by Agatha Frost
“What were you arguing about just then?”
“Her father.” Brian rolled his eyes. “The private hospital we’ve been using for him refused to treat him anymore because I can’t afford the bills, so they moved him to the NHS one your sister works at. I told Katie it’s not a bad hospital, but she’s grown up used to the private health experience, and if I can’t find some money from somewhere, it’s not the only change she’s going to experience, with or without me by her side.”
Julia let the silence build for a moment. She tried to think of something reassuring or supportive to say to her father, but she knew nothing would make him think otherwise. Instead, she decided to change the direction slightly.
“Have the police found any leads with the burglary yet?” Julia asked. “I haven’t heard anything since I left.”
“Neither have we.” Brian sat up straight, his features softening. “They were honest and told us the odds of getting things back were slim. Money aside, most of the things they took have been in the Wellington family for generations. It’s all Katie’s ever known.”
“And they have no idea who could have done it?”
“None.” He opened one of the drawers in the desk and pulled out a small piece of paper. “But I have my own theories. They took every last thing like they were ticking items off a list. They even took the rare and valuable books, leaving the rest behind.”
“Maybe they knew which were valuable?”
“At first glance?” he replied, a brow arched. “Sweetheart, I’ve been in the antiques industry for thirty years, and even I couldn’t value so many books that quickly. They would have had to check each book by hand and compare it to other things available on the market to see if it held value, but that’s not what they did. They only took the rare first editions and signed copies Vincent collected decades ago.”
“So, you think this wasn’t random?” Julia prompted.
“It can’t have been.” He put the paper on the table and slid it across to Julia. “These people, outside of the family and Hilary, have been in the manor the most often over the past couple of months.”
Julia turned the paper over to see three names with descriptions:
Dale Michaels – Former Gardener.
Conor O’Flannigan – Electrician.
Louise Henshaw – Former Housekeeper.
“Dale Michaels was the gardener and groundskeeper here for fifteen years,” Brian began, “but he quit out of the blue two months ago. Conor O’Flannigan was the electrician who did the hatchet job on our rewiring last month. It’s needed fixing for years, but he made it even worse, and the power-cut doesn’t seem to have helped. And Louise Henshaw was the maid before that new girl started. She was here for about three weeks before I fired her, but she must have seen every room more than once.”
“Samantha quit too,” Julia said, suddenly realising she hadn’t told anyone about the girl running off into the storm. “But it’s probably for the best, as you don’t have the money to pay her.”
“There’s nothing left to clean down here, anyway.” He gave her a weak smile. “So, what do you think, Julia?”
Julia stared down at the names again and realised her father was expecting her to keep the list.
“Have you given these names to the police?” she asked.
“That Christie fella didn’t seem too interested,” he said with a shrug. “He’s convinced they’re professionals and mentioned there have been similar incidents around the Cotswolds recently.”
“He might be right.”
“He might not be.” Brian leaned across the table and pushed the note even closer to Julia. “You’ve always been a great judge of character. If you could just talk to them, you might be able to—”
“Dad…”
“Please, Julia.” His tone verged on begging as he reached across to grab her hands. “I’d do it myself, but these people won’t be honest with me about anything, and I’ve never been able to tell when people are lying like you can. You have a talent for it. I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate.”
Desperate was the word Julia would have used to describe the look on her father’s face as he gazed at her. She wasn’t sure she could say no even if she wanted to.
“I’ll see what I can do,” she said, pulling her hands away before folding up the note. “But I’m not promising anything.”
“Thank you, Julia.” He smiled and relaxed into the chair for the first time. “I knew you’d help. Don’t tell Katie about this. I don’t want her thinking I’m doing more stuff behind her back.”
“But you are.”
“I know.” He sighed and roughly rubbed his brow. “She deserves better than me, but I love her so much. I’ve only kept the money troubles secret because I didn’t want to upset her. She’s been dealing with so much since Vincent’s last stroke. He’s barely clinging on, and she feels like it’s her job to keep him alive. The thought of losing this place would crush her.”
“She’ll find out eventually,” Julia said firmly as she stood. “It’s better it comes from you.”
He nodded. “I’ll tell her when the time is right.”
Julia couldn’t argue with him. She had kept her pregnancy from Barker and Jessie, and now she was keeping it from her father all because the timing didn’t feel right. She didn’t want her news to be a sticky happy fly in the troubled ointment unexpectedly surrounding everyone in her family.
“Take care of yourself, Dad.” Julia pushed the bag at him. “Eat something.”
As she walked back to her car, she realised she had acted with her father exactly as Dot had with her earlier that day. She yawned again as she twisted the key in the ignition and decided she was going to follow through with her promise to go home and get some sleep.
6
Julia’s eyes opened, this time in her own bed. Bright Sunday morning sunlight snuck through the gap in the curtains. No matter how many times she had shown Barker how to close them correctly, he rarely ever got the final loop over the little bump in the rail, rendering the blackout curtains useless. Thankfully, Julia felt well-rested, so she didn’t mind being woken by the sun.
