The Café (complete story)

Chapter 1: The unexpected visit

"Come quick, look at this Alan," shouted Eve, beckoning her husband over to the unfolding news on the TV.

Alan rushed into the room to hear the ending sentence from the TV reporter "..Can confirm that she lived in Park Vale."

"What have I missed?"

"That girl on the TV, she came in the cafe, bold as brass with her two friends looking for trade in broad daylight." said Eve excitedly "Me and Octavia had to chase them out. And now she's dead."

Park Vale, a fancy name for an unfashionable part of Town. It was what economists call an "under served community" meaning that it didn't have the right mix of rich and poor people to be sustainable in terms of jobs and a nicer neighbourhood.

So the Council and its housing partners built show homes, lots of them, almost cheek and jowl with the rundown estate.

And Eve Shepard, a Director in a recruitment firm, and Alan Shepard the owner of his own marketing company along with other aspiring professionals moved into the area captivated by its re-branding as Park Vale.

Not that the gentrification had that much of an effect on the area. The prostitutes increased in number, the sirens were an almost nightly serenade on the streets, but at least violent crime was down, so it worked, sort of.

The local cafe, The Light Direction, was the brainchild of Octavia Harris. A long time resident who correctly read the tea leaves and set up an upmarket Cafe which could rival the likes of Starbucks and attracted a diverse clientele. The Cafe was home to accountants and other professional people, local authority workers, white van drivers, local residents and sometimes, prostitutes who were not plying their trade.

Following the murder of local prostitute Siobhan Donnelly, The Light Direction became the centre of attention. The clientele swelled to include Police Officers interviewing regulars including Octavia and Eve, local and national journalist and the curious eager to find what made the place significant.

Approaching one of the many reporters who descended on the Cafe in the hope of grabbing headlines rather than food Octavia enquired "You ordering a tea or coffee?" interrupting the reporter in mid flow with a customer.

"I'm just asking the lady a few__"

"Does this look like a Police interview room or a newsroom to you?" said Octavia, invading his personal space while tapping noticeably on her order pad, "So do you want that tea or coffee?" She continued with the subtlety of a door to doors salesman.

"I'll have a cup of your lovely tea please," mumbled the reporter unenthusiastically as Octavia and her staff went about the business of persuading arrant customers to part with some coin of the realm.

When the Cafe was quieter Octavia was able to speak to Eve. "We were right to chase out them girls?" said Octavia, trying to justify her actions more to herself than her friend.

Eve had been instrumental in putting together the business plan for the Cafe and had remained good friends with Octavia in spite of their differences in background.

The only immediate commonality between them was they both had small children. Octavia was a short, slim black woman in her 40's. She was a single woman, a born again Christian and a regular church goer. To many in the cafe she was mother confessor. More discrete than a legion of Catholic priests. In confessional mode she was virtually unshockable, which contrasted with some of her public pronouncements with Eve. She was though a constant source of good advice to Eve in her sometimes turbulent marriage to Alan.

Eve was older at 45, short, but stockier. Her white middle class background didn't include regular Church attendance but Octavia tried her best to change that. Eve was always on hand to give Octavia good business advice, and it was this compliment of need that cemented their friendship.