by Agatha Frost
Julia gulped.
“Which side?”
“Huh?”
“Left or right?” she asked, looking out the window. “From our angle now.”
“Left.”
Julia hoped Neil was at home, his phone on silent and feet up in front of the Sunday afternoon telly. And she hoped all his neighbours saw him return, and that he’d passed several dog walkers and ramblers on the way. He had, after all, turned up out of the blue. After a pint at The Plough, too. Nobody hated the Jacobsons more than Neil right now. She kept these thoughts to herself; Sue was already in enough distress.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” she said, squeezing her sister’s shoulder. “Try not to worry.”
After checking with Christie that she was good to leave, Julia quickly fed and changed Olivia before joining the steady stream of people also departing the manor. She couldn’t make out specifics in all the chatter around her, but she heard enough snippets to know people were only more convinced of James’s guilt than they had been earlier.
And maybe they were right.
Once back in the village, she stopped by the station to see if Barker was still there, only to be told he’d left half an hour earlier after a brief meeting. She’d didn’t need to look far to find Barker’s car parked in front of her café.
“Shall we go down to Daddy’s office?” Julia whispered to Olivia before turning down the tight alley between the café and post office. “And then after, we can go and water your sister’s plants.”
Olivia gurgled at the suggestion, her smile confirming she hadn’t absorbed any of the earlier chaos. If anything, Olivia might have been the only person with a smile on her face since the rain.
The office under Julia’s Café now had its own entrance porch, covering the doors in the ground that had once led to a disused cellar. She pressed the buzzer for the electronic doorbell, and the lock clicked immediately after. Leaving the pram in the yard, she carried Olivia down into the dark office.
“Sorry,” Barker said from behind his desk. The soft glow of the single green and brass banker’s lamp barely illuminated his features in the windowless space. “I was going to come back . . . I . . . I just needed a minute to think.”
Instead of bombarding him with questions, Julia let Barker’s cogs continue to turn as he rubbed at his brow. The red chesterfield creaked as she sat down. A few minutes later, Barker joined them.
“I only had a short meeting with him,” he explained, pulling Olivia into a cuddle. “Didn’t give me long, not that I needed it. James didn’t beat around the bush. He’s still claiming his innocence, and . . . he wants me to prove it.”
“And will you?”
“I’m not sure I can,” he admitted with a huff, staring into Olivia’s eyes as he bounced her up and down. “Or if I should. He was hardly popular before today. Everybody will be happy to see him go down for this.”
Barker paused, and Julia remained quiet. She sensed a ‘but’ on the way.
“But,” he continued, “as I was leaving, I realised two things. First, I believed him.”
“I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one.”
“I’ve interviewed people right after they’ve attempted murder,” he said, lowering his voice despite Olivia not yet being able to understand them fully. “I’ve seen people deny being caught in the act until they’re blue in the face. They usually try to remain calm, thinking they can control the situation. Sometimes, they act like they have no idea what’s going on, or they parrot ‘no comment’ until their trial.”
“And James didn’t do any of those?”
“I might have preferred if he had.” He inhaled slowly. “He begged me, Julia. Begged like his life depended on it. He wasn’t acting like a man who’d just shot his wife, he was acting like someone who was exactly what they claimed. Innocent.”
“Could be he’s a convincing liar.”
“Most probably.”
“And the second thing?”
This time, the pause was longer.
“I’m not sure if I should take the case,” he said, turning to look at Julia with a solemn smile, “but I’m not sure I have much choice. If James goes down for this, your father and Katie can kiss goodbye to selling that manor.”
5
The following morning, Katie tapped her acrylic nail on the screen of Vinnie’s computer tablet, turning up the volume of his headphones. She smiled wide, and he gave her one right back. She tapped the screen again, and he returned to the cartoons.
“Mr Wellington?” a man cried through the letterbox again. “I can see you in the kitchen.”
No, they couldn’t.
Mr Wellington had been dead and buried in St. Peter’s Cemetery for well over a year. She wanted to shout back that she was Mrs Wellington-South, and her husband was Brian South, and no man by the name of Wellington had survived to be yelled at through the letterbox.
Instead, she said nothing, remaining motionless in the kitchen of her small, rented cottage. She hadn’t moved more than a nail since the first knock. Maybe if she continued not moving, he’d think she was a pile of clothes and leave.
It had worked before.
The promise of payment had always kept them at bay.
“Big Monday payday!” Brian had assured them. “Come back on Monday, and you’ll get your money.”
If the manor sold.
Katie hadn’t even considered that the key exchange might not happen. The party, sure – and she really did wish she hadn’t bothered after all – but the sale falling through? James’s interest hadn’t wavered since his first viewing, and Katie had abandoned any lingering delusion that, in time, everything would magically be alright.
“Wellingtons always land on their feet,” her father always said.
If only he’d told her what to do when they didn’t.
“Mr Wellington, it’s Monday,” the man at the door repeated. “I heard what happened at the manor. That man getting arrested like that isn’t ideal, but that’s not our problem. You’ll need to find another way to get the funds.”
