by Agatha Frost
“Because I didn’t want to give you another reason to dislike him.” Sally finished the second lock twice as fast and, after checking it worked, shut the front door. “In my delusion, I thought I’d be able to fix it. This all seemed too perfect to fail.”
Side by side, in silence, they looked around the immaculately decorated hallway. Every item oozed luxury, and the delicate cream and silver tones all blended perfectly. The house wouldn’t have looked out of place in an interiors magazine. Claire liked it to look at, but she’d never quite felt comfortable there – she was far too scared of disrupting the perfection.
“Why am I even doing this?” Sally asked, one hand resting on her forehead, the other planted on her hip. “Most days, I dread coming here. This place hasn’t felt like home in so long.”
“That doesn’t mean Paul gets to keep it.”
“Maybe this is one for the solicitors to fight out?” Sally walked over to the console table under the large mirror and picked up a framed, professionally shot picture of her two daughters, Ellie and Aria, posing prettily against a bright white background. “I think I just came to my senses. I don’t want to stay here. I don’t want to put it on you, but is there any chance I could—”
“You can stay with me.” Claire squeezed Sally’s shoulder. “For as long as you need to.”
“What would I do without you, eh?” Sally smiled as she put the frame back, perfectly angled exactly where it had been. “Just until I get my kids from my mum’s next week. I might see if I can stay with her for a bit.” She headed up the stairs and nodded for Claire to follow. “Probably a good idea to get some clothes while I’m here.”
They went up to the master bedroom, which was easily the most impressive Claire had ever seen. The gigantic, super-king-sized bed and mirror-panelled, ornate furniture made Claire’s bedroom feel like a kid’s room in comparison. Claire walked over to the dressing table in front of the large bay window, where one of her rose petal prototypes was half burned down in its jar. She gave it a sniff; it was the version with slightly too much damask rose oil, but it still had an appealing floral sweetness to it. On the other side on the dresser, Sally had an impressive collection of well over a dozen perfume bottles. Claire bought one at a time, only purchasing a new fragrance when she was down to the last drops of the previous one. She remembered Ryan commenting on her new scent right before he’d kissed her, and it made her smile.
“I know that sound,” Sally said, slapping shut the nearly full suitcase on the bed before hurrying over to pull back the edge of the sheer curtain. “That’s his car. Gym must have closed.”
“What do we do?”
“Exactly what you did earlier.” She dragged the zip around the case and hauled it off the bed. “We leg it.”
Each carrying one end of the case, they clumsily scrambled down the stairs like something from a Laurel and Hardy skit. As they ran through the kitchen towards the back door, a key rattled in the front. When it didn’t give, the handle bounced up and down before another round of attempting to cram the wrong key into the lock began. They fled through the back door and across the neat garden, hiding in the bushes at the bottom. Paul walked around the house in his tight gym wear. He ditched his bag on the ground and attempted the same routine. He let out a roar and kicked the door before cramming his phone against his ear.
“Yes, I know what time it is!” he cried down the phone as he made his way back to the front of the house. “These locks you fitted, they don’t work! What do you mean . . .”
As his voice trailed off, Sally pulled the new keys from her pocket and rolled them around in her palm. After a moment’s consideration, she tossed them into the middle of the garden. The neatly trimmed grass swallowed them up.
“Let’s hope he can find them.”
They heaved the heavy case over the low fence and snuck down the backs of the houses, coming out into the cul-de-sac at the other end. Rather than retracing their earlier steps through Starfall Park, they pivoted towards the police station cottage on the corner and set off down Park Lane, the mountainous and narrow single-lane road that ran up the side of the park. The yellow streetlights tried their best, but the high walls on either side cast the lane in permanent shadow. They got as far as the first raised house before Claire sensed they were being followed.
“Claire!” DI Ramsbottom cried. “Do you have a minute?”
The detective clutched at his knees while he caught his breath. He had a pizza slice in one hand and a napkin tucked into his straining shirt.
