by Agatha Frost
“I hope that’s not going to my house,” declared Dot, straightening her brooch. “Percy spent half this week’s pension on candles from the market last night. Honestly, I was glad to get out and get some fresh air. You can taste the cinnamon in the air.”
“Looks like it’s a bit further out than your cottage.” Julia squinted towards a thin plume of smoke barely distinguishable from the grey sky. “I hope it’s nothing serious.”
“Right, I suppose I should set off.” Dot checked her watch. “Percy has choir practice at noon. I don’t know what more can be said about the same dozen carols they sing every year, but he asked me to sit in and give my opinions, so give them I will.”
“I’m sure you’ll have plenty to say.” They hugged, and she said, “Thanks, Gran.”
“What for, dear?”
“Making things clearer.”
“Oh, anytime.” Dot pulled away from the hug and fluffed up her flattened curls at the back. “You don’t get to my age without picking up a few pearls of wisdom along the way.”
Julia remained on the doorstep until Dot reached the bend in the lane where she’d vanish, though not without turning and waving one last time. Julia held up her hand and smiled, grateful to have her gran in her life. In the absence of a mother, Dot had been a guiding light whenever Julia most needed it.
A morning at home watching telly like any other had felt ideal before Dot’s visit. Now she knew exactly what she needed to do, and it couldn’t wait. For all the pushing away she’d done lately, Jessie needed a guiding light of her own.
After dressing as quickly as her ungainly bump would allow, Julia left the cottage ready to drive straight to the café, clear out the customers, and lock the doors if she had to. She got as far as unlocking the car before the cottage door across the lane opened. Johnny, one of her oldest friends, Leah’s boyfriend, and editor of The Peridale Post, ran out with a slice of toast between his teeth as he crammed his arms into his jacket.
“Don’t suppose you’re going into the village?” he called to her as he pulled open the gate. “I urgently need to cover a story, and I don’t trust my legs to get me there in time.”
“Then I guess you’re in luck.”
Johnny flashed a smile as he dashed across the lane, brushing away toast crumbs. After a few false starts, the engine of the vintage vehicle roared to life and the car crept forward.
“Anywhere specific?”
“Mulberry Lane,” he said, pointing at the smoke. “One of the shops is on fire.”
“Really?” Julia frowned and looked at him. “Which one?”
“Trotter’s Books.” He pulled out his phone and showed her a blurry picture of a blaze. “It’s all over Peridale Chat.”
The conversation with Jessie suddenly fell a notch on Julia’s list of priorities. Rising dread forced her foot down on the accelerator.
“Julia!” Johnny cried, slapping both hands on the dash as she zoomed past a tractor so tightly her left wing mirror snapped off against the lane’s stone wall. “I know I said it was urgent, but—”
“Barker put together a convincing theory that put Debra behind Terry and Lynn’s murders,” she said, slowing as the end of the lane came into view. “He went looking for evidence.”
“Debra?” Johnny patted down his pockets. “I thought the police had arrested Kerry.”
“For letters.”
“And they don’t think she is behind everything else?” He flipped open a pad and clicked his pen. “Can I—”
“No, you can’t quote me on that, Johnny.”
Julia flew out the bottom of the lane and past the village green. She glanced at the packed café, no doubt full of people gossiping about the fire happening around the corner. She carried on towards the thickening smoke, screeching to a halt behind a dense crowd at the top of Mulberry Lane.
“I don’t think you can park here,” he said as he unclipped his belt. When she glared at him, he held up a warding hand. “You know what, it’s probably fine.”
Julia climbed out, neglecting to lock the door. Camera already out, Johnny dove straight into the throng. She dug her phone from her bag as she scanned the crowd, desperate to see the top of Barker’s head.
What if he’s inside the shop?
The phone rang and rang.
No answer.
Frozen to the spot, phone pressed against her cheek, she stared up at the smoke as it billowed into the clouds. Time seemed to stop, and the babble around her faded to a low buzz.
A widowed life raising their baby flashed through her mind like a film she’d never want to watch. Her stomach turned, and she stumbled forward and clutched a lamppost as she fought for breath through her tightening throat.
“Julia, my dear?” A familiar soft voice broke through the buzzing as hands tightened on her shoulders. “Is everything alright?”
Evelyn’s concerned face brought her back.
“Have you seen Barker?”
“I’m afraid not,” she replied, concern deepening.
“Do you know how this happened?”
“I was talking to a lady who said she was shopping across the street when the whole place went up,” she said, wrapping an arm around Julia’s shoulders. “Why don’t I get you to the café and away from this? All this smoke won’t do you any good.”
But Julia couldn’t leave until she knew what was going on. She pushed through the crowd to the police blockade. Johnny had somehow already made his way halfway down to take pictures as the firefighters battled the ravenous inferno. Further up, DI Christie watched on with some other officers.
“John!”
The DI turned around and visibly exhaled when he found Julia’s hand waving in the air. He said something to the officers before reluctantly turning on his heel.
“What are the odds you’d show up for something like this?” he asked. “Very bloody likely, I’d say.”
“Is Barker in there?” she demanded, eyes burning with smoke and tears.
