Claire's Candles Mystery 02 - Black Cherry Betrayal

by Agatha Frost

  “It is,” Em said, sinking back into her pillows with the mellowest smile yet, “isn’t it?”

  Claire waved one last time in case Em could see her through a window before taking the path she should have been on an hour ago, according to her phone. Ryan might have been joking about Janet changing the locks on her, but it wouldn’t have surprised Claire to see locksmiths pulling up when she finally reached the cul-de-sac.

  But first, as soon she was out of Em’s view, Claire bent over and released her grip on the sickness still churning in her gut. The beer came up, and she felt immediately better.

  No more afternoon drinking.

  The years might have passed, but she turned into a teenager every time she was with Ryan, excessive drinking and all – although at least now they were old enough to binge drink legally.

  The walk home felt quicker with a lighter stomach, and by the time she reached the cul-de-sac, her mind had cleared slightly. She crept into the cottage, expecting the tirade to start the second her foot touched the doormat.

  Silence.

  Janet’s airy laughter floated in from the garden. Claire kicked off her shoes and followed the sound into the kitchen. Through the double patio doors on the dining room side, she spotted her parents on one of the many garden benches. Her father’s arm was around her mother’s shoulders, and she was leaning into his chest slightly.

  Claire couldn’t help but smile. Despite their bickering and obvious personality clashes, they so clearly still loved each other very much.

  Claire knew when to give them space, and she was glad not to have to defend her lateness, the beer on her breath, or the spicy scent of her jacket.

  Her plate was in the microwave, but still warm. She took it out, crammed a black cherry candle under her arm on the way, and left them to it.

  Sid and Domino were curled up on her bed. They stood and stretched out, their meowing starting instantly. After feeding them, she sat at the top of her bed with her dinner.

  Chewing her lukewarm, tough steak (her mother always overcooked things with the same dedication as she overcleaned them), Claire looked around her room. The scent of Jane’s birthday dispersed through the air. A dozen thin flatpack furniture boxes filled the free space. She’d been excitedly buying things for weeks, and even though she’d never been any good at flatpack, she’d been raring to give it her best shot.

  “We’ll get there,” she whispered as she shoved a thick cut chip into her mouth. “I hope.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  F or the second time that week, Claire awoke to an alarm set earlier than she felt entirely comfortable with. Seventeen years working at the factory, and it had only taken a month to destroy her old sleeping pattern.

  Still, Claire dragged herself out of bed. She was curious as to whom Em was taking her to see. Three pints of Hesketh Homebrew less and she might have been switched on enough to ask, although by that point, she’d just been grateful to be off the boat.

  After feeding the cats, she joined her parents in the back garden. They were at a beautifully set table heaped with a selection of breakfast food. Nobody put together a breakfast like Janet. Even when it was just the two of them, she always went that extra mile. Given that breakfast was the only meal where her mother seemed to approve of indulging, Claire wasn’t sure why she didn’t join them more often.

  “The phantom daughter appears!” Janet declared after sipping her tea, gaze on her wristwatch. “You know it’s not noon, don’t you, love?”

  “I’m meeting Em at nine,” Claire said, eyeing up the leftovers as she sat down. “Is there enough for me?”

  “There’s enough for the whole cul-de-sac, as usual.” Alan picked up his plate with two leftover sausages, a rasher of bacon, a slice of buttered toast, and a small pile of beans and put it in front of Claire. “I’m already stuffed.”

  “Most important meal of the day,” Janet said as she sliced grapefruit in half. “Here, Claire, have half of this with me. It wouldn’t kill you to throw some fruit into the mix every so often.”

  Janet rolled one of the sausages away and pushed the grapefruit onto Claire’s plate. Though she’d had grapefruit juice before, she couldn’t recall ever tucking into the actual fruit. She wondered which of her mother’s magazines had recommended that it be incorporated into her diet.

  “I don’t trust Em,” Janet announced as she dug around in the bright pink flesh of the grapefruit. “Especially after what you told me last night. I thought about it in the shower this morning, and I concluded that Em has a perfect motive for getting her mother out of the way.”