“Just having a spot of dinner between cases.” Straightening, he took the napkin and dabbed at the tomato-coloured grease shine on his lips. “Don’t suppose you’ve got any information for me?”
“Sorry, Detective,” Claire said, already carrying on down the street. “I’m a little busy.”
“It’s just,” he called after her, jogging to keep up, “I heard you accosted a young woman in the bathroom at the Hesketh earlier.”
“How quickly does word get around this village?” she asked with wide-eyed amazement before remembering her mother’s Women’s Institute friend. “Yes, it’s true. I was possibly much ruder than I had to be in that moment, but it’s been one of those days.”
“Looks like you’re following a lead.” He gawked at her like a child pleading with his mother. “You have that same look in your eyes your father always got. C’mon, kiddo, let me in on it. I could really help.”
“Rina, Mark, and Daniel,” Claire said. “They’re staying at the B&B. They know Taron to varying degrees. I don’t know if one of them did it, but if I had to guess, my money would be on Mark. He doesn’t have a shred of empathy for Taron fighting for his life in intensive care. It’s almost sociopathic.” Claire noticed Sally had gone on without her. “I’m sorry, Harry, I don’t really know much more than that. If you want to question them, you’ll want to move quick. I don’t know how long they’re sticking around.”
Grateful for the excuse Sally had given her to flee the DI’s interrogation, Claire hurried away. She caught up with Sally as they reached the halfway point down the hill where the lane curved and Starfall Park’s side entrance came into view. Claire caught the silver hue of Rina’s hair glinting in the stone opening.
“I think I owe her an apology,” Claire whispered as they slowed down. “He was right. I did accost her. It was right after what happened with Ryan. I was a bit wonky.”
“I’ll carry on to yours.”
Keys in hand, Sally dragged the case down the steep street towards the square. Claire caught Rina’s eyes, and the young woman let out a frustrated breath.
“I just want to say that I’m sorry for how I acted earlier,” Claire said as she approached the entrance tucked into the park’s high stone wall. “I shouldn’t have been so snappy.”
“It’s fine,” Rina said, looking down at her feet, arms folded tight. “Forget it.”
“Listen, I know you were at the convention,” Claire said as calmly as she could. “I saw you in one of Mark’s videos, so there’s no point denying it. Why lie?”
“Because I didn’t want to upset Damon.” Rina huffed and rubbed her temples. “It was easier to lie and say I wasn’t going than admit that I’d agreed to be Mark and Daniel’s third for the tournament. They put me on the spot, and I didn’t feel like I could say no. Damon wouldn’t get it. I never wanted everyone to fall out. I’ve been stuck in the middle, and I hate it.” She retrieved her phone from her jacket. “I’m supposed to be meeting Mark here now. He called half an hour ago and told me to come, but I can’t see him anywhere. He sounded worried. Don’t suppose you’ve—”
A woman’s piercing screams cut through the air, coming from within the park. Claire and Rina hurried inside. The screaming came from the direction of the bushes between the duck pond and the large bandstand on one of the few flat patches in the middle of the angled park. The woman, who Claire vaguely recognised as someone who’d been in her shop at some point, was attempting to drag he
r two dogs away from the bushes. The dog’s barking was loud, but the continuous screaming drowned it out.
“There’s a man!” she cried desperately in Claire and Rina’s direction when she noticed them approaching. “He’s not moving.”
Already pulling her phone from her pocket to call the station, Claire headed quickly to the bushes, Rina in her shadow. Claire saw two enormous feet poking out first, attached to impossibly long legs. Her gaze continued up the tall man’s body, though her curiosity took her only as far as the bloody torso. Hand over her mouth, she turned away, not needing to see the face.
Only Mark was that tall.
“You might want to send someone down to the band stand in the park,” she managed to say when the station answered. “A man’s been stabbed . . . a lot.”
