by Agatha Frost
“You’re right,” Julia said. “I appreciate that.”
“Finish up in here, and I’ll get the café ready for the meeting.” Lynn checked her watch. “You know what Kerry is like about things starting on time.”
Against the screech of chair and table legs dragging across the tile flooring, Julia dipped the profiteroles into the melted caramel and began assembling the croquembouche. By halfway, she realised her distraction had affected her precision, and the whole thing leaned drunkenly to the side. She’d have ripped them apart and started again if it were meant for display in the café, but she doubted the book club would care.
Another knock at the back door ripped her from her thoughts as she dunked the final profiterole in the caramel and completed the cone-shaped structure. After licking the leftovers from her fingers, Julia opened the door to Stacey Trotter, another member of the book club and her antenatal nurse.
“Any news?” Julia asked brightly.
“Same old story.” Stacey shrugged off her coat like it held all the weight of the world. “Just another random man who had no idea someone had taken his picture when he was shopping. Looked a lot like him, but not my dad.”
The news explained why Barker had barely said two words over breakfast. He’d been on the Terry Trotter missing persons case for almost a month. Like the police for the three months before he’d taken the case, Barker had yet to come up with a concrete lead to explain the disappearance.
“Oh, Stacey, I’m so sorry,” Julia said, taking her coat.
“I shouldn’t keep getting my hopes up.” Stacey stared at the ground as she chewed at her lip. “I know they’re only trying to help, but every time someone posts a new sighting picture online, I fall for it. I can’t leave the house without seeing him out of the corner of my eye and then doing a double take only to realise it’s just another slightly overweight bald man in his fifties. I don’t know how much longer I can . . .”
Stacey let her sentence trail off when Lynn’s grinning face popped through the beads.
“Still no good news?” Lynn asked.
Stacey shook her head as she pulled a stack of missing posters from her crossbody bag. “Can I put them with the others? When Ben and I came in for lunch yesterday, I noticed they were running low.”
“You don’t even need to ask.”
“Pass them here,” Lynn said, holding out her hand. “I’ll pop them on the counter for you.”
Ignoring Lynn, Stacey pushed past her and added them to the dwindling pile on the counter.
“It’s a good sign that people are taking them,” Lynn continued, following Stacey into the café. “I still see them all over the place. If you want, I can take some and scatter them around the offices I clean? You never know who might know something, after all.”
Stacey continued to ignore Lynn, though the cleaner didn’t seem to take offence.
“Has something happened with you two?” Julia whispered to Stacey as Lynn continued arranging the chairs around the large table she’d created.
“Nope,” Stacey replied.
The bell above the door rang. Stacey’s mother, Debra Trotter, bustled in, all wrapped up.
“Blistering out there,” Debra called as she tried to flatten her wind-swept, frizzy black mane. “Anyone else not want to get out of bed this morning?”
“If I could have brought my electric blanket, I would have,” Lynn agreed with a chuckle.
Debra’s smile dropped, and like her daughter, she didn’t offer a verbal reply.
“That sighting turned out to be false,” Stacey said flatly as she took a seat at the large table. “Just another coincidence.”
“Well, I did tell you it looked nothing like your father.” Debra hung her scarf on the hooks. “Too many people out there enjoy messing with people’s heads. You can’t keep getting yourself worked up every time someone claims to have seen him.”
Julia noticed Stacey nudge her chair slightly away when Debra took the chair next to her. She hadn’t known either of them before Terry went missing, so she’d never seen a version of their relationship without that dark cloud hovering over it.
Sensing that the rest of the group would soon arrive, Julia turned on the coffee machine behind the counter. She pulled out cups for the vanilla lattes Debra and Stacey liked. Lynn was more of a tea person, so Julia made her a pot with enough for two; she always gulped down her first and sipped the second. When no conversation arose between the three women, Julia turned on the CD player under the counter, letting the usual soft music that played during open hours ease the awkwardness.