  After finishing her dinner the night before, Claire had curled up in bed with the cats and fallen asleep watching a film (Bridesmaids – one of her favourites) on her tiny laptop. Her mother promptly shook her awake to ask how her ‘date’ with Ryan went. Claire had very little to tell since it wasn’t actually a date, so she’d filled Janet in on her visit to the boat. She’d also blamed it for her being late for dinner. After all, it wasn’t technically a lie.

  “Motive?” Claire muttered through a mouthful of bacon. “What reason could Em possibly have to murder her mother?”

  “Your mother has a point, actually,” Alan said, topping up his orange juice. “I know you like Em, dear, but you need to consider every avenue.”

  “And it’s a cold hard fact that Em has something to gain from getting her mother out of the way!” Janet sucked up the grapefruit with a slurp. “With Jane gone, when Opal pops her clogs, Em’s the sole heir of Starfall House.”

  “Em doesn’t want Starfall.” Claire arched a brow. “She’s already told me she doesn’t think she’s been in the will for ages. Made out like her grandmother changed her will as often as normal people change their bedding.”

  “Every second day?” Janet asked.

  “I said, normal people.” Claire winked before deciding to dig into the grapefruit. “And I suppose technically that gives her a motive, but it doesn’t take Em’s character into account. She’s a pacifist. She said so herself yesterday.”

  “Exactly!” Janet stamped her finger on the table. “She told you. She can tell you whatever she wants. No offence, dear, but you’re easily manipulated.” She paused to sip her tea before adding, “I’ll never forget the time you let Ryan convince you to climb up that trellis!”

  “Not this again.” Claire spooned in a mouthful of grapefruit and immediately spat it out. “Ugh! I thought you said it was a fruit?”

  “It’s good for you.”

  “It’s bitter.”

  “Women’s Own said all the stars are on it.” Janet dug her spoon forcefully into the resistant bits of grapefruit clinging to the sides of the rind. “My trellis came right off the wall!”

  “I was fourteen.”

  “The ivy never grew the same.” Janet glanced over her shoulder at the blank stone wall under Claire’s bedroom window; they had all decided it was best not to reattach it. “And maybe you should accept that Em might be playing you like a fiddle. So far, she’s admitted she was the last person who saw Jane – right in the flat where the murder clearly occurred!”

  “That we know of so far,” Alan corrected, a finger in the air. “There could very well be later accounts of Jane’s movements.”

  “Mark my words, dear.” Janet sipped more tea, eyes narrowing on Claire. “There’s something fishy about that woman. I’m never wrong.”

  More than a handful of stories popped into Claire’s mind, and from her father’s dry smile, she suspected he was similarly engaged. Before either could begin a contradictory recounting, Claire’s phone rang in her pyjama bottoms pocket.

  “Who’s ringing this early?” Janet asked, fiddling with her watch. “Is it one of those ‘I heard you’ve been in an accident’ calls?”

  “I don’t recognise the number.” Claire turned the phone around to show them.

  “Local area code,” Janet pointed out, lifting her tea to her lips again. “Isn’t that the station’s number, Alan?”<
br />
  Claire’s father squinted at the screen before saying, “I think it is.”

  Slipping out of her seat, Claire answered the call on her way to her father’s shed. She didn’t make a habit of concealing her phone calls from her parents, but she’d been expecting the station to call her for days. She wasn’t sure what the police could legally do regarding keeping hold of the shop, but she wanted to be alone when they gave her updates, just in case.

  “Claire?” DI Ramsbottom called down the phone before slurping something. “I have some news about your shop.”

  Claire pulled the door shut and instinctively went to her plant pot in the corner despite the empty chair at the bench.

  “News?”

  “Mmhmm.” More slurping. “You can come in later today to collect your keys.”

  Claire let out a sigh of relief. “Really?”

