Vanilla Bean Vengeance (Claire's Candles Cozy Mystery Book 1)

by Agatha Frost

  “Since when did cameras on phones get so clear?” Claire squinted at the image. “That’s it.”

  “Good, isn’t it?” Damon grinned. “You know me. I’m a tech geek. Only the best for me. The image data has the time and date on it too, which puts it two weeks before the new samples made the rounds at the factory.”

  “So?”

  “Claire.” Damon huffed. “It’s proof you came up with it. That’s your handwriting on an image pre-dating the samples. I’d bet my chippy supper the factory can’t pull up any proof dated earlier than this.”

  “I lost the book a few days after I took that picture,” Claire confessed. “I have no idea how, but it vanished into thin air. The samples came out of the development lab less than a week later.”

  “Exactly!” Damon tucked his phone away. “You can sue.”

  “Sue, who? She’s dead!”

  “Did the factory close when William died? No, it passed to his daughter, Nicola. Someone else will step in. Nicola’s husband would be the next of kin, right? And she has that brother?”

  “Ben Warton?” Claire remembered aloud. “Isn’t he in prison?”

  “Got out last month, apparently.” Damon glanced down at his bag of food, and Claire was sure she heard his stomach growl. “Listen, don’t give up just yet, okay? Whoever takes over, they might be more understanding than Nicola. You deserve what’s yours, Claire.”

  They parted ways with a promise to keep each other in the loop. She waited until Damon disappeared into his flat on the other side of the square before turning back to the empty shop.

  A flicker of hope surged through her chest against her will. She sighed, knowing she couldn’t let go of the dream.

  “But I’m still no closer,” she whispered to her reflection before setting off home.

  Chapter Four

  The days following Nicola’s death dragged by slowly. No one was charged with her murder, and the factory doors remained shut.

  The group chat continued to whip itself into a frenzy with every passing hour without news. Some were talking about finding other jobs, others trying to organise a revolt to throw open the doors and continue working despite their lack of a leader. Not until Claire added her Uncle Pat to the group on Thursday night was there any sense of order.

  “Let’s all meet for a drink,” he’d written. “Seven at The Hesketh Arms on Friday night. We’ll get to the bottom of this, one way or another.”

  Things calmed down a little after that, and along with the other hundred or so factory employees, Claire found herself crammed in The Hesketh Arms on Friday night. Theresa and Malcolm Richards, the landlords of the pub, ran out of their locally famous Hesketh Homebrew before the clock reached seven.

  Claire and Damon arrived together at half-past six, just in time to slide into the last two free seats in the corner of the tiny pub. Gentrification had swept through most pubs up and down the country, but not in Northash. The Hesketh Arms had kept it’s dated carpet, picture-cluttered exposed stone walls, and mismatching furniture. The scent of beer clung to everything, and passing tourists would probably dismiss it as a ‘dump,’ but the locals knew better. The homebrew was the best for miles around, the food was fresh and homemade, and Theresa and Malcolm’s hospitality couldn’t be beaten.

  “Do you think they’re serving food?” Damon asked, casting his eye over the expansive menu. “I could eat a small horse.”

  “Don’t you dare.” Claire pulled the menu from him. “They’re rushed off their feet.”

  Even with an overwhelmingly full pub and only the two of them to serve every thirsty customer, their smiles never faltered. Claire had heard locals refer to Theresa and Malcolm as the mother and father of Northash, and tonight, more than ever, she understood why.

  When the clock struck seven, the door finally stopped opening and closing. Claire recognised every face; she’d worked with most of these people for years. If the factory didn’t re-open, she wouldn’t be the only one without a job. As much as people had moaned and griped about how Nicola had run the factory since old William’s death, they all needed their jobs. Without the factory, Northash’s sturdy economy would collapse in a heartbeat. The couple of jobs that came up here and there weren’t enough to satisfy the demand.

  At ten past seven, Uncle Pat emerged from the crowd, using a chair to boost himself above the heads. A quick round of shushing rippled around the pub until all eyes were fixed on Pat.

