by Agatha Frost
“Gilbert Holdings Limited?” James asked. Katie nodded. For a moment, James hung his head. “I think I understand.”
Once again, he was framed by the open French doors. This time, he stared out at the garden, paper clasped in his hands. He turned, and Julia realised he held a sheet ripped from the pad she’d given him to write down potential reasons behind the shooting.
“I came up with reasons for my son and my wife,” he said, extending the sheet. “Affair, revenge. Wouldn’t even blame them, truth be told. I left Ruth blank. I couldn’t think of anything. I’ve been paying attention to the wrong things, apparently. I think Ruth is behind that company. I think she used my wife’s maiden name so if I ever came across it, my first thought would be to blame Mindy.”
“Why the sudden change of heart?” Julia asked.
“She made a big deal about Mindy’s spending,” he said, tilting his head up at the sky. “She told me about Mindy having an affair. I thought it was because she was looking out for me. Transferring the assets was her idea.”
“Oh, Dad!” Richie cried. “You didn’t.”
“She made it make sense.” All energy suddenly drained, James leaned against the doorframe until Barker produced a chair. “My therapist once told me I’d never be able to fill the void left behind by my mother. She was there but she was never really there. She died when I was still a teenager. You know what I did when I met Ruth?” He rubbed at his jaw, his skin waxier than ever. “I got a new therapist. How wrong they could be. Here was this woman able to do everything I could, and she was interested in me. She took me under her wing.”
“Maybe you should have paid me for it, then.”
They spun to see Ruth leaning against the counter. Blood dripped from her left temple, finally adding a colour other than beige to her outfit.
“How long has she been there?” Julia asked.
“Long enough,” Ruth said, tapping at the gash. “You hit me good, Katie. Touché. Where are these police officers then? I’d quite like for all this to be over.”
James wobbled through the crowd until he and Ruth stood face to face, head injury to head injury. Though she couldn’t see his face, Julia heard his tears.
“Oh, James,” Ruth said, her shaky smile bringing on tears of her own. “You were always so proud that you paid me above minimum wage. I was too, for a little while. But looking at your figures day in and day out, deciding on your investments, growing your money . . . It all gave me a taste for more.”
“This was all about money?”
“Isn’t everything?” Ruth laughed. “That’s what you always say. From the moment we met to our conversation last night in that flat, all you’ve ever talked about is money. Your money, for all that. But always money. And yet you still wanted me to treat you like a child. So needy, right from our first interaction. Your desperation for someone to hold your hand made it all so much easier.”
“Ruining my life?”
“Making mine better.” Ruth sniffed hard, pushing her bloody hair behind her ear. She looked down at the smudges of red on her fingers. “As you can see, I failed miserably at getting you out of the way. Twice. Maybe I should have stuck to my calculator? Now that, I’m good at. You got to where you were when we met because you were scrappy, but before I restructured things, you were on the fast track to bankruptcy. You would never have got here without me, and what thanks do I get? A Christmas bonus and a bottle of red when it’s a ‘good month.’ You never have a bad month, James.”
James hung his head.
What Julia thought were tears turned into laughter.
“Let me get this straight,” he said, lifting his head. “You poisoned me against my wife over the course of years while draining my accounts into a company you invented to frame my wife, all to get me to a point where I felt like signing half my assets to you would be a good idea. In name only, you said.”
“Until your death,” she said casually. “Last time I checked, your accounts are nowhere near being drained, and you signed them over willingly.” She softened, looking him dead in the eye. “And don’t act like you cared an inch for you wife. You know, considering what I’ve seen in your internet search history, it surprised me when you kicked Richie out.” Her brows darted up as she smirked. “Your problem, James, is not just that you think nobody can touch you, it’s that you think nobody is trying. Your arrogance has blinded you to the sharks. Pride before the fall, that tarot lady said. Poetic, really, considering what I had planned. You’re welcome for the fall. Consider yourself lucky you’re alive.”
“And that’s it?” James cried. “What about this place?”
“I’m smart enough to know when my chips are up.” Wincing, she twisted her neck. Her hand hovered by the bleeding wound. “If I’d hit you at the garden party, everything would have worked out. I thought I had my eye on you. I didn’t think you were out there wandering around to see how much land you’d just bought. I’d been waiting so long for the moment, and that was it. You’ve annoyed a lot of people with your property choices over the years, but you really rattled this place. Thought there were enough people here who hated you to keep them chasing their tails.”
“If only you’d practised your aim.”
“Oh, I did.” She made a gun motion with her fingers. “Tin cans in the woods. If only it hadn’t rained, eh? Turns out I should have gone for an eye test. You two really do look alike.”
Julia looked over at Richie, who looked like he’d entirely disassociated from the moment. She wondered if he was stuck on Ruth’s thinly veiled comment about his father’s internet history.
“Where’d you even get a gun?” Julia asked, putting an arm around Richie.
“My father gave it to me on his deathbed,” she said with a sigh. “He never explained where he got it, so I didn’t ask. I just promised I’d only use it if was absolutely necessary.”
