Shortbread and Sorrow

by Agatha Frost

  “Services?”

  “Free of charge, of course,” Julia said with a curt nod. “DI Jobs-Worth up there wants me to stick around until Monday, and I’m not really one for spas and pampering. I feel most comfortable in a kitchen, and I’m itching to get stuck into some baking. You seemed pretty rushed off your feet this morning.”

  “Oh, that’s very kind of you,” Blair said, shaking her head as she focussed on the dishes. “But, I don’t think Charlotte will like that.”

  “Does she ever come down here?”

  “Well, no, but -,”

  “Then nobody has to know,” Julia urged, nudging her with her shoulder. “I’ll even share my secret recipes with you, and I’ll tell you all about how I opened my own café.”

  The offer of knowledge from a more experienced baker made Blair’s eyes light up, just as Julia had hoped. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she almost felt guilty for using it as a bribe against the girl, but she knew it was the only way she was going to have access to the people and information she needed.

  “Until Monday?” Blair asked, her eyes squinting.

  “And then I’ll be gone.”

  Blair appeared to think about it for a moment before nodding and facing Julia with a soft smile.

  “It would be nice to bake with somebody for once,” Blair admitted.

  “Then it’s settled,” Julia said, holding out a hand for Blair to shake. “I’ll be here bright and early in the morning.”

  Blair reached out to shake her hand with the pink rubber glove, but stopped herself and ripped it off before accepting Julia’s hand. Her skin was soft, and her grip was weak. She reminded Julia so much of her younger self. She could almost sense the same fear of the future that had consumed Julia at that age.

  “It will be fun,” Blair said, a smile taking over soft features.

  “It will be,” Julia agreed, before feigning a yawn. “I should follow my sister up to bed for now. It’s been a long day.”

  Julia rested a hand softly on Blair’s shoulder, and she nodded her understanding. Leaving her to finish the washing up, Julia walked swiftly towards the door and back up the spiralling staircase, knowing she had just discovered her key to unlocking the secrets that Seirbigh castle held.

  5

  Julia woke with the sunrise and was showered, dressed, and out of the bedroom before Sue had even had a chance to stir. She had spent most of the previous evening trying to convince Julia to stay out of things and take advantage of the treatments on offer, but Julia would rather put her mind to good use instead of pretending to be a piece of sushi in a seaweed wrap.

  As she walked along the stone corridor joining the bedrooms and the entrance hall, she paused and looked out over the loch. The sky was still pale and grey, and the water completely still. She closed her eyes and inhaled the crisp morning air. There wasn’t a sound for miles. It reminded her of the early mornings in Peridale when she could sit in her garden and enjoy the quiet of the countryside before the village woke and started their daily gossiping.

  She reluctantly tore herself away from the view and walked through to the entrance hall. She hadn’t been expecting to see anybody, so she stopped in her tracks and jumped a little when she saw Mary standing behind the desk in a navy blue pantsuit, her black hair scraped back into a neat ponytail, and a professional smile on her red-stained lips.

  “Somebody is up early,” she remarked, smiling effortlessly at Julia. “Off for a quiet dip before the others rise?”

  Julia looked down at the floor to where the woman’s husband had been lying dead less than twenty-four hours ago. She craned her neck to get a good look at the bannister, which had been patched up with bright yellow caution tape, and then back at Mary. Julia attempted to return the smile, but her bafflement restrained her cheeks from moving more than a couple of millimetres.

  “I’m actually going down to the kitchen to give Blair a helping hand with breakfast,” Julia said, casting a finger absently towards the double doors. “I run a café, so I thought I would make myself useful.”

  “That’s very kind of you but quite unnecessary,” Mary said, her smile unwavering. “You’re a guest here, and Blair can more than cope.”

  “I honestly don’t mind,” Julia insisted, forcing her smile a little wider. “I like keeping my hands busy.”

  “Well, in that case, I’m sure she’ll appreciate the help.”

  Julia nodded her agreement and hurried towards the doors. She didn’t realise she had stopped breathing until she was on the other side of the double doors. As she rushed through the silent and shadowy dining room, she couldn’t believe she had just come face to face with the same sobbing woman she had held at the foot of the stairs only the day before.

