by Agatha Frost
“Hello?” Julia called as she crept into the flat. “Is everything okay?”
She heard the fear in her voice; everything was far from okay. A siren blared in the distance as the rain pounded outside, only making the silence within the unlocked flat more evident. She reached the feet and pushed open the door to reveal a photo-developing studio.
Glossy photographs hung from strings above trays of liquid, but they weren’t where Julia’s attention was drawn. Rita lay stiffly on the floor, swathed in red light. She wore her usual high-necked top and a cream fur coat. Her pearl necklace was missing, but she had a new accessory jutting out of her chest: a large kitchen knife.
10
They’re not linking it to Gloria’s death,” Barker said after getting off the phone. “Christie doesn’t see any pattern.”
“Because he doesn’t want to see a pattern!” Julia cried, slamming her hands on the dining room table. “That man is a stubborn pig!”
“The last thing he wants to do is confirm there might be a serial killer on the loose.” Barker rubbed her back. “It would cause a panic.”
“But there is someone on the loose!” Julia pushed her hands into her curls, already exhausted by the day, even though the sun had only just risen. “He was happy to point out that I was a ‘link’ between both murders because I ‘happened to be there’ both times. He drilled me all last night like I was involved! I went to talk to Rita to try and figure out if she was the one who killed Gloria, and I ended up the prime suspect.”
“Then it’s a good thing they confirmed the time of death so quickly.” Barker gave her a reassuring squeeze. “She’d been dead for at least twelve hours when you found her, which means we were together in this cottage after my birthday meal.”
“And if they hadn’t figured that out, they’d be charging me right now.” Julia inhaled deeply, wanting to calm herself and not having much luck. “It’s so obvious what is happening. Why can’t Christie see the connection? Someone is murdering members of the Peridale Harmonics Choir, and I still have no idea why. I should have taken this more seriously from the beginning. I’ve been going with the flow instead of swimming against the tide.”
“You’ve been through a lot.”
“Not as much as Gloria and Rita.” Julia sighed and rubbed her temples. “Two women from the same choir are dead. Regardless of how they treated people, they didn’t deserve to die. The same person murdered them. I’m sure of it.”
“I think so too,” Barker said softly, “but we need to look at the evidence objectively. Gloria was poisoned, whereas Rita was stabbed. That’s not a pattern. It doesn’t mean they won’t link the two eventually, but they’re still gathering evidence for both cases.”
“And until then?” Julia shrugged off Barker’s hands and stood up. “We wait for more members to die? My gran is part of that choir. What if she’s the next target?”
Julia paced the dining room as her mind struggled to filter through the noise. Rita had been her prime suspect, and now she was dead. She dug in her handbag for her notepad and flipped to the page of suspects she had made. Only Skye and Percy were left. Before Julia could think about either, a soft knock sounded at the front door.
“I’ll get it,” Barker said, brushing his hand over her shoulders as he left the room. “Whoever it is, I’ll get rid of them.”
Julia stared at the notepad.
Skye.
Percy.
She flipped the page.
Father David.
“Julia?” Barker called. “There’s someone here to see you.”
She tossed the notepad into her handbag and walked into the hallway, where Alec Bishop stood with a large backpack over his shoulder. He was wrapped up warm, a woolly hat pulled low and covering his blond hair. Red rings circled his swollen eyes, hinting at a sleepless night consumed by tears.
“They said you found her,” Alec croaked.
Julia nodded and motioned toward the sitting room. He closed the front door and dropped his bag before following her in. He sat next to Mowgli on the couch, all the life and energy drained from his body. Barker retreated to the dining room, leaving Julia alone with the young man.
“I went to her old cottage in Riverswick,” Julia explained after settling into the armchair across from him. “One of the neighbours told me what happened and that she was living with her son. I remembered where you lived from our meeting at the end of summer when I hired you to take pictures for my wedding.”
“I should have been there.” Alec stared into the fireplace as the wind rattled down the chimney. “I took her out for a meal, and we went back to my flat. Mum wanted to watch a movie, but my friend asked me to go to a bar. Mum told me to go, and I did. I should have gone home after the bar, but I didn’t want to wake her. I was drunk. I was five doors down, sleeping on my friend’s floor, and she was dead in my flat.”
Tears streamed silently down Alec’s cheeks. He let them drip into his lap without trying to wipe them away.
“It’s not your fault,” Julia assured him. “If it hadn’t have happened then, it would have happened another time.”
“The police said it was a robbery gone wrong.” Alec’s eyes snapped to Julia’s, and he frowned. “All her jewellery was taken. They even took the pearl necklace from around her neck. She had to sell everything from the house, but she refused to let go of her jewellery. One of the last conversations we had was about that stupid jewellery. I took her to The Comfy Corner to try and get through to her. She’d lost everything, and yet she was still spending the little money she had. She’d sell a pair of designer shoes and then spend it on a new handbag. I told her I couldn’t look after her forever. I’m going to regret that until the day I die.”
Julia wanted to offer words of comfort, but she had no idea what would possibly pull him out of the dark hole his mind had fallen into.
