Gingerbread and Ghosts

by Agatha Frost

  “Thank you, but no thank you,” Julia said definitely. “We’re going to have it at my gran’s, just like every year. I’m going to get her out if it’s the last thing I do.”

  Katie smiled sympathetically before shuffling up the cascading marble staircase. Julia grabbed her pink pea coat from the hat stand near the door as well as stuffing her feet back into her shoes.

  “Don’t get yourself into trouble,” her father said as he hugged her goodbye. “Although I’m starting to think that trouble finds you wherever you go, Julia South.”

  “Me too, Dad,” she said as she clung to his shirt. “Me too.”

  6

  Something sharp dug into Julia’s neck, jolting her from her sleep. Her eyes sprang open to stare into Mowgli’s as he rhythmically kneaded her over the covers, purring like a machine. Julia tickled the top of his head, prompting Mowgli to edge even closer. He rubbed his wet nose against her chin, his long white whiskers tickling her cheeks.

  “Someone is happy to see you,” Barker’s voice drifted from the doorway. “I knew I should have closed the door. He just couldn’t resist.”

  “What time is it?” Julia asked as she sat up slightly, causing Mowgli to scurry away. “I feel like I’ve slept for days.”

  “Just gone eleven.”

  “Eleven?” Julia cried, bolting upright, catching her reflection in the mirror on top of her dressing table. “Why didn’t you wake me up? It’s my only day to –”

  “Jessie turned off your alarm.” Barker stepped into the room, already in his work suit. “She wanted you to sleep in for one Sunday in your life. She’s been out shopping for ingredients for the café all morning, and last time I called her, she hadn’t spent all your money on junk.”

  Barker sat on the edge of the bed and grabbed Julia’s hand, a soft smile on his lips. Julia smiled back, almost forgetting why they had barely talked since butting heads at the village hall. When the sleep cleared, she remembered. She pulled her hand away, her eyes darting down.

  “Is there any news?” she asked, her mind instantly turning to Dot. “How is she?”

  “I hear she’s in good spirits,” Barker said. “She’s officially been charged with murder but denied bail because of the seriousness of the crime. We’re still gathering evidence to put a case together for when she goes to The Crown Court, but that can take months.”

  “Months?”

  “The law is slow,” Barker said with an apologetic shrug. “Unless we can prove without a doubt that she had no idea she was shooting a real gun, she’s unlikely to be let out until her trial.”

  “So, you need a confession from the person who swapped the prop with a real gun?” Julia asked, the cogs in her mind whirring. “And then they’ll let her out?”

  “Julia...”

  “What?” she cried. “My gran needs me.”

  Barker exhaled heavily as he stared down at the pattern on the duvet cover, his eyes dancing over the intricate design.

  “It’s not that simple,” Barker said. “She still killed someone, but the charge can be dropped from murder to accidental or involuntary manslaughter. If that’s the case, it’s very possible she’ll be let out on bail because she had no intention of killing anyone and will no longer be seen as dangerous, but it’s still likely to go to trial and be decided by a jury.”

  “And then what?”

  “Best case scenario, a fine.”

  “And worst case?”

  Barker exhaled again, his eyes closing.

  “Worst case, Barker?”

  “Prison,” he said solemnly. “I’ve seen people get weeks, I’ve seen people get months, and I’ve seen people get –”

  “Years,” Julia said with a gulp. “But she was just an eighty-three-year-old woman acting in a play.”

  “And that will work in her favour!” Barker said, grabbing Julia’s hand again. “I wanted to tell you all of this on the night it happened, but I knew you wouldn’t be able to look past the arrest. You know I couldn’t do anything in that situation.”

  “I know,” Julia said, suddenly feeling guilty for placing even a fraction of the blame for what happened on Barker. “But there’s something I can do now. I can fix this, even if it’s just to get her out for Christmas.”

  Barker nodded his understanding, and for a moment he looked like he was going to attempt to talk Julia out of getting involved, but he knew her better than that. She crawled across the bed and cuddled him, something she did not know she needed so badly until her face touched the side of his neck. They stayed like that until the house phone rang in the kitchen.

