Brownies and Bloodshed (Peridale Cafe Cozy Mystery Book 19)

by Agatha Frost

  “We both live in Riverswick,” Thomas, clearly the chattier of the two, explained. “Helen’s living with me while she figures things out. She’s going through an expensive divorce.”

  Helen smiled tightly, giving her brother a side-eyed glance as if to chastise him for bringing up the topic. Helen’s quiet and distant energy made a little more sense to Julia. She had felt much the same in those days in her mid-thirties when she was back sleeping on her gran’s sofa after her marriage went sour.

  “Are you twins?” Julia asked, wanting to change the subject. “You look almost the same age.”

  “Everyone thinks we’re twins,” Helen replied after a sip of wine. A little dribbled down her chin and onto her beige blouse; she didn’t seem to notice. “We’re not, but we are both fifty. We were born two months apart. It’s a long story.”

  “You can’t just leave it there, Helen.” Thomas tutted. “You’re making it sound like some impossible science experiment. We have different mothers. Let’s say being faithful wasn’t on the top list of our dad’s priorities, although it turns out he was good at living a double life.”

  “We didn’t meet until we were thirty,” Helen added. “I thought I was an only child for thirty years, so it was quite a shock to learn I wasn’t.”

  “Shock is the right word.” Thomas nodded, his eyes blank. “My mother told me all about my dad on her deathbed. Growing up, I rarely saw him and knew almost nothing about him. He dropped in when he felt like it. When I pulled on the string and found Helen, the whole picture unravelled. That’s when we first met Eugene and Percy. I gained a whole family overnight.”

  “We both did,” Helen said as she looked around the room, her wine clutched close to her chest. “I didn’t even know who my dad was until Thomas tracked me down.”

  Julia’s curiosity piqued, she suddenly wanted nothing more than to ask all about Ian and, more importantly, about his relationship with Percy, or lack thereof. She had thought about taking the question right to Percy after seeing Ian, but hadn’t wanted to cause any more distress before his happy day. Instead, she had sat on the question, hoping it would come up in conversation.

  “So, you’re not close to your dad?”

  “Hmmm.” Thomas lolled his head from side to side. “Sometimes it feels like we are – like he’s making up for what he missed – but it always ends up the same.”

  “He vanishes,” Helen added with an eye roll. “And then usually turns up when he wants something. I was surprised to see him last night. I knew Uncle Eugene had invited him, but I didn’t expect him to show his face.”

  “Eugene invited Ian last night?” Julia looked at the Cowardly Lion dancing with the Tin Man in the middle of the dancefloor. “Why would he do that?”

  “He’s always been the peacemaker,” Thomas explained. “He means well, but he gets in over his head, especially with our dad. I think he’s always trying to find the kid he grew up with, especially now that they’re all over the hill. Who knows how long any of them have left?”

  “He’s a lost cause.” Helen drained her wine. “Men like him are all the same. I should know; I was married to one. Want another drink?”

  Thomas looked down at his half-finished pint and nodded. Helen left, heading to the makeshift bar at the back of the hall and leaving Julia and Thomas to smile awkwardly at each other.

  “Your Jessie seemed quite interested in kickboxing last night,” Thomas said. “You should send her to my studio. I can teach her a few things. Girls that age need to know how to defend themselves.”

  Julia glanced at Jessie, who had put Alfie in a headlock for some reason. Somehow, she didn’t think Jessie needed any formal training in self-defence, but before she could tell Thomas that, Dot hurried over and pulled Julia away without giving her chance to say another word. She smiled over her shoulder at Thomas, but he had already turned to the buffet.

  “In here!” Dot pushed Julia into the empty bathroom after dragging her through the crowd. “I need you to do something.”

  It struck Julia that in the day’s chaos, this was the first time she had spoken with her gran alone. She had so many questions about how Dot had pulled everything off, but the first that sprang to mind needed asking immediately.

  “What did you do to your face?” Julia asked. “Even in this light, you look half your age.”

