by Agatha Frost
A question burned through Claire’s mind, rinsing and repeating until she couldn’t stand it. Turning, she buried her face in Ryan’s chest, and he wrapped her in a tight embrace.
On any other Saturday, would that have been her mother?
CHAPTER THREE
N orthash had two village pubs. The Hesketh Arms, with its locally famous homebrew, was a popular meeting point in the heart of the square.
And then there was The Park Inn.
The other pub.
Chain run, with new faces behind the bar every other week, The Park Inn couldn’t compete with the inviting, homey atmosphere Malcolm and Theresa fostered at The Hesketh. The Inn’s décor was technically nicer, but its ever-updating ‘local pub’ aesthetic felt like it had been cooked up in a boardroom. Visitors to Starfall Park gave it enough passing trade to keep the pumps in action, but most locals shied away … unless they needed a pint with a side of privacy.
As she carried two pale pints across the pub, Claire could barely believe it was a Saturday night. The Park Inn was only moderately busy. Even with Eryk’s shooting that morning – or perhaps in part because of it – The Hesketh Arms had been bursting on her way to meet her father.
On any other night, Claire would have braved the crowds and hovered for the golden opportunity to snag a seat. But tonight, The Inn was the perfect place for a pint with her dad. Though only a stone’s throw from The Hesketh, Claire didn’t recognise a single patron.
“Should I see if I can get a doctor to have a look at her?” asked Alan, continuing their brief conversation from outside the pub. “What if it’s a nervous breakdown? I’ve never seen her like this.”
“Knowing Mum, I’d say that’d only make things worse.” Claire sipped her pint. It wasn’t Hesketh Homebrew, but at least it was cold this time. “Has she mentioned why she cancelled the party?”
“No, but when I asked if she’d been fired, she locked herself in the downstairs bathroom.” He sighed as he scanned the over-designed food menu. “And your grandmother being there isn’t helping matters. I keep dropping hints about driving her to the train station, but she’s not taking me on. It’s almost like she thinks she’s staying. She’s been sitting in my armchair all day, barking orders at me like I’m not the one limping around on a cane.”
Claire’s gratitude for her privacy continued to swell. She’d take her chances with an armed burglar on the loose if it meant she could avoid sleeping under the same roof as her grandmother.
“How did Mum react when she heard about Eryk’s shooting?”
“Like I’d told her about the weather,” he said. “No reaction. And then she started scrubbing the skirting boards. She was still at it when I left. Couldn’t tear her away. She’s in one of her cleaning trances.”
“Not the oddest thing she’s done.”
“I know she’s not always the warmest woman, but she was so … cold. I just don’t know what to…”
Alan’s voice trailed off. Inhaling deeply, a polite smile transformed his expression as he looked over Claire’s shoulder.
“I thought I heard your voice, Alan!” called Detective Inspector Harry Ramsbottom. “You don’t mind if I join, do you? Prefer the quiet you get here, but it’s always better to eat in company.”
DI Ramsbottom, once a colleague of Alan’s at the local police station, dropped into the free seat with a full plate. Without waiting for their invitation, he pulled his chair close. Their pints sloshed as his belly collided with the table, spilling some of the precious contents.
“Terrible business,” announced Ramsbottom as he cut into an anaemic-looking pie swimming in watery gravy. “Terrible, terrible business. An armed burglary right here in Northash? As if we haven’t enough to contend with, some madman needs to throw a gun in the mix? Your Janet had a lucky escape with that food poisoning.”
“I suppose she did,” Alan replied, his politeness giving nothing away. “She’s processing the news in her unique way. Any leads on the case, Detective Inspector?”
“If only.” Ramsbottom spooned garden peas into his already full mouth. “My officers are out looking for anyone who matches the description Tomek gave.”
“Tomek?” Claire asked.
