Vanilla Bean Vengeance (Claire's Candles Cozy Mystery Book 1)

by Agatha Frost

  “Maya helped a lot,” he continued after another sip. “She was great, really. Her family became my family. I started taking care of myself. The Spanish eat differently than we do. More salads and fewer chips. The weight melted off me, and then I fell in love with exercise. That’s when I met Will. He helped me train, taught me the right way to do things in the gym. He became my best friend. Having that one friend made life out there easier. It wasn’t like I had much to come home to.”

  You had me, Claire thought.

  “I’m sorry we lost touch,” he said, glancing at her, his head bowed. “It was different back then, wasn’t it? No social media. I did try. The phone calls, the letters. Maya didn’t like it. She was jealous. She didn’t understand what our friendship was, so it was easier just to stop.”

  “It’s fine,” Claire lied. “I get it.”

  “Then Amelia came along.” His lips pricked into a smile. “She’s been a handful since day one. She reminds me of you, actually.”

  “I don’t recall ever shoplifting.”

  “Don’t you?” Ryan arched a brow. “You were always nicking chocolate from the post office because your mum wouldn’t buy it for you.”

  The memory dragged itself from the depths of Claire’s brain; how could she have forgotten? She almost felt embarrassed at how she’d demanded the chocolate back like a bossy adult who had somehow forgotten she’d ever been a child.

  “Then Hugo came a few years later,” he continued, finger tracing a stained ring on the table. “He’s a little mini-me. Just as quiet as I was. He’s a sensitive little kid. I don’t know how they’re going to get through this. Their mum just left.”

  Like you left me, Claire thought.

  “She didn’t even say goodbye,” he continued. “She packed a bag, left me a letter, and went. The letter said she’d been having an affair with Will for five years. She wasn’t happy. Felt trapped. Needed a fresh start. She was sorry. That was that.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah.” He forced a dry laugh. “I didn’t know what to do. Spain didn’t feel like home anymore. I tried to make it work, but everything fell apart. So, I returned to the only other place I’d ever called home. Northash called me back, and there’s no better place to raise kids. I just wish we were here under different circumstances.”

  “Are you glad to be back, though?”

  “Honestly?” He smiled. “I am. I didn’t realise how much I’d missed the old place. All the faces are the same, just older. Nobody recognises me, of course, so I get a fresh start too. The kids seem to be settling too. Got them into Northash Primary School. They start after the Easter holidays are over. I’m trying to find us a house, but trying to rent in Northash is like finding a needle in a haystack. Everything is for sale, and I’m living hand to mouth at the moment. The B&B is cheap, but not that cheap.”

  Claire almost felt guilty for her self-pity party. She had spent the past few weeks feeling like she had it hard, and yet she had a roof over her head and a family to support her. Ryan had no one in Northash to take him in, and he had two young children to think about. She wanted to apologise, even though she hadn’t created his situation.

  “I’m glad you’re back,” Claire said, meaning it. “I missed you too.”

  “It’s just like old times, isn’t it?” He slapped her on the knee. “See any of the old gang from school?”

  “Just Sally.” She looked down at his hand; it only lingered on her knee for a split second. “She’s an estate agent. Married with two kids. Little demons, if you ask me.”

  “How old?”

  “Thirty-five.”

  “I meant the kids.” He laughed.

  “Oh.” She joined his laughter. “Four, I think. Maybe five?”

  “And two girls?” He sucked the air through his teeth. “Wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”

  Claire’s phone pinged in her handbag. She pulled it out, knowing exactly what it was when she saw it was a video from Damon. She flipped her phone over and pressed play.

  “What’s that?” Ryan asked, glancing over her shoulder. “Looks like an old episode of Big Brother.”

  “Camera from the work toilets,” she explained, squinting at the bathroom stall doors. “If this is what I think it is, it clears Belinda.”

  “The woman on the news?”

  “I work with her.”

