Am I Guilty?. Jackie Kabler
sauces were, suddenly lacking the energy to make my own. Arrabbiata or carbonara? My hand wavered in front of the shelf, then I picked up the jar of carbonara and put it in the basket I’d rested on top of the pram. Maybe I’d get another couple of jars for the weekend, make life easy for myself, I thought.
As I added a four-cheese sauce and a jar of pesto to the basket, a small girl sidled up alongside me, long red plaits swinging. She peered into the pram, clearly keen, as so many children were, to see the baby within, and my breath quickened. I grabbed the handle and tried to move the pram away, but it was too late. Her eager expression faded, replaced by a frown that crinkled her smooth, pale brow, and she looked up at me quizzically for a moment, then ran down to the end of the aisle to where a petite woman, also with red hair and bundled up in a navy puffer jacket, was leaning on her trolley, scanning a list in her hand.
‘Mummy! That lady’s got an empty pram. It hasn’t got a baby in it. Why hasn’t it got a baby in it?’ the child hissed.
The woman glanced down the aisle to where I stood, frozen, then back at her daughter. She shrugged and started to walk away.
‘No idea, love. Come on, help me choose some soup for dinner.’
The little girl stared back curiously at me for a moment, then followed her mother around the corner.
I stood stock-still, staring into the pram. She was right, of course. It was, as it had been for months, empty. Zander’s blanket was still there, soft and white, still smelling of him, very faintly now, the brightly coloured chain of little teddy bears holding hands still strung across the front of the hood. But yes, the little girl had been absolutely right. I was pushing an empty pram. Pushing an empty pram around like the crazy, sick woman I now was. Because, of course, there was no baby, was there? Not anymore.
‘Right. Chairs laid out, wine chilled, glasses polished, food all plated up … what time is it, Flora?’
Annabelle looked up from the tick-list on her clipboard, tucking a blonde curl behind her ear. I pulled my phone from my pocket and tapped the screen.
‘It’s 6.20. Doors will open in ten minutes. We’re fine, Annabelle, don’t worry. I’ve had a peek out the window and there’s already a queue building. Jenny, the manager, is going to nip downstairs in a minute to man the door. Or woman the door, I suppose I should say …’
I smiled at her and she smiled back, although somewhat distractedly. She was always pretty tense just before an event – probably not the best time for my silly jokes.
‘And Ailsa’s just nipped to the loo but then she’s going to stand at the top of the stairs and greet her guests as they come up,’ I continued hurriedly. ‘Then there’ll be forty-five minutes of milling around with wine and nibbles before we start at bang on 7.15. The two waitresses are here and ready to circulate with nibble trays and top up the drinks, and the photographer and cameraman are just over there checking their equipment. All sorted, I think.’
‘Brilliant. Thanks, Flora. OK, well I’m going to go and make sure Jenny is all right and just check everything’s looking good downstairs. Back in a mo. Oh – could you just make sure there’s a glass of water for Ailsa on her table? And one for the interviewer?’
‘Sure, no problem.’
She headed for the stairs and vanished, and I crossed the room, manoeuvring between the long rows of chairs, heading for the drinks table. We were on the first floor of Waterstones in Cheltenham, where the stage was now set for Ailsa Levi’s book launch party.
The glamorous, Gloucestershire-born author had topped the Sunday Times bestseller list with both of her previous gory crime novels, and tonight’s event would launch her third book, a thriller set in 1940’s London.
We were expecting about a hundred people, and Annabelle had been on edge all week, knowing there’d be extensive coverage of the evening not only in the trade press but also in a number of celebrity magazines – the photographer hired for the evening was providing stills to Hello and Heat, among others. Ailsa, unusually for a crime writer, was also a bit of a party girl and tabloid darling, and the gossip mags loved her.
I didn’t think Annabelle had anything to worry about though. We’d worked hard on this event, and the place looked fantastic, with piles of Ailsa’s novel artfully arranged on side tables, ready for signing later, and delicious looking canapés and cupcakes decorated with edible, miniature replicas of the new book’s cover ready to be served. Even the two waitresses looked great, dressed in forties-style uniforms of simple black dresses with neat white collars and cuffs, finished with crisp, snowy aprons and little frilly caps.
There had been a slight blip earlier on – one of the waitresses had called me in a panic at five o’clock, saying that her childcare had let her down and that she would have to pull out of the job unless she could bring her young baby with her. Unwilling to add to Annabelle’s stress by asking her if it would be possible to find somebody else to step in at such short notice, I’d taken a gamble and told the woman to bring the child with her and that we would find a quiet spot to put it in, promising that I’d personally go and check on the baby every ten minutes or so while her mum was working. As I filled two crystal tumblers with mineral water, I wondered where exactly Jenny, the bookshop manager, had hidden the child, whose mum was now poised by the food table, ready to begin serving. I needed to start baby watch, so I put the drinks on the table at the front of the room where Ailsa would soon be interviewed and host a Q and A session for her guests, and did a quick tour of the first floor, peering behind bookcases.
‘Seen a baby anywhere, Gerry?’ I grinned at the photographer, who was snapping a few shots of a poster of Ailsa. He was a short, stocky man of about fifty, dressed in a black leather bomber jacket. He nodded and smiled back at me, showing nicotine-stained teeth.
‘Over there. Behind Sci-Fi,’ he said. ‘It’s fine, don’t worry – Mark just popped it out of sight for a minute, don’t want it in the shots. It’s sound asleep, for now … hope it stays that way, eh?’
‘Hope so!’
Mark was the videographer I’d hired for the evening, to get footage for the TV chat show at Isla Laird’s request. Thankfully, I hadn’t needed to speak to her to sort it out – her instructions to Annabelle about what she needed and how to get the footage to her afterwards had been pretty clear, which had been a relief, so all I’d had to do was drop her an email to confirm that all was fine. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Isla or anything – actually, I liked her quite a lot. She was a good laugh, interesting to talk to, and had always been a great friend to Thea, and after a bit of a shaky start, we’d ended up getting on really well. It was just that, at the moment certainly, I really couldn’t face talking to her, or to anyone who reminded me of last year. It was just too recent, too raw …
‘Oh God! Oh God!’
As I peered round the science-fiction bookshelf I gasped, my heart suddenly pounding, my legs wobbly. I grabbed onto a shelf for support and stared at the pram for a moment, then looked away and took a deep breath, trying to calm myself. For goodness’ sake, Flora, get a grip. It was only a pram. And, now that I’d seen it properly, I could see that it wasn’t even the same pram. It looked a bit like Thea’s though. Same make, Silver Cross. It had the same chrome chassis and herringbone fabric, but this one was in a deep berry shade, and Zander’s had been grey. Zander. I leaned forward and peered into the pram, gently pulling the soft fleece blanket back to get a better view. The baby, clearly a little girl in a pink dress with a polka dot collar, was indeed sound asleep, making a tiny snuffling noise with each breath. I tucked the blanket back into place and edged away slowly, back into the brightly lit central area of the bookshop, but suddenly in my head I was back at Thea’s, in her lovely Regency townhouse on