group of people are making their way onto the ice, laughing and pushing each other and taking selfies, and after a moment I realize that one of them is Briony. Which means Seb must be here. I swivel my head, looking all around, and suddenly spot him, wrapped up in a dark coat and checked scarf, sitting on a chair and watching the skaters with a pair of crutches at his side. I walk swiftly toward him and wave to attract his attention.
“Hi!” I say, and his face creases into a delighted smile.
“Hi!” he says, and starts struggling to his feet.
“Don’t be silly,” I say, gesturing at him to stay and crouching down beside him. “How are you? Your face looks a lot better,” I add, eyeing his cheeks and temple. The swelling has gone right down and he practically looks normal.
“Fun, this,” he says, nodding at the rink. “You ever do it?”
“I have done,” I say after a pause.
“Well, thanks for coming. I thought it would be a nice Christmassy place to meet.”
“Definitely!” I nod.
“You’re doing great!” Seb calls out to his friends, and they all wave back. For a few moments I watch Briony on the rink. She’s wearing a short white twirly skirt and a fur hat and she looks amazing, but her skating is abysmal. It’s actually worse than average, I decide, after watching her critically for a few minutes. She needs to slow down and stop flailing her arms, for a start.
Do her boots not fit? Or is she simply showing off too much? As soon as I’ve had this thought, I realize I’ve got it. She isn’t even thinking about what she’s doing; she’s posing in front of her friends, most of whom are guys, I notice. They’re all well dressed and calling out names like “Archie!” to each other. Jake would love them.
“So, I wanted somewhere nice to give you this,” says Seb, interrupting my thoughts. He hesitates, then reaches into a Tesco canvas bag and pulls out a parcel. It’s medium-sized, quite light, quite nondescript. No branding or gift bag or anything like that—just plain brown paper. I have no idea what it is.
“Open it!” says Seb. “Just my little thank-you,” he adds casually.
“Well, you didn’t need to,” I say, smiling with mock disapproval as I tear open the wrapping paper. “There was really no need. But I’m very—”
My words dry up on my lips as the paper comes off. I’m staring at the object in my hands, my head spinning in disbelief.
“My hairbrush?” I manage at last.
“Safe and sound,” says Seb, looking satisfied. “Restored to its rightful owner.”
I turn it over in my hands, my throat tight. I’m flashing back to the day Mum and Dad gave it to me, on my sixteenth birthday. The way it looked in its presentation box, all smart and new.
“I thought I’d never see this again,” I say dazedly. “I thought I’d— Wait.” A new thought grips me. “How? How did you get this?”
“Good vigilantes never tell,” says Seb in mysterious tones. “This will go with me to the grave.”
“No. No.” I shake my head vigorously. “You can’t turn up with this, with this”—I brandish the hairbrush at him—“and not tell.”
“OK.” Seb capitulates at once. “Actually, I’m longing to tell. Our story begins when you let slip the name of your hairbrush’s abductor,” he says in dramatic tones. “Sarah Bates-Wilson. At once I knew I could track this villain down. She still lives in a ground-floor flat,” he adds more conversationally. “Which was handy.”
“Did you break-and-enter?” I stare at him, aghast. “Oh my God.” My gaze drops to his foot. “But you couldn’t have!”
“I knew my injury would hamper me,” Seb continues in his dramatic voice. “I therefore enlisted an accomplice: my faithful sidekick Andy. We hatched a plot in which I would distract Sarah B-W at the door, asking her questions about her political views, while he crept round the back. Her bedroom window was open; the hairbrush was on the chest of drawers. It was a matter of mere seconds for him to reach in and pinch it,” he ends with a flourish.
I’m silent for a moment, digesting this.
“What if the window hadn’t been open?”
“We would have tried again another day. We were lucky,” adds Seb, in his normal voice. “We’d only gone along to case the joint. Getting the hairbrush first go was a bonus.”
“I don’t know …” I stare at the hairbrush, feeling suddenly conflicted. “I mean, this is amazing, but