by Agatha Frost
“I’m not sure,” Sally said, checking her watch. “Let’s walk. Parking will be murder at the church, all things considered.”
They left Sally’s house and headed straight to the top entrance of Starfall Park. Given the steep and narrow nature of Park Lane, most people cut through the park from the cul-de-sac.
“Oh, Claire,” Damon said as they half-jogged to keep up with Sally’s fast-paced stride. “Did you get my email of that picture the other night?”
“What picture?”
“The one I said I’d enhance,” he said. “Don’t you check your emails?”
“Only when I buy something online.” Claire pulled her phone from her pocket and refreshed the email app, shielding her phone from Damon so he couldn’t see that she had over twenty-six thousand unopened emails. A barrage of new emails appeared as it updated.
“Sharpened it up,” he explained, leaning over and double-tapping the screen when the image loaded. “You can see more details, but I don’t think it made more of a difference.”
Claire could see a difference. Amongst the group of smiling faces all wrapped up in scarves and hats, Jane’s pale and blank expression looked like that of a woman on the verge of death. Had Agnes and her loyalists been too impressed with themselves for surprising her that they didn’t notice how deathly ill she looked?
“Thanks, mate.” Claire tucked the phone away as they crossed through the open gates into the park. “I appreciate it.”
“Clean out your inbox, Claire,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “I saw that number.”
Claire felt the difference in the park immediately. At this time of the late morning, people would usually be playing bowls on the top green while others played tennis, but both places stood vacant.
They walked around the observatory and set off down the steep slope curving towards the side entrance. A young couple pushed a toddler on the swings in the playground, and a group of teens played a game of football on the grass in front of the bandstand, but the park was otherwise empty.
“Do you think people are avoiding the place because of that?” Damon asked.
They ground to a halt, each of them shielding their eyes from the sun to stare in the direction of the forensic tent erected outside Starfall House. Each space in the small car park held a police car or van, and the cordon had been moved from the entrances to wrap around the house.
“Somehow, I don’t think that’s the reason,” Claire said as they set off again, “but we’re about to find out.”
Two days had passed since the police dramatically invaded Starfall Park, but if Eric’s body had been found, no one had confirmed it. Given the number of rose beds around the park, seven in total, the local station’s resources were stretched thinner than ever, according to Claire’s father. The few officers not at work in the park remained at the station, trying to trace the source of the anonymous phone call that had guaranteed a body. Claire wondered if they’d so much as glanced at the pictures and information she and Em had passed on regarding Colin’s involvement in the strange happenings.
Most of the shops were once again closed out of respect for Jane, but unlike the previous occasion, the square was eerily empty. They saw no one until they turned onto Warton Lane on the opposite side of the village.
Warton Lane was more commonly known as ‘The Canopies’ thanks to the rows of dense trees on either side of the tight lane that created a shadowy awning of leaves over the winding road. Like Park Lane, it sloped away from the centre of town, eventually flattening at the very top, where the Warton Candle Factory was situated. After seventeen years climbing the hill day in and day out to get to work, Claire appreciated that she no longer needed to make that particular ascent. Today’s destination wouldn’t change that – it was comfortably at the bottom.
Trinity Community Church stood imposingly on the corner of the lane, ideally situated for the village’s needs. Like the last time Claire had walked by the church, countless numbers of people milled about outside. Unlike that previous occasion, however, this crowd wasn’t smiling and throwing confetti over a newly married couple.
“Em’s up there with your mother,” Sally said, nodding up the packed street as she reached into her small clutch bag for her phone. “I’ll catch you up. I need to make a quick call.”
Leaving Sally at the bottom of the street, Claire slowly made her way through the thick crowd of black-clad mourners. Somewhere along the way, she lost Damon. She nodded and smiled at people she recognised – which was most of them. It appeared everyone in the village had turned up for the joint funeral of the unfortunate mother and daughter duo. Claire suspected most of the crowd was there for Jane.
As the crowd thinned out, Claire found Em. She swayed from side to side, leaning against the church wall with her arms wrapped around herself. Her gaze was on the road, but she didn’t appear to be focussing on anything in particular.
Claire’s parents and Granny Greta stood a few steps away, their tight, sympathetic smiles letting Claire know they had no idea how to deal with her. Thankfully, Ryan was there with his arm around Em. In a suit, he looked more handsome than usual; he’d been double the size the last time Claire had seen him dressed so formally.
Ryan spotted her first, and an audible sigh of relief left his lips. Em’s eyes lit up, and she left Ryan’s side to hug Claire.
“Oh, thank goodness!” Em whispered into her ear. “I was beginning to worry.”
Dressed in a floor-length, rainbow-tie-dyed poncho, Em was an explosion of colour in the sea of black. Her choice not to wear the traditional colour of mourning had been quite deliberate. Claire had helped Em pick out the poncho from the limited selection of clothes she kept on the boat, none of which were black. Of course, Claire had remained on the safety and stillness of the path as Em held up possibilities from the swaying deck of her home.
“That’s Sally’s dress?” Janet asked, looking Claire up and down when Em pulled away from the hug. “You look—”
“Pregnant?”