Rina peered into the bushes and immediately jumped back. An ear-popping shriek left her lips as she sank to the ground. Trembling fingers reached out before retreating to catch herself as she crumpled further into the mud. Claire crouched in front of Rina, blocking Mark from view, and held her the best she could as the young woman’s wailing silenced the whole park. One glance over her shoulder confirmed what she’d already suspected. Unlike Taron, even in the hands of the most skilled doctors, Mark was beyond saving.
Chapter Nine
Claire closed the door to the sitting room softly, leaving Rina with DI Ramsbottom and her mother, Janet. After securing the scene, the DI had suggested they take Rina somewhere comfortable and away from prying eyes to calm down. Instinctively, Claire had suggested her parents’ cottage, and though her mother had initially acted like they were intruding with it being so late, she’d quickly changed into her best clothes and laid out a spread fit for a royal visit.
After creeping out the back door, Claire bounced across the paving stones in the grass down to her father’s shed at the bottom of the immaculate garden.
“I don’t think so,” she said to Sally after squeezing inside. “Get your own seat.”
Sally went to laugh, but she stopped when Claire didn’t join in. She got up and moved to the other end of the shed, leaning against a stack of plant pots lodged between two rusting filing cabinets. Claire only needed one plant pot, the one in the corner that had been hers for as long as she’d had the ability to sit up straight on her own. Her bottom had long since outgrown it, but she’d mastered the art of the perfect perch.
“How is the poor woman doing?” Alan asked as he leaned back in his battered office chair in front of his potting desk. “She was in quite a state when you turned up.”
“The wailing’s quietened down. I don’t think she had much choice but to stop when Mum started force-feeding her biscuits.”
“I can do one better than biscuits.” He opened the top drawer of the desk and pulled out a shiny packet of pink and yellow fondant fancies. “Don’t tell your mother. She’s on the sugar offensive again. Seems to go out the window when there’s guests or a WI bake sale, mind you. What she doesn’t know won’t hurt.”
Alan shot Claire a playful wink as he peeled off the wrapper and offered her one. While Claire loved her parents wholeheartedly, it was for different reasons. She found her mother’s strange ways amusing even when they didn’t see eye to eye, but there was no one she more clearly saw eye to eye with than her father. Not only did they look similar, with their short wide frames and shared ‘Harris nose’, but they were also tuned into the same frequency. While Claire understood her mother’s frequency, static interference often got in the way.
“This new stabbing,” Alan said after licking crumbs from his lips, “I assume you think it’s connected to the incident at the convention?”
“It has to be, doesn’t it?”
“Bit too weird for a coincidence,” Sally mumbled after taking a bite of her fancy. “You said it yourself about that love quad-thingy. Two corners have been stabbed, and now one is dead. I know they keep saying knife crime is on the up, but this is a bit much.”
“Love what-now?” Alan asked.
“Quadrangle,” said Claire. “It’s a love triangle with four people but triangles only have – it doesn’t matter, but Rina seems to be at the centre of several men’s overlapping affections. Taron, the one in hospital, is her current boyfriend, but they’ve kept it a secret. Mark, the man who just died, used to be her boyfriend. On and off, Damon said.” She paused, remembering what she’d told the detective moments before finding Mark’s body; he’d probably been dead when she’d accused him. “He seemed the most obvious for it. He got her to switch sides for the tournament at the last minute. I thought he’d maybe tried to bump off the new boyfriend to try to win her over, but that’s gone out the window.”
“A fine theory,” Alan said with a slow nod, resting his crossed fingers on his stomach as he leaned back further, “though clearly not the correct one. But you might be onto something with this love quadrangle.”
“Why isn’t it called a love square?” Sally mused. “They have four sides.”
“I don’t know,” Claire replied. That name was definitely an easier one to remember. “Sean told me that’s what it was. Says he looked it up. I think he might be the only one who knew about Taron and Rina being together, at least on the surface. There’s still Daniel.”
“Is he the third man?” Alan asked.