“Eryk Kowalski’s son,” he revealed. “Young lad. Twenty. Apparently, he was learning the ropes with his dad at the post office when the masked burglar came in with their gun. Locked the doors and stuck ‘em up like an ol’ Western film. Emptied the tills. When Eryk fought back, he shot him right in the front.” He patted down his pockets for his pad. “Caucasian male around five eight give or take a couple of inches, average build. Had on a balaclava and an accent that may or may not be local. They’re guessing he was in his thirties, but they couldn’t be too sure.”
“That could be anyone,” said Claire.
“I’d have a better chance finding Wally.” Ramsbottom chuckled, flicking to the next page. “Saying that, it’s never easy to find them after these kinds of burglaries. They usually strike at random.”
“Not always,” Alan pointed out.
“Still as sharp as ever,” said Ramsbottom with a wag of his finger. “Whoever they were, they slipped in and out, without leaving any crumbs. Almost expert.”
“Or an inside job?” Alan suggested. “How’s Leo doing?”
“Of course. You’ll know him through Janet.” Ramsbottom flicked a few pages along. “Poor lad was shaken up. Didn’t have much to say for himself. He’d just started his shift when the assailant barged in. Same story as the Kowalski boy. Screaming and shouting as they emptied the tills, Eryk gets involved, gunshot, and then our balaclava-clad friend ran out the back and down the alley.”
“The back alley?” Claire’s ears pricked up. “As soon as Eryk was shot?”
“That’s what it’s looking like.”
“I tried the post office’s back gate about five minutes before the shooting,” Claire remembered aloud, frowning into her beer. “The bin was blocking it from the inside. I thought I saw someone, but they didn’t respond when I spoke.”
“Maybe that was the burglar?” Ramsbottom suggested as he slopped gravy down his pink tie without noticing. “Staking the place out?”
“It can’t have been,” she said, her frown deepening. “I walked around the front. That’s when I called you, Dad.”
“That was just after eight,” he said. “They were still doing the top of the hour headlines on BBC Breakfast.”
“And the front door was already locked,” she said, her fingers fumbling with a beer mat as her mind worked, “and like I said, that was before anyone was shot, so the burglar was already in there. What time was the shooting?”
“We’re estimating ten minutes past the hour.”
“Quite a few people had gathered outside, so it’s safe to assume the burglar was in there for what? Fifteen minutes?”
Ramsbottom stared at his notes, scratching at his unnaturally thick golden toupee with the end of his fork.
“It would seem that way,” he said, stabbing four chips onto his fork and cramming them in his mouth. “It’s not uncommon for some burglaries to last that long. There’ll often be negotiations. There’s an average time, but I can’t quite—”
“Anywhere between ninety seconds and twelve minutes.” Alan rattled off the fact without missing a beat. “The average is eight minutes, but having seen similar cases over the years, the business hold-ups are usually on the shorter side.”
“Frenzied dash to get in and out,” Ramsbottom agreed before patting down his pockets and pulling out a pen. “This is why we miss your brain at the station, Alan. You always have that extra little nugget.”
Alan smiled, though Claire saw the pain behind the politeness. If he’d had his way, Alan would have never stepped down from his role as Northash’s detective inspector. The brain tumour that had caused his limp and spontaneous lapses in memory hadn’t forced him out, but the offer of a demotion to a desk job had. He missed it more than he’d ever admit.
“Might be worth double checking the alley detail too,” Claire pointed out, reading Ramsbottom’s scruffy handwriting upside down as he scribbled away. “I was out there not thirty seconds after the shot, thinking it was kids with fireworks. Maybe they were quick, but I didn’t see anyone.”
“You’re sure it was the same time?”
“The greengrocers and chippy were there too if you need to crosscheck,” she said. “The officer who took my witness statement didn’t seem to think anything of it.”
“Hmm.” Ramsbottom continued to scribble. “I’ll have some details clarified. The poor lads were in shock. Understandable, given the circumstances. You could forgive them for not getting the details right when it’s so fresh—”
A vibrating came from somewhere on Ramsbottom’s person. He dropped the pen in the gravy, tutted, and patted himself down before squeezing his phone from his trouser pocket.
