by Agatha Frost
And shyness, by the looks of it.
Mark was deep in an animated conversation with Richie Jacobson, of all people. Once again, Richie had abandoned the suits he always wore while acting as his father’s shadow.
“Last night, they struck up a conversation that went into the small hours,” Evelyn explained. “Have similar tastes in music. I really hope that boy didn’t have anything to do with it, because if he’s to stick around and run this place as a restaurant, it would be quite nice for Mark to have a friend. He stays cooped up at the B&B far too much.”
Julia thought of the notes in the dining room, and one conclusion they’d confidently been able to come to.
“We know he didn’t pull the trigger,” she said. “It’s Ed I’d be more concerned about.”
Evelyn bit into her muffin and chewed in silence for so long, Julia turned to make sure she was still there. She was, but she was clearly holding something in.
“Has something happened?”
“Just something I witnessed this morning,” Evelyn said in a small voice before licking crumbs from her lips. “Before breakfast. I was in the kitchen, and I heard footsteps run downstairs. I went out expecting to see the place on fire. Instead, I caught the back of Ed right before he left through the front door – and not without slamming it.”
“Do you know why?”
“No, and he didn’t come back before I left or I would have reminded him of the guest rules about slamming doors.” She looked across the library to her grandson and his new friend. “But Richie was standing at the top of the stairs, and he was crying. I really do hope he has nothing to do with what happened to his mother.”
Taking two more muffins, Evelyn walked across the library and gave one each to Richie and Mark, leaving them to their conversation. They picked up where they’d left off, talking like old friends.
Julia almost wished they weren’t.
She was more than curious about what had caused Ed to storm out and why it had made Richie cry. For a moment, she wondered if Mindy’s condition had worsened, but if it had, she doubted Richie would be here.
She’d talk to him before he left.
But first, she went to the muffins and took a picture to send to Jessie, who quickly replied with ‘Déjà vu!’ and ‘I bet they’re still not as good as the ones I bought that everyone preferred haha #NeverForget,’ to which Julia replied ‘Regrettably, yours are still better.’
Laughing to herself, Julia put away her phone and took in the photo wall above the coffee and muffin station. It had started with the pictures Peridale’s Ears had scrambled to find and pin to the wall, but there were hundreds now. She easily found both of her images, side by side in the middle cluster of other Ears’ pictures.
One, Barker had taken of her and Olivia in the children’s play area a few months ago. She’d grown so much since then. Julia’s father had taken the other; in it, Julia was a little girl snug in the lap of her late mother. Same children’s reading corner, same smiles, same dark hair. If her mother had lived long enough to be in the picture with Olivia, the family resemblance would be hard to deny.
“Another of your gran’s ideas that proved me wrong,” Neil said, appearing next to Julia. “I had to take down some posters to make more room for them. The people trickle through the door in such small numbers, it’s easy to forget how many people love this place as much as I do.”
“It’s why we’re doing what we’re doing,” she said. “How’s the coffee?”
“As good at the stuff from your café,” he said after a sip. “Thanks for bringing the machine. People are really loving it. I knew they would, but when there’s not enough money to keep the lights on all day, a coffee machine is hardly on the council’s list of priorities.”
“Then consider it a donation,” she said, slapping the machine that had lived in her café from opening day until last spring’s water-damage-prompted renovation. “She was second-hand when she came to me, but she’s got life in her yet. She’s been living in a cupboard, so it’s nice to see her out.”
Neil looked at Julia with the eyes of a hurt puppy wondering why people were being nice to it. That was the thing about Neil. The temper he’d displayed at the library the night of the storm wasn’t his natural state. In Julia’s experience, he was shy, even timid. A simple family man, it took a lot to get him going. A stark contrast to Sue’s more passionate, and often forward, approach. Their gran used to call it ‘little sister syndrome.’
“You could charge 50p a cup,” she continued. “I’ll throw in a bag of beans whenever you need them. You should have enough to see you through to the end of the week.” In a lower voice, she said, “Just don’t tell anyone it’s the same stuff as the café or my coffee sales will collapse.”
“Thank you,” he said, laughing at her joke. “That’s very kind of you.” He cleared his throat. “About rejecting your call yesterday . . . I owe you an apology. I owe you all an apology.” Sipping his coffee, he looked around. “I was hoping Katie would be here, but I suppose she’s working at the café. Sue explained things to me properly. I didn’t realise how much debt they were in, and now they’ve got bailiffs knocking at their door, it’s only a matter of—”
“Bailiffs?”
“Ah.” Neil bit into his lip. “Then perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything. But I have now, so I might as well tell you what your sister told me.” He stepped closer; Amy was at the coffee machine making herself a latte, and her ear was pointed right at them. “Sue was at your dad and Katie’s last night having her nails done. Three men came to the door, demanding money. Brian and Katie pretended not to be in. Seemed like it had become normal.”
Julia groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. She’d sensed that Katie and her father had been vague about the true state of things lately. When they’d first put the manor up for sale and moved into Julia’s spare room, now nursery, they’d all sat down together and budgeted everything out to get them through. After moving into a rented cottage of their own, and with Katie’s full-time role at the café, they’d been able to stretch out their safety net a little longer.