  “No one rings the house phone,” Barker said, pulling away from Julia.

  “No one except my gran,” Julia said as she launched off the bed, skidding out of her bedroom door like Mowgli running away from Jessie. She grabbed the phone from the wall in the kitchen and crammed it against her ear. “Gran? Gran, is that you?”

  “Julia?” Dot’s voice cried down the phone. “You’re home! I didn’t know whether I should ring here or the café and I didn’t want to waste my phone call.”

  “Where are you?”

  “In prison, dear!” Dot cried. “They’ve moved me. I’m ‘banged up’, as they call it. It’s rather different than what you expect. The food is better than anything I can cook, and my bed is rather comfy. The clothes are a little out of my comfort zone though. I’m currently wearing something one of the other girls called ‘jogging bottoms’. They’re quite baggy, and I’m not sure I like them. You get used to the wind on your shins after so many years of wearing a skirt.”

  “Oh, Gran!” Julia cried as she fell backwards against the fridge, her eyes closed and a grin on her face. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  “That’s so sweet of you,” Dot replied with a laugh so pure, Julia could almost imagine her pushing up her curls at the back. “My lawyer has told me the police are doing everything they can to build my case, and I suspect you’re giving them hell along the way.”

  “I’m going to get you out, Gran,” Julia said, feeling like there was an invisible timer ticking down in the distance. “I promise. I’ll figure this out.”

  “You can tell me all about that tomorrow,” Dot said. “That’s why I’ve called. They’ve let me have a visitor, and there’s no one’s hands I’d rather put my life in than yours. Can you come tomorrow?”

  “Yes,” Julia said quickly. “Yes, I’ll be there.”

  After scribbling down an address and a contact phone number, Julia reluctantly said goodbye to her gran before replacing the phone on the wall. For a moment, she stared at the handset, the mixture of emotions dizzying. When she turned around, she was not surprised to see Barker waiting eagerly, having only heard one side of the conversation.

  “She sounds fine,” Julia said, the relief loud in her voice. “I can visit her tomorrow.”

  “That’s wonderful news,” Barker said, clapping his hands together. “See! Dot is a tough cookie. She’ll be ruling that prison by the end of the week. Let’s go out for some lunch. I don’t need to be at the station for another hour and a half.”

  Julia thought about her gran and how urgently she needed to start gathering information about where the cast and crew of the Peridale Amateur Dramatics Society all lived so she could start asking questions, but as she looked at Barker, she knew how desperately they needed some quality time together.

  “I’ll get dressed,” Julia said before kissing him on the cheek. “I’ll let you choose the place.”

  After finishing a large slice of Christmas pie, which Julia deduced contained sausage meat, lemon, apricots, chestnuts, and thyme, she took a sip of her white wine, feeling all the better for getting out of the house and eating something substantial.

  “Thank you for this,” Julia said, grabbing Barker’s hand across the table as she looked around The Plough, which was packed out with its usual Sunday afternoon punters. “I can’t remember the last time we just came out for lunch.”

  “We both work
so much,” he said with a regretful smile. “There’s actually something I wanted to talk to you about regarding that.”

  Barker reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and began to pull out a letter, but he immediately slid it back when Evelyn, the eccentric owner of the B&B next door, drifted across the pub right towards them, her white kaftan floating ethereally behind her.

  “Julia!” she cried, immediately clutching the green crystal chained around her neck. “How is your gran doing? I’ve been having terrible visions. I watched a documentary about a women’s prison last week, and I can’t help but think of all the terrible things that she’s probably going through. I saw a woman get head-butted over a packet of chewing gum. Can you believe it? I’ve been asking the universe to protect her. I’ve been trying to send her positive energy and good vibrations, but I’m afraid it doesn’t work so well if I don’t have a specific location and postcode.”

  “She’s doing great, Evelyn,” Julia said, ignoring Barker’s roll of his eyes, something most people did whenever Evelyn spoke. “I’m visiting her tomorrow. She sounded positive over the phone.”

