The first box contained Halloween fairy lights: strings of orange plastic jack-o’-lanterns, white grinning skeletons, bats, and baubles with black cats silhouetted inside them. Some were indoor and some outdoor, but there was enough for an impressive display. Annie carefully replaced the flaps and pushed the box toward the hatch before going back to open the next one. She was just detangling two flying witches’ heads when she heard a knock at the door to the flat. She froze. The main front door to the building was locked, as was the door to the tearoom; it must be someone with a key—John Granger! Annie’s initial fear morphed into anger. The bloody cheek of it! She was sure there must be a law against this sort of thing. The knocking came again.

“Just wait a minute, would you?” she yelled through the ceiling. “I’m right in the middle of something.”

She began to shuffle her way, as quickly as she dared, back the way she had come, the planks wobbling beneath her feet. “Bloody John bloody Granger acting the bloody lord and master in someone else’s house,” she muttered. “I’m going to give that upstart a piece of my miiiiiiiii . . .”

In her haste she overwobbled on the plank; she tried to regain her balance, but it was no good. Gravity and self-preservation kicking in at the same time, she threw her arms out to steady herself, but the wood beneath her feet was see-sawing wildly and her ankles were following suit. In another second, one foot had slipped off the plank completely; Annie’s right foot clumped hard down between the beams and kept on going, straight through the ceiling below with an alarming crunch. She was knelt on one leg as though waiting for a starter pistol to go off; both hands gripping the plank, her other leg dangling uselessly through the hole above what she could see, looking down, was the kitchen.

Chapter 45

Oh, buggery shitting bollocks!” she yelled as she tried to heave her leg up. The motion upset the box of fairy lights farther down the plank, and before she had finished shouting “Shit on it!” the box had crashed through the hatch.

The banging on the door grew urgent.

“Annie! What’s going on in there? Let me in! Are you hurt?”

Annie let out a howl of annoyance; she couldn’t get her leg back up to the rest of her body. Of all the bloody people, she thought angrily, it had to be him!

“I’m fine,” she called. She heard a jangling of keys and the door to the flat opening. Annie groaned.

“I’m coming in,” said John. “It’s John Granger.”

“Yes, I gathered that,” she called.

“Where are you?”

“I’m in the kitchen . . . kind of.”

She heard John moving below her. Wait for it . . .

“What the hell are you doing?”