If only the manor hadn’t taken a year to sell.
Not that it had sold.
“Neil, where were you the day of the shooting?” she asked, her gut leading her words before her brain had chance to edit them. “I’m sorry, but I need to know. I know you turned up drunk, and I know you went into the forest and didn’t turn up until later that night. I need to know about the rest.” She paused, and in the lowest whisper she could manage, asked, “Did you shoot Mindy?”
“First of all, I wasn’t drunk,” he replied just as quietly. “Second, of course I didn’t shoot Mindy! C’mon, Julia.”
“I had to ask,” she replied. “Have the police spoken to you yet?”
“No?” He backed away. “Should I be worried?”
“You’ve made it onto their persons of interest list,” she said. “You have to admit, it doesn’t look good. You’ve hardly made your disdain of the Jacobsons a secret. If they weren’t so preoccupied trying to prove that James did it, they’d have got to you by now. So, where were you, Neil?”
“I went to my Auntie Pat’s house,” he said without hesitation. “When Sue ordered me to leave, I realised what a fool I’d been turning up there. Yes, I’d had a single pint, but I wasn’t drunk. And I really was there to apologise. But Sue was right. Wrong place, wrong time.”
“Walking home through the woods?”
“I know these parts from my orienteering days with my college friends like the back of my hand, so I set off home the way I knew. When I realised my auntie’s cottage was closer, I went there instead.”
“And she’ll vouch for that?”
“Julia, it’s where I was.” He stared at her in disbelief. “And the neighbours probably saw me too. I was going to go to her house later that night, anyway. You know what your sister is like when she’s upset. I thought I was giving her the space she needed.”
; “And your phone?”
“Dead,” he stated. “Forgot to put it on charge the night before. I had a lot on my mind that night. Auntie Pat has had the same brick mobile for twenty years, so she didn’t have a compatible charger. I had no idea anything had happened until I got home, so for me, there was no rush. I’ve been at my aunt’s a lot lately.”
“Why?”
“My uncle died,” he said flatly. “Last month. Cancer, but isn’t it always?”
“Neil, I’m sorry,” Julia rested a hand on his shoulder. “I didn’t know.”
Julia knew as little about Neil’s family as she assumed Sue knew of Barker’s, aside from what she’d seen. The anomaly of having married siblings with in-laws.
“Thanks again for this,” he said much more vibrantly, nodding at the machine. “For what it’s worth, I’m not sure you’ll have to donate any more beans. The writing is on the wall, I’m afraid.”
“This second chance might work,” she said, looking around the full library. “By the looks of it, Johnny’s been getting some good pictures. We’ll email them in with our next round of petitions.”
“I appreciate the effort,” he said sincerely. “Right before my uncle died, after months of deteriorating, there was a blip of time. He seemed to get better, like his old self again. We thought it was a miracle.” A smile stretched out and immediately soured. “I naively thought it would be a second act for him, but it turned out to be the encore. He didn’t last much longer after that.”
Neil tossed his coffee cup into a bin and left her with the echo of what he’d said. He’d put into words exactly what Julia had felt when her gran had regained hope after their so-called second chance.
Maybe Dot felt the same way.
No reason to give up.
Not yet.
She searched for Barker and found him tucked away from his modest crowd of fans in the world travel section. Evelyn and Amy were there too. As she weaved through the library, the women left Barker alone. He glugged from a bottle of water as he scanned the spines.
“Was just taking a break,” he said. “It’s turning out to be a fun afternoon, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely,” she said, trying to push away the shadow of Neil’s parting words still hanging over her. “Good to see the place full, all because of you.”
“I’ve had to squash a few dreams,” he said, pulling a book about India from the shelf. “I didn’t realise some people would think I’d called this signing to announce another book. Still, it’s nice to be out of retirement for a good cause.”
Julia couldn’t help but notice the parallel. The library wasn’t the only one giving an encore performance. As much as she wanted to stay hopeful, her line to the library’s future was nearly severed.
“Evelyn told me about the pictures the police showed her,” he said, slotting the book back. “Amy thinks the red electrical tape shows some degree of premeditation, and I’d say that checks out. It gives more weight to James’s entourage being behind the shooting because who else knew James, let alone Mindy, would be there? We didn’t even find out until the morning of.”
“Good point,” she said, a thought twirling around her mind like a penny in spiral charity box. “Did you specifically say red electrical tape?”
“That’s what Evelyn said.”
“She missed out the colour last night.” The penny dropped. “I think I’ve just narrowed our list of suspects to everyone at the manor before I used the downstairs toilet. Around half past nine that morning, if I had to guess.”
“Oddly specific?”
“I found a roll of red electrical tape under the sink,” she said, eyes closed as she dove into her memory; a lot had happened since. “I was looking for a towel to dry my hands, and it was right there under the sink.”
“Why didn’t you mention it?”
