by Agatha Frost
“When was the final letter?” Claire asked, still pacing.
“The day before she died.”
“And I assume you haven’t had any similar ones since?”
Graham shook his head.
“But who wrote them, Claire?” Sally asked, edging forward. “You said you’d figured it out.”
Headlights pierced through the night and shone through the curtains. Claire let out a steady stream of shaky air through her lips; it didn’t slow the pounding of her heart.
“They’re back,” she said, turning to Damon. “I need you to do one more favour for me.”
As Claire had expected, her parents had returned home with Uncle Pat and Granny Greta for their usual after-dinner whisky. Claire’s mother was so stunned to find she already had a full house, she didn’t seem to notice Claire’s sudden recovery from her feigned illness.
“Don’t disappear,” she whispered to her mother in the kitchen as she retrieved as many glasses as she could for the extra guests. “This is one evening I don’t think you’re going to want to miss.”
“What are you up to?” she hissed back. “Why is Graham here?”
“You’ll see.”
Claire watched as they all took their seats around the kitchen table, glad to see Damon wasn’t among them. He walked in from the hallway seconds later, one hand deep in his pocket. He nodded at Claire, confirming he’d found exactly what she’d asked him to look for.
In this, Claire hated being right. The weight didn’t lift like it should have. Instead, she felt as though she had strapped boulders to her chest and jumped into a deep lake.
Leaving her mother to put the glasses on a tray, Claire sat between Sally and Damon at the table. Her father locked eyes with her straight away, begging for an explanation; he never missed a trick. Claire wanted so badly to tell him everything, but his reaction stopped her. Things needed to play out. After all, outside of the letters, she had no concrete evidence.
“Well, isn’t this nice,” Greta announced, unscrewing the whisky as the glasses arrived. “The more, the merrier, right? We’ve got ourselves a little party here.”
“What’s the occasion?” Uncle Pat asked, grabbing a glass. “Not forgotten someone’s birthday again, have I?”
“No occasion,” Claire replied, taking the bottle from her gran once she had poured her drink.
Sally and Damon filled their glasses as high as Claire did. Graham only added a splash, and he never touched it. Needing the courage, Claire drank as much of it as she could in one go. It didn’t get more pleasant with time. In fact, this time, it seemed to burn much more. After tonight, she vowed, she’d never touch the stuff again.
“Let’s play a game,” Claire announced, rising to her feet. “A little party game.”
“A game?” Her mother barely hid her grimace behind her polite smile. “Claire, what’s going on?”
“It’s my birthday!” Damon announced.
“I thought you said there was no occasion?” Pat replied before sipping his whisky. “Not that we need an occasion to have a drink with family and friends.”
Claire opened one of the drawers in the dining room cupboards, glad to find a stack of printer paper and a bag of multicoloured biro pens. She didn’t have a concrete plan, but for the first time since Nicola’s murder, it felt like fate was finally on her side.
“I didn’t want to make a fuss,” Damon said, continuing the lie; his birthday was in July. “Claire insisted I come, so I wouldn’t spend it alone.”
Claire quickly ripped a couple of sheets into eight sections.
“Well, happy birthday to you, lad.” Pat lifted his glass in the air. “At least you weren’t working today! Isn’t that right, Graham?”
From the bag of pens, she picked out eight black pens.
“Huh?” Graham called.
She swapped one for a red.
Even better, she thought.
“The factory,” Pat continued. “Nobody likes working on their birthday, do they? Thought any more about next week’s schedule?”
“I’m sorting it out.”
“People would really appreciate going back to William’s old rota,” said Pat. “I know it had its issues, but I’m sure we could make it work if we all put our heads together. No need to jump right into selling the place, is there?” Pat drank again. “Sorry, I’ve probably said too much. Was I supposed to keep that secret?”
“I did ask,” Graham replied.
“Well, I already knew,” Damon announced, forcing a laugh. “Claire told me.”
