Am I Guilty?: The gripping, emotional domestic thriller debut filled with suspense, mystery and surprises!. Jackie Kabler

       3

       ANNABELLE

      As I loaded the dishwasher, I hummed softly to myself. I had to admit, I felt rather content today, despite it being a damp, chilly Monday morning. The weekend house party that I’d been so anxious about had gone incredibly well – so well, in fact, that several guests had asked for my details for their own parties later in the year – and arrangements for the next few events in the diary were already coming together nicely. Business was, to use a cliché, booming, and I knew that this was thanks in no small part to Flora, my new PA, who was proving to be a bit of a godsend. Personable, efficient, hard-working, a fast learner, she had improved my life immeasurably in the short time she’d been here. I’d never had an assistant before, preferring to juggle everything myself, but at the end of last year my workload had finally got too much, the challenges of running a growing business alongside a home with three demanding children and an equally demanding husband finally beating me. I needed help, and I finally admitted it.

      I’d met Flora ages before she worked for me, of course – she often did the school run with my middle child Millie’s close friend, Nell. Nell, Thea Ashfields’s daughter. I’d actually been a little wary at first about taking Flora on, after what had gone on at the Ashfields. I am anxious by nature, but I’d been silly, really, in retrospect. It had been a sort of superstitious thing, I suppose – the thought that maybe the terrible thing that had happened might cling to Flora somehow, like a fine dust, and that traces of it might end up here, in my beloved home. Stupid, I know.

      And it really had been stupid, because Flora had fitted right in pretty much straight away. She’d been a bit reserved at first, still was a little quiet at times – not surprising, really, after what she’d been through at Thea’s – but it hadn’t taken long for her to come out of her shell. The children loved her, even Oliver, who at eleven was at the age where he didn’t much like anyone or anything, except his skateboard and games console.

      Flora Applegate … the children even adore her surname, I thought, as I stacked plates neatly side by side and slotted knives and cereal spoons into their basket, then reached up to the shelf for a dishwasher tablet and turned the machine on. Cute name, cute face. A wellspoken Surrey girl, she’s twenty-five, but looks years younger, her dark brown hair cropped into a pixie cut with a wispy fringe sweeping across her forehead, green eyes sparkling with intelligence and humour. Not beautiful, but definitely very attractive, her petite frame strong and boyish, her skin smooth and blemish free, other than a little scar on her right wrist from some childhood accident.

      I like the way she dresses too – sporty, but stylish. Sports-luxe, I think they call it. Completely the opposite to me – I am more of a maxi dress and florals kind of person – more than a decade older and half a foot taller than Flora, blonde hair falling in loose waves past my shoulders. Willowy, my husband Greg likes to call me. His ‘willowy blonde’ wife.

      I smiled at the thought, then grinned widely as shrieks of laughter drifted down the stairs from Flora’s room, where I knew Sienna had sneaked off to a few minutes earlier. She was normally at nursery on a Monday morning, but it was closed today for urgent maintenance, and with the other two at school and Flora off duty today, I’d decided to take the day off too and spend some quality time with my baby. She’d be at school, too, come September, so I needed to make the most of these last few precious months.

      Sienna is obsessed with animals, birds in particular, and once I’d tidied up I was planning to take her to Birdland, the wildlife park in Bourton-on-the-Water, about half an hour’s drive away. We’d look at the birds, grab some lunch in one of the picturesque village’s numerous cafés and be back in plenty of time for the afternoon school pick up, I thought.

      I rinsed my hands under the tap, dried them on the towel on the hook by the sink, then wandered into the hallway.

      ‘Sienna!’ I called up the stairs. ‘Flora, can you send Sienna down? We need to go in a minute.’

      There was a faint yell from three floors up, then the sound of a door opening and footsteps thundering down the stairs. Moments later Flora appeared, still in her red and white striped pyjamas, hair tousled, a laughing Sienna perched on her back, legs wrapped around Flora’s waist, her cheeks pink.

      ‘Sorry, Annabelle! This little monster wouldn’t come down unless I carried her. I’ll go and get dressed in a minute. Right, you, off you get.’

      Flora smiled at me then twisted sideways so that Sienna slid gently to the floor, where she lay in a giggling heap, one hand still clutching onto Flora’s leg.

      ‘Gosh, that’s fine, thanks for putting up with her on your day off,’ I replied, and she shrugged.

      ‘I don’t mind. Have fun at Birdland. Now let go of me, trouble. I’ll see you later.’

      She reached down and peeled Sienna’s fingers from her calf, and my daughter stuck out her bottom lip.

      ‘Awwww! Come with us, pleeeeeese!’

      ‘Sienna, leave Flora alone, it’s her day off,’ I said warningly.

      ‘Oh, it’s OK. I don’t mind,’ Flora said again. ‘Go with Mummy, Sienna. I’ll see you later. Maybe I can read you a story before bed; sound like a plan?’

      Sienna nodded, her petulant expression turning into a beaming smile.

      ‘Yesssss!’

      ‘Good. Now get up, silly.’

      Flora poked Sienna gently with a bare toe then turned and darted up the stairs again, and I bent and pulled my daughter to her feet, smoothing her soft hair back.

      ‘Good girl. Shall we go and see the birds then?’

      ‘YES!’ she shouted.

      ‘OK, go and get your boots on, and I’ll get the coats.’

      She ran off into the kitchen, and as I turned to the heavily laden coatrack to find our warm jackets, I wondered for a moment if I should have asked Flora if she’d like to come too. So far, she’d appeared to have spent all her days off on her own, going for long runs or walks, shopping, watching TV. If she’d had friends when she’d worked in Cheltenham, she didn’t seem too interested in seeing them. I didn’t like to ask though, and she seemed happy enough. Maybe she was just one of those people who were happy with their own company. Or, more probably, maybe she just needed time alone to adjust, time to recover.

      We’d never really talked about it – I didn’t dare ask, not yet – but I knew it must have been horrendous for her, going through what she did in her last job. But I watched her sometimes, noticed that now and again when we were at work, at an event, a sudden stillness would come over her, a look of sadness flashing across her face, just for a few seconds, as if a memory had briefly surfaced in her mind. It never lasted long though, and within moments she’d be smiling again, filling glasses, flitting between tables, wiping up spills and charming the guests. It hurt my heart, imagining her pain, and I hoped that one day she might feel able to talk to me about it. Or that one day I might be brave enough to ask her about it …

      ‘Ready, Mummy!’ Sienna had reappeared, boots on and clutching her favourite soft toy, an overstuffed penguin with an incongruously bright pink beak.

      ‘Is Percival coming too? Great idea. He can meet all his penguin cousins there, can’t he?’

      I helped her with her coat, deciding not to issue Flora with a last-minute invitation after all.