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She opened up her laptop and iPad and began looking for all the information she needed; she’d loaded up the forecast that went along with the business plan. Then she opened up the app with their earnings.
‘Sorry to interrupt, Alfie wants his milk?’ Sophie said.
‘Oh yeah, hang on.’ Quickly pouring milk and getting him a biscuit, she passed them back to Sophie. ‘Is it going all right up there?’
‘Oh yeah, he’s just gorgeous, isn’t he?’
Melanie smiled. ‘When he wants to be.’
Sophie looked disbelieving but Melanie thought it might not be all that long until they saw the other side.
Sure enough, two minutes later, Melanie could hear them trying to find wet wipes as Alfie’s biscuity fingers were about to cover Sophie. Paige was laughing, which of course meant Alfie wanted to do it more.
‘Ah. Quick, get some towels,’ Paige shouted as Sophie yelped.
Melanie shot up, grabbing the kitchen roll and some tea towels before running upstairs.
Once she’d cleaned up the milk, she said goodnight and headed back downstairs again.
Two minutes later and, ‘I need a wee.’
Melanie shouted up, ‘He can take himself, don’t worry. Go on, Alfie, off you go. Don’t forget to wash your hands.’
Two minutes later. ‘Ah the water has got me.’
Melanie shot upstairs to get him into dry pyjamas.
‘Right, dude, come sit down. Let’s get some stories read, yeah?’ Paige said. ‘You wanna sit on my knee?’
‘Pwease.’
Melanie left them to it again.
Deciding to check her emails before starting on the forecast she immediately clicked on the one from her prosecco supplier. Skimming through it, she read it again. Twice more. And then sent a message to Louisa.
Mel: Have you seen the email from the prosecco ppl? I’ll sort it but something needs to be done.
Someone had tried to cancel their order and possibly not for the first time. After the last issue with missing prosecco, the company had agreed to email for confirmation of orders and cancellations. And what she was reading was that someone had called them to cancel all future prosecco orders. She immediately emailed back explaining that it didn’t come from herself or Louisa, that it shouldn’t be acted upon and asked if they had details of who made the cancellation.
Her fingers were a blur as she typed furiously. She sent the email and added to her list to ring them tomorrow to follow up. Given everything that was going on, she couldn’t shake the sense that the other suppliers needed to be checked out too. She drafted an email which she sent to them all, hoping it was just paranoia and that someone wasn’t purposefully going out of their way to end their business. She also hoped that it wasn’t one of their staff. But how else would they have known who their suppliers were? Then again if someone was camped out watching they’d be able to see for themselves. Melanie wasn’t sure which was worse, so instead she put all her hopes on paranoia.
Except then she saw a response from her greengrocers.
‘Shit!’
Her fears confirmed, someone had also contacted them. Glad she’d managed to catch them on email so late in the day she explained that her standing order should not be cancelled and she’d be contacting them in the morning.
Problem-solving mode activated, she called Louisa. They agreed to email all their suppliers again just in case any other random cancellations had been made and planned to conduct their own investigation first thing.
After furiously typing, for what must have been close to an hour she finally sat back in her chair, not having realised her whole body had been completely tensed. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply; there was nothing else they could do right now. She just hoped they’d caught the cancellations in time. But who the hell would do this to them?
But it really was sabotage.
Her heart was pumping furiously when she suddenly realised it was too quiet, that no one was talking, that she couldn’t hear anything over the monitor. Melanie looked at the time. How long had they not been talking for? Where was Paige and Sophie? Was the monitor broken? Adrenalin still pumping, she raced upstairs. Then she quickly ran back down, grabbed her phone and ran back up again. Out of breath she took a few pictures. Paige was sat cross-legged just like last time. With Alfie in her lap. Paige’s head had fallen back against the wall behind her, her breath slow. Alfie had fallen asleep holding onto a lock of Paige’s hair that she must have pulled out of a bobble for him. His other hand was barely holding onto the book.
And Sophie had grabbed the bean bag and rested her head on that and fallen asleep too. It looked like the end of a really fun night, people just passed out where they landed. She sent the picture to Paige and Sophie, as well as to her sister, with the message, I’ll explain when you get home. She carefully picked up Alfie and got him into bed; he didn’t even stir. And neither did Sophie or Paige. Melanie was still trying to calm down as she sank slowly to the floor, watching Paige’s chest gently fall and rise. She felt her own breathing ease . . .
Chapter Twenty-Eight
