by Agatha Frost
“A little under, but—”
Frantic knocking at the door cut Katie off. They immediately walked into the hall. Brian, with Olivia wriggling against his shoulder, appeared from behind the sofa. Julia reached out, but the door opened from the outside.
Leah Burns, who lived in the cottage across the lane and was, consequently, Julia’s closest neighbour burst in. Panicked eyes scanned the hallway as if to confirm it was safe before she shut the door behind herself.
“Sorry,” she said, tucking her sandy blonde hair behind her ears with shaking hands as the keys hooked on her thumb jangled. “I didn’t mean to barge in. It’s just . . . I-I think there’s someone in my house.”
Summoned by the same call to action, Barker and Brian rushed to the front door. Julia took Olivia from her father as he left before guiding Leah into the sitting room. Her neighbour crept to the window and pulled back the curtain.
“I’ve been up north all day,” she said, glancing back at Julia before returning her attention to the cottage across the lane. “Final planning meetings for that huge Yorkshire wedding I told you about last time I saw you. Usually, I-I’ve been home for hours by now.”
Julia joined Leah at the window and pulled the curtain back further. Though hampered by the red rose bushes in Leah’s garden, Julia saw Barker search an empty, brightly lit living room. Bouncing Olivia as she fussed, Julia hoped Barker wouldn’t regret wading in so quickly.
“What happened?” Julia asked, peeling Leah away from the window.
“I opened the door and heard something,” she started, moving Vinnie’s toys from the corner of the sofa so she could sit. “Something smashed upstairs, and then I heard running footsteps. I didn’t stick around to see the rest.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t Johnny?” Julia asked, stepping over Vinnie, who scribbled in a colouring book on the hearth rug, oblivious to the drama unfolding around him, and the lines of the sheep on the page.
“He’s still on crutches.”
The hit and run.
“Of course.”
Katie returned with a steaming cup of tea in one hand and her chilled glass of wine in the other. She began to offer Leah the tea, but she took the wine and finished half in seconds.
“It’s getting worse,” she said, clutching the wine glass with shaking fingers. “The crime, I mean. With Johnny’s hit and run and all the break-ins, is it my turn?”
“Break-ins?”
“I heard something about that in the café the other day,” Katie said, staring into her unwanted tea as she settled next to Vinnie. “Couple of houses, isn’t it?”
“I heard it was way more than a couple.”
“That gossip must have passed me by,” Julia said, trying to contain Olivia as she wriggled like she had somewhere to be. The clock confirmed she was five minutes late on her next feed. “It’s amazing what I miss when I’m not in the café every day.”
The front door opened, and Julia was relieved to see her father’s face, albeit redder than it had been when he’d left.
“There was someone.” He flattened a palm on the wall and leaned against it to catch his breath. “Little beggar bolted through your back door. I tried to chase him, but he was about a third my age and skinny as a rake.”
Leah put back a hefty slug of wine.
“Did you get a good look at him?” Julia asked.
“Only saw him from behind,” he said, looking back at the front door. “Here he is. Barker found something.”
“Unless this is yours?” Barker held up a shoe; he clutched it through his shirt sleeve. “It was on the stairs, and I couldn’t find the match. I know Johnny still has his cast on, but I can’t see him in a pair of white trainers.”
“Brogues only,” Leah said, shaking her head at the dirty shoe. “I’ve never seen it before.”
“Gotcha!”
With the shoe and his phone, Barker shut himself in the dining room. Katie picked up Vinnie and took him into the kitchen with Brian trailing after them.
“I can’t believe someone broke into my house,” Leah whispered, shuddering as she glanced towards the window. “I don’t care what they took. It’s the intrusion.”
“You can stay here tonight,” Julia offered. “The guest bedroom is now a nursery, but the sofa is quite comfy.”
“I don’t want to intrude.” Leah smiled at Olivia as her frustration turned into grumbling. “You’ve got your hands full. I’ll stay with Johnny. Maybe for a few days. If anyone breaks in, he can whack them with a crutch.”