“What?” He dropped his jokey tone and looked back at the shop. “I-I don’t know. They’re looking inside, but I don’t know if anyone is in there. Why would he be?”
Julia looked around at the crowd, all of whom were clearly eavesdropping. Christie pulled her through a gap in the barrier to the doctor’s office and out of earshot. Even in the cold, the warmth of the fire licked her face.
“It’s Debra,” she whispered. “She’s been lying about everything. She told us Lynn was blackmailing her for online dating so soon after Terry died. Stacey doesn’t think that’s likely.”
“Oh, I knew it!” He barked a startled laugh at the sky. “Right when Terry went missing, I said it was always the wife, but we had nothing on her.”
“Barker and Stacey went looking for evidence,” she said, tears lining her lashes. “And now he’s not answering his phone.”
“That stubborn idiot should have called me before—”
The shop’s window burst outwards, showering the firefighters in glass. Christie pulled up his coat in front of Julia like a shield as the crowd jumped back with a scream. Without the glass, the frantic flames burned like the innards of an oven.
“Try his phone again,” he said, resting both hands on her shoulders as he looked her firmly in the eyes. “Try not to worry, okay? I need to pass this on. Stay here.”
Julia pulled out her phone with shaking hands and called Barker a further three times. At the end of the unanswered call, each switch to the automated voicemail message added weight to the stone dragging her heart out of her chest.
She changed tactics and tried Stacey’s number.
Straight to voicemail.
Christie had told her to try not to worry, but how could she ignore her gut feeling? She leaned against the wall and stared at the burning shop as the firefighters shot water through the empty window frame. They’d won the war against the fire at the front, but the blaze still raged beyond the first row of scorched bookshelves.
The riveted cro
wd gasped as the waiting paramedics sprang into action. Julia stepped into the road, but the fire engine blocked her view. A firefighter with a person covered in a red blanket slung over their shoulder ran from the bottom of the lane to meet the paramedics.
Without even realising she was moving, Julia set off around the back of the fire engine. She watched as the firefighter flopped the blanket-covered person on the road.
Over a smoke-blackened face, the dark bushy hair gave it away.
“Get her out of here!” she heard Christie cry before two sets of hands wrapped around the tops of her arms.
Unable to comprehend what was happening, Julia let them lead her to the top of the street. This time, they put her on the other side of the barrier and back into the crowd.
“Who was it?” someone asked, gripping her arm. “Was it Debra?”
Julia could only nod. Not wanting to answer questions, she let the crowd part around her until she made it through to the other side. Her heart stopped when she saw Barker’s car parked right next to hers in the middle of the road.
“There she is!” she heard Evelyn cry. “Thank the heavens!”
Julia turned to see Evelyn, Barker, and Stacey standing at the lamppost she’d been clinging onto when her mind had tormented her. She started crying again, but these were tears of relief.
“Where were you?” Barker asked, wrapping his arms tight around her. “I was worried.”
“Where were you?” she demanded. “I’ve been calling you.”
“Oh.” Barker pulled his phone from his pocket. “Put it on silent when we were snooping.”
“Where did you go?”
“My mum’s house,” Stacey said, chewing at her lip like she was trying to rip it off. “The bookshop’s on fire, isn’t it?”
Julia nodded. To her surprise, Stacey didn’t say a word. She set off in the opposite direction without so much as a glance at the smoke of the fire destroying the shop upon which her surname hung.
“I take it you found what you were looking for?” Julia asked.
“And then some.”
14
Barker
The following evening, in a corridor that smelt of nostril-tickling disinfectant, Barker watched as a machine trickled steaming coffee into a tiny cardboard cup. For all its shaking and groaning as it ground the beans, the colour told him it would be weak. Hospitals always had the worst coffee.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of blue walking directly towards him. He pressed a plastic lid onto the finished cup and slotted in the coins for the next before greeting his sister-in-law with a smile.
“Want one?”
“No thanks,” she said before biting into half of a tuna sandwich. “I can’t stay long.”
“Thought you were on a break?”
“Has to be quick. We’re understaffed – but when aren’t we, these days?” She wolfed down the rest of the sandwich and said, “I asked the sister running Trotter the Plotter’s ward last—”
“Trotter the what now?”
“It’s what everyone’s been calling her,” she said with a waft of her hand. “Not every day you have a murderer in your hospital. Everyone’s been on edge. But anyway, I talked to the ward nurse on shift on Debra’s ward, and she said it was touch and go all night. The smoke inhalation was bad. Another few minutes in that bookshop, and she’d have gone straight to the basement on arrival.”
Barker had been down there enough times to know Sue was referring to the mortuary.
“Went into full cardiac arrest almost as soon as she got here,” she continued, “and then again about six this morning. Barely brought her back the second time, although whether they should have bothered has been a touchy subject across the wards.”
“Dying would be the easy way out.”
“I thought you’d say something like that,” Sue said, lips pinched. “Personally, I think anyone who’s taken two lives like she did shouldn’t be taking up a bed, especially this time of year, but that’s just me.”
“Will she live to see a trial?”
