A Parcel for Anna Browne

by Miranda Dickinson

  Jonah had a tripod bag slung over his shoulder and carried a camera bag, which brushed the tops of the grass and flowers as he walked. It fascinated Anna to see her friend in his native environment. He was completely at ease with his surroundings, as much a part of it as it was of him. She couldn’t imagine him surviving long in a corporate environment. He was made to work outside.

  At the edge of the wildflower meadow they reached a roughly hewn wooden stile that breached the dry-stone wall. Jonah bounded over it almost as if it wasn’t there, holding out his hand for Anna to take as she tentatively negotiated the obstacle.

  ‘It’s not far now,’ he promised, indicating a wooded area where the path became sandier and cloaked in a thickly matted carpet of brown pine needles. ‘Just through that copse.’

  Anna followed, the coolness of the pine plantation prickling across the bare skin of her forearms as they moved out of the morning sun. ‘How did you find this place?’ she asked, picking her way carefully around exposed tree roots and hummocks of spiky grass.

  ‘One of the researchers on the Spain job mentioned it. She walks her dog here at weekends. I’d never have found it by myself. But I think it has potential for some great wildlife shots.’

  ‘It’s lovely here. Your office certainly beats mine.’

  He laughed. ‘I’d say that’s pretty easy to do. I don’t know how you relax in that glorified tin box.’

  ‘It’s not so bad. Besides, it’s the people who make it for me. Being out here on my own wouldn’t suit me.’

  ‘Probably not. Now – look at that . . .’

  They emerged, quite unexpectedly, on the shores of a gorgeously glassy lake, its mercurial waters lapping red sand-coves where bright-blue and green dragonflies dipped and hovered. Surrounded by the dark wash of pine forest and illuminated by morning sunbeams, the effect was sublime.

  ‘Wow!’

  Jonah’s smile broadened as Anna drank in the view. ‘Pretty good, eh?’

  ‘I love it.’ She unknotted the arms of her anorak from around her waist and laid it over the mossy bulk of a tree root to sit down on. The air above the water was cool against the warmth of the sun hitting her face – the contrast reminiscent of childhood days rowing out towards Looe Island with Ruari and their Uncle Jabez. The only thing missing was the smell of salt and the wheel of gulls.

  Jonah set up his tripod and video camera, taking stills-shots with a digital camera hung around his neck as he worked. Anna watched the lake’s insect residents skimming along the soft ripples of the water where it met the shore. The scene couldn’t have been more at odds with where she had spent the last two weeks and she found herself wondering if Ben would enjoy the stillness of this place as much as she did. She smiled to herself: the lack of action would probably drive him to distraction.

  ‘Penny for them?’ Anna looked up to see Jonah standing beside her. ‘You were miles away just then.’ He flopped down onto a large, flat rock next to her and flicked through the photographs he had taken so that Anna could see them on the small screen of the digital camera.

  ‘I was just thinking about my work-shadowing,’ she replied.

  Jonah frowned. ‘Your what?’

  ‘It’s a scheme at the paper, where you go to a different department for a fortnight and get to see how someone else in the building works.’

  ‘What, like Wife Swap, but for jobs?’

  Anna giggled. ‘You watch too much trashy telly when you’re between jobs. No, not like that. More like an extended work experience. So my placement was in the newsroom shadowing the chief reporter.’

  Impressed, Jonah sat back a little. ‘Heck, that’s a bit of a change, isn’t it? How’d you get on?’

  Beside the gently rippling waters of the quiet lake, Anna told Jonah about her extraordinary time shadowing Ben, concluding with her unexpected promotion to journalist on his exclusive story.

  ‘Ouch! How did he take that?’

  ‘I think he was okay about it, in the end.’ Ben had seemed perfectly fine when she’d left yesterday, but whether or not he harboured any resentment she supposed she’d discover in time. ‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter. On Monday everything will go back to how it always was.’

  ‘Are you happy about that? No drama, no exciting assignments across town?’

  Anna considered the question. Ordinarily her answer would have been yes, a return to the safety of familiar surroundings being exactly what she wanted. Now, she wasn’t sure.

