Blueberry Muffins and Misfortune

by Agatha Frost

  Kylie looked too offended to reply, and Julia doubted she wanted to reveal her debt problems.

  “Shannon dropped breadcrumbs and tried to lead me to a dead end,” Julia said, turning back to the barmaid. “You’re tired of your mother using you, so maybe you hoped I would somehow pin it on her and get her out of your life.”

  “Shannon?” Donna cried. “Is that true?”

  “I’m sick of you!” Shannon yelled right back. “You’re a leech! I came back here to get away from you. You ruin people’s lives. You ruined Kylie’s life, you ruined my dad’s life, and then you tried to ruin mine. I needed a fresh start with my daughter somewhere you weren’t. If I had the money for a train ticket, I’d have put you on the next one back to where you came from.”

  Donna looked as though she was forming an argument, but the words didn’t come. She sipped her pint while sending her daughter daggers.

  “So, Shannon killed Mabel?” Alfie called out as he scratched the side of his head with one hand while the other held Kylie’s hand. “I’m not following this.”

  “At least I’m not alone there,” Donna said, lifting up her pint. “You’ve got yourself a proper brainbox there, Kylie.”

  Julia went over her mental notes, trying to stitch the final threads together.

  “I have the where,” Julia said, counting it on her hand. “I have the when. I have the how, although, where the gun came from is still only a theory, but I’m pretty sure I’m right about it. The thing is, Sandra, when you planted the gun in Neil’s bag, you inadvertently gave me a huge clue completely by coincidence. Neil’s father was in the army, and he tried to steal a gun, which, according to my fiancé, isn’t as uncommon as it sounds, is it, Keith?”

  Keith, who had been staring at Julia with wide eyes the whole time as though expecting her to ask the question, suddenly shifted in his seat. He fiddled with his circular glasses, his moustache dancing on his top lip.

  “The Falklands and Gulf War were ample opportunities to take a gun,” Julia said, turning fully to the ex-soldier. “Or was it during The Troubles in Ireland? Sandra told me all about your tours of duty when you left the dinner table. If it hadn’t have been for the similar situation with Neil’s father, I doubt it would have ever crossed my mind, but that is where you got the gun, isn’t it?”

  Sandra’s silent tears turned to loud sobs, which echoed around the empty pub. Keith looked as though he wanted to comfort her, but he seemed frozen to his seat.

  “The Troubles,” he said suddenly, his eyes locking with Julia’s. “I went over to Northern Ireland in 1990. They were difficult times. It dragged on for thirty long years, killing over three thousand people. I was almost one of them. I was in County Down in Northern Ireland a week before I was due to come home. We were in our patrol van when we pulled over. One of the lads, Steve, needed to relieve himself, so we pulled up on a country lane. I got out to stretch my legs. We didn’t see them coming. They snuck along and put a thousand pounds of explosives under the van. It was blown into the sky, and landed in a field. I lost four of my friends that day, and if it hadn’t had been for Steve’s weak bladder, I would have been one of them. We ran over to the van, but it was too late. One of the lad’s guns had fallen out. I was in shock. I didn’t know what I was doing. I picked it up, and I ran back to where the van had been, but the scumbags had fled. I pushed it down my waistband. I didn’t know why. I knew they’d send me home after that, and they’d take my gun off me. I was paranoid. They were bombing places in the UK too. I didn’t think I’d get the gun into the country, but they just used to wave soldiers in when we got off the ferry. When I got home, I realised how stupid I’d been, so I hid it. I knew I should have got rid of it, but a voice in the back of my mind told me it kept me safe, even though I knew I would never use it. But I did, didn’t I? I shot my mother, buried her, and then moved her to the library. Call the police. I’ll tell them everything. I don’t care anymore. Look at the damage all the lying has done. My wife is back on the drink, and my niece is lying to frame her mother. I didn’t want any of this.”

  Julia smiled sadly at Keith, wishing he had not confessed. She continued pacing for a second, but stopped, knowing she could not keep it bottled up any longer.