Claire nodded. “He was Mark’s best friend. Not just online, either. They’ve known each other since school.”
“Could he kill his best friend like that?” Sally shuddered. “We couldn’t turn on each other that way.”
“Arguing over the same woman can do strange things to the mind,” Alan said darkly. “You have no idea how many of my cases revolved around love rivals. It’s bad enough when there’s one other person to contend with, but two? Taron might still be with us, but not for lack of trying.”
“Mark wasn’t just stabbed once,” Claire said, gulping. “I couldn’t tell you how many times.”
“Sounds like they didn’t want to make the same mistake twice,” Sally said, hesitating as she reached for another fancy. “Now that you’ve put it like that, my money is on Daniel. I think you’re onto something with that love square.”
“And the other gentleman you mentioned?” He tapped the side of his head as though trying to recall the name. “The one who told you about these secret love connections?”
“Sean,” she reminded him. “He’s Taron’s best friend. Like brothers, he said.”
“Claudius killed his brother in Hamlet,” he pointed out, wagging a finger. “If my years as a detective taught me anything, it’s best to look at all the possible motives, regardless of relationships. When there’s something to hide, people tell us what they think we should hear.”
“Not Sean,” Claire replied instantly. “He seems honest to a fault.”
“Did he tell you he was honest?”
“No, but I believed him. He answered every question I asked,” she paused, and suddenly remembered one detail. “Well, nearly every question. At the hospital, Damon asked him if he stabbed Taron, and he ran off instead of answering. When I spoke to him, I said he could tell me the answer, and he still didn’t deny it. Instead, he told me they were brothers.”
“Maybe he can’t lie?” Sally asked, sucking the crumbs from her fingers. “Like Jim Carrey in that film. He doesn’t answer because his brain won’t let him lie about stabbing Taron.”
“Which only works as a theory if there’s a motive,” Alan pointed out, spinning in his chair slightly to smile at Sally, “but you’re making some good observations. Given the right motive, he could be manipulating his responses to hide his true feelings. If he’s someone who finds lying difficult, reinforcing a positive like their brotherly connection could be the right thing to throw the answer. It still sounds like a denial because of the inference, but a denial it is not.” He turned back to Claire. “So, little one, does he have any motives?”
“No,” she replied instantly. “Well, maybe one. According to Damon, Sean and Taron h
ad been planning to house share for years. Sean got a job just to save up for it. When I asked Sean about it, he told me Taron had called the whole thing off because he’s planning to move to Japan.”
“How did he seem when he told you that?”
“I think he was upset on the inside,” she said, trying to recall his exact expression. “He doesn’t give much away. He’s really withdrawn and difficult to read most of the time.”
“And what about Mark?” Alan pressed. “Does Sean have a reason to kill him?”
As Claire opened her mouth to respond, the advice she’d given Sean suddenly forced its way to the front of her mind. She groaned and rested her head in her hands, hoping she’d not put her foot in it.
“I told him to stand up for himself,” Claire said, straightening and staring up at the cobweb-covered ceiling. “Apparently, Mark often singled Sean out. It’s part of the reason their group fractured. I saw a video from the convention where Mark picked on Sean on camera, so I told him that bullies just needed to be stood up to. What if he took it literally?”
While Sally ate through a third fondant fancy, the three of them contemplated the thought. That her father didn’t immediately reject the theory made it feel all the more plausible. Claire had said it herself – Sean was hard to read. What if he’d been dancing around the truth, painting a picture specifically to avoid suspicion? Claire’s subconscious fought to override the thought, in direct violation of her father’s advice to assess all options; her gut told her to trust Sean. But then, her gut had also suspected Mark.
There was a soft knock at the door before Janet let herself in. Alan put a magazine over the packet of fancies right before she did a scan with a wrinkled nose. She’d never made it a secret that she hated the shed – or rather, hated the dirt and dust it contained. Her parents had a pact that Janet wouldn’t touch the shed if Alan never complained about his wife’s habitual cleaning routines.