Barker returned minus the shoe, tapping his phone up and down in his palm as he stared into the middle distance.
“The police will send someone up,” he said after a focusing blink. “Might be a little while, though. Something has—”
The phone in the kitchen cut him off. It rang twice before someone picked it up.
“It’s your grandmother,” Brian called from the kitchen. “She’s asking for you.”
Julia passed Olivia to Barker before heading into the kitchen. She turned off the spitting strawberry jam; the batch had burnt past the point of no return. Accepting the phone from her father, Julia resisted rushing straight to Olivia’s hungry cries.
“Julia!” Dot cried at the exact moment the egg timer signalled another completed fifteen minutes with its insistent rattle. “You’ll never guess who’s been found dead in the graveyard, and I’m not talking about the people six feet under. Let’s just say, I don’t think Penelope will be bothering you about your parking spaces anymore!”
3
“She looks more like you every time I see her.” Evelyn wiggled a finger into the pram as they settled in the armchairs by the bay window. “They look like angels when they sleep. How are you finding it?”
This question was the one most often repeated since Olivia’s arrival, and it had a vastly different answer depending on the day, or even the hour, it was asked. Julia stifled a yawn and followed a butterfly’s dance across the B&B’s wild garden as another beautiful spring teatime showed its colours outside.
“Let’s just say I’m glad she’s finally asleep,” Julia settled on. “She’s usually full of energy at this time, but I couldn’t seem to appease her last night. I don’t think I had a single uninterrupted hour.”
“I remember those days.” Evelyn smiled fondly, taking a moment to glance at one of the many photographs of her late daughter arranged around the B&B’s sitting room. “Astrid always slept like she had the anxieties of the world on her tiny shoulders. Poor Olivia likely picked up on the terrible energies in the air after the unfortunate incident at the graveyard last night.” Snapping her fingers, she jumped up. “I have just the thing.”
Julia opened her mouth to ask Evelyn not to bring out one of her ‘healing’ teas, the effects of which varied as much as Julia’s answers about Olivia depending on the person asked. The only consensus was that after one of Evelyn’s special brews, nobody left in the same mood they’d entered. Thankfully, Evelyn merely headed to a glass cabinet and retrieved one of her many velvet satchels of crystals. The hand went in, and a shimmering rock came out.
“Golden pyrite,” she said, twirling it like stardust in the golden hour sun before tucking it into the bottom of Olivia’s blanket. “A protection stone. Put this beside her cot. After all the strange occurrences lately, you can never be too careful.”
Julia smiled her appreciation. Thanks to Evelyn dishing out her stones like Werther’s Originals, Julia was amassing quite the collection. How many other villagers had accumulated such extensive crystal collections over the years?
“When tragedy strikes so close, it’s hard not to absorb the energy.” Evelyn pulled together her kaftan as she sunk in the armchair. “Gives a new meaning to the word headstone. I don’t think Penelope’s moved on yet. I can feel her in the air.”
Julia wasn’t sure if she was feeling Penelope Newton in the air, but something was off. She’d noticed it even before leaving her cottage that morning. This new s
ilence was a far cry from the peaceful kind she’d experienced yesterday.
“Detective Inspector Christie suspects foul play, naturally,” Julia said, revealing a snippet of their brief conversation after he’d finally ventured up to deal with the break-in at Leah’s cottage last night. “In his words, how often does someone slip and fall so hard into a headstone that they immediately need one of their own?”
“It hardly bears thinking about.”
More than once in the intervening hours, Julia’s mind had forced her to imagine what her last moments having her skull crushed against a slab of marble might feel like. It was enough to induce a headache.
“I can’t wait to tuck into some of the jam,” Evelyn announced brightly, changing up the mood. “It smells amazing. And scones with little pots of cream! Such a pretty presentation.”
Julia glanced at the stack of boxes she’d sold at cost; Evelyn planned to give them to her current guests as gifts. Julia had spruced them up with mini cream pots from the cash and carry and some ribbon from the craft shop.