  “Looks like we’re all here,” he started, smiling and nodding around the room. “Thanks to Theresa and Malcolm for letting us have our meeting here. If you haven’t already, throw a couple of quid into the tip jar if you can spare it. I’m sure they’d appreciate it.”

  Pat tipped his pint to the bar, and Theresa and Malcolm smiled around their full pub. Those close to the tip jar tossed in a couple of coins, and everyone else, including Claire, pulled out a couple to add in on their way out.

  “We all know why we’re here,” Pat continued, his eyes catching Claire’s as he scanned the room. “I’m afraid I’ve been kept as much in the dark as the rest of you. I’ve tried to talk to Nicola’s husband, Graham, but understandably, he’s shut down since his wife’s … death.”

  “Murder,” someone shouted out. “Call it what it was.”

  “Yes, you’re right.” Pat nodded before sipping the foamy head of his beer. “Nicola was murdered, and the police don’t seem to be doing much to catch whoever pushed her through that window. But that’s not why we’re here, is it? We’re not here to gossip about who killed Nicola, and regardless of when or if that person is caught, we’re still none the wiser about the status of our jobs. We’re all in the same boat.”

  “No, we’re not,” another called out. “I’m on minimum wage. I’m living hand to mouth.”

  “I can’t afford to feed my cats.”

  “I can’t afford to feed my kids!”

  The shouting continued until Claire couldn’t make out individual words anymore. She sipped her beer, eyes fixed on her uncle, wishing everyone else would do the same. Pat had always been well-respected in the factory. His promotion to shift manager hadn’t been by accident. He was a natural leader, and everyone knew it.

  “Yes, yes!” he boomed, hushing the crowd with his hands. “Whether it’s your plants, your pets, or your children, we’ve all got responsibilities! And, yes, some of us might be on slightly higher wages, but that doesn’t mean we’re not in the same boat. I might be one of your shift managers, but I’m sixty years old, barely have any savings, and that government pension is still years away. I want to get to the bottom of this as much as you do, which is why I called this meeting. We’re all being left in the dark, and none of us knows what’s going on.”

  “So, what do we do?” someone called out. “C’mon, Pat! Tell us what to do.”

  “I – I don’t know.” Pat’s face turned bright red. “But if we put our heads together, we can come up with something, I’m sure.”

  “I don’t believe this,” a woman shouted, standing up, handbag over her shoulder. “I had to pay a babysitter to watch my kids, and for what? To speculate about our future? I thought you’d have answers for us!”

  “He’s only a shift manager,” Claire found herself calling out. “Like he said, we’re all in the same boat.”

  The woman, who Claire assumed was quite new since she didn’t recognise her, sat back down, handbag still tight to her shoulder.

  “The police released the factory days ago,” Pat continued after gulping down more of his pint. “We could go back to work at any time, but nobody is in charge.”

  “Then take charge!”

  “Yeah, let’s just do it ourselves.”

  “We need lawyers.”

  “Yeah, we must have rights!”

  The front door opened, and a sharp-suited, redheaded man walked in, silencing the pub.

  “Bloody hell!” Damon whispered, choking on his beer. “I think that’s Ben Warton!”

  Even though
the man standing in the doorway looked much older than the image in her memory, Claire instantly recognised him. Ben had been a couple of years ahead of her at school. He’d been a heartthrob to most girls, and even Claire had fancied him at one point – from a distance. He had the classic Warton good looks, with short, thick, red curls, and a jawline that could slice a candle right down the middle. Even tipping forty and clearly not as fresh as he’d once been, he was still undeniably handsome, especially in his tailored suit.

  “Having a cosy little meeting?” he called out, revealing that a front tooth had been replaced with one of dazzling gold. “Nice of you to invite me.”

  “Who are you?” someone shouted above the whispering.

  “That’s Ben Warton!” someone else replied. “Fresh from prison, by the looks of it.”