Katie bit her lip, smiling wider at Vinnie as he stared up at her. With his full head of dark hair, he looked more like Brian every day, but the Wellington was there. In her son’s eyes, she saw her own father.
Why hadn’t he warned her?
Towards the end, strokes had left him mute. She never really knew if he was in there, but she treated him like he was. Weirdly, she’d talked to him more in those last years than during the rest of her life combined. She’d hold his hand, and he’d squeeze at the right moments. Sometimes, if she talked about her feelings, he would cry.
Maybe he cried because she was crying.
Maybe he cried because of his regrets as a father.
Maybe he cried because he knew the trouble to come.
“Mr Wellington?” The voice called out again, closer.
Katie tried to move.
She was frozen, and no longer by choice.
The burly bailiff in the big black coat appeared at the kitchen window. Always the same coat, no matter the weather. Brian said they were trying to look intimidating, and it always worked on Katie.
This one was older than most. From behind Brian, she’d seen him before. He always dealt with them. She’d felt like a coward every time. She was being a coward now by ignoring him. She’d wanted to be even more of a coward; she’d originally planned on taking Vinnie to nursery before anyone had the chance to knock. Vinnie hadn’t questioned why he was watching cartoons after being slathered in sunscreen, and while wearing his sun hat and shades.
Angled away from the back door, Vinnie couldn’t see the man staring down at him. If he could, he’d most certainly have screamed the house down; he’d reached the age where he wasn’t so keen on new people.
“I know my rights,” she said calmly, pushing the headphones tighter to Vinnie’s small ears. “That door is locked, and so is the front. If I open one of them and you cram your foot in, there’s nothing I can
do. But if you try to come in through something locked, it’s breaking and entering.”
The bailiff stepped back, nodding at Vinnie. Saying nothing, he placed a letter on the back doorstep and left without a fight.
His car door slammed, and Katie finally let herself breathe deeply. She rushed to the back door and twisted the lock. What would she have done if he’d called her bluff? She hadn’t been sure either way, but she hadn’t let her eyes waver to check.
“Right!” she called brightly, pulling off Vinnie’s headphones. “Shall we get this little sausage to nursery?”
The bailiff at the door hadn’t made him cry, but this did.
Vinnie was so young, and he’d been at his new nursery so long, that he probably didn’t remember his first one. Katie had intended to keep him at private nursery until it was time for private school, though they’d already decided against sending him away for boarding.
When the belt needed tightening, private nursery had been the second thing to go after her pink Range Rover. In hindsight, the first should have been the collection of designer clothes she’d clung to for an embarrassingly long time.
Pulling Vinnie out of nursery had mortified her. Now, they relied on the subsidised hours the government provided. To her surprise, the staff at the new nursery were much nicer; the kids were better behaved; and Vinnie, once he stopped crying after the first ten minutes, had come out the other side much happier. She’d always thought all kids were rotten snobs.
And when the free hours ran out, which they did every week, she and Brian juggled him. Since she’d taken over running the café during Julia’s maternity leave, Katie had worked more than the rest of her life. Looking back, her modelling career played out like a series of holidays rather than actual work. Her attempt at turning the manor into a spa never got off the ground. And her fake tan business – boxes of product still crammed in the attic of her new cottage – had fallen to the wayside when the troubles started.
None of it compared to the café. It was hard work. Actual manual labour. Wellingtons didn’t do manual labour, but Katie did. And as hard as it was, she loved it. Not just because her earnings had been the lifeline they needed while the manor sold, but because the work was rewarding.
It felt right that Julia had decided the café shouldn’t open today, but Katie almost wished it had. Julia had insisted the questioning – and the gossip – would be too intense. Katie knew the truth of that. But on days when all eyes weren’t on her for the wrong reasons, Katie loved being able to be anyone she wanted. If she wanted to open up to people, she could do so in little bites. If she wanted to pretend everything was fine with a smile, nobody questioned it. Sometimes, she even started believing it herself.
Before she’d left for her travels, Jessie had called it The Show.
With nowhere to escape and it being too early to knock on anyone’s door, she drove to the only place she could think of.
The gravel crunched under the tyres of her baby pink Fiat 500 as she parked in front of Wellington Manor. After reapplying her lipstick and using a cotton bud to flick away some crumbled mascara – something she hated buying cheaper despite no longer being able to justify £50 a tube – she climbed out.
She hadn’t realised she was driving to the manor until she’d turned onto the lane, but from the first sight of the police cars cluttering the drive, she’d known she wanted answers. The haphazardly parked cars would have driven her father crazy. He’d hated anyone parking in front of the manor, always insisting they go around the back to protect the view. She’d only started parking in front after he couldn’t complain anymore . . . something she’d since felt guilty about.
“Just the woman I wanted to see.” DI John Christie marched towards her. “I have a tonne of new questions for you.”
Katie gulped but nodded. Christie didn’t seem upset or mad at her, not like the officer she’d spoken to the day before. They’d taken her statement like an interrogation. She didn’t know why, but she was sure they hadn’t believed her when she said she’d been with Brian around the right side of the house when they heard the gunshots in the forest.