  Eleven

  Ted Blaskiewicz was worried. This was not an unusual thing, considering his vital role as head of security for the Daily Messenger’s headquarters. You had to have eyes and ears everywhere, as he often told his junior officers in their weekly security briefing. Thinking the worst was practically in the job description. During his time as a security chief, Ted had seen many dodgy sights – most of which would shock the average city worker. Petty crime, drugs, attempted fraud and business espionage were just the tip of the iceberg. And the number of clandestine office affairs beggared belief.

  But this was something new.

  That it was happening right under his nose was bad enough. But that the potential victim was a colleague for whom he had great personal affection was deeply concerning. From the first day Anna Browne began working for the newspaper, Ted sensed she was special. His brother Ivan had the temerity to suggest once that Ted carried a candle for her, which was, of course, a completely crazy comment to make, given that he was in his early fifties and wouldn’t date a woman so much younger. He didn’t fancy her, but he did feel unusually protective towards the kind-hearted young woman.

  And now some ne’er-do-well had taken an interest in her. An interest that Ted highly suspected of being unhealthy.

  What made the whole thing worse was that he suspected the culprit was already in the building. Anna didn’t mention family much, so it seemed safe to assume that none of her relatives knew where she worked. Anyone else would send gifts to the recipient’s home address, not their place of work. Ted congratulated himself on his sly deductions. Sherlock himself would have approved, he was sure. Or Dr Gil Grissom on CSI (the best character, in his opinion). Ted would be happy to take the plaudits from either eminent investigator.

  Following the arrival of the mystery parcel, he had spent evenings poring over his True Crime magazines and old episodes of his favourite crime shows. He was sure he’d seen a similar plot somewhere. Frustratingly, he hadn’t found it, but his conviction remained strong. Columbo would never have let such a small detail as lack of evidence stop him, so neither should Ted Blaskiewicz. Whoever had their eye on lovely Anna Browne should know that he was on their tail already – and he wouldn’t stint in his investigation until the guilty party was revealed.

  And this morning, exactly four weeks from the arrival of Anna’s mystery parcel, the need for his skills intensified – because he had just signed for a second, smaller package, delivered before Ms Browne arrived. As with the first, no sender details were given, the label (this time printed) offering no clue as to the sender’s identity. He cursed the Finance Department for refusing his third request for a fingerprint kit. If he had one now, things could be very different indeed.

  But the sender should still be afraid. Ted Blaskiewicz was not a man to give up.

  Anna couldn’t believe her eyes. Neither, it seemed, could the Daily Messenger’s chief of security, although his reaction was the polar opposite of hers.

  ‘Another one?’ She had not expected this when she arrived for work this morning. She had enjoyed the afterglow of the first parcel’s arrival for four weeks, but had assumed it was a one-off. ‘That’s amazing!’

  ‘Is it?’ He wasn’t smiling, his dark, beady eyes narrowing.

  ‘You don’t think it is?’

  ‘Depends what’s in the box, girl.’ He straightened his jacket, appearing to grow an inch taller. ‘I think, in the interests of security, you should open it now. While I’m here to protect you.’

  Ted Blas
kiewicz was a constant source of amusement to Anna. His preposterous theories, and dogged commitment to them, endeared him to her in a way that few other Messenger employees appreciated. She was buzzing from the unexpected parcel, and Ted’s concern only made it more entertaining.

  ‘Protect me? What from? The last parcel had a pretty scarf in it. Do you think someone’s trying to charm me to death with lovely gifts?’

  Ted harrumphed and refused to be swayed. ‘And what if it’s not lovely, eh? What if it’s a severed body part or . . . or a dead thing?’

  ‘That’s one heck of a progression from a silk scarf, Ted.’

  ‘The scarf could have been a hint at how they wanted to kill you.’

  Anna chuckled. ‘You have such a charming imagination. I think I’ll take my chances and open it at home.’ She took the parcel from the desk and put it in a drawer, turning the key to secure it from any further investigation.

