Free Second Shot by Zoe Sharp Page B

I didn’t voice the suggestion.
    I walked a few paces behind them and to the right, keeping my eyes
roving
over the people who approached us. It was bright enough to make sunglasses unobtrusive, and I slipped mine on. It made it easier and less obvious that I was watching hands and eyes. Every now and again I glanced behind me with what I hoped was the casual air of a tourist, just taking it all in. The whole of the waterfront seemed to be lined with renovated offices and brand-new condominiums valued, so we’d been told, well into seven figures. And sometimes into eight.
    Nobody appeared to be paying our little group any undue attention. I spotted a couple of guys who seemed a little out of place. Nothing specific, just a subtle sense of awareness about them, something that didn’t quite jell. Both of them passed us by without a second look.
    At one point I found Ella watching me covertly over her shoulder. I would have thought she would have been more curious about why this complete stranger was suddenly shadowing their every move, but Ella had seemed to accept me without comment. Every now and then, though, I’d find her watching me and frowning, like she was remembering me knocking her daddy flat on his back in the restaurant, or the way the photographers had lunged at her outside her kitchen window. Like none of this had happened before I came into her life and I was somehow to blame. I thought kids that age were supposed to have the memory span of a goldfish.
    Unfortunately, it seemed Ella was the exception to the rule.
    T he Aquarium was housed on the edge of Central Wharf, a starkly modern, almost thrown-together building, all sharp angles of steel and glass. As soon as we got inside, the first thing that hit me was the smell of fried food from the cafe upstairs, particularly of what seemed to be fish, which I thought had a somewhat cruel irony in the circumstances.
    Inside, the building was dimly lit and the bare concrete walls reminded me of a multistory car park with a major damp problem. In the center was a huge pool for the penguins. Ella was captivated by them— Africans and rockhoppers and little blues that didn’t look fully grown. I would have liked to spend time reading the information, but I wasn’t here for my own amusement.
    Ella asked constant questions, which Simone did her best to answer as though she were talking to an adult. It was often a pleasure to watch the two of them interacting.
    I couldn’t believe how busy the place was. Everybody seemed to be taking pictures with little digital cameras no bigger than a credit card, which nevertheless had built-in flash that would have put a lighthouse to shame.
    And the place seemed to be heaving with small children, which had Ella pulled in all different directions at once and made me nervous. She was naturally gregarious and keeping her at Simone’s side became more and more difficult.
    At various times during the day the Aquarium held demonstrations and events. Our arrival coincided with a training session at the sea lion enclosure just outside the rear door. The enclosure had glass walls onto the viewing gallery on two sides, and by the time we arrived people were already six deep at every available vantage point. Ella instantly slipped Simone’s hand and squirmed her way through the press of legs to the front of the crowd, where it was impossible to follow
    “We need to keep tabs on her,” I warned.
    Simone threw me an almost amused glance that clearly said I wasn’t used to dealing with small children, who couldn’t be kept tethered all the time. Then her eyes were on the first of the sea lions, which had waddled out onto the artificial rocks like a fat man with his trousers round his ankles.
    “She’ll be fine, Charlie,” Simone said, distracted. “Don’t worry”
    “Yeah, right, ‘cause that’s just my job,” I muttered under my breath.
    Just before the trainers appeared, what I took to be a generator plant just behind us