  “It’s quite fabulous, isn’t it?” Dot glanced at herself in the mirror. “I found this make-up guy on the computer. He’s a drag queen at the weekends by the name of Miss Kitty Litter up in Manchester. He said they had something called the ‘gay village’, but it’s made up of bars instead of houses. All very confusing.” She angled her face, her smooth cheeks glowing under the bright lights. “He did this thing he called ‘snatching my face’, but it’s not as painful as it sounds.”

  Dot pulled back the wig slightly to show Julia what appeared to be pieces of tape stuck to the perimeter of Dot’s face and somehow pulling the skin taut.

  “There’s a whole contraption of wires and knots back there,” Dot said as she pulled the wig back down. “He said it’s how Cher stays looking so young, and I don’t think I’m that much older than her. I’ve never been tempted to have a facelift until now, but if the results are this good, maybe I should book myself in?”

  “Gran…”

  “I’m joking,” Dot said, glancing at herself again. “Maybe. I don’t know. It probably wouldn’t look as good without the wig. Fear not, dear, I’ll be back to myself before we head off for the honeymoon tomorrow.”

  “Where are you going?” Julia asked, unable to believe how much her gran had kept secret.

  “Alfie found us a gorgeous five-star resort in the Canary Islands,” Dot gushed. “All-inclusive luxury for two whole weeks! I can’t wait. It’ll be my first trip abroad in years.”

  Even though Julia loved Peridale and being close to her café, the thought made her slightly jealous, especially since she and Barker had yet to go on their official honeymoon or even leave the country together.

  “Do you need help packing?”

  “Oh, no, dear!” Dot waved her hand. “That’s all taken care of. I didn’t drag you in here to talk about my honeymoon. I, well, we – as in, Percy and I – need your help to pull off a little trick.”

  Julia gulped. “A trick?”

  “A show, if you will,” Dot blurted, as though she knew she was losing Julia’s confidence. “With Percy being a magician, he wanted to put on a little show, and since we’re in Oz, we need the Wicked Witch of the West to help us.”

  “I can already feel where this is going.”

  “Good girl!” Dot patted her on the shoulder. “It’s quite simple. Right before we slice the cake, we will cut the lights and you will appear on stage. I want you to cackle or scream or whatever you want. Be the witch. Then, Percy will throw a bucket of glitter over you, the stage will flood with smoke, and you’ll drop, open the trap door in the stage, and vanish, as it were. The band will play ‘Ding Dong the Witch is Dead’. Then, you can come out, and we’ll cut the cake!”

  “That doesn’t sound simple.”

  “Well, it is!” Dot turned Julia around and pushed her towards the door. “Go backstage and wait for your cue. I’ve had this planned for months.”

  “And yet this is the first I hear about it,” Julia said, opening the bathroom door and letting in the party’s noise. “Do I get a choice in this?”

  “None whatsoever.”

  “Hang on.” Julia dug in her heels. “Why am I the Wicked Witch when Sue gets to be Glinda?”

  “It’s ironic, dear.” Dot gave Julia another shove. “It was you, Katie, or Sue, and you’re the only one who can take a joke. Now, backstage!”

  Dot scurried back into the crowd, leaving Julia outside the bathroom. She knew better than to steer her gran away from something, especially when her mind was made. Surprise may have been Dot’s primary motive for keeping the theme secret for so long, but Julia didn’t doubt the secondary motivation ha
d been stopping anyone from trying to talk her out of it.

  Doing as told, Julia walked around the stage while the band drew near the end of ‘I Wanna Be Like You’ from The Jungle Book. With the speakers pointing out into the dancefloor, the calm darkness behind the grand stage brought a little relief from the noise.

  She spotted Percy peeking through the back curtain at the top of three little steps, letting in the disco lights. A strange, familiar scent lingered in the air. It reminded her of standing next to the machines in a nightclub as they spurted out another round of smoke – not that she had stepped foot in a nightclub for years. She cleared her throat, and Percy galloped on the spot.

  “Oh, Julia!” He grinned from ear to ear as he adjusted his top hat. “Splendid! I assume Dorothy filled you in?”