  “Morning,” Julia said, pushing Mary to the back of her mind as she walked into the kitchen. “Something smells good.”

  “I’m making Charlotte and Rory’s breakfast,” Blair said. “Charlotte is an early riser, so I thought I would try and keep things as normal as I could for her.”

  “Does Rory live here too?” Julia asked as she took one of the frying pans Blair was trying to juggle. “I don’t think I’ve met him.”

  “He lives in Aberfoyle. He’s a lawyer,” Blair said as she flipped the bacon. “He’s here a lot. They usually don’t tell me when he’s here for meals, so I have to go out and look to see if his car is there.”

  “And what about Mary?” Julia asked, unable to shake the woman from her mind. “What’s her role here?”

  “She’s the manager,” Blair said as she flipped the bacon once more. “Can you put some toast under the grill? The bread is in that bin there.”

  Julia nodded and assisted the girl as she wished. She was so used to being the one juggling the pans and the dishes that it was surprisingly enjoyable to take the backseat role and carry out the orders.

  “I’m surprised she’s here,” Julia said. “When I arrived yesterday, Henry was throwing her out.”

  “That happens a lot,” Blair said, glancing awkwardly at Julia out of the corner of her eyes. “She’s his fourth wife, but from what I’ve heard, she’s the one who has stuck around for the longest, aside from the first one.”

  “How long?”

  “Three years.”

  “So not very long at all,” Julia whispered under her breath. “And the first wife? I guess that is Charlotte and Rory’s mother?”

  “Henry’s one true love, or so they say. Sandra died during childbirth when Charlotte was born. People say Charlotte is like her mother’s twin.”

  “And what was Charlotte’s relationship like with her father?”

  Blair gave Julia a curious look as she spun around and started serving up the breakfasts. Julia busied herself with cutting the toast into triangles and slotting them neatly into the silver toast rack. She decided it was better to wait for Blair to speak voluntarily instead of bombarding her with more questions.

  “It is – I mean – it was frosty,” Blair whispered, glancing over to the door as though Charlotte was going to burst through at any moment. “Charlotte’s official role is customer services. She deals with bookings and checking in the guests, but everybody knows she wants to manage this place. She resents working under her stepmother. The story goes that anyone who marries Henry becomes the manager.”

  “Is Mary a good manager?”

  Blair blushed and dropped her face a little as she poured the baked beans onto the plates. Her silence spoke more than a thousand words.

  “She’s inexperienced,” Blair said tactfully. “She thinks I’m enough to cook and serve during the quiet times, but we’ve got two couples checking in for the weekend, and she still thinks I’m going to be able to do it all on my own. There was another girl here, but she was fired a week after I arrived two months ago. I was thinking about it last night, and I’m so grateful that you’re here because I was worried about juggling everything. On top of that, the McLaughlin’s use me as their personal chef. Rory is the worst for it,
and he doesn’t even work here. He’ll call down when I’m in the middle of preparing dinner and tell me he’s bringing five friends ‘round for a hot tub party and he’ll order the most complicated things. A lot of the time, I don’t even have the food here, so I have to send somebody into the village.”

  “He sounds lovely,” Julia joked with a wink.

  “Between you and me, he gives me the creeps,” Blair whispered back. “Can you grab the jug of orange juice from the fridge? I squeezed it fresh an hour ago, so it should be cold enough now. I’ll make up a pot of tea, and then I’m ready to serve.”

  Julia fetched the jug while Blair prepared the tea. She looked down at the trolley, but couldn’t figure out where to put the jug with the plates, toast, butter dish, and cutlery. When Blair returned, she was pushing a separate trolley with the teapot, two cups and saucers, a dish with sugar cubes, and a jug of milk. Julia set the jug onto that trolley and grabbed two small glasses from the display on the wall. Blair smiled, plucked up the glasses and replaced them with two different ones. Julia chuckled apologetically.

  “And you manage this on your own?”

