by Agatha Frost
“It’s fine.” Em looked at Claire with the same frown before turning back to the window. “Who was the driver?”
Ste took another bite before continuing his search. He grimaced before spinning the screen around to show them a map. It took Claire a second to realise it was a map of the square.
“Let me call Baz,” Ste said, pulling the headset over his head. “Baz? You there, mate? Ah, good. Yeah, it’s a bit of a strange one but do you remember picking up a woman from the tearoom and her throwing up in your car? Yeah, thought you might. Hard to forget the pukers.” Ste listened for a moment, a finger on the earpiece, eyes squinting. “Right, cheers for that. You get back to work.”
Ste dragged the headset off and jabbed a finger on the map, right outside the tearoom.
“Thought it might have been an error, but it turns out it’s not,” he said, leaning back in his chair before tossing in the final chunk of his sandwich. “Journey ended where it began, at the tearoom. Said they’d just got onto the motorway on the way to Manchester Airport and she insisted they turned back because she’d forgotten something important. Threw up on the way back and was calling him all the names under the sun when he said he would charge her for waiting for the return journey. Said whatever she was looking for was taking too long and he was freezing his behind off at that time of the morning in January. And he couldn’t stomach the smell of the sick, so he dumped her cases on the pavement and went to find an open carwash. Is that of any use?”
Em pulled the picture of Eric from her pocket; the penny dropped for Claire.
“Very useful,” Em said with a soft smile, eyes trained on the photo. “Thanks, Ste. I’ll let you get back to work. Stop by the boat sometime. I always keep a couple of beers on deck for guests.”
“I’ll take you up on that,” he said, offering a salute. “Look after yourself, sweetheart.”
Claire followed Em out of the small taxi rank and the hot morning sun blinded her instantly. They waited for a car to drive past before crossing to the grand front entrance of the park. Em leaned against the large stone wall next to the metal gates. Desperate for a little shade, Claire joined her.
“She went back for the records in the attic,” Claire said, so Em didn’t have to. “She went back for the pictures.”
“And dropped dead while she was up there.” Em tucked the image away again. “Typical of my mother. The thought of this getting out and people knowing what she’d hid in the attic all those years would have been enough to make her risk missing her flight.”
“By the sounds of it, she wouldn’t have made it to the plane.” Claire looked up at the sun and sighed. “I’m sorry, Em. I really am.”
“We’re getting closer.” Em kicked away from the wall. “I can feel it. You’ve found out so much and got us this far, and there are still questions to ask. If the taxi driver dumped my mother’s suitcases on the pavement in the dead of a bitter January night—”
“How did Colin end up with them?” Claire finished.
They passed through the wide gates. Starfall House loomed over them from its flat patch on the sloped hill; it looked far more intimidating from the main gate than the side entrance.
“Yesterday, I told you I wasn’t the only recipient of my grandmother’s estate,” Em said, pausing when they reached the drinking fountain. “I failed to mention one of the others because it wasn’t my business to spread and it didn’t seem relevant at the time, but now I’m not so sure. My grandmother left a sizeable chunk of money to Colin in her will.”
“How sizeable?”
“Enough to buy one house in the country and another under the sun somewhere else,” she said, pausing to look at Claire, “with enough change left over that he needn’t work another day in his life.”
Claire looked around the garden. Colin’s work was undeniably beautiful, but his temper wasn’t, and from what she’d gathered from the inner workings of the house, Opal and Colin hadn’t been fond of each other.
They strolled past the fountain to the back door of Starfall’s conservatory. Em reached into her pocket and pulled out a small jumble of keys. She put them back just as quickly and pulled on the old doorbell instead.
Diane opened the kitchen door, all semblance of normalcy gone. A mauve silk dressing gown hung off her slow-moving frame, and the bags under her eyes drooped along with it. Her hair had evaded a brush, and not even the hint of a smile appeared on her lips. She pulled open the door without looking at them and plodded back into the kitchen.
