Black Cherry Betrayal (Claire's Candles Cozy Mystery Book 2)

by Agatha Frost

  “The observatory,” she muttered. “Fiona told me her father visited the observatory the night he went missing in 2013, but you told me it was never used.”

  “Eric wasn’t using the observatory to gaze at the stars,” Diane hissed over her shoulder. “He was meeting Colin there to do who knows what behind Jane’s back! He made such a fuss to Opal about letting him use it to gaze at the stars like Timothy had done, and she fell for it.”

  “And you murdered him.”

  “Eric was in the will separate from Jane!” She spun around, tossing her hands out. “What was I supposed to do? Opal liked him for some reason! Eric was an agreeable man, and that’s all Opal wanted from people. I had to get him out of the way.”

  Diane turned back to the window and leaned out as though to look up at the observatory through the trees. Claire took a step forward, the urge to push her out tingling her fingertips.

  “When I finally went up there with my camera to catch him in the act,” Diane continued, leaning back in and snapping Claire back to her senses. “I overheard Eric and Colin planning to flee Northash together to start a new life somewhere else.”

  “You could have let him leave.”

  “Opal was supposed to be dying of cancer in 2013.” Diane left the window and marched over to the duffle bag of jewellery. “I didn’t know how long I had left. After so many years, the house was so close to being mine. I’d outlived all of her awful younger sisters. Eric could have left Northash with Colin and still been left in the will, so I had to get rid of him, and I needed Jane to forget about him.”

  “You sent those pictures to Jane.”

  “My, my, my, Claire, you have been busy.” Diane zipped up the bag, another smirk forming. “People were searching night and day for that man. I knew if I didn’t throw them off the scent, someone would notice the disruption in the rose beds out front.”

  Diane glanced through the window as a police van skidded to a halt on the path. Claire gulped; so many blanks still left to fill.

  “Getting Jane to abandon the search was easy,” Diane continued. “She never kept her views regarding alternative lifestyles to herself behind closed doors. Finding out her husband was one of them was all it took. Knocked the wind from the sails of the investigation, and things quietened down. I was going to kill Jane then, but Opal made a full recovery at ninety-five. Nobody saw it coming, let alone me, so I bided my time to give Eric’s disappearance some breathing space.”

  “But Opal kept on living,” Claire said, feeling time slipping away once again, “and you finally killed Jane, and Opal still didn’t give you what you wanted.”

  “I’ve been waiting since January!” She slung the bag over her shoulder and went to the one on the bed. “Waiting for someone to find her so I could stop pretending like Jane was in France! The second Opal told me I was in the will, I did what I had to do.”

  The realisation that Opal hadn’t died from natural causes hit Claire like another tonne of bricks; her mother had been right about one thing, at least.

  “She was the easiest one.” She zipped up the second duffle bag after stuffing in the remaining clothes. “Pillow over the face, and she didn’t even fight it. Think I did the old bat a favour. If not for them finding Eric’s body today, I might have had time to figure something out. You were starting to suspect Colin for whatever reason, and I barely had to push you in his direction. With him in prison, and Em dead – well, I’m assuming she’s dead if you figured out those drinks were poisoned. Unless . . .”

  Diane’s voice trailed off as she stood slowly, the biggest smirk on her face yet as she tossed the second bag over her shoulder.

  “Ooops,” she said with a wink, “I can be rather clumsy, can’t I?”

  Claire’s fists balled tight by her side. Rage unlike anything she’d felt before flooded her system. She wanted to launch herself on Diane, but she refrained; she’d never win a fight against someone with such a look of focus in their eyes.

  A bang as though the front doors had been blasted open shuddered below, echoing behind Claire. Diane reached into the back hem of her skirt and pulled out a pocketknife.

  “That’s our cue.” Diane had her arm around Claire’s neck and the flat edge of the blade against her throat before she could register the movement. “Open the doors. I’ve already tried to kill you once today, so don’t try anything silly.”

