by Agatha Frost
“It’s ruined,” she groaned as she scraped at the burnt sauce. “This is why I don’t cook.”
She turned to Christopher, expecting him to look disappointed, but he looked amused at her feeble attempt to cook dinner for them.
“It’s not funny,” she snapped, frowning as she tossed the wooden spoon onto the messy chopping board. “The recipe I was following said this was easy.”
“It is easy,” Christopher said. “If not a little common.”
He set his wine glass next to hers before taking off his jacket. After yanking off his tie, he rolled up his sleeves and opened her fridge.
“What are you doing?” she asked as she poured the ruined sauce into the bin. “You’re not going to find a lobster or a pot of caviar in there.”
“Do you like omelettes?” he asked, pulling out a tray of eggs. “You have everything to make one.”
“I do?” she replied, joining him in looking at her almost bare fridge. “I can’t say I’ve ever made one.”
“Omelettes it is,” Christopher said, grabbing the milk and putting it next to the eggs on the counter. “Stand back. I’ve got this.”
Liz did as she was told and stepped back. She clung to her wine glass as she watched Christopher clear away her mess. He quickly scrubbed the frying pan clean, dried it with a towel, and put it on the hob. After looking in her almost empty cupboards, he found a glass mixing bowl and began cracking the eggs. After half a dozen, he added a splash of milk, a dash of salt and pepper, and whisked with a fork.
“The trick is not to let the pan get too hot,” he said as he clicked on the gas hob. “That’s how things burn.”
“I know that much.”
Christopher smiled over his shoulder as he poured the egg mixture into the pan. For the first time since meeting him, he almost seemed like a real human being.
“Where did you learn to cook?” Liz asked as she watched. “I always wondered if I should take lessons, but I never seemed to have time.”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“I won’t judge,” Liz coaxed. “I promise.”
“One of my only friends growing up was the cook,” Christopher mumbled, glancing at Liz over his shoulder. “He was called Ray Murphy. I’d get bored in that big empty house, so I’d sit and watch him cook. He’d let me help sometimes. He died a long time ago, but he passed on most of his knowledge to me. I actually enjoy cooking for people, not that I ever have anyone to cook for. The omelette is nearly done, so why don’t you take a seat in the front?”
“You want us to eat on our knees in front of the TV?” Liz asked, glancing at the table she had set, which was now dotted with her failed sauce.
“I’m not completely uptight,” he said, flashing her another toothy grin. “It’s how I eat most nights when I’m alone.”
Leaving him to dish up, Liz sat on the couch and un-muted the television. It was on a soap opera she had never had time to watch back in Manchester, but had somehow been sucked into since moving to Scarlet Cove. She flicked through the channels, landing on the local news. A picture of Adam flashed up on the screen next to one of Frank. She quickly flicked to the next channel, not wanting to give away her motive too soon.
Liz flicked to a quiz show as Christopher walked in with two plates, half of the large omelette on each.
“They’d be better if I’d had some ham and peppers to throw in,” he said as he sat next to her on the couch after passing her a plate. “But you can’t go wrong with a basic omelette.”
Liz tucked into the delicious omelette, surprised he had whipped it up from the basic rations in her fridge. She had considered falling back on two of the microwave meals in her freezer if things had gone wrong, but she was almost embarrassed by the mountain of frozen food she had in comparison to fresh.
“This is really good,” she said through a mouthful. “You saved the day.”
“It’s nothing,” he said. “I’ve never been a huge fan of spaghetti anyway.”
They watched the quiz as they finished their omelettes. Christopher seemed to know the answers to all of the questions based around anything slightly intellectual, but did not have a clue when it came to the pop culture based questions, which Liz was slightly better at answering.
“Christopher, can I ask you something?” she asked when they put their plates on the coffee table as the advertisements played during the break.
“Of course,” Christopher replied, turning to face her with a hopeful smile. “Ask me anything.”
“It’s about Frank and Adam.”
