“You a psychic or something?” scoffs DI Zael.
“Doesn’t take a psychic,” says Leo impatiently.
“Her twenty-third birthday was on Friday,” says Storm. “And look at her dress.”
It is snug and scarlet, a world away from the prim pearl-buttoned blouse she is wearing in her driving license photo. This dress is not her usual attire. She had dressed to impress. To celebrate her life.
“Rachel Garrett,” Storm murmurs. “Who did this to you, Rachel?”
Chapter 4
DIANA
It is Monday and my lunch date with India is due. I’ve had butterflies in my stomach since I decided what to wear this morning. I can’t tell if it is excitement or nerves, but one thing’s for sure — I seriously need to get more of a life if the mere prospect of a new friend can reduce me to this.
It is 12:44 pm and Theo is not down yet, which is not good because I need to leave soon if I am going to meet India on time.
Theo lives in an apartment above the magic shop and these days he rarely wakes before midday, which is unsurprising given that he’s often up most of the night reading his books or perfecting some new invention or other. Some days he doesn’t even get up until mid-afternoon, which is good for me because I suspect this is the very reason he has given me a job.
Most days I have my lunch here. Most days I would not even think of waking him. Today is not most days.
At 12:45 pm on the dot I send Theo a text message. ‘Theo, I’m leaving in five minutes. Do you want me to shut the store over lunch?’
‘No. I’ll be down soon,’ he replies.
Not trusting him not to fall back asleep, I write back, ‘Okay. I will flip the sign to Closed and lock up until you get here.’
As I grab my satchel, Mozz chooses this moment to appear. She looks like she has awoken from a nap. “Where you going?” she says sleepily.
I scoop her up and cannot resist planting a kiss on her cheek. It makes her giggle.
“I’m going to meet a new friend.”
“New fwend?” She wrinkles her nose.
“Yes. I’ll be back in an hour.”
“Mozzawella can come too?” she enquires.
“No, Mozz baby. You know you can’t come with me.”
“But Mozzawella bored. Mozzawella and Diana play a game now?” She gives me a wide-eyed pleading look. It never fails to
tug at my heart, no matter how often I have told myself she isn’t the toddler she looks like, and has managed to get along perfectly well for many years without me.
“Aww, Mozz baby. I promise we can play a game when I come back. And in the meantime Beastie will keep you company. Okay?”
She nods solemnly, declaring, “Okay,” in her cute little voice and happily going off in search of Beastie.
Twenty minutes later I am waiting outside the café that India and I agreed to meet at. I had arrived on time. She is ten minutes late. I hadn’t even thought to ask her for her phone number, and she doesn’t have mine. It being peak lunch hour in trendy Soho, the café is packed. Through the window, I see a couple vacate a table. I decide to go in and grab it before someone else does. Surely India will think to look for me inside.
I take a seat and put India’s bottle of wolfsbane potion on the table so that I do not forget to give it to her. It is wrapped securely in a brown paper bag.
The couple have left their newspaper behind. It is a free edition of the Metro that I usually read on the bus on the way in to work in the mornings, but today I had fallen asleep while scanning a manual on using crystals to unlock the psychic mind. The manual hadn’t been of much help for my particular problem anyway. I turn over the newspaper to take a look at the front page.
The headline screams, ‘Police Cover-up As Wolf-Claw Strikes Again!’
My heart goes from sluggish to pounding in a second flat. I quickly scour the column. The article speculates that a crime scene had been cordoned off in Shoreditch yesterday evening and Special Agents from the Agency of Otherkind Investigations had been seen arriving at the scene.