“What was she doing there? Is she spying on me?”
Kate rolls her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous, Isabel! She went round to see you, but when she saw that you had company, she didn’t want to interrupt. She thought Julio was some guy you were seeing.”
“Hmm…” I bite my lip. Kate’s explanation sounds plausible, but still, I don’t like the idea of Alicia hanging around outside my house, watching me. I find it disconcerting.
“So it was Julio?” she prompts me.
“Yes, it was. Look, Kate it wasn’t planned or anything, he just dropped in on me.”
She takes my arm. “It’s OK, Isabel. He’s your brother. You have a right to see him, just don’t keep things from me, OK? That’s not the kind of friendship we have.”
“I know. I’m sorry, I should have told you.”
“So no more secrets?”
“No more secrets.”
I have the dream again that night. The one where I nearly run Alicia over. I’ve had it several times since it happened. I play it over and over in my mind, just can’t seem to get it out of my head. In this dream, it happens just as I remember, except for one thing – the expression on Alicia’s face. It isn’t fear that she looks at me with, as she slides to the ground.
It’s pleasure.
I sit up, fully awake now. Was it just a dream, or is that how it really happened? What if the accident wasn’t an accident at all? What if Alicia was hiding in the bushes, waiting to jump out?
What if she was crouched down in the darkness, waiting for me? She would have had to hide somewhere – behind the dustbins, maybe or else the iridescent glow of my headlights would surely have caught her? Was she down there, waiting until the very last moment to leap out, knowing that that I wouldn’t be able to stop? Knowing that she would scare the living daylights out of me?
It was a very dangerous game if she was.
“Morning,” says Jon, the security man, as he holds open the door for me. The doors are supposed to open automatically, but they’ve been malfunctioning a bit recently.
“Morning. Did you have a nice weekend?”
“Not bad. Took the kids to Chessington.”
“Sounds lovely.”
Jon shrugs. “The little one chucked up in the minivan.”
“Staff meeting in ten minutes,” Sonya says, as I walk into the office. “Can you help me set up the projector?”
“No problem.”
I pull it out of the desk drawer and follow her into the staff room, where we are greeted by rows of gooey glazed doughnuts.
My mouth waters. “Ooh, where did these come from?”
“Alicia brought them in. Apparently they were giving out free samples in the precinct. She persuaded the bloke to give her a dozen boxes.”
I bet she did.
Sonya reaches over and takes one. “Hmm, delicious. But I really must start my diet tomorrow.”
The staff reps surge in and devour the doughnuts like a plague of hungry locusts. The unexpected treat puts everyone in a good mood and we progress through the meeting with much less bickering than usual.
“Item 9,” Sonya reads out, “I need more volunteers to cover Tuesday’s night shift.”
This announcement is greeted with a wall of silence. You could hear a pin drop, the room goes so quiet.
“Well, if anyone is interested, please let me know after the meeting.”
The door creaks as Stu walks in.
He probably smelled the doughnuts.
“Anything you want to add, Stu?” Sonya asks politely.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, there is.”
Sonya and I look at each other in surprise. Neither of us can remember the last time he actually contributed to a staff meeting. He comes to stand at the front.
“Great news!” he says with enthusiasm. “I’ve just been on the phone with head office and it looks like we will be replacing all our checkouts with self-service points. Isn’t that great, everyone? No more boring checkout duty!”
I groan inwardly. How could he make such an important announcement without even discussing it with Sonya and me first? I bet he hasn’t even spoken to any of the union reps. The usually quiet room erupts. Everyone starts speaking at once, all the checkout staff wanting to know what will happen to their jobs.
“Oh, I’m sure we’ll work something out,” Stu says blithely. “There’s no need for anyone to worry.”
Sonya dismisses the group, with a promise to update everyone as soon as possible.
“Isn’t this great?” says Stu, as everyone files out of the room. I grip my hands tightly together. If I let them do what they wanted, they’d probably strangle him.
As a result of Stu’s thoughtless announcement, I spend much of the morning fielding questions from irate checkout staff who refuse to believe that I don’t know any more about the new tills than they do.
“There are going to be redundancies, aren’t there?” demands a nervous father of five.
“I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” I try to reassure him. But I can’t help but wonder what other work we could possibly find for some of the zombies who sit at the checkouts all day. I mean, obviously we’ll need a few people to help the customers with the new self-service tills, but I doubt any of them will be up to that job. Their minds have become so automated, I really wonder if they are capable of being retrained.
“She must know something,” says a rough looking woman, pointing at me with her jagged fingernail. “Come on, girly, out with it. How many are of us are going to be out of a job?”
Before I can think of anything to say, Sonya’s voice fills the room:
“This is a colleague announcement. Can Isabel come to the Supervisor’s office? That’s Isabel to the Supervisor’s office.”
“Sorry,” I say apologetically. “I have to run. We’ll have to talk about this later.”
I walk thankfully through the store. Sonya is waiting for me outside the office.
“We have got to get these people some answers,” I tell her, “before we have a riot on our hands. Hey, what’s wrong?”
I had assumed that she called me away to get me out of an awkward situation, but her expression is grim.
“The police are here, Isabel. They want to speak to you about the fire at the caravan park. I think you might be a suspect…”
Chapter Five
The door slams ominously behind me.
Two plain clothes detectives sit side by side behind the desk; a tall, skinny man in a lilac shirt and a small, round woman with a wispy ponytail.
“Isabel Anderson?” says the man, beckoning me to sit down.
“Yes.”
“I’m Detective Sergeant Penney, and this is Detective Constable Smith. We’d like to ask you a few questions about the fire at the caravan park last Saturday. You are aware that there was a fire?”
“Yes!” My voice comes out too loud and too fast. “Yes,” I repeat, attempting to lower my voice. I seem to have lost control of my volume switch.
“We have reason to suspect that the fire was started deliberately,” Penney continues. “Did you see anything suspicious?”
“No.”
“But you were in the area at the time?”
“Yes. I was at a barbecue at Deacon Frost’s house.”
There is a pause as Penney glances down at his notebook.
“You were seen leaving the party just before the fire started. Can you tell us where you went?”
“I went for a walk,” I falter, “on the beach. I can’t have been gone for more than ten minutes.”
There is a searching look in his eyes.
“Maybe twenty?” I guess. “I don’t really remember.”
The two police officers look at each other, eyebrows raised. Their telepathic communication unnerves me.