“Oh,” he mumbled, his expression dropping. “Go ahead.”
Liz inhaled deeply, unsure of where to start. She decided against admitting that she had thought Christopher could have possibly been involved.
“Do you have any idea who could have killed them?” Liz asked tactfully. “You worked with both of them, so I thought you might have some insight that I’m missing.”
“You sound like the police,” he said with a sad smile, as though he had just realised the true nature of their date. “They interviewed me this afternoon. I told them that I was with you when Adam was found dead, which seemed to settle them.”
“I told them that last night,” Liz said. “I didn’t want you getting into trouble.”
“Why would I?”
“No reason,” she replied quickly, her mind turning to the rat poison in his office. “Do you have any thoughts about any of this?”
“I’ve been thinking about it a little too,” Christopher admitted. “I liked Adam more than Frank, that’s for sure. I almost offered the kid a job myself, but I didn’t think he was experienced enough to take over Frank’s boat. I heard he landed on his feet at the farm, so I didn’t feel too bad.”
“You heard about how Frank died, right?” Liz asked before sipping her wine. “It was rat poison, no doubt in his hip flask. The police wouldn’t confirm it last night, but I could tell it was true when I asked them. They were too outraged that I’d heard for it to be a lie.”
“How did you hear?”
“Gossip,” she said. “It has its perks living somewhere so small. Nothing seems to stay secret.”
“That’s true,” Christopher replied with a nod. “Katelyn heard about our date at the restaurant before I had a chance to tell her. I suppose someone called her as soon as they saw us.”
Liz gulped down more wine, not wanting to remind him again that it had not been a date.
“Back to the rat poison,” she said, eager to know more. “You have a huge tub of the stuff in your office.”
“Had,” he said. “The police took it this afternoon after I mentioned it. I thought that was a peculiar move.”
“Do you think it was the same poison that killed Frank?” Liz asked, knowing there was more than one tub of poison in the town.
“I didn’t really use the stuff that often,” Christopher admitted. “I did put some down the morning after Frank’s death. The rodents had been chewing through the nets again, and they’re quite expensive to replace. I did notice there was a lot less than I remembered, but I didn’t think anything of it. The morning Frank died, I was out of the office all day at a meeting over in Cornwall. When I came back, I came and talked to you while you were painting, and well – you know the rest.”
“So, someone broke into your office and stole some?” Liz suggested. “But how did they get it into his hip flask? I heard he didn’t let the thing out of his sight.”
Christopher’s eyes widened, and he clasped his hand over his mouth.
“I took it off him the day before he was found, in the pub,” Christopher said through his fingers. “I heard from the other fishers that he was blind drunk when he pulled into the harbour, so I marched into the Fish and Anchor and demanded that he hand it over, and told him he could have it back when he stopped drinking at work.”
“Was the pub full?”
“Everyone was there,” he said with a nod.
“Who’s everyone?”
“Do you lock your office door?” Liz asked, her voice shaking.
“Not always. I leave it open because the guys leave their keys in there. I always lock it overnight, but –”
“Whoever poisoned Frank probably saw what happened at the pub and snuck in the next morning to spike his hip flask with the rat poison, knowing that Frank would likely just take it back.”
“Does that mean it’s my fault?” Christopher asked, appearing remorseful about his head fisher’s death for the first time. “I feel so guilty.”
“Whoever killed Frank would have done it anyway, I suspect,” Liz assured him, resting a hand on his shoulder. “I just think you gave them their window of opportunity. If it wasn’t the rat poison, it would have been a stabbing, or something else.”
“But who?”
“I don’t know,” Liz replied, pulling her hand back and sinking into the couch. “That’s what I’m struggling with. Nancy thinks it’s Mandy, but I can’t think of a motive.”
“She was there a couple of days before,” Christopher said, tapping his finger on his chin. “I remember because I rarely saw her down there. She was demanding money from him, but he wasn’t entertaining her. She stormed off, telling him he would regret it.”
