its front paws, crushed flat and licked clean, were two sandwich wrappers. Both had the same small, neat bite marks as the one in Soph’s pocket. Both still bore the faint gold sticker from the Tesco meal deal.

The dog looked up at them. Its tail swept the concrete once, twice, a slow and contented wag. Its tongue lolled out the side of its mouth. It looked, in every possible way, like the happiest creature in Leeds.

“Biscuit?” A voice came from the van. A man in a high-vis vest and headphones around his neck leaned out from behind the open doors, squinting toward them. “Biscuit, there you are. I’ve been looking for you, mate.”

“That’s your dog?” Tracy’s voice went sharp.

The sound engineer climbed out of the van, tucking a tablet under his arm. He was a tall man with a beard that needed trimming and a lanyard that read DAVE — AUDIO. “Yeah, that’s Biscuit. He’s my assistance dog. He’s not supposed to be wandering off, are you, you daft thing.” He looked at Soph, then at Tracy, then at the wrappers on the ground. His face went through several stages of comprehension. “Oh. Oh no. Did he——”

“He ate our sandwiches,” Soph said.

“Both of them,” Tracy added, and her voice had gone very quiet.

Dave crouched down and scooped the wrappers off the ground, stuffing them into his hi-vis pocket with the guilty efficiency of someone who’d had this conversation before. “I’m so sorry. He’s usually brilliant, he never wanders. I think someone must’ve left a door open backstage. He’s got a nose on him, this one. Can’t resist food, can you, you terrible beast.” He ruffled Biscuit’s ears. Biscuit’s tail went faster.

“He ate two sandwiches,” Tracy said again.

“I’ll replace them. I’ll pop to the shop, I can grab——”

“That’s not the point.”

Soph looked at Tracy. Something had shifted. Tracy’s shoulders had drawn in, and her grip on the clipboard had tightened until her knuckles went pale. This wasn’t about the sandwiches anymore, or it was, but not in the way Soph had expected. Tracy’s bottom lip did something complicated, a quick press inward like she was holding words behind her teeth.

“Tracy?” Soph lowered the torch.

“I made a backup.” Tracy’s voice came out flat, stripped of its usual clipped authority. “This morning. Before we left the hotel. I made a second turkey sandwich and put it in the fridge because I——” She stopped. Swallowed. “I stress-eat before shows. Right before soundcheck. I have done since we started touring. I didn’t want anyone to know because it’s——it’s not exactly professional, is it, the band manager stuffing her face before every gig like some sort of——”

“Tracy.”

“It’s embarrassing. And now a dog knows. A dog has eaten my secret sandwich and I——”

Soph burst out laughing. She couldn’t help it. It came out of her in a great honking bray that echoed off the loading ramp walls, and Tracy’s face went from vulnerable to murderous in the space of a heartbeat, which made Soph laugh harder. She doubled over, hands on her knees, torch rolling forgotten on the concrete.

“Don’t you dare——”

“I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing at——” Soph wheezed, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. “The dog, Tracy. The dog. We accused each other. I drew on the mirror. Kristy locked her phone to the glass. Ruby forgot what century she was in. And it was a dog called Biscuit.”

“It’s not funny.”

“It’s a little bit funny.”

“It is not——” But Tracy’s mouth twitched. A tiny, treacherous movement at the corner. She fought it. She fought it hard, jaw tight, clipboard pressed to her chest like armour. Then Bess’s voice came booming from the fire exit behind them.

“Did you find it? Did you find the sandwich thief?”

Soph turned, still grinning, and pointed down the ramp. Bess appeared in the doorway with Kristy and Ruby behind her, all three of them silhouetted against the backstage fluorescent light. Bess spotted Biscuit first. Then the wrappers in Dave’s hand. Then Biscuit’s vest.

“No way.” Bess’s square jaw dropped open. “No way.”

“A dog,” Kristy said, and her Russian accent gave the word two syllables. “A dog ate the sandwiches.”

“A good boy ate the sandwiches,” Ruby corrected, drifting down the ramp with her usual loose-limbed stroll. She crouched beside Biscuit and scratched under his chin, completely ignoring the DO NOT PET vest. “Look at him. He’s chuffed. He’s had the best afternoon of his life.”

“He ate two sandwiches,” Bess said, and then she started laughing, this great big bark of a laugh that bounced off the concrete. Kristy followed, her laugh higher and musical, and Ruby just grinned and kept scratching Biscuit’s ears while the dog’s tail swept the ground in lazy strokes.

