Something was stirring in Grace’s memory but she didn’t want to lead Connie. She asked, “What did they call him?”
Connie beamed. “They called him Mr Flamingo. He sold sweets, just like the one you’re eating now.”
Grace’s hand paused on the way back from her mouth. She hadn’t even been aware of putting a sweet in. She rolled the sweet to one side in her mouth and said, “As in Flamingo’s Sweets? THE Flamingo Sweets?”
“The very same. Alfred worked hard and saved his money. His best selling products were liquorice sweets, he used to mix them with cough mixture, they were really popular. He bought his first shop five years after he set up the market stall. He took that chair with him to the shop.”
“Did he charge people to sit down on it?” Pearl asked.
Connie didn’t notice the sourness in Pearl’s voice, or if she did, she ignored it. “He used to let children climb on it to see the sweet jars better, the little ones couldn’t see over the counter.”
“What happened to his shop? I know a bit about Flamingo Sweets, they’ve got a big factory in Leeds, haven’t they? And I’ve seen the sweets in supermarkets and vending machines.”
Connie nodded. “He was an excellent businessman, he could sell ice to penguins. We’ve got factories all over England. We were just going to break into overseas sales when ... heck! What happened? I’m sure we had meetings about it, what did we discuss? I can’t remember now.”
“You said ‘we’, I take it that you were in the sweet business too?” Grace said.
“We all were, and proud of it too. My children have been brought up to work in the family business, they love it.”
Pearl said, “Do they? Are you sure about that? Or have they been forced to work in the family business?”
Connie looked offended. “Of course they love it! What a thing to say! They are so lucky to have a business ready for them to step into, I tell them that all the time.”
“Hmm,” Pearl replied.
Connie went on, “Lucinda is my oldest, I had high hopes for her. I thought she’d be just like me but I was wrong. She has no business sense at all, totally useless, couldn’t settle down and look at things seriously. We had many arguments about it but she wouldn’t listen. She said she wanted to do her own thing, to have her own freedom. She saw sense in the end though.”
“Does she work for the company now?” Grace asked.
Connie nodded. “I thought about what she said about freedom so I gave her the job of sales rep, she gets to drive around and visit our shops, she checks up on the vending machines.”
“Is she happy doing that?” Grace said.
“I don’t know, I’ve never asked her. Vincent is my next born. He’s wonderful, a real businessman, knows a good deal when he sees it. He married well and has already given me two grandsons. My youngest is Della, she was a complete surprise to me! She came to me quite late in life, the cutest baby you ever saw.” Connie chuckled. “Some people accused me of spoiling her, I suppose I did. She’s got a real sweet tooth, just like me. She loves making sweets and was always trying new recipes. She works in our tasting factory, she says she wants to make a sweet that everyone craves, a sweet that they can’t get enough of! Bless her.”
Pearl made a tutting noise. Grace looked over at her. Pearl folded her arms and looked away.
Grace said, “Sounds like you had a happy family life and a successful business.”
“Yes, I did. I had to use tough love sometimes, particularly with Lucinda, but it was worth it. My children ...”
Connie trailed off and looked into the distance.
Grace peered at her. “Connie? Connie, are you all right?”
Connie didn’t move.
“Pearl! Look at her, it’s like she’s frozen. Oh! What’s happening to her dress? The colour is fading, those strawberries are turning grey.”
Pearl called out, “Grace, stand back! I know what’s happening. Look at her face, she’s turned grey all over, and look down at the floor, it’s like a puddle of grey is seeping out of her feet. Don’t let it touch you! Move!”
Grace took a step back. “But what’s happening?”
“She’s remembered something horrifying, the grey stuff is like an emotional net, it’s catching all the horror and hurt. There must be a lot of it for it to leak out of her. If it touches you it’ll be absorbed into your skin, you’ll be overwhelmed by bad memories. Grace! For goodness sake, will you shift out of the way!”