“It’s too early to say.” She paused when a doctor hurried down the corridor. “Many people around here know and like Stacey. We had her dad’s posters up all over the place when he first went missing. People aren’t happy. Aren’t happy at all. What she did is horrific.” She leaned in and whispered, “Is it true she kept him in a freezer for months?”
“That’s how it’s looking,” he said, deciding not to admit he’d seen the appliance with his own two eyes. “Does she have good doctors?”
“The best. Real red-carpet treatment.” Sue smiled a greeting at two nurses as they hurried down the corridor. “How’s Julia taking not being the one to solve this? I imagine she’s livid.”
“I think she’s relieved that it’s over,” Barker said, pressing the button for the second coffee as he glanced sharply at Sue from the corner of his eye. “We all are. It’s been a tough week.”
“All I’m going to say is that one time, when we were kids, she hid a piece of a jigsaw we were doing so she could put in the final piece.” She looked down at her watch. “I need to get back to my ward, but keep an eye on her, will you? That baby could come any day now, and as ready as you both think you are, it will turn everything you know upside down.”
With her warning lingering heavy in the air, Sue speed-walked down the corridor and out of view. Not wanting to dwell on how hard it would be – she was still emailing him lists and articles every other day – he pressed a plastic lid on the second cup. He took them back to Debra’s ward.
“Get lost?” John asked as Barker handed him a cup.
“I was just getting some inside information,” he said after a slurp; it was weak, as suspected. “They’ve been calling her Trotter the Plotter.”
“Catchy.”
Barker looked through the window at Debra, buried under a network of wires and machines. One of her hands was cuffed to the bed, and the officers had been taking shifts in the chair next to her all night.
“Did she give you the odds?”
“Not quite, but she said they’d given her the best doctors.”
“Doesn’t really matter either way.” John drank the coffee. “Ugh, a cup of heated soil would taste better than this.” Still, he went back for another sip. “Oh, and by the way, next time you feel like breaking and entering, give me a head’s up.”
“Technically, Stacey had a key,” he pointed out. “And it was a stroke of luck theory. Right place, right time.”
“With scary timing,” John said, turning away from the window to sit on one of the chairs. “C’mon, spill. I haven’t got there yet, but I’ve heard people saying the house was in a horrendous state.”
“That’s one way to put it,” he said. “We could barely open the front door for all the rubbish. Looked like she’d completely given up. I thought she had another body in there from the smell alone.”
“And the freezer?”
Barker sipped his coffee slowly, the memory of Stacey’s uncontrollable cries at their discovery ringing in his ears. The whole journey to Debra’s cottage, he’d toed the line between preparing her for finding something and downplaying the likelihood that they would. Seeing the freezer her father had spent months in was something not even a drive as long as the one up to the Lake District could have prepared her for.
“The squalor was one thing,” Barker said in a low voice, “but seeing the freezer was . . . chilling. No pun intended. From the looks of it, she’d kept it buried under a mountain of books, but she hadn’t bothered to put them back. Was still humming like it was turned on.”
“It was,” he whispered back. “I saw the pictures this morning. You could literally see the outline of where he’d been in the ice. It turns out the freezer in Kerry’s basement was only down there because it didn’t work. Thing hadn’t been turned on for months.”
“Coincidence.”
“Exactly,” John said, leaning in. “If you’d all just waited a
day, we had more evidence. A call from the Cumbria lot this morning gave us details on the car they think dumped the body. Found it burned out a few miles away. Guess who the car was registered to?”
“Debra?”
“She doesn’t have one,” he replied. “It’s the same car we’ve spent months trying to track down. The one that seemed to have vanished into the same thin air as the man himself. No idea where Debra’s been hiding it, but she had us fooled. It was flagged for speeding up the M6. Can you believe she drove Terry Trotter up to the Lake District in his own car? Dumped him in the middle of the night, abandoned the vehicle, set it on fire – which she seems to enjoy doing – and then got the first train back to Peridale in the morning, and none of us noticed a thing. Now we have statements from her neighbours on Mulberry Lane saying she never opened the shop that morning. They were all more than happy to talk to me today. They’re lucky it’s been raining so much lately, or their shops would have gone up too.”
“That would have been the morning of the book club at Kerry’s,” Barker said. “I saw her hop off the bus. She waved at me.”
“She’s nuts.” He pulled his phone from his pocket. “Here, look at this.”
John started up a video of a shaky recording of a screen playing CCTV footage showing the interior of a train carriage. With the English countryside blurring by, Debra’s dark bushy hair stood out at one of the seats with a table.
“She’s reading a book,” Barker said disbelievingly.
“Wait for it.”
A conductor approached the table, and Debra animated as she pulled out her purse. They shared a laugh about something as she paid for a ticket. The conductor went on his way, and the smile dropped from her face like a flipped switch. Her eyes returned to the book, and she flipped the page.
“Certified crazy, I’m telling you.” John tucked the phone away. “The whole bookshop was doused in petrol. Eyewitness reports claim the place went up almost immediately; she definitely didn’t want to survive. I imagine she realised the house of cards was falling. After poisoning Lynn, it was only a matter of time before she had to get rid of Terry’s body. That she kept it so long is baffling.”