AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Upstairs in the staffroom, I take the key card from the zipped pocket of my bag, staring at the hotel logo as if it will disappear if I look hard enough. Then all of this will go away.
I need to take it to the police. Maybe it has Alice’s fingerprints all over it, intermingled with Max’s and now mine. I’m sure they have the technology to separate different sets. Those fingerprints are an invisible message. The answer to Alice’s death. Sweat pools on my lower back. I slip the card back in my bag and take it downstairs.
I jump at the sight of a figure standing there, watching me.
‘What are you doing? You scared the hell out of me!’
‘Sorry,’ Cole says. ‘Are you okay?’ He squints at me. ‘You don’t look okay.’
‘Course I’m not. The door was locked and I wasn’t expecting you to be standing there. What are you doing here? You’re not meant to be coming in until later.’
‘I know,’ he says. ‘It might get busy.’ He peels off his navy trench coat. It’s far too thin for this weather, but Cole waits until minus temperatures before he’ll wear a warmer coat. ‘And it’s Katy’s day off.’ He snorts. ‘Actual authorised day off, that is.’ He lowers his voice. ‘People are taking a bit of an interest in our little high street since the other night. It’s swarming with people. I’ve never seen Putney so busy.’
‘But those people are hardly going to be stopping in here to buy books, are they?’ I snap.
‘They might,’ he says. ‘It gives them an excuse to linger.’ He raises his eyebrows. ‘Aren’t you glad of the company? You never know who’ll walk in here. Don’t you feel a bit creeped out? There’s a murderer out there somewhere.’
‘Whoever it was, I’m sure they’re miles away from Putney by now.’ My words stick in my throat, sharp like knives.
‘Not necessarily. You read all the time about murderers sticking around to see what happens. Turning up at funerals. That kind of thing.’
I stare at him.
‘I’ve read a lot of true crime books,’ he says, shrugging. ‘It all helps with research for my novel.’
Cole has been working on his novel for as long as I’ve known him. He doesn’t talk much about it, but every now and then he’ll throw out a reference to it. Just to remind people he’s writing it. ‘Anyway, I’m not scared,’ I insist. ‘The police think it was someone she knew. So there’s no reason whoever did it would come looking for me, is there?’ Saying this turns my blood to ice, and my voice sounds as if it belongs to someone else. Someone who’s narrating my life.
‘I thought I’d come in anyway,’ Cole says, stalking off to the coffee bar.
All morning I feel his eyes on me, just like yesterday, and I wonder if his scrutiny is real or imagined. I’m relieved when the phone rings and he becomes too engrossed in a conversation to pay me any attention.
It doesn’t last, though, and as soon as he’s finished the call, Cole saunters over to me. ‘That was my neighbour Nadia again. She asked to speak to you but I held her off.’ He smiles. ‘She’s wondering if you can fit her book club in yet. She’s still after Fridays.’
I finish rearranging the fiction chart shelves. ‘She only asked again a couple of weeks ago.’
‘I know.’ He shrugs. ‘She’s just desperate. She lives for that reading club, and our flats just aren’t big enough to host all her friends. Nadia’s a very popular woman.’
‘I’d like to help, but I’ve already told her we have a book club here. It’s just not feasible to fit in another one.’
He nods. ‘Shame. She’s lived in Putney her whole life and knows a lot of people in the community. She could bring in new customers. Make them think twice about ordering on Amazon.’
I’m about to tell Cole that my hands are tied, but he speaks before I have a chance to respond. ‘And you won’t believe this, but she knew Alice Hughes.’
Time stands still for a moment, and Alice’s name seems to echo around the shop. ‘Did she?’ I try to keep my voice casual, while my heart races.
‘Yep.’ Cole nods. ‘Nadia’s daughter went to school with Alice. They were good friends, apparently.’
I let this information sink in. It’s the closest I’ve been able to get to finding out anything more about Alice. ‘Maybe tell her I’ll pop over tonight after work. I’m happy to go there – it will save her a trip out in this weather. We can go through everything then. I can’t make any promises, though. And it definitely can’t be a Friday.’
‘Will do,’ Cole says. ‘Funny, it’s not like you to change your mind once it’s made up.’ He shrugs. ‘I wonder what happened to her cats. Poor things.’
‘What?’
‘Nadia told me Alice had two cats. I hope someone’s taken them in.’
Harwood Court is a large, six-storey block of flats by the leisure centre, a short walk from the bookshop. I’ve known Cole for years, but I’ve only been in his building once before, so it feels strange setting foot in here now. As if something is out of place.
He’d invited Mum and me to have Christmas drinks here a few years ago, when Mum still owned the shop. I’d been desperate to leave after about half an hour, but with the patience of a saint, Mum made sure we stayed until well after ten p.m. ‘Be kind to Cole,’ she’d whispered, when he’d gone to replenish our drinks. ‘I think he’s lonely.’
