Doughnuts and Deception (Peridale Cafe Cozy Mystery Book 3)

by Agatha Frost

  “No.”

  “You’re lying,” Jessie muttered through tight lips. “I can always tell when you’re lying. Your cheeks always go red. It’s the same look you give me whenever you try one of my cakes.”

  “It’s not,” Julia lied again. “Please, just go back to the car and do what I asked.”

  Julia looked over Jessie’s shoulder to the car, but like Barker’s, it was nowhere to be seen. In the distance, she saw Neil’s car drive around the roundabout and take the turning back to Peridale.

  “Looks like you’re stuck with me,” Jessie whispered smugly. “Your gran is so busy planning your funeral she didn’t even notice I wasn’t there.”

  “They’ll come back looking for you,” Julia said desperately, her cheeks burning hotter than ever. “Just go and wait over there.”

  “They won’t find me when they get here.” Jessie pulled her hair back and fastened it in the small of her neck with the hair tie she always had wrapped around her wrist. When she was done, she pulled her black hood down to her eyes and zipped the front up to her chin. “You’re not the only person who can go in disguise.”

  “You can’t be here,” Julia whispered, looking up and down the street for a sign of a way out. “He’s not going to approach if he sees you.”

  “You told me you didn’t know if I was a boy or girl when we first met.” Jessie hunched her shoulders, looked down and crammed her hands in her baggy jeans’ pockets. “Remember? I can handle myself, Julia.”

  Julia saw more of herself in Jessie than she liked to admit in that moment. She wondered if this was what Barker felt like every time Julia refused to back down from one of her ideas. Knowing there was nothing she could say to her young lodger to change her mind, Julia reluctantly turned on her heels and walked back around to the narrow path leading back to the gap in the fence.

  “There’s somebody there,” Jessie whispered, putting her arm in front of Julia. “Up ahead.”

  “My eyes did the same thing to me.”

  “No, seriously.” Jessie yanked Julia into the trees and dragged her down behind a bush. “You need to get your eyes tested, old lady.”

  “Less of the old.”

  Julia peered over the bush, quickly darting down again when she saw the figure Jessie had seen. Wearing a dark trench coat, he pressed his nose up against the fence, only metres away from Barker.

  “Let’s get him,” Jessie whispered, ready to spring up at any moment. “You hold him down, and I’ll sock him on the nose.”

  Julia had to practically wrestle Jessie to the ground to stop her from springing up and launching herself at the man. Resting her hand over Jessie’s mouth, Julia peered over the bush once more, and watched as the man disappeared back the way he came.

  “Get off me,” Jessie said as she yanked Julia’s hand away. “You just let him get away.”

  “It might not have even been him.”

  “Who even is he, anyway?” Jessie asked, standing up and brushing the leaves and dirt from her jeans. “How am I supposed to know who to attack if you don’t tell me?”

  “You’re not going to attack anyone, do you hear me?” Julia said, wincing as Jessie helped her up from the ground, the creak in her knees reminding her she was more than double Jessie’s age. “You’re going to sit quietly, and not ask too many questions, okay?”

  “Sure,” Jessie scoffed. “You’re funny when you want to be.”

  They walked back to the fence and Julia held out the slats for Jessie to climb through. Keeping her head low and her hands in her pockets, she walked along to Barker and sat down. As Julia pushed herself through the gap, she looked around to make sure they hadn’t been seen, and it didn’t seem like they had.

  “This was your plan?” Barker snapped as he pulled Jessie in. “Are you crazy, Julia?”

  “I have ears,” Jessie replied, leaning into Barker and scowling. “I’m not a kid. I’m seventeen next month.”

  “You’re a kid in the eyes of the law.”

  “The law can kiss my -,”

  “I didn’t have a choice,” Julia jumped in, apologising with her eyes to Barker. “They drove off without her. They’ll probably come back to look for her when they realise.”

  “Too bad I’m staying here,” Jessie said, rubbing her hands in front of her mouth. “It’s just like old times. Shall we start a fire?”