  Not daring to gulp, Claire moved forward with Diane and pulled open the doors. They walked around the landing and the click of guns echoed in the entranceway when they appeared at the top of the staircase. Four armed police officers lined the stairs, with DI Ramsbottom at the bottom, accompanied by a small army of uniformed officers from the local station.

  “I won’t hesitate,” Diane cried, shrugging the bags higher up her shoulders. “Let us leave, and I won’t harm little Miss Marple.”

  DI Ramsbottom glared up at them, but his eyes were mostly trained on Claire. He pinched between his brows before waving for the officers to stand down. They hesitated for a moment, but then lowered their weapons.

  “Thank you,” Diane said as they slowly made their way down the impossibly steep staircase. “Honestly, I can’t stand guns. They’re so barbaric.”

  “Says the woman holding a knife to my throat.”

  Diane chuckled. “It’s a shame you had to stick your nose in, Claire. I’ve been quite amused by you. You’ve got quite a mouth on you. Not afraid to speak your mind. You remind me of myself. The real me. I like that.”

  “Forgive me for not being flattered.”

  They reached the bottom of the staircase. DI Ramsbottom and his officers stepped to the side, glaring at Claire all the way to the door. She attempted to convey a somewhat apologetic look, but even with the knife to her throat, she didn’t regret her decision; she’d needed the answers and hadn’t trusted Ramsbottom to get them.

  The sun blinded Claire as they stepped through the large front door. She heard her mother’s shriek before she saw her face. Squinting, she spotted her parents on the path on the other side of the cordon at the front of a large crowd, most of whom were dressed in funeral attire.

  “Sorry,” she mouthed at her dad.

  Diane dragged her in the opposite direction, bypassing the broken chair and pile of glass. They passed the white tent, and Diane pushed her up the rockery in the direction of the duck pond and rabbit enclosure. The crowd attempted to rush around while police officers desperately tried to herd them.

  “If you were this close to getting away with it,” Claire whispered, careful to watch her steps as she manoeuvred around the rocks jutting up from the soil, “why did you tip off the police about Eric?”

  “I didn’t,” Diane muttered back. “I was hoping you’d have the answer for that one. Alas, it doesn’t matter now. I thought planting a copy of the pictures on Eric would be enough to point to Colin, but it looks like the fun is over. I lose. Time to make a run for it.”

  “Are you going to slit my throat?”

  “I thought about it.” They reached the path above the rockery, and Diane held the flat edge of the blade tighter; she loosened it just as quickly. “Maybe with a different knife, but not this one. My husband used to hold this very blade to my throat, and I can’t be that person. Poison suits me just fine. Much less messy.”

  “Your husband?”

  “Don’t feel sorry for me.” Diane pulled the blade away and slipped it back into its case. “Like I said, poison suits me, and he got what he deserved a long time ago.” She gripped Claire’s shoulders and spun her around. With a crease in her brow, she said, “You shouldn’t have started asking questions the second you met me, by the way. I might have started poisoning you later, and perhaps you might have lived.”

  “What?”

  “Good luck.”

  Diane pushed Claire into the pond. Claire landed on her back, gasping for breath and inhaling a mouth full of slimy water in the process. Two sets of hands grabbed her. Men she didn’t recognise, wearing
running gear, dragged her out of the water. She landed on all fours on the path and coughed up the pond water.

  “Claire!” Janet shrieked. “Claire!”

  Letting the two strangers pull her to her feet as the crowd rushed up behind her, she scanned the park for Diane. She was already halfway up the hill, running in the direction of the observatory.

  Without a hostage, the uniformed and armed police alike charged from all directions, but a sizeable shaggy dog burst through the crowd, overtaking the charging cavalry with ease.

  In one jump, Sheeba caught the back of the silk scarf. Diane flew backwards and rolled head over bottom down the hill. Police swarmed on her while Sheeba ran to one of the picnic benches, where her master sat calmly, watching the scene unfold. Like at the funeral, Ray held up a hand, and Claire returned the gesture.

  “Claire!” Janet’s hands reached for her. “What’s got into you?”

