and very expensive-looking, bunch of flowers.
‘Oriental lilies and yellow roses. How lovely, but who on earth would be sending me flowers? It’s not my birthday,’ said Brenda. ‘Is it?’
‘Not yet. Soon. July,’ Lucy reassured her.
Lucy put the arrangement on a raffia mat in the centre of the occasional table near the fireplace. She handed Brenda the card, who read aloud ‘George’. Brenda turned the card over but that appeared to be it. So his written messages were as brief as his conversations, thought Lucy.
‘Do I know a George?’ Brenda asked.
‘From next door. He helped us yesterday. Remember?’ Lucy prompted.
‘Not really, dear. But I don’t want to talk about yesterday. Oh look, they’re in a pretty crackle glass vase.’
‘It’s a very generous gesture,’ said Lucy, never having seen such an impressive bouquet before.
‘Hmm… Some might say it’s worth more to have half an hour of someone’s time than a lavish present,’ Brenda said, as she reached out for Lucy’s hand. ‘I remember George now. The sexy one with the strong arms? I think the boy means well; he has a few lessons to learn, that’s all.’
Lucy huffed at Brenda’s casual dismissal of George’s lack of manners.
‘You can take that look off your face, young lady, because I have a feeling you’ll be the one to teach him.’
The following day was one of those glorious May days that heralded the departure of spring and the arrival of summer. Collared doves cooed from the trees and late cherry blossom fell like confetti at the slightest breeze. Drawing back her curtains, Lucy decided it was the sort of morning you should walk to work – be outside and inhale the aroma of cut grass and scented flowers and feel the warmth of the sun on your skin. It would take forty minutes to get across town by foot, rather than twenty minutes in the stop-start traffic by car, but worth the extra journey time. She’d already rung Brenda to check she was okay, but even with the planned walk, she had time to pop over and share breakfast together, something Lucy decided she needed to do more often.
An hour and a half later, Adam welcomed her in his own inimitable style as she stepped through the sales office door.
‘Two men down and we don’t seem to have been able to steer the boat through the unusually busy traffic jam of problems we’ve encountered in the last two days. I won’t lie to you, Lucy-Lou, it’s been particularly stressful, what with half-term and everything. You need to apologise to old Starchy Knickers over there.’
He gestured to Sam, surveying the office over the top of her elegant red-framed spectacles. She had a phone to her ear and was thoughtfully tapping a silver Parker pen on the edge of her desk. Adam swung his chair to face Lucy and crossed one leg over the other, exposing a particularly splendid pair of Spider-Man socks and far too much groin.
‘And then perhaps you’d deal with this latest crisis? Four hundred Fizz, Boom, Bang chemistry sets shipped out in the last three months and it’s taken until now for someone to spot that despite the inclusion of a detailed instruction manual, including a section in bloody Estonian, none of the translations are in English.’
Lucy sighed. She was straight back in to solving other people’s muddles.
‘I’ll make it my priority, but surely it’s just a matter of contacting the manufacturer and asking for a translation. We can add them to the units we have in the warehouse and those still out with our retailers. Hopefully, consumers will contact the manufacturer direct when they realise.’
‘Yeah, well, I’m sure it’s straightforward if you have the time to focus on it properly, but I have other, more pressing matters to deal with. She’s got me running around like a squirrel on speed. So much for not interfering.’
Lucy walked over to the general manager’s desk and waited for her to end the call, before apologising for her unauthorised time off work.
‘You should have contacted us as soon as you became aware of the problem. My biggest issue is we didn’t hear from you until nearly ten o’clock.’ Sam was multitasking, even as she answered Lucy she scribbled notes in her jotter. ‘Although I’m still not convinced helping out a neighbour justifies a two-day absence.’
‘Sorry. She wasn’t well and went for a wander in her nightie, taking a packed lunch of cream crackers and toothpaste to her dead husband—’
‘I don’t want to hear your excuse, although I must say it’s more creative than some I’ve heard.’ Sam didn’t look up. ‘I want you to be at your desk by nine or ring in to notify us promptly that you will be delayed.’
‘I tried to ring several—’
‘The personal apology is appreciated, and Adam has backed you one hundred per cent, so let’s move on. Has Adam filled you in on the science sets crisis?’ Lucy nodded. ‘Could you get straight on it please? He’s been fiddling about all morning and I haven’t seen much progress.’
Lucy slumped into her chair and switched on her computer. Poor Adam was obviously stressed. It must be hard running the sales office, especially when his staff let him down. She’d stay late to make up for it.
‘Thanks for your support,’ she said to Adam later as their paths crossed on the stairs. She was heading downstairs to the photocopier; he was returning with a box of ballpoint pens.
‘Yeah, well, it’s a one-off, so keep it up your jumper. I don’t want people thinking I’ve gone soft.’
‘And you’re sure that’s what the words said when she first gave it to you?’ asked Jess, a few days later.
Lucy had finally confided in her about the locket as they both stood in the staff kitchen doing the tea round for their various departments. Lucy had no choice. Adam decided it was a job for the new girl and a year on Lucy hadn’t questioned it. Jess volunteered in accounts because she knew Lucy was lumbered with the task on a daily basis.
Disconcerted by the possibility the words in the locket had changed, Lucy was searching for a rational explanation. Jess, who had to ask Lucy to pop the catch because her long nails made it impossible to press the fiddly button, had the locket in her hands and was inspecting it closely, much like Lucy had when she’d discovered the candle spell.
‘It’s difficult to be sure, as the letters are so small, but I assumed Brenda was telling me what they said, to save me squinting. But thinking back, I’m almost certain the first word started with a flouncy old-fashioned “D”.’
‘You’ve told me often enough that your old lady friend is a bit odd, how her whole house seems alive and she heals people with funny old lotions and potions. I thought we’d decided she’s some sort of white witch.’
Perhaps Jess, who devoured TV shows like Merlin, Angel and Once Upon a Time, wasn’t the best person to turn to for logical explanations.
‘No, it’s ridiculous,’ Lucy said, as much to convince herself as Jess, and refusing to be drawn on what exactly Brenda was or wasn’t. ‘Unless I had a midnight visit from a particularly generous cat burglar who happened to have an almost identical locket in his pocket, I must have imagined it.’ Lucy didn’t know why she’d involved Jess – whose eyes were