“He asked me not to tell anyone either,” Claire said, returning to her seat with the items, “but you fired me, didn’t you, Graham?” She spread the paper around the table. “Don’t worry, I’m not holding a grudge. I did steal some things headed for the tip, after all.” She passed around the pens, purposefully positioning the red pen. “Right, just a bit of fun! An ice breaker, as it were.”
“But we all know each other, dear,” Granny Greta said, looking around the table. “Sort of.”
“Play along, Gran,” Claire said, forcing the biggest smile she could until her gran appeared to realise something was off. “Let’s all write down something about ourselves. A funny story, a statement, a secret … anything. We put them into a bowl, and then we take it in turns guessing who wrote the statement. Does that make sense?”
“There’s no bowl,” Damon pointed out.
Claire picked up the dish of potpourri from the centre of the table and tipped it upside down.
“Claire!” cried her mother.
“I’ll clean it up after.” Claire gave her a sharp ‘go along with it’ look. “Right, heads down and write something.”
Despite a slight hesitation, everyone played along and began writing. Claire scribbled down her secret and was the first to put her folded paper in the bowl. One by one, the bowl filled up until all the lids were back on the pens. Claire picked up the dish, moved the paper around, and handed it to Damon to pluck one out.
“‘I have no idea what’s going on right now,’” he read aloud.
“That’s mine!” Claire’s mother announced.
“You’re supposed to let us guess.”
“But I really don’t know what’s going on right now.”
“It’s Damon’s birthday.” Claire shook up the bowl and passed it to her mother. “Why don’t you go next?”
Lips pursed so tight they looked like they might seal shut for good, Janet plucked out the top paper. She unfolded it and read it over once.
“‘I once met Prince Charles in an airport,’” she read aloud, rolling her eyes. “I don’t know how many times I’ve heard this one. Greta, that’s yours.”
“Don’t roll your eyes at me!” Greta sipped her drink. “I did meet him at an airport, and he was a very nice gentleman.”
“I don’t think Prince Charles would have been going on a flight to Benidorm,” Janet muttered, fiddling with the back of her diamond earring. “But you go ahead and keep telling people that story.”
“It was Amsterdam,” Greta said. “And I swear on my life, it was him.”
“Hear that, God?” Janet called up to the ceiling. “Now’s your chance.”
“It’s true!”
“My turn!” Claire called out. She plucked out the answer written in red and unfolded it; the handwriting was the exact same as the letters, as she’d known it would be. “‘I’ve never seen a full game of football.’”
“Who’s never seen a game of football?” Graham muttered, finally sipping his drink. “That’s impossible.”
“I already know who it is,” Claire remarked, folding the paper up and pocketing it. “I recognised the handwriting. Uncle Pat, that’s yours.”
“And proud of it!” he called out. “Never grew up with it, did we, Mum?”
“Not my cup of tea,” Greta replied, swishing her drink around. “Bunch of men chasing a ball around a field? Boring! Now, rugby, that’s a real sport. Do I get a turn, dear?”
Claire held the bowl out to her gran. She read over the secret. From the pure shock alone, Claire knew what the paper said.
“‘I know who murdered Nicola and Jeff,’” Greta said slowly, pausing to look around the table, “‘and they’re in this room.’”
“Okay, this has gone too far!” Janet stood up, snatching the dish from Claire. “I don’t know what sick game you’re playing, young lady, but it ends now. You get stranger by the day, and I know you didn’t get that from me. That’s all your father!”
“Should I still guess?” Greta asked, holding up the paper.
“You don’t need to,” Claire said. “I’ll admit it, it’s mine, and it’s true.”
“What?” Greta laughed, looking around the table. “Claire? Are you serious?”
“Deadly.”
Claire glanced at her father, who had been silent since they sat down. His eyes were trained on Claire as he swirled the whisky in his glass. She knew him well enough to know he’d known what was going on from the moment they returned home. He looked across the table at the murderer; Claire heard the penny drop.
“This whisky has gone right through me,” Pat said, standing up. “I’ll be back in two.”
