by Agatha Frost
Tears collected along Shannon’s lashes, but she quickly wiped them away before taking another gulp of her coffee.
“It doesn’t feel like ten years have passed,” Shannon said, her tone defensive. “I should have done something, but this never crossed my mind. I never thought she would have been in Peridale, dead all this time.”
Shannon pulled her phone from her pocket with shaky hands. She tapped on the screen a couple of times before turning it to Julia.
“This was one of the pictures she sent me,” she said, her smile full of sadness. “Look how happy she looked. She never looked like that with my grandad.”
The same woman from the picture on Dot’s wall stared back at her, but she was barely recognisable. Her grey hair hung loosely and rested on her shoulders, free of its tight roll, and her white blouse had been replaced with a casual mint green sleeveless top. She was still wearing her brooch, but it had moved from under her chin to her breast pocket. The biggest difference, however, was not in her physical appearance, it was the smile on her face. It was so easy and genuine as she sat at a table in an open-air restaurant. A tanned man with dark hair had his arm draped across her shoulder, and his smile was as carefree as hers.
“That’s Antonio,” Shannon said. “He looks nice. I’ve been trying to find him online to tell him what happened, or at least find out when, and more importantly, why she came back to Peridale.”
“Any luck?” Barker asked, the intrigue obvious in his voice. “Do you have a surname? I could use official channels.”
“All I know is that he’s called Antonio, and that’s what he looked like ten years ago,” Shannon said as she pocketed her phone. “Do you know how many sixty-something Spanish Antonios there are on Facebook? It’s like finding a needle in a haystack. Maybe I need to accept that I’ll never know what happened.”
“Maybe,” Julia said, the new information circling her brain. “But don’t give up hope. You never know what is yet to come out.”
Shannon smiled her appreciation before they walked back to the room. Dot said she was ready to go, so they decided to leave Shannon alone with her grandfather.
“Did you get what you came for?” Julia asked Dot as they walked back to the lift.
“He did it, Julia,” Dot whispered, her eyes vacant as she prodded the lift button over and over. “I know it. I asked him if he did it, and his finger twitched. I just know he did it.” The lift doors slid open. “Did Shannon tell you anything of use?”
“Did she ever!” Barker said, almost a little too giddily for Julia’s liking. “Mabel confided in Shannon about moving to Spain before she left, and she had communication with her after she arrived. Mabel must have come back to the village, and that’s when she was murdered.”
Barker pulled a small notepad from his pocket and began scribbling at a thousand miles an hour. Julia tried to peek at what he was writing, but they arrived at the ground floor and the doors slid open. Barker’s pen did not stop scribbling until they reached the car. As he slipped the notepad into his pocket, Julia spotted the words ‘Book 2’ written at the top of the page. Julia almost asked if Barker was really going to use what Shannon had just confessed in his next book, but she decided that for tonight at least, she did not have the energy for more confrontation.
The sun set on their drive back to Peridale. Julia’s thoughts bounced around faster than she could process, but now that she knew Mabel had left the country after all, it focussed her attention. Mabel had returned to Peridale, and Julia knew it was a strong possibility that the only person to have seen her was the same person who had stuffed her in the library roof.
“Who had a strong enough motive?” she whispered to herself as she climbed out of Barker’s car when they pulled up outside Dot’s cottage. “C’mon, Mabel. Push me in the right direction.”
8
“It’s just not quite the same,” said Shilpa Patil, the owner of the post office next door to Julia’s café. “It’s nice, but it’s not as good as the ones at the book launch.”
Shilpa took another bite of the blueberry muffin, but her eyelids did not flutter in the way Julia was used to.
“They’re not as sweet,” added Amy Clark, the local church organist.
“Not as moist,” said Betty Hunter from the charity shop as she gave the muffin a squeeze. “They’re just okay.”
“We’re used to outstanding,” said Amy. “You can’t blame us, Julia. It’s because you’re so talented. You’ve got us used to the best.”
“Why don’t you just follow the recipe of those you made for the party?” Shilpa asked as she pushed the half-eaten muffin away from her. “You must know what you did differently.”
“Yes, Julia,” Dot said over her teacup before taking a sip. “Why don’t you follow the recipe?”
Julia pouted as she continued to rub her cloth on the same spot she had been for the past five minutes. She had stayed up until two in the morning trying to tweak her muffin recipe, but it had been a waste of her time. She stifled a yawn, wishing she had opted for the extra time in bed.
“I lost the recipe,” Julia lied, her cheeks burning bright. “I left the window open and it blew right out.”
“Must have been the same wind that blew my knickers off the line,” Amy said with a knowing nod. “Whoosh! Never saw them again.”
“I think they might have ended up in my garden,” Betty said vacantly as she sipped her tea. “I turned them into rags for the dusting.”
At that moment, Jessie burst through the door with two plastic bags in her hand. With her head ducked, she walked behind the counter and into the kitchen. Already knowing what she was up to, Julia slipped through the pink beads, not surprised to see Jessie already ripping open the plastic muffin boxes.
“No!” Julia whispered, glancing over her shoulder at the full café. “Over my dead body!”
