Sorrell smiled and slipped into the store room where all the decorations were waiting. She may as well get started.
Chapter 23
Still Ten Shopping Days till Christmas
“We can’t find Mac.”
The words, said calmly by his assistant manager, sent his spine solid with fear. “Repeat that again because I think I misheard you.”
“We can’t find Mac.”
Zack inhaled, then exhaled. Then thought. Quickly. “I know you will have checked his room and the empty lounges. How about the new hall?” The new hall was nearly finished, just waiting for a final fix on the electrics and flooring, then the kitchen could be fitted the first week in the New Year.
“Tried there. I’ve tried every cold place I could, even the cool room in the temporary kitchen. I’ve looked in cupboards. Everywhere. Honestly Zack, I couldn’t have looked in any more places.”
“I believe you.” He checked his phone just in case Mac had wandered down to Severton and had been spotted there. It wouldn’t be ideal as it was slippery underfoot and he was a frail man. A fall could be lethal. In summer, he would sometimes walk down to the town for a brew and a paper, spending a good hour putting the world to rights with Gran in the post office, but this wasn’t summer. It was minus one and snowing, albeit lightly.
The only message he’d received was from Sorrell who had sent him a selfie of her tied up in Christmas lights, tinsel in her hair. He was meant to be going round to help her decorate the tree before they headed into town for the lights switch on, but if he had a missing resident he wouldn’t be going anywhere.
Then he saw it.
A pair of antlers walked past the window.
“What. The. Fuck?”
“Now, Zachery, you know you shouldn’t curse like that,” May Pearson said as she passed by. “It isn’t gentlemanlike.”
“May,” Zack pretended to have not seen the antlers and certainly didn’t think about what his cousin was currently up to. “Have you see Mac?”
“Of course,” May said. “He took a pair of socks I’d knitted him to go under his wellies. He was helping your cousin.”
Zack looked to the glass door, seeing an alpaca staring cheerfully at him, its thick woolly coat keeping it toasty warm. But this time, the fact that someone had clearly left the gate to the field open wasn’t the issue. The issue was the pair of glittery antlers on the creature’s head.
Zack pulled his phone out and dialed Jake, adding yet another possible way of killing him to the list.
“Yo, bro,” Jake said. “How’s it hanging?”
“You’ll be hanging from a noose in about five minutes.” Zack could picture it like a cartoon strip. “Is Mac with you?”
“Mac’s here,” Jake said. “He’s helping me get the alpacas ready for tonight.”
Zack slumped down on a nearby sofa. “My staff have just turned the home over looking for him. We thought he was missing. I had visions of him lying in the snow on the way to Severton.
Jake laughed and Zack heard him tell Mac. “He’s fine. He saw me this morning with Bruno and asked if he could help so he came over before and sorted the hens out and now we’re getting the alpacas into their outfits.”
“You’ve lost me.” Zack wondered if it was too early for a whisky. “Alpacas. Outfits. What the fuck, Jake?”
“Language!” May Pearson reprimanded. Obviously the clicking of her knitting needles wasn’t enough to block out any other noise. Surprisingly.
There was an odd noise from Jake’s side. Zack didn’t want to know.
“It’s for the lights switch-on. There’s a mini tree at Rayah’s school in the playground, so she’s having a kids only one there at five pm. I’m taking seven of the beasts down to be pretend reindeer. Mac wants to help,” Jake said.
Zack looked up to the ceiling. “I think Dasher is hanging round here then. There’s an alpaca with pink antlers watching May as she knits. Shall I bring it over?”
“Oh shit, sorry. That’s Elvira. She’s learned to open the gate. She won’t do any harm though and if she gets in alpacas are—”
“Very clean animals,” Zack finished his sentence. “I know. You’ve told me four times this week. I’ll see you at the lights at seven.”
