by Agatha Frost
“As first dates go, this one was certainly different,” Julia said, enjoying the feeling of Barker’s hand resting heavily on her shoulder, his thumb touching the exposed part of her collarbone. “I’ll let you take me home now, Detective.”
It rained again all day, but that didn’t stop people coming into Julia’s café to gossip. She took almost record takings from the residents who wanted somewhere to sit and talk about Katie’s arrest. The rain seemed to help keep them there hours longer than usual, and by noon it was standing room only.
When Julia finally shooed the last customers out of the café at the end of the day and flipped the sign, the forced smile dropped from her face and she rested her head against the door, completely exhausted. She hadn’t been able to sleep much the night before because Katie’s shrieking had rattled around her ears until the early hours. She was sure she only managed an hour of sleep before Jessie’s head banging on the wardrobe door jolted her out of her exhausted slumber.
“You look knackered,” Jessie said, letting out her own yawn as she started to clear away the messy tables. “I thought you would have slept better last night knowing that your step-mother who isn’t your step-mother is behind bars.”
Julia untied her apron and pulled it over her head, tossing it onto a table. She caught Jessie’s yawn, and her mouth opened so wide she thought it was never going to close again. The bags under her eyes were practically ruched. All she could think of was her bed, however, there was somebody she wanted to visit before she could do that.
“Are you okay cleaning up on your own?” Julia asked, already grabbing her pink coat and umbrella from the hooks in the kitchen. “I’ll lock the door. Just use the spare keys to let yourself out and lock up if I’m not back.”
“Where are you going?” Jessie asked after dropping a pile of dishes into the hot soapy water she had just run.
“How do you feel about college?” Julia asked.
“College?” Jessie replied with a deep frown. “I wasn’t any good at school. I failed all my exams.”
“Joanne’s son, Jamie, is on a building apprenticeship,” Julia said as she pushed her arms through her coat. “He studies at college one day a week, but he works for the rest of the week. You’re already doing that, so why not get qualified?”
Jessie screwed her up face before looking down her nose at Julia.
“You mean, like a certificate?” Jessie asked. “A real one?”
“As real as they come,” Julia said, glad that Jessie wasn’t dismissing it outright. “It’ll look good for when your social worker visits if we’re showing that you’re settling into Peridale. This is just another way to do that.”
The mention of her social worker stiffened Jessie in an instant, and her face turned bright red as though she had completely stopped breathing. Julia stared at her young lodger as she buttoned up her jacket, suddenly realising she hadn’t heard from the social worker in a while.
“Yeah, whatever,” Jessie said, spinning and picking up a dirty plate which she started to vigorously scrub.
“Joanne has a prospectus for the college so we’ll have a look properly tonight,” Julia said, grabbing her handbag and tossing it over her shoulder. “If you need anything, you have my mobile number.”
Jessie nodded, her dark ponytail bobbing up and down. As she walked through the café towards the door, she wondered why Jessie was so scared of her social worker. When they had spoken on the phone, she had seemed like a pleasant lady, even if she had not sent out the paperwork she said she would.
Julia pushed up her umbrella the second she stepped outside, pulling it close to her head. Strong wind almost knocked her off her feet as she walked around the village green. The umbrella did little to protect her from being soaked by the sideways falling rain, which was tumbling so heavily it bounced off the road underfoot.
Julia was glad Joanne’s cottage was only around the corner, nestled along with three other terraced cottages between The Cozy Corner and Peridale’s tiny library. She hadn’t realised how close the Lewis house was to the library, which made sense of Terry’s gambling visits. She imagined Joanne had banned him from doing it in the house, driving him next door.
The houses were directly on the narrow winding road, meaning Julia had no protection from the rain as she stood and waited for somebody to answer the door. A car zoomed by, sending water cascading over her. A cold cry escaped her lips as the icy water soaked through to her figure, driving her knuckles harder into the thick door.
When the door finally opened, it was Jamie Lewis, not Joanne or Terry who answered.
