Fully Booked (The Magical Bookshop Book 6) by Liz Hedgecock

Author:Liz Hedgecock [Hedgecock, Liz]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: White Rhino Books
Published: 2022-02-28T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

‘I don’t understand,’ Jemma said. She felt dizzy, as if she had been punched. ‘Why are they coming to arrest me?’

‘I’ll give you the short version, since we’re in a hurry,’ said the person who claimed not to be Sergeant Hawkins. ‘A woman came to the police station claiming that you assaulted her at the British Library. She showed the officer on duty a bruised wrist. The bruises were fading, but she had photos from the time of the incident. Very nasty indeed. At least one person is prepared to swear they saw you do it. Plus most of the library staff named you when your physical description was read out.’

‘But I only grabbed her wrist,’ said Jemma, ‘and she was…’

You can’t tell Guild secrets.

‘She was what?’

‘I can’t tell you.’

‘You won’t tell me; that’s an entirely different matter. And when the police cross-referenced this supposed attack with the description of the woman who shouldn’t have been in that hoo-ha at the Maughan Library, they put two and two together. It’s your call.’ The phone went dead.

Jemma looked up and saw Em and Maddy staring at her, open-mouthed. ‘What’s going on?’ asked Maddy, in a shocked whisper.

‘Drusilla is getting me arrested for assaulting her,’ said Jemma. ‘The police are on their way. I need to do something.’

She ran upstairs to her flat. Pack a few things, he had said. She found a rucksack and stuffed in a couple of T-shirts and some underwear, toothbrush and toothpaste, a hairbrush, her notepad and two Pencils of Truth. What else? She glanced at her phone. If I take that, they’ll be able to track me. Lots of people have my number.

She opened the drawer of her bedside table and took out the pay-as-you-go phone she had bought a few weeks before, when Lennox had blocked her mobile during work hours. It went into the rucksack. She glanced out of the window and saw, among the traffic crawling down Charing Cross Road, a police car. It was perhaps fifty metres away.

They’re coming.

She remembered the hat and the glasses with plain lenses that she had worn when keeping a low profile after the Maughan Library incident. She found them and put them on, tucking her hair into the hat.

As she made for the door, the cats trooped through the cat flap and regarded her with grave eyes. ‘Be good,’ she whispered, stroking them each in turn. Then she ran downstairs. Someone must have told Luke in her absence, since he was goggling at her as if she had grown an extra head.

‘I’m going,’ she panted.

‘Wait,’ said Em. ‘Where are you going?’

Jemma’s shoulders drooped. ‘I don’t know, but I can’t stay here. I can’t fight Drusilla from inside a police cell, can I?’ She eyed them, and suddenly stamped her foot. ‘Help me! The police car’s coming!’

‘Then you can’t go far,’ said Luke. ‘If they see someone run outside, or even hurry, they’ll follow for sure. And you won’t make it to a station. Not if they’re within sight of the shop.

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