  “I have the dumbwaiter,” Blair said, hooking her thumb over her shoulder to the elevator next to the door. “I have to carry the trolleys one by one up the stairs though.”

  “On your own?”

  “I make two trips.”

  “I’ll help you,” Julia offered, closing her hands around the food trolley as Blair set two domed silver cloches over the plates. “It’s far too much to carry on your own.”

  “You should stay down here.”

  Julia hurried over to the wall and plucked an apron off one of the coat hooks. She took her hair out of the ponytail and crafted her curls into a bun that matched Blair’s.

  “If they say anything, I’ll take the blame,” Julia said as she pushed the trolley into the dumbwaiter. “Besides, they’ve got more important things to worry about today.”

  Blair reluctantly pushed the second trolley into the dumbwaiter, closed it and pressed some buttons on the panel. The lift shuddered into life and sent the food up to the next floor.

  “You can wait outside the bedroom,” Blair whispered as she held the door open for Julia, a mischievous smile taking over her usually shy expression.

  They met the trolleys on the next floor and pushed them quickly through the dining room and back towards the entrance hall. Blair seemed grateful to have Julia if only to hold the doors open for her. They whizzed past the reception desk, where Mary was talking on the phone. Julia noticed a young man in a green Barber jacket she hadn’t seen before crouching over the fireplace and stacking up logs of freshly chopped wood to start a fire. He glanced over his shoulder when he heard the rattling trolleys and smiled at Blair. She smiled back, blushing a little, before picking up the trolley and hurrying up the stairs. Before Julia had time to think of the best way to do it, she hoisted up the trolley under her arms and hurried up the stairs, hoping gravity and her thirty-seven-year-old knees would spare her the embarrassment this time. When she reached the top step, she let out a relieved sigh.

  “It looks so much higher from up here,” Julia panted as she cast her attention to the broken bannister.

  Blair nodded, but she didn’t say anything. She couldn’t bring herself to look at the wood. Julia couldn’t blame the girl. She was almost glad the family were keeping Blair so busy, so she didn’t have to linger and think about what had actually happened here. Julia, on the other hand, could think of nothing else.

  “Oh no!” Blair exclaimed, stopping in her tracks. “I’ve forgotten the ketchup. Rory insists on smothering everything in the stuff. He’s like a child.”

  “I can go back,” Julia offered, looking back down the stairs.

  “It’s easier if I do,” Blair said, already hurrying past Julia. “I’ll be quicker, and I know where it is. Just wait here and don’t go inside.”

  Julia nodded her promise that she wouldn’t. She looked to the door that Blair had been heading towards and waited until the girl was hurrying back through the double doors and towards the kitchen. She pushed the trolleys towards the door, which was slightly ajar. A picture on the wall caught her eye. It depicted a man, who she instantly recognised as Henry McLaughlin, with a small boy and girl a couple of steps in front of him. They were standing tall on the bridge in front of the castle, with their chins pushed forward with smile-less expressions. It wasn’t the type of family picture that Julia would have hung on display. In the shadows of the castle walls, she pushed her hands into her apron and bowed her head, all while tilting her ear towards the gap.

  “They know it was Father’s gun from the mantelpiece in the drawing room,” she heard a man say. “You know he kept that thing loaded.”

  “Everyone knew it,” she heard Charlotte whisper back. “He did it to scare people. Just relax.”

  “Jokes on him now,” the man returned with a soft laugh. “You didn’t tell the police I was here yesterday, did you?”

  “Of course not!” she replied. “Can you imagine how that would look?”

  Silence fell, and Julia held her breath, sure she was about to be caught in the act of eavesdropping. When she saw Blair scuttling back towards her holding a bottle of ketchup, red-faced and breaking out in a sweat, she let out a relieved sigh.

  “Wait here,” Blair instructed as she backed up and pushed herself against the door with the trolleys trailing behind.