“Lovely.” Janet frowned. “I was going to say lovely.”
“You do look lovely,” her father confirmed.
“Very lovely,” Granny Greta added.
“Ryan?” Janet prompted. “What do you think of Claire’s dress?”
Claire shot her mother a ‘not today’ look while Ryan scratched at the back of his ginger hair, his lips trying to form words as his cheeks burned red.
“I’m sorry I took so long,” Claire said to Em after shaking her head at Ryan to let him know he didn’t have to play along with Janet’s mind games. “How are you feeling?”
“Ready,” she replied, her clammy hand wrapping around Claire’s drier one. “It’s time to say goodbye.”
The large crowd fell silent and cleared a path as the first of two hearses rounded the corner at the bottom of Warton Lane.
The crowd moved aside to let Em pass. “I hate funerals,” Claire heard her mother whisper as they headed towards the gates.
Opal and Jane’s funerals had been organised and paid for with the Evergreen Funeral Home decades ago, relieving Em of the burden of difficult decision making regarding the day. As the plans were nearly identical for mother and daughter, and given that the police had released both bodies for burial within hours of each other, the funeral director had been the one to suggest combining the services. Thankfully, all she had required of Em was a nod of the head and a signature.
After naturally breaking away from her family and Ryan, Claire and Em made their way to the entrance. Trinity Community Church’s minister, Reverend Walter McNally, greeted them with soft handshakes. In his seventies, Walter had been a fixture of Northash village life for many, many years.
“Your mother would have disapproved of your choice of outfit,” he whispered. He added a wink. “But I would have been disappointed to see you in anything else, Emma.”
The compliment seemed to lift Em’s spirits more than anything had done all morning, which Claire was glad of;
from the moment she saw Em, Janet had made more than her fair share of ‘Technicolour Dreamcoat’ remarks.
Claire’s family along with Damon and Ryan entered first, leaving Claire to linger by the door with Em. The crowd filtered through one by one, each giving Em their condolences. Only a few mentioned Em’s grandmother. Most of the mourners fixed Claire with sceptical looks; Agnes and the loyalists’ train of thought appeared to be more widespread than she’d hoped.
Diane was one of the last to enter. She looked a great deal less the worse for wear than she’d done previously. She wore a simple black knee-length skirt paired with a black boatneck blouse. A black silk scarf with white polka dots was wrapped around her throat and knotted neatly at the side.
“Chin up today,” she whispered to Em as she gave her a quick hug. “It’ll be over before you know it.”
Right before Reverend McNally closed the doors behind the last stragglers–—– mostly the smokers–—– made their way in, Sally hurried down the path, dropping her phone into her bag.
“I called Paul,” she whispered to Claire, who’d raised her eyebrows in a silent question. “I’ll tell you later.”
With Em still clinging to her hand, Claire walked quickly down the aisle. Agnes and her gang had deemed themselves worthy of the front pew seats. With some reluctance, Agnes nodded for the women to shuffle down. The room they thought acceptable had Claire’s left bottom cheek spilling over the edge, but she wouldn’t complain.
Reverend McNally started the service with his usual vigour and enthusiasm. Unlike her parents, Claire wasn’t much of a churchgoer, but she enjoyed McNally’s energy whenever she found herself there. Having travelled outside the village for enough weddings and christenings over the years, Claire had almost fallen asleep at enough services to know they had a good one in Walter.
Through all the standing and sitting for the hymn singing, Em’s hand remained fused to Claire’s; the squeezing grew tighter and tighter. To look at, Em’s face was calm and stoic, but her fingers jittered against Claire’s knuckles.
Watching Em’s silent struggle brought tears to Claire’s eyes. She dabbed at her cheeks, and before she could reach into her bag to see if she had a tissue amongst all the chocolate wrappers, a packet appeared. Claire took one and smiled her thanks, surprised to see that the hand holding out the offering belonged to Agnes.
Agnes shuffled down further, prompting the rest of them to do the same, making more room for Claire at the end of the bench. It wasn’t an apology, but Claire knew it was the best she’d get, and it was enough for her.
Em hadn’t felt comfortable delivering eulogies for her mother and grandmother, but Reverend McNally had been happy to write them.
First, he gave a formal history of Opal’s life with very few personal touches outside the basic facts Claire had discovered for herself recently. Jane’s, however, while mainly revolving around her café, felt more like it came from the reverend’s heart. Like most of the cards left outside the tearoom, he couldn’t help slipping in that Jane’s coconut cake had been his favourite.
By the end, there wasn’t a dry eye in the church. Even Claire cried for Jane, and unlike everyone else, she wasn’t simply crying for the hospitable tearoom owner and her delicious cakes. Through her friendship with Em, she had learned that Jane, for better or for worse, was a more complex woman than she’d ever assumed.
When Reverend McNally’s service ended, Em led the way out of the church. Once they were outside, she finally released Claire’s hand. Now that the service had ended, Em seemed more comfortable; she chatted easily with people as they exited the church. A small crowd formed around her in no time.
“Did you notice she didn’t even cry?” Claire’s mother whispered as she passed. “I’m telling you, dear, she did it.”
“Of all days, Mother, not today.”
