by Agatha Frost
“Is everything okay?” Alfie asked, stooping to meet Julia’s eyes. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“It’s been a rough afternoon,” Barker explained as he pulled the car keys from Julia’s bag. “I think I’ll drive back.”
Julia didn’t object. She climbed silently into the car and watched Alfie make his way across the courtyard towards the stairwell. He glanced at the women around the floral display, but he didn’t linger.
As Barker drove them back