There’s nothing wrong with it.
I undo the latch and the door swings back.
It’s the police. DS Penney and the other one.
“Who were you talking to?” Penney asks, looking around.
“Oh, just my cat,” I say, gesturing towards the sofa, but Fluffy has already gone into hiding, the false friend that he is.
“So how can I help you?” I ask, glancing at my watch. It seems a bit late to be making house calls.
“We just have one question for you, Isabel. What happened to Rose Cottage?”
Chapter Six
The summer I turned eighteen, Kate and I worked as play leaders at a children’s holiday camp called Camp Windylake. While Kate’s group charged up and down the football pitch, mine were more stylish and artistic. We had the best times in the arts and crafts tent, fashioning intricate hats and gloves from old scraps of material and decorating them with sequins, buttons and beads. We customised jeans and T-shirts with safety pins, ribbons and lace. Every one of my charges made something they could be proud of that summer, culminating in a big fashion show on the last day, where the kids strutted their stuff down a makeshift catwalk to Right Said Fred.
I started smoking that summer, actually. I know, most people start much younger than eighteen, but smoking had never interested me before. Yet somehow, sitting round the camp fire one night, I found myself accepting a cigarette. And despite many, many failed attempts, I’ve never managed to quit since. Not even after what happened to Rose Cottage.
The day camp finished, Julio picked us up in a cherry-red convertible he’d been working on, drawing numerous wolf-whistles from the girls, fellow camp leaders, and even one or two of the mums. This was way before he and Kate were ever an item, of course.
After dropping Kate off home, we returned to Rose Cottage, the holiday home Dad rented every summer since we were little. I dumped my bag in the hallway and ran upstairs to take a shower. Dad was out on a date that night (what can I say? Like father, like son) and Julio suggested we go out for a few drinks and catch up.
“How about here?” he said, as we walked down the High Street, in the direction of the Millennium nightclub.
“No,” I said, glaring at the long-haired bouncer. He looked particularly smug that night, organising the crowd into an orderly queue and deciding who could go in and who couldn’t. “I hear there’s a new Turkish place that’s just opened across the road. Let’s go and have a look.”
The raki poured freely that night, and it was gone midnight by the time we finally stumbled home along the beach.
Julio sniffed the air. “Hmm, smells like barbecue.”
I blinked at the unfriendly lights ahead of us. “I don’t think that’s a barbecue. Something’s on fire!”
We strained our eyes to see, and, perhaps because we’d had quite a bit to drink, we still failed to realise that the source of all the commotion was our very own Rose Cottage. Until we saw Dad, that is. He was walking across the sand towards us, his arms crossed, his expression as dark as the thunderous clouds of smoke above us.
“OK, which of you did it?” he demanded. “I’ve just been speaking to the fire crew and they think it was probably started by a cigarette.”
Julio and I looked at each other in horror. We had each had one before heading out that night. But I’d stubbed mine out, I was certain of it. Poor Dad, he had no idea either of us smoked.
“It wasn’t me!” Julio said indignantly, his body language mimicking his father’s.
“Well, it wasn’t me, either!” I defended myself. “I wouldn’t be that careless!”
And so it went. I blamed Julio, and he blamed me. We never did get to the bottom of it. That was the end of our holidays at Rose Cottage though. The place was damaged beyond repair.
* * *
“So you admit that you started the fire at Rose Cottage?” Penney asks. The man has ants in his pants. He keeps pacing
I undo the latch and the door swings back.
It’s the police. DS Penney and the other one.
“Who were you talking to?” Penney asks, looking around.
“Oh, just my cat,” I say, gesturing towards the sofa, but Fluffy has already gone into hiding, the false friend that he is.
“So how can I help you?” I ask, glancing at my watch. It seems a bit late to be making house calls.
“We just have one question for you, Isabel. What happened to Rose Cottage?”
Chapter Six
The summer I turned eighteen, Kate and I worked as play leaders at a children’s holiday camp called Camp Windylake. While Kate’s group charged up and down the football pitch, mine were more stylish and artistic. We had the best times in the arts and crafts tent, fashioning intricate hats and gloves from old scraps of material and decorating them with sequins, buttons and beads. We customised jeans and T-shirts with safety pins, ribbons and lace. Every one of my charges made something they could be proud of that summer, culminating in a big fashion show on the last day, where the kids strutted their stuff down a makeshift catwalk to Right Said Fred.
I started smoking that summer, actually. I know, most people start much younger than eighteen, but smoking had never interested me before. Yet somehow, sitting round the camp fire one night, I found myself accepting a cigarette. And despite many, many failed attempts, I’ve never managed to quit since. Not even after what happened to Rose Cottage.
The day camp finished, Julio picked us up in a cherry-red convertible he’d been working on, drawing numerous wolf-whistles from the girls, fellow camp leaders, and even one or two of the mums. This was way before he and Kate were ever an item, of course.
After dropping Kate off home, we returned to Rose Cottage, the holiday home Dad rented every summer since we were little. I dumped my bag in the hallway and ran upstairs to take a shower. Dad was out on a date that night (what can I say? Like father, like son) and Julio suggested we go out for a few drinks and catch up.
“How about here?” he said, as we walked down the High Street, in the direction of the Millennium nightclub.
“No,” I said, glaring at the long-haired bouncer. He looked particularly smug that night, organising the crowd into an orderly queue and deciding who could go in and who couldn’t. “I hear there’s a new Turkish place that’s just opened across the road. Let’s go and have a look.”
The raki poured freely that night, and it was gone midnight by the time we finally stumbled home along the beach.
Julio sniffed the air. “Hmm, smells like barbecue.”
I blinked at the unfriendly lights ahead of us. “I don’t think that’s a barbecue. Something’s on fire!”
We strained our eyes to see, and, perhaps because we’d had quite a bit to drink, we still failed to realise that the source of all the commotion was our very own Rose Cottage. Until we saw Dad, that is. He was walking across the sand towards us, his arms crossed, his expression as dark as the thunderous clouds of smoke above us.
“OK, which of you did it?” he demanded. “I’ve just been speaking to the fire crew and they think it was probably started by a cigarette.”
Julio and I looked at each other in horror. We had each had one before heading out that night. But I’d stubbed mine out, I was certain of it. Poor Dad, he had no idea either of us smoked.
“It wasn’t me!” Julio said indignantly, his body language mimicking his father’s.
“Well, it wasn’t me, either!” I defended myself. “I wouldn’t be that careless!”
And so it went. I blamed Julio, and he blamed me. We never did get to the bottom of it. That was the end of our holidays at Rose Cottage though. The place was damaged beyond repair.
* * *
“So you admit that you started the fire at Rose Cottage?” Penney asks. The man has ants in his pants. He keeps pacing
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