  “Falsely accused,” Ben insisted as the crowd parted around him. He made his way to Pat, still standing on the chair in front of the fireplace. “I’ll take it from here, Pat.”

  “Ex-excuse me?”

  “The meeting.” Ben nodded for Pat to get down, and like a lap dog, her uncle obeyed. “That’s why you’re all here, isn’t it? To figure out the fate of the factory?”

  Ben climbed up onto the chair, his head almost touching the low beams; Pat had been nowhere near. He looked out around the crowd as people chattered. He planted his hands on his hips and sighed, reminding Claire of a teacher waiting for the class to be quiet. Somehow, his effortless swagger silenced the room.

  “My sister is dead,” he stated, voice devoid of warmth. “Murdered, they’re saying. I’m not going to lie and say we were close. We weren’t. In fact, I’d go as far as to say I hated her, and I’m sure I’m not the only one here. I might have spent the past decade locked up, but I know what she was like. I know she was running that factory into the ground.” He looked around the room, smiling at his audience. “I can see it in your eyes. My father never wanted her to have it. Even with me behind bars, he wanted to leave it to me, but he couldn’t. Not legally, anyway. Nicola never wanted to run the factory; she just didn’t want me to have it.”

  “Why was he locked up?” Damon whispered to Claire when Ben paused for breath.

  “Can’t remember,” Claire admitted. “Must have been serious to get ten years.”

  Ben let the whispering build up for a moment before planting his hands and sighing again, once more effectively silencing the pub. Like his father, an undeniable air of authority clung to his red curls and the set of his jaw.

  “Warton Candle Factory has been feeding the families of Northash since 1890,” Ben announced, dropping his arms by his side. “My great-great-great-grandfather, Charles Warton, loved this village more than anyone. He gave us industry, and generations of my family have kept that going, as it should be. When I got out, I talked to my sister and tried to make her see sense, but her mind was made up. Typical Nicola.”

  “About what?” someone called out.

  “Selling the factory.” Ben’s eyes darkened. “She was going to sell the place so she could run away with the money.”

  Shocked gasps and startled conversation rippled around the pub, the noise growing to a deafening level. Claire kept her eyes on Ben’s face. Even though he was trying his best to maintain his tough expression, the flicker of a smile at the corners of his mouth was unmistakable.

  “Fear not!” he cried, clapping his hands together and silencing everyone in an instant. “She never got that far. Karma made sure of that.”

  “But the factory is still closed!”

  “Not anymore.” Ben grinned around the pub. “I will continue the mission set out by Charles Warton. The factory doors will re-open tomorrow with a true Warton running things, as it should always have been. We’re going to turn things around together! Who’s with me?”

  The talk started up immediately, and it only took one person to start clapping before a rapturous round of applause filled the tiny pub. Ben grinned, arms folded tight against his chest, as he lapped it up. Even Damon clapped, but Claire’s hands remained wrapped around her pint glass.

  “I suggest you all drink up and get an early night,” Ben called out when the noise died down. “We’ve got a lot to catch up on.”

  And just like that, the tense atmosphere vanished. Ben climbed down from the chair, and the crowd parted around him like he was a rock star. Hands slapped his back, and people fought over who was going to buy him his first drink at the bar.

  “That was bloody weird,” Damon said after draining his pint. “Shall we make a move? I don’t fancy sticking around for the after-party.”

  Claire nodded and drained the rest of her drink. Half the crowd seemed eager to leave, while the others appeared keen to celebrate with their new leader. Claire wasn’t sure if it was her imagination, but there seemed to be a definite male and female divide between the two groups.

  They followed the flow out of the pub and into the night. Outside, she found her Uncle Pat amongst the crowd of people saying their goodbyes and going their separate ways.

  “Well, it’s a result, I suppose,” Pat said to Claire when he made his way over. “Not what I was expecting, but it’s something.”

  “Weird, though, don’t you think?” Claire whispered to him, spotting the same concern she felt on the faces around her. “All that stuff about hating Nicola and her wanting to sell the factory?”