Julia hadn’t officially worked at the café since the shift she’d spent dressed as an Egyptian Mummy (Jessie’s idea) on Halloween. Even with the stuffy silence, she was never more comfortable than behind the counter – though her ever-growing midsection made navigating the narrow space that little bit harder.
As she poured an espresso shot into the first glass of steamed milk, a black Rolls Royce mounted the kerb in front of the café at such a sharp angle Julia flinched, certain the bumper would crash through the window.
Kerry Pickering gave straightening the car one lazy attempt before climbing out. She snatched off her black sunglasses and waltzed in.
“Has someone died?” she asked as she removed her fur coat to reveal a black-and-gold-patterned outfit so gaudy it had to have cost a fortune.
“That sighting of my dad turned out to be a dud,” Stacey explained.
“Oh.” Kerry used a pocket mirror to check that her baked, curly hairdo was in place before pulling this week’s book – The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins – from her brown Louis Vuitton handbag. “So, did everyone read the book this week?”
“Jade’s not here yet,” Julia pointed out as she grabbed a cup to make Kerry’s chai latte.
“She’s always late.” Kerry tossed the book onto the table and pulled up a seat. “You know, when I first started this little club, we had a ‘three strikes, and you’re out’ rule. Jade has been late to at least half of the meetings since she joined. I find this slip in standards rather disrespectful.”
“It’s not that serious,” Stacey said flatly.
“To you.” Kerry cocked her head to the side and glared at Stacey. “When I first started this club, I filled it with people I knew from my circle. Their preference for tedious conversations about their failing marriages and the latest tax loopholes over discussing the assigned books disappointed me greatly. And that was if they bothered reading anything at all. We’re all here because we love books, aren’t we? This isn’t a social club.”
Julia delivered drinks around the table while everyone ignored Kerry’s latest outburst. According to Stacey, they’d increased in frequency since Kerry’s divorce prior to Julia’s joining. As much as Julia enjoyed reading, she’d joined the weekly meetings to give herself a welcome break from the doctor’s appointments, antenatal classes, and baby-related shopping trips.
“You’re late,” Kerry snapped when Jade Tan hurried in.
“Sorry,” she muttered as she hung up her coat and black leather backpack. “Missed the bus.”
“You’re here now.” Kerry picked up her book and inhaled deeply. “Right, shall we finally get started?”
“Nature calls,” Lynn announced as she pushed her chair away from the table. “Won’t be two seconds.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Lynn!” Kerry dropped the book onto the table again. “Go.”
“I wasn’t asking for permission.” Lynn chuckled. “Start without me if it means that much to you.”
Jade slipped into a chair, book in hand, and didn’t say a word. She was always quiet at the meetings, though Julia wondered if that had anything to do with Jade, in her early twenties, being the youngest of the group.
“I made us something,” Julia remembered aloud, clicking her fingers before she took her seat. “One second.”
Kerry let out a sustained sigh as Julia shuffled into the kitchen, pressing her hands into t
he small of her aching back. She tried to correct the leaning tower with a good shove, to no avail. The damage was done too far down, reminding her of what had distracted her.
After quickly remelting the caramel and spinning more around the tower to spruce it up, she carried the croquembouche through to the café at arm’s – and baby bump’s – length. The tower blocked her view so much that she didn’t notice the empty chairs until she slid the tower into the middle of the pushed-together tables.
Back in her car, Kerry talked on her phone, wildly gesturing to someone on the other end. Lingering by the front door, Jade also spoke to someone on her phone, her hushed tones turning the icy air to steam. Back at the coats on the wall, Debra applied lip balm from a small metal tin, and Stacey, half-under the table, dug frantically in her handbag.
“I think I left my notes at my last antenatal appointment’s house,” she whispered, glancing at Kerry through the window. “I’m not sure I can even be bothered with these meetings anymore.”
“Here.” Julia pulled one of the three pages of notes she’d made from the small notepad she usually reserved for ingredients, amongst other things. “This page only covers the second act, but I doubt she’ll notice.”
