by Agatha Frost
ThErE’s MoRE tO thE StoRY ThaN YoU KNOw!
Julia ripped open the envelope and pulled out a single sheet of paper. It appeared to be a newspaper article pulled from The Peridale Post’s digital archive. Julia walked into her dark sitting room, turned on the lamps, and perched on the sofa next to Mowgli before reading:
June 23rd, 1995
NOT GUILTY! ACCUSED TEACHER VINDICATED BY JUDGE!
After a lengthy investigation and trial, a jury at Cheltenham Magistrates’ Court found local high school drama teacher, Gary Williams, 41 (pictured below), not guilty of sexually assaulting a pupil. The pupil, who cannot be legally named because of their age, claimed Mr Williams attempted to kiss them after months of emotional grooming. Williams, who has always vehemently denied the charges as nothing more than the ‘delusions of a manipulative fantasist teenage girl’, left the court with his wife, Carol Williams, by his side. Williams, a free man, was in good spirits. Judge Byron condemned the ‘baseless’ and ‘reckless’ accusations in his closing address, going on to warn others to ‘think twice before attempting to destroy a person’s career with malicious lies.’ Gary Williams, who taught at The Hollins High School, was relieved of his position at the beginning of the investigation. He told the press he was ‘hopeful’ the school would ‘reconsider their decision’, but with…
Julia turned the paper over, but the article didn’t continue on the other side. Instead, she found more cut-out letters:
WhO DO U tHInk ThIS is ABOut???
While she’d been reading, Julia had already decided the pupil who couldn’t be ‘legally named because of their age’ must have been Leah. She vividly remembered the trial, which had happened in her final year at high school, but nobody had ever been able to figure out the accuser’s identity, because of their anonymity. Julia had never suspected the accuser could have been Leah, but after what she had heard from Roxy, she no longer doubted that she knew absolutely nothing about the woman she had once claimed as a friend.
“What have I got myself into this time, Mowgli?” Julia sank into the sofa and tossed the envelope onto the table before tickling her cat’s head. “How could I have been so wrong about someone?”
Chapter Eight
“A liar, a manipulator, and a cheater!” Dot exclaimed, waving her hands dramatically in the air. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she was a thief and a murderer too!”
Dot passed the article to Katie, who read it over while slurping mouthfuls of Dot’s secret recipe stew. Julia ladled another serving into her bowl. News of Leah’s disappearance had finally spread around Peridale, no doubt thanks to Barker’s posters. Whenever anything exciting happened in the village, the café became the official hub for gossip and speculation, resulting in a hectic day. Julia had heard dozens of wild theories about what could have happened to Leah, but her favourite was Evelyn claiming that she’d had a vision of Leah beaming up to an alien spaceship.
When Dot had insisted that Julia have dinner at her cottage to discuss wedding planning, Julia had been glad of the offer to do something away from the case. As it turned out, they had spoken of little else.
“I remember the trial,” Sue said, dunking a bread roll into her gravy rich stew. “Gran tried to convince me to go to another school.”
“Of course, I did.” Dot shifted in her seat with a proud nod. “And I’d do it again. It made me wonder what other nefarious characters were lurking in those classrooms!”
“He was cleared,” Julia reminded her. “The jury reached a unanimous verdict.”
Julia and Barker had spent most of the previous night researching the trial. Thanks to The Peridale Post digitising their records, they had managed to piece together a timeline of the case. It had dragged out for months. The only thing they hadn’t been able to confirm was if the accuser was Leah. Barker had attempted to call in a favour at the station to get the information, but that was one request too far.
“Well, there was no Mr Williams at Hollins when I was there.” Sue shrugged before picking up another bread roll. “My drama teacher was Mrs Osbourne. She was such a hippie. Wouldn’t wear shoes in the classroom and she had the ugliest hairy feet.”
“What was Mr Williams like?” Katie asked. “I didn’t go to the same school as you two.”