“And killing me was necessary?”
“To put a few million in my back pocket?” Ruth nodded. “Oh, it was worth the shot. And don’t worry, I left enough for your wife and son to keep being filthy rich until the end of their days. Ironic that I almost killed them both along the way, isn’t it? You know, you never even asked me about my father. Not once in all this time.” The look she gave him was not unlike that of a mother disappointed in her child. “I planned to kill you properly today.”
“One hit to the head wasn’t enough?”
“You ducked,” she said, looking at her fingers again. “You know how I feel about blood. I panicked. I was on my way to get you at the hospital, but you discharged yourself and vanished.” It was her turn to laugh. “Didn’t want to go out without a fight, so I thought I’d try getting Blondie over there to sell me this place on my way to my cell.”
“Why?” James called. “If you knew you were going to prison, why bother?”
“So you couldn’t, James. I know how much you wanted this place.” She bowed her head, looking woozier than ever. “You probably don’t remember the day things switched for me. The day I woke up.” She lifted her head to reveal tears running down her cheeks. “Two years in, I really did see you as a son. Do you remember when I asked to borrow four hundred thousand so I could buy my own investment property as a retirement nest egg?”
James shook his head.
“That’s what I thought.” She pushed away from the counter with her wrists already out. “Ah, about time. Go easy. I think I may pass out soon.”
Uniformed officers finally ran into the room, followed by an out-of-breath Christie. He made a circle with his finger to indicate they’d been all the way around the manor before clutching his knees and gasping for breath.
“What did I say?” James asked.
“You were honest,” Ruth said over her shoulder as the officer pinned her against the counter to cuff her hands behind her back. “You asked why you’d want to do that because, in your words, ‘You could leave at any time, and how would I run this without you?’. I guess you’ll have to figure
that out.”
Ruth went with the officers, leaving a chill in the kitchen. Instead of returning to the chair, James went to Richie. Julia stepped out of the way so they could hug. This time, Richie returned it.
“Are you alright?” Julia asked as Katie gulped more water.
“I’ll be fine.” She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “You know when you said I’d only get one chance to say a final goodbye? This was it. Can we leave before the ceiling falls in or the ground splits in two? Try telling me this place isn’t cursed now.”
As Julia helped Katie out of the car and walked her to the front door, she couldn’t help but feel Johnny’s headline hadn’t been all that far off after all.
17
Once James had his bandage off, he accompanied several of Peridale’s Ears to the council office. For the first time in all the many times they’d turned up with new stacks of petitions or for their rarely granted meetings, the receptionist didn’t try to stop them.
Being with the man with the money really did open doors.
As in, people opened the actual doors for them.
Were they expected, or did James just walk the walk?
The first resistance they met was the security guard at Councillor Greg Morgan’s door. Not for the first time. The scar above his eyebrow was a souvenir of the time he’d escorted Dot from the building. That had been a strange afternoon, though meeting officers from the counter-terrorism division was novel. Dot’s explanation that she’d been trying to chain herself to the doors and not lock everyone inside had taken up a full morning and much of an afternoon.
After a few words muttered to his boss on the other side of the door, the guard granted them access.
James strode in, arm outstretched. Councillor Morgan accepted it, and though his smile remained polite, the lift of his brows as Dot, Evelyn, Amy, and Julia marched in was most amusing. His face, tanned from his recent Canary Islands holiday, glistened with beads of sweat, though, for once, it wasn’t much of a hot afternoon. His absolute horror when they dumped a bag of sealed envelopes on his desk was priceless.
“People care about that library,” Dot announced, shaking the bag to let the last few flutter out. “I don’t think any of you have understood that this entire time.”
Evelyn and Amy emptying two more bags was the icing on the cake.
After some awkward laughing and confusion, The Man with the Plan took The Man with the Tan through to a conference room. The blinds went down, and they waited. Julia, Evelyn, and Amy took chairs, but Dot couldn’t help herself; she provided running commentary as she assessed every item on Greg Morgan’s desk.
“These are nice pens,” she said, slipping two into her blouse pocket. “I’ll consider these compensation for our trouble.”
Half an hour later, the pair stepped out, shaking hands and slapping each other on the backs the way men did when things were going their way.
“It’s sorted,” was all James said.
This time, they were offered handshakes as they were shown to the door. Neither side apologised, but Julia felt a dash of respect behind Greg’s façade as he closed the door. Likely, it would vanish immediately, and he’d be relieved to never see them again.
Hopefully.
Julia smiled to herself. Given this taste of success, she wouldn’t put it past her gran to begin lobbying the council on behalf of other issues.
“I’ll meet you all at the library,” said James. “I’d like to get these contracts signed before someone takes another shot at me, but there’s something I need to do first.”
James waved down the street before doing the last thing Julia would have thought him capable of.
He hopped on a bus.
Waiting for James at the library with the estate agents and lawyers might have been awkward, but Julia didn’t care – and she was sure the rest of the Ears didn’t, either. She didn’t know who’d brought champagne, but the first sip felt well-deserved.