  Blair entered the room, and Julia did as she was told. She hung back, but she took her opportunity to look inside. She caught a glimpse of Charlotte sitting up in bed in a silk robe, with a similarly redheaded man in a business suit lying across the bottom of her bed while reading a broadsheet. Neither of them looked particularly grief-stricken or heartbroken that their father had been murdered just down the hall the day before. Before the door slammed shut, the man turned to look at her, but when he saw her apron, he looked back at his newspaper. Julia couldn't be certain, but she was fairly sure he was the same redheaded man she had seen Charlotte talking with and hugging on the bridge the morning of Henry’s murder.

  Julia was broken from her train of thought when she heard the unmistakable sound of two plates, two full Scottish breakfasts, and two domed metal cloches clattering against the wooden floor. Despite her strict instructions to stay outside, Julia was bursting through the door and hurrying over to help before she even realised what she was doing.

  “You stupid girl!” Charlotte cried furiously, sitting up sternly in bed. “Are you trying to get yourself fired?”

  Blair shook her head, tears already rolling down her face. Julia dipped down and dropped her head away from Charlotte as she helped Blair gather up the mess into the two metal cloches.

  “S-s-sorry, miss,” Blair stuttered. “I’ll make you fresh ones right away, m-m-miss.”

  “As you should,” Rory, the brother, exclaimed, nodding firmly at both of them. “I tell you, sis, you can’t get the staff these days.”

  Blair and Julia cleaned up as much of the mess as they could before putting it on one of the trolleys and hurrying out of the room. The second they were outside, Blair broke down and fell into Julia’s arms.

  “I’m sorry, Julia,” she stumbled through her tears. “I just can’t shake the image of Henry’s body from my mind. It haunted my dreams all night.”

  “I understand,” Julia whispered as she stroked the back of the girl’s hair. “I’ve been there myself more times than I would like to admit.”

  “You’ve seen dead bodies?”

  “My fair share.”

  “Does it get easier?”

  “Sure it does,” Julia said, hoping the shake in her voice didn’t reveal the lie. “Let’s go down to the kitchen and make you a nice cup of hot tea. Have you ever tried peppermint and liquorice? I have a couple of teabags in my room.”

  Julia inhaled her favourite tea, and she instantly felt at home. She thought about Mowgli, Jessie, and Barker, and suddenly she found herself missin
g Peridale. She turned to Blair as she took her first sip, and was pleased when she didn’t recoil in horror.

  “It’s delicious,” Blair said as she wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Do you serve this in your café?”

  “It’s on the menu, although I think I’m the only person who drinks it.”

  “Do you have a lot of cakes on your menu?”

  “The majority is cakes,” Julia said with a small chuckle. “Sometimes I think I’m the only person in the village people trust to bake them anything. It’s a burden I enjoy.”

  “And you do it all alone?”

  “I have Jessie,” Julia said before taking another deep sip of the hot tea. “I took her in off the streets. She was homeless, but now she’s my apprentice and my lodger. She’s not much younger than you.”

  “You must be a kind woman,” Blair said, her smile soft, but noticeably sad. “She’s a lucky girl.”

  The door to the kitchen squeaked open, but Blair didn’t act as startled as she had when Julia had crept in, nor did she look surprised to see the handsome man who had been lighting the fire in the entrance hall. The lower half of his face was taken up with a short beard, but his line-free eyes and low hairline told Julia the man wasn’t much older than Blair.

  “I thought I heard you crying,” he said as he hurried over, the scent of heather and moss lingering on his green overcoat. “Are you alright?”

  “I dropped Charlotte and Rory’s breakfasts,” Blair said with a stifled laugh. “Right in front of them.”

  “Oh, sis,” the man said as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Mam always said you were born with two left hands and two right feet.”

  The young man looked at Julia and smiled kindly at her as he comforted his sister. Julia was relieved to learn that Blair wasn’t alone in the large castle, especially considering what had happened.

  “This is my brother, Benjamin,” Blair said. “Ben, this is Julia. She’s a guest, but she’s helping me out. She owns a café.”

  “A café?” Benjamin exclaimed as he reached out to awkwardly shake Julia’s hand with his left arm, catching her off guard and forcing her to quickly switch hands. “That’s my sister’s dream, isn’t it Blair? It’s nice to meet you.”