It’s late when the shop finally closes, and I am tired and hungry. Maggie has promised we’ll get fish and chips for dinner, as soon as all the money has been counted and put away.
“Cod and chips, my favorite,” says John. I look over at him and he pulls a codfish face, so I do too. Both our mouths are open, our lips like the letter O, and then we smile at our silent Mary Poppins joke. Maggie doesn’t smile because she doesn’t think it’s funny, even though it is. She says we’ve made so much money today that I don’t have to sweep up tonight, we’ll do it all tomorrow.
Susan leaves through the front door, she says that it is quicker to get to her bus stop that way, and Maggie locks it behind her. Susan was invited to stay for supper but said no, and I’m glad. I still don’t like her, despite all the chocolate she let me eat, and fish and chips is what the three of us do. As John always says, we don’t need nobody else.
Maggie helps John count the money behind the counter. I can hear the adding machine going clickety-click. I decide to build a fort in the shop while I wait, dragging some of the leather stools together, and laying the newspaper pages that have come down from the walls over the top.
It all happens so fast and the sound is so loud.
The car crashes through the front of the shop, almost smashing straight into my fort. Time stops for a tiny moment. I look at Maggie and John behind the counter, both their mouths are wide open, staring at the blue car, and I realize that my mouth is open too. I think we must all look like codfish now. Maggie’s eyes are awful wide, and she is shouting something at me, but I can’t hear her; the sound of glass smashing and car doors opening is all too loud. My eyes are staring at the two men with masks on their faces getting out of the car, but then my ears remember how to work and I hear Maggie.
“Run, Aimee!”
So I do.
I run behind the counter, and John locks the door that separates us from the shop. Maggie grabs me with one hand and picks up the phone in the other, holding it to her ear with her shoulder. She keeps stabbing the 9 button with her red nails, but then slams it down, saying that it’s dead.
“Fuckers,” says John, but Maggie ignores him and looks down at me.
“Say your prayers,” she says, and I know what that means.
I always remember everything Maggie teaches me.
I run towards the little back room, but before I even reach the stripy curtains, I hear the men smash through the counter. One of them is swinging a giant hammer, it’s bigger than me.
“Open the fuckin’ safe,” says the other one, and I see him point a gun at Maggie’s head. John bends down to the safe and I run. I crawl under the desk, and my fingers find the pistol that is taped underneath it. Even though my hands are shaking, my fingers seem to know what to do. The back door bursts open, and another bad man comes inside. He doesn’t see me under the desk. I don’t understand how he got in because I know I locked the door when we got back from the bank. But then I remember Susan, and the gate, and the Dairy Milk, and the silent phones. I know she tricked me, and I am so confused and cross all at once.
I am not afraid anymore, I am just angry. More angry than I have ever been about anything. I stand behind the stripy curtain, trying to hold the gun steady, not sure who to point it at first—there are three of them now. One of the bad men is holding Maggie, another is pointing his gun at John, who starts to open the safe, just like they told him to. Then everyone is shouting again and I hear a loud bang.
I see all the red on Maggie’s white jumper before she falls to the shop floor.
John runs to her, and they shoot him, too, twice in the back.
I stand perfectly still while they kick my mum and my dad with their dirty boots, and I hear them say that they are dead. Nobody has seen me, as though I have already disappeared. Two of the bad men bend down next to the safe, laughing and filling their bags with our money. I look back at Maggie and can see that her eyes are open again, looking at me.
I fire my gun.
I’m so close behind them, I cannot miss.
I do what she taught me to do and shoot until nobody moves. Then I carry on shooting anyway, until I don’t have any bullets left.
“Come here, Baby Girl.” Maggie sounds croaky and far away. I cuddle up next to her on the floor and try to stop the blood from coming out of her tummy with my hands, the way I’ve seen people do on TV. But it won’t stop. There’s a great big red puddle of it now, and my fingers are all red.
“Give me the gun,” she whispers, so I do. She wipes it on her trousers, then takes a white hankie from her sleeve and wraps it around the pistol. “Don’t touch it again, don’t touch anything. Now go and put this in John’s hand, go on, hurry up now, careful not to touch it.” I’m crying and shaking, but I do what Maggie tells me to do, because I’ve learned that bad things happen to me when I don’t. John doesn’t move when I put the gun in his hand. I don’t like touching him, and I run back to Maggie as soon as I’ve done it. She puts her arm around me and I lay my head on her chest, the way I do when we cuddle in bed. Then I close my eyes and listen to the sound of her breathing, and her voice in my ears.
“When they come, you just say you hid out back and found everyone like this. You don’t tell them about the gun. You don’t tell them nothing. I love you, Baby Girl. You tell them your name is Aimee Sinclair, that’s all you say when they come, and you remember that I loved you.”
I’m crying too hard to speak. I lie in her arms, her blood all over my face and clothes, and when I manage to say, “I love you too,” her eyes are already closed.
Forty-six
London, 2017
I emerge from the bathroom at the club, coercing my head to hold itself high, and planning to just get the hell out of here as fast as I can. I feel as if everyone at the party is looking at me after my exchange with Jennifer Jones, and although she has been escorted from the building, I can’t stay here now. She’s confirmed what I suspected from the start: I’m being set up by my husband and a stalker who is pretending to be me. I remember all the vintage postcards I found in the shoebox in the attic, all written by her, all with the same short message:
I know who you are.
Well, I don’t know who she is, but I know that they’re working together, I’m sure of it.
If the woman looks older than me, then it can’t be Alicia, and I don’t know anyone else who hates me enough to want to destroy me like this. And as for Jack …
“There you are, I’ve been looking everywhere for you! I heard what happened,” he says, crossing my path right on cue. His face is doing such a good job of portraying concern that I almost believe it is genuine.
“How could you?”
His mouth opens and closes repeatedly, whatever he is trying to say experiencing a series of false starts. “Je ne comprends pas,” he eventually says with a childish grin, accompanied by a theatrical shrug.
I try to push past him, but he stops me. “I’m not in the mood for your silly French phrases.”
“No. Right. Of course, I’m sorry. If you mean sending the photos to the press, well, then I did that for you as well as me, you’ll thank me one day. All publicity is good publicity, did nobody teach you that yet?”