Soph looked at Tracy. Tracy stood at the top of the ramp, clipboard to her chest, surrounded by laughing bandmates and a very satisfied golden retriever, and her face was doing something Soph had never seen it do before. The mask was slipping. Not all the way, Tracy would never let it go all the way, but there were cracks in it now. Her eyes were too bright and her chin was doing a small tremble and she was breathing through her nose in the careful way people breathe when they’re trying very hard not to feel something in front of others.

Soph walked back up the ramp. She reached past her drum kit case, grabbed her gig bag from the pile of gear stacked near the wall, and unzipped the front pocket. Her fingers found the protein bar she’d stuffed in there three days ago and forgotten about. She pulled it out, tore the wrapper, and snapped it clean in half.

“Here.” She held one half out to Tracy.

Tracy stared at it. “That’s not a sandwich.”

“No. It’s a protein bar. Best I’ve got.” Soph waggled it. “Take it before I eat both halves.”

“You should eat both halves. You’re the one singing tonight.”

“And you’re the one who’s been running around backstage on an empty stomach pretending you’re fine. Take it, Tracy.”

Tracy took it. Her fingers brushed Soph’s, quick and dry, and she looked at the protein bar in her hand like she wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. Then she bit into it. Chewed. Swallowed. Something in her shoulders loosened.

“I’ll buy you a proper one after the show,” Soph said. “Whatever you want. Turkey, ham, that weird egg and cress thing you like from the garage. My treat.”

“You hate egg and cress.”

“I hate smelling egg and cress. I’ll still buy it for you.”

Tracy bit into the protein bar again. She chewed slowly, looking out over the loading ramp where Biscuit was now lying on his side letting Ruby rub his belly while Bess took a photo and Dave apologised for the fourth time. The afternoon light caught Tracy’s blue hair and turned it almost violet.

“Thank you,” Tracy said, and she said it so quietly that Soph almost missed it under Bess’s cackling and Ruby’s cooing.

“Don’t mention it.” Soph punched her arm, lightly. “Seriously, don’t mention it. I’ve got a reputation.”

“What reputation?”

“Rebel rocker. Dangerous. Unpredictable. Not the sort of bird who shares her protein bars.”

“You ate a protein bar that’s been in your gig bag for three days.”

“Rebels don’t check expiry dates, Tracy.”

Tracy almost smiled. It was there and gone, a flicker, but Soph caught it and filed it away in the part of her brain where she kept the things about Tracy that nobody else got to see.

Bess hauled herself up from the ground, dusting off her knees. “Right. We’re doing soundcheck, yeah? Before Tracy has an actual aneurysm?”

Tracy checked her watch. Her face did something complicated. “Soundcheck was supposed to start four minutes ago.”

“Better late than never,” Soph said.

“Late is never better.” Tracy was already moving, clipboard up, pen in hand, clicking back into gear like a switch had been thrown. She strode back through the fire exit, boots sharp on the lino, calling over her shoulder. “Stage. Now. All of you. Dave, I need you on the desk in three minutes. Someone tell lighting we’re starting behind schedule.”

Soph lingered at the top of the ramp. She looked back at Biscuit, who had rolled upright again and was sitting contentedly beside Dave’s equipment case, ears perked, tongue out, the picture of canine innocence. She pulled out her phone and snapped a photo. The dog blinked at the flash.

“You’re a menace, you are,” she told him. “Greatest sandwich thief in Leeds.”

Biscuit wagged his tail.

Soundcheck started twelve minutes late. Tracy stood at the side of the stage with her clipboard and her pen, watching the desk, watching the monitors, watching everything, and Soph watched her write something on the clipboard in small tight letters. Later, when Tracy left it on the monitor wedge to adjust a microphone stand, Soph leaned over and read it. Between MONITORS NEED MORE LOW END and LIGHTING CUE 3 TOO EARLY, Tracy had written: dog incident — loading dock — 16:14.

Soph grinned. She pulled her mic from its stand, tested the weight of it in her hand, and turned to face the empty hall. The house lights were up and the crew moved through the rows with torches and gaffer tape, and the room smelled like old beer and fresh sweat and the particular electricity that only exists in venues right before a show. She bounced on her heels. She shook out her hands. She felt the familiar crackle in her chest, the one that told her she was about to do the thing she was born to do.

She leaned into the mic.

“This one’s for Biscuit,” she said, to nobody, to everybody, to the empty chairs and the sticky floor and the loading dock where a golden retriever sat guard over his kingdom of stolen sandwiches. “Greatest criminal mastermind in rock and roll.”

Behind her, Bess counted in on her hi-hat. One, two, three, four.

Soph opened her mouth and the first note hit the back wall like a train, and somewhere outside, a dog’s ear twitched.