Claire's Candles Mystery 05 - Fresh Linen Fraud

by Agatha Frost

  “That’s not exactly what he said.” She took the dustpan from him. “I think he’s struggling on the till. I’ll take this out.”

  Whether it was the painkillers kicking in or the sudden flood of adrenaline, her ankle didn’t seem to hurt as much. She took the dustpan straight out to the back yard and swept it into the bin.

  The pink label stood out against the bin bags.

  “I have the same one at home,” Anna had said.

  Claire hadn’t been sure if Anna meant one of her candles, specifically, or just a rose-scented candle in general. She hadn’t sold many since she’d moved it from centre stage to make way for the summer scents, and obviously Anna hadn’t entered the shop to purchase the candle herself.

  One of the last rose petal candles she’d sold had been to Duncan, when he’d come in looking for a last-minute gift. Could it be a coincidence? Or had Duncan been the man talking to Anna during the phone call Claire had overheard in the gym showers?

  Were they secretly together?

  Did Anna kill Eryk to end her marriage?

  If not for Tomek’s death, too, she might have believed it. Murdering her husband was one thing, but murdering her son and making it look like a suicide?

  Given how strongly Anna had defended her family just now, every fibre of Claire’s being rejected the idea.

  Soft cries derailed Claire’s thoughts, drawing her to the back alley. Leo sobbed into his hands behind the post office, perched on an upturned crate from Wilson’s Greengrocers. Seeing him took her aback; the post office wasn’t open.

  “She’s left me,” he choked out after Claire cleared her throat to announce her presence. “Berna’s left me. She’s going to Poland with her mum.”

  Claire rushed to his side. She’d envisioned pinning Leo up against a wall and demanding the truth next time she saw him, but how could she do that now?

  Lies or not, heartbreak like this couldn’t be faked. Seventeen years ago, she’d been in an all too similar state after sending Ryan off to the airport and the Spanish beauty who’d stolen his heart.

  “She’s pregnant with my baby,” he said, melting into Claire’s side. “How can I stop her?”

  “I don’t think you can.” She ran a hand over his hair. “I’m sorry, Leo. Did she explain why?”

  “After everything t-that’s happened, she wants to be with her f-family.” He gasped for breath around the shuddering aftermath of his sobs, dragging tears from his cheeks with the back of his hand. “I said I’d go with her, but she told me it wouldn’t work. I love her, Claire. I love her so much.”

  As Leo cried his heart out, Claire could only hold him and rub soothing circles against his trembling back. She considered offering the usual platitudes – he was still young; he’d find someone else; there were plenty of fish in the sea –but her conversation with Anna was still fresh, and this wasn’t the time.

  And it wasn’t necessarily true, either.

  She wasn’t about to add to the many dishonesties lately by lying to a young man with a freshly broken heart.

  “They’ve ruined my life,” he said with a darker edge to his voice. “That family’s ruined my life. Her mum is taking her away from me now, just like her dad tried to split us up before he was shot.” He pointed to faded remnants of his black eye. “We thought the baby would show him how serious we were. We were going to wait, but Tomek overheard Berna telling her mother, and he went straight to Eryk. It only made things worse. I’m glad he’s dead. I’m glad they’re both dead.”

  Claire pulled away from Leo slightly.

  “No,” he protested, shaking his head. “I just heard that back. I didn’t kill them. No, Claire. I didn’t do it. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. I—”

  “But you know who did,” she said, putting more space between them. “You’re protecting someone, aren’t you? You lied for Tomek about the money, and you know who shot Eryk. You were the only one there, Leo.”

  “I … I …”

  “It was Berna,” she said, her mouth drying. “You’re protecting Berna. She killed her father for—”

  “What?” Leo leapt to his feet. “Berna has nothing to do with this!”

  “Then who are you protecting?” Claire cried. “Leo, this isn’t a game. Tell me! We can fix this.”

  Leo stared at her, his mouth working as he tried to form a word. Claire mimicked the movement with her lips.

  “M?” she pressed, grabbing his shoulders. “Is it someone in the gang? Someone you know?”