“What was she like as a mother?” Julia asked, wanting to brighten his mood.
“Tough.” A half-smile pricked up Alec’s lips. “She wanted the best out of everyone and everything. There was no such thing as less than perfect in her world. I didn’t really fit into that. She wanted me to go into music, but I never took to it. I’d sit through hours and hours of piano and singing lessons, and she’d hate that I didn’t want to try. I was always interested in photography, even as a kid. I’d fill disposable cameras with endless pictures of people and places, and I’d pay to have them developed with my pocket money. I grew up wealthy, but even though she was lavish when it came to buying things for herself, she was frugal when it came to me.”
Alec choked on his words and pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes.
“It wasn’t even her money,” he continued, “it was my father’s. She met my dad at the Royal Academy of Music. He came from old money, and she clung to him. He became a composer and earned his own fortune. She tried to get her hands on it in the divorce, but it backfired.”
“How so?”
“The lawyers proved she’d been stealing his money for years. She walked away with the bare minimum. It was still a large chunk, but she threw it away. She couldn’t seem to understand that money wouldn’t keep coming to her like it always had. She treated it like she always had another stash hidden away. I had no idea she wasn’t paying for the house until she turned up on my doorstep with her bags. She waltzed in and demanded I let her stay until she found her feet.”
Alex paused when Barker slipped into the room with two cups of tea. He placed them on the table and backed out without saying a word.
“That was two months ago.” Alec stared at the tea, but he didn’t reach out for it. “She never even got close to getting her own place. I don’t think she wanted to. She was more bothered about that choir. I kept telling her to find a job, but she acted like the choir was her job. She was over the moon when Gloria died because she could finally become the stupid choirmaster. It’s all she’s talked about for years! They kicked her out of Riverswick’s choir because she was alw
ays gunning for the top spot. Maybe she thought being in charge would be her ticket to easy street, but I knew it was just another distraction, like the designer clothes and the jewellery.”
“She did seem to relish in taking over Gloria’s position,” Julia said. “That’s why I wanted to talk to her. She seemed to know something about Gloria’s death. I was at the restaurant when you were. I bumped into your mother in the bathroom. She made a comment about dirty laundry being aired.”
“That sounds like my mother.” Alec inhaled deeply as he looked up at the ceiling. “She always needed the upper hand. She couldn’t bear having people knowing things she didn’t. She wasn’t the type of woman who could look past her own nose to notice how she affected people. And yet, I’m going to miss her. She was my mother. I can’t believe she’s really gone.”
Julia reached out and squeezed his hand. She knew more than anyone what it was like to lose a mother. Alec gave her a thankful smile as he wiped the dampness from his cheeks.
“What will you do now?”
“I’m going to stay with my dad for a while. He’s got a new wife and a bunch of awful step-kids, but he lives in a mansion, and there’s plenty of space. I can’t go back to that flat, and it makes sense to be around family for the time being, especially with Christmas coming up.”
“That’s wise.”
“It’s not like my job isn’t mobile.” He let out a watery half-chuckle before patting down his pockets. “Which reminds me. I wanted to talk to the woman who found my mother, but when I found out it was you, I realised I had to give you this before I left town.”
He pulled something small out of his pocket and handed it to Julia.
“What is it?” She turned the small metal oblong around in her hands.
“It’s a memory stick. It has the few pictures and videos I got from your wedding. It’s all raw and unedited, but I thought they belonged with you. I’ve meant to bring them around, but there was no urgency until today.”
“I don’t think I want to see them.” Julia held the memory stick out. “I want to forget that day ever happened.”
“You don’t have to look at them right now,” he said as he stood up, “but you might change your mind one day, and if you do, they’re there for you. I flipped through a couple of the pictures and despite how things turned out, you really did make a beautiful bride.”
Julia stood up and hugged Alec before walking him to the door. He slung his bag over his shoulder and headed out, turning down her offer of a lift to the train station in favour of getting some fresh air. When she closed the door behind him, Barker reappeared in the hallway.
“What did he want?” he asked, his arms folded.
“He just wanted to see the person who found his mother.” Julia hid the memory stick in her fist. “For closure, maybe, although I don’t think I gave him any. From the way he described Rita, she was hardly going to win any mothering awards.”
“Poor guy.” Barker sucked the air through his teeth as he glanced at the clock on the wall. “I’m supposed to be having a video call with my publisher at ten. I think they’re going to give me the first feedback for the book. I can email and cancel if you want?”
“No.” Julia pushed forward a smile. “It’s important. You’ve been waiting for this. I’ll be fine.”
“It shouldn’t take more than an hour. As soon as it’s done, we’ll crack down on trying to connect the dots between these murders.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Barker made a coffee and shut himself in the dining room, leaving Julia to stare at the device in her palm. She hadn’t even considered the possibility of hard evidence that she had almost got married, and yet, here it was. She wanted to throw it outside or flush it down the toilet—not that getting rid of it would make a difference. Simply knowing the pictures existed was enough to taunt her.
