Minnie, Flora and Sylvie left the cafe and headed back towards Tilda’s. Part of Minnie wished that she could have gone to the fortune teller too; the striped canvas looked like something from a fairy story. But Flora was right, what they needed were cold hard facts – and a good lead on the delivery driver. He was definitely real, at least.
‘It’s funny that Andrew spotted the driver’s scar, but you didn’t,’ Sylvie said.
‘Hilarious,’ Minnie said.
‘It’s good he remembered,’ Flora said, stepping between Sylvie and Minnie. ‘It gives us somewhere to start. And maybe Tilda will remember more.’
Inside the cool cave of a shop, Tilda was on the phone. She cupped her palm around the black, old-fashioned receiver, but they could still make out what she was saying. ‘Yes, that would be best … I don’t know … how long could you stay?’ Tilda raised her hand in a wave as they filed in. ‘I’ve got visitors … yes, visitors, not customers. I’ll see you soon. Bye.’ She hung up.
‘Everything all right?’ Minnie asked.
‘My nephew. Worrying over nothing.’ Tilda waved at the phone. But although she was trying to sound fine, Minnie had the feeling that underneath she was still frightened.
‘He’s coming to see you?’ Minnie asked.
Tilda nodded. ‘He’s just going to pop in. He heard about the, well, kerfuffle, and he wants to check. I told him I was fine, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer.’
Minnie stepped closer and rested a hand on Tilda’s arm. Tilda dropped her own hand on Minnie’s. It felt cold and clammy.
They had to help Tilda. She was too nice to feel frightened in her own shop. It wasn’t fair.
‘We’ve got a plan,’ Minnie said firmly. ‘We’re going to try and find the delivery driver and then see if he knows where the cat came from. If we know more about the cat, then we might be able to explain what happened to you.’
‘That’s kind of you, girls,’ Tilda said.
Flora rummaged in her bag until she found her notebook. ‘We were wondering whether you could remember anything about the delivery driver who brought the cat?’
Tilda’s hands cradled across her chest. ‘It’s nice that you want to help. But this is a bad business. You shouldn’t get involved. I’d hate for any of you to be hurt.’
‘Why would we get hurt looking for a delivery driver?’ Flora asked.
‘Not the driver. The curse. I don’t want to drag you into anything.’
‘Well,’ Sylvie said, ‘as I understand it, Minnie was here when you opened the parcel. She passed you a pair of scissors, which makes her an accomplice as far as the curse is concerned. She is involved.’
Flora tutted at her twin.
Minnie felt a sudden shiver. Was Sylvie right? She hadn’t thought of that before.
Tilda’s eyes fell on Minnie and Minnie was horrified to realise that there was pity there. Tilda believed she was cursed too!
‘Minnie is not cursed,’ Flora said sharply. ‘And neither are you. But there is something strange going on. With no clues at the scene, the next best thing is to find this driver. He’ll be able to tell us where the parcel came from, who paid for it, things like that.’
‘I suppose that would be OK. As long as you were careful,’ Tilda said slowly. ‘But how will you find him?’
‘I don’t suppose you remember which company he was from?’ Flora asked. ‘We know what he looks like – well, more or less – so once we know his company, then it should be easy to find who he is.’
Tilda looked at the piles of paper on her desk. She traced her fingers along a precariously balanced tower of letters and bills and receipts. ‘Did I get a delivery note, I wonder?’
She pulled randomly at some envelopes and, like autumn leaves, they fluttered to the floor.
Minnie bent to help collect them. Tilda’s system was so chaotic! How did she ever find anything? Mum didn’t run the salon like this. She filed every bill, every receipt, and knew exactly what was happening in the business. Tilda probably didn’t know whether the shop made any money or not!
‘I don’t think I did sign anything,’ Tilda said fretfully. ‘I don’t remember.’
‘Andrew’s mum signed,’ Minnie said. ‘But he doesn’t want us to ask her.’ She saw Sylvie tilt her head thoughtfully. Obviously wondering why Andrew didn’t want them following a lead.
‘How about the wrapping?’ Flora asked. ‘There might have been a company label on it.’
‘It’s in the bin,’ Tilda said.
Sylvie inched over to the wastepaper bin under Tilda’s desk. It was jammed full of rubbish – cellophane, paper, yoghurt pots and apple cores. Sylvie wrinkled her nose up at it. ‘This?’ she asked.
‘Yup,’ Minnie replied. ‘Go on, see if you can find it. It was plain brown paper.’
Sylvie’s wrinkled nose became a wrinkled brow, chin, mouth as she lowered her hand into the bin.
‘It’s like a tombola, but with rubbish!’ Minnie said, helpfully.
‘Eww!’ Sylvie complained. But she pulled out the brown paper. It was scrunched and a bit stained, but it was definitely the right one.
Flora took it from her sister and unfolded it gently, smoothing out the creases. ‘That’s weird,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘There’s just the address label. No stamps. Or marks of any kind. No return address or delivery barcode. Nothing.’
‘So?’ Sylvie was still looking ruffled. Minnie wished she’d thought to take a picture of Sylvie with her hand in the bin. Next time.
‘When parcels come to our house to be signed, they’ve got all kinds of things on them so that people can track their deliveries. It’s odd. One more odd thing in a line of odd things.’
‘Do you know what it means?’ Sylvie asked.
‘It means,’ Minnie replied, ‘that there’s no way of knowing which delivery company the driver works for. Not unless we call every single one of them in the world and describe the driver.’
Sylvie held out her hands. ‘So I rummaged in the bin for nothing? Great! I think I must be cursed too.’
‘There’s no curse,’ Flora said, a little crossly.
‘But we’re no closer to finding the driver?’ Sylvie asked.
Flora looked down at the plain brown paper on the ground. ‘We’ve got nothing,’ she said.