  A forced cough echoed from above them. They turned to the source, the open window above the post office. The curtains fluttered in the breeze, showing just enough of a bruised and battered face for Claire to recognise Duncan.

  Leo tore away and slammed the gate. The last time she’d been in the post office, he’d mentioned his father being upstairs. Assuming Leo meant a storeroom or something, she hadn’t thought much of it.

  But it wasn’t.

  She knew it wasn’t.

  Her mother had talked about the empty flat above the post office for years.

  If he wasn’t protecting Berna, who else could it be?

  “M?” she mouthed to herself, gazing up at the window as Duncan slammed it shut.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  T his time, Claire knew how reckless she was being. Even with her sore ankle, this knowledge didn’t stop her from following Leo through the gate.

  And into the post office.

  And up the staircase.

  She’d been going about everything wrong – focusing on the wrong people, focusing on the wrong family. Leo was the key, but she’d been wrong about which lock he fit into.

  “Claire?” Leo cried, pushing her back through the door when she walked into the flat. “You can’t be here.”

  The flat was identical in size and layout to the one above the candle shop, though it more closely resembled hers before she’d redecorated. The walls were dark and floral, the floorboards exposed and bare of carpet. Where she’d placed her sofa and TV, this flat had only a blow-up bed and half a dozen bags of clothes.

  “You can’t be here,” Leo repeated. “Please, Claire. Go.”

  “You were going to say something beginning with M.”

  Peering around Leo towards the ajar bathroom door, Claire saw Duncan wince as he dabbed a soaked cotton ball against one of the many fresh cuts on his face.

  Through the mirror, Duncan’s gaze locked on Claire, and he spun around. She saw the cogs working in the moments before a smile lifted his bruised cheeks. Had that tooth always been missing? The fresh blood suggested not.

  “Hi, neighbour,” he said, his breath rattling. “Come to borrow some sugar?”

  Neighbour.

  He’d called her that when she’d first spoken to him in the post office below.

  “It was you, wasn’t it?” she asked, before turning to Leo. “You were going to say, ‘my dad’, weren’t you?”

  “What was me?” Duncan asked, drying his bloody hands on a white towel as he stepped out of the bathroom. “Please, share what’s on your mind.”

  “Claire…” Leo shook his head. “Please go.”

  She couldn’t drop the scent now. Not with the source of the stench standing right in front of her.

  She pulled away from Leo and followed Duncan into the sitting room area. He perched on the edge of the blow-up mattress and wrapped a bandage around his hand.

  “Looks like you gave as good as you got,” she said, nodding at the blood seeping through at the knuckles. “Shouldn’t you be at the hospital?”

  “I’ll worry about me.” He gulped down an entire bottle of water until the plastic crunched to nothing. “So, enlighten me, Claire. What exactly did I do?”

  “You flew under the radar,” she said, looking through the curtain-less window at the busy square below. “I saw a light on up here when I was outside the pub. It didn’t register at the time; I’d forgotten this flat was meant to be empty. But it’s not, is it? Because you’re living
here. The reason I didn’t see a gunman fleeing down the back alley was because that gunman didn’t flee, he just came upstairs. You would have known how to turn the cameras off. You would have known when Eryk would be here. You weren’t in Yorkshire, you were here. You shot Eryk, then hid up here.”

  Duncan smirked, his tongue poking at a cut in his lip.

  “What a fantastic story. Tell me, Claire,” he said, “why did I shoot Eryk?”

  “You were having an affair with his wife.”

  “I’d hardly call it an affair.” He laughed. “A fling, if that. Anna took it too seriously. I just wanted to get to Eryk.”

  “Because he was filling the post office with fake alcohol?” She looked around the musty flat. “No, that doesn’t seem right, does it? Eryk was off viewing mansions, while you’re … here. On a blow-up bed. You brought the fake alcohol to Northash to satisfy those men. Not Eryk. You.”