  “If Sandra hadn’t shown me the misfired bullets, I might have believed that you had killed her,” Julia said with a heavy sigh. “But even if your arthritis had been as bad back then, I don’t think an ex-soldier worth his salt would take three shots to kill someone. But let’s say someone found the gun, not knowing how to use it. I think their hands would be shaking so much, it would take a couple of shots to get it right, wouldn’t it, Kylie?”

  Donna choked on her pint again, this time spitting it all over the bar. Alfie let go of her hand and turned in his chair. Kylie looked at Keith as though expecting him to save her, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Kylie?” Donna cried, her voice shaking. “It was you? Why?”

  “Why do you think?” Julia said, turning to Donna. “Kylie had a nice life. She had two parents and a sister, an uncle and auntie that she adored, and grandparents she loved spending time with. And then, Mabel decided she needed a fresh start. Mabel pushed you into marrying a man you didn’t love, but Mabel’s parents also did the same to her. She trapped herself in a life she didn’t want and went along with it until she found a way out. The laptop Keith bought her was a portal to a new world. She grabbed it with both hands, but the change must have scared her, that’s why she told Shannon everything during Peter’s eightieth birthday party. But Shannon wasn’t the only person to hear her confession, was she, Kylie? I should have known you knew too much at dinner. You told me everything Shannon knew and then played it off as though you were assuming, but you were too correct. You knew she was leaving, but that wasn’t what did it, was it? It was the repercussions of Mabel’s actions that drove you to make that snap decision to get your revenge on her.”

  Julia left a gap for Kylie to finish the story, but she simply stared at Julia, her eyes dead.

  “When Mabel ran off to Spain for a happier life, she inspired your mother,” Julia continued, turning back to Donna. “Donna married a man to please her mother, but it didn’t work. The second Mabel fled, Donna felt free to do it too. She dropped the act and became herself. But Kylie was seventeen. She didn’t know you were pretending to be the perfect mother and wife. She thought you had changed, instead of just being honest with yourself. You cooked up your little plan to run away to another country, just like your mother, but Kylie wasn’t having any of it. She stayed in Peridale with her auntie and uncle who actually put her first. She was the daughter they never had, and they offered her protection. That should be the end of the story, but the day of the spring fête cooked up a perfect storm that led to a murder and a cover-up that spanned a whole decade.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Alfie said as he backed away from Kylie. “Please tell me Julia has this wrong.”

  But Kylie did not say anything. Her gaze glossed over, and she stared through Julia as though she was somewhere else entirely.

  “I don’t know why Mabel returned to Peridale, but she did, and I think the first person she saw was Kylie.”

  “She wanted to pretend nothing had happened,” Kylie said finally, her voice that of a little girl, not the woman she was. “She said she went to my old house. She had no idea what Mum had done, and when I told her, she acted like it wasn’t her fault. She always did that. She never accepted responsibility. She ruined my life, and she ruined my grandad’s life. He loved her to pieces, and she didn’t even care. She said she’d come back to explain herself face to face. She must have had a guilty conscience, but it took a month to kick in. She had every intention of going back to Spain. I saw red. I snapped. I looked down, and I saw a gun on the rug. I didn’t know where it came from, but I picked it up. I don’t know what I expected to happen. The bullets fired out. It almost blew the gun out of my hand. One of them hit her, and she fell over. She looked so confuse
d. She died in seconds. It’s not like what you see on TV. She didn’t fade away, she just stopped. I dropped the gun, and I just sat on the couch and stared at her for what felt like hours. Sandra was passed out on the table, but that wasn’t new. She was always drunk back then. She barely flinched at the sound of the gun.”

  “The gun, which would have stayed hidden if Donna hadn’t come to the cottage earlier demanding money,” Julia said, turning to Sandra. “You told me she rooted through the drawers looking for money. She must have unintentionally found Keith’s secret hiding place for the gun. In a house full of clutter, he must have thought nobody would ever look in there. What happened next, Kylie? Or should I ask Keith?”