“Are we claiming this as a victory?” Shilpa asked, having joined them on her lunch break from the post office. “I know we didn’t technically save it in the end, but it is saved.”
“For the blood, sweat, and tears,” said Dot as she raised a toast, “I’m damn well counting it.”
“Mission accomplished, I’d say.” Johnny motioned for them to squeeze in tighter before the bulb flashed in their eyes. “And let’s just do one more without the fingers behind Dot’s head, Percy, thank you.”
“Percival!”
“Ears, dear,” he said, holding up the fingers behind his head. “Thought it would be funny.”
“You look like you’re throwing gang signs.” Dot chuckled, and she kissed him on the shiny forehead before doing the same. “Okay, one with ears, and then one for the front page. And I assume this is going on the front page, Johnny? Or is this not the happy restaurant ending the money men upstairs wanted?”
“Maybe you’ll just have to buy the paper and see, Dot.”
Johnny took a few more pictures of them posed in front of the collage wall. Pictures from Barker’s signing were already up there, and dozens more stretched beyond, deeper into the library. As Julia had suspected from the moment she’d heard James Jacobson was trying to end the library’s story, people had proved they cared.
The truth was, Julia hadn’t frequented the library much during adulthood. Not for the books, at least. But she’d spent countless hours as a child wandering the aisles with her mother and spending hours picking out the right reads for the week. As a teen, she’d huddled over the tables with Roxy, Leah, and Johnny to both study and gossip. She found those pictures on the wall – greasy hair, acne, and dodgy 90s fashion proudly on display. Beyond that, Julia didn’t appear again until Barker’s first book signing, and the one with Olivia.
A large gap.
When they’d decided as a group to put their everything into saving the library, Julia had accepted that her life wouldn’t be all that different if the library was gone. The people whose lives the place’s absence would really change were in the minority these days. Books were cheap enough to buy, most people had computers and internet at home, and teenagers rarely used the library to hunker down over books anymore.
But there were always people who needed a library.
They’d just had to prove it.
And, perhaps, remind the rest that it was still there and still worth visiting.
Whether the thanks for saving it should go to the Ears, James Jacobson, or the council, Julia didn’t really care. Like Shilpa had said, it was saved, and it would continue to be there for the people of Peridale – unlike the other eight hundred that hadn’t been so lucky.
The future of the library depended on the people who used it. That would be the true measure of their success . . . but the number of used cardboard cups in the bin under the coffee machine suggested they were on the right track.
Johnny, Shilpa, Evelyn, and Amy left to go about their afternoons with promises to meet for a supper meeting to discuss their next move now that this mission was complete.
Before the door could close, Katie and Brian hurried in with more bottles of champagne, and James followed soon after with Richie.
Pleasantries were briefly exchanged before they got to business. They took turns signing paperwork as the people in suits loomed over them, dictating instructions. After so much anticipation and drama, the technicality of the final exchange had an uneventfulness to it that was almost serene.
To Julia, a bit of uneventfulness sounded sublime.
The serenity only lasted until Katie checked the banking app on her phone. She screamed louder than Julia had ever heard as she almost lifted Brian off the ground in a hug. After another round of champagne toasts, they whisked themselves off with promises of seeing everyone at the party later.
Julia waved them off happily.
They deserved an afternoon with their money.
“Can you believe it?” Julia asked Neil.
“Not at a
ll.” He sipped his champagne. “I have job interviews lined up all next week. Suppose I should cancel them.”
“You’re sticking around, then?”
“Until I die or the library does,” he said, toasting. “I’m in it for the long haul. Always have been.” He shook his head ruefully. “I really thought this was the end, Julia. We got lucky, didn’t we?”
Julia looked over at James, sitting on the other side of the library as he talked with his son. Richie’s fingers fumbled with a book, but the conversation flowed, and the younger Jacobson didn’t once gaze sadly into the distance as she’d seen him do so often before.
“Everything happened as it should,” she said, patting Neil on the shoulder. “And though everything ends eventually, the best part about an encore is you never know how long it’s going to last.”
In the end, James proceeded with his purchase of the library. The estate agent board still jutting above the door had seen to that. The details weren’t hers to know, but in James’s words, he’d ‘donate the library back to the people of Peridale with enough funding to keep it going.’
Maybe even back to its pre-slashed hours.
Since Ruth’s arrest, she and Barker had thoroughly reviewed the case for Barker’s files. They’d concluded that James was arrogant and entitled. To the detriment of the case, he’d kept his cards too close to his chest and omitted details he thought too personal. He’d upset a lot of people, but from what they could tell, he’d never lied to them.
Which meant something, as they only had his word that he’d follow through with his promises.
After everything, that had to be enough.
When James left to answer a phone call, she joined Richie. According to Evelyn, he’d checked out the morning after the arrest and she hadn’t seen him since. Julia had been eager to talk to him.
“So, I’m not opening a restaurant anymore,” he said. She smiled when she noticed the book he was fiddling with was a copy of The Girl in the Basement. “It turns out that when my dad opens up, he also listens.”
