by Agatha Frost
“It’s a circus,” Ryan muttered. “It’s not your shop, is it?”
Claire had worried the same thing, but a few more steps showed that her shop was shut and fine.
Two doors down, the post office lights blared into the darkening square as a line of police officers exited the shop. Each carried a rattling box of what sounded like glass bottles that went into the back of a police van. On the corner, Duncan and Leo talked with two officers taking notes.
“Looks like a raid,” Ryan whispered as they diverted in the direction of The Hesketh Arms.
“Knock-off alcohol and dodgy cigarettes.”
“What?”
“Just something my mum said.” Claire shook her head and leaned into Ryan’s side. “Doesn’t matter.”
Before walking through the pub door Ryan had opened for her, she watched as an officer ducked Leo’s head into the back of a police car.
Despite her words, Claire couldn’t help but think it mattered very much indeed.
Chapter Seven
The following day, Claire couldn’t see her face, but she knew it was green. She didn’t get along with Em’s narrowboat at the best of times.
This wasn’t the best of times.
“I shouldn’t have gone for those drinks with Damon,” Claire said, clutching the window ledge as the boat gently bobbed. “Damn Damon’s timing. Jammy bugger caught me trying to unlock my shop. Couldn’t say no when he asked if I wanted to grab a drink.”
“Why not?” asked Em.
“Because I’d already had two pints of Hesketh Homebrew with Ryan by that point. Each pint you drink convinces you that you can handle another. It was easier to turn them down when we worked at the factory.”
“Having someone else as your boss?”
“Because we couldn’t afford it,” she said, resting her hand on her stomach. “Minimum wages only go so far.”
Em chuckled as she pulled two jars from the small fridge. “How does berry overnight porridge sound?”
“Like a good idea in theory.” Claire paused, inhaling a shaky breath. “But in practice? I’m not sure I can handle it right now.”
“It was only last week you were starting to get over the water sickness.”
“Homebrew has that effect.”
“Is that what I’m missing out on?”
“You’re better off without it.” Claire accepted a glass of cucumber water, her grip weak. “You should have seen us in our twenties. Let’s just say we spent our fair share of early shifts swaying at the stickers station. We’re practically saints now, compared. Forty.” She sipped the water. “I’ll get my life together when I’m forty.”
“But first, thirty-six.” Em crawled across the futon bed heaped with colourful pillows of all textures, her movement rocking the boat. “A little birdie told me your birthday is only a matter of weeks away. Thinking of throwing a party?”
“Oh, don’t.” Claire pressed her fingers to her mouth. “I can’t think about that right now.”
“Because of the timing?”
“Because of—”
Claire near leapt over the side of the boat, and not for the first time that morning. Em softly rubbed her back as she created duck food. Dog walkers passed on the other side of the canal, but she couldn’t bring herself to so much as glance in their direction.
“If my mother could see me now, she’d kill me. And don’t get me started on Grandmother Moreen. I’ve never seen her drink anything stronger than tomato juice.”
“You’re a young woman.” Em laughed, handing Claire the cucumber water glass. “Mornings of regret usually mean you were living in the moment to get there, and that’s fine by me. Just maybe one less next time.”
“There is no next time,” Claire said, though this was a promise she’d made many a time before. “But you were right about the timing. With everything going on at the post office and with my mother, the last thing anyone needs is a party.”
“And how is your mother?” Em asked, settling Claire on the edge of the futon. “Has she opened up?”
“Shut down, more like,” she admitted, feeling better after emptying her stomach. “I’m really worried about her, Em. She lied about being fired and won’t say why. Also, she turned up at Amelia’s party about half an hour after you left. And I don’t think she was there for the jelly and ice cream. She snuck out of the party and went into a house in Ryan’s square that he swears is empty.”
“It sounds like your mother is in great pain and turmoil right now.” Em sighed, her brows sinking as though she were feeling the same thing. “Did being at my class not prove helpful?”
“Berna added pensions into the fraud,” she said. “And Ryan said an old woman used to live in the house my mum went into.”
“Elsie Tanner,” Em said with a nod, a sad smile lifting her cheeks. “Mrs Tanner. She was my art teacher in high school. Kind woman. Giving spirit. She—”
A dog’s bark from deep in the forest on the other side of the canal cut Em off.
“That’ll be the police,” said Em. “They’ve been up and down the forest nonstop since they found that gun.”
Claire gazed at the forest, catching the glimmer of bright morning sun bouncing off the reflective bits of the officers’ uniforms.
“Has Anna mentioned to you that she’s in a rush to go home to Poland?” Claire said, taking the shift to the yoga class.
“Frequently.” Cross-legged again, Em unscrewed her overnight porridge and skimmed off the top with a large spoon. “In fact, it’s the thing she’s talked about the most. She never wanted to come to the UK. That was Eryk. He dreamed of business, and she dreams of her family. Some people have a great kinship with their motherland, and I’ve always felt that from Anna. She misses home dearly.”
“Enough to kill Eryk?”
“Now, I never said that.” With a twinkle in her eye, Em pointed the spoon at Claire. “But I assume your bright mind knows something I don’t if you’re asking such a leading question.”
