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“Any idea who it could be?” I don’t reveal my own understanding of the situation, and he shakes his head. “No, can you think of anyone?”
“No.”
Jessica is silent beside me as she studies each one and my father sighs. “Your mother is going crazy about it and has insisted we hire protection.”
Jessica nudges me because of course, that was exactly what I did.
He carries on. “She wants me to hire a private detective to flush them out, but I told her we will deal with it ourselves.”
“But what if you can’t?” I say wearily. “Just report it to the police and let them deal with it.”
“The police.” The tone of his voice sets me on edge immediately as Jessica stills beside me. “What good are they? They couldn’t detect a rat up a drainpipe. The force today is full of wannabe superheroes who run away at the first sign of trouble. Nobody wants to work anymore and this current lot hide at the first sign of trouble, merely hoping their uniform is enough of a deterrent. No, I have no faith at all in the boys in blue with their equal opportunities and current love of hiring useless women over decent hard-working men who can actually do the job.”
Jessica bristles beside me and I’m mildly interested to see if she goes off like a firework directed straight to my father’s throat because knowing her, that’s very likely, but to my surprise, she merely laughs softly and smiles.
“You sound like my grandfather. He never understood women’s roles in the workplace. He was so stuck in the past it was like watching a live history lesson.”
I glance at my father, who appears a little shocked that she spoke at all. She shakes her head. “I mean, it’s a well-known fact that we dismiss everything we don’t understand and prefer ‘the old ways’. Nobody likes change, and I expect you were brought up to believe a woman’s place is in the home unless circumstances dictate otherwise.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.” My father says pompously. “Ask Sable, she’s made a career out of spending my money and you won’t get any complaints from me.”
I want to shrivel up and die as Jessica nods as if in agreement. “I wonder if she would do things differently if she was given a choice.”
“I doubt it.” My father scoffs. “Who wouldn’t prefer to live off someone else and please themselves all day? Some say it’s called living the dream.”
Jessica smiles sweetly, which takes me back a little because I expected to be removing her hands from his throat about now.
“We all have our beliefs, and it takes a strong person to stick to them and go against popular ones. I admire you for that.”
For the first time in my life, my father appears speechless, and Jessica takes the opening to hold the cards up and say with curiosity, “I have counted ten. Does that mean you started receiving them ten days ago, or do they come in batches?”
“Every day. Why?”
She scrunches up her face and nods. “Are they delivered here by royal mail, or hand delivered?”
“The postman brings them.”
Jessica flashes me an amused look and I bite back my grin at the use of her preferred name for the vicious person responsible for this and she sighs and sets the cards down.
“Is it just the cards, or has something else happened?”
My father seems a little irritated that she’s the one asking the questions and says pompously, “As you’ve asked, it was just the cards until earlier today.”
I sit up and take note because this is different. “What happened?”
My father growls. “Somebody knocked on the door just after we returned for lunch in town. By the time your mother got there, they had gone, but there was another card on the floor.”
He produces the card with a flourish and hands it to me, and I stare in disbelief at the bold handwriting.
I know where you live.
Jessica glances over my shoulder and her frown deepens as my father whispers, “It completely freaked your mother out. She went crazy and started yelling and pleading with me to call the police, a swat team even. You name it, she wanted them here.”
“I can see why. May I?”
Jessica reaches for the card and turns it over in her hand and nods. “It’s the same as the rest. It appears to be from one of those bumper boxes that you find in most department stores or garden centres.”
Suddenly, a loud scream makes us all jump, and Jessica is up and running before I can even react.