  “A little,” he nodded his head side to side. “If your father were here, I’m sure he’d say it sounded like a motive.”

  Before Claire could agree with him, she spotted Belinda by the pub door, a cigarette clamped in her mouth while shaky hands attempted to light it.

  “Terrible habit,” Pat whispered, nodding at Belinda. “Especially at her age. Glad I quit when I did. I bet she’s the one always secretly smoking in the women’s bathrooms. Nicola was on the warpath about that.”

  Claire barely remembered the days when her father and uncle used to smoke cigarettes. They’d quit together when Claire was a little girl, so she hadn’t grown up around it. Like most, Claire had tried it while still in school. It had been Sally’s idea, and it hadn’t taken long for someone to point them toward the older girls hanging out in a smoke cloud behind the science block at lunch. They each handed over 50p and received a single cigarette, which they had attempted to share. One badly inhaled puff had been enough to put them off for life.

  Claire’s addiction of choice was candles, and she couldn’t imagine having to give them up. At least they were only bad for her bank account and not her health. Not until she’d started working at the factory had she realised so many people still partook of the habit.

  “Are you okay, Belinda?” Claire asked when she was close enough to speak without raising her voice. “Your hands are shaking.”

  Belinda sucked hard on her cigarette, her eyes staring deep into Claire’s. The fine lines etched around her lips made her look much older than her fifty years, and the nicotine-yellowed teeth didn’t help matters. Belinda’s usual jolly smile was nowhere to be seen today. No matter how she answered the question, Claire knew she wasn’t fine.

  “It’s all been a lot to take in.” Belinda let the smoke trickle through her nostrils. “Nicola dying, now this. All week, I’ve been worried sick about losing my job. Emotional whiplash.”

  “That’s one way to put it.” Claire offered a supportive smile. “If there is something, you can talk to me. You know that, right? How many years have we worked together?”

  “Too many.” Belinda’s lips formed a thin smile around the cigarette, but her eyes still brimmed with worry. “I’m fine, honestly. You in tomorrow?”

  “Nine to five.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

  Belinda skulked off, cigarette still held between her pursed lips. She pushed through the lingering crowd, not seeming to care about the people she banged into on the way.

  “What was that about?” Damon asked when Claire joined him by the kerb.

  “I wanted to see if
she was all right, considering.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Damon clicked his fingers. “Jeff. Does she know about the affair?”

  “She didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.” Claire looked down the street and watched as Belinda turned the corner, leaving a cloud of smoke in the warm glow of the streetlamp. “Her nerves seem shot to smithereens.”

  “Police probably told her.” Damon checked his watch. “Fancy a film at mine? I think I need another drink after all that. I have some cans of that toffee apple cider you like in the fridge.”

  “Another night.” Claire patted him on the arm. “There’s someone I need to talk to.”

  Sat on the upturned plant pot in the corner of her father’s dark shed, Claire finally paused for breath after recounting as much of the meeting as she could remember. She waited for him to say something, but as usual, he considered his words carefully before jumping in.

  “I think you’re right to be suspicious,” he said finally. “It looks like you’ve already identified two people, each with a potential motive.”

  “So, what do we do?”

  He smiled softly, his wrinkles looking deeper than usual in the glow of the moon.

  “We do nothing,” he said. “It sounds like, for now, you have your job back. It’s best to keep your head down and get on.”

  “Is that what you’d do if you were still a detective?” Claire edged forward. “Ignore the obvious and keep your head down?”

  “I’m retired, Claire.” He pointed up to his scar, his smile widening. “Mr Tumour saw to that.”

  “I know you hate retirement.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “To me, yes.”

  “You could always read me like a book, Claire.”

  “Is DI Ramsbottom up to this case?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Nice fella, but he’s more interested in the easy life. I suspect he’ll coast this case until the book gets passed or something falls into his lap.”

  Claire’s thoughts swirled, and she almost didn’t want to speak the words on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t hold them in.