Dangerous Affection

Chapter Thirty-Nine

About a week later, I’m in the kitchen having a quiet coffee before I wake Maisie when I hear a shriek followed by feet thundering down the stairs.

I plonk my cup down, spilling coffee on the counter top.

‘Maisie? What is it?’

‘Our herb garden!’ Her face is horror-struck when she runs into the kitchen barefoot, in her pyjamas. ‘Someone pulled up all our plants… all of them.’

‘What?’ I rush to the window and raise the blind. Maisie’s bedroom window overlooks the back garden at a more convenient angle than the kitchen, but I can see scattered plants on the edge of the lawn.

Maisie and I planted the small herb garden together in the spring. We’d planned it out on paper and separated each herb section with small white decorative stones. Maisie kept a diary cataloguing the growth of the plants and was in awe when we used the herbs in cooking. She loved to pick them fresh and present them triumphantly to whoever was cooking that day.

I pull my dressing gown tighter around me and slide my bare feet into the pair of flip-flops I keep by the French doors. ‘Wait here,’ I say, unlocking the doors and stepping out into the dewy freshness of the morning.

I walk across the crisp, frosted lawn to the border, shivering as an icy breeze blasts my lower legs and toes. Immediately I see that Maisie is right. Not a single plant remains in our garden. They all lie on the soil or the grass, dying.

‘Do I have to go?’ Maisie frowns as she stuffs a foot into her lace-up pumps. ‘I’d rather just spend the day with Dad.’

I’m still not clear what happened to cause so much upset after her trip to the cinema with Shaun. According to Maisie, it all began with some silly game that Piper started in the first place, and ended with Joanne’s daughter screaming the milkshake parlour down.

Maisie has been quiet all week. My mum looked after her when she stayed off school for a couple of days after the vomiting incident, and she hasn’t been to her dance classes.

She’s had next to no appetite and has actually taken herself off up to bed without me having to scream, threaten and beg as per our usual routine. It’s all very odd, but I put it down to her having some kind of tummy bug that manifested itself so colourfully on Sunday evening.

This morning, when she tore downstairs to tell me about the herb garden, is the most energy she’s had for a while.

Shaun hasn’t called as he promised to explain why Maisie was so upset, and to be honest, I haven’t overly chased him. I sent him a text but he dodged the subject, saying it’s all been forgotten now. Joanne has been out of the office this week working at home, apparently, so I can’t ask her anything about it.

But on Friday afternoon, Shaun texted again to say he’d pick Maisie up at ten the next morning for a special day out.

When I told Maisie, she wasn’t at all pleased.

‘I’m sure you’ll enjoy it,’ I say now, trying to keep my tone light. ‘I think Joanne has some nice things planned for you all to do.’

‘It’s weird.’ Maisie reaches for her other shoe. ‘The way you know her.’

‘It’s not weird.’ I throw her denim jacket over the back of the chair. ‘I work with her, I told you.’

‘Piper says she’s your boss,’ Maisie remarks. ‘She says that you work for her.’

I’m not surprised at these repeated bitchy comments. Sadly, it’s what I expect from Miss Piper Dent. I guess she has to release her vitriol somewhere, and it looks like this time, I won the jackpot.