  Keith pulled off his glasses and dabbed at his eyes with his shirt sleeve.

  “She was just a child,” Keith said as he placed his glasses on the table, his eyes looking like dots without the magnification. “I couldn’t let something like that ruin her life. As far as everyone knew, Mabel was in Spain, so I rolled her up in the rug, and I buried her in the garden. I tried to find the gun the next day, but it was gone.”

  “Because I found it,” Sandra muttered, her voice hoarse. “I thought I’d fired it, so I hid it. It wasn’t until the police told us about how Mabel died that I linked up the pieces.”

  “I should have left her in the garden,” Keith continued. “I could hear her screaming at me every night. I couldn’t sleep in that cottage knowing she was out there. When it came time to fit the new computer suite at the library, we had to close half of it off. It was like I was in a daze. I dug her up, took her to the library, rolled her in the insulation and I put her in the ceiling. I didn’t think it through, and I realised afterwards that the tiles wouldn’t hold forever. I always assumed I’d go back for her and figure out something else, but a part of me felt content having her in the library. I don’t think she loved many things, but she loved that library.”

  “And for ten years, the roof held up,” Julia said, thinking back to the day of Barker’s book launch. “But it only takes a piece of straw to break the camel’s back.”

  “She didn’t want to miss my dad’s party,” Donna said, laughing hysterically to herself before lifting her pint to the sky. “You couldn’t bear the attention not being on you, could you, Mum? Cheers.”

  Donna sipped her pint, but Julia was more interested in slotting in the final pieces. She turned to Kylie, who looked far too empty and broken for a woman not yet in her thirties.

  “You couldn’t live with yourself, could you?” Julia asked softly, walking towards Kylie and leaving the door for the first time. “You couldn’t stand looking in the mirror, knowing what you had done, so you changed it. You changed your face as much as you could, so you didn’t look like yourself, but I doubt that made it any easier, did it? In fact, it just caused more problems in the long run. Your uncle covered up your mistake, but you created more mistakes by taking out those loans, putting the three of you in a constant state of struggling to make ends meet. Ten long years of guilt and struggling, but people have always tried to protect you. They could see the damage that had been inflicted by the adults around you. Your gran for turning your life upside down, your mother for abandoning you, and even your uncle who was only trying to protect you, made your life impossible by making you live a lie. I even think Shannon somehow figured all of this out and that’s why she was trying to make me think it was your mother.”

  “I didn’t know how or why, it was just a feeling,” Shannon muttered as she leaned against the bar. “I owed Kylie. I chose the wrong side. If I’d stayed with her in Peridale, none of this would have happened. We would’ve had each other. I’m sorry, Kylie. I was your big sister, and I let you down.”

  Shannon grabbed Kylie’s hand, and for the first time, Julia felt as though she was going to cry. She wished she was not splitting up a family like this, even if they were already fragmented, but for the sake of her own sister and Neil, the truth needed to come out.

  “What happens now?” Alfie asked, unable to look at Kylie.

  “The police station is across the road,” Julia said, hooking her thumb over her shoulder. “I don’t know what is going to happen to you, but I think you should walk across there and finally tell the truth and put this to rest.”

  Kylie slid off her stool and walked over to her uncle. She held out her hand, and he grabbed it. Sandra stood up, still crying and took Kylie’s other hand. Kylie glanced over her shoulder at Alfie and mouthed ‘I’m sorry’ before walking to the door. Julia slid down the lock and swung open the doors. The cool night air hit them, and Kylie inhaled deeply before stepping out. Julia watched the three of them walk across the road and into the station. A small part of her had wondered if they would continue to run, but she knew they must have felt relieved to have the truth out in the open.

  “I think I need another drink after that,” Donna said, shaking her glass at Shannon. “One for the road.”

  “Get out.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Get out!” Shannon cried, pointing at the door as her face turned bright red. “Not just out of this pub, out of my life. I never want to see you again.”

  “But I’m your mother.”