“Money for what?”
“Probably to get her hair done,” Christopher suggested with a shrug. “I heard her husband was quite wealthy, but she walked away with nothing in the divorce.”
Liz thought about what he had said for a minute. It was a motive, especially if she had threatened him, but why Adam too? Had he figured out what Mandy had done, and she had killed him to cover her tracks?
“This isn’t a date, is it?” Christopher asked suddenly. “This isn’t a date any more than the restaurant was a date.”
Liz looked down into her wine, unable to look the man in the eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said feebly. “It’s the detective in me. She takes over sometimes.”
“It’s okay,” he said, standing up and putting his glass on the table next to the plates. “I got to have dinner twice with the most beautiful woman in Scarlet Cove.”
Liz blushed and gulped down more of the wine. She was sure Christopher was trying to make her feel better for being such an awful person, but it just made her feel worse.
“I’ll show you to the door,” she said awkwardly. “I think we’d be better suited as friends. I do like you, Christopher.”
“Thank you,” he said with a genuine smile. “I can’t remember the last time I heard that, if ever.”
Liz walked him to the door, not wanting to mention that more people would like him if he stopped so blatantly looking down his nose at everyone else in Scarlet Cove. Considering his shallow and lonely upbringing, she could hardly blame the man for his stunted social skills.
“I had a lovely evening regardless,” Christopher said as he unrolled his sleeves and pulled on his jacket. “Thank you for the food.”
“I should thank you. We’d have been eating burnt Bolognese otherwise.”
“That is true,” he chuckled. “You can keep the rest of the wine. You seemed to enjoy it.”
Liz glanced back at her almost empty glass, which was rather embarrassing next to his almost untouched brimming glass.
After opening the door, Christopher shook her hand instead of attempting to kiss her again. He turned back at the bottom of the stairs before heading out into the street. She waved at him, and he waved back, his sad smile saying it all.
“You’re a terrible person,” Liz mumbled to herself after closing the door. “Do you agree, Paddy?”
The dog looked up from his spot by the window, but he was not interested in what she had to say. He curled back up and went straight back to sleep.
Liz took the plates and glasses back into the kitchen. When she was in there, she grabbed the bottle of wine and turned it over. It did, indeed, have a map pointing out which region of Italy it was from. Out of curiosity, Liz searched for the price online, instantly regretting it when she saw it cost almost as much as her shop’s rent for a week.
After pouring Christopher’s leftover wine into her own glass and putting the bottle in the fridge, she walked back into the sitting room and grabbed a large, blank canvas. She rested it against her easel next to Paddy before balancing her glass on the windowsill. With a paintbrush and a little black paint, she wrote ‘Frank Troughton’ in the centre and everything she knew around his name. When she was done, she stepped back and looked at her investigation board, which looked like a rudimentary version of the ones she used to make back at the station.
“What am I missing, Paddy?” she asked her companion, who looked up at her, his expression as perplexed as she felt. “That’s what I thought.”
13
Liz slipped into her only black dress, still unsure about whether attending Frank’s funeral was the right decision. She had not officially been invited by his family, but she knew that was not how funerals worked. The detective in her knew the high emotions of the day might cause someone to slip up, and if they did, she wanted to be there to witness it.
As she forced pins into the frizzy bun she had made at the back of her head, she walked through to the sitting room and stared at the canvas hanging above her fireplace. She was still none the wiser, despite the investigation board having been on her living room wall for the last four days. She had considered taking a picture to send to Miles, if only to get his opinion. The only thing that had stopped her was how insistent she had been that Scarlet Cove would be a fresh start for her, and it had only taken her just over a week to revert back to what she knew.
She stuffed her feet into her black kitten heels, grabbed her only black handbag, and popped her phone and keys inside, along with a packet of tissues that she had bought from the corner shop, just in case anyone needed one. She was not the type of person to show emotion at funerals, especially not when all eyes were on her. She had somehow managed to hold it together through Lewis’ funeral, if only to convince her family and friends they did not need to keep ringing her and asking how she was.