“Might be a little on the runny side, but it’ll firm up.”
“Only means it’s fresh.” Evelyn chuckled as her gaze drifted to the grandfather clock in the corner of the room. She leapt up again at once. “Goodness me, would you look at the time? I’ve let the whole day slip away. I need to get to your grandmother’s for the meeting.”
Who, Julia wondered, had been the first person her grandmother called with the news that she’d brought her meeting forwards a day? Dot had called Julia at barely a few minutes past eight.
“Is it that time already?” Julia casually glanced at the clock. “I’ll let you get off.”
“I really hope discovering the identity of my shed visitor is a priority,” she said as she swept to the door in a flurry of fabric. “They were back last night. It was a pleasant evening, so I stayed out until I couldn’t keep my eyes open. They took the previsions I left for them, but they were gone by sunrise.”
“Have you considered putting up cameras?”
“I’m not looking to catch them out.” Evelyn rushed around Julia in the hall and opened the front door. “They’re doing me no harm; I simply want to know who they are so I can offer my help. Even with all my rambling regulars at this time of year, I have empty beds enough that nobody should be sleeping in a shed with the spiders.”
“That’s like how I first met Jessie,” Julia said as Evelyn helped lift the pram over the doorstep. “I think she’s driving into Berlin today.”
“Oh, I’d love to get back there.” Evelyn thrust her arms out to the open air. “To see the world again. I paused my travels for one winter, and I’ve barely left the country since.” She looked at the clock above the door to the police station and jogged to the bottom of the garden path. “Are you coming to the meeting? You can tell me more about Jessie’s adventures.”
“I wasn’t going to go.” Julia pushed through the open gate, and after Evelyn shut it behind her, they set off. “I didn’t want to give my gran false hope that I’d be joining.”
“Then I shall have to love you and leave you.” Evelyn embraced Julia before giving Olivia’s cheek a rub with the back of a finger. “I doubt your gran’s the type of woman who appreciates lateness. In fact, I can feel her foot tapping from here.”
As Evelyn, wrapped in her black mourning outfit – she had a kaftan for every occasion – hurried through the village, Julia followed at a more leisurely pace. She passed The Plough pub, which she rarely ventured into these days, though it was suitably packed in the nice weather.
Across the green, the impressive structure of St. Peter’s Church almost obscured the investigation unfolding behind it. If it weren’t for the official-looking cars and vans parked along the road, it would be easy to believe this was a day like any other, even with the strange feeling in the air.
Perhaps the unsettled feeling stemmed from her interaction with Penelope within the same hour she died. Julia had barely said two words to her, walking off when Penelope was mid-sentence. If she hadn’t been so stressed with the suppliers, perhaps she wouldn’t have felt so guilty for her abruptness – not that her memories of the woman were fond. One look at the alley reminded Julia just how difficult Penelope had made her life recently.
In the pram, Olivia’s lashes flickered and blinked open. She had Barker’s eyes, and she never looked more like him than when she was cranky.
“Welcome back,” Julia whispered softly, hoping the nap had improved the footing on which they’d left things before venturing to Evelyn’s. “It smells like someone needs a change.”
The lane to her cottage was close.
The café was closer.
She set off to her gran’s cottage.
She didn’t have the café keys on her. Probably.
“I knew it!” Dot snapped her fingers as she opened the door. “You cannot resist a mystery, Julia. Baby or not. I couldn’t have planned this better if I tried.”
“Careful, Gran.” Julia pushed Olivia over the threshold. “You’re going to make yourself a suspect with words like that.”
“Don’t be ludicrous.” Dot clutched her collar. “Why on Earth would I want to kill Penelope Newton of all people? I hardly knew her. She never gave me the chance. When I tried to join her stupid group, she said they were . . .”
Dot’s sentence fell off a cliff as she turned all her attention to fluffing up the curls at the nape of her neck.
“Full?”
“Something to that effect.” Dot peered into the sitting room, where it sounded like Evelyn was already giving someone a palm reading. “Hardly a motive, dear.”