“That’s because you were privately educated with all that Wellington money.” Dot rolled her eyes. “Not that it made much difference with you, dear.”
Katie passed the article back to Julia. The black and white picture showed Gary Williams with his wife in front of the court. He wore a black suit and a look of relief. Even though the picture was grainy, it showed how handsome he was. His black hair was slicked back from a face composed of solid Viking angles.
“He was the teacher everyone fancied.” Julia made circles in the stew with her spoon. “Most girls had a crush on him. He was funny, and he wasn’t afraid to look silly. He was theatrical and eccentric. He was the type of teacher you wished taught every subject because he was so engaging.”
“And Leah threw herself at him, and then spat her dummy out of the pram when he rejected her!” Dot exclaimed, stabbing her finger on the table. “Teenaged girls never fail to surprise me. Nobody in this village believed he did what the girl claimed. Not a soul! We all saw through it, and so did the jury, but mud sticks around here. Poor man must have moved away. She ruined his life.” Dot dropped her spoon and pushed the bowl away before picking up a stack of magazines and dropping them on the table. “Enough of this humdrum! We have a wedding to plan, and time is ticking, missing wedding planner or not.”
Katie and Sue let out identical squeals of delight. The only person not excited about wedding planning was Julia. She had barely given the impending wedding a second thought since the incident at the dress shop.
“I wonder who sent this,” Julia said as she touched the cut-up letters stuck on the envelope, unable to change the subject. “I spent all night wracking my brain, trying to understand why someone would want me to know this information.”
“It’s like something out of a film,” Dot said. “It’s almost cliché.”
“It feels like a prop.” Julia stared at the neat, perfectly-glued letters. “Someone wanted me to know this, but they didn’t want me to know who they were. Why?”
“Misdirection?” Dot suggested.
“A clue?” added Sue.
“Or the killer sent it!” Katie exclaimed. “Well, not ‘the killer’ because we don’t know if she’s dead, but maybe they want you to know why they did what they did, whatever it is.”
Julia stared at the letters, hoping they would rearrange themselves to give her a clue. Something within her mind shifted, shining new light on the article; she felt like a clown for not figuring it out sooner.
“It is cliché.” Julia scooped up the article. “A manila envelope, a printed page from The Peridale Post, perfectly cut-out newspaper pieces glued down to expose Leah without actually mentioning her. It’s too clean and perfect, like someone is playing the role of a villain. It’s so obvious! I need to go. Thanks for the stew, Gran.”
“But the wedding planning!” Katie cried. “We were supposed to be looking at dresses.”
“Another time! Got to go.”
Johnny rented a tiny one-bedroom cottage on a remote lane leading out of Peridale. Most villagers refused to acknowledge that the area belonged to the village, but Johnny always made sure to mention that his postcode put him within Peridale’s borders. It was the epitome of a single man’s home, which might have felt a little sad for anyone else nearing their forties, but the miniscule building suited Johnny.
Julia climbed out of her car, the envelope containing the article crammed under her arm. She stormed past the gate hanging off its hinges and straight to the front door, glad when she saw movement and lights through the closed blinds. She knocked and waited for Johnny to answer.
When he did, wearing a matching set of bug-eyed-alien-print pyjamas and carrying a pot of microwave noodles in one han
d, his gaze immediately dropped to the envelope. His face reddened before he blurted, “I’ve never seen that before.”
“I never asked if you had.” Julia slapped the envelope against his chest. “Can I come in?”
Without waiting for a response, Julia pushed past Johnny. His cottage, which had once been an outhouse for farm workers, consisted of two rooms. The sitting room, bedroom, and kitchen were all crammed into one, with a tiny bathroom in the other. The ceilings were low and beamed, and the wonky walls were filled with shelves of DVDs and boxed action figures. It looked more like a teenager’s bedsit than a fully-grown man’s home. In typical Johnny fashion, everything was immaculately neat and clean, which made the crunched-up newspaper clippings poking out of the kitchen bin even more obvious. Julia plucked one out, not surprised to see impeccably cut letters missing from the headlines.