  Claire scrubbed along the five-minute video with her finger, cutting to the end. There was no sound, but when the middle bathroom stall opened and she saw Belinda’s shocked face, cigarette hanging from her lip, she knew what Belinda had just heard; Nicola’s fall.

  She exited from the clip to read Damon’s message:

  Already sent to the police with the timestamps. Proves Belinda couldn’t have done it. You were right!

  “Is that the same Damon from school?” Ryan asked casually, sipping his beer. “Never knew you two were friends.”

  “We became friends. He works at the factory.”

  “Always a bit weird, wasn’t he?” Ryan chuckled. “A proper sci-fi geek, if I remember correctly.”

  “He prefers nerd,” Claire found herself saying, the defensiveness for her friend rising up. “He’s really nice. He’s been there for me a lot.”

  Claire hadn’t meant to put the subtext ‘and you haven’t’ out there, but she had, and she knew Ryan had picked up on it.

  “Is Damon your boyfriend?” Ryan asked after another sip.

  “I told you I was single.”

  “You told me you weren’t married.”

  “Well, he’s just a friend,” she explained, slotting her phone away. “Haven’t had a boyfriend as such.”

  “Ever?”

  “No.” Embarrassment made her guts twist. “I’ve tried the whole ‘dating’ thing, but it never seems to stick. I’ve never met a man who I gel with like—”

  “Like?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Claire finished her pint, glancing at the clock. “Right, I should probably get going.”

  “And I need to get to work.” Ryan drained his pint. “Let’s do this again, yeah?”

  “I’d like that.”

  “Maybe not before I start work, though.” He ran his hands down his pale cheeks, his fingertips leaving red blush streaks. “That’s gone right to my head, and I have back to back training sessions till lunch.”

  After finally exchanging numbers and promising to add each other on Facebook, they parted ways. Claire lingered outside the pub until he walked through the gym doors. She couldn’t say if she still loved Ryan, but she was glad to have him back in her life.

  But her thoughts didn’t linger on him. They went straight to the murders. She’d left home feeling more defeated than ever, but knowing she was right about Belinda being innocent had renewed her self-confidence.

  Looking ahead at the empty shop, she accepted it wouldn’t become her candle shop. The dream was dead for now, but at least she could solve the murders.

  She was close.

  Too close to give up now.

  As though the universe wanted to send her a message, Graham walked out of the post office, suited and booted, carrying a briefcase. He looked a far cry from the meek neighbour she’d seen the other night; he now looked like a shorter, scrawnier version of his late wife.

  Graham glanced around the square as he walked back to his car, and his eyes met Claire’s. They lingered for a brief moment before he ducked into the car, as though he hadn’t seen her. Even from a distance, she was sure she had caught his jaw clench.

  Attempted kiss or not, at that moment, she knew Graham had another reason for wanting her as far out of the picture as possible. With Belinda out of the frame and the police’s apparent disinterest in Ben, the finger now pointed at one person. Come rain or shine, Claire was going to try her hardest to prove her suspicions.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Claire spent the rest of Thursday theorising with her father at the bottom of the garden. Using paper pilfered from her mother’s
printer, which she only ever used to print off recipes, and string from her sewing kit, they put together an investigation board on the shed wall. When every detail was laid out in front of them, they stood back and saw what Claire had expected – most of the strings stemmed from and looped back to Graham.

  Claire awoke early the next morning, Good Friday, on purpose. By the time her mother knocked on the door with a cup of coffee, Claire had already made a fresh batch of small vanilla candle tealights.

  “I think I’m close,” she said, offering one to her mother to sniff. “They need to set and cure before I can light them to see, but I think I’m getting there. Might not need that missing page of my black book after all.”

  “Very nice, dear,” she commented, barely sniffing it. “You know it’s Nicola’s funeral today?”

  Claire jumped in the shower almost immediately. Considering the fuss the Northash Observer had made over Nicola’s death and the subsequent shoddy investigation, she couldn’t believe word of the funeral hadn’t spread around the village faster.