  ‘I could dust it for prints,’ he suggested, clearly clutching at straws.

  ‘What with, Ted?’ Sheniece shook her head as she took off her coat.

  ‘I was thinking icing sugar. Saw it on Midsomer Murders once.’

  ‘Moron!’

  Ted’s face turned a fetching shade of puce. ‘Oi, less of your cheek, Sheniece Wilson! Mocking an important security official is an offence, you know.’

  ‘It might be. But I was mocking you.’

  In utter frustration, Ted threw his hands up. ‘Impossible, the lot of you! I only have your best interests at heart but, oh no, you know better. Well, I’ll tell you this for nothing, Anna, whoever’s sending you those parcels had better be on their guard, because Ted Blaskiewicz always gets his man!’

  Anna and Sheniece shared a knowing grin as the security officer stormed back to his office.

  ‘I think we upset him.’

  Sheniece dismissed Anna’s concern. ‘He’ll get over it. He’s just miffed he didn’t get to watch you open the parcel. But now he’s gone, maybe you and I could have a little look inside?’

  Anna was wise to her colleague’s scheme, long before Sheniece finished speaking. ‘I’m opening it at home,’ she repeated firmly. It didn’t matter what her colleagues thought: the thrill of a second parcel arriving was enough to make her stand her ground.

  At midday, when Sheniece and new junior receptionist Ashraf disappeared for lunch, Anna allowed herself a small peek at the new parcel. Taking it from its safe place in the drawer beneath the reception desk, she gave it a little shake next to her ear and inspected its perfect wrapping, quickly transferring it to her handbag in the kitchen cloakroom when she heard Ted’s booming voice echoing through the atrium towards her. She was thrilled that a second Friday had been blessed with more promise.

  Just knowing another gift was waiting to be uncovered fuelled her smile and good mood for the rest of the day. While Ted, Sheniece and Ashraf taunted her with dark and dastardly theories, Anna couldn’t think of anything other than the surprise concealed in her handbag, far from prying eyes. It couldn’t have come at a better time. Almost a week back into her usual job, she had felt like something was missing. The excitement of her work-shadowing had been exhausting, but she found she missed it. To compound this, she had also noticed that Ben avoided her, choosing to sign in visitors when Sheniece or Ashraf manned reception and hurrying away when he caught Anna’s eye. She was probably imagining it, she told herself, but the possibility had bothered her all week.

  She thought of the parcel and wondered what might be inside it. Someone, somewhere is thinking of me. It was a beautiful thought.

  What was most special was that Anna knew the parcel was uniquely hers. In a life that had many shared experiences, joys and frustrations, she realised she’d had very little she could lay sole ownership to. In her childhood, many of her possessions had been shared with Ruari, their mother blaming financial restrictions for this necessity. Her clothes were often hand-me-downs from her Uncle Jabez’s children and from older girls in the village. Senara Browne loathed charity and viewed it as yet another damning verdict on her abilities as a mother, so young Anna quickly learned to hide any bags of clothes left on the family’s doorstep by kind neighbours, before her mother saw them. Senara was too wrapped up in her own life to notice when Anna or Ruari wore something new, which meant the Browne siblings were able to enjoy the kindness of others without incurring their mother’s wrath.

  Since moving to London and achieving financial independence Anna had taken great pleasure in buying her own things, but the parcels represented a new experience: being given gifts by somebody else. That, coupled with the anonymity of the sender, imbued them with an almost magical quality. Regardless of what the new parcel contained, to Anna Browne it meant more than she could ever find words to express.

  As the hours until its unveiling dwindled to minutes, her excitement grew. All that lay between her and the opening of the parcel was a bus journey and a regular, end-of-the-week coffee date with a certain cantankerous American . . .

  Twelve

  Tish Gornick was not the kind of woman to be suspicious of her friends. Even given her deeply cynical, dyed-in-the-wool New York mind, she liked to think she was a good friend and therefore trusting of their motives. But lately one person she thought she knew was acting very strangely indeed. And Tish didn’t like it.