  “We’re all done,” he said, followed by the sound of slow typing rattling in the background; she imagined his mobile phone sandwiched between his shoulder and ear while he ate with one hand and typed with the other. “Found all we could, which was very little indeed. Crime scene cleaners have been in, and I saw to it personally that the whole area was refitted. New chipboard in the attic and the roof has been plastered. You’d never know.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  “No problem at all, dear,” he said, breaking for another slurp. “The invoice is on the kitchen counter, and don’t worry about going over the thirty days if you need to. I made sure they understood you’re good for it.”

  “Oh.” Claire hadn’t realised she’d have to pay for anything. Still, the work would have needed doing at some point; at least that part was dealt with. “And I’m free to carry on with my work?”

  “It’s all yours,” he said. “Crack on with getting your bookshop open.”

  “It’s a—”

  “Need to go,” he said quickly. “One of the lads is coming around with the breakfast sandwiches. Give my love to your dad.”

  DI Ramsbottom hung up. Alone in the shed, Claire clenched her eyes shut and smiled, flooded with relief at the lifting of that weight. For now, at least, someone was looking down on her.

  Ready to spread the good news, Claire pulled on the door and wasn’t surprised when her mother fell into her. Janet sprang back, her mouth flapping open and shut like one of those singing robotic mounted fish running out of batteries.

  “Earring,” Janet said, wafting her finger at her earlobes. “It fell out.”

  “And then rolled across the grass, hopped the steppingstones, and ended up at the shed door?” Claire arched both brows and planted her hands on her hips like her mother so often did to her; she wondered if her mother was self-aware enough to notice the parody. “For goodness sake, Mother! As unlikely as that is, you have a diamond stud in each ear, so unless you have something else pierced, they’re all accounted for.”

  “I do not!” She cried, her face turning red. “I just . . . I have rights! My name is on the deeds to this house along with your father’s, so I can go where I like and do what I like.” Hot air fired through her nostrils. “If you must know, I didn’t hear anything. You were already off the phone by the time your father finally let go of my arm.”

  “Well, hopefully you’ll be happy to hear that I’m getting the keys to the shop back,” she revealed as she walked back towards the open patio doors with a spring in her step. “Claire’s Candles might just happen after all.”

  “I never doubted it,” her father called, raising his orange juice to her. “Give them hell, dear.”

  After a quick shower, she dried off and dressed. Today, she opted for a slightly more generously sized pair of jeans, not wanting to make the same mistake a third time. More comfortable already, she paired it with a scoop-necked black cotton t-shirt and her trusty light, distressed-denim jacket.

  “Not bad,” she said to herself in the mirror, flipping the collar up before immediately smoothing it down again. “Let’s not give her fuel.”

  Claire and her mother left their bedrooms at the same time, both ready to go. Janet’s eyes scanned Claire’s outfit. When no comment came, it was as good as a compliment.

  “Come on,” Janet said as she adjusted the floral taffeta scarf hanging loosely around her neck. “I’ll give you a lift to meet your new friend. Where’s her house?”

  “It’s not a house, as such.” Claire followed her mother, careful of the stacked boxes. “It’s more a boat.”

  “Oh, I’ve heard it all now!” Janet shook her head as she hurried along the hallway into the kitchen. “Just checking that cat of yours wasn’t hacking away at my defrosting beef joint. Honestly, you want to get her seen to!”

  “She’s perfectly healthy.”

  “It’s not natural!” Janet slipped into her shoes and grabbed her keys from the rack on the wall. “How can something eat so much and yet remain so slim?”

  “It’s almost as though genetics play a role.” Claire looked her mother up and down. “C’mon, Mother. Take a day off.”

  “I’m only saying!” Janet yanked open the door and jerked her head for Claire to go first. “Honestly, between you and your father, I don’t know who’s worse sometimes!”

  Claire finally crammed her heel into the second white tennis shoe and hopped through the door. “Imagine how we feel.”

  “I might just pull a Jane and lock myself up in the attic to see how long it takes you to notice!” Janet tugged the door shut and locked it. “Oh, dear, that was quite cruel, wasn’t it?”