  “You shouldn’t go,” her mother said, following Claire, dressed all in black, to the front door. “You weren’t invited, and the paper said it was a private funeral. Please, Claire. Don’t make a scene.”

  Claire left the cottage alone, unsure of her intentions. She didn’t know she’d had such a keen interest in going to the funeral until she heard about it. By the time she had dried off after the shower, she knew she needed to be there.

  She’d seen Nicola die.

  She couldn’t undo that.

  Trinity Community Church sat on the flat corner of Warton Lane before it sloped up under The Canopies and up to the factory. Apt, Claire thought, that Nicola’s final resting place should be on a lane named after her great-great-great-grandfather. Cars lined the narrow lane on either side, blocking the road. Past the shady trees lining the church, she saw a sizeable group of attendees already gathered around a fresh plot in the small graveyard.

  She was too late for the service, but during her walk from the cul-de-sac to the church, she’d decided she wouldn’t go in anyway. Like her mother had said, it was a private ceremony, and she wasn’t about to confront Graham at his wife’s funeral.

  Instead, she stood on the other side of the street under the shade of the trees and leaned against the high wall. It didn’t take long to realise she wasn’t the only one. She spotted Belinda staring ahead, hidden away behind an old green lamppost.

  Claire didn’t hesitate to join her.

  “They almost charged me with her murder,” Belinda said, smiling meekly at Claire. “Answering my phone to you clued them in on my location. Who knew phones worked like that?”

  “I didn’t set you up.”

  “I know.” Belinda sighed. “You did much more than that. You saved me. If it weren’t for that video, they thought they had enough to charge me. But then the chewing gum DNA came back, and it strengthened my case.”

  “DNA?”

  “They found nicotine gum at the scene,” Belinda explained, and Claire played along like she didn’t know. “Took swabs from me and everything. Not that it mattered in the end. The DNA on the gum was from a man, and it doesn’t match anyone in their records.”

  “Oh.” Claire was surprised she hadn’t heard that the DNA was male-specific. “I’m sorry for not telling you about what happened.”

  “I’ve had a lot of time to think.” Belinda patted Claire on the arm. “I would have done the same. Losing Jeff has put everything into perspective. I lost him a long time ago, but knowing I’ll never talk to him again…” She trailed off and gulped, obviously fighting tears. “How do I live with that, Claire?”

  “One day at a time.”

  “I don’t know how I’ll be able to go back to work.” She patted her pockets until she found her box of cigarettes. “Everyone will have been talking about it. They put my face on the news.”

  “People have short memories around here.”

  “At least I’ll have you there.” Belinda pulled the last cigarette from the packet and gazed at it. “I keep saying I’m going to quit. Every final cigarette of every packet is my last one, until the next packet. Maybe whoever killed Jeff was onto the right idea with that nicotine gum?” She laughed dryly, but it quickly turned to tears. “Who would want to murder him, Claire? I wanted to murder him after what I found out, but I never got the chance.”

  “Someone in your position,” Claire said, staring ahead at the black-coated mourners around the graveyard. “Someone more ruthless, with much more to gain.”

  “Who?”

  “Our new boss,” Claire said, catching herself. “Or should I say your new boss. As of yesterday morning, I am gainfully unemployed.”

  “What?” Belinda choked on the smoke. “You finally quit?”

  “Fired.” It was Claire’s turn to laugh. “Graham reported me to the police. Remember when I took that bag of equipment ready for the bin?”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “I wish I were.”

  “Who grassed you up to Graham in the first place?” Belinda asked. “It was going to be thrown out anyway.”

  She had been too preoccupied with why Graham had gone straight to the police that she hadn’t given a second thought to how he’d even found out she’d taken the stuff.

  “Maybe Nicola knew and had a record?” she thought aloud. “But surely she would have just fired me herself. She was desperate to cut back on costs.”

