Chapter 23 #2
‘I’m already obsessed with this packaging. Ob-sessed!’ she was saying as she discarded the shrink wrap out of sight and inspected the glossy iridescent pink sleeve of the inner box, turning it in her hands.
‘Oh my gosh,’ she said again, before asking her viewers if they wanted to look inside.
The video cut to her slowly sliding the sleeve off the box.
Peaches couldn’t resist looking up at Felton to see what he really made of all this, only to see his face illuminated from the phone’s soft glow, smiling in self-assured concentration, like a puppeteer pulling the strings over a child’s toy theatre.
The woman was now lifting something small and shiny from the top of the open box.
‘Get a load of this cute free sticker, you guys! Do you think everyone gets these?’ she asked.
‘Or are they only in influencers’ boxes?
You guys, I think everyone gets one…’ She chattered on, barely stopping to draw breath, showcasing close-up for the camera the, admittedly very cute, foiled sticker of a cartoon kitten operating a security keypad with his paw.
‘He’s sweet, I guess,’ said Peaches, aware she was probably expected to express some kind of admiration around about now.
‘Right?’ Felton agreed with a grin. ‘AI. Didn’t cost a thing to design. I can buy them by the thousand for literal pennies.’
‘Oh—’
‘The best part’s coming up, watch this,’ he said, cutting her off.
She’d wanted to say something about the importance of paying human artists and observing good design principles, but he was turning up the volume.
The woman had cast aside the sticker and was lifting the package out of the box, slowly stripping it of a layer of unnecessary white tissue paper sealed with a thin grey ribbon.
‘The thing I love about this company, you guys, is the attention to detail,’ the woman said, before hitting the final layers of packaging – thin white Styrofoam, flimsy bubble wrap, a few packing peanuts – all of which she swept straight off her white table like they hadn’t been there at all, until all that was left was a clear plastic zip bag and the actual gadget inside.
She pulled it free, disappeared the un-aesthetic user’s manual, and showed the camera what looked like an insubstantial grey and white plastic numbered touchpad.
The plastic creaked in her hands as she gripped it.
‘I cannot wait to install this in my hallway, you guys! It’s sleek. It’s discreet. Can you believe these are only like, 88.99? And you can get a special 20 per cent discount if you use my code CleanGirlAtHome.’
These words flashed onscreen, along with the ‘like’ and ‘follow’ symbols, but Peaches wasn’t listening to the woman now; she was staring closely at the gadget the woman was cradling.
Felton was nodding, like she was absolutely correct to be impressed.
‘Best thing is, I can write off a huge wodge of taxable income through our charitable arm, the cat rescues? Who doesn’t like cats, right?
The animal centre gets a little under one penny from each sale, the taxman loses out, big time, and I get to shave 40 per cent off—’
‘Oh no!’ said Peaches, taking his phone from him and pausing the video so she could look more closely.
‘It’s all legal, I assure you,’ he said, getting a little shirty. ‘The law’s practically designed to encourage tax loophole shenanigans. The government wants to encourage millionaires, you know?’
Fireworks were shooting in all directions above them now. Her mother was going spare in the distance, her voice ringing out over the sounds of drunken chaos and barking dogs, but Peaches couldn’t be put off.
‘That thing she’s got there?’ she asked, looking up at Felton. His expression sat somewhere between confusion and consternation.
‘Our intruder alarm? That’s our second biggest bestseller, after the doorbell cam. Do you want one? I’ve got, like, fifty pallets in the warehouse…’
‘Did you give a load of these to your mum?’
His shrug said, And so what if I did?
‘And Valerie supplied my mum with a load of these?’
He blinked, sniffed, seemed to have a think, before saying, ‘She may have bunged her a few complimentary gifts, to sweeten their design collab deal.’
‘And are they certified safe to use?’
He shrugged, attempted a dismissive laugh, but hooked a finger inside his shirt collar, loosening it enough to mask a gulp, telling Peaches everything she needed to know.
‘I have to talk to Mum, right now.’
Emerging from behind the tent, she scanned the field, looking from masked face to masked face, not seeing Carenza anywhere.
‘They’re safe…’ Felton said at her arm, making quote marks in the air.
He’d followed her out into the open. ‘…until we’re forced to recall them, if that ever happens, and by then we’d have dissolved the company, started up again with a new name, same business model, but’ – he crossed his fingers – ‘so far, so good, right? Hey, listen, we don’t have to talk about work. How about we get out of here?’
‘Fire Officer Dunoon!’ Peaches had spotted the high-vis suit of the man supervising the bonfire, now that it was in full inferno. He was making sure no one passed the fenced ring around the flames.
She marched her way across the field towards him, at exactly the same moment Felton Cromarty decided to call his mum with a word of warning, abandoning their date to make himself scarce, the green leafy mask pulled down over his face once more.
Peaches told Dunoon her discovery. ‘I think the fire at one of Mum’s rentals the other week, the one they accused Euan Sparks of starting, was caused by a dodgy tech import.
A knockoff device disguised in luxury packaging.
Mum was duped by the Cromarty family into taking a whole load of them for her flats, and poor Euan installed the very first one.
He told you it worked fine when he installed it, right?
Showed you a video of it working? But it must have packed in or glitched or something after he locked up, and bang! He got the blame.’
Officer Dunoon, who’d been enjoying his third rum ball of the evening, received her dramatic news with a disappointing air of calm. ‘Ah, right you are. I’ll look into it in the morning.’