  She had known Anna since their chance meeting in the queue for coffee at Spill the Beans four years ago, and their subsequent friendship had developed over many after-work meetings and weekend trips into the city. It had become what Tish’s mother back in the Bronx would call a ‘thing’. You gotta thing with her, now? Is this a thing? If you had a thing with someone, it was pretty much a friendship for life.

  Tish liked Anna. Her sense of humour seemed to take her as much by surprise as it did anyone who witnessed it; while Anna’s oh-so-British reticence kept her from acknowledging any of her considerable gifts (her loyalty, her sweet nature and her deep empathy, for starters). Tish also loved the way Anna listened to her. The latter was what had most endeared Anna to Tish, largely because working in a faceless office building for an equally anonymous financial services company meant very few people were willing to listen to her.

  But on several occasions now Tish had noticed that Anna wasn’t listening like she usually did. She was distracted again this evening, her gaze far beyond the coffee shop’s faux-brick walls. At first, Tish had dismissed this as a symptom of a long day at work. But then it had really begun to bug her. And today it had become plain weird . . .

  ‘What’s with you, Anna?’

  Anna was a little surprised by the venom in her friend’s question. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re not yourself. You haven’t been the last two times we’ve met. What gives?’

  Tish’s expression threatened thunder, but Anna couldn’t help smiling. If she was acting differently, the parcel nestled safely at the bottom of her handbag could well be the reason why. It was waiting for her, ready to be opened . . . The thought of what might be in the small package filled her with happiness she could barely contain. ‘Actually, I feel fine,’ she replied, resting her hand on the rose leather of her bag.

  Tish put her coffee mug down with more force than usual. ‘I don’t buy it. And I’m not letting you leave this coffee shop until you tell me what’s going on.’

  Anna hesitated. Should she tell Tish about her parcels?

  She’s my friend, one side of her argued. She should know about them . . .

  But this is mine – truly mine – bought for me, intended for me to enjoy, a new, unfamiliar voice insisted in her mind. It’s been a long time since anyone bought me a gift as a surprise.

  Could she hang onto her secret a while longer? There might not be any more parcels, in which case was it really worth making a song and dance about it, if it turned out to be nothing?

  She was about to brush off her friend’s comments when Tish spoke again.

  ‘Just say it, Anna. I know I’m not the easiest f
riend in the world. My mother would confirm this. I –’ she looked away and suddenly Anna was aware of a vulnerability she hadn’t witnessed before, ‘– I’d rather you just told me to get lost. I don’t do subtle hints, Anna, and lately I feel like I’m boring you. If that’s true, then just tell me and I won’t bother you again.’

  Anna was shocked by Tish’s assumption. How could she interpret Anna’s lightened mood with wanting to be rid of their friendship? ‘Don’t be daft, Tish. You’re my friend – why would I want that to stop?’

  ‘But you’ve been so distracted lately. You don’t seem interested in what I tell you . . .’

  ‘Well, I am. And if I’m distracted, it isn’t because I’m bored.’ This turn of conversation made up Anna’s mind. It was going to be far easier to tell Tish than to conceal it. She took a breath, inhaling the warm scent of coffee. ‘Someone is sending me parcels. I’ve had two, both with no sender details, both addressed to me. And I never get parcels. It’s just made me smile, that’s all.’

  Tish was clearly not expecting this. ‘Who would do that?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Don’t you think you should find out?’

  ‘How? They’ve given me no clues. Maybe they’re just being nice. A random act of kindness.’

  ‘Really?’ Aghast, Tish faced her. ‘So a random stranger sends you parcels, and you don’t for a minute think there’s an ulterior motive?’

  ‘No. Why should there be?’

  ‘Are you kidding me? Who sends gifts without expecting something in return?’

  Anna sighed. Clearly Tish was at one with every other person who knew about her mystery deliveries. Perhaps she should have felt more cautious, but Anna couldn’t see the parcels as anything other than a kind, beautiful gesture. ‘If he or she wanted something in return, surely they would have included a note. Or a return address. Everyone at work thinks the sender is some kind of murderer-in-waiting.’