The Alibi Girl. C.J. Skuse
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know who I am – being there is enough for him to know his mother was cherished.
I only started going to people’s funerals after my dad died. I couldn’t go to his – I was still in hospital and they said I wasn’t well enough. I’ve only ever visited his grave in Scarborough once, and Scants told me not to go back again. Never go back, it’s too dangerous. Keep going forwards. To where though? Where am I going?
I’ve tried to get out and about and meet people like Scants keeps telling me to, but it’s not like it used to be as a kid. Back then you’d just say Hey, do you want to play Tig or Pokémon? and they would. Adults are full of suspicion and fear. Children themselves I find very easy to talk to. When I’m down at the pier or the beach or the arcades on my mornings or afternoons off, I can strike up conversations very quickly with kids. We have similar interests. Similar goals in life. Mainly, short term happiness. They don’t think about tomorrow. I daren’t.
Scants finds this too weird. No more playing with other people’s kids, he says. It’s not friendship, it’s grooming. Join a club instead, do a course, get some hobbies. Meet people your own age.
But adults are untrustworthy and devious. Adults do bad things.
The only things I like doing besides eating and watching DVDs is going down the arcades and playing ‘Guitar Hero’ or bowling with Matthew or dressing up the cats. I don’t go scuba diving at weekends or play lacrosse on a Wednesday night or anything like that. I’m not sociable or vivacious enough to ‘join a club of likeminded people’. Who does that? What kind of Louisa May Alcott world does Scants live in where people just go out and, god forbid, introduce themselves to new people?
I’m not one of life’s joiner-inners, I am one of life’s stay-at-homers.
Except when I have to work. Or I need a doughnut.
‘Hey, Charlotte!’ comes the cheery greeting from inside the doughnut van as I’m walking along the front to work.
‘Hi Johnny,’ I say. ‘How are you?’
‘I saw you the other day. Had some doughnut holes for you. I called out.’
‘Oh. Sorry. I can’t have heard you.’
‘You seemed in a rush. Where’s your baby today?’
‘At the childminder’s. I had to go to a funeral this morning.’
‘Ah no. Anyone close?’
‘No, not close. Got a nice few hours to myself now to finish my novel. Thought I’d treat myself first.’
‘Ahhh good idea,’ he says, lowering the frying basket into the bubbling oil. ‘Give me three minutes, I’ll put a fresh batch on for you.’ He moves his batter mixing bowl to the back bench and I slip into Charlotte Mode – my spine instantly lengthening as I flick my scarf over my shoulder.
‘Thank you. I need all the sugar I can get today. Got a big rewrite underway.’
‘That’s not good,’ he says. ‘Your editor didn’t like what you’d done?’
‘No, I completely messed it up actually. Had to cut around 40,000 words. It’s fine though, I’ve had worse. Every book seems to get harder to write.’
‘Wow, 40,000 words? You must write pretty fast.’
‘Yeah I do. I can dash that off again in a week, it’s no biggy. Ooh, I’ll have a Lilt as well thanks, Johnny.’
‘Not a problem,’ he says, grabbing a can from the fridge. ‘Not seen you about much lately, Charlotte. Thought you might have found another doughnut man.’ He winks but it doesn’t feel MeToo-ey, just friendly. It’s pretty comforting in a town where nobody knows my name and offers me nothing in the form of family.
‘No, never,’ I smile. ‘I have a lot on at the moment, that’s all. I’ve just come back from a book tour and a couple of my author friends had their launches this week as well so it’s been a bit hectic.’ I sigh like it’s all been one big drama.
‘I see,’ he says, flicking the doughnuts over in the basket where they bob and glisten in the golden oil. A white flickering catches my eye – a Missing Cat poster on the nearest lamppost flaps in the wind. Suki Shortcake. Missing since July. It’s actually my Prince Roland. No wonder he ran off with a name like Suki Shortcake. The doughnuts finish frying and Johnny tips them out of the basket onto a tray covered with flattened kitchen roll, scattering their brown tops with sugar.
‘Five for a pound or, to you, four plus one free for one hundred pence.’
‘Five is good, thank you.’
He shovels my doughnuts into a paper bag and winds it up in two knots. I hand him £2 and he places the warm bag on my palm, retrieving my change from his belt.
‘They smell magnificent, as always, thank you Johnny.’ I venture a hand into the bag but they’re too scalding hot and my fingers burn on impact.
‘How are book sales for the last one?’ He leans on the counter top.
‘Good thanks. Sold it to Greece and… Belgium this morning, in fact.’
Two young lads scuff towards the van, reading their options from the board.
‘Ah, that’s wonderful! And have you met David Schwimmer yet?’
I told him a few weeks ago that David Schwimmer had signed up to be in the movie they’re making out of my book Lovers in War.
‘Not yet. I think he’s coming over in the near future so maybe I’ll meet him then.’
‘That’s fantastic. I love Ross. Could I be more of a Ross fan?’
‘That’s Chandler,’ I laugh.
‘Oh yeah,’ he laughs, louder. ‘Which one’s Ross again?’
‘The dinosaur guy. Three divorces. Someone ate his sandwich.’
We both laugh when we realise neither of us can do a Ross impression.
‘Thanks for the doughnuts, Johnny,’ I say, picking up the cold can of Lilt which soothes my overeager fingertips.
He turns to the two lads who both want doughnuts too. ‘Okay, don’t be a stranger now, Charlotte. Yes, lads, what can I get you?’
I use the doughnut man, I admit that. I use him to make myself feel better. And some days it works. But today, it doesn’t. The doughnuts are too hot to eat and he is too busy to flirt to the required level that makes me feel good about myself. I want to go back to the flat, cave up in my duvet on the bed and hide.
But I have to work. Afternoon shift.
There’s only one more byte of information I can learn about Tessa Sharpe’s death – her hands were bound with ‘reusable cable ties’. I overhear General Manager Kimberley talking to the detective sergeant with the lazy eye. She says Trevor only has single-use cable ties for the TVs in the bedrooms so whoever killed Tessa Sharpe must have brought their own.
Room 29 is still out of action and the police are at the hotel all day, questioning the rest of the staff. For some reason they don’t question me though and I wonder why until Trevor informs me they want to talk to staff members who were on shift between 7 p.m. and midnight on the night she died. This discounts me from suspicion, at least.
‘Have you finished?’ says Vanda as I’m craning my neck around the staff office to hear what she’s saying to the investigating officer.
‘No, I wondered if there were any more J-cloths? There’s none on the shelves.’
‘No. You have to open new box. And shut the door.’
So I do. Nobody tells me what is happening – not Sabrina, not Claire the temp, not Madge, and all Trevor says when I catch him lumbering through with boxes is, ‘It’s a