  “Only when you want something,” Shannon said, her lip snarling. “I’m breaking the cycle. My daughter deserves better than the mother and grandmother I had. She’s still young enough to be saved from all of this. Leave!”

  For a moment, Julia thought Donna would cry, but instead, she ran her tongue across her lips, rolled her eyes, and laughed. With a swagger in her step, she walked across the pub, making sure to bump Julia’s shoulder on the way.

  “Good riddance,” Donna called out. “You’re not the only one who needs a fresh start.”

  Donna walked out into the night. She looked up and down the street before turning left. Shannon leaned against the bar with both hands, looking like every ounce of energy had been drained from her soul. Without saying another word, Julia nodded for Alfie to join her. They left the pub, closing the door behind them.

  “I’m sorry about Kylie,” Julia said. “I didn’t want to believe it, but the more Sandra talked, the more it became the only explanation.”

  “I really liked her,” Alfie said as he looked across the road at the brightly lit station. “I swear she was a lovely girl before Mabel fell through the roof.”

  “I’m sure she was,” Julia said, nudging him with her shoulder. “But her story was set in stone a decade ago. In a different life, it might have worked, but not in this one.”

  Alfie nodded, his eyes still on the station. Julia linked arms with him, pulling him away. They set off back to the cottage, walking in silence as though they knew how much explaining they would have to do when they reached their destination.

  15

  Mabel’s funeral was held a week later on a beautiful clear day at St. Peter’s Church in the heart of the village. Most of the residents turned up, and Julia suspected most of them were there to draw a line under the saga that had unfolded since the day of Barker’s book launch.

  Despite having not been charged with anything even though she had planted the gun in Neil’s bag, Sandra decided to stay away from the funeral. Julia had visited her before heading to the church and had been pleased to see that she was sober. She had told Julia she did not know what life held for her, but she was going to try to start again, and learn to read so she did not waste the years she had left.

  Thanks to Sandra’s confession, Neil was immediately released and not charged with anything. Sue felt foolish for even thinking Neil could have murdered someone, but she put it down to her persistent lack of sleep thanks to the twins. Julia was glad when they took up her suggestion to take a long weekend break away from the village to relax before the library reopened.

  The only members of the Crump family to go to the funeral were Shannon and her teenage daughter, Ella, who looked just like the rest of the family with two prominent front teeth and wiry straw-coloured hair. Julia
hoped for Ella’s sake that Shannon could achieve the fresh start she had moved back to Peridale for.

  To Julia’s surprise, Shannon had tracked down Mabel’s Spanish lover, Antonio, who was now in his sixties but still incredibly handsome. He had heard about the discovery of Mabel’s body on the internet and had posted a request for more information, which Shannon saw when she once again went in search of him. He had flown straight to England to explain, and from his point of view, he assumed Mabel had decided to rekindle her relationship with Peter, but he never stopped loving her. From the twinkle in his eyes when he talked about her, Julia suspected Mabel had given him the authentic version of herself, and one that her family had never truly known.

  Even though the turnout for the funeral meant a full church, Shannon had decided against having a wake. She had told Julia her family had been in the spotlight too much recently, so she wanted to use Mabel’s burial as the official beginning of her new life. Instead, she decided to spend the rest of the afternoon with her grandfather, who had finally woken up after his heart attack.

  For Dot’s sake, Julia had decided to throw open the doors of her café for all who wanted to share their memories of Mabel. Even though every seat was filled, only a small handful of those at the church had come along.

  “I’ll never forget the time she banned me from the library for accidentally spilling coffee on a copy of Wuthering Heights,” Shilpa said as she sipped her tea. “Or the time she came to my post office to change over five hundred pounds into euros, which looking back, had been for her new life in Spain. I should have known she was up to something. Mabel once told me she didn’t see the point in going abroad because you could travel anywhere in a book.”

  “Sounds like my Mabel,” Dot said, lifting her tea up to the sky while her other hand touched her brooch. “May that difficult, stubborn, controlling best friend of mine finally rest in peace. She always said she’d go before me, and as usual, she was right.”