Claire paused as two excited dogs met on the waterside path and their owners ground to a halt. They pulled the dogs apart by their leads and went in separate directions, but Claire moved a little closer to Em, all the same.
“Someone cut the cameras at the post office,” she revealed in a whisper. “The whole thing was planned. It had to be. And if it wasn’t someone who worked there—”
“It was someone close to them.” Em airy voice took on a serious edge. “Yes, I understand why you asked. There’s a clear motive there.”
“Berna too,” she said. “I think she might be pregnant, and her father was trying to send her back to Poland. The two might not be connected.”
“You’re astute, Claire.” Em smiled, blinking slowly. “You’re absolutely right. That’s something else Anna spoke about at length. They are connected. Eryk was deeply traditional, and he wanted Berna to marry before bringing a child into this world.” She jabbed her spoon into her oats but didn’t pull it out. “There’s something else. You’ve given me some context.”
Claire’s ears pricked up.
“For what?” she asked, edging closer.
“It might be nothing,” she started, digging her large spoon into her breakfast. “A few weeks before Eryk died, perhaps three, I overheard something I shouldn’t have. Anna was talking on the phone, and I heard a part of her conversation.”
“Shower block?”
“Yes.”
“I think someone needs to tell her that even whispers echo in a room full of tiles,” she said. “I heard her asking someone to go to Poland with her. Talking about new starts. Sounded pretty romantic.”
“Then perhaps we overheard her talking to the same man.” Em inhaled heavily. “I thought she was talking to Eryk until she used his name in a way that made it obvious she was talking about him.”
“How so?”
“She was talking about Eryk’s life insurance,” she said darkly. “It was all up to date, apparently. There’s a great pos
sibility it’s purely coincidental.”
“And there’s a chance it isn’t.”
“I’ve betrayed her confidence,” Em said, sinking into the mattress, “but you’d already figured out much of that yourself, and when murder’s involved right on our doorstep, it’s no time for secrets.”
Claire stuck around as long as her stomach could take, which wasn’t much longer. Watching Em eat gloopy berry oats combined with the ear-ringing dog barking drove her back onto land.
“Talk to your mother,” Em ordered with a hug. “She won’t reach out, but she needs you now more than ever.”
After promising she would, Claire walked the short way down the path and rounded the corner at The Hesketh Arms. She glanced at the beer garden, now filled with people eating their greasy breakfast fry-ups in the sun. How many hours ago had she ducked behind one side of a picnic table, whizzing beermats at Damon doing the same on the other.
At least she’d given him the owed staff night out.
Knowing she needed food, and content that Damon was dealing with the few customers across the square, Claire stepped up into Marley’s Café, the first shop on one of the square’s many snaking side streets.
Marley’s husband, Eugene, was among the handful of customers. Instead of a slice of cake and a coffee, he had a glass with a fizzing tablet and a familiar, heavy-lidded look of shame.
Singing blurred in Claire’s ears.
Echoes of her voice.
And Eugene’s voice
And why were they on the pool table?
Too embarrassed to meet his weary eyes as he watched the tablet turn the water orange, Claire hurried to the counter.
“Anything that’s light on the stomach?” Claire asked, glancing at the display case of vegan cakes. “I’m a little green around the gills today.”
“You’re not the only one.” Marley nodded at Eugene. “Karaoke on the pool table, wasn’t it?”
“They can’t contain me, dear,” Eugene groaned with none of his usual theatrics. “Believe me, they’ve tried. Anyway, blame Claire. It was her idea.”
“Was it?” Claire felt her face turn from green to red. “My memory is patchy.”
“Mine too, but I remember the songs you kept picking,” he said, twisting slightly in his chair while clutching the back for support. “Even for me, there’s only so many times I can slam it to the left if I’m having a good time and shake it to the right if I know that I feel fine. No, if I’d have been picking, it wouldn’t have been the Spice Girls, dear.”
“He does a mean Shirley Bassey,” Marley whispered across the counter. “How about a salad?”
“Remember to tell my mother about this moment next time you see her because I’m going to say yes, and she’ll never believe that I did.”
“That’s a promise.”
“Better make it two,” she said before Marley retreated to the kitchen. “No tomatoes on Damon’s. He’ll only pick them out.”
While Marley made the salads at the back of the café, Claire leaned against the high breakfast bar along the side wall. The small television in the corner caught her eye.
“Is that the post office?” she whispered as she walked towards the morning edition of the local news. “They’re in the square.”
Claire turned up the volume as the camera panned to DI Ramsbottom. He stood to attention in front of the post office, awkwardly glancing down the camera lens as the presenter introduced him.
“Would you look at that poor man!” Eugene exclaimed. “If he pulls his toupee down any further, it will fuse with his eyebrows.”
Someone in the café shushed Eugene, and Claire turned up the volume.
“That’s correct,” Ramsbottom said after a cough, his voice an octave deeper than usual. “The prints found on the gun did indeed belong to Tomek Kowalski, son of the late Eryk Kowalski shot here, at Northash Post Office, early on Saturday morning.”