  “I have a terrible feeling about this,” Barker said, sighing and shaking his head. “I’m going to wake up in my bubble bath and this will all have been a bad dream.”

  “You have bubble baths?” Jessie mocked, snickering under her breath. “Who’s the little girl now?”

  Julia stopped herself from laughing, instead smiling under her hood at Barker. Exhaling and frowning, he leaned against the fence, crossed his arms and closed his eyes. The people were showing no signs of going to sleep anytime soon. It was going to be a long night.

  Julia’s eyes shot open. She knew she had been asleep for more than a couple of seconds. Blinking into the darkness, she pulled her coat tighter around her body. It hadn’t been so cold when she had closed her eyes. Sitting up straight, she let out a long yawn, noticing how eerily quiet things were. The fires had died down and everybody had bedded down for the night. Barker’s snoring next to her told her she wasn’t the only one who had allowed herself to rest her eyes.

  When her pupils adjusted to the blackness, she looked ahead and noticed a slim figure moving away from her in the darkness. Remembering Jessie, Julia jumped up.

  “Jessie,” Julia whispered into the dark. “Where are you going?”

  “I saw something near the gate,” she whispered back over her shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’ve been keeping watch since you fell asleep.”

  Guilt surged through Julia as she fast-walked to catch up with Jessie. How long had she been asleep? Just from the temperature, it already felt like the early hours of the morning.

  “What did you see?”

  “I thought I saw a man walking past.”

  “Thought?”

  “It’s dark,” Jessie whispered before letting out a long yawn. “It’s been a long night.”

  Julia’s guilt increased. How could she have put them all at danger by being so stupid? She glanced back at Barker as he slept peacefully by the fence. Why did she have to drag other people into her mess? She wished she had done it alone, with a flask of strong, hot coffee.

  They reached the street and the warm safety of the streetlights. The road was completely silent in either direction, the only movement coming from the soft shadows of clouds rolling past the pale yellow, almost-full moon.

  “There’s nobody here,” Julia whispered, moving in closer to Jessie. “Let’s get back to Barker.”

  “I saw a man,” Jessie said, ignoring Julia and walking down the street. “It could be him.”

  “It was probably just a trick of the light,” Julia whispered, jogging to keep up with Jessie. “Let’s just get back to Barker.”

  Jessie suddenly ground to a halt, putting her arm out to stop Julia. She turned around, her expression angry and firm. Julia’s heart sank. She knew what was coming next.

  “You left Barker, a man, alone next to the fence where men are being murdered?”

  Julia’s heart sank to the pit of her stomach. She didn’t realise she was running until she felt the wind rip back her hood, tear off her hat, and unleash her curls. Almost in a daze, she could feel Jessie directly behind her as she rounded the corner back into the industrial park.

  When Julia saw a shadowy figure climbing through the fence, her heart sank even further, but when she saw a second figure climbing through, her heart practically stopped. She wanted to scream out for Barker, but her vocal cords were paralysed.

  “There’s two of them?” Jessie cried, hot on Julia’s heels.

  “I – I didn’t know,” Julia said, unsure if her words were vocal or just in her mind. “I didn’t know.”

  When the bigger of the dark figures grabbed Barker, Ju
lia let out an ear-piercing screech, but she didn’t hear it. Her legs ran faster than they had in her life, outrunning the girl half her age. Barker’s eyes shot open, but before he could scream out, the figure’s hand wrapped around his mouth. The second, smaller figure pulled a needle out of their pocket, their hands obviously shaking.

  “Do it!” the bigger figure, a man, cried. “Do it now!”

  “Stella!” Julia cried, grinding to a halt metres from the fence, her palms darting up in front of her. “Drop the needle, Stella!”

  Julia’s use of the smaller figure’s name had been a guess, but when the woman turned and looked at Julia, fear alive in the whites of her eyes through the balaclava, Julia knew her guess had been correct.

  “I have to do this,” Stella mumbled, her hands shaking so out of control it looked like she had just been dunked in a cold bath. “It’s God’s will.”

  “Is this woman for real?” Jessie cried.