“Is your mother home?” Julia asked, her teeth chattering as she clung desperately to her useless umbrella, her hands white and freezing.
“She’s out shopping,” Jamie mumbled, barely making eye contact with Julia.
“Will she be long?”
Jamie shrugged and looked over his shoulder to the roaring fire in the heart of the sitting room.
“Could I possibly come in to wait?” Julia said, forcing herself to smile. “I’m quite soaked through.”
Jamie sighed, and Julia almost expected him to slam the door in her face, but he stepped to the side and let her in. Julia hurried in backwards, collapsing her umbrella as she went. Jamie closed the door behind her. For a moment she stood dripping on the doormat while she tried to catch her breath.
“Could I have something to warm me up?” Julia asked. “Some tea, perhaps?”
“Whatever,” Jamie said with a shrug.
“Plop this in some boiling water,” Julia said, pulling a soaked peppermint and liquorice tea sachet from her handbag. “Emphasis on the word boiling.”
Julia’s attempt at humour didn’t crack a smile on the surly teenager’s face. He snatched the teabag out of Julia’s shaking fingers and lumbered off to the kitchen, leaving Julia to her own devices. She pulled off her coat, glad that her dress beneath was only wet at the back. Nestling on a footstool in front of the roaring fire, she hugged her body as the warmth surged through her frozen flesh.
Jamie returned, practically tossing her tea onto the side table next to her, splashing and soaking a stack of letters. Julia’s eyes instantly honed in on the red writing on the top one, which read ‘DO NOT IGNORE. IMPORTANT’. She didn’t need x-ray vision to know it was probably a credit card or loan company chasing a debt.
Jamie threw himself onto the couch and picked up a controller to resume playing the fighting game he had been playing before Julia interrupted. She watched as the character on the screen shot a man three times at short range, no doubt controlled by Jamie. She looked at the teenager, who didn’t seem phased by the gore on screen. Julia wondered if Jessie had grown up in a conventional and stable home, would she be interested in the same things as other teenagers?
“I’ve actually come to ask your mother about apprenticeships,” Julia offered, attempting to add something to the awkward silence other than the boom of the gun. “She told me you’re doing one in building.”
“Construction,” he corrected her, his thumbs tapping away on the controller.
“Do you enjoy it?”
Jamie shrugged heavily, staring ahead at the TV screen like a zombie. Julia wondered if the purple bags around his eyes were from a lack of sleep or just from staring at the screen for too long.
“Is today your day off?”
“They rang up and told us not to come in today,” Jamie muttered, his attention firmly on the game. “Probably ’cause of the rain. Can’t pour cement in the rain.”
Jamie didn’t seem to have heard about what had happened at Peridale Manor last night. She considered not telling him, but she was sure news would spread around the entire village by the end of the day.
“Katie Wellington-South was arrested last night,” Julia said, picking up her mug and cupping it warmly in her hands. “For her brother’s murder.”
Jamie’s thumbs stopped tapping and he paused the game. He turned to Julia, his brow stern.
“What?” Jamie snapped. “What does that mean?”
“It means that I don’t know what is happening with the spa,” Julia said. “I know your dad was relying on the work, but I don’t know if the work will be there if she’s convicted.”
“My dad?” Jamie cried, his previously disinterested and quiet voice suddenly loud and full of passion. “You don’t know the first thing about my dad, or what we’re going through!”
“I’m sure you’ll get another job,” Julia offered, glancing to the letters on the side table. “I doubt this will change anything with your apprenticeship.”
“My apprenticeship?” Jamie cried, tossing the controller onto the floor and suddenly standing up. “Do you think I wanted to do this stupid apprenticeship? I’ve only done it to help my dad. He needed the extra pair of hands for the spa job.”
Julia put her tea back on the side table and stood up, preparing herself to tell Jamie she would come back later. At that very moment, the door opened and Joanne hurried in, her hands full of shopping bags, and her short curly hair soaked to her scalp.