She walked towards the door, ready to leave, but stopped when she noticed Paddy by the door. He whimpered and looked up at her, his wide eyes showing some recognition of what day it was.
“I can’t take you, boy,” she apologised, scratching behind his ears. “I don’t think dogs are allowed in churches.”
Paddy jumped up and ran in a circle. Liz sighed and grabbed his lead from the hooks on the wall.
“You were his dog,” she mumbled to herself. “If anyone says anything, we’ll leave. Deal?”
Liz walked across town with Paddy, noticing an unusual silence in the streets. It seemed even the seagulls above had decided to forego their shrill squawking for one day.
St. Andrew’s Church sat on a winding corner on a steep hill Liz had yet to explore. She had not known if the funeral would be well attended or not, but she could see that most of Scarlet Cove were waiting for the funeral cars to arrive. Pulling Paddy closer, Liz approached the church cautiously, yanking down her dress’s tight skirt. When her eyes met with Nancy’s, she was relieved to see a familiar face.
“Liz!” Nancy called as loudly as she dared. “Over here. Oh, you’ve brought Paddy. Frank would have wanted him here.”
A couple of people looked down at the dog as Liz made her way through the thick crowd, but she was glad when none of them seemed too bothered or outraged by his presence.
“This is my dad, Tim,” Nancy said, pushing forward a balding man in his late-fifties. “He runs the lighthouse. Dad, this is the Liz I’ve been telling you about.”
“How do you do,” the man grunted. “Nice to put a name to a face.”
“Me too,” Liz said with a chuckle. “Tim Turtle. Funny name.”
Nancy and Tim looked at each other, neither of them seeming to find it funny. Liz coughed and looked down at Paddy.
As though to save her, three funeral cars pulled up outside the church on the steep lane. The first was the hearse with the coffin in the back, which was suspiciously absent of any flowers. Mandy got out of the second black car, and Laura got out of the third. Liz wondered if it was entirely necessary for the women to take separate cars, but she did not vocalise her question.
Frank’s fellow fishermen carried the coffin on their shoulders through the sombre crowd, all of them in their usual fishing attire. One man stuck out in a sharp suit, and Liz was surprised to see it was Christopher. He spotted her and smiled before frowning down at the dog.
Mandy and Laura followed the coffin into the church, neither of them crying, but Laura looking more the part than Mandy, who was plastered in too much makeup as usual.
Liz hung back with Nancy and Tim, and they were the last to make their way into the church. They took seats in the last pew, between Violet from the café and Polly from the hairdressers. Both women smiled their recognition of Liz and Nancy.
With Paddy at her feet, Liz faced the front of the church, more concerned with Mandy and Laura than the priest reading blankly from the Bible. There were a few stifled sniffles and sobs here and there, but the church remained unusually silent for such a good turnout. Liz had been to her fair share of funerals thanks to her job. She knew the well-attended funerals were usually because the deceased had been popular. In Scarlet Cove, it seemed like most of the people were there for similar reasons to herself; to be nosey. It almost made her feel guilty, but she knew she was likely to be the only person in the sea of faces who wanted to catch the murderer before another body turned up.
When the priest finished with his reading, Liz’s ears pricked up when she heard him announce that Frank’s partner, Laura, was going to perform Frank’s eulogy. Laura stepped up to the lectern, the piece of paper trembling in her hands. She cleared her throat before looking around the packed church.
“Frank was a great man,” she started, her voice unsure as she read aloud from the paper. “I know many people here didn’t know him as well as they would have wanted to, and to me, that’s a shame.” She paused and sighed before folding up the paper and tucking it into her pocket. “He had so much to give, and I always felt safe when I was with him. He could come across cold, but when it was just me and him, he was the warmest man I’d ever met. He was funny and caring, even if he didn’t let everyone see that side of him. He wasn’t a bad man. He didn’t deserve what has happened to him.”