“Because it was just a roll of red tape, not a roll of red flags. I wasn’t to know what would happen, and until now, I didn’t know what colour tape they’d used to stick the laser to the gun.” She investigated the crowd and found Neil emptying the bin of empty coffee cups. “There’s a chance that someone could have found the electrical tape at some point between my seeing it and Mindy being shot, but it feels like a small one. The more likely scenario is that I found it after the shooter put it there.”
“In a manor as empty as that one?” Barker nodded, joining her in looking out. “It certainly lines up. Means it isn’t Neil.”
“The Plough can surely vouch for that.”
Barker grinned from ear to ear. The grin disappeared as a round of gasps in the library faded into complete silence.
Just like at the garden party, James Jacobson once again stood in a doorway. Bright afternoon light glared behind him, and he held his jacket in place of a gun. His tie had gone, and his shirt was crinkled and misbuttoned.
James ignored Neil’s protests and the whispering sea that parted around him as he walked straight up to Richie. Waiting in the line that had formed at Barker’s signing table in his absence, Richie looked as shocked as everyone else when his father hugged him. Richie’s arms hung limp at his sides; he didn’t return the embrace.
“I’m going to sort all of this,” James said, patting Richie’s back firmly as he clasped his son close. “Don’t you worry, son. I’ll fix everything.”
9
Barker announced he’d be out shortly to sign any books he’d missed before whisking James deep into the library and away from the sea of curious eyes. The crowd’s chatter started right away. Julia followed Barker and James to the back of the library, where her gran nodded in the direction of a door marked ‘STAFF ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT.’
Through the slightly ajar door, James’s frustration was audible.
“That DI was bluffing the whole time,” James cried, “but if he had his way, he’d be charging me with attempted murder right now!”
“Focus on the fact you’re out.”
“And no thanks to you,” he cried. “It’s been forty-eight hours of hell. If you’d just let me pay you—”
“It’s not about the money,” Barker interrupted firmly. “I told you I had other priorities. It takes time to build a picture. I’m not afforded the same resources as the local station. Count yourself lucky you have a good lawyer.”
“I do, but that’s not why I’m here.” She saw the back of James’s head shake before hanging low. “For the thousandth time, I’m innocent. They were hoping for something to fall into their lap, but they couldn’t charge me on circumstantial evidence alone. I know what the police are like. They want the obvious to be the truth because it makes the most sense. But I truly found that gun. I need you to find out who shot my wife before they come for me again.”
James inhaled deeply and lifted his head. He glanced over his shoulder, noticing Julia out of the corner of his eye. He straightened and smoothed down his wild hair as though it made a difference. He regained some of his usual broad posture, though it didn’t quite fill out the same. Exhaustion radiated from him.
“I’m still under investigation, so I can’t stay at the B&B with the others,” he said, louder this time. “And I’m not allowed to leave the village. Don’t suppose you two have a spare room?”
“We don’t,” Julia replied, pushing open the door before Barker could say anything. “And we have a couch, but you’re not having that either.”
“Fair enough.”
“Our eldest daughter is travelling,” Julia said, pulling out her keys to twist off Jessie’s spare. “It’s the flat above the post office.” She tossed him the key. “I suggest you get there quickly and lie low. You’re not a popular man around here right now.”
“Was I ever?”
For once, Julia found herself agreeing with him.
Julia hung around at the library until the joviality returned to pre-James levels. Dot and Percy were content to continue looking after Olivia, so Julia left the library and joined Katie behind the counter in the café. It was as busy as any gi
ven Saturday, but Julia had expected as much. She’d worn her new Oxfords on the off chance the signing was as well attended as she’d expected it to be.
She hadn’t bought into Barker’s fears for a moment.
As the café’s patrons were predominantly coming from the library, the conversation looped on the track of Barker’s book even as people came and went. By early afternoon, eight people had asked Julia to add her signature to Barker’s on their copies. One woman even had her pose for a picture in the very café that inspired the workplace of Julie North.
She knew the answer to every tentatively asked question because she’d answered them all repeatedly during the whirlwind of (what he now called) Barker’s fifteen minutes of fame. After dealing with a brief poison pen stalker at the tail end of the previous year, the whirlwind had only continued to slow down. The role of ‘wife of Barker Brown, the author’ was one she hadn’t played in a while, but it was easy to slip into and it left her free to focus on the current case.
Or, rather, worry.
Ever since she’d tossed James the key and told him to lie low, she’d wondered if she’d made the wrong decision. She hadn’t realised she’d be keeping it a secret until a regular customer, in a gossipy tone, asked if Julia knew where James had gone into hiding.
They couldn’t catch her out with questions about the book, but this one managed to startle her.
“It’s all the village is talking about,” the woman said, eyeing the book tourists suspiciously. “James has got out on a technicality, and nobody has a clue where he’s gone.”
Julia didn’t let on that he was right next door, and on her instructions. Neil might have known the land around them like the back of his hand, but Julia knew the people. She knew their minds would go to the same place Shilpa’s had.
She hated that she had to consider her reputation, but she did. Every day the café had been busy over the summer gladdened her; she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t noticed the drop on sales compared to the same period the year before. If there was a way to track the decline of Katie’s reputation in their eyes, Julia was sure she’d be able to circle the exact point that and her lowered sales met in the middle.