Eyes closed, with a relaxed smile on her face, she rolled over to cuddle up to her husband. She continued to roll, her arm landing on something fluffy. She opened her eyes in time to see her grey Maine Coon, Mowgli, fleeing his comfy spot on Barker’s side of the bed. He perched at the bottom of the bedframe, glaring at her with sleepy eyes.
“Sorry, boy.”
Stifling a yawn, Julia sat up and stared at her reflection in the mirror. Her matted hair was in desperate need of washing, and she still looked like she could get a couple more hours of sleep, but the thing that stood out the most was her smile. It took her a moment to realise why she was even smiling, but when she did, the giddiness spread all over her body; she hoped she would wake up as excited every morning of her pregnancy.
Knowing it wouldn’t be long until she was too big to do so, Julia sprang out of bed. She tossed open the curtains, letting in the rest of the sunlight. The old saying of ‘the calm after the storm’ couldn’t have been more accurate in Peridale this morning.
The sky shone a vibrant blue, with only a handful of fluffy clouds in the distance. She spotted Barker sat on the old rusty bench at the bottom of the back garden, his phone tight to his face. From his gesticulating hands, he must be arguing with someone from the publishers. Julia had hoped Barker’s video call last night would sort the situation, but it only seemed to have driven a bigger stake into his working relationship.
Leaving him to finish the call, Julia jumped into the shower and washed away the events of the last few days. After drying off and dressing in a comfortable pair of jeans and a simple t-shirt, she felt like a new woman. Barker had left the bench, but only because he now paced the garden in a giant circle, his raised voice echoing into the kitchen.
Sundays were always odd for Julia. They were the only days where she didn’t have to set an alarm, and th
ey were usually the days she had very little planned. Sometimes she would go shopping to stock up on things for the cottage and café before the shops closed early, sometimes she would engage in a spot of gardening to keep on top of the weeds and grass, sometimes she would give her cottage a deep clean after a week of only light tidying, and sometimes she would do very little at all. The latter option was one she did the least, and today wasn’t going to be one of those days.
Not in the mood to garden around Barker and his heated phone call, Julia decided to clean the kitchen. Before that, she had to eat. She rested her hand on her tummy, knowing she couldn’t skip meals anymore.
With a bowl of muesli and Greek yoghurt topped with honey and a cup of peppermint tea, Julia sat at the breakfast bar in her small, rustic kitchen. She turned on the radio, tuning it to any station apart from the one Tony Bridges had worked at, so as not to upset Barker.
After finding some breezy pop music, she flipped to a fresh page in her small recipe and ingredients notepad. While she ate her breakfast, she attempted to work out how far along with her pregnancy she might be.
By the time she reached the bottom of the bowl, she had narrowed it down to being somewhere between three and four weeks pregnant. She knew it was extremely early, and a quick internet search let her know the morning sickness wouldn’t really ramp up until around six weeks, meaning her funny turn at the manor had been a promise of what was to come.
As she sipped her tea, she pulled the note her father had given to her from her handbag. He had scribbled that he thought Louise Henshaw, one of the previous housekeepers, lived at Fern Moore, but there were no concrete addresses for the other two. Still, she transferred the sparse details to her pad and tossed the original note into the bin with the muesli she hadn’t been able to finish.
For now, at least, Julia had a kitchen to clean. She started with the counters, pulling everything out and wiping everything down until it was spotlessly clean. Then, she tackled the inside of the windows. Barker noticed her and waved before continuing with his pacing.
After cleaning the inside and outside of the fridge, Julia turned to her least favourite job – the oven. She cleaned the oven every couple of weeks. Happy as she was to see her oven still looking as good as new even – though it was nowhere near – she had never enjoyed the process of actually cleaning it. She found her strong oven cleaner from under the sink, already able to smell it. She pulled on pink rubber gloves, filled a bowl with warm water, and got down on the floor in front of the open oven.
Julia did as she always did. She sprayed down the entire inside of the oven with the cleaner before running over it with warm water. The instructions said to leave it for a while, but the dirt never built up long enough for such measures. It was such an autopilot task for Julia, she didn’t second-guess anything until a strong cloud of the chemical smell hit her in the face.
She shot up, the canister still in her hands. She squinted at the label, trying to see if there were any warnings against pregnant women using it, but her hands were shaking too much to see the tiny words clearly.
Out of nowhere, she felt like she was drowning in water, and it wasn’t because of the fumes. She was used to those, but she wasn’t used to having to second-guess everything. She had done so much research about the best and healthiest ways to fall pregnant naturally, and yet she had never actually researched what to do once she got there.
She tossed the can in the bin before closing the oven, unsure what to do. She opened the cupboard under the sink where she kept all of her cleaning products. Phrases like ‘contains bleach’ and ‘extra strong’ jumped out from every bottle, making her even dizzier. Without thinking twice, she scooped them up and dumped them in the bin with the oven cleaner.
She stood in the middle of the kitchen, sweat forming on her brow. She wiped it off with the side of her arm, her hands still in the pink gloves.
