Chapter 3
Casey’s pen dropped onto the page with a clack.
She couldn’t call the police again—they already thought she was loopy—but she couldn’t just do nothing either.
She was on her own. She looked around the office for some sort of weapon, just in case.
It was slim pickings. Maybe she could lasso her with an electrical cable?
Hit her with Nigel’s copy of The Beatles Anthology?
Not exactly in keeping with John Lennon’s “give peace a chance” message.
Finally, her eyes caught on the can of dry shampoo that she kept for emergencies.
That would have to do. If the woman came at her with violence she’d dry shampoo the shit out of her.
The cosmetics department was situated at the front of the store by the main entrance, so that when you first walked in you were faced with everything white and sparkly and smelling of perfume.
Casey pushed open the service door near the scarves and hats section and crept through handbags, totes, and sunglasses, thankful that this area was carpeted.
The toy department and Father Christmas’s grotto was behind her at the far end of this floor.
At the bath and body sections the flooring became a solid parquet, which continued into cosmetics.
She hoped the rubber soles on her unflattering but practical lace-up shoes wouldn’t give her away.
Peeping over a Molton Brown stand, she watched the woman blow on the toes of one foot before easing it down off the counter with the kind of grace Casey could only dream of, and with equal fluidity of motion, she brought her other foot up and began preparing the rest of her toenails for polish.
All around her were baskets overflowing with fruit.
A vine twisted itself around one of the desk lamps on the counter and drooped a bunch of grapes in front of the woman’s face, and she plucked at them with her teeth at intervals.
Casey considered her next move. She could run at her, knock her off the stool, and then restrain her, but flooring the woman without just cause seemed excessive. She decided to start with diplomacy.
She stood up straight and walked slowly out from behind the bubble bath display. “Ahem. Excuse me, I’m afraid you’re not allowed to be here, the store is closed.”
The woman continued to paint her nails, wiggling her toes so that the emerald glitter varnish twinkled in the light from the cosmetics lamp.
Casey took a couple of steps forward but kept a safe distance.
From here she could see that the woman looked to be in her sixties, maybe early seventies; it was hard to tell because she had great skin. Her auburn hair shone in the lamplight.
“Excuse me, madam,” Casey said, a little louder. “The store is closed. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” This time the woman lifted her head—foot still on the counter—and looked around as though to see who Casey might be addressing. Unbelievable!
After doing a visual sweep around the empty department, the woman locked eyes with Casey and said, “Ah. You can see me, can you?” Her perfectly penciled eyebrows pulled together sardonically.
“Yes, madam, I can see you.” Oh dear, poor thing.
Was she confused? It happened more than people thought: someone with dementia wandering away from home and finding themselves in the store almost on autopilot.
Coopers it was a familiar place in a landscape that was forever changing.
There was a nursing home up near the park; could she have escaped?
The woman blew on her toes as she screwed the lid on the varnish and took her foot off the counter before swiveling on the stool—snagging another grape as she turned—to face Casey.
“Well, this is a sticky wicket,” she said dryly.
And Casey suddenly wondered if her first instinct had been right and this woman was in fact some sort of female Hans Gruber.
Did she have a team of bandits waiting to fill lorries with loot?
The woman’s gaze traveled down to the can of dry shampoo Casey was gripping in her right hand. “What are you planning to do with that?” she asked. “Style me into submission?”
Her unharried demeanor was making Casey nervous. “I—” her voice came out like a squeak. She cleared her throat and said firmly, “The store is closed. You need to leave. I will call the police if I must.”
The woman interlaced her fingers and let out a beleaguered sigh. “Oh dear. Houston, we have a problem.”
Casey checked her blind spots, just in case the woman was talking to a person called Houston.
You never knew—she’d once heard a woman in the store call her child Basildon.
The woman regarded Casey through dark green squinted eyes, her red lips pursed, and then she began to speak with a sanguinity that bordered on boredom.
“The issue we have, my dear, is that you are not supposed to be able to see me. Not unless you’ve been given express permission by either me or the powers that be.
And since I didn’t grant you permission and the powers that be don’t know I’m here, well”—she opened her hands and held them palms up—“you see the problem.”
Casey wasn’t sure that she did. She pulled her shoulders back. “I won’t ask you again, madam. Leave now or I will call the police.”
The woman gave a twinkly laugh and hopped off the stool.
“Do it!” she said, a wide mischievous smile breaking over her face.
“Catch me if you can!” And with that she disappeared along with her baskets of produce.
No poof of smoke, no pop, she simply blinked out of existence.
Casey stared at the spot where she’d been and then turned a slow three-sixty, holding up the can of dry shampoo, her finger on the spray pump. What the actual…?
The intercom crackled loudly, and Casey jumped, spraying a cloud of white around her like a protective circle of hair product.
The woman’s smooth voice rang out around the store.
“Bing, bong, bing!” she trilled. “This is an announcement. When the shelf stacker has finished titting about in Cosmetics, I’ll be waiting in the security office to discuss our little problem over a…
Dear God in heaven, instant coffee? That’ll never do.
I’ll be waiting!” The intercom gave another crackle and then went silent.
The only sound on the shop floor was that of Casey’s heavy breathing in the gloom as she let the can drop to her side and whispered, “Shit!”