Grace looked around the room, she jumped onto Frankie’s bed. Pearl moved closer to Connie, her arms outstretched.
“What are you doing? Don’t touch her!”
“Shh, I know what I’m doing, the grey stuff doesn’t affect me. You’ll have to get off that bed, I need to lay her down. Can you get onto the chair?”
Grace put one hand on the wall and moved her leg towards the chair. It was a bit of a stretch. She shifted her weight forward and moved onto the chair.
Pearl muttered something to the frozen Connie and led her towards the bed. Pearl gently pushed her down and lifted her feet. The grey puddle followed her onto the bed as if it was a shadow.
“Is she going to be all right?” Grace asked.
The room faded, Grace felt the chair wobble as she was taken into another vision.
Chapter 11
Grace bent down and put her hand on the back of the chair to steady herself. The air around her to seem to swirl as if the vision wasn’t ready for her yet.
After a few seconds the scene settled. Grace lowered herself into a sitting position. Her nose tickled as a fruity aroma floated towards her. That was followed by a sweeter smell, a pleasant mouth-watering smell.
Grace took in her surroundings. She was in a sweet shop. There was an old-fashioned shop counter just in front of her with a cash till on the left hand side. Behind the counter were rows and rows of glass jars, each jar was full of brightly coloured sweets. Grace felt a dribble of saliva escape from her mouth. She wiped it away, stood up and walked forwards.
Was this the original Flamingo shop that Connie’s relative had set up? There were old-fashioned sweets here but also some that she remembered from her childhood so it couldn’t be that old.
Grace’s eyes widened as she spotted something in front of the counter. It was the chair. She looked over her shoulder, the chair from the storage unit was still there, looking a shade more scuffed than the one right in front of her.
Someone was whistling. A woman popped up from the counter, a duster in her hand. It was a younger Connie. There was another woman at her side, a young woman with her dark hair pulled back.
Connie said to the woman, “Have you finished the stock-taking?”
The woman nodded eagerly, her bespectacled eyes peering at Connie with obvious admiration.
Connie gave her a friendly smile and said, “Then I think it’s time to put the kettle on, don’t you? Let’s have a cup of tea.”
The woman nodded so hard that Grace was afraid her head would roll off. The woman scuttled through a door to the left of the counter. Connie hummed to herself as she moved her duster over the counter.
A bell tinkled and a rush of cold air made Grace’s hair lift.
“Good morning!” Connie called out. “Do come in, have a look around. Feel free to let the little ones stand on the chair, they can see the sweets behind me better on the chair.”
Grace looked towards the customers. Her heart stopped. A grief filled moan escaped from her lips, her legs began to shake.
A young Grace skipped into the main part of the shop, just a few feet away from her. A young Frankie ran after her, his attention suddenly drawn to the rows of sweets.
“Francis! Help your sister onto that chair,” Grace’s mum called out.
“I can do it myself,” the younger Grace called back as she struggled to pull her little body onto the chair. Frankie put a hand on her bottom and pushed upwards.
Connie laughed. “How old are you two?”
“She’s three and I’m seven. Have you got any banana fizzles?” Frankie asked.
The older Grace sank to the floor, her legs unable to support her any more. Her heart felt like someone had picked it up and twisted it. Her dad stepped into the shop behind Mum.
Her dad laughed, he looked so young. He grabbed Frankie and swung him onto his shoulders. “Don’t forget to say please.”
Grace’s mum walked over to the little Grace who was struggling to see the sweets. She picked her up and kissed her chubby cheek.
It was too much for the older Grace. She put her hands over her face and began to cry.
This wasn’t fair, she wasn’t prepared for this. How could it hurt so much? She was dealing with the grief of losing Mum and Dad but this vision was bringing the pain back, it hurt more than ever.
Tears rolled down Grace’s cheeks. She couldn’t stop them.