When Pat left the kitchen, Claire patted Damon’s leg under the table. He pressed what he’d found into her hand. She followed her uncle into the hallway, and exactly as she’d expected, found him riffling through his coat hanging from the wall.
“Looking for these?” Claire called out, holding up the crumpled box of cigarettes. “Terrible habit, you called it.”
Pat spun around, his eyes going straight to the box of cigarettes. He looked as panicked as a deer in the headlights before forcing a shaky smile.
“You got me,” he said with a chuckle, holding his hands out for the box. “The stress sent me back to them. I’ve been trying to quit.”
“Oh, I know,” Claire said, barely able to look her uncle in the eyes. “The nicotine gum proves that.”
“I’m sorry?”
“The gum.” Claire inhaled deeply. “The gum you spat out when you buried Jeff’s body in the woods.”
Gasps came from the kitchen, but Pat’s face didn’t falter from the same perplexed smile. He still had his hand out for the cigarette box; his fingers shook. Nicotine withdrawals? Or the same adrenaline now coursing through Claire’s veins?
“Very funny,” Pat said, dropping his hand. “C’mon, Claire. It’s no time for games.”
“It’s not a game, Uncle.” Claire pocketed the cigarettes and swapped them for the piece of paper. “Your handwriting isn’t that remarkable. It could be anyone’s really, but we get used to these things, don’t we? Damon’s right. How could I not recognise it from all the reports you’ve written at work, and that’s not even including all the birthday cards and Christmas cards.”
Pat’s smile dropped, his mouth becoming a firm line.
“I don’t know what you’re—”
“You do.”
Claire walked into the sitting room and picked up as many of the letters as she could hold. When she returned, the rest of the guests were stood in the kitchen hallway, all staring blankly at Pat, who was frozen by the coats.
“You wrote all these letters.” She tossed them into the air, and by the time they finished fluttering to the ground, tears ran down her face. “You did it, Uncle Pat. You murdered them.”
“Claire!” Pat boomed, a finger outstretched, his eyes mad and wide. “Stop this now. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“No, I do.” Claire wiped away her tears, furious with herself for letting them fall in the first place. “It was you, Uncle Pat. It was you all along.”
“Claire?” Granny Greta pushed through. “Why are you saying this?”
“Because it’s true, Gran.” She couldn’t look at her gran either. “I wish it weren’t. I wish there was another explanation, but there isn’t. I was so convinced Nicola’s murder was connected to the affair, but it can’t have been. Jeff is dead, Belinda has a solid alibi, and so does Graham.”
“And Ben Warton?” Pat cried. “What about him? He hated his sister.”
“He did.” Claire nodded. “But he didn’t do it, either. He didn’t write all of these threatening letters. The letters you have yet to bother bending down to get a closer look at. Why would you need to? You know what they say. You knew about that railing. You warned her about it, and she never listened. And it turns out you were right. Bilal didn’t kill himself, did he? You wanted us to think he did because you didn’t want the scent drifting in this direction. You knew I’d never consider you, but you weren’t going to let your friend, Abdul, take the blame, so you pushed us away. Every time we talked about this, you tried so hard to steer us in every other direction. Isn’t that right, Dad?”
Claire turned to the spectators, but her father wasn’t amongst them.
“Your best friend’s son died,” Claire continued, bowing her head, “and you wanted to get revenge. You hoped your letters would scare her into confessing, but you couldn’t get any reaction from her, so you confronted her, and then you pushed her through that window.”
“You killed my wife?” Graham stepped forward, his bottom lip wobbling. “It was you?”
“Wife?” Pat scoffed, every muscle in his body appearing to relax. “Don’t make me laugh! You didn’t love each other. You both thought you were convincing the world, but I saw the truth. It would have knocked William Warton sick knowing the truth about your pathetic marriage.”
“It’s true,” Greta said, tears clouding her eyes, “isn’t it? You’re not denying it, son. I know you. I gave birth to you. You killed those two people, didn’t you?”