  “Oh, that is lovely to hear,” Evelyn said, reaching into her kaftan to pull out a satchel. “Give her this. It’s a moonstone. If she holds onto it at night, it will protect her.”

  Evelyn dropped a small pearlescent stone the size and shape of a marble in Julia’s hand. She rolled it around in her hand, the colour shifting like oil in water.

  “It’s beautiful,” Julia said as she clasped her hand around the stone. “I’ll pass it on.”

  “You’ll never get that into a prison,” Barker whispered over his pint. “It looks like drugs.”

  Julia shot Barker a look that silenced him immediately before she turned to Evelyn, who either did not hear or chose not to.

  “I’ve got one for each of the cast and crew,” Evelyn said as she gave the same bag a shake. “I’ve studied each of their auras and decided what stone will save them most.”

  “You have their addresses?” Julia asked, sitting up suddenly. “I was hoping to speak to some of them.”

  “I was just going to pop into the rehearsal,” Evelyn said as she pushed the small bag into a hidden pocket within her reams of fabric. “I hope they won’t mind me barging in, but I do come bearing gifts, although isn’t there a parable telling you to beware of the Greek who comes bearing gifts? I’m a quarter Greek on my mother’s side, so maybe I should stay away after –”

  “Rehearsal?” Julia said, jumping in. “What rehearsal?”

  “Oh, well I suppose they’re rehearsing at the village hall right now,” Evelyn said as she tapped on the middle of her forehead. “My third eye isn’t that specific, but I assumed they were after I heard tomorrow’s performance was going ahead.”

  “How?” Barker jumped in, looking as confused as Julia felt. “Their leading man is dead, and their leading lady is behind bars.”

  “You know what, I completely forgot to ask,” Evelyn said with a wave of her hand as she giggled. “I’d better go. My grandson, Mark, is waiting for me at the B&B. We’re renovating a room for him, so he has somewhere to stay that’s his own when his father goes on those tours with that tribute band he’s part of. Give my love to Dot.”

  Evelyn floated away like a puff of smoke, vanishing as quickly as she had appeared.

  “Julia –”

  “Thanks for lunch,” she said, screwing up the napkin from her knee and dropping it on the empty plate. “I’ll see you after you’ve finished work.”

  Leaving Barker to finish his pint in The Plough, Julia hurried across the village, choosing to walk around the village green, which had turned to icy sludge since the snow had started falling and begun to melt. When she reached the church grounds, she heard the unmistakable sound of a gun firing. She sprinted towards the door, bursting through with a thud.

  “Cut!” Ross cried as all eyes turned to Julia as she stood at the back of the hall, staring at her gran’s replacement holding the prop. “Carlton, is it possible to start locking those doors?”

  The man playing Jimmy sat up and pulled his wig off to scratch his thick hair underneath. He only looked to be in his twenties, and Julia was sure she recognised him as one of the crew who had run around backstage on opening night. To her surprise, Darcy pulled off her brown wig, revealing Catherine’s blonde hair, and Mandy’s blonde wig vanished to show Poppy’s red hair.

  “Can we smoke in here?” Catherine cried out as she pulled a packet of cigarettes from her pocket and placed one between her lips. When no one responded, she shrugged and lit the cigarette before sitting at the table to flick through a script. Poppy meekly backed away, heading to the lighting booth, where Jayesh was waiting for her.

  “What do you want?” Ross demanded as he marched towards Julia in a bright pink silk shirt, unbuttoned down the middle to reveal a well worked out and slightly hairy chest. “Your family has caused enough trouble. If you’re here about the gingerbread men, I looked over the agreement, and you said you’d do them as a gesture of goodwill, so it’s too late to start demanding money.”

  “I’m not here about money,” Julia said, stiffening her spine. “I’m going to be honest with you. I don’t believe my gran fired that gun intentionally, and I believe someone in your club replaced the gun to conveniently frame her. Now, you can either co-operate and let me ask some questions, or you can tell me to leave, in which case, I will remind you that this is a community village hall and I have every right to be here, and I will exercise that right, and I won’t do it peacefully.”