“Don’t tempt me, cake lady,” Jessie said, her fingers working at lightning speed to open up the boxes. “I’m tired of the bitter old lady brigade moaning about those bloody blueberry muffins!”
Jessie peeled off the cases and quickly arranged them on a tray. She tore a small chunk off one of the muffins and sprinkled the crumbs around.
“Freshly baked,” Jessie said with a satisfied nod. “They’ll never know.”
“I’ll know!” Julia snapped, not wanting the muffins anywhere near her. “I can’t take credit for them.”
“You don’t have to,” Jessie said with a shrug as she walked towards the curtains. “Out of the way, cake lady.”
Jessie pushed past Julia and walked into the café. She put the muffins in the display case before loudly clearing her throat to catch everyone’s attention.
“Right, listen up!” Jessie cried. “We have a confession to make, don’t we, Julia?”
Julia gulped and looked out into the waiting crowd, unsure of what to say.
“Julia didn’t bake those muffins,” Jessie announced dramatically. “We lied.”
Shilpa gasped, as did Amy and Betty. Dot choked on her tea, her face turning red as she attempted to disguise it as a cough.
“Lied, how, exactly?” Shilpa asked, one brow arched. “If Julia didn’t bake them, who did?”
“I did,” Jessie said, folding her arms as she winked at Julia out of the corner of her eye. “And now that we know you all love my recipe, Julia had agreed to let me sell them in the café, for a premium price tag, of course. And, it just so happens that I have a fresh batch right here, cooled and ready to be eaten, so step right up and claim your muffin before they all sell out!”
The sound of screeching chairs echoed through the café as everyone stood up to form an orderly line at the counter. Nobody complained when Jessie charged double what Julia had for her muffins.
“Oh, Jessie!” Shilpa exclaimed after her first bite. “Just like I remembered.”
“Even better,” Amy added as she licked crumbs from her lips. “You’ve trained a good one there, Julia!”
“It
would seem I have,” Julia said through almost gritted teeth. “Jessie, may I have a word with you in the back?”
“Not right now,” she replied, also through gritted teeth. “Can’t you see the line of customers waiting to be served?”
Unable to watch the fraudulent muffins being sold in her shop and passed off as Jessie’s creation, Julia marched into the kitchen, jumping a little when she saw Alfie sneaking through the back door, his leather motorbike jacket over his messy work clothes.
“If you want to see Jessie, she’s currently ruining my reputation out front,” Julia said with a sigh as she leaned against the stainless-steel counter. “I’ve created a monster.”
“Actually, it’s you I wanted to see,” Alfie whispered, glancing through the beaded curtain to make sure Jessie had not noticed him. “Are you doing anything tonight?”
“Aside from giving Jessie a lecture about why it’s wrong to lie, not a thing. Barker is back in London again.”
“Good,” Alfie said. “Because I accidentally got you invited to dinner at Kylie’s auntie and uncle’s house. Do you mind?”
“Keith and Sandra?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “I haven’t really met either of them, aside from at the meeting with Bob Slinger. I took Kylie out for lunch on my break, and we bumped into them. They insisted I come around to meet them properly. I think they wanted to do a ‘meet the parents’ thing, but I didn’t know what to say, so I just said you’d come. You’re Jessie’s foster mum, and I’m her brother, so it’s not technically lying, is it?”
Julia stopped herself from immediately saying yes. It would be a perfect opportunity to talk to Keith and Sandra to see if they knew anything about Mabel’s return to the village, but she did not want Alfie to think she would use the opportunity to snoop.
“I’d love to,” Julia said with a nod. “I’m flattered you thought of me.”
“Don’t tell Jessie, okay?” Alfie asked as he walked back to the door. “I still haven’t told her about Kylie.”
Alfie left the café, leaving Julia alone in the kitchen. She watched as Jessie served the last fake muffin before she looked over her shoulder with a smirk. Julia picked up one of the plastic boxes and turned it over to look at the ingredients list printed in tiny dark lettering.
“If you can’t beat them, join them.”
After closing the café, Julia told Jessie she was going to a mother and baby group with Sue, to which Jessie simply grunted as she mumbled something about going to see Billy anyway. She set off up the lane towards their cottage and Alfie arrived on his motorbike less than a minute later.
They drove the long way to Peridale farm to avoid driving past Julia’s cottage just in case Jessie spotted them. Keith and Sandra lived just beyond the farm, on the border of the village. It was smaller and a little more rundown than the other cottages in Peridale, but it was no less charming. It sat alone at the end of a tiny lane with nothing but countryside backing away from it for as far as the eye could see.
After climbing off the bike and handing the helmet to Alfie, Julia unhooked the gate. It dropped to the ground, the top hinge looking as though it had rotted out of the wood years ago. She pushed it along the stone path far enough for them to pass through before lifting it back into place. The front garden was tiny and devoid of many cultivated flowers, the grass instead full of yellow weeds. An old rusted bike sat under the front window, its tyres missing their rubber. They walked to the front door, stepping over the weeds poking through the cracks in the path. Julia reached out and carefully knocked on the door. It had a small panel for a window, but it had been boarded up with a piece of mismatching wood from the inside, a sign warning that ‘COLD CALLERS WILL BE IGNORED’ had been stuck on with brown tape. Julia and Alfie gave each other a tentative look, but they waited nonetheless.
