by Agatha Frost
“We’ve run out of semi-skimmed milk,” Jessie said as she poured the last of it into a latte for Roxy Carter, one of Julia’s oldest friends from childhood, who was now a teacher at St. Peter’s Primary School in the village.
“He looks different,” Roxy said, tucking her flame red hair behind her ears as she joined Julia in staring out of the window at Jerrad as he slowly wiped a table, no doubt to taunt Julia. “I know I only met him a couple of times, but he looks different.”
“I know,” Julia mumbled. “I can’t figure out why.”
“You don’t still –”
“Have feelings for him?” Julia scoffed, the suggestion turning her stomach. “That’s the last thing on my mind right now.”
“Milk!” Jessie cried with a roll of her eyes as she tossed the empty carton in the bin and poured the steamed milk in with the espresso shot.
Julia took Roxy’s money and handed over the latte, before taking a five-pound note from the petty cash and joining Roxy in walking out of the café.
“He’s looking over,” Roxy said, squinting into the sun as she sipped her hot latte. “Mmmm, you’ve trained that girl well, Julia. She knows how to make coffee.”
“Jerrad doesn’t even like coffee,” Julia remembered aloud. “Why a coffee shop?”
“Even the dying towns have busy coffee shops,” she said before taking another sip of her latte. “Although you know I’ll always be loyal to you.”
Julia nodded her appreciation. After a fluke busy spell on Monday in the wake of the murder, Julia’s café had returned to the ghost town it had become since Happy Bean had opened. Only a few of her most loyal customers were still popping in daily, Roxy being one of them.
“You don’t think it’s something I’m doing, do you?” Julia asked. “Maybe I’m just not good enough.”
“You’re the best baker this village has,” Roxy said as she darted in to peck Julia on the cheek. “Things will return to normal soon. The novelty will wear off and people will realise they miss your fresh cakes. You’ll see. I need to get back to the school, but I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Julia hoped she was right. For the sake of her business and keeping a roof over hers and Jessie’s heads, she prayed Roxy was right.
After grabbing four large bottles of milk and having a little chat with Shilpa, who was trying to tell Julia she thought Anthony poisoned himself out of guilt for what he had done to the village, Julia returned to her café. The hairs on the back of her neck immediately stood on end when she saw Jerrad sitting at the table nearest the counter, staring around her café with a look of contempt.
“I tried to get him out,” Jessie said desperately. “He won’t budge.”
“Threatened to ‘bash my head in’,” Jerrad said with a little chuckle, his fingers performing the air quotes sign, something he used to do all the time to mock Julia. She had forgotten how much it irritated her. “Where did you find this one, darlin’?”
“Jessie lives with me,” Julia said proudly as she marched back to the counter with the milk bottles in her hands. “And I’m not your ‘darlin’’, okay?”
Julia performed the air quotes, which only roused a small smirk from Jerrad. His right brow, the only one he could arch, darted up his forehead, and Julia was sure it reached closer to his hairline than she remembered.
“You did always have a thing for the waifs and strays,” he said as he picked dirt from under his nails. “Couldn’t pass a homeless person without tossing a quid at them. I always told you, you’d be better off ignoring them, so they learn their lesson.”
Julia clutched her hand around Jessie’s, which was shaking violently with rage. She squeezed hard, letting her know he wasn’t worth it. She was sure if Jerrad knew the truth about Jessie, and the months she had spent homeless and how many of her friends had been murdered on the streets, it wouldn’t have made a difference. It probably would have launched him into one of his political rants, where he was the only person allowed a valid opinion. Julia kept her mouth firmly shut, which was something she had learned to do many years ago. This time, however, it was to spare Jessie.
“Why are you here, Jerrad?” Julia asked flatly while Jessie busied herself putting the milk in the fridge under the coffee machine.
“Oh, you know,” he said, suddenly standing up and pacing bath and forth. “Just to check out the competition.”
“I meant why are you in Peridale?”
