by Willow Mason
She was so adamant I had Patrick double check in case I was going crazy. Assured that it wasn’t just me, I relayed the information down the phone.
“I’ll bring it around now.” She ticked her tongue a few times, then added, “And the cow froth isn’t what you think it is. It’s plant-based for a start.”
On arrival, her first action was to check the Tupperware thoroughly herself. Her second was to fold her arms and fix me with a steely gaze.
“I know what I brought over here. Now, tell me the truth. If you’ve had an accident, it’s okay, but you need to be honest with me.”
Holding my hands up, I shook my head. “I swear, I haven’t even had a chance to look at most of the stuff in this thing, let alone use any of it.”
Paisley sniffed and held her tail high.
Annalisa gave her a sullen stare.
The two felines locked eyes and I frowned, glancing to Aunt Florentine for help. She shrugged. “Cats either love each other or hate each other. What’re you gonna do?”
They stalked off in different directions, Wendy happily catching Paisley to introduce her to another spur-of-the-moment game. Annalisa settled on the windowsill, although the night air made it chillier than the rest of the house.
“Has there been any word?” I whispered to my aunt who shook her head.
“Nothing so far. Though the police won’t issue a statement until they’re sure about something, so it could be a long wait.”
“Do you think your poltergeist is the same one who drew all over the walls back at my house?” Wendy asked Pru, startling her out of a reverie.
“I don’t think so,” she said, giving the question due consideration. “My poltergeist has been with me for so long now, I don’t think he’s capable of doing something so frightening.”
Wendy puffed out her chest. “Huh. I wasn’t frightened.”
Much to her father’s despair.
“Besides, Andrew couldn’t stand jam. He had a run-in with a wasp once, after his mum made him jam sandwiches for a picnic.”
Everyone in the room shuddered, reliving their own graphic experiences. “That’s practically child abuse,” Aunt Florentine said.
“It was sauce,” Wendy corrected. “What were his feelings on that?”
“Much the same.” Pru moved closer to the girl. “I also don’t think Andrew knew either of your families. Violet was only have been a teenager when he died. She was in one of my classes at Briarton High. That hardly gave him a chance to form a lasting resentment.”
Gareth poured out the dregs of a cup into the sink and rinsed it, using a quick spell to clean it and return it to the cupboard, dry.
Show off.
“Do you think she did something recently that disturbed him? Maybe it’s a mistake to think of their only interactions occurring before he died.”
Paisley arched her back, baring her teeth, and setting off a chain reaction in Jared.
“Not according to the writing on our downstairs wall.”
Gareth gulped and took a step back when the black cat caught him in her furious gaze.
“Don’t be so mean, Dad. You’re always going on about putting yourself in the other person’s shoes. Why don’t you try that yourself?”
I thought of how the supreme had insisted it would be an advantage to have access to all the people surrounding Violet’s case and smiled. A pity Genevieve was the only person in town who hadn’t ended up at my house.
“What are you smiling about?” Jared asked, his big puppy-dog eyes gleaming. “Have you worked out where all the missing ingredients have gone?”
“No.” Hardly top of my mind. “I was just… It’s nice to have a full house sometimes.”
“Glad to hear you think so because I was about to ask if you minded me staying a few more nights. The guys are getting on my nerves.” He shuffled a step closer, whispering into my ear, “It’ll be like old times.”
Hm. The bit where we used to have fun together or the part where he turned into a monster and refused to let me help?
“You.” I grabbed Jared’s arm and escorted him to the front door. “It’s time for you to leave.”
“Why am I the only person in town who’s not allowed to stay here? You let every other man, child, and cat into the place.”
“They’re in need of accommodation. You’re not.”
“Have you seen the pack house? The whole place could fit in your front office.”
“Just because I’m the only Millennial you know who owns a house, doesn’t make you welcome here.”
“Obviously.”
Pru cleared her throat and I turned to her, my cheeks flushed. “It would be nice to have somebody here to protect us.”
Aunt Florentine gave a sharp laugh, closer to a bark. “Nobody here has been trained in battle. Living out the back of your mistress’s house for years, waiting for her to come back doesn’t count.”
“But he helped me put my house back in order.” Pru blushed when we all turned to look at her, clasping her hands and sending her gaze demurely to the floor. “If you want my opinion, that is. I know I’m just an unwanted guest.”
A passive-aggressive unwanted guest to boot. Perhaps that was why Andrew had suddenly turned hostile.
“Your opinion would be welcome on anything else, but this isn’t happening.” I pointed to Jared’s thickening beard and then to the door. “Out.”
I cocked an eyebrow.
An ulcer. I rubbed my stomach as it gave a twinge. What did that remind me of?
I snapped my fingers and pointed to Pru. “You didn’t need an early night, did you?”
