Victor’s stride faltered, but only for a second, after which it began to quicken. April spotted him and smiled a cruel smile as she pushed her way through the café door to get inside.
Victor rushed ahead, getting to the door ten seconds ahead of Albert and Rex. Rex pulled his human along when he saw where they were going. He’d had a busy day, and the café was a place he’d been given food twice already. It was getting close to dinner time, but he would happily fill in with a snack now.
Albert didn’t need any more drama today, but he couldn’t leave Biggleswade without seeing this through. With a reluctant sigh, he pushed his way through the door in time to hear Victor’s cry echo out from the back offices.
‘Unfair dismissal! Are you insane?’
Albert looked at Meredith, who was still working the front counter but now with a young woman he’d seen before, the one he thought was April’s grandniece, Shannon. A quick glance at her name badge revealed that to be the case, but his focus was on the voices drifting through to the customer area yet again.
April’s angry retort could be heard by everyone in the café; customer and staff alike. ‘You see what I have had to put up with? The working conditions here are intolerable!’
Without asking permission to do so, Albert lifted the loose piece of counter. ‘Hey, you can’t come back here,’ said Shannon, stepping up to stand in his way.
Albert paused to give her a hard stare. It was one he got to practice and perfect through a long police career plus fatherhood. ‘I think, young miss, that you ought to come with me. This concerns you more than most.’ Without waiting for her response, he stepped around her and let Rex lead him into the back of the building.
In the accountant’s office in the rear of the building, the lawyer was laying out copies of preliminary paperwork. The firm would now have to mount a defence against his client, he explained. Albert stepped up to the door just as Victor tried to explain that April hadn’t even been dismissed.
‘There’s no one here who can dismiss her,’ he complained. ‘She decided to take over and was trying to boss everyone around as if she owned the place.’
‘Have you heard of constructive dismissal?’ the lawyer asked. ‘There is more than sufficient evidence to demonstrate that my client was treated unfairly and subjected to treatment likely to force her to resign her post.’
April shot Victor an evil grin and wagged a finger at him. ‘When I get finished here, I will own the place.’
‘I don’t think so.’
The response to her claim came from behind Albert but he didn’t need to turn around to know that Kate Harris was standing there: April’s slacked-jawed expression told him.
‘What are you doing here?’ April stammered. ‘You’re supposed to be in jail. Why aren’t you in jail?’
Albert took a step to his right, coming farther into the room which allowed Kate to enter properly and, in turn, reveal DS Craig standing behind her.
The detective gave Albert a stiff nod before addressing April’s question. ‘Miss Harris has been released and all charges against her dropped. I believe she is now the rightful owner of this business.’
‘Ha!’ shouted April. ‘You can just arrest her again right now for embezzlement. I was going to let this drop, but now you force my hand. She’s been fiddling the books for months, taking money here and there and covering it up with bad accounting.’
Kate shook her head as her cheeks coloured. ‘You don’t want to do this, April.’
April wore the smile of a shark coming up beneath a helpless bather as she relished the kill. ‘Oh, but I do, Kate Homewrecker-Criminal Lowlife-Scumbag-Gold Digging-Embezzler Harris. I’ve got you now and you won’t get away with it this time.’
Albert decided it was time to speak. ‘I believe, April, that you have missed one or two critical factors.’
All eyes swung his way as he took control of the room. ‘To begin with, if Kate is the business owner, she cannot commit embezzlement because it is her money.’ April’s smile froze in place and slowly fell away. ‘That’s fairly pertinent, one might say. More interesting though is that Kate didn’t take the money. Did you Kate?’ Albert asked, looking her way. ‘Someone else did and you were covering for them until they could put it back.’
His final sentence was a statement, but it wasn’t aimed at Kate. Nor were his eyes, which were locked on someone else’s.
A tear fell, and the person looked down at the floor. ‘I needed it just to feed the baby,’ Shannon cried.
April looked shocked. ‘No!’ she said. ‘No, it can’t be you. It must be Kate.’
‘Why?’ asked Victor. ‘Because if it is Shannon and Kate has been covering for her, it makes her the good guy in this mess.’
‘And what does that make you, April?’ asked Kate, a vicious glare piercing the older woman to the spot.
April’s head was so bright red it appeared to be glowing from within. Her anger was at an incandescent level but got even worse when her lawyer picked up his paperwork again. ‘You have deceived me Mrs Saunders. There is no case here at all.’
‘They forced me out!’ she bellowed.
He snapped his briefcase shut with the papers inside and picked it up. Pausing before he moved to exit the room, he said, ‘I’m sure I would have done the same.’
A beat of silence passed after the lawyer swept around April and out through the staff gathered to listen in the corridor outside. Then with a weary sigh, Kate said, ‘April, you’re fired.’
April showed her gritted teeth, her breaths heaving in and out as she seethed