“The same reason you are,” he said, as though it was obvious. “For a fresh start.”
Julia’s stomach churned painfully, just as it had when she had first seen him. Not because she was learning that he was sticking around, but because that’s what she had suspected all along. It seemed like the sort of cruel twist of fate that she was due, considering what she had kept from Barker.
“You hate this village,” she reminded him. “It’s my home.”
“It’s not so bad,” he said with a shrug as he ran his finger along the shelf containing Julia’s Peridale themed trinkets. He rubbed his fingers together, pretending to see dust, but Julia knew Jessie had cleaned that shelf only an hour ago because she was so bored. “Once you get used to it, it’s almost – quaint. I can see why you were so obsessed.”
“How did you ever marry this guy?” Jessie whispered as she listened from under the counter, stocking the fridge with the milk cartons as slowly as humanly possible. “He’s a total pig!”
“I see you’re still doing your baking,” he said, walking over to the cake stand to peer inside. “Perhaps you and I could do some business? Since I’m running the coffee shop, it would be nice to appeal to the locals a little more.”
“And put me entirely out of business?” Julia replied, suppressing her laughter. “You’re out of your mind if you think I’d ever trade with you.”
“I’d pay you reasonably,” he said smugly. “What’s the going rate these days? I can never keep up with the minimum wage. Always going up, while the effort goes down. That’s what’s wrong with our country. People are paid far too much for the most basic jobs. It’s holding us back from growing.”
Julia sighed, glad that Jerrad had cut his speech short. It was nothing she hadn’t heard before. She used to tune it out, and nod and hum her agreement every so often, throwing in ‘yes, dear’, and ‘you’re right’ so he didn’t question her. She couldn’t believe she had ever been that woman.
“This isn’t you,” Julia said, looking around her café. “Peridale isn’t you. You’re a Londoner.”
“I’m very adaptable,” he said, meeting her eyes, his dark pupils looking right through her. “As are you. Taking in a young girl, hooking up with the local detective inspector. People do like to talk in this village. I hear you’ve become the woman to come to in a sticky situation too. Solving murders? That’s not the Julia I knew.”
“You don’t know me,” she reminded him, her voice stronger than it had ever been talking to him. “You only knew what you wanted to know.”
Jerrad rested a hand on the counter, his eyes meeting hers, his lids flickering for a moment. She didn’t recognise the look in his eyes. It made her anxious. She darted her eyes down to the counter, catching a flash of silver on his left hand. He was still wearing their wedding ring. Julia instinctively touched her own ring finger, which had been absent of a ring from the moment he had packed her things in bin bags and left a note on the doorstep. She had never regretted the decision to toss the ring in the River Thames. She thought about how much money she could have sold the diamond-studded band for, and how it would help keep her café afloat while she thought of new ways to tempt the customers back in. Just like the bundle of red notes in her biscuit tin, it was tainted money she would rather do without.
“We’re going to have to learn to live alongside each other,” he said as he stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets, making Julia wonder if he knew she had noticed the ring on his finger. “I’m staying at the B&B with some bonkers psychic woman offering me card readings ever
y morning at breakfast. It’s temporary until I find somewhere more permanent.”
“You really are staying here,” she whispered, her voice dark and suddenly angry. “You twisted little piece of –”
“I’ve invested every penny I’ve got into this business,” he jumped in, his voice suddenly lowering as he leaned across the counter. “Anthony fleeced me, and now this is my way to get that money back. I’m not missing that chance, darlin’. Not for you, or anyone else in this village. See you around.”
Jerrad’s leather shoes squeaked on the tiled floor, and he sauntered slowly out of her café, making sure to eye up every small detail with a curl in his lip.
“Not missing his chance, eh?” Jessie said, bouncing up from the floor and folding her arms against her apron as they watched him walk across the village green. “Sounds like a motive for murder if ever I’ve heard one.”