A sudden movement jolted her. She moved her hands. The vision had changed, it was night-time, the blind had been pulled down over the shop window.
Grace wiped her cheeks and stood up. She pushed all thoughts of Mum and Dad out of her head as she took in the new details of the shop. It was some time near the present date going by the adverts on the wall.
There was a middle-aged, slightly balding man behind the counter at the till, he seemed to be counting the money inside. A younger woman, probably in her mid twenties, leant against the counter. She twirled a strand of her long dyed black hair around her fingers, her mouth moved up and down in a chewing motion. The third person in the shop was a middle-aged woman with short hair, she looked very much like Connie. She was walking up and down in front of the counter.
Grace realised that these were Connie’s children.
The man cried out, “For God’s sake, Lucinda, will you stop pacing up and down! We’ll sort something out. We’ll tell Mum what’s happened, she’ll understand.”
Lucinda wrung her hands as she walked the length of the shop. “She won’t understand! You haven’t seen the side of her that I have. She won’t take this well at all.”
The man closed the till. What was his name? Vincent?
The younger woman spoke. “She’s right you know, what you two have done is unforgivable. She’ll probably cut you out of her will.”
“Nonsense! She’d never do that! You don’t know what you’re talking about, Della,” Vincent said.
Della pulled a packet of sweets out of her pocket and opened them up. As she considered the contents she said in a level voice, “All I have to do is let Mum know what you two have been up to, I’m sure I can convince her to change her will. I’d quite like getting her fortune all to myself.”
Lucinda gasped. “You can’t do that! Mum wouldn’t change her will.”
Della picked out a black sweet and smiled. “She might, she listens to me. You could lose everything. Vincent, how would Mirabelle cope with that? Losing that big house of yours? She’d divorce you in a second and she’d take the boys. You know she’s only with you for your money.”
“She wouldn’t do that,” Vincent said quietly, his voice uncertain.
Della held the black sweet up to the light, she gave it a nod of satisfaction. What she said next made Grace’s blood run cold.
Chapter 12
The three people continued with their gruesome talk. On and on they went. Grace wanted to cover her ears but she knew that she couldn’t, she had to listen to everything.
A few minutes later they left the shop, Vincent locking the door behind him. Grace heard a sound to her left. It sounded like a sigh. The vision began to fade but not before Grace saw the door behind the counter close. Someone had been listening to the terrible conversation.
Connie?
Grace was suddenly back in Frankie’s room. Connie was sitting up in his bed, her face a normal colour, as normal as a ghost could expect to be. Pearl sat at her side. They both looked towards Grace as she reappeared.
“I wondered where you’d gone,” Pearl said. “Another vision?”
Grace nodded.
Pearl studied her face. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Another nod but Grace wasn’t prepared to mention that she’d seen her family, not in front of Connie. It was a private matter, one that she’d share with Pearl later.
Grace took a hesitant step forward, her mouth felt wobbly as she tried to smile at Connie.
Connie sat up straighter, her chin jutted out. In a firm voice she said, “You don’t need to tell me, I think I can guess what you just saw. You saw my loving children plotting to murder me, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Grace looked down at the floor unable to bear the hurt expression on Connie’s face.
Connie said, “I knew about that conversation. It broke my heart to think they could talk about me like that.”
“Talking and doing are two separate things,” Pearl pointed out. “We all feel like throttling someone sometimes. Grace, did they give you a reason as to why they wanted to top her off?”
Grace flinched. Did Pearl have to be so abrasive? She said, “I got the impression that Lucinda and Vincent had done something that you wouldn’t have approved of. I don’t know whether it was something they had done together, or something they had done separately.”
Pearl tapped her chin in thought. “Did they say how they were going to get rid of her? Were they going to do it themselves or use someone else?”
Grace replied, “Della mentioned that she had contacts but then Lucinda burst into tears. I can’t honestly say if it was a serious conversation or just one of those heat of the moment talks that you later regret. I can’t imagine anything being so bad that they couldn’t talk to Connie about.”