The customary cleanliness had vanished into chaos and disarray. Muddy bootprints circled the kitchen as though Colin had been back and forth several times. A stack of dishes sat next to the sink. The untouched chippy supper lay shrivelled on the finest china alongside half a dozen cups.
Diane sank into a seat at the kitchen table and pushed her fingers into her hair. She stared ahead at the table, now covered in sprawling tangles of jewellery, with exhausted eyes. She plucked up a pearl necklace and let the milky beads slip through her fingers, almost like a rosary. She clenched her fist around it and lifted it to her face. Persistent, silent tears trickled down her cheeks.
“It’s going to be okay,” Em said, quickly sliding into the seat next to Diane. “After so many years as my grandmother’s closest companion, I can’t imagine how you’re feeling right now.”
“Empty.” Diane looked around the large kitchen. “Lost.”
“You’re not lost.” Em wrapped her arm around Diane’s shoulders. “You’re right here, and this is your home. I haven’t decided what I’m doing with this place yet, and until I do, please stay as long as you want or need to.”
Diane mustered a faint smile, but the tears continued to flow.
“It all happened so quickly,” she said, plucking a tissue from the box on the table. From the piles around her, it was clear this was not the first box she’d gone through. “One minute, she was here, and then men in suits were reading her will.”
“You know what she was like.” Em glanced up at the ceiling. “She was a particular woman, and her death and will were just more formalities, as far as she was concerned.”
“She wasn’t scared to die,” Diane said, letting the pearls slip onto the table. “Nothing phased her.”
“That was my grandmother.” Em gave Diane’s shoulders a squeeze and stood up. “I think a cup of tea is in order, don’t you?”
“I’ll do it, I—”
“Your service is over, Diane.” Em gently nudged her back into her seat. “Just try to relax and let someone else take care of you for a while.”
Diane smiled meekly and nodded as she settled in her chair.
“Sit down, dear,” Diane said to Claire, pulling out the chair beside her. “No need for formalities now.”
Claire accepted the seat and glanced up at the ceiling. Though she knew Opal was gone, she couldn’t imagine Starfall House without the old woman sat as still as a statue by the large window over the front door. Opal’s presence was still fused in the walls of the old place.
“He’s out there,” Em suddenly said as she stirred the tea. “Colin’s out there.”
“That man’s been a nightmare all day.” Diane pushed her hands back into her hair. “Coming and going as he pleases, slamming doors, making a mess. He’s lost all sense of respect, and Opal isn’t even in the ground yet.” She turned and glared through the window at Colin as he picked up litter off the grass. “Do you want him for something?”
“We have it on good authority that Colin donated bags of clothes to a charity shop,” Claire said quietly. “Jane’s clothes.”
“Janes clothes?” Diane frowned. “Colin?”
“We share your confusion.” Em placed the three cups of tea on the table. “Do we go out and confront him?”
Claire wasn’t sure, but thankfully, the decision was made for them. Colin looked up and spotted them staring and immediately cut across the grass to the back door.
“I’ll keep this brief,” he said,
walking directly up to Em as he reached into his inside jacket pocket to pull out an envelope. “My resignation. I know you don’t want to face it, but you’re the owner of this wretched house now, and I’ve served my sentence.”
“Sentence?” Diane forced a dry laugh. “You could have left at any point, Colin.”
“I’ll work my two weeks’ notice,” he continued without acknowledging Diane had spoken. “To make your job easier, I’ve already put out some feelers for a replacement, but I—”
“Why did you have my mother’s clothes?” Em interrupted.
At the bluntness of her tone, Claire and Diane both choked on their tea. Colin’s jaw flapped, his cheeks glowing scarlet behind his grey beard.
“What?” he finally managed.
“You donated them,” Em said, still in a voice of iron. “Did you kill my mother, Colin?”
Em’s question sank like a heavy brick, dragging all the air out of the room on its way. Claire watched Colin like a hawk, half-expecting she’d need to pull his hands from Em’s throat.
“Are you serious?” he asked in a low voice as he looked around the kitchen, making eye contact with each of them. “Oh, you are serious.”
