by Agatha Frost
“Nice to meet you, Ash,” she said, stretching out a hand that he didn’t take. “Do you like that candle?”
Ash looked back at the jar and nodded.
“Have I got Janet in trouble?”
“I’m not too sure,” she said. “I was hoping you could tell me. She’s been acting—”
A knock at the back door cut Claire off. She saw the alarm bells ring behind Ash’s eyes before he crept towards the back door.
“It’s only me,” Janet whispered. “Are you there, Ash?”
Ash opened the door, and Janet bustled in, staring into a white shopping bag.
“I bought more of those custard creams since you liked them so much, and some books. I know you didn’t ask for them, but I imagine you’re quite bored here on your—” Janet looked up from the bag, and her gaze immediately snapped onto Claire. “W-what are you doing here?”
“I saw you sneak over during the party.”
“Ash, why don’t you go grab another of those candles I brought you? This one is nearly done.” Janet handed over the bag and sent Ash on his way. “That’s a good boy.”
“Mum, I—”
“What did you say to Ash?”
“Nothing,” Claire said, pulling her arm from her mother’s grip. “I was trying to get to the bottom of what’s going on here.”
“It’s a long story,” she replied, opening the back door. “I’m trying to do what’s best by him, and that’s all you need to—”
“I know about the pension fraud.”
Janet gulped.
“How?”
“So, there is pension fraud?”
“You just said you know about it.”
“I know it’s why you were fired,” Claire said, resting a hand on her mother’s shoulder. “There’s no need to keep lying. I know, and it’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”
Janet’s eyes misted over with tears, though none sprang free from her unblinking lashes.
“Janet?” the soft voice called down the stairs. “I’m down to the last candle.”
“I’ll fetch some more,” she called back after sniffing hard to banish the tears. “I take it your father has invited you to my intervention tonight, so I’ll explain then.”
“Mum—”
“Please, Claire,” Janet said, pushing her through the door. “I have everything under control.”
For the second time that day, a door closed and locked behind Claire. Knowing she’d meet her mother’s wrath if she dared to knock again, she left the house behind.
As she returned to the shop, she tried to piece together what she’d just witnessed, but she could make neither heads nor tails of it. Once in the square, it didn’t take long for something else to occupy her mind.
“Like I just told your officers, this is absurd!” exclaimed Duncan. He and DI Ramsbottom stood outside the post office. “It sounds like you’re trying to arrest me.”
“We just want to ask you some questions at the station,” said Ramsbottom, gesturing towards the open door of the police car. “Two people connected to this post office have turned up dead in a single week.”
“You’ve already confirmed my alibi!” he cried. “I was in Yorkshire on business when Eryk was shot.”
“Are you currently the sole proprietor of Northash Post Office?” Ramsbottom asked. His sigh clearly indicated how thoroughly exhausted he was with the day.
“Well, technically—”
“Then I’m going to once again request that you come to the station.” Ramsbottom glanced at two uniformed officers, both with their hands resting on their handcuffs. “I won’t ask a third time, Mr Wilkinson.”
Duncan and Ramsbottom stared off for an uncomfortably long time, until the former conceded with a sigh. Jerking away when an officer attempted to guide him in by the head, Duncan ducked into the back seat of the police car on his own.
Ramsbottom jumped into the front seat, and they set off, only to immediately slam to a halt when a black car with tinted windows cut them off at the junction. The black vehicle rolled by slowly, apparently indifferent to the blaring police horn. When the black car finally turned, it circled the square and parked outside the pub, though no one emerged from behind its blacked-out windows.
Claire found her shop as busy as it had been when she left, though people were still shy of buying. For once, that suited her; she was far too distracted trying to make sense of what was going on.
“Everything circles back to the post office,” she whispered to Damon. “What am I missing?”
“That we skipped lunch,” he said, grabbing his wallet from under the counter, “and no, those salads definitely don’t count. It’s my turn to pull a vanishing act.”
As the browsers idled around the shop, Claire’s mind wrestled with the dots of information, trying to connect them.
She was confident about one thing.
Like the wick of Ash’s vanilla candle, she was going to burn through the confusion to get to the bottom of this ever more complicated mess.
Chapter Ten
Neighbours twitched at their curtains as shouting filled the warm evening air in the cul-de-sac. Claire didn’t need to wonder which of the large, detached houses the commotion was coming from; she recognised the voices.
“It’s a funny world where I have nicer things to say about my daughter-in-law than her own mother!” Granny Greta roared from the sitting room as Claire quietly opened the front door. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“I should be?” Moreen cried back. “How many of my children are in prison for murder?”
Claire winced as she kicked off her shoes. Of all the people to bring up Uncle Pat in an argument, of course it had to be Mean Moreen.
“You evil…” Greta’s words trailed off, pain gnawing at the edges of her voice. “You keep Pat’s name out of your bitter mouth.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m so close to walloping you right now.”
“Violence must run in the family.”
“Keep this up, and I’ll slap you so hard I send you back to whatever era supplies your hideous wardrobe!”
Still lingering by the door, Claire stifled a laugh. She heard her father sigh in the kitchen down the hall.