“What’s that?” she asked, peering around him as a red laser beam flashed in and out of the forest.
“Just a little experiment,” he said, turning her around in the direction of the back doors. “Let’s go inside. It’s scorching hot and I’m gasping for a drink.”
Katie followed DI Christie into the kitchen. He ragged off his tie and wiped his sweaty face with it. He tossed it onto the island with the surviving cake stuff. The spot where Mindy had waited for the ambulance sparkled.
“You don’t mind, do you?” he asked, opening the fridge and pulling out the last jug of raspberry lemonade. Instead of filling a glass, he drank the remaining quarter-jug from the spout. He licked his lips. “This is ridiculously good. Is this one of Julia’s?”
“It’s mine,” she said, hiding her smile, “but I’ll take that as a compliment.”
They returned to the entrance hall, where someone had arranged some of the white chairs from outside. He pulled out two and offered her one.
“I should be offering you the chair. It’s still my home, Detective,” she said, taking the seat anyway. “As much as I thought it wouldn’t be by today.”
“Sorry, force of habit.” He laughed, and some of her tension faded. “I just wanted to go over what happened yesterday and show you some things.”
“What things?”
“Let’s start with the party,” he said, pulling out his pad. “Walk me through it.”
“Started at noon,” she said, clutching the edge of the chair until her nails tapped the underside. “Brian, my husband—”
Christie smiled. “Yes, I know him.”
Of course he did. She choked on a nervous giggle. “Well, he invited James,” she continued, slowing her voice; the urge to speed up was trying to take over. “It was an accident, really. Brian brought up the party last week after a meeting with our solicitors to iron out the details. I think he felt like he had to invite him. Told him to bring his family. Part of me hoped he might change his mind about the library if got to know everyone, but—”
“Enough about the library,” Christie begged. “Stick to the party. I had plenty of that from your mother-in-law’s neighbourhood nuisance group.”
Katie took a deep breath, too flustered to remember where she’d been.
“Mindy and her stylist, Ed, arrived first,” she continued, as did Christie with his pen. “We talked for a few minutes.”
“About?”
“Her hair, mostly.” Katie scratched at her messy bun. “She was in a rush to get ready, so they went upstairs. I didn’t see them again until the party. James and his son turned up while I was out.”
“And you went where?”
“To Julia’s,” she said. “My daughter-in-law.”
“Oh, weird. She is your daughter-in-law, isn’t she?” Christie shuddered. “This family. Why were you there?”
“I wanted to cancel the party,” she said in a quieter voice. “Everyone hates me because of the library – because of James – and I was nervous. But Julia said it would be alright.”
Katie paused. She’d been so quick to trust Julia. She had a way of talking that made people go along with her. Katie didn’t resent Julia for saying it – anyone would have – but she wished she hadn’t believed it so completely.
“If I had cancelled,” she whispered, “this might not have happened.”
“Let’s stick to what did happen.” Christie flipped to a new page. “I have it from several witnesses that your husband had an altercation with Mr Jacobson after he upset you?”
“He didn’t upset me,” she corrected. “I upset myself when I saw the model of the apartments. It’s not like I haven’t seen the concept art. But seeing it right in front of me, in this house, on the day I was trying to say goodbye? As you can imagine, Detective, I was already overwhelmed.”
“I see.” He scribbl
ed away. “But your husband did shout at him?”
“Well, yes, and—”
“And you’re each other’s only alibi?” He flipped back. “Alone around the side of the house?”
“Yes, but—”
“What were you doing around the side of the house before the rain started?” he asked. “You were seen replacing the lemonade in the garden not long before that.”
Katie began to answer but stopped herself. When Christie’s pen tapped up and down, she knew hiding things would only make it all worse.
“I was crying. I didn’t want everyone to see.” She wrapped her hands around her knee and stared at them. “I’d talked with Shilpa, from the post office, and . . . well, she upset me. Like everyone else, she blames me for the lib — for James coming here. Only, she’s always been nice to me until this week. I thought we were friends. I like her. I thought she liked me.”
Christie exhaled through his nostrils and slapped the pad shut.
“So, you found your husband and went around the side of the house, crying? Heard the gunshots, ran in like the rest?”
“Exactly like that.”
“Alright, Mrs Wellington.”
“Wellington-South,” she corrected.
“What is it with your family and double barrelling?” He looked down at the finger where an indent remained even though the wedding ring was gone. “My ex-wife couldn’t wait to change her name to mine, and then she couldn’t wait to change it back again.”
Katie had heard something about his divorce going through, but he was Barker’s friend, not hers.
“Look, for what it’s worth, I don’t think you did it,” he said, reaching into his pocket to pull out his phone. “I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t ask the questions my team brings up in the investigation room.”
He tapped something on his phone and handed it over with instructions to swipe through the next four pictures. The first was of the gun against a white sheet of paper, with metal rulers showing its size. The next showed a laser pen, the cheap kind kids and people with cats bought, also against white with a ruler. The third showed electrical tape, red and mangled like it had been used. The final was a bullet, presumably the one not fired.
