Page 95 of The Sugar and Spice Bookshop Bakery

‘Yes, I do remember Stuart. I didn’t realise he was your son.’

And always she gives everyone the same, warm smile. She’s fitted straight in. She can manage this place single-handed. Easily.

Louise, on the other hand, is putting on an act today, serving people on autopilot, pretending to be cheerful when really she wants to howl.

Or curl up on the floor.

Or scream at the customers.

But instead she makes another latte, accepts another payment, says thank you with an awful fake smile.

*

That evening, the flat feels empty without Maddie, which is strange since she hasn’t been around much in recent days anyway – she’s been off doing her secret project. Louise never did find out what that was.

The wind rattles the kitchen window. Louise shivers, and pulls a throw around her. There’s another rattle and a banging noise from outside. She knows it’s just the wind, but it unsettles her, nonetheless. She goes to the window and looks out. The door of the children’s book nook is open. There’s a gust of wind and it bangs shut, then swings open again. Strange, as Maddie has been fastidious about leaving it locked.

Has someone broken in?

Louise thinks of the stabbed toy dog. Perhaps the person who left that on her doorstep is now escalating their efforts to frighten her. Perhaps they’re vandalising the children’s book nook before Louise has even seen what’s inside it. Well, they can go to hell. There’s no way she’s going to stand by and let them ruin what Maddie’s worked so hard to create.

She pulls on a raincoat and heads downstairs, knowing as she does that this is a daft thing to be doing. If it’s the person who left the dog toy, they must be slightly unhinged. She really doesn’t want to come face to face with them in the garden. If she screamed, would her mother hear her from next door?

Where are Thor and James when you need them?

Her heart is pounding. She’s edited hundreds of scenes in crime thrillers where someone is about to face their would-be killer and their heart pounds, but nothing prepares her for the reality of it. Reading about fear is one thing; feeling it is quite another. She unlocks the back door of the bakery, fighting the urge to run back to the safety of the flat.

She reaches into her pocket and pulls out her phone, intending to utilise the torch function, then she thinks better of it – the light would alert the intruder to her presence, giving him or her an advantage. Instead, she keys in 999 and steps forward, her finger hovering over the green button.

The door to the children’s book nook has swung closed again. She reaches for the handle with trembling fingers and gingerly opens it towards her.

She freezes.

It’s dark inside.

There’s no noise.

She can’t tell if there’s anyone in there. Perhaps they’ve frozen to the spot, just like her.

She holds her breath, listening for the sound of someone else breathing, but if they are, she cannot hear them.

She looks at her phone and turns on the torch. She directs it into the children’s book nook and gasps at what she sees.

Thirty-Two

This doesn’t make sense.

Louise backs out of the children’s book nook and stands outside staring at the building, her brain unable to compute what she’s seeing. On the outside, it’s one of the bigger sheds, but on the inside…

A reverse TARDIS. Smaller on the inside than it is on the outside.

She can’t quite work out what Maddie – with Jack’s help, presumably – has done.

She steps back in and switches on the light. The room is only a third of the size of what it should be. The enormous wardrobe that Maddie insisted on buying takes up over half of one wall, whilst bookshelves line the others. One of the wardrobe doors has been removed, revealing the fake fur coats inside, on old-fashioned wooden hangers.

And then suddenly, it’s obvious. She knows what this is. Clever, clever Maddie. She’d known her stepdaughter was creative, but to have thought of this… Well, that art gallery in London is one lucky employer.

Louise steps forward, pushing the coats aside. She peers inside the wardrobe – either the coats or the wardrobe itself smells like an attic. She reaches one hand into the darkness, expecting to hit solid wood, but at the same time knowing that she won’t.