“It looks like someone is stealing your letters.” Julia peered through the holes at Johnny. “Care to explain?”
“Was it really that obvious?”
“I’m embarrassed to admit I had to sleep on it before I realised you were the only person who could be this obvious.” Julia screwed up the newspaper and tossed it back into the bin. “I’ll give you points for effort though. You painted a convincing picture.”
“It’s all true!”
“I know.” Julia perched on Johnny’s plump leather sofa. It squeaked under her weight as though it had never been used. “I conducted my own research. Why didn’t you tell me? You could have called or sent a text. Or, better yet, you could have mentioned it when I saw you chasing soup cans. Why play games with me, Johnny? That’s not your style.”
Johnny sat next to her, the tight leather creaking. He placed his pot of noodles next to his laptop on the shiny glass coffee table before dropping his face into his hands. Julia thought he was about to start sobbing, but he exhaled and dragged his fingers down his face, instead.
“I wanted to throw you off the scent.”
“What scent?”
“My scent.” Johnny’s ears burned bright red. “I knew I’d be one of your suspects. You’re not stupid.”
“You weren’t a suspect until you just said that.” Julia searched her old friend’s face. “What’s going on? Is there something you’re not telling me?”
Johnny didn’t need to speak for her to know there was more to his story.
“There’s nothing else.”
“You’re as good a liar as Roxy, Johnny,” Julia said softly. “And you don’t make a good villain. You’re too sweet. Why would I suspect you?”
He paused again, the silence growing uncomfortable as the sofa groaned underneath them.
“Because of what Leah did to my sister. It’s the obvious motive for wanting to hurt Leah. I didn’t want you to think my sister or I had anything to do with it.”
“Did you?” Julia asked, before quickly adding, “I have to ask.”
“No.”
“Then I believe you.” Julia rested her hand on his knee. “You’re my friend, Johnny. I just want to get to the bottom of this mess, so we can all get back to normal.”
“There is no normal when Leah’s around.” Johnny glanced at the envelope. “You read the article. You know what she did to Mr Williams. She ruined his life.”
“How did you find out it was her?”
“I work for a newspaper, Julia. It’s our job to know.” Johnny tried not to look impressed with himself, but he was as bad at concealing his emotions as he was at lying. “I started working for The Peridale Post around the time Heidi was ditched. I mentioned something to one of the guys at the paper and Leah’s name rang a bell. They had it on record that Leah was the student who accused Mr Williams. Someone from the jury leaked it, but they couldn’t legally print it because she was a minor, regardless of what she did. By the time she turned eighteen, there was no point in the paper exposing her like that. People had moved on.”
“How do you think this is connected to what happened to Leah?” Julia asked. “Do you think Mr Williams had something to do with her disappearance?”
“I don’t know what happened to him,” Johnny admitted. “But you know who his daughter is, don’t you? She runs that bridal shop on Mulberry Lane.”
“Brooke?”
Johnny nodded.
Julia felt like a mental door had been blasted open. Suddenly, one of the most bizarre events of the last few days, the fight at the bridal shop, made perfect sense. She had just needed one tiny piece of information.
“No wonder Brooke reacted like she did when she saw Leah,” Julia thought aloud, her finger tapping against her chin. “Leah tried to ruin Brooke’s father’s life, and then casually turns up to help me buy a wedding dress twenty years later.”
“Motive enough for anyone,” Johnny said, a little too eagerly. “So, does that rule Heidi and me out?”
“I’d need to speak to Heidi first.”
“She was here with me when Leah vanished.” Johnny jumped in, his cheeks flushing. “All night. We were watching movies.”
Julia nodded. She knew Johnny was lying to protect his sister, but she decided not to push it. Even if he knew Heidi was behind Leah’s disappearance, he wouldn’t hand her over without a fight. For the time being, Julia had decided not to put him in that position; he had given her plenty of new information.
