CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Next morning, I chatted cheerfully to Amelie as I made her breakfast.
‘It smells nice in here,’ she said as she sat at the table eating her cornflakes.
I smiled at her. ‘I was up very early cooking. And once I’ve dropped you at nursery, I’m going straight over to the market to sell lots of our lovely food.’
I’d actually risen at four to get to work, and the results were cooling on the side, ready to be portioned into cartons then stacked into ice boxes and taken out to the van.
I’d be exhausted later and ready for an early night.
But for now, the adrenaline of working to deadlines so that I could keep my customers happy and pay a bill or two was managing to propel me forwards!
I was so busy, I barely had time to think about the sinister intruder of the night before. But now and again, a memory would flash into my head – a dark figure escaping into the night, the awful mess, my beautiful vase lying in pieces on the floor – and a chill would rush through me.
Was it Clare?
Did she have it in for me?
Had she hated me all along because of my close friendship with Jackie?
Or was it someone at the market? A competitor whose business I was threatening?
But that didn’t ring true at all. Everyone I’d met, all the stallholders, had been really welcoming. And as far as I knew, there was no one doing the same as me at the market – selling home-made meals. And the accusatory message was clearly personal...
A thought had been nagging at me all morning and I’d been trying hard to ignore it.
But deep down inside, I knew I had to face it.
There was another suspect. Someone else who might be holding a grudge against me. Except I was struggling to accept that he could ever have done something so nasty and vindictive.
It couldn’t possibly be Danny.
Could it?