The Happy Family by Jackie Kabler (electric book reader txt) 📕

of my price range. Barbara, who’s always cagey about her age but who I suspect is a little younger than Brenda, is a hippy chick with long red hair and is fond of chunky jumpers she knits herself. She teaches knitting too, in courses she runs at the adult education centre in town, and although she keeps threatening to buy me some needles and wool and give me a free lesson, I’ve resisted so far. The jumpers are nice though. She’s wearing one now – bright yellow with a navy zigzag around the neckline, teamed with a long denim skirt. I’m in black velvet joggers and a matching hoodie, my shoulder-length blonde hair pulled back into a messy ponytail. We’re a mismatched trio style-wise, but none of us cares about that; it’s our differences that make us interesting to each other, as Brenda once said.

We order an Indian and drink more cava as we wait for it to arrive, catching each other up on our news, although I don’t have much – another busy week at work, Eloise landing a major role in the school’s Easter play, Finley falling out of a tree in Pittville Park again but managing not to break anything this time. Brenda has been fending off the attentions of a would-be suitor, a gentleman in his seventies who’s been dropping into the boutique on an almost daily basis, bringing her roses and offering to take her to jazz concerts (‘I mean, he’s too old, for a start, and I don’t even like jazz. Why would he think I like jazz? It’s just noise,’ she says.) Meanwhile Barbara is trying to decide if getting a dog would be a good idea, and debating the respective virtues of poodles (‘They’re really clever, and they don’t shed hair, and they don’t need too much walking, apparently,’) and pugs (‘They actually quite like being indoors, I think, so it wouldn’t mind me staying in knitting. Although they often snore. I’m not sure I could handle that; it would remind me of an ex …’).

Brenda has just launched into a story about a customer who tried to return a pair of palazzo trousers which she claimed didn’t fit, but which had very clearly been worn (‘There was this huge stain, and they stank of cigarettes. I mean, honestly …’) when the house phone rings.

‘Probably the curry. Why can they never find us?’ I say, as I jump off my stool and cross into the living area to answer the call.

‘Hello,’ I say breezily. I feel a little drunk already after two large glasses of cava on an empty stomach. There’s a second or two of silence on the line, then a male voice says:

‘Oh, hi. Is that Beth Holland?’

‘It is, yes.’

I roll my eyes, waiting for the inevitable: ‘I’m just trying to find your house. Can you tell me exactly where in Prestbury you are, please?’ Instead, there’s another moment or two of silence, and then:

‘Formerly Beth Armstrong?’

‘Yes,’ I say automatically. Then I pause. Why on earth would the curry delivery man be asking me my maiden name?

‘Why are you asking me that? Who is this?’ I demand sharply.

There’s another couple of seconds of silence on the line and then, abruptly, the call is cut off. The dial tone sounds in my ear. I put the handset back in its holder and stare at it.

‘What’s up? Are they lost again?’ calls Barbara.

I walk slowly back across the room, frowning.

‘No, it wasn’t the curry. I don’t know who it was, actually. It was kinda weird.’

I sit down again and pick up my glass.

‘Weird? Weird how?’ asks Brenda.

‘Well, some guy asked me if I was Beth Holland and then if my maiden name was Armstrong. And when I said it was – and don’t ask me why I did; blame this stuff …’—I wave my glass in the air—‘When I said yes, he just put the phone down.’

‘Hmmm. That is a bit odd,’ says Barbara. ‘I wonder …’

BZZZZZZZ.

The doorbell rings and my friends let out a simultaneous whoop.

‘Curry! Yesss!’

‘I’ll go,’ Brenda says. She jumps up and Barbara turns to me.

‘Shall I get the plates out?’

They’ve both clearly forgotten about the phone call already and I smile, trying to subdue my feeling of unease.

‘Yes, you get the plates. You know where they are. I’ll grab some cutlery,’ I say.

I get up and head for the cutlery drawer, but my mind is racing.

Who was that? Why ask that and immediately hang up? What did he want? But … well, there are plenty of organisations out there who know my maiden name, aren’t there? My bank, car insurance company, credit card people … so, probably nothing sinister, right? Maybe just a cold call from someone selling extra insurance or something, that got cut off? It’s just that …

I grab a handful of knives and forks and turn to see Brenda back in the kitchen brandishing a large brown paper bag, a delicious spicy aroma already wafting towards me.

‘It smells amazing. Let’s eat!’ she says.

I smile and nod, but inside my stomach is flipping. My appetite is gone and my anxiety is spiralling again. OK, maybe I’m putting two and two together and making seventeen. Maybe there’s a perfectly innocent explanation for that phone call. But suddenly it’s all too much. As my friends chatter away, dishing out the food, I take a couple of deep breaths, trying to regain control, but I’m struggling. The fear is taking over, threatening to consume me, the fear that it’s about to rear its head again, the thing I try never to think about, the thing I try to keep hidden in a tiny box in the far recesses of my mind. The thing I’ve tried to bury so deep it can never escape. Now I’m starting to think I’m not being paranoid after all.

I’m becoming convinced that finally, after all these years, someone’s coming for me.

Someone who knows what I did.

Chapter 5

Creak, creak, creak.

I hear the sound