The toilet in the small bathroom flushed, and Lynn re-emerged, flicking droplets of water from her fingers. When she sat down and poured her first cup of tea, the rest of the club gravitated to the table. Kerry was the last to retake her seat.
“Look at that!” Debra grinned from ear to ear as she pulled off a chunk. “You keep outdoing yourself, Julia. I didn’t think you’d be able to top last week’s chocolate cake.”
“I still want the recipe for that,” Lynn said after draining her first cup of black, unsweetened tea in seconds. “Might be the best I’ve ever had.”
“It’s a bit wonky,” Kerry pointed out. “Did you use real sugar?” She looked as though she was considering a sample, but she pulled her hand back and picked up her book instead. “Can we get started now, or is there another thing we must distract ourselves with?”
Julia bit her tongue and flicked through the book as people helped themselves to the profiteroles. They usually ended most meetings laughing and joking despite Kerry’s varying moods, though she seemed extra tetchy today.
“Right, I’ll go first since I picked the book,” Kerry said, flipping through the leather notepad crammed with different coloured sticky notes poking out the top. “This was an excellent choice, if I say so myself. I particularly enjoyed Paula’s use of—”
A cough from Lynn cut Kerry off. The wealthy woman sighed and glowered at the cleaner, but as Kerry’s brows furrowed, her usually remote expression resembled something like concern. Julia pushed her chair back, and half-rose as another strained cough spluttered from Lynn’s lips.
“I think she’s choking,” Stacey said as she rushed around the table.
“You need to do the Heimlich,” Debra pointed out.
“I know, Mother. I am a nurse.”
Stacey attempted to pull Lynn from her chair, but the slender cleaner had become a dead weight, offering no help at all. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and foam escaped the corners of her lips. Lynn gave a final weak cough as her body lolled forward and her head hit the table with a thud.
Nobody said a word.
Lynn didn’t move.
Stacey’s fingers went to Lynn’s neck, and the colour drained from her cheeks as she stared at the profiterole tower and then at Julia.
“She’s dead.”
2
BARKER
I n the basement office under the café, the red leather chair creaked under private investigator Barker Brown. He leaned across his large mahogany desk to rescue another chocolate digestive biscuit from the dwindling packet. There’d been more yesterday. He was sure the cleaner had been at them again. He’d just dunked it in his coffee when his eyes fixed on the article on his laptop.
Ten Things All New Fathers MUST Know!
Lists like this terrified him.
Sue, his sister-in-law, emailed a new one every week.
He glanced at the monthly calendar next to his framed pictures on the corner of the desk. In exactly a week, he’d flip the page to December, and the big red circle around the 22nd would be a daily reminder of how soon he’d need to know all ten things on the list and then some.
Remembering the biscuit, he pulled it from the coffee, but it was too late. It disintegrated between his fingers, sinking to join the soggy sediment of other lost biscuits at the bottom of the mug. He immediately reached for another and gave it a few bobs in the dark liquid.
The intercom system for the office door buzzed. At the other corner of the desk next to a paperweight holding down a stack of handwritten letters, the video screen lit up to show Stacey Trotter, his quiet Sunday’s only appointment, for the second time that day. Despite his gut feeling about what had become of Terry, he’d really wanted to give her good news.
“Forgot your coat?” he asked, scanning the shadowy, windowless office.
“You need to get up here,” she called, hugging her bare arms against the cold. “Something has . . . happened.”
The biscuit snapped.
Barker’s heart sank as he hung up. At their last antenatal class, Stacey had warned them they were in the zone where it could happen any day.
He wasn’t ready.
He’d never be ready, but he definitely wasn’t prepared today.
He’d only reached the seventh point of the list.
Buy a minivan . . . trust us, you’ll need it.