  Julia edged closer, her hands outstretched and her face kind. The man yanked back his balaclava. Julia wasn’t surprised to see Max.

  “Stella, don’t listen to her,” Max growled, his teeth bared like a dog ready to attack. “You know God spoke to me. Spoke to us!”

  Stella nodded, fumbling with the plastic end of the needle. She yanked it off and dropped it to the ground, some of the poisonous solution falling from the metal tip. Julia saw it drip to the ground as though in slow motion.

  “God spoke to us,” Stella said, echoing her husband. “He wants us to make the world a better place.”

  “By murdering innocent people?”

  “God was vengeful, Julia.” Stella turned to Julia and pulled back her balaclava, a deranged, sweet smile consuming her pale, slender face. “When God spoke to Noah and told him to build the ark, he told him to save the animals, not the people. The people needed to be taught a lesson. They needed to die.”

  “What is this woman on?” Jessie cried. “Somebody call the police!”

  Barker started to scream behind the gloved hand, his eyes wide and staring at Julia. She felt as though she was looking into the eyes of a dead man. She held back her tears, knowing she had to remain strong. She had to fix her mess.

  “I know what happened to your daughter,” Julia said, taking another baby step forward. “Bethany. I know she was murdered by a homeless man, right there on that path. I know she was walking him back from the soup kitchen, and that he attacked her. I can’t imagine what that feels like, but this isn’t the answer.”

  “You’re right,” Max spat, his nose so wrinkled and tight, he no longer resembled a human. “You can’t know what that feels like. None of you can. We did nothing but help these disgusting people, and that’s how they repay us? By taking our daughter?”

  The crack in Max’s voice broke Julia’s heart. For a moment, she saw the eyes of a grieving father, not a murderer.

  “Just because the awful, evil man who took your Bethany was homeless, it doesn’t mean you need to punish every homeless person.”

  “We’re making the world a better place,” Stella repeated. “They’re a disease.”

  “I know you don’t believe that,” Julia whispered, stepping closer, her palms spread wide. “You put your love into your soup to help these people. You care about these people.”

  “God -,” Stella started, her voice trailing off as her bottom lip wobbled uncontrollably.

  “God wouldn’t ask you to kill,” Julia said, smiling through her own pain. “Would he, Stella? Remember what you told me about the dead? They never really leave us. What would Bethany say if she saw you like this? You said she walks beside you. If that’s true, she’s here right now, seeing you do this.”

  Stella looked desperately from Julia to Max, searching for answers from the devil and angel on her shoulders. Max tightened his grip on Barker, his arm secure around his throat. Beads of sweat trickled down Barker’s bright red face, his eyes darting from Julia to the shocked crowd that she could feel gathering behind her.

  “Max?” Stella pleaded. “What does God say?”

  “I think Max lost his faith when you lost Bethany,” Julia whispered, stepping within reaching distance of the needle. “Isn’t that right, Max? You can’t speak to God any more than I can.”

  “I’m tired of this,” Max cried, his grip tightening so firm around Barker’s neck that the Detective Inspector’s eyes started to flutter. “Give me the needle, Stella.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Julia spotted movement. She didn’t turn to look but she could sense a slow, lumbering figure edging closer to Max. She wanted to cry out, to stop them doing anything stupid, but she couldn’t take her eyes away from Barker’s fluttering lids.

  “Stella,” Julia choked, unable to hold back the tears anyway. “You loved your daughter, didn’t you?”

  “Of course she did!” Max barked. “We both did!”

  “Well, I love this man,” Julia stepped forward, not caring if Stella lashed out with the needle. “Don’t take him from me before I’ve even had a chance to get to know his middle name, or his favourite colour. Please, Stella. I’m not a mother, but you know I understand loss. Remember when I told you about my mother? I understand your anger. I understand your desperation to believe you’re doing the right thing, but you’re not. This is your first time even holding a needle at somebody, isn’t it? All the other times Max was on his own, wasn’t he?”

  Stella nodded, tears streaming down her face as she stared down at the needle.

  “I didn’t understand when he told me what he had done, but when he told me it was an order from God, I knew we had to finish his mission.”