“And are the police still considering this a random burglary?”
“I’m afraid I can’t comment on that, but I will say we are very keen to talk to Tomek as soon as possible.”
“How long until you expect to have Tomek Kowalski in police custody?”
“Well, um…” Ramsbottom scratched at his golden hair as sweat dribbled down his face in stunning high-definition quality. “Tomek Kowalski’s current location isn’t known to the police, but we are using every resource afforded to us to track him down. If anyone has any information regarding his whereabouts, they should contact the police.”
“And isn’t it true that the police have already interviewed him?” The reporter pushed the microphone closer to Ramsbottom’s mouth. “How is your station reacting to letting a suspect slip through their fingers?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“And the rumours that your detective inspector role has been called into question in recent months?” The microphone moved closer. “Is that true?”
Ramsbottom slapped the microphone away.
“Who told you that?”
“A source.”
“What source?”
“You don’t deny it.”
“You’ll edit that out!” Ramsbottom warned with an extended finger. “I’m here to talk about the Eryk Kowalski case.”
Ramsbottom’s face turned increasingly red as he stared at the presenter. No one in the café let out a breath.
“We’re live, Detective Inspector.”
Ramsbottom looked awkwardly at the camera as more droplets trickled down his plump cheeks. He looked as though he was going to deliver a rebuttal, but he walked off-camera instead. The camera zoomed in on the DI as he scurried to his car, darting glances over his shoulder the whole way.
“Brace yourselves,” Eugene announced excitedly. “I think Northash is about to go viral again, and not because of that woman with twenty-three cats in her council flat.”
“Twenty-six,” someone called out. “Molly had kittens.”
Leaving the conversation to drift and bounce like it always did, Claire paid for her salads and left. In front of the post office, the camera crew were packing up while Ramsbottom talked on the phone in his car. She couldn’t hear his conversation, but his flapping hands said enough.
At the candle shop, Damon practically had his nose pressed up against the glass.
“I think I was just on the telly,” he said as she walked in.
“You weren’t.” She passed him a salad box. “Shop wasn’t in frame.”
“Then this sign was stupid.” He screwed up a piece of paper and tossed it into the bin.
“What did it say?”
“‘I’m on the telly.’”
“Genius.”
“Why, thank you.” Damon gave a slight bow before looking into the box. “Salad? What did I do wrong?”
“Temptation.” She sank onto the stool behind the counter and unfolded the cardboard box. “Why didn’t you get me down off the pool table?”
“You seemed to be having fun,” he said with a shrug. “And besides, I was up there too. We were two short, but we still made a decent Spice Girls between us. Even Sherlock needed a night off.”
“Since you took the conversation in this direction,” she mumbled through a mouthful, “Ramsbottom was just on the news talking about Tomek’s prints being on the gun. If they find him, I think it might be over.”
“Sounds like a closed case to me.”
“I knew he was making Leo lie for him.” She stabbed her fork into the leaves and vegetables; at least Marley had gone overboard with the dressing. “Poor guy was more on edge than normal.”
“And your mum? Where does she fit into all of this now that the case is solved?”
“Still working on that.” She tapped the side of her head. “Dad invited me to dinner tonight. We’re going to sit her down and get it out of her. Lots of soft talking and open palms.”
“We had to do something like that for my auntie when she went crazy on diet pills she bought off the internet,” h
e said, taking the stool next to Claire. “Thin as a rake but as mad as a box of frogs. She would stay up for days at a time, brushing the carpet so all the strands lay in one direction.”
“My mother’s been doing similar,” she said, “minus the diet pills.” Claire stabbed her fork around some more. “Yesterday at the party, I saw her sneak off to…”
The air shifted outside. Police officers appeared from nowhere, all running towards The Hesketh Arms. One by one, they hurried down the path to the canal that Claire had taken. They headed across the bridge and into the forest on the other side. The camera crew stopped packing and caught up.
“What’s going on?” Damon spat his mouthful of leaves into the bin. “Not sure how much more drama I can handle this week.”
“I’m not sure,” she replied, opening her laptop. “Might as well find out the same way everyone else does.”
After a few clicks, she had on the same news channel as the café. Switching her gaze between the window and laptop, Claire worked through the salad. The segment was still in the studio.
“Quite nice, this.”
“Is it?” Damon pushed his box away. “Think I’ll wait for lunch.”
Before Claire could defend the salad, the studio announced “a breaking development in the Northash Post Office shooting case”. They cut to the reporter, now hastily set up on the edge of the forest while police milled around behind him.
“There’s been an extraordinary development right here in Northash.” The presenter stepped slightly to the side to show a wall of officers blocking something. “Just behind me, a body has been discovered on a routine sweep of the same forest where the police found the gun used in the robbery. The police have yet to confirm the victim’s identity; however, moments before we came back on the air, I overheard Detective Inspector Ramsbottom mention Tomek Kowalski. I must stress this has not been confirmed. Still, we have good reason to believe Tomek Kowalski’s body has been found a stone’s throw away from the scene where his father was murdered, days ago, with a gun containing Tomek’s prints. A shocking twist in an unusual case.”