“Well?” Em demanded, her hands going on her hips. “Did you?”
Colin looked around the room again before his dumbfounded expression broke into a dry laugh. He ripped up his notice and tossed it at Em before storming out, his head shaking the whole way.
“His silence says a thousand words,” Diane said, unsteadily rising and forcing Em into her recently vacated seat. “I’ve never trusted him! You know he had a thing for your mother for years.”
“He did?” Em asked as she sank into Diane’s chair.
“Oh, yes! Practically obsessed with her. Would ask her out every time she visited Opal.” Diane pushed Em’s cup towards her. “Trust me, you’ll feel all the better for it.”
Em stared into the tea, but she didn’t seem able to pick it up. Claire rested a hand on Em’s knee under the table and gave it a little shake. It was something Granny Greta always did to reassure her, and it resulted in the same smile on Em’s face as always appeared on Claire’s.
“I think it’s time I go for a soak in the bath,” Diane said, tucking her hair behind her ears.
“We’ll get out of your way,” said Em.
“Stay.” Diane rested both hands on Em’s shoulders. “You own the place now, dear. No need to rush off anymore.”
Somehow, Diane’s words sank even harder and faster than Em’s had with Colin. The former housekeeper left the room, closing the kitchen door softly behind her. All the tension left Em’s body, and she deflated into the chair, still staring at the tea.
“I fear I was too harsh with Colin,” Em said, glancing up at Claire like she had something to feel guilty for. “I shouldn’t have raised my voice.”
“Believe me, you didn’t raise your voice.” Claire gave her knee another gentle shake. “But Diane is right. His silence was very telling. He didn’t even bother trying to defend himself.”
“Do we follow and try to get it out of him?”
Claire glanced through the windows onto the path, but Colin was no longer in view. Her father’s earlier warning sprang into her mind.
“No.” Claire pulled the picture of Jane and the loyalists from her bag. “I think it’s time to hand all of this over to the police. We’ve pieced together a lot of the timeline, and now there’s a lead with Colin and the clothes. The police can interview him from here.”
“We have the how and the where,” Em said, pausing to glance up at the ceiling, although her eyes seemed to gaze through it and into the sky above, “but I know I will continue to feel my mother’s unrest until the why and the who are discovered.”
Claire tucked the picture into her bag and stood up, nodding for Em to do the same.
“Then we try to talk to him one last time,” she said as she headed for the back door. “Regardless of what he says, afterwards we’ll go to the station and give Ramsbottom every detail we’ve uncovered.”
They left the house, but it became immediately obvious they wouldn’t be searching the park to talk to the gardener. Police cars with flashing lights were visible through the front and side entrances, and cordons were being set up while officers herded reluctant parkgoers to the various exits. Somewhere on Park Lane, a woman let out a guttural scream.
“What’s going on?” Em asked, her hand closing around Claire’s.
Claire spotted DI Ramsbottom’s tiny car through the side entrance. Her turn to lead Em by the hand, she joined the steady crowd milling out. The whispered gossip mentioned bomb threats and murderers on the loose.
Claire couldn’t see DI Ramsbottom, but she did see Sally in the crowd outside the estate agents. Fiona was the woman who’d screamed; she was now sobbing into the lap of one of their co-workers on the steps outside their workplace.
Sally rushed over the second she noticed Claire. Without needing to ask, Claire knew what Sally was about to tell her.
“That porky copper just came in,” she whispered, glancing back at poor, wailing Fiona. “Someone anonymously called the station and gave the exact location of her father’s body. They’re saying Eric Brindle is buried under the rose bushes in Starfall Park.”
Chapter Fourteen
“Perfect!” Sally slid the zip up to the top of Claire’s neck. “Fits like it was made for you.”
In the wall-to-wall mirrors of the fitted wardrobe in Sally and Paul’s spacious master bedroom, Claire pulled down the hem of the simple black dress and assessed the outfit. The neckline showed what her mother would call ‘a tasteful amount of cleavage’. The front hung loosely off the bust before tapering slightly at the bottom, the hem falling just below the knee.