‘OK.’ Peaches caught her breath, feeling foolish. ‘I thought you’d want to know right away. You’ll want to go to the Cromarty Industries warehouse and seize the lot, won’t you?’
‘You’ve done well. I’ll pass it on to colleagues in TSS.’ He might as well have told her to run along now, there’s a good lass.
She swallowed her frustration and turned to look over the field. She was telling the wrong person. She had to find her mum and make her put things right with Euan, for the sake of his reputation and his business, but there was no sign of Carenza in the milling, noisy crowds.
She was only just realising that, in the time it had taken her to rush two hotdogs, get tipsy on a few sips of who knew what, and to unmask Felton Cromarty as an inside-trading conman, the whole mood in the field had shifted, and so, she realised as she ran, hunting down her mother, had the music.
It had been Shell’s idea, and if Jolyon got the blame, she’d be sure to stick up for him and confess, but, actually, the pair of them had probably got away with it. Jolyon had done it, quick as a flash, and she’d been the lookout.
A quick pull on the big yellow plug and the entire DJ table had powered down and the record that was spinning slowed to a stop.
That’s when the best friends had scarpered, their paper plate masks held down over their faces, not even daring to scream as they ran off to hide under the Gifford sisters’ sweetie stall to watch what happened next.
Carenza, of course, was the first on the scene, demanding to know what was wrong, stiffening each time another firecracker was set off, now the men had drunkenly waded over to the other side of the river, and so outside of her jurisdiction.
‘It seems the, eh, electrics have gone,’ Sachin had said cannily, having kicked the yellow plug and its cable right out of reach under the low stage.
‘We’d need an electrician tae fix that,’ one of Sachin’s pals had said, the one in the kilt and jumper.
That’s when a tentative Euan had appeared from the shadows, dressed all in black, lowering his hood and pulling his black mask away. ‘Am I needed?’ he asked.
‘Not likely!’ Carenza scoffed. ‘There must be someone else who can fix it,’ and she’d set about searching all around the little raised platform, looking for the cause of the problem.
Another of Sachin’s pals was arriving, having traversed the field and returned carrying some bulky items in his arms. He cast Sachin a daring look.
‘Or, eh… we could help oot?’ Sachin said quickly, catching on.
Carenza was on her hands and knees looking at the power outlet. ‘The crowning’s not for half an hour. We need the party atmosphere to continue until at least then.’
‘What atmosphere’s that?’ Clyde Forte threw in with a laugh from where he’d been sitting on a haybale with his friend and a bottle of whisky he’d brought from home.
The band worked fast, unzipping instrument cases and shifting the DJ decks out of the way, running cords this way and that.
‘What are you doing?’ Carenza blew as they hustled her out of the way.
‘Where we’re going, we don’t need speakers!
’ Sachin said, before counting the men in.
‘One, two, one, two, three, four!’ and a thudding sound filled the air, a Scottish drum, followed by the deep resonant beat of an Indian Dhol.
It was enough to draw the crowds from far across the rec.
Another of Sachin’s old pals cuddled his bagpipes under his arm and drew the blowpipe between his lips.
A drone emerged that made the people murmur in approval as they drew nearer.
Euan, realising what was afoot, had found the DJ mic and hastily rigged it up on a stand, reconnecting it to the power, and Sachin, who’d been handed a keytar from one of his old friends, threw the strap over his head and plugged in the jack, and stepped up to the mic.
‘We are Down in the Dhol Drums, Cairn Dhu’s answer to the question, “What do you get when banging Bhangra beats meets Highland rock?” and it looks like we’re playing for yous the night!’
The mic fed back in a squeal, but nowhere near as loud as the delighted cries and applause from Mrs Roy and their daughters and sons-in-law at the side of the little stage.
Euan plugged the keytar into the amp and, throwing himself flat on the grass, reached his arm under the stage to retrieve the main power cable.
‘Got it!’
In seconds he’d set the disco lights spinning again, and Sachin flexed his fingers over his keys. ‘Let’s see if our band practice has paid off, eh, lads?’
Some of the crowd called a loud ‘hee-uch’ like this was a ceilidh, and the band fell into a swirling, skirling tune. Everyone was dancing in an instant.
Carenza watched from the margins, her mouth dropping open. ‘But… but, what about…’
Peaches was there to help her understand. ‘Mum? People are happy. Look. Let them play.’
‘Cheer your face up, Carenza.’ It was Senga, on hand to offer her own brand of sage advice. She’d left her stall to offer Sachin some encouragement. ‘There must needs be some noise to see off last night’s demons.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Carenza asked, crossly.
Rhona joined the gathering now too. She was supping happily from a paper cup between bites on a rum ball, chocolate vermicelli sprinkles scattered over her bosom like tasty sequins.
‘Our ma,’ chewed Rhona, ‘always said this day was about the balance between light and dark, good and evil, order and chaos. You can’t have any one without the other. Let the people have their fun after the long wait for summer, eh?’ Rhona pressed the cup into Carenza’s hand.
Carenza looked fit to drop at the realisation that the evening was slipping out of her control.
Peaches would have comforted her more if she hadn’t laid eyes on Euan Sparks trying to leave the Knowe without so much as saying hello. She’d caught his eye too, and he’d still skulked away.
‘Peach,’ her mum warned. ‘Not you turning on me too! And what happened to your date? Have you abandoned him so soon? Good grief!’ Her eyes jolted to the cup. She brought it to her nose to be sure. ‘Who’s tampered with my punch? That is absolutely it!’
‘Mum.’ This time it was Peaches speaking in a warning tone. ‘We have to talk.’