Seamus Flatley had been the caretaker of Walton Tower for fifteen years and nothing surprised him. It was a source of great pride to him, and a fact he guarded jealously. His mother had scolded him for it, many moons ago, in the grey-green kitchen of his County Clare childhood home: There’s no surprising you, is there, Seamus Flatley? Seamus didn’t mind. Better a life lived with no surprises than one derailed by bad ones. Take his eldest brother Colm, for example, now almost fifty, with three failed marriages behind him and nothing but the bottle for consolation. Poor beggar hadn’t seen any of the divorces coming. Colm had been the one who wanted surprises as a kid: given the nasty shocks life had thrown into his path, what good had surprises ever done him?
And so it was with some consternation that Seamus discovered his long-held assumption was wrong.
It was the fault of that young woman in 16B. Seamus thought he’d got the measure of her – quiet, pleasant girl from out of town, who never played her music too loudly or complained to him about the state of Walton Tower’s faded amenities, like many of its other tenants. The kind of person you notice for her ordinariness.
But that Friday evening, everything changed.
He was mopping the brown-and-white tiles of the apartment-block entrance lobby, one ear on the angry man shouting from a talk radio station on the small portable propped on a bank of post-boxes, the other listening out for the sound of approaching footsteps from the staircase rising above his head. It paid to be aware of movement in and out of the building, especially when several of the tenants owed his boss money. Seamus considered himself something of an expert in deducing which tenants would appear next on the chase-list scrawled in the building owner’s heavy hand: it was amazing how fleet-footed even the most naturally cumbersome could become when rent was owed.
A few minutes after six o’clock the front door creaked open and the Nice Girl from 16B entered. She was carrying a brown package in her arms, but this wasn’t what made Seamus Flatley stop mopping and stare at her. It was her face. He’d seen it often enough during the years she had occupied 16B and had to admit it was very pleasant indeed. A little shy, to be sure, but welcoming – not like the professional business people, who were locked-and-bolted doors as far as any human interaction was concerned. But today it was different. She was glowing, as if a golden spotlight were pooling over her as she walked across the lobby.
‘Hi, Seamus,’ she called out, before he’d had the chance to wish her a good evening.
‘Hello, Anna.’
She didn’t just pause on the stairs as she usually did. She came bounding over to him – as bold as brass – a delighted smile on her pretty face. ‘Don’t you think life is wonderful, sometimes?’
‘I . . . well, I hadn’t really thought of it,’ he stuttered.
‘It is. You never know what’s around the corner, do you?’
‘I suppose not.’ Like poor Colm and his three ex-missuses . . . ‘You seem happy.’
‘I am. And not only because it’s Friday.’ She hugged the parcel as if it was a small puppy. ‘Have a lovely weekend.’
Then she smiled at him and he was struck by a sudden sense of someone so completely happy they could melt into air before him. Seamus was transfixed as she passed him and ascended the stairs. He had always thought of Anna Browne as shy and sweet, but steady. She had never given any indication that she had the ability to be forthright. But this evening she had been like a completely different woman.
It was only when she had disappeared from view that Seamus realised his long-held belief in his ability never to be surprised had crumbled like the plasterwork on the lobby walls.
‘Another parcel? Your secret admirer’s keen, isn’t he?’ Sheniece had rushed to Anna’s side like a wasp to a jam jar as soon as the courier left reception, earlier that day. Exactly a week since the owl brooch was delivered, a third parcel now lay before Anna – and she could hardly believe it.
‘It could be anything,’ Anna had replied, but her heart was pounding. Even after two parcels had arrived for her, she hadn’t expected a third. Who was her mysterious benefactor? Would their identity be revealed within the brown-paper packaging of the new parcel?
Of course, the new delivery could be anything. But the coincidence of three courier-delivered parcels arriving, each with no sender details and all addressed to her, was too delicious to ignore. Was it possible that her extraordinary adventure wasn’t over yet?
‘So open it.’ Sheniece had grinned at her, the too-white enamel on her teeth glinting in the reception-desk spotlights.
‘I’ll do it when I get home.’
‘Do it now!’
‘I can’t. Sorry.’
‘Oh, come on, Anna. It’s a Friday. The only exciting thing that happens here on a Friday is when my shift’s over. We need excitement – you owe it to all of us.’
This never happens to me, Anna had said to herself. But in her hands was the newly arrived evidence that she was wrong.
Sheniece had groaned and click-clacked off to find Friday-morning entertainment elsewhere. Relieved to be released from the scrutiny, Anna had carefully stashed the parcel in the locked drawer beneath the reception desk for which only she had a key. It could stay there safely until she went home.
Within ten minutes the eager eyes of the Daily Messenger’s chief of security were boring into her back as she signed three visitors in for a high-level meeting taking place with directors, editors and shareholders on the top floor.
‘Ms Browne,’ he intoned.
‘I’m busy, Ted.’
‘Not too busy to be receiving a third mystery delivery, I hear.’
Anna handed passes to the visitors and turned to face Ted. ‘I might’ve known Sheniece would go running to you.’
Ted frowned. ‘I haven’t seen Sheniece. Murray Something-Double-Barrelled from the news-desk told me.’
‘Murray Henderson-Vitt? How does he know?’
‘He’s on the news-desk, Anna. It’s kind of his job . . .’
‘Very funny. But the parcel only arrived ten minutes ago.’
Ted tapped his nose. ‘I have my spies, girl. So, are you gonna open it?’
‘Yes,’ Anna replied, seeing triumph register on Ted’s face, ‘when I get home.’
‘Charming, that.’ Ted kicked at an invisible stone at his feet. ‘You can go off people, you know.’
When Anna opened her apartment door she noticed a folded piece of blue notepaper lying on the doormat. Placing the precious parcel on the kitchen counter, she bent to retrieve the note:
Hey, stranger
I’ve emerged from post-Spain hibernation and have a bit of good news I want to share with you.
Bottle of wine this evening? About 7 p.m.?
Jonah x
She looked at the parcel and considered hiding in her apartment, pretending she hadn’t received the note. But Jonah would know. And she liked Jonah. Besides, with three parcels now arrived, it was high time she told him. During their trip out to the Hampshire countryside a fortnight ago she had only spoken to him about her work-shadowing, thinking then that her scarf from the parcel-sender was a singular surprise. Since then, the owl had arrived, and now this parcel – and Anna wanted to talk about it. Jonah would have a good take on the situation, where Tish and her work colleagues still maintained their suspicion over the sender’s motives. She looked at the kitchen clock: half-past six already, barely time to shower and change from her work clothes before heading across to her friend’s apartment, let alone open her parcel. It would have to wait. But then half the fun of the previous delivery had been the anticipation – this delay would only add to her excitement.
Twenty-five minutes later, Anna took one last, longing look at the brown-paper-wrapped box, now in the middle of her dining table, before she deliberately turned her back on it and left the apartment.