  “Poison, according to Diane.” Shivering, Claire accepted her father’s jacket as he wrapped it around her. “You might want to get me to a hospital pretty sharpish.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Mum,” Claire whispered, peeling her mother’s fingers from around her hand. “You’re cutting off the circulation again.”

  “Sorry, love.”

  Janet loosened her grip, but she didn’t let go entirely. She hadn’t let go since they’d been bundled into an ambulance. Her mother hadn’t held onto her so hard and for so long since Claire had got lost in a Moroccan market on a family holiday at the age of eleven.

  As comfortable as she was with her mother, she had grown used to a lifetime of minimal touching, with hugs reserved for special occasions more than casual greetings.

  “Mum,” she said, pulling her hand away entirely before edging away slightly on the hospital bed, “let me just get the feeling back.”

  “I’m sorry, Claire.” Janet left the chair by the bed and paced at the bottom, a hand on her forehead. “These could be our last moments together, and there’s so much I want to say to you.”

  “I feel fine.”

  “But your father said it himself!” Janet checked her watch. “You’d never know until it’s too late. Where is he?”

  Claire reached out and grabbed her mother’s hand again, pulling her back into the chair. Janet smiled. Her bottom lip wobbled, and then the tears started.

  “Oh, Claire!” she wailed, pressing her head and hands into Claire’s side. “This whole mess has made me realise so many things, and it’s too late.”

  Claire awkwardly patted her mother’s head with the clunky heart monitor on her finger.

  “I’m Jane,” Janet said through her sobs, “and you’re Em, and my mother is just like Opal. It’s that same cycle. My mother set impossibly high standards for me, and I’ve done the same for you without even meaning to. Not really.”

  “I know, Mum.”

  “Seeing what a mess this has turned into has made me see how unkind I have been to you,” she continued. “I have become my mother.”

  “You’re nothing like Grandmother Moreen.” Claire chuckled. “Unless you were shrinking my jeans on purpose because that’s something she’d definitely do.”

  If Janet danced around her disapproval of Claire’s weight with thinly veiled side comments, Grandmother Moreen bulldozed through with all out insults.

  “I would never do that, Claire.” Janet frowned. “You just know how I get sometimes.”

  “Then you’re a pussycat in comparison.” Claire offered a smile. “And you know I like cats.”

  “And I bet Jane thought she was a pussycat too!” She lifted her head, her eyes almost swollen shut; Claire could count on one well-squeezed hand the number of times she’d seen her mother cry like this. “Look what happened to her! Dead in the attic, and her daughter has a shaved head! Do you think that’s what I want, Claire?”

  “I think Em’s lack of hair is the least of her worries right now.” Claire wiped away her mother’s tears. “Pull yourself together, Janet. You’re supposed to save all of this stuff for my funeral.”

  “You’re not funny, Claire!”

  “Then, why are you smiling?” Claire couldn’t help but smile with her. “I love you, Mum, and I know you love me. And I promise not to shave my head. If you want to be nicer to me, then I’ll take it.”

  “Let’s not get carried away, dear.” Janet pulled yet another tissue from her sleeve – Claire had lost count, at this point. “You still might not make it.”

  Janet smiled and winked, and Claire couldn’t help but return the gesture. Though she was like her father in most ways, she definitely had her mother’s sense of humour. And she’d certainly felt a little of Janet’s fire when she’d confronted Diane, too. She wondered if her mum might’ve pushed the other woman out the window, after all.

  “Mrs Harris?” the doctor greeted as he walked in, reading a clipboard.

  “Miss Harris,” Janet corrected the handsome doctor as she looked him up and down. “She’s very single.”

  “Well, she’s got plenty of time to find someone,” the doctor said with a polite smile; a gold wedding band glittered from his left hand. “All your tests came back negative, Claire. You’re absolutely fine. I think that nutty housekeeper was pulling your leg.”

  “Thought so.” Claire tossed back the covers and ripped the monitor off her finger. “The woman wanted one last laugh, and she got it. How’s Sally?”

  “She’s asking for you,” he said as he bowed out of the room. “I’ll leave you to get changed.”