  “You speak as though Eryk wasn’t fine with it,” he scoffed. “Like any good businessman, Eryk could appreciate a cost-cutting opportunity. He didn’t understand the seriousness of the people supplying the product, but he soon found out.”

  “And you’re part of the gang?”

  “Part of it?” Duncan’s chest heaved as he laughed. “Don’t be stupid. Would they do this to me if I were one of them? I was just another idiot they could milk for interest payments. Without my stake in this post office, I would have been dead long ago. I couldn’t pay back what I borrowed, but my thirty percent share here meant I could still make money for them.”

  “If Eryk was fine with it, why shoot him?”

  “I never said I did.”

  “But you did.”

  “I did.” He nodded. “I didn’t intend to kill him. I merely wanted to scare him after he had an attack of conscience. He wanted to go legit. He said it was only a matter of time before someone got sick and things blew up in our faces. It turns out he was right, he just wasn’t around to see it.”

  “Because you killed him.”

  “Collateral damage.” Duncan coughed, and dabbing his fingers on his lips pulled away blood. “They gave me a shotgun. Told me to scare him. He needed to go along with it. We were in too deep to suddenly stop. They’d never allow it. They’ve lost too many sellers lately. Too many raids. A little village post office was supposed to be the last place the police would look. I needed to show their strength. It was supposed to be a warning shot.”

  “Through the chest?”

  “Eryk told me he wasn’t opening the post office on Saturday morning. He wanted to clear the shelves of bottles,” he said. “I thought it would be the perfect time to deliver the message loud and clear. People would think it was a burglary, but Eryk would know the truth. I waited in the yard before bursting in to play the part when I heard the bottles clinking.”

  “I saw you,” she said, half-laughing. “You blocked the gate with a bin.”

  “Ah, that was you trying to get in?” Duncan’s eyes narrowed as a smirk grew to reveal another tooth barely hanging on. “Almost busted me before I had chance for the big show. Unfortunately, Tomek had similar ideas. I didn’t know Eryk had him here, training to take over from your mother.”

  “So, there was a struggle,” Claire said, looking at Leo as he paced in the kitchen. “You weren’t lying about that. You just didn’t want to tell me who Tomek was struggling with. He didn’t want you to shoot his father.”

  “And yet the fool caused just that,” Duncan said, coughing again. “I thought it would be Eryk and Leo, and maybe your mother. Not a threat amongst them. But Tomek? Overconfident, just like his father.”

  Somewhere outside the flat, Claire heard her father shouting her name. She had no idea how Duncan would react if she made a run for it. Besides, the truth was too close to leave now.

  “The gun went off,” Duncan continued. “My finger was on the trigger, but it wasn’t hard to convince Tomek it was his fault. When he suggested taking the money, I knew I had him. I promised to cut him in on the business, and that sealed the deal. In the time it took Eryk to stumble to the door, the three of us agreed to stick to the story.”

  “You convinced Tomek he murdered his own father?” Claire’s stomach twisted, threatening to expel bacon and egg sandwich, cheesy Wotsits, and purple Starburst. “That’s sick.”

  “It’s business.” He clutched his ribs. “Tomek was a loose cannon. I should have known it wouldn’t work. He said he was going to tell Anna. I couldn’t let that happen. I was stringing her along so she wouldn’t suspect me, hinting that I’d run off to Poland with her. If Tomek told her, it would all be over.”

  “So you killed Tomek?” Claire stepped back. “And framed it as suicide?”

  “I thought it was convincing.” He winced, half keeling over. “I dumped the gun in the forest knowing his prints would be all over it and nicked the rope from a narrowboat. I thought they’d put two and two together and call it a closed case, although I didn’t expect it to take them so long to find him hanging there. Who knew they could tell the difference between kinds of strangling?”

  In the square, several sets of tyres screeched.

  “Dad,” Leo said, approaching for the first time. “You said you had nothing to do with Tomek’s death. You promised.”

  “Oh, son.” Duncan inhaled, wheezing like he had lungs full of rusty nails. “What does it matter? You couldn’t go to the police either way. You’re involved. Both of you are. If you go to the police about any of this, the gang will kill you. Look what they did to me. They only let me live on the off chance they could get their crap on the shelves again.”