Pat looked around the room, his eyes landing on Claire. His nostrils flared as he took a step back towards the door. He wasn’t the Uncle Pat Claire had known and loved her whole life; she didn’t recognise the man in front of her.
“Whose side are you on, Claire?” he hissed. “Nicola was going to sell the factory! I did you all a favour.”
“It is true!” Greta cried, collapsing into Janet’s arms. “My own son!”
“Yes, I did it!” Pat took another step back. “I confronted her, and she admitted it to my face. She admitted to writing the suicide note to save her own backside. She looked pleased with herself, too. I saw red, and I pushed her. Who knew that window was so flimsy? Just another health and safety issue. Ironic, don’t you think?”
“She was my wife!” Graham cried.
“And she didn’t care one bit about you!” Pat switched his gaze. “You might have been pretending everything was fine with this sick arrangement of husband and wife swap, but I heard you sobbing that night at your cottage. I was delivering one of my letters after our usual Monday night dinner and whisky here, and you were talking with your bedroom window open, pretending you were fine and happy about everything going on. Then, she left to go meet up with him, and you cried like a pathetic baby. I did you a favour.”
“And Jeff?” Claire asked. “He needed to die too?”
“He was there!” Pat took another step back, his body inches from the front door. “Hiding in the stationery cupboard. They must have heard me coming up the fire escape. I wanted to catch Nicola off-guard. I’d waited months to confront her, but I knew she wasn’t going to confess, so I was going to get it out of her one way or another. I was willing to lose everything for the truth. Just like you now, Claire. I just wanted the truth! And not just for me, for Abdul! It was tearing him apart!”
“And you got it,” Claire replied, looking him dead in the eyes, “but we’re not the same right now. I don’t know who you are.”
“It’s still me,” he pleaded. “Uncle Pat.”
“But why did you need to kill Jeff?”
“Because he heard the whole damn thing!” Pat continued. “He heard me confront Nicola, and he heard her confess. When he realised what had happened, he fled the same way I did. He took those fire escape stairs four at a time a
nd ran for the hills. He knew how it’d look. They’d eventually find his DNA all over her lips. He couldn’t tell the police what he’d heard because it’d out his affair to Belinda.”
“If Jeff knew it was you, why didn’t he go to the police?” Damon asked.
“Because he didn’t know it was me,” Pat said. “He didn’t recognise my voice. Can’t say I’m surprised. It’s not like we ever had a conversation despite working together at the factory for so many years.” He turned back to Claire. “When you said you saw Jeff kissing Nicola just before I pushed her, I knew he must have been there, so I went to see him. Found him waiting for a taxi outside Gary’s Mechanics with all of his bags. I should have let him leave, but he recognised my voice right away. I did the only thing I could think of.”
“The only thing?” Greta stepped forward, using the bannister for support. “I raised you better than this!”
“I panicked!” Tears filled Pat’s eyes. “I was already in so deep, Mum. I didn’t mean to kill Nicola, not really. I wanted to scare her, but I was just so angry. She was so dismissive of Bilal’s life, and everyone was moving on so fast. Nobody cared anymore. She was going to get away with it unless I did something. I didn’t want to lose everything. My job, my life, my family. Getting rid of Jeff was the only way to keep the secret. And he knew! He told me himself! He knew about the railing, and Nicola told him to ignore it. Told him to stop reporting it. I didn’t even realise the gum fell out of my mouth.”
“You were too busy trying to bury a body,” Claire reminded him. “No wonder you did it so close to the edge. He was almost twice as tall as you.”
“Please, Claire!” he begged, holding out both hands. “You have to understand. I was just trying to do the right thing. Things got out of hand. I’m not a cold-blooded killer! I would never hurt any of you.”
“You got Claire fired,” Graham said. “You were the one who told me about the stuff she had. You suggested I call the police. ‘Teach her a lesson,’ you said. I had no idea how close you were until tonight.”
“I just wanted her to drop this!” Pat cried, his anger returning. “Like you, Mum, with the teaspoons. Marley just wanted to scare you to stop.”