“It’s my lucky day,” he said with a grin, hanging up after a brief phone call. “Gun’s been found in the forest on the other side of the canal. Hopefully, the thing is smothered in prints so we can wrap this up quickly.”
“That would make for a neat case,” Alan said. “I hope that’s your outcome, for all of our sakes.”
“Fingers crossed.” Ramsbottom plucked the rest of the pie out of the gravy pool and finished it in one bite. “Send my love to Janet.”
DI Ramsbottom vanished as quickly as he’d arrived, leaving behind his pen and plate. Though Claire hadn’t wanted his company when she’d heard his voice across the pub, she was glad he’d joined them after all. She plucked a chip from his leftovers and let the details stew.
“Do you think Tomek or Leo is lying about what happened?” Alan asked, joining her in stealing a soggy chip.
“You know when you’re at a party and you overhear someone telling a story about something for which you were actually present, and all you can think is that it didn’t happen at all like their retelling?”
“I’m married to your mother, so yes.”
“I wasn’t in the post office,” she said, picking up another chip, “and I’m not saying they’re lying, but I was outside when the doors were locked, and so were tons of other people. Everyone was under the impression the post office wasn’t open. Simple as that. If there was screaming and shouting happening inside, those walls must be insulated because I was right there and didn’t hear a peep. Surely someone would have noticed something before a gunshot?”
“That’s an excellent observation, little one,” he said with a smile. “Let’s hope Ramsbottom finds those winning prints. I’d hate to think that person is still out there, especially when they’ve hit so close to your shop.”
They continued talking about the shop until they had drained their pints. When a rowdy group of young men bounced in wearing short-sleeved shirts and swimming in aftershave, they gave each other a nod and made for the exit.
“Thanks for meeting me, little one.” Alan pulled on his jacket as they walked away from the pub. “I should probably get back to the cul-de-sac. If your mother cleans the skirting boards any longer, she’ll scrub her way through the gloss. That, or she’ll finally snap and murder your lovely grandmother.”
“I don’t think that’s happening tonight,” she said as they rounded the post office corner. “What are they doing there?”
Grandmother Moreen’s all-black ensemble stuck out like a sore thumb in the sea of exposed sun-kissed arms and legs in the front beer garden of The Hesketh Arms.
“Oh, she’s seen us,” Alan whispered, waving across the square as Janet overtook her mother and opened the gate. “Are we in trouble?”
“Can’t tell,” she whispered back, waving. “Has Mum perked up or is she putting on The Show?”
“She’s too far away to … oh, no, she’s furious.”
“There you two are!” Janet cried as she crossed the square. “I thought you said you were going to meet Claire at the pub?”
“The other pub.”
“Why would you go to the other pub?”
“My fault,” Claire lied as her creative juices kicked in. “I … erm … got a little too drunk last time I was in there and got a bit carried away on the karaoke machine. Didn’t want to face Malcolm and Theresa until they’d had time to forget.”
Janet grumbled as her narrowed gaze flitted between them. Her gaze darted to the post office, but as though nothing remarkable had ever happened there, she turned away and waited for her mother to catch up.
Claire looked at the spot where Eryk had succumbed to his wound. The smooth paving stone was scoured of blood, but she could still see him lying there.
“Mother insisted we eat out,” Janet explained dryly when Moreen mounted the kerb.
“I came here on the promise of a party and you have kept me cooped in your house every passing second since.” Moreen glared around the square with a puckered nose. “What’s that smell?”
“I think that’s the chippy,” said Claire.
“You mean the fish and chip shop,” Moreen corrected. “Janet, since you took me to a dump of a pub and then promptly dragged me out again, I insist we dine at the fish and chip shop. I am famished and cannot handle being hauled across the village to yet another hovel.”
“There’s no indoor dining,” said Janet.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” Moreen cried, clasping her hands tightly at her middle. “And you wonder why I moved away so long ago. Where else might we eat?”