  Ross crossed his arms over his bulky chest as he grinned at Julia with a raised eyebrow.

  “I like you,” he said, circling a finger around Julia’s face. “Very dramatic. You’re your grandmother’s granddaughter alright. Have you ever thought about acting? Your delivery is quite something. Come with me. I will talk to you.”

  Ross turned on his heels, the soles of his shoes squeaking on the polished floor. Carlton shot daggers across the room from the doorway of his cleaning storeroom, but he soon darted out when Catherine’s cigarette triggered the smoke alarm. Leaving Carlton to fan the smoke with an old towel, they slipped backstage and into one of the side rooms, which seemed to be a makeshift office for Ross.

  He waited for Julia to walk in, closed the door behind him, and planted himself in a chair in front of a paper-covered desk. He attempted to straighten up some of the piles, but he gave up with a wave of his hand.

  “Some people call it messy, but I call it bursting with ideas,” Ross said as he reached into a mini fridge under the desk. “Sparkling water?”

  “No, thank you,” Julia said, standing awkwardly by the door, her hands clasped together in front of her. “I really just want to talk about your uncle.”

  “What do you want to know?” Ross asked as he poured sparkling water from a green bottle into a small glass. “Didn’t really know the man all that well, despite him being my only surviving blood relative. I guess it’s just me now. My parents died when I was young, and I was raised by my grandfather. Marvellous man. Nothing like my uncle. I think my grandfather resented Marcus going to prison until the day he died. Grandfather was an army man. Disciplined and respectful. He always said his greatest regret in life was not knowing where he went wrong raising Marcus.”

  Julia resisted reaching into her bag to pull out her notepad, instead repeating the key facts over and over in her mind, hoping they stuck; she was just grateful Ross was opening up at all.

  “So, you know about what he did to my gran?”

  “I didn’t know it was her,” he said after a sip of his water. “They hid it well. I guess that’s what happens when you mature. It happened so long ago. I found your grandmother at a Christmas market. She was animated and yelling the whole tent to the ground. I saw her, and I said, ‘I want her to star in my Christmas show’. It was a stroke of luck, really. That was only two weeks after I took the position of director. Bertha Bloom, bless her, is as batty as a
box of frogs and nice enough, but she didn’t know a thing about directing a play. I bumped into Marcus a couple of months ago in a bar. It was a pure coincidence, but he told me about his fears of doing another awful Christmas play, and I had just left my job working for a theatre company in London. I needed something to occupy my mind, and I thought resurrecting a dead am-dram club would look great on my CV. Bertha didn’t put up much of a fight, so we got to work at the beginning of November.”

  “Are you close to your aunt?”

  “You mean Catherine?” he snorted. “That woman is not my aunt, and if I had my way, she never would have been in the play. When I turned up here to start work, he introduced her as his wife. They’ve only been married since the summer. They met on holiday, and I suspect he told her about his riches and her eyes glazed over. Marcus insisted I give her a part, so I did. She promoted herself to Darcy’s character, but there wasn’t much I could do. She knows the lines, even if her delivery is awful, but what am I supposed to do? The shooting has sold out the rest of the shows. Interest is so hot, I’ve started selling standing tickets too, just to cram as many people in as possible. Whether we’re positively reviewed or not, it will end up being a sold-out run.”

  “Have you thought about who could have switched the guns?” Julia asked. “Or why?”

  “Now you’re starting to sound like the police,” he said as he stood up, finishing off the last of his water. “They’ve questioned us all a handful of times already, but no one is talking. If someone here did it, they’re better actors than I thought.”

  As though letting Julia know her time was up, Ross opened the door and waited patiently until she walked through it. Satisfied with what she had heard, she headed back to the front of the stage, leaving Ross in his office. She was pleased when she spotted Poppy sitting alone in the front row seats, the blonde wig in her lap as she mouthed along to her lines on her script.

  “Poppy, isn’t it?” Julia asked softly as she sat next to the redhead. “I’m not interrupting, am I?”