She held the stick up to her face. She saw two clear options. The first was to put the stick in a drawer and hope she forgot about it until a day she was ready to look. The other was to bite the bullet, swallow the bitter pill, and get it out of the way.
As she made a cup of salted caramel hot chocolate with the recently boiled kettle and some milk from the new fridge that had been delivered yesterday, she concluded there was only one thing to do. She squirted cream and sprinkled marshmallows on top of her concoction, no longer caring that she had a dress to fit into. With her treat, she ventured into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.
She sat in the middle of her perfectly-made bed, the Peridale countryside sprawling out from her bedroom window as the radiator warmed the room. She sandwiched her hot chocolate between her crossed legs and pulled her laptop from her bedside drawer. The screen lit up on the last thing she had been looking at, which happened to be potential honeymoon destinations. They had decided they were going to get away together once Christmas was out of the way to enjoy some winter sun as a married couple. The concept felt so far out of reach, like it belonged to a whole different lifetime.
After a sip of her creamy drink, she plugged the stick into her laptop. A window popped up, covering the holiday website. There were two folders, named ‘Pictures’ and ‘Videos’. She clicked the pictures folder first and watched as over a hundred files loaded in a long list. Unsure where to start, or if they were even in chronological order, she double clicked the one at the top of the list. A picture of the outside of Evelyn’s B&B popped up.
Using the arrow keys, she flicked through the pictures. There were more shots of the outside of the B&B, each with different light levels. She assumed these were the test shots to make sure the white balance fitted the weather. When Barker’s face popped up, it made her smile. He was in one of the B&B’s bedrooms, in a white shirt and underwear as he ironed his jacket. She flicked through again, and he was checking his phone with the iron still on the jacket. The next shot showed smoke rising, and then Alec’s hand blurring across the screen. The next had Barker looking at the camera through a crispy hole in his jacket. She couldn’t help but chuckle.
While she had been whipping up a new cake and worrying about all the other things that had gone wrong, Barker had endured his own tests. There were pictures of him with Casper and Alfie as they got ready, and then a picture of Evelyn holding up the blue pinstriped jacket he ended up wearing. The next picture was him hugging Evelyn.
Julia was glad she had told the photographer not to come to the cottage. She had wanted a blissful morning living in the moment with her daughter, sister, and best friend. If Alec had been there, he might have captured some lovely shots, but he would have immortalised the chaos forever in images.
Around thirty of the images were of Barker at the B&B before the scenery suddenly switched to the outside of St. Peter’s Church. One particular image of the church set against the dark clouds stirred something within her. It looked like a shot from a horror film. After a handful of pictures outside the church, Alec positioned himself in the vestibule and captured the guests as they ran in from the rain. Despite the weather, they all had smiles on their faces; there was no way for them to know what was coming.
She was surprised to see pictures of her and Jessie’s cars. She assumed Alec must have ventured into the church when they got out of the car. There were shots of Barker looking nervous, and one of the choir. Dot had yet to arrive at this point, but they were all smiling, except for Gloria, who wore her usual icy scowl, as if she were too serious for such trivial things.
The pictures eventually caught up to what Julia had experienced. There were a dozen pictures of the bridesmaids walking down the aisle. They all looked so beautiful in their cream dresses, and the red roses didn’t look nearly as out of place as Julia had feared they would. When she saw the first picture of her dress come up on screen, her heart skipped a definite beat. She froze, her finger unable to skip to the next image. She had the urge to throw the laptop across the room, but she couldn’t look away.
“Oh, Julia,” she whispered at the picture, “yo
u really did look beautiful.”
She skimmed through the pictures and watched as she walked down the aisle with her father. He beamed with pride as he nodded at the guests. Julia was glad she had the veil over her face because she was sure she looked more terrified than was showing.
When she reached the bottom of the aisle, Barker lifted her veil, and the first picture of them facing each other on their wedding morning melted Julia. She almost forgot she was viewing pictures from her life. The couple on screen looked so in love and full of hope as they gazed into each other’s eyes. That hope turned to confusion and then horror as Gloria’s coughing started. The last two pictures were the hardest to look at.
The penultimate image was a slanted shot of the choir as Gloria struggled to walk away from them. Julia used the magnifying glass tool and zoomed in on each of the choir members’ faces. Everyone looked alarmed except for Rita, who seemed to be enjoying her rival’s downfall. If she had seen this image when Rita was still alive, it would have cemented her as the prime suspect in Julia’s mind.
The final image was blurry, as though Alec was dropping his camera, but Julia could make out Gloria on the floor with Flora by her side. Difficult as it had been to view first-hand, knowing everything that had followed unsettled Julia even further.
She flicked back to the previous image and focused in on Percy’s face. He was gasping, eyes wide and mouth agape. If Julia hadn’t known the context, she would have thought he was pulling faces in the mirror. Could that face have been responsible for Gloria’s death? She wasn’t so sure.
The one face she would have paid good money to see was missing from the line-up. Skye, as she had claimed, had been stuck outside of Peridale thanks to the flooding.