  As though aware she was being talked about, Nicola’s coffin began to lower at a snail’s pace compared to the descent that killed her. Neither spoke until it vanished below ground level. When they finally looked away, they weren’t alone.

  “Oh, hello again,” Belinda said, nodding at Ben Warton as he walked down the lane towards them. “If you’re here for your sister’s funeral, you just missed it.”

  “Did you see the witch go into the ground?” he asked, leaning against the wall on Belinda’s other side.

  “Yep.”

  “Then that’s good enough for me.”

  The three of them stood in silence, staring ahead as the funeral party tossed handfuls of dirt onto the coffin. Claire felt like she had missed something important; she had no idea Belinda and Ben even knew each other.

  “He was at the station when they released me,” Belinda whispered to Claire when she seemed to notice her puzzlement. “Gave me a quid to get a coffee. He’s all right.”

  “You work at the factory,” Ben stated, nodding at Claire. “I suppose I should apologise.”

  “What for?”

  “For messing with you.” His usual smirk softened to something more human. “According to my latest therapy session, I’ve been too fixated on settling old scores. She said running the factory into the ground probably wasn’t the best way to cope with everything that happened. I spent too many years in prison thinking about destroying that place; I just never thought I’d do it from the inside. Might have got away with it if not for Graham lawyering up. Didn’t think the idiot had it in him.”

  “Why did you want to run the factory into the ground?” Claire asked, unable to believe she was talking face to face with Ben after watching his strange behaviour from afar.

  “For fun.” He shrugged. “To get my own back. When my therapist pointed out the two people I wanted to get revenge on were already dead, she made me realise I’d already won. I suffered in prison for years. Kept my nose clean and behaved myself, which isn’t as easy as they make it sound, believe me. There’s more crime happening behind bars than out here. I lost every appeal until the one after my father died. I guess Nicola did me a favour finally bumping the old idiot off.”

  “He thinks Nicola killed William Warton,” Belinda whispered to Claire, as though she’d already heard the story and didn’t believe it.

  “I don’t think,” he said, leaning forward to make eye contact with each of them in turn, “I know. Why is nobody suspicious of the fact that my father died the same way I
supposedly attempted to murder him all those years ago? Heart attack? Come on. My father was a fit and healthy man. Didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, and ran marathons twice a year into his sixties. You two must have seen him up until the end.”

  Belinda and Claire glanced at each other. They’d had a similar conversation between them, commenting on how William had looked so well. Everyone had remarked on the cruelty and brevity of life. Any of them could go at any minute, they’d all said. Like with Bilal’s death, people quickly forgot the details.

  “Nicola framed me back then, and the witch got away with it.” He glared around at the church. “She was always hell-bent on getting her hands on that factory, but she was too much of a daddy’s girl for my father to see it. He died thinking I’d tried to kill him, and I have to live with that, but I swear on my mother and father’s graves that I didn’t. I did some terrible stuff. I stole from him, I lied to him, and I messed up more times than I’d care to admit, but I never tried to kill the man.” He frowned. “Not that I can prove it now. The only person who could corroborate my story was just lowered into the Warton family plot – which I’m no longer allowed to be buried in, thanks to my father’s will. I don’t say this lightly, but I hope the witch rots in hell.” He kicked away from the wall and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I always thought Graham had more decency in his little toe than I have in my whole body, but the more I think about it, the more I realise nobody who could spend that many years with my sister could have any goodness left in them. If I were you, I’d get as far away from the factory as you can.”

  “I’ve already been fired,” Claire admitted.

  “Then he’s done you a favour.” He winked. “As for me, I’m off. I don’t know where, and I honestly don’t care. Anywhere but here. He’s welcome to the factory. I came up to say goodbye to the place. Goodbye to my father, I suppose. That factory ran through his veins, and I thought it would mine one day, but my dear sister made sure that would never happen. As far as I’m concerned, the place is cursed. My father, Nicola, that boy falling into the vats. If the place wasn’t haunted before, it is now. I’d say I’ll see you around, but I won’t.”