“No.” Her back straightened and her eyes widened with anticipation. “What do you need?”
“Andrew’s car. Or rather, I need the medication Patrick found in the glove box.” I was out the door before she could wave goodbye. “I have an idea about what might’ve happened to your fiancé.”
“What?” When I didn’t answer, Pru pulled at my arm, forcing me to stop. “Tell me.”
“Let’s just see what the potion turns up, shall we?”
We reached Patrick’s car in time for me to remember I didn’t have the keys. Not to worry. He ran down the path to join me, passing them over, and whispering, “I’ll take care of things here, don’t worry. I’ve got a few questions I want to sneak into the conversation.”
With a wave, I pulled into the street, my mind already guessing what I’d find out.
“Hadyn didn’t say anything about the test lasting forever,” I complained, staring at the potion which resolutely refused to change colour. Pru and I had fetched the pill bottle and returned within twenty minutes, then spent another hour waiting for the chemistry potion to work its magic. “What if it lasts for days?”
“Then you’ll have plenty of time to focus on your other cases,” Aunt Florentine said, without sympathy. “And this place could do with a tidy-up.”
“It’s only messy because half the village moved in the past few days. Once it’s back to just me, Annalisa, and Patrick, it’ll be fine.”
&n
bsp;
“If she doesn’t want you, we’ve got room at home,” Wendy offered. “Dad’s always promised me if I was good, I could get a cat.”
From Gareth’s expression, I guessed the statement was a total fabrication. “We can’t adopt Paisley,” he said in a gentle voice. “Remember, Sara’s allergic. That’s why Violet had to give her up and move downstairs in the first place.”
“We could stay here, couldn’t we, dad? Rent out the top floor to someone else, and then we can all be happy together.” She tugged at his hand, beaming a gigantic smile. “Pretty please. I don’t want to live in a house that spurts raspberry syrup out of its walls. It’s so scary.”
Gareth laughed as he grabbed his daughter around the waist and lifted her off the floor, shaking her. “That’s a big fib and you know it, daughter-who-was-licking-the-walls-earlier. If you’d been scared, sneaking away from Mrs Prendergast so you could go back home wouldn’t have been your first action.”
“Okay. Stop. STOP!!!” Wendy’s screech trailed into a series of giggles. “It is the coolest thing to ever happen, but I’d still give it up for Paisley.”
The black cat sat back, pretending to lick her paw, but I could see her eyes leaking. Well, good for her.
I blinked, hoping that wasn’t the way things would go.
“Something’s happening,” Aunt Florentine said, tapping my forearm. “That green has turned positively chartreuse.”
With a frown, I once again read the notes Hadyn Malone had scribbled down for me. The recipe and an instruction to dunk the object to be analysed into the resulting potion. No colour coded chart to show us what the results might mean.
A tiny wisp of steam rose from the liquid, twisting in the air. Another spurt joined it a moment later, then a gush as the entire bottle evaporated into a thick white gas, fading into the symbol C42H38O20.
“What does that spell?”
Patrick gave me a shoulder bump. “It’s not a word, that’s a formula.” He pulled out his phone and tapped in the characters. “Well, well, well.”
I craned my neck to read the tiny screen. “Senokot. What’s that?”
My aunt pressed her lips together, containing her amusement. “It’s obvious you’ve lived a charmed life.”
“Well? Is somebody going to tell me?”
Gareth sniggered, then covered his mouth with his hand. Wendy stared at him, her face as puzzled as mine felt. “Sorry,” he held up a hand. “It’s a laxative. For… you know.”
Patrick scrolled down the screen, turning it towards me again when he reached the appropriate dosage. “Looks like Andrew’s normal tablets were replaced with a large helping of diarrhoea.”
“How…?” Pru’s voice faded and I grabbed her arm, helping her to a seat. “Somebody replaced his pills? What sort of monster would do that?”
The kind of monster who used pranks as a stand-in for their personality.
“Solomon Armstrong, that’s who.”
“Shouldn’t we wait until morning?” Patrick asked for the third time. Just like before, Pru and I ignored his pleading face. “It’s been fifteen years. Surely a day won’t matter?”
“Why should I grant him the luxury of a day?” Pru cried. “The man already stole fifteen years of happiness from me. I want to shove the evidence in his face and let him squirm.”
“But you’ve waited fifteen years. That’s my point.”
“Because I didn’t know.” Pru slapped the back of the headrest, making Patrick yelp and lean forward. “He doesn’t deserve the courtesy of an appointment or a delay until morning.”
“If we wait until tomorrow, what would that achieve?” I said, backing her. “At least if we confront him now, Andrew might be satisfied and turn back into an echo rather than a deranged poltergeist.”