Springing to action, he grabbed the emergency leather duffel bag he’d packed and had ready to go for months after another of Sue’s terrifying emailed lists. He grabbed his navy trench coat from the hatstand and crammed his arms into the sleeves while taking the wooden steps two at a time. He ducked needlessly at the top, still not used to the recent change in architecture. After one too many puzzled looks from clients asked to descend into his office through two large wooden doors in the yard behind the café, he had invested in building a small porch with his very own door.
Knowing the café’s back door would be locked, and unsure if anyone was on the other side to answer his knocking, he dashed through the small yard’s back gate. Stacey had gone, so he slipped past the two cars parked in the alley.
When he emerged onto the street, all thoughts of babies left his mind. A crowd had gathered between a police car and an ambulance, their conversations low and eyes fixed on the café.
Where was Julia?
Without thinking about what could have happened, Barker pushed through the crowd, scanning the perplexed faces as he went. The villagers mumbled and grumbled about the intrusion as he searched for his wife. Vaguely familiar, red-nosed faces glared at him. Some, at least, seemed to recognise him. As much as he’d attempted to get to know people over the past three years, he didn’t know everyone, not like Julia did.
Where was she?
Police tape greeted him as he broke free of the crowd, stopping the onlookers from getting closer to the café. A messily parked black Rolls Royce was slanted on the kerb. Had it crashed into the café? The damage wasn’t apparent. Behind it, the rarely used blind was pulled down over the café window.
He remembered Stacey’s words.
Something has happened.
“No further,” the uniformed officer ordered, holding up a hand when Barker ducked under the blue and white plastic police tape. “This is a crime scene.”
“This is my wife’s café, I—”
“I said,” he repeated shakily, “no further.”
But Barker ignored the officer he didn’t recognise and forced his way into the café before anyone could stop him. John looked up at him from behind the counter. The young officer attempted to drag Barker’s hands behind his back.
“It’s okay, Jake,” said John between puffs on his electronic cigarette. “Let him in.”
“Sir?” Jake didn’t let go of Barker’s wrist
s.
“Brown’s one of us.” John motioned for Barker to enter. “Well, he was. I took his job.” He winked at Barker before snapping his gaze back onto Jake. “You were reading his book on your lunch break yesterday.”
“Oh.” Jake’s cold hands released Barker’s wrists, and he took a step back. “I-I—”
“Ask nicely, and he might sign it.” John nodded for Jake to return to his post outside before his eyes met Barker’s. “If you even still do that?”
Barker nodded as he rubbed his wrists, his eyes going to the woman slumped over on the table. It wasn’t Julia. However, his relief was short-lived, for he recognised the spiky grey hair. The woman had been cleaning his office and stealing his biscuits that very morning, and yet he couldn’t recall her name.
“Where’s Julia?”
“She’s not outside?” John blew a cloud of fruit-scented smoke across the café before tucking the device into his inside pocket. “Took three of us to get her to leave. Insisted on having a look around, but I wasn’t playing that game today. What’s in the bag?”
“I thought she’d gone into labour.”
“Very much still pregnant, last I saw.” John crouched on a level with the deceased’s face. “I’m so tempted to just lift her head up to check, but forensics would string me up.”
“Check what?” Barker asked, mind racing as his fingers tightened around the bag’s straps. “What happened?”
“Lynn Sweet.” John consulted his notes. “Cleaner, member of the book club your wife is part of. According to eyewitnesses, she choked to death on one of these.”
John motioned to the half-dismantled profiterole tower in the middle of the table. Julia had given it a different name over breakfast, but Barker had been too distracted with thoughts of Terry to catch it. Something French, maybe.
“Your wife had a lot to say.” John slapped the notepad shut. “Claims she didn’t see Lynn eat a profiterole despite what the other women in the book club think they saw.” Tilting his head, he squinted at Lynn. “On this occasion, much as it pains me to say it, I’d be inclined to agree with her. I can’t rule anything out yet, but Julia’s description of things doesn’t sound consistent with choking. If I could just have a look . . .”