  “I’d suggest you don’t try to make that catchphrase stick,” Claire said, patting her mother on the shoulder as she zoomed past. “And we’d notice when the first motes of dust in forty years finally began forming a layer. Although I’d say there’s more chance of snow in the Sahara than you being able to stay hidden when grime could be forming.”

  “None of your nattering while I’m driving!” Janet called as they climbed into the car. “I need to concentrate.”

  Janet was, in her own words, ‘a nervous driver’. She was as natural on the road as a cat was in a pond. Over the years, she’d made it her mission to avoid driving at all costs. Since Claire’s father no longer drove to the police station at the same time she needed to be at the post office, she’d been forced to take the wheel once more. As much as Janet encouraged Claire to walk into the village as often as possible, she never entertained the idea with ‘her knees’, and the nearest bus stop was most of the way into the village.

  Claire would never joke about her mother’s over-cautious driving. Janet was still a better driver than Claire never got to be.

  They drove slowly and carefully down the lane while her mother’s eyes darted to all three mirrors in a continuous loop. By the time they reached the bridge over the canal, Claire was ready to get out and walk the rest of the way; she’d hoped getting a lift would have given back the extra minutes she’d wasted in the shower.

  To Claire’s surprise, Em was already waiting for her on the bridge. Her legs kicked against the old brick as she smiled up at the sun with closed eyes. Her lids fluttered open, and when she saw Claire in the car, she waved with the same enthusiasm she had shown the day before.

  “I told you about her armpits,” Janet muttered under her breath as she ground to a halt on the peak of the single-lane bridge. “If she’s hard up, I don’t mind donating some of my razors. Always willing to help a good cause.”

  Claire slapped Janet on the leg. “Behave!”

  “I’m only saying!”

  Em jumped off the wall and ducked to Claire’s window as she rolled it down.

  “Beautiful morning,” Em proclaimed, still squinting from the sun. “I assumed you’d be coming this way from your cul-de-sac, so I thought I’d meet you halfway.”

  “Sorry, I was running a bit late,” Claire said.

  “She’s always running late!” Janet announced, ducking to smile and nod through the window. “Hello, Emma.”

  “Just Em,” she
corrected with an even bigger smile. “It’s nice to see you, Janet. Lovely scarf. I think my mother had one similar.”

  “Thank you.” Janet stroked her scarf a little, seeming touched. “Jump in the back, and I’ll take you and Claire into the village. If that’s where you’re going to meet this mystery confidant?”

  Janet had never been subtle about her need to be in the know about every village titbit that crossed her path.

  “That’s perfect.” Em bounced in and sat between the three seats, leaning forward and ignoring the seatbelt. “Been a while since I’ve ridden in a car.”

  “I can assure you, it’s electric.” Janet smiled at Em in the mirror as she eased down on the accelerator again. “Only the greenest energy for us.”

  “It’s an automatic, Mum,” Claire whispered.

  “What’s the difference?”

  “This is diesel.”

  “Oh.” Janet’s cheeks darkened, and her eyes went back to fixating on the quiet road. “My mistake.”

  “It’s fine, Janet.” Em gave Janet’s shoulder a squeeze from the back. “I don’t try to force my beliefs on people. If you ask, I’ll happily talk for hours about any topic you want, but your business is not my business. The less we all judge each other, the better.”

  “Hear that, Mother?”

  Janet grumbled but didn’t respond. Claire’s lips pricked into a smile as she gazed through the passenger window at the beautiful countryside passing by.

  After parking in the hidden car park behind Marley’s café and the row of shops on that side of the square, they parted ways, her mother barely uttering a word.

  “Your relationship with your mother reminds me of the one I had with mine,” Em commented as they walked across the car park, five feet away from Janet who had charged ahead. “Although I can see the twinkle in your eyes. Both of you. You love each other very much.”

  “I do,” Claire said, smiling as her mother glanced back and offered a small wave before ducking into the post office. “She’s an odd one, but I wouldn’t change her for anything.”