“And holding a meeting to immediately form a group to take over from the victim’s?” Julia closed the front door behind her. “Less than twenty-four hours after Penelope was found dead a stone’s throw from your cottage?”
“You couldn’t possibly think I—”
“No, I couldn’t,” Julia cut in with a wink. “I’m kidding, Gran. Unless you have something to confess?”
“I confess I must be the one to tell my granddaughter she isn’t as funny as she thinks she is.”
Dot flicked Julia’s ear through her hair.
“I assume you were here with Percy all night?”
“Lady and Bruce too,” Dot said through pursed lips. “Honestly, Julia, I might forget to mention Olivia to see how you like it.” She took a calming inhale, and in a lower tone, said, “But, yes. Percy and I were here all night. We were enjoying our after-dinner sweets when we heard the commotion outside. Some dog walker found her. I knew we should have taken them out earlier, but Percy was adamant about watching the news, as always.”
Dot wafted her hand, hinting at some conflict she didn’t care to share. Knowing Dot and Percy as she did, Julia imagined their arguments would be cause for more amusement than concern.
“Yes, Gran, it’s a shame you didn’t discover a dead body,” Julia said flatly. She checked that the dining room was empty. “Do you mind if I go in here to change Olivia?”
“You don’t need to ask.”
After pulling the door nearly shut, Julia unpacked the changing gear from the bottom of the pram and set to work putting Olivia into a fresh nappy.
“I thought there’d be more people here,” Dot whispered through the crack in the door. “I’ve got Shilpa, Percy, and Evelyn rocking back and forth clutching Amy Clark’s hands. Hardly the dream team, is it?”
“Don’t forget Lady and Bruce.”
“Very funny.” Dot cracked a smile. “After something like this, aren’t people bound to flock in wanting to help? I spread the word far and wide. Called everyone in my phonebook. I’ll give them another ten minutes.”
Dot left Julia to finish changing Olivia, who, more interested in grabbing at her toes, wriggled and kicked around on the mat.
Julia had been surprised to see so few people in the sitting room. Like her gran, she’d expected a decent turnout in a village where gossip ruled – and no
gossip ranked higher than that of a suspicious death.
For her gran’s sake, she hoped more people arrived.
Maybe she should stay?
Ten minutes to show moral support and keep the numbers up?
“Who am I kidding?” Julia whispered to Olivia as she clasped the buttons of a fresh lilac babygrow over the new nappy. “We both know I can’t leave now.”
After abandoning the pram in the dining room, Julia and Olivia sandwiched themselves between Amy and Shilpa on the sofa. Dot smiled vaguely at her, clearly preoccupied with staring at the small clock on the mantlepiece. Julia helped herself to a plain digestive, recognising the basic white and red packet as the cheapest you could buy at the local supermarket.
“Where are they?” Dot hissed, transferring to the window, and picking up the binoculars now hanging from a dedicated hook. “They should be here. “
“Who exactly are we waiting for?” Amy Clark asked, happily sacrificing her fingers to Olivia’s clutch-and-not-let-go game.
“Everyone,” Dot muttered, lenses pushed up against the glass. “I should be turning people away.”
“We are here, Dot.” Shilpa stiffened, shaking her head. “The village is only so big, and I’m beginning to suspect that you don’t think we’re up to your standards.”
Shilpa rose, and, though their conflict was apparent, it only took a stern look for Amy and Evelyn to rise with her.
“That’s not what you meant, is it, my Dorothy?” Percy dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief as he desperately looked between the women. “She meant no offence.”
“You’re right, Shilpa.” Dot let the curtain fall and pulled away. “Ladies, I’m sorry. Should we get this show on the road?”
Shilpa lowered back into her seat, Amy and Evelyn going with her. Julia was impressed. More formidable people had tried putting Dot in her place with a song and dance and failed.
“I never thought she’d say sorry,” Shilpa whispered to Julia.
“They’re in short supply, so savour it.”