Janet rolled her eyes and drifted off with some of the women Claire recognised from the Women’s Institute events she’d been forced to attend over the years.
Sally was one of the last to emerge from the church. Claire followed her away from the crowd and into a small garden area with benches. They sat down on the final one in the row.
“I asked Paul if Opal called after Colin delivered the will,” Sally whispered, glancing at the crowd as they made their way across the graveyard to the plot. “After you asked if I knew, I realised it might be the key to unlocking things. With so much pointing Colin at Jane, I thought maybe he forged the will to write himself in. If that were the case, Opal wouldn’t have called.”
“From the sound of your voice, I’m guessing she did?”
“Yep.” She huffed. “Which means Opal legitimately changed her will the day before she died. Paul spoke to her himself, and she went through every little change, as always. He did say this was the first version of the will in which Colin appeared, and she left him nearly a million quid.”
“Crikey.” Claire’s heart skipped a beat. “Why would she suddenly do that?”
“Maybe he was blackmailing her for something?” Sally suggested. “That’s what Paul seems to think, but he’s not getting involved. As far as they’re concerned, these were Opal’s last wishes. She switched all the property and the rest of the money from Jane to Em, and everything else remained as it had been since the last update. Opal’s jewellery collection went to the housekeeper, and she even left some money to a handful of charities. But the Colin thing, surely it’s fishy?”
“It’s not looking good.” Claire sighed as she stood. “I told the police about him donating Jane’s clothes – as well as everything else I’d discovered – but I don’t know what they’re doing with that information.”
“I saw him in the park yesterday,” Sally said. “Didn’t feel right.”
“Exactly. My dad thinks poisonings like this are impossible to prove even with everything we’ve found. He called it ‘circumstantial evidence’. Colin must have been able to explain things away if they haven’t arrested him.”
“So, he gets away with it?”
“Unless he suddenly confesses?” Claire said hopefully as they passed the entrance and carried on in the direction of the large graveyard. “He gave his notice to Em, so I doubt he’s sticking around long enough for that to happen.”
“Sounds like he’s about to run off into the sunset with his prize,” Sally said as they hurried to catch up with the tail end of the crowd.
“If that is what happened, I still can’t figure out how he got it. And why kill Jane?”
“Maybe the housekeeper was onto something when she told you he had a thing for her?” Sally whispered as they slowed down. “An obsession? Couldn’t stand the thought of her leaving?”
The idea didn’t sit right with Claire, but she still replied with, “Maybe.”
Claire left Sally and joined Em at the top of the two newly dug graves. The family plot, as Em had explained, had enough plots for all of them to be buried together, with one final plot left for her, the last of their line. The most recent gravestone belonged to Em’s late grandfather, Timothy Jones, who died in 2001.
Reverend McNally slowly made his way across the graveyard with a bible in hand; a dozen pallbearers carried the two coffins behind them. Everyone either had bowed heads or was watching the slow procession across the graveyard. Em’s eyes, however, were focussed on something in the opposite direction. She held up a hand and smiled.
Pushing up her glasses, Claire squinted in the direction Em was looking. Ray stood under a tree in the distance, Sheeba at his feet. He held up a hand and tipped his head at his daughter, but he didn’t approach.
“He doesn’t like going places with a lot of villagers,” Em explained. “He’s wronged a lot of people over the years, and it tends to draw attention.”
“Even at funerals?”
“Especially at . . .”
Em’s voice trailed off as a loud, shrill electronic voice screamed over a speaker. Everyone immediately turned in the direction of the racket, and Claire
expected to see some kind of unaware political or advertising vehicle driving by.
But that wasn’t it.
Fiona Brindle stood on the other side of the wall, her face bright red from the scream she’d bellowed through the megaphone held to her mouth. She’d obviously intended to have all eyes fixed on her, and it had worked. Fiona’s deep inhale was magnified by the megaphone.
Claire braced for another scream.
“Murderer!” Fiona screamed through the static fuzz. “Jane was a murderer! She murdered my father, Eric Brindle, born . . .”
While Fiona rattled through the facts of her father’s life, her voice growing more hysterical with every new sentence, Em’s wrapped her hand around Claire’s and squeezed harder than she’d ever done before.
Chapter Fifteen
Just as Fiona began speaking of her father’s first marriage, Ray Bridges reached her, grabbing the megaphone from her hands. Grunting, he launched it at the road, shattering it into pieces.
“Go!” he demanded.
Sheeba barked up at the sky. Before Claire could fully register what was happening, Sally was dragging Fiona away, still screaming.
“Settle down, everyone,” Reverend McNally said when the chatter didn’t die down even after Fiona and Sally were out of sight. “Let’s finish what we came here to do today.”
The rest of the service flew by, but Em couldn’t contain her tears. She seemed to try, but by the time the coffins were lowered into the ground, her entire body shook under Claire’s touch. The moment Claire sensed it was appropriate to do so, she pulled Em away from the crowd.
“I don’t care what she thinks,” Claire said when they were on the other side of the church wall, “she had no right to do that. I’m so sorry, Em.”
“But what if she’s right?” Em asked, voice breaking.