“When I called to ask how to fix a zip,” Claire said, turning slightly to see how it looked from behind, “this isn’t what I was expecting. Why do you even have this?”
“Maternity stuff,” Sally called over her shoulder as she selected jewellery from the thoroughly organised racks on her dressing table. “Remember when I was the size of a small house when I was pregnant with . . .”
Sally’s voice trailed off as she changed her usual gold hoops for diamond studs. Through the mirror, she offered a wincing smile. As close a friendship as they had, they’d never been able to borrow each other’s clothes. If Claire was shaped like an apple on short stilts, Sally was definitely a banana, and Claire was the first to admit it.
“Sorry, mate.”
“You meant nothing by it,” Claire said with a chuckle, retrieving her bag from the perfectly made bed; such insinuations didn’t offend her. “I bought three pairs of jeans from the charity shop the other day, and the labels were all different sizes. Fabric with random numbers attached, that’s all. You say maternity, I say comfortable.”
“Regardless, it suits you.” Sally wrapped a delicate diamond bracelet around Claire’s right wrist. “You might as well keep it.”
Claire was grateful to have a replacement for the one she’d ruined less than an hour ago, especially since it meant she didn’t have to dip into her shop fund again. After Claire had called for advice and Sally told her she had a dress she guaranteed would fit, she’d hacked at her old dress with scissors to free herself. She still hadn’t the slightest idea how she’d mangled the back of her bra in with the zip in the first place.
“Thanks, mate.” Claire smiled. “I appreciate it.”
“At our age, you never know when you’re going to need a ‘multi-function but mainly for funerals’ black dress at a moment’s notice,” said Sally. “Besides, I’m never going to need it again.”
“Not trying for a third?”
“I thought we might try for a boy one day,” she said as she slipped her feet into her black heels, “but quite frankly, I’m not sure I can be bothered going through it all again.”
“Welcome to the club.” Claire moved her neck from side to side as Sally spritzed her with some of h
er sweet perfume. “C’mon, let’s go. Damon’s probably bored out of his mind.”
After a touch-up of lipstick, Sally followed Claire out of the room and down the stairs. Damon sat at the dining room table where they’d left him, suited and ready for the day. Claire hadn’t intended to bring him, but he’d been walking to the church at the same time Claire had been headed to Sally’s.
“What are you doing?” Sally rushed in and scooped up the paperwork spread out across the table. “That’s private.”
“Sorry,” he replied, holding up his hands. “I saw the name on the folder, and I couldn’t help myself.”
Claire tilted her head to read the words written on the front of the cardboard folder as Sally gathered up the sheets.
“Opal Jones?”
“Nicked it from Paul’s briefcase,” Sally explained as she stuffed all the paper – a collection of official-looking documents and handwritten notes – into the folder. “Well, I borrowed it. Thought I might find something useful for you in there regarding Jane, but I can’t make heads nor tails of most of it.”
“Neither could I,” Damon said as he stood and buttoned his suit jacket. “Why do lawyers feel the need to talk like that?”
“I think you might be right about Colin being involved in all of this, Claire,” Sally said, not bothering to respond to Damon as she jammed the folder back into the briefcase and slammed it shut. “From what I could gather, Colin hand-delivered the updated will the day before Opal’s death; he’d never done that before.”
“Who usually delivered it?” Claire asked.
“The housekeeper, Paul said.” Sally ran her fingers through her hair in the large dining room mirror; every room had at least one. “Said she’d come in around once a month with any changes Opal made, and then Opal would call almost immediately to confirm all the changes were correct.”
“Was she that paranoid someone was going to intercept it on the way to the solicitors?” Damon asked, following the two of them into the hallway. “Watson Solicitors is about twenty steps from Starfall House.”
“She was blind,” Claire thought aloud. “She must have dictated to Diane and wanted to check everything was written as she’d said it.” She looked up at Sally as she slipped into her shoes. “Did Opal call after Colin delivered the will?”