“Newsflash,” Greta continued when Moreen didn’t bite back. “They stopped requiring that hemlines graze the floor a century ago. You should know. You were there.”
Not wanting to get dragged into the fray, Claire crept past the open door, only glancing in long enough to see her grandmothers planted on either side of the coffee table. Once in the kitchen, she pushed the door gently against the frame to close it.
“They’ve been at each other’s throats for half an hour, little one,” Alan revealed, accepting Claire’s kiss on the cheek as he fried onions in a pan. “I’ve given up trying to separate them. Something tells me they’re enjoying the drama.”
“What caused it this time?”
“Greta wouldn’t get out of Moreen’s armchair,” he said through slightly pursed lips. “My armchair, not that I’ve been able to sit in it since she arrived.”
“Is Mum hiding in the downstairs bathroom again?”
“Garden,” he said, adding chopped garlic to the pan. “At least, I assume that’s where she is. If she’s climbed over the fence and escaped through Ian’s farm, I wouldn’t blame her.”
Leaving her father to turn up his mud-caked portable radio, Claire exited through the back door. She scanned the pristine garden, but there was no sign of her mother. On the hill beyond the farm, the Warton Candle Factory stood proudly against the bleeding sunset. She didn’t spot her mother running around the fields either. At the bottom of the garden, the door to her father’s beloved potting shed was slightly ajar.
“Is that you, Alan?” Janet asked softly as Claire pushed open the door. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Claire entered the shed, expecting to see her mother standing uncomfortably, surrounded by the dust, mud, and cobwebs. She was
n’t, nor was she at the potting desk. Of all places, Janet balanced on the small, upturned terracotta plant pot in the corner that had remained unmoved since Claire’s childhood. Anyone else would have been ordered off, but Claire took pity and sat in the recycled office chair.
To her surprise, her mother didn’t stiffen her spine, stuff her tissue up her cardigan sleeve, or force a smile. Hunched in the corner with her elbows resting on her knees, she continued to dab at her eyes.
“Are they still at it?”
“Like their lives depend on it.”
“I can usually handle one at a time,” she said with a dry laugh, “but not both at once. I had to get out of there. I thought I’d see what all the fuss was about with this shed. It’s quiet down here.”
“Have you been converted?”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, dear,” she said, drying her eyes before straightening a little and looking around the place. “I can’t tell if it needs a bottle of bleach or blowing up.” She smiled wanly. “Since you’ve found out so much behind my back, I suppose I should tell you what’s been going on.”
“You didn’t leave me much choice,” said Claire. “You shut down. We’re worried.”
“Yes, yes, point taken.” Janet exhaled. “I was raised to not talk about things as trivial as feelings. It’s hard to break the habits of a lifetime, dear. I don’t even know where to start.”
“Start with Ash.”
“Ash.” Her lips pricked up. “All my years in this world, and I don’t think I’ve ever met such a sweet, sensitive soul as that child. He’d come to the post office with Elsie and wouldn’t say a word. He always hid behind her.”
“How old is he?”
“Fourteen,” she said. “I heard about Elsie’s passing and didn’t give him a second thought. I didn’t even know his name. I didn’t even know he was a boy until he came to the post office alone and I heard him speak for the first time. Long hair will do that. I offered to cut it, but he didn’t take me up on it.”
Claire thought about the night before her fourteenth birthday. Her mother had forced her into a chair in the kitchen to give her hair ‘a little trim’ that left her with a one-inch fringe that wouldn’t lie flat. The hairdresser they rushed to straightaway blamed Janet’s too-firm tension and suggested a hat.
“Probably for the best,” said Claire. “So, Ash came into the post office?”
“He could barely speak above a whisper,” she said. “He was trying to cash his grandmother’s pension. I knew she’d died, and even if she hadn’t, he was too young. He didn’t put up a fight when I said I couldn’t do that. He just said ‘oh’ and left. I didn’t think much of it, but then I saw him two days later as I left the church after a WI meeting. He was sneaking around the back of Elsie’s house. I knew she lived there alone. I was going to give him hell for trying to break in, but I realised he was squatting. Eryk fired me because of what I did next.”
“You cashed Elsie’s pension for Ash?”
Janet nodded solemnly.
“I knew I was breaking some law,” she said, “but I did it anyway. The government usually stop it from being drawn after a death, but the system let me, so I drew her pension and took it to him. It’s only £134.25 a week. Hardly enough for most people to live on, but it was enough for Ash. He had nothing. He has no one.”
“No other family?”
“A father,” she said, snarling slightly. “Nasty piece of work, from what Ash told me. When Ash came out to his dad, he kicked him out. I don’t know what he came out as, so don’t ask. One of my magazines said it’s not politically correct to ask these days unless they offer it up, not that it matters. He’s just a child. A scared child, living in his dead grandmother’s house, waiting for the world to fall down around him.”
“Oh, Mum.” Claire reached out and clutched her hand. “Didn’t you think to call social services?”
“That was my first thought, Claire,” she said quickly. “The second I suggested it, he broke down. I’ve never seen anything like it. Crying, begging, pleading. They put him into care before his grandmother took him in, and he said he couldn’t go back. I’ve been trying to talk him around, but he’s adamant he’s staying where he is.”