  “Sort of,” she replied with an uneasy smile. “I go out, scream, and you throw glitter on me?”

  “Exactly! I’ve marked the trap door on the stage. Make sure you stand there, and you’ll be able to crouch down and slip away unseen. The lights will cut for ten seconds – plenty of time for you to vanish. You could even change out of your costume to really add some mystery. Quite simple.” He clicked his heels together. “Right, the band’s finished. Let’s get this show on the road!”

  The music faded, and silence fell on the village hall for the first time in hours. Standing where Percy had been, Julia inhaled, nerves bubbling up. The familiar, zesty scent filled her nostrils again. She might have spent all day dressed as the witch, but she wasn’t sure how convincingly she could portray her, even if only briefly.

  “Where are the mood swings when I need them?” she whispered to herself before taking a shaky breath. “C’mon, strawberry, give me a hormone rush.”

  As she listened to Percy hamming up his role for the crowd, Julia suddenly realised she didn’t have her broom. She couldn’t remember where she had put it, but the prop would give her shaking hands something to hold. She looked around, her eyes landing on something unusual in the corner. She squinted into the dark, confident she could see smoke drifting silently across the floor. Was that what she could smell? In the dark, she crept towards the source; the image puzzled her more with each step.

  “Oh, no!” she heard Percy cry. “It’s the Wicked Witch of the West!”

  Julia knew that was her cue, but the smoke in the corner drew her closer. It resembled the smoke from the church and the smoking cocktails she had seen all night. It was flowing from a vat of some kind; a man sat next to it.

  “Oh, sorry,” Julia blurted. “I didn’t see you…”

  Her voice trailed off as she took another step. The man wasn’t sat next to the smoking barrel as she had assumed; he was slumped against it.

  “The Wicked Witch of the West!” Percy cried again, desperately. “I wonder where she could be. Let me go and see.”

  The curtain ripped open, flooding the dark space with light long enough for Julia to see the truth. She gasped, lifting her hands to her mouth.

  “Julia?” Percy hissed, jerking his head for her to follow him. “That was your cue, dear! They’re all waiting for you.”

  She glanced at Percy before looking back into the dark at the wilted man in the pool of smoke. Even in the darkness, the image of his blistered and burnt face was scorched into her mind. The man’s face was too damaged for identification, but she recognised the tuxedo from earlier.

  “Percy, it’s Ian,” Julia managed to say through her trembling fingers. “I think … I think your brother is dead.”

  Safe in her café, Julia stared into the surface of her peppermint tea as the last of the evening sun slid from the sky. A small sip might settle her nerves, but she couldn’t bring herself to lift the cup to her lips. Her hands were on the table, still green, still shaking. The wig and witch’s hat sat on a chair next to her, leaving her chocolatey curls hanging free over her streaky green face. The nose was on the other chair, leaving behind a patch of pink skin in the sea of muddy green.

  Next to her, Eugene sobbed, still in his Cowardly Lion costume, the paw-shaped gloves clutched against his face as he wailed. Marley had shed most of his metallic Tin Man costume, making his silver face all the more bizarre.

  Jesse and Alfie were out of their monkey masks, and Barker had shed as much of his scarecrow costume as he could. Detective Inspector John Christie paced the café, the blue lights from the police cars parked around the village green flashing against his face.

  “It’s always your family,” he said, casting his eye in Julia’s direction. “I should have known something would happen at this wedding.”

  “It’s not our family,” Jessie snapped at him, glancing at Eugene and Marley as they clung to each other. “We barely knew the man.”

  “It’s true,” Julia said, finally lifting the cup to her mouth. “We only met him once.”

  “When?” Christie stopped pacing.

  “Last night,” Barker answered, taking the seat next to Julia. Under the table, he rested his hand on her leg. “We were having a meal to bring everyone together. He wasn’t invited, but he turned up anyway.”

  “Why wasn’t he invited?”

  Julia and Barker shrugged, casting their eyes to Eugene and Marley, too busy crying to offer any explanation. Julia’s first instinct had been to open the café to give people somewhere to sit and wait while the police did their job, but she hadn’t been in any state to serve. She was the only one with a cup of tea, and that was only because Jessie had insisted on making her one.