“I’m sorry,” Julia whispered down at her tummy. “I have no idea what I’m doing.”
But before she could worry herself silly, the back door opened, and Barker hurried in. He grumbled to himself as he slammed the door before planting himself heavily on one of the breakfast bar’s stools. Nostrils flared, he spun the phone between his fingers, prompting Julia to give him a moment to calm down.
Julia ripped the pink gloves off and tossed them into the sink. After giving her hands a quick rinse and dry, she leaned against the other side of the counter and held Barker’s hands.
“No good news?”
Barker inhaled deeply as he shook his head. “They are trying to force me to agree to give the advance back since there won’t be a book.”
“They can’t do that.”
“They can. I should have read the contract closely. All of this is completely above board. They’re dangling me above the sharks, and there’s nothing I can do about it. What am I going to do, Julia?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted, her thumb stroking the back of his hand, “but we’re in this together. We’ll get by. You didn’t spend the advance, did you?”
“No.”
“And you still have the royalties from the first book saved up?”
“I do.”
“And those keep coming in every few months, right?”
“They do.” He squeezed her hand and attempted to smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I worked it out last night. If we budget, we can make the money I have saved up last a year, maybe two, but it’s not just about that. I can’t just sit around waiting for them to decide my fate. There’s no telling how long this will go on. It’s going to drive me insane. I should never have quit my detective inspector job. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Don’t say that.”
“No, it’s true, Julia.” He pulled his hands away. “I had it made there, but I got swept up in the glitz of publishing. They sold me the dream, I bought it, and now they’re ripping it away.” He inhaled deeply. “Do you know the worst part? I’m not even sure I want to do this anymore. I dreamt of being a writer before I dreamt of being a police officer. I thought I was doing the right thing leaving the force to follow this dream. Life’s too short, right? People say, ‘chase your dream, or you’ll regret it’, so I chased it, and now look where I am. I never had to deal with this as a DI. Yes, the work was gruelling, but at least it was rewarding. I knew what I was doing there. I wasn’t at the mercy of suited men in high offices who I haven’t even met.”
Julia took the stool next to Barker and rested her head against his shoulder. She didn’t have the words to make it all better. She had supported him when he first revealed he was writing a book, she had supported him when he first secured his publishing deal, and she had supported him when he decided to leave the police force to write full time. She would support him no matter what he decided to do, but she knew she couldn’t decide for him. She didn’t care if he was a writer, a detective inspector, a bin collector, or a gravedigger; she only wanted her husband to be happy.
“What’s all this?” Barker’s tone softened as he picked up the list of names on the notepad.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Julia said, pulling the pad back, not wanting him to flip back a page to her scribbled cycle estimates. “Some names my dad wanted me to look into regarding the burglary. They’re people who were at the manor one time or another recently. I’m not sure there’s much in it, but he wants me to talk to each person.”
“Are you sure that’s wise?”
“I have to help him somehow,” Julia said with a gentle shrug. “He’s my dad. He’s so hopeless right now. I don’t think any of this will add up to anything, but he needs to feel like someone is on his side.” She paused and peeked at the previous page in the notepad, her heart wobbling. “Barker, there’s something I need to—”
The mobile phone sprang to life on the counter, interrupting her. Barker scooped it up and released a long, drawn-out sigh.
“It’s the publishers again,” Barker said, already standing up. “I have
to take this.”
Julia smiled and didn’t argue as Barker returned to the garden. She didn’t begrudge him trying to get somewhere with his publishers, although she wasn’t sure what they would sort out over the phone.
She wasn’t going to sit around until Barker was finally free of his phone, so she slid off the stool, grabbed her notepad, handbag, and keys, and made her way to the front door.
The news could wait.
The Fern Moore Estate popped up in the 1980s as part of a government-funded scheme to provide a large number of low-income housing options for the area. While it shared a postcode with Peridale, it couldn’t have felt further from the village.
Though Julia had grown up with warnings to stay away from the estate, which had become synonymous with petty crime and troublemakers, she wasn’t as scared of the place as she had once been. Even a mugging two months ago hadn’t put her off returning. Plenty of nice people were hidden behind the hundreds of flat doors separate from the reputation.
Julia was used to arriving at the estate to see gangs of drinking and smoking teenagers loitering around the large open courtyard between the blocks. Though she spotted a couple of those types, the air held a different buzz today.
First, she noticed that the long-abandoned and graffiti-vandalised metal playpark in the middle of the courtyard had gone, replaced by a much more natural meeting point, consisting of wooden beams to climb around and woodchip flooring. For the first time in any of her visits, she was pleasantly surprised to see groups of small children in the space, with their parents off to the side.
The hanging flower baskets were the second change she noticed. They had been put up all around the lower level, bringing some much-needed colour to the area.
The third, and biggest, change was the new shop filling one of the many abandoned units on the ground floor. These units had housed different shops when the estate first opened, but graffiti-covered metal shutters had covered them for years.