“It really does,” Julia said. “For the man I remembered, the kind of money it takes to invest in a business like that is pocket change. If he’s sunk all of his money into that coffee shop, he must not have had a lot to throw away in the first place. Did he seem a little desperate to you?”
“Reeked of the stuff,” Jessie said, wriggling her nostrils. “And an aftershave that stinks of old men. Gross.”
Julia sniffed up, his scent still lingering. Even after twelve years, the spicy fragrance that reminded her of the kind of detergent they used in hospital bathrooms still had the ability to churn her stomach.
“He’s up to something,” Julia whispered to herself as he walked back into his coffee shop. “And I’m going to find out what.”
After closing the café, Julia drove to the hospital where Sue worked. She sat in her car, as instructed during their call the day before, until her sister came out of the front doors. Sue wafted the clouds of smoke from the smokers as she hurried through, jumping straight into Julia’s distinctive aqua blue Ford Anglia.
“She’s here,” Sue said as she pulled her phone out of her pocket. “It was hard to snap a picture of her, but I managed to get one when she was getting a coffee at the vending machine. My flash went off, but I blamed it on baby brain. She didn’t ask questions.”
Sue swiped through several blurry pictures of her feet and the hospital floor before landing on a perplexed looking woman who was staring straight at the camera while she slotted a coin into the coffee machine.
“That’s her,” Julia said. “She’s the woman I saw laying flowers at the coffee shop after I was released from the station. What do you know about her?”
“Her name is Maggie Croft. She’s forty-seven, and she’s worked here for the past twenty-five years from what I can gather. She’s nice enough, but a little quiet. She likes to keep to herself, but the walls talk. She left her husband six months ago, and they’re already divorced. People have been saying she’s been having an affair for years. I stayed out of it, but she’s the first person I could think of when you called. I’m sure I even saw Anthony here a couple of times now that I think about it.”
“Dad said Anthony was having an affair with a woman at the hospital back when they were still friends, and I saw her at the scene of his death, so there’s no denying it.”
“Do you think she killed him?” Sue asked. “She collects ceramic figures of pugs. I was her secret Santa three years ago. That’s all I could get out of people. Bit weird, don’t you think?”
“I don’t think a person’s tastes in ceramics makes them capable of murder,” Julia said with a laugh. “But if she was having an affair with him, and she left her husband, my guess is she expected Anthony to leave his wife too.”
“And when he didn’t, she poisoned him?” Sue asked, her eyes widening. “That’s the last time I accept a coffee from her on a night shift. How are things with you and Barker?”
Julia squirmed in her seat, wanting to talk about anything else but Barker.
“Not good,” Julia said, her chest aching. “He can barely bring himself to look at me.”
“I can get my Neil to talk to him,” Sue offered, resting a hand on Julia’s knee. “A man to man chat at The Plough over a pint? That usually does the trick.”
“Thanks, but this is something I need to sort out myself,” Julia said, smiling appreciatively at her sister. “Jerrad came into my café to gloat today. He’s acting like he’s sticking around to run the coffee shop.”
“He’s moving to the village?” Sue asked, twisting in her seat. “But he can’t!”
“He can, and he will. He said he sunk all of his money into the business and he’s not going to see it wasted.”
“Oh, Julia,” Sue whispered, grabbing her hand and squeezing hard. “I’m so sorry.”
Julia squeezed back. She was sorry too; sorry she hadn’t dealt with Jerrad sooner. She had realised that if she hadn’t prolonged signing the papers for so long, Jerrad might have signed his half and they would have been divorced. If she had told Barker that earlier in their relationship, it might have been easier to face Jerrad being in the village with the man she loved standing by her side to support her.
“Barker will come around,” Sue said. “I promise. He loves you, and that’s all that matters.”
“And what about honesty?”
“You didn’t lie to him,” Sue said, chewing the inside of her lip. “You just didn’t tell him the truth. There’s a difference.”
“I don’t think he sees it like that.”