“Marley’s could still be open,” Alan suggested. “It’s a vegan café just around the—”
“What possessed you to think I would eat vegan food?” Moreen snapped, her eyes going to the summery display in the candle shop window. “I assume this is the shop you were telling me about, Janet? Unless there’s another Claire in the village who would open an entire shop devoted to something as frivolous as candles?”
“It’s my shop, Grandmother.”
“Then we shall take the fish and chips wrapped and eat in your flat.”
“What?” Claire’s heart sank.
“Are you suddenly afflicted with deafness?” Moreen asked with pursed lips. “Don’t backchat, girl.”
“Why can’t we take it back to the cul-de-sac?”
“Because your grandmother wanted a change of scenery,” Janet hissed, gripping the back of Claire’s arm as though to say, ‘play along, or else’. “Why don’t you get the tea ready while we order the food?”
Janet didn’t stick around for Claire to argue. Alan apologised with his eyes but followed them into the chippy.
Claire knew what her mother had really meant by ‘get the tea ready’. Janet had inherited her cleaning habits directly from her mother. If most things weren’t clean enough for Janet, nothing was ever clean enough for Moreen. Claire kept her flat tidy by most people’s standards, but any level of ‘lived in’ might as well have been a rubbish dump in their eyes.
While the kettle boiled, Claire rushed from one end of the flat to the other, scooping up anything and everything in sight. Pyjama bottoms left in the kitchen, a bra strewn over the sofa, a jacket hooked on a chair. The DVD cases flew under the TV stand and she bashed the cushions together for a quick fluffing. There was no way to disguise the overflowing washing basket in her bathroom, so into the bath it went, with fervent hopes Grandmother Moreen didn’t pull back the shower curtain and insist on a bubble bath.
By the time the door to her shop opened downstairs, she’d whizzed around the flat half a dozen times, lit every candle in sight, and made it back to the kitchen in time for the kettle to ping.
“Unbelievable, Claire,” Janet whispered as she rushed into the flat with their food. “You could have tidied up!”
Moreen followed, hands clasped, nose wrinkled, and eyes scanning. Always scanning, like the Terminator on his search for Sarah Connor. Except instead of humanity’s last hope, she was looking for dust and clutter. Despite her insistence on eating at Claire’s, anyone seeing her expression would have t
hought the mysterious gunman had forced her in.
“Small,” she concluded as she crept in, still inspecting. “Everything is in a single room.”
“Except the bathroom and bedrooms,” Claire replied with the biggest smile she could muster. “Cosy, don’t you think?”
“If you like.”
Usually, Claire would eat her chippy supper straight from the paper in front of the telly. After all, that’s how it was meant to be eaten to avoid washing unnecessary plates.
Moreen asserted they dine at the small circular table crammed behind the sofa at the back of the flat. With only two chairs, which went to Moreen and Janet, Claire perched on a small footstool taken from her bedroom and her father sat on an upturned mop bucket topped with a pillow.
While they ate, Moreen complained about everything and anything in a never-ending stream. The food, the flat, the weather, the village, her present company. The lack of silences to fill meant Claire could tune out. She kept her eyes on her mother, who was clearly back to putting on her best act despite the morning’s horror.
When the incessant stream of complaints dried up, Janet stacked their plates and carried them through to the kitchen. After showing her grandmother to the bathroom, Claire joined her mother at the kitchen sink, sensing her moment.
“If you’re about to ask how I am,” Janet said as she scraped Moreen’s picked over leftovers into the bin, “I’m absolutely—”
“Fine?”
“As it happens, yes.”
“And the fact that your boss was shot this morning?” Claire whispered, glancing back at the table. Alan sleepily watched the sunset through the small window directly in line with the clocktower in the square. “You saw him the night before he was killed.”
“What are you doing, Claire?” Janet twisted on the taps. “Are you trying to upset me?”
“Quite the opposite.” Claire rested a hand on her mother’s shoulder; Janet promptly shrugged it off. “I’m trying to figure out what has hurt you so much that you feel you need to put on a charade.”