“He can’t.”
“I know that,” Janet said, “and on some level, he must know it too. He doesn’t see any options ahead of him. He’s so scared of the world. I didn’t know what else to do, so I’ve been taking care of him. Bringing him food and magazines, although he likes my magazines about as much as you do.”
“And the pension?”
“Twice more,” she said, looking down at the floor. “The final time was the night before my party. Someone from the council finally noticed and called Eryk. He came straight to the house, and, well, you know the rest.”
“He could have waited until morning.”
“I thought that at the time,” she said with a shrug, “but I’m lucky he didn’t go straight to the police. I’ve committed fraud, Claire. I didn’t even realise it was fraud until Eryk said the word.”
“Because you were doing it with the best intentions.”
“And, after forty years of service, I’ve disgraced myself in the process.” She frowned as her eyes misted over. “That’s not all Eryk said. Felt like he’d been bottling up his feelings towards me for years, and he didn’t hold back. He called me cruel and callous. Apparently, I’m a nightmare to work with and people are scared of me.”
“Oh, Mum, he was just trying to—”
“Upset me?” she interrupted. “I know that’s what he wanted, and he succeeded. And not because of when he said it, why he said it, or even what he said. I’ve been so upset because he was right. It’s true. I’ve seen myself be those things for so many years, never able to rein myself in. I don’t mean to come across that way, but I do. I’m no fool, Claire.”
“There’s more to you than that.”
“But they don’t cancel each other out,” she said, applying the tissue to her eyes again. “I always wanted to be different from my mother, but I became her. It’s never been more evident than it is now, having her in the house. Maybe that’s just how the cards fall.”
“If that was the case, I’d become you, and I don’t see that happening anytime soon.” Claire ducked to meet her mother’s downward gaze. “And you’re nothing like your mother. She’s had an influence on you, but you are so much more; you have a whole other side. The Harris side. Do you think Grandmother Moreen would do what you did for Ash?”
“Commit fraud?”
“Care.” Claire squeezed her mum’s hand. “Even if she’d got as far as finding Ash at Elsie’s, do you think she’d have gone out of her way to help?”
“Well, no.”
“And would she be upset knowing people saw her as cruel?” Claire asked. “I doubt it. In fact, I think she’d enjoy it. You don’t.”
“I … suppose.”
“She doesn’t even possess the self-awareness to question herself like you are now. Do my fresh linen candles smell the same as my mango candles?”
Janet blinked. “No, but what does that have to do with the price of bread?”
“They share one of the same citrus notes, but they’re still vastly different.” She squeezed harder. “Your mother raised you. Her scent is on you. For better or worse, you can’t escape the parts of yourself that remind you of her.”
“Then what’s the point?”
“Do you want to be like that?”
“No, but—”
“That’s the point,” Claire said, releasing her mum’s hand. “You’re in here reflecting, and she’s in there bringing up Uncle Pat to upset Granny Greta.”
“Oh, she didn’t?”
“She did.”
“That woman.” Janet pinched between her brows. “You know, it surprised me how quickly Greta jumped to my defence when my mother started on me.”
“I thought it erupted over an armchair?”
“Oh, it did. Apparently,
I should have foreseen the need for two identical armchairs when I redecorated the living room for just such an occasion.” She rolled her eyes. “Greta told her she was talking nonsense. Those weren’t her exact words, but I won’t repeat them. I didn’t stick around for much longer.”
“Can’t hide at the bottom of the garden forever. Isn’t that what you always tell me and Dad?” Claire pushed herself up. “Should we see if they’ve drawn blood?”
“If we must.”
Back in the kitchen, Claire’s joke about drawing blood seemed like clairvoyance. Blue lights flashed through the windows down the hallway while the mince in the frying pan sizzled, abandoned, and the radio blared.
“I’ve been waiting for them to come for me,” Janet worried, hurrying to the oven to turn off the hob. “It was only a matter of time before they discovered my fraud.”
“Wait here,” Claire said, pulling the kitchen door shut as she went.
She hurried past the empty sitting room and through the front door. A lone police car was parked in the middle of the cul-de-sac while two officers spoke with Greta and Alan. Around the perimeter, the curtains continued twitching.
Claire hung back, content that her father’s smile as he spoke with the officers meant they weren’t here to haul away her mother. Eventually, they climbed in the car and drove away.
“Go on!” Greta called around the cul-de-sac, “Get a good look! The show’s over, folks.”
The curtains dropped as Greta and Alan approached Claire, both looking exhausted, though she guessed their reasons were different.
“One of the neighbours called the police,” Alan explained as he hobbled back into the house with Claire’s help. “Not that I’m surprised, given the way they were carrying on.”
“I said nothing I regret,” Greta said with a firm nod. “She’s gone and locked herself up in the bedroom. She can give it, but she clearly can’t take it.”
They followed Greta down to the kitchen, where Janet was scraping the beef and onion mince mixture from the burned pan into the bin.
“Takeaway it is,” Claire announced with a clap, already diverting to the drawer full of menus. “Any preferences?”
