‘Did you tell anyone it was my birthday?’
Daniel shook his head. ‘No. I didn’t even mention it to Mum.’
After hasty messages to Becky and Alice, I quickly established that no one else in Ferrington knew it was my birthday.
‘I think we can safely rule those two out,’ Daniel said, grimly. ‘Who else knows you’re here?’
‘No one,’ I whispered, lost in a whirlwind of dread and disbelief. And the list of people who knew my birthday was not a long one.
‘So, who the hell sent this?’ Daniel’s face was set, all hard lines and clenched jaw. His scar stood out stark against his cheek. ‘What’s it supposed to mean, “I hope you get what you deserve”?’
I took a deep breath. Now was the time. I had to be brave, and honest, and if it meant the best birthday ever became the worst, then so be it. I steeled my spine in preparation.
‘I don’t understand why anyone would want to do this to you of all people.’ He pulled me close into a hug, and as my face sank against his chest, my steely spine dissolved into mush.
‘I was a writer.’ I pulled myself upright again, heart splintering at the swirl of compassion and anger in his eyes. ‘Every journalist gets hate mail. I’ve had plenty of nasty comments on social media over the years, people taking an irrational dislike to me, or offended by something I’ve said.’
‘Eleanor, someone packaged up a load of bees into a box. This is way beyond a snarky tweet. And if someone went to the trouble to find out both your birthday and your current address, that’s not a passing dislike. It’s a stalker.’
I blew out a shaky sigh. ‘You’re not really making me feel any better, here.’
‘I’m sorry, but I’d rather you took this seriously and ensured you were safe than tried to cheer you up by dismissing something potentially dangerous as nothing to worry about.’
‘Iamtaking it seriously.’
‘We need to call the police.’
I shook my head frantically, trying to come up with a good reason why not. ‘It’s just a parcel of bees. I don’t think we need to do anything drastic. Like I said, this is par for the course for a journalist. Especially a reviewer. And I’m not sure they can do anything, even if they had the time and resources to bother.’
‘They could start by scouring the area for people covered in unexplained bee stings.’
‘Look, it’s my birthday, we’ve had a lovely day up until this. If we call the police now I might have to stay in and talk to them, miss my birthday night out with Becky and Alice. They’ve told me to put on my sparkle. I can’t remember the last time I did that. Please can we leave it for today, see how we feel in the morning once the shock’s settled? I’ll have a proper think about who it might be. Go over my old social media accounts, see if there’s any helpful clues there. And you can talk to Ziva, give her a chance to check out the hives.’
He huffed, rubbing at his scar. ‘I need to pick up Hope now anyway.’ Looking at me, he narrowed his eyes. ‘But we’re calling them tomorrow. This needs dealing with properly.’
He grabbed his keys and left, leaving me to sweep the tiny corpses back into the box before changing into the closest item I had in my wardrobe that resembled sparkle.
Needless to say, I was not feeling sparkly.
29
It was beyond late by the time I tumbled out of the taxi, waving a groggy farewell to Becky and Alice as they hooted and hollered their happy birthdays at me one final time.
We’d had a night full of food, fun and utterly fabulous friendship, and while deciding to drown my rampant terror with cocktails was probably not a sensible idea, it had been a successful one.
I did ask whether either of them knew if anyone was still mad at me for the wine and cheese fiasco, or whether Alice had noticed any animosity since her table-top announcement at the weekend. They waved off that suggestion with flapping hands and insistent cries that I was being paranoid.
I’d of course checked my old phone at least every two minutes before I’d left that evening. There’d been nothing. But at the end of the night, once I’d stumbled up the stairs, tugged off my velvet trousers and glittery top, I couldn’t resist checking it again.
Did you like your present?
And a second one, sent a few minutes later:
Would you like to thank me in person?
The threat hit me like a fist in my guts.
They knew where I lived. Were they coming for me?