Pearl said, “I agree but Connie, no offence, is a control freak and a bully. I can imagine her children being afraid of her. People don’t need much of a reason to murder someone.”
Connie butted in. “I do take offence at that! My children knew they could talk to me about anything.”
“Did you change your will so that you left nothing to Vincent and Lucinda? Della mentioned that in the vision,” Grace said.
Connie’s eyes narrowed. “Did I change my will? Sorry, I can’t quite remember. Do you think I was in the process of making a second will and then someone killed me?”
“It’s possible. Are you sure you can’t remember?” Grace asked.
Pearl looked over at Grace. “I don’t think you’re going to get much more out of her at the moment. If she remembers anything else that’s upsetting she’s liable to turn grey again. Leave it for now, I’ll stay with her. You go home and get some rest, I’ll walk you downstairs.”
Connie settled back onto the bed and closed her eyes. Grace left the room and walked downstairs, Pearl at her side.
When they got into the kitchen Pearl said softly, “Now, love, what else did you see? I can see the sadness in your face and it’s got nothing to do with Connie.”
Grace told Pearl all about the family vision. When she’d finished Pearl said, “Treat that vision as a gift, a lost memory that’s been given back to you. A lot of people will never get that.”
Pearl gave Grace a kiss on her cheek. It felt warm. Pearl was the only ghost who felt warm against Grace. Whenever another ghost had connected with her physically she had felt a coldness.
Grace was touched by Pearl’s kindness. But not for long.
“Get yourself home and get some beauty sleep,” Pearl ordered. “You’d give Frankenstein’s monster a run for his money with that face of yours at the moment.”
Pearl winked at her and disappeared. Grace shook her head, Pearl was beginning to sound like Frankie.
Grace caught the bus home and was soon walking though her front door. After something to eat and an episode of ‘Murder, She Wrote’ she was ready for bed.
She was almost asleep when her phone rang. She glanced at her bedside clock – 11 p.m. Who was ringing at this time? Grace steeled herself for bad news.
It was Frankie, he sounded impossibly
loud and happy. “I’ve remembered where I’ve seen that chair before! It was in a sweet shop, about twenty miles from here. Mum and Dad took us once, I got some banana fizzles and you got some chocolate buttons! Ha! I knew I’d remember. See you later!”
Before Grace could ask him if he was drunk he’d rung off. She’d nag him tomorrow about that.
Grace dreamt about being in the sweet shop with her family. When she woke up her heart felt warm from the memory but her pillow was damp.
She swung her feet onto the floor. Something crackled. Grace frowned when she saw two empty sweet packets next to her bed. What was that ache in her jaw? Had she been grinding her teeth in the night?
She looked at the empty packets again. She hadn’t eaten any sweets before bed. Where had the packets come from?
Grace pressed her lips together. Don’t say she’d been sleepwalking, and then sleepeating. She shook her head. It seemed that Connie was having a strong effect on her, she’d have to find out who her murderer was soon otherwise her teeth would fall out. Having the odd sweet now and again was fine but stuffing her face in her sleep was another matter.
Grace stood up and straightened her pillow and bed cover. She suddenly laughed as she remembered a joke Dad used to tell her – ‘I had a dream last night that I was eating a giant marshmallow. When I woke up my pillow was gone’.
Grace patted the pillow, glad it was still there.
Chapter 13
Frankie was snoring his head off when Grace arrived at the shop. She closed the door to his bedroom/stockroom and then opened the shop for the day. Despite calling out for them neither Pearl nor Connie appeared.
The shop was pleasantly busy and Grace made many sales. There was a lull in customers when Frankie finally ventured into the shop at 11 a.m.
He yawned and scratched his side as he walked over to Grace.
Grace wrinkled her nose. “Your breath stinks! What were you drinking last night? And what time did you come home?”
A Sweet Murder Page 4