“Julia,” she cried, her teeth chattering. “What a surprise.”
Joanne looked from Julia to Jamie, who was still standing there, his breathing suddenly erratic. Julia wasn’t sure what the teen was going to do, but he turned on his heels and stormed off up the narrow flight of stairs. A door slammed, shaking the cottage.
“Boys at that age,” Joanne said with an awkward laugh. “Full of hormones and testosterone. I tell him that game isn’t good for his moods.”
Julia hurried over and took some of the shopping bags out of Joanne’s hands, which she gratefully handed over.
“I stopped by to grab that college prospectus from you,” Julia said as they walked through to the kitchen. “Jamie was kind enough to let me in out of the rain to dry off.”
“Of course,” Joanne said, slapping herself gently on the forehead after setting the bags down. “You know what, I’ve been so busy that I completely forgot. I’ll go and grab it for you. It’s in Jamie’s bedroom, I think. That’s if he’s speaking to me.”
Joanne let out another nervous laugh and rolled her eyes. Julia pondered if this was what she had in store if she fostered Jessie. With the sleepwalking suddenly occurring, she wondered what else was around the corner.
Leaving the kitchen, she walked back through to the sitting room to pick up her tea. Glancing to the staircase to make sure she was alone, she curiously picked up the top letter to see if the one underneath it appeared to be a debt letter. Julia was shocked when she reached the bottom of a pile of ten and they all appeared to be quite serious letters from various companies. Peridale’s residents might not have wanted the spa, but she knew the Lewis family needed it. Her heart hurt to think Katie had offered them a way to solve their problems, and then taken it away just as quickly.
She remembered a period of financial difficulty early in her marriage when Jerrad had racked up a serious credit card debt and hidden the letters from her for over a year. When she found them stuffed in a box of cereal he knew she didn’t like, she ripped open each envelope like a women possessed. The only reason she had opened the box was because it had passed its use by date. The rage and upset she had felt back then flared up inside of her again as she carried her cup through to the kitchen. She could only imagine how much worse things were for Joanne.
Jamie’s bedroom door slammed again, yanking Julia out of her thoughts. She jumped, her heavy cup slipping from her still shaking fingers. It tumbled silently to the ground, much like Charles had from the window. With a loud smash, it split into three large pieces, ricocheting fragments of porcelain across the tiled floor. Glancing up at the kitchen ceiling, she expected to hear Joanne’s footprints running down to her, but she didn’t.
Making a mental note to confess her crime and offer to replace the mug, Julia opened the cupboard under the sink and fished the dustpan and brush from in between two large bottles of bleach. Bending down, she quickly brushed up the mess from the terracotta tiles, making sure to get right under the shopping bags.
Looking back up at the ceiling, she heard Joanne and her son bickering in low voices about something, no doubt about how many computer games he played.
Julia stepped over the shopping bags towards the bin with the cup fragments balanced in the dustpan. The front door opened and closed again, letting the sound of the wind rattle around the small cottage. She popped open the bin and glanced over her shoulder to see if somebody had just arrived, or if Jamie had just stormed out. Deciding it was none of her business either way, Julia turned her attention to the bin as she poured the broken cup in with the rubbish.
She almost released the bin pedal under her foot, but something black, set against something white caught her eyes. Glancing over her shoulder, she leaned in further, making out the shape of another giant bottle of bleach buried in the rubbish, and on top of it, the black thing appeared to be made of fabric. Reaching inside, she fished it out, shaking off the broken cup pieces as she did.
As she held the balaclava up in front of her face, her heart sunk to the pit her stomach. She stared into the soulless eyeholes, and they stared back, mocking her for getting things so wrong.
“Oh, Julia,” she heard from behind her. “If only you had left things alone.”
Dropping the balaclava, she turned just in time to see Terry Lewis holding the hot kettle over his head. It struck the side of Julia’s skull, and she was unconscious before she hit the shopping bags.