  “There’s no mission,” Julia mumbled through her tears. “Please stop this.”

  The lumbering movement came into Julia’s full view, and she involuntarily turned her head. So did Max, but not quick enough to duck out of the way of the solid gas canister heading for his skull. With a solid thud, Max let go of Barker, swayed on the spot for a moment, and collapsed into a groaning heap.

  “Enough talking,” Tommy cried, dropping the gas canister and stumbling into the fence, his legs giving out without the aid of his stick. “Hold him down, boys.”

  Three men rushed forward, all of them jumping on Max like a pack of starving dogs on a sliver of meat. She expected them to hit the unconscious man. She wouldn’t stop them if they did. To her surprise, they just pinned him to the ground.

  “I’m sorry,” Stella whispered, her eyes as wide as the moon in the sky as she lifted the needle up. “Bethany, Mummy is coming.”

  Julia heard her own cries echo around the industrial park. She dove forwards, her hand clutching Stella’s wrist. The frail woman didn’t fight. She relaxed her hand and dropped the needle to the ground. In that moment, every muscle in Stella’s body seemed to vanish and she crumbled like her husband had. Julia caught her, and they both fell to the ground. As Stella sobbed, Julia wrapped her arms around the poor woman’s shoulders and pulled her in, as though she was her mother. She felt every ounce of her grief, every drop of her pain, every tear she had shed for her daughter. That agony consumed Julia. She didn’t try to hold back her own sobs.

  Through her tears, she opened her eyes to see Barker clutching onto the fence, gasping for air. She knew some of her tears were for him. Her declaration of love echoed around in her mind and she sobbed even harder, the fresh tears from a place of relief and elation, rather than pain.

  Police sirens echoed in the distance, letting her know it was all over. She released her grip on Stella and let Jessie help her up off the ground.

  “I thought she was going to kill you,” Jessie whispered through her tears as she buried her face into Julia’s heavy overcoat. “You’re so stupid.”

  “I know,” Julia said, gripping Jessie’s head tight to her chest. “I’m so sorry.”

  As uniformed officers stormed the scene, Julia caught Barker’s eyes. Through his pain, he smiled at her. Rubbing his neck, he staggered forward, wrapping his arm around t
he both of them. He pressed his lips against Julia’s head, his palm gripping the back of her head so tightly she couldn’t help but feel safe. None of them let go until officers pried them apart, demanding statements from all of them.

  Julia had never been in her café at sunrise, but as she hugged a mug of peppermint and liquorice tea behind the counter, she began to wonder why she wasn’t there every morning to witness the vibrant orange sky illuminating the grass.

  “Julia!” Dot cried as she stormed through the cafe full of everybody who had been at Fenton when Max and Stella had been arrested. “Oh, Julia! I thought you were dead!”

  Julia set her mug on the counter and let her gran hug her tightly, until she practically couldn’t breathe. When she finally managed to pull her away, guilt flooded her when it became obvious her gran hadn’t slept.

  “What on Earth is going on?” Dot cried. “Who are all these people? Where’s Jessie?”

  “I’m here,” Jessie stood up from the table she had been sharing with Tommy, pulling her hood down. “Come with me, I’ll explain everything.”

  Jessie looped her arm through Dot’s and practically dragged her through to the kitchen as she stared around the full café, her mouth opening and closing, the questions appearing to flood her brain faster than her mouth could process them. Julia mouthed her thanks to Jessie, who winked in return.

  “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, you’re an extraordinary woman, Julia,” Tommy said, motioning to the seat across from him. “Not many would do what you did tonight.”

  “I’m a stupid woman,” she said as she sat down, glad to be off her feet. “I almost got Barker killed.”

  “If you hadn’t been there, it would have been one of us.”

  There was a chorus of mumbled agreement through the mouthful of free cake and coffee.

  “I’m just glad it’s all over,” Julia said, letting out a sigh of relief.

  “When I said not many would do what you did, I wasn’t just talking about trying to catch that evil man,” Tommy said thoughtfully as he leaned back in his chair. “A lesser person would have let Stella Moon take her own life.”