  She heard her name, first from Damon and then Ryan.

  “You’re a monster,” Leo whispered.

  “I got you this job, didn’t I?” Duncan stared at Leo from beneath lowered brows, hands clutching his middle. “I dropped hints to Anna about updating Eryk’s life insurance in case anything went wrong, didn’t I? I only did what needed to be done. Your problem, Leo, is you’re just too nice.”

  Duncan doubled over, and Claire thought he’d passed out, but he’d used the distraction to reach under the inflatable bed and pull out a shotgun.

  “And you,” he said, pointing it at Claire. “You’re exactly like Eryk’s descriptions of your mother. A chip off the old nosey, know-it-all block.” He nodded at the gun. “What? Did you think they sent me back unable to defend myself? They might have locked me up and almost beat me to death, but I’m still of use to them as long as this post office is mine. Not like I can pay them what I owe from prison, is it? We’re all in too deep to turn back now.”

  “Dad…”

  “Are you going to keep your mouth shut, Claire?” Duncan asked, taking a step towards her. “Or do I need to silence you like I did Tomek?”

  The hollow barrels of the shotgun stared at her like eyeless sockets. Her father’s voice in her head told her to remain calm, not to run, and to go along with what the madman was saying. She swapped the barrels for Duncan, but his stare was just as hollow. Just as deadly. It was already too late to run.

  But she wasn’t going to lie.

  “You’re a murderer,” she said. “You’ll pay for what you did.”

  “No.” Duncan shook his head, taking another menacing step forward. “The only person who is going to pay is–”

  Leo tackled Duncan onto the bed, and Claire ducked as the gun fired and blew a hole through the ceiling above her. She jumped back; as the dust cleared, the blue sky and birds were visible above her. In the square, chaos unfolded yet again.

  Leo slid the gun across the floor and out of reach. He pinned Duncan to the bed, not that he needed much restraining. The tackle had knocked out the wind that had been holding his battered body upright, along with the inflatable bed. It hissed and slowly started to sink to the floorboards.

  Duncan coughed mouthfuls of blood onto the white sheets, eyes clenched tight. Claire pulled Leo off him, but Duncan didn’t try to rise.

  “Call him an ambulance,�
� Claire said, resting a hand on Leo’s shoulder. “It’s over.”

  Leo glared at his coughing father as he scrambled for his phone. While Leo dialled the number, Duncan crawled forward, reaching for the gun though it was metres away. He was in no fit state to even stand, but Claire picked up the shotgun anyway; she wasn’t taking another chance.

  The gun was heavier than she’d expected.

  She pointed it at Duncan, but she couldn’t even pretend she was anything like him. She lowered it as he flopped backwards as the bed’s firmness vanished, just as poor Eryk had done on the pavement outside exactly a week earlier.

  Even after everything he’d done – perhaps because of everything he’d done – she hoped he’d live to face justice. Death was too easy an option for someone who had murdered a father and son to cover his own slimy tracks.

  “Thank you,” she said to Leo when he got off the phone. “I think you might have just saved my life.”

  Having heard everything she needed to hear, she passed Leo the gun and left after the paramedics rushed up the stairs.

  Afternoon sunlight pushed through the gaps in the chipboard that had replaced the glass in the dark and empty post office. She would have preferred a random burglary over the truth, even if it meant her instincts had been wrong.

  “Claire!” her father rushed down the back alley, using the wall for support in lieu of his cane. “Thank goodness! I thought they’d got you. The cars sped off and then it sounded like another gunshot. I thought … I thought …”

  “I was in the post office,” she said, glancing at the curtain over the rear window. “Well, the flat above it. It’s over.”

  “I know,” he said, reaching her. “They got the go ahead. They’re arresting everyone as we speak. It’s done.” Alan searched her face. “Wait, why were you in the post office?”

  “I’ll tell you over a coffee,” she said as they headed back to her shop. “You might want to call the station. If they can spare any officers, they’ll want to hear this too.”