After almost a minute, the door opened a crack, and a woman stared through the gap allowed by a chain with one eye.
“Yes?” she grunted. “What do you want?”
“I think we might have the wrong house,” Julia thought aloud as she looked around for another cottage. “We’re looking for Sandra and Keith Crump.”
The door closed, and the chain rattled before the door swung open fully. The woman’s standoffish demeanour changed to something much more welcoming as a smile spread across her face. The scent of beef and onions greeted them, making Julia’s stomach rumble.
“You must be Julia,” Sandra said, reaching out with one hand, and making Julia realise that it was her only hand. “Of course. You look exactly like your mother.”
Sandra was wearing a red woolly jumper that looked like it had seen better days. The right arm had been cut off and stitched up at the seam in the absence of Sandra’s arm. Not wanting to stare, Julia looked at Sandra, who appeared to be the same age as Keith. Her hair, which looked like it had once been blonde, was cut into a bob and tucked messily behind her ears.
“Come in!” Sandra called, stepping back to let them inside. “Sorry about the mess. You know what it’s like.”
The hallway was as cluttered as the garden. A stack of old magazines and newspapers being used as a stand for the telephone stood next to an overflowing shoe rack. The carpet was full of holes, and the wallpaper was in need of a refresh. They both stepped inside, and Julia did not know if she should take off her shoes, so she decided to keep them on.
“You knew my mother?” Julia asked as Sandra closed the door behind them. “Pearl?”
“Oh, yes,” Sandra said with a wide smile. “We went to school together, not that I was there a lot. She was always a bright girl though. It’s a shame about what happened to her.”
Sandra walked past them, the scent of beer drifting with her. Alfie looked down at Julia, letting her know he had smelt it too. They started to follow Sandra down the hallway to the kitchen, but Kylie appeared at the top of the stairs. She drifted down, her phone screen illuminating her face. She was wearing a white crop top, which showed off her midriff, high-waist jeans, and black trainers with white stripes. Her dark hair was parted down the middle and pin straight, its shine reflecting the light from the stripped bulb in the hallway. She was wearing a full face of makeup and was heavily coated in a warm vanilla scent; she looked readier for a photo shoot than a family dinner in a run-down cottage.
“Oh, hi, babe,” Kylie said when she spotted Alfie. “You actually came.”
“I promised I would,” Alfie said as he kissed her on the cheek. “You look nice.”
“Thanks,” she replied before looking down at her phone as she wandered into the kitchen.
They followed Kylie, where Keith was cooking at the stove. The room was slightly cleaner than the hallway, if a little disorganised. The dining area was in the kitchen, and the sitting room snaked back to the front of the cottage, creating an open plan L shape. The disorganised, cluttered theme spread through the cottage, but the table was at least clear and set for dinner.
“It smells delicious,” Julia said as she took a seat across from Sandra.
“It’s one of Keith’s specials,” Sandra said with a proud smile as she looked across at her husband, her eyelids slightly drooped over her eyes. “Beef and onions with rice. It’s delicious.”
Sandra picked up a cup and took a quick sip. Julia did not know what was inside, but she caught an overflowing recycling box full of crushed beer cans out the corner of her eye.
“So, you’re Alfie’s foster mother?” Sandra asked when she noticed Julia looking at the box.
“She’s actually my sister’s foster mother,” Alfie corrected before Julia had a chance to say anything. “She took Jessie in off the streets, and she’s in the process of adopting her as we speak. I only recently found my sister, but Julia has welcomed me with open arms.”
“That’s like what me and Keith did for Kylie,” Sandra said as she reached across the table to hold her niece’s hand. “Isn’t it, love? After Mabel left – well – after we thought she’d left, Donna lost the plot and ripped her f
amily apart on a whim. Tried dragging Kylie off to live in Wales, but we weren’t having that. Donna only ever cared about herself. I’m surprised Shannon went with her, but I suppose with her baby she thought she needed her mother to help. You were better off here, weren’t you, Kylie?”
“Can we not go over this again?” Kylie snapped, pulling her hand away as she tossed her phone onto the table. “It’s bad enough that my mother’s back here on top of everything else going on.”
“Mabel did move to Spain,” Julia found herself saying when she realised what Sandra had said. “But she came back, and that’s when she was murdered.”
Sandra and Kylie both looked at Julia, and then at each other. Keith suddenly appeared behind them with two plates and put them in front of Julia and Alfie.
“How do you know that for certain?” Sandra asked when Keith returned to the kitchen to retrieve the next lot of plates. “That doesn’t make any sense. Do you have inside information? Isn’t your boyfriend that detective inspector fella?”
Kylie narrowed her eyes on Julia as Keith put her food in front of her. Julia shifted uncomfortably in her chair, wishing she had not said anything. Alfie looked at her for an explanation, but she was not sure what to say.