“That would be lovely.”
Patrick pulled to the side of the road, checking the house numbers. “What if that doesn’t happen?”
Pru stared out the window, giving the glass a fleeting touch with her fingertips. “You mean, he continues to be a wreck?”
“That or…”
“He goes away entirely?” She stiffened her back. “There’s only one way to find out.”
“We should call the police. They won’t like us coming out here in the middle of the night, yelling accusations.”
I pointed to the correct letterbox. “We don’t work for the police, and they had their chance and did nothing.”
“But they could process the evidence correctly. He could be prosecuted.”
Pru shook her head. “Just because we know what went down doesn’t mean they’d ever prosecute him.”
“And that doesn’t worry you?” Patrick parked the car and turned in his seat. “If they wouldn’t lay charge then we shouldn’t attack him either.”
“I’m not going to attack him.” Pru stuck out her lower lip, her nostrils flaring. “And just because something can’t be proven in court doesn’t mean that man isn’t the reason my Andrew is dead.”
She opened the door and tumbled onto the footpath. “He needs to know that I know what he did, even if nobody else ever cares. Andrew deserves that much.”
Patrick and I caught up to her just as Pru lifted her hand to knock. Although I could see my partner was still struggling with the decision, he shut his mouth and stood behind her in a show of solidarity.
“This better be good. The masked singer is just about to—” Solomon broke off as he recognised Pru, his face collapsing into confusion as he nodded to me and Patrick. “What’d you want?”
“You killed Andrew.” Pru stepped forward, poking a finger straight into the man’s face. “We know you swapped out his medication for laxatives in some childish joke. Well, that prank was the reason he undid his belt, swerved off the road, and crashed his car.”
“Hey… I…” Solomon held up his hands and took a step backward, which Pru immediately took advantage of, pushing him farther inside. “I never meant—”
“I don’t care what you meant! Andrew died and it’s all your fault.”
“No. I…” His eyes pleaded with me for help, then turned to Patrick. Neither of us gave him anything and his lips curled. “I didn’t mean anything by it. It was just a joke.”
“It was murder.” Pru’s finger darted out again, stabbing Solomon on the bridge of his nose. “You killed him as surely as if you’d shot him dead. And for what?”
“It was a laugh, that’s all. Nothing was ever meant to happen.” The man put a hand to his face, warding away the next jab from Pru. “Nothing did happen. You don’t know the car crash was related. The police never found anything.”
“Did you tell them what you’d done?” Patrick’s voice was soft but laced with an edge of steel.
“Nobody asked.”
“A colleague of yours died and you didn’t think it was important enough information to tell the police? Were they just meant to guess?”
Solomon’s expression hardened and I was afraid he was about to push Pru out of his house and slam the door. Then his shoulders slumped, and he stared at the floor. “I was too afraid.”
I reached past Pru to put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s hard to take responsibility for what you’ve done.”
“But I guess I should.” He sighed, sounding like his entire body was deflating. “It was just a silly prank.” Solomon looked at Pru with pleading eyes. “You believe me, don’t you?”
Although her hands were still clenched, she nodded. “I believe you. But I want you to tell the police.”
Fear spread over his features like a dark shadow, but Solomon slowly
inclined his head. “I will. I promise, just…” He ran a hand through his hair. “In the morning, yeah. I need to think about what to say.”
Pru’s mouth pinched in, but she agreed. “That’s fine.” She took a step back from his entranceway, her sensible heels clomping on the welcome mat. “You should ask for Sergeant Grosvenor.” She waggled a finger. “And we’ll be checking.”
We might have done what we set out to do, but the ride home felt sadly lacking. I’d wanted to browbeat Solomon into a confession that would somehow put the world back to rights. His limp defence and damp admission gave me none of that.
“I suppose we cleared everything up,” Patrick said with a forced smile as he pulled alongside our house. “Let’s hope Andrew agrees with the verdict.”
“A calm ghost in the morning would be fantastic.”
As Pru got out of the vehicle, I put a hand on her arm. “We’ll drop you home in the morning and make sure everything’s with you and Andrew before we leave, okay?”
She inclined her head before plodding upstairs, closing her bedroom door with a soft thump.
“I might turn in, too.”
“Solomon was there. He admitted he swapped out Andrew’s medication as a joke and agreed to tell the police in the morning.”
“Case closed.” My aunt gave me a wan smile.
I slumped into a chair, resting my head on my crossed arms. “You can talk. This place feels like a mausoleum.”
“I’m a bit worried.”
The tight note in my aunt’s voice made Annalisa’s ears twitch and I jerked upright. “About?”
She walked over to the door and checked the hallway before pulling it closed. “Paisley’s upstairs, right?”
Annalisa nodded, her eyes glowing.