“So, you’re going to look into the Mr Williams side of things?” Johnny asked as he walked her to the door. “I think it’s a good lead.”
“I’ll keep my ear to the ground.” Julia opened the door, leaving behind Johnny’s arts and crafts newspaper project. She pulled her keys from her bag, but paused before he closed the door behind her, something else springing to mind. “Your sister’s ex-fiancé. Who is he?”
“Craig Wright,” Johnny replied, his tone bitter. “I blame him as much as Leah, if not more. He’s not shown his face around here since his marriage to Leah fell apart.”
“Do you know where he is now?”
“Last I heard, he was living out at the Fern Moore Estate.” Johnny gave Julia a puzzled look as he clung to the wooden door. “You’re not going to go looking for him, are you?”
“I was just curious.” Julia smiled through her lie. “Goodnight, Johnny. Please don’t post anything more through my door. You have my phone number.”
Before retreating into his cottage to finish his cold noodles, Johnny promised he wouldn’t. Julia waited until she reached her car before pulling out her phone.
“Barker? How soon can you get to the Fern Moore Estate?”
Chapter Nine
Much like Johnny’s cottage, Fern Moore was technically part of Peridale. Villagers, however, denied any claim to the troubled housing estate that sheltered hundreds of low-income families. Most people avoided the place thanks to its reputation for unsavoury characters and criminal behaviour. Julia was amongst those who avoided the estate. She had been conditioned as a child to stay far away, and that conditioning had carried through to adulthood. In the handful of times she had visited, it had lived up to its unsavoury reputation.
The estate was composed of two towering, utilitarian blocks, each housing numerous cramped, tiny flats. Julia pulled up in a small car park facing the central concrete courtyard. The courtyard was a focal point for the estate, but unlike the pristinely manicured village green outside Julia’s café, Fern Moore housed an out-of-date and graffiti-covered children’s park. Groups of youths cluttered the darkened courtyard, cigarette smoke rising from them like plumes from a factory.
Dim streetlamps circled the courtyard, some flickering and others not working at all. Julia had parked underneath one of the few working lamps. The bright yellow light illuminated her vintage car, catching the suspicious eyes of more than a couple of the people milling around in the warm evening. She killed the engine and pulled out the keys, wondering what to do. She peered around for Barker’s car, but he had yet to reach the estate. One of the groups, which consisted of four shirtless young men and one scanti
ly-clad girl, made their way to her car, sneers and smirks on their faces. One of the lads drained a can of beer, crunched it between his hands, and tossed it in Julia’s direction. It bounced off her precious Ford Anglia’s hood before rattling to the ground. The group let out a roar of laughter.
She considered locking herself in the car, but she knew the action would show her hand. She was not going to let them see how scared she was. After a deep breath, she climbed out and locked the door. The gang members folded their arms. She peered down at her vintage summer dress, knowing she should have swung by her cottage to change. She reeked of Peridale. The Fern Moore residents kept themselves to themselves, as did Peridale villagers; the two rarely met. There was an unspoken line in the sand that was not to be crossed. When someone dared cross it, the friction between the two sides was never more obvious.
Billy came to mind as Julia stared at the gang. Fern Moore had been his home before he crashed into Peridale, stealing Jessie’s heart along the way. He had since turned his life around and now ran a builder’s yard with Jessie’s brother, Alfie. His petty criminal past was behind him, and he had surprised everyone by showing that he was a sweet boy under the prickly exterior. As she walked towards the group, she tried to imagine they were a pack of Billys.
“Good evening,” she said, dropping her keys into her handbag. “I was wondering if you might be able to help me.”
“Need directions to the castle, princess?” one of the boys called, his voice far grittier than it should have been for someone his age. “Peridale’s that way.” He pointed to the road before spitting on the ground. “Get lost, alright?”
Julia clutched her bag and stiffened her spine. She should have expected such a reaction.
“I’m looking for someone,” she continued, resolved not to give in so easily. “A man by the name of Craig Wright. I heard he lives here.”