  “The smoke,” Julia said after another hot sip. “I don’t understand what happened.”

  “Liquid nitrogen.” Christie rubbed the bridge of his nose, his eyes clenched shut. “It’s something like minus 200 degrees, which is enough to kill anyone exposed to it for too long. From what I saw, it looked like someone held his head in there long enough to freeze him to death, and if the burns didn’t get to him first, poor fella probably had a heart attack with the way…”

  Christie’s voice trailed off. Barker cleared his throat and jerked his head at Eugene, whose wailing was growing with each word.

  “Yes, well, this is a murder investigation.” Christie forced a cough and tugged at his tight tie. “Which means I’ll need statements from everyone at the wedding.”

  “I didn’t even see him at the party,” Jessie said, her brows furrowed. “Did anyone else see him?”

  Everyone shook their heads. Julia did the same, only stopping when she remembered her sighting outside the church.

  “After the wedding, I saw him watching from across the green,” Julia admitted. “But that was hours ago. I didn’t see him again until…”

  The café door opened and Dot burst in, her wig and make-up gone, her face once again its eighty-five-year-old texture, and her hair returned to short, grey roller-set curls more flattened than Julia was used to seeing.

  “Have any of you seen him?” she asked breathlessly.

  “Who?” Christie asked.

  “Percy,” she said, if not a little reluctantly. “I can’t find him anywhere. I haven’t seen him since the police turned up.”

  Julia couldn’t read Christie’s mind, but she knew ‘GUILTY’ was flashing in his head like a sign over a West End show. She couldn’t deny she had thought the same herself, especially since he had been backstage when she arrived, utterly unaware of what lay in the corner.

  “We’ll help look for him,” Alfie offered, already standing up and nudging his sister. “Won’t we, Jessie?”

  “Yeah.” Jessie rose a little more reluctantly than her older brother. “Course. He can’t have gone far, not at his age and dressed like that. Someone will have seen him.”

  “We’ll help too,” Julia said. “The more of us, the—”

  “No.” Barker pulled Julia down before she could rise. “You’ve been through enough for one day.”

  Julia looked at him, surprised he had put his foot down now of all times. It took a second for the subtext of his words to sink in; he was thinki
ng about the baby, something she had forgotten about in the half-hour since finding the blistered body.

  “Right,” Julia said, nodding as she watched Jessie and Alfie walk to the café door. “Stay safe.”

  “I’d suggest you all stick together,” Christie offered. “Try to remember there’s a murderer out there. I don’t think I could handle another body showing up tonight.”

  Christie’s words made Eugene’s howling start afresh, prompting Barker and Julia to stand. Now that they were alone with two men she barely knew, Julia felt even less capable of offering support to them.

  “We’ll get home if it’s fine with you, Christie,” Barker said, already steering Julia towards the door. “I’m sure Julia won’t mind you using the café as a base. I think this one needs a bath and her bed.”

  “Sure,” Christie replied, rubbing his temples. “I’ll get your statements tomorrow.”

  Julia allowed Barker to steer her into the alley, straight to her vintage car, and she didn’t complain when he sat her down in the passenger seat. She felt like she had been wrapped in cotton wool, but right now, she needed that comfort. Not only was she ill-equipped to deal with what she had just stumbled across, but her pregnancy also cast a whole new light on it all.

  5

  As soon as she was back at the cottage, Julia tried her best to sleep, but too much adrenaline still coursed through her veins. After Barker forced her to take a bath and get into bed, she stayed there for two hours, tossing and turning, her mind churning with thoughts. At one in the morning, she threw back the covers, sure her guests were asleep in the next room. In nothing but a dressing gown, she went in search of her husband.

  She checked the sitting room to see if he had stayed up to watch TV, but the room was empty. On her way to the kitchen, she noticed a faint glow peeping out from under the dining room door. Inside, she found Barker wearing his new reading glasses, doing the last thing she had expected. He was putting together an investigation board on the dining room wall.