  Claire jumped out of bed, the hospital gown flapping behind her as she bent to pick up her pond-water-dampened dress.

  “You know what, dear,” Janet said from behind her as she wriggled into the dress, “you have quite a nice bottom.”

  “I think I preferred you calling me fat.” She pulled the sleeves of the dress through her arms and shimmied the gown off. “Zip me up.”

  “You know you stink, right?”

  “Funny, that.”

  “I’m only saying, dear.”

  Claire smiled, glad to have her mother back; at least she’d know how Janet would act if Claire were really dying. Odd as it was, it only made her love her mother more.

  The moment the dress was on, Claire set off barefoot through the hospital, shoes in hand. She’d tried to go straight to Sally the second the ambulance pulled up, but the nurses had forced her into a bed so they could prick her like a pincushion for their tests.

  After asking for directions to Sally’s ward from every official-looking person they crossed for nearly fifteen minutes, they finally found Sally’s bed in the corner of a quiet ward. Em was by her side.

  “She’s sleeping,” Em whispered, her thumb rubbing soothing circles against the back of Sally’s hand. “She’s been in and out for the last hour, but they think she’s going to be fine.”

  “What happened?” Claire rushed to Sally’s other side and took the other hand. “How is she still alive?”

  “Rat poisoning.” Em glanced around the quiet ward. “She must have run out of arsenic, or she improvised. I still cannot wrap my head around why Diane would possibly want to kill anyone, let alone us.”

  “I’ll explain later.”

  “You stink, mate,” Sally, eyes still closed, muttered hoarsely around the tube sticking out of the corner of her mouth. “That’s the last time I nick your drink.”

  Claire stayed by Sally’s side until Paul arrived with the kids a few hours later; apparently, he’d been visiting his mother and hadn’t bothered checking his phone. By the time he arrived, the medication had taken effect, allowing Sally to sit up.

  From the accusatory look on Paul’s face, Claire figured she wouldn’t be invited around for another red wine night any time soon. She couldn’t blame him. She burnt with guilt for dragging Sally into the mess, even if it hadn’t been intentional.

  Claire reluctantly left Sally’s side with a promise to visit in the morning.

  On Em’s request,
Ste sent a taxi to pick them up; they were back in Northash in no time.

  “Can I jump out here?” Claire asked the driver from the front seat before he turned up the lane to the cul-de-sac. “I’ll meet you both at home in half an hour.”

  Em handed Claire her handbag, which she had kept safe since leaving the pub hours ago, and Claire walked down into the square as the sun set on another eventful Northash day. Before nightfall, Claire knew what she had to do.

  But it would have to wait. Colin sat on the bench across from the tearoom in his usual workman’s outfit. He stood when he spotted her; he’d been waiting for her.

  “I’m glad to see they released you,” Claire said, walking into the middle of the quiet road. “I’m sorry you were accused.”

  “You have nothing to be sorry for.” He offered a stiff smile. “You saved my bacon today. If it weren’t for you, Diane would have run off and disappeared forever.”

  “She almost did.”

  “I kept my distance from Diane for a reason,” Colin said, nodding for Claire to join him on the bench; she sat next to him. “I had my own issues with Opal, but I could see clear as day how hard Diane was trying to manipulate her. I just thought Diane was the only person able to pull the wool over Opal’s eyes.” He shook his head ruefully. ”Even at her age, the old lady was as switched on as people always said.”

  “Does this have to do with how you helped Opal with her final will?” Claire asked.

  “It does,” he said before sucking the air through his teeth. “Opal had this little code for when she wanted to speak to me. She’d put a red handkerchief on her knee, so I’d see it from the window. She rarely did it, and it certainly never led to anything good. She summoned me the day before she died while Diane was out doing running her usual Friday errands before coming back with their chippy dinner.”

  That night already felt so long ago.

  “And Opal asked you to help update her will?”

  Colin nodded. “At first, I refused. I thought it was another of the pathetic mind games she played to force me into begging for a cut. I was exhausted. I didn’t care. For years, she’d been holding those pictures that have been circulating of Eric and me over my head.”