“Men usually don’t,” Sue said as she pocketed her phone and pulled on the door handle. “They see the world in shades of black and white and nothing in between. It’s us girls who are cursed with that grey area. It makes us overthink, but it’s also what makes us compassionate, caring creatures capable of brilliance. Barker sees that. He knows you, and he’ll forgive you, given time. Men are like plants. You water and feed them, and the rest takes care of itself. The leaves may wilt, but a little tender love and care and they bounce right back. I need to get back. Debbie is covering for me. I said I was only nipping to the loo. I checked the schedule. Maggie finishes in ten minutes. She usually lingers outside for a cigarette before walking to the bus stop. You never heard any of this from me.”
“Gotcha,” Julia said, tapping the side of her nose. “Thank you.”
“Don’t ever forget that you’re brilliant,” Sue said into the car before closing the door. “My beautiful, brilliant, big sister. I’m going to go before I burst into tears. The lime is messing with my emotions today.”
After a little pat on her bump and a final wave to Julia, she retreated back into the hospital, dramatically wafting her hands once again as she slipped through the cloud of smoke billowing from the patients.
Julia waited a couple of minutes before locking her car and walking towards the entrance. She checked her reflection in a car window, and dusted flour from her chocolatey curls.
She lingered back by the pay and display machine, smiling awkwardly at visitors as they glanced suspiciously at her while they tried to pay for their parking. After ten minutes, she began obsessively checking her watch, as more patients tossed their cigarettes to the ground and withdrew back to their wards, only to be replaced with more seconds later. She considered calling Sue to ask if she was sure she had the right time, until she saw Maggie slip out of the hospital.
Julia held back for a moment and observed the woman. Her eyes were stained red, her caramel blonde hair looked ratty and unwashed, and the duffel coat she was wearing over her blue uniform looked like it needed a trip to the dry cleaners. Compared to Rosemary, it was the difference between night and day. Julia watched as she fished her cigarettes out of her pocket, lighting one with shakier hands than some of the patients struggling to balance their crutches and their lighters. When her cigarette was lit, Julia took her moment.
Holding her breath through the smoke cloud, she looked ahead at Maggie, realising why she had recognised her as working at the hospital. She lifted her fingers up to the faint scar near her hairline where she had b
een struck by Charles Wellington’s murderer in March. Maggie had been the nurse to remove the stitches. If it had been for the stitches alone, Julia might have forgotten her face entirely, but it was also the day she had signed and posted her divorce papers, so every detail of that day was engrained forever in her memory.
“Maggie?” Julia asked softly as she walked forward, her hands in her pockets. “Can I join you?”
Maggie scowled at Julia for a moment before a flash of recognition burned through her strained eyes. She pulled her cigarette out of her mouth and blew the stale smoke into Julia’s face.
“You!” she sneered, venom in her voice. “What do you want?”
“I know what you’ve heard about me, but I can assure you, it’s not true,” Julia said, standing next to Maggie uninvited and leaning against the sign that told patients not to smoke at the entrance. “I didn’t kill Anthony. I know you loved him.”
“What do you know?” Maggie scoffed before sucking hard on her cigarette, tiny lines framing her lips. “How did you find me here?”
“I know you were in a relationship with Anthony Kennedy for many years before he died,” Julia said, ignoring Maggie’s second question. “I know you left your husband, probably in the hope that Anthony would do the same with his wife so you could be together.”
The cigarette dropped from her lips and tumbled down her uniform. She stared at Julia for a moment before quickly dusting the grey ash off the blue fabric. She stamped on the cigarette and instantly pulled a fresh one from the packet. To Julia’s surprise, she offered her one, which she politely declined. Roxy Carter’s older sister, Rachel, had once persuaded Julia to try a cigarette when they were teenagers, but after one baby inhale she knew it hadn’t been for her and one had never passed her lips since. Rachel was now in prison serving a life sentence for stabbing one of Julia’s customers, but Julia didn’t like to think the cigarettes were linked to the murderous streak, even as she was watching the woman at the top of her suspects’ list light another cigarette.