Julia was aware that she was travelling in a car before her eyes opened. She was also aware her ankles and wrists were tied before she tried to move them. Letting out a loud groan, she rolled her head against the headrest, a splitting pain piercing through her head as she watched the blurry streetlamps whiz by in the rain.
She thought she was dreaming, and any moment Jessie’s head banging or Mowgli jumping on her chest would wake her. Her eyelids were so heavy, but she tried to force them open as the orange lights blurred by. They suddenly stopped. She felt the tyres underneath her change from smooth road onto something bumpier. She realised that she was in danger.
She attempted to speak, to cry out, but all that left her mouth was a muffled groan. She bit down, her teeth landing in something soft. Was she gagged? Opening her eyes properly for the first time, she let out a terrified cry.
“Shut her up!” the driver commanded.
A hand vanished behind Julia’s head, pulling the gag tighter into her mouth. Despite the pounding in her head, she turned to see Jamie Lewis sitting next to her in the back seat of the car. He blankly stared at her, emotionless and empty.
Julia shook her head and something hot and thick trickled down the side of her face. She attempted to lift her hands up to touch it, but Jamie yanked them back into her lap. She didn’t need to put her fingers to the cut to know Terry’s blow to her head had caused some serious damage. Her eyelids fluttered again, this time not from exhaustion, but from an intense wooziness. She tried to fight it, but against her own will, darkness claimed her.
Julia felt the rain on her skin before she opened her eyes. She felt the sensation of floating before she attempted to move her limbs. She assumed she was dead and entering the afterlife, but the pain in her head screamed out, letting her know that she was very much alive. She opened her eyes again and stared down into the darkness.
Frowning hard, she realised that she was being carried. She didn’t know why, but the plod of the walk told her she was draped over Terry’s shoulder. Instead of trying to make noise, she forced herself to stay silent, despite the intense pain and crippling fear.
“This has all gone too far,” she heard Joanne hiss.
“She would have gone to the police,” Terry said, and Julia could feel his words boom through his body and into hers. “We couldn’t allow that. She wasn’t just going to ruin our future, but our son’s too. Is that what you want?”
“Of course not!” she snapped back.
“This woul
dn’t have happened if you hadn’t been so useless,” Terry said. “I’m tired of cleaning up your mess.”
Julia waited for the person to reply, but they didn’t. Without needing to open her eyes, she became aware of the presence walking two steps behind her. She wanted so desperately to see who it was, but she fought the urge to open her eyes.
“This is never going to work,” Joanne moaned. “They’re going to catch us.”
“They’re not,” Terry bit back, his voice full of venom. “The bimbo is in jail and her other half is drowning his sorrows in a bottle of whiskey. He’ll be asleep by now and I doubt anything is waking him. It’s perfect.”
“What about the old man?”
“He’s had a stroke,” Terry said with a dark laugh. “Even if he saw the whole thing, he wouldn’t be able to say a word.”
“Are you sure there’s nobody else?”
“There’s a housekeeper but she’s old,” Terry said, sounding irritated by Joanne’s questions. “She’ll be fast asleep.”
“How are we even going to get in there?” Joanne asked, the worry loud and clear in her voice. “Oh, Terry, it’s not too late.”
“To do what?” he cried, his voice booming. “Hand ourselves in? Tell them the truth about what happened at the garden party? Is that what you want? Huh, Joanne? Is that what you want?”
“You know it isn’t!”
“Then this is the only way,” Terry said, readjusting his grip on Julia by tossing her in the air. “You know it is. Why did you let her into the house? You’re an idiot, boy.”
Julia realised the figure walking behind her was Jamie. Opening her eyes a fraction she looked down at his shoes. Heavy mud-covered work boots; size eight if she had to guess. Closing them again, she realised where they were going and what was likely about to happen.
“Get the key out of my pocket, Joanne,” Terry instructed. “It’s under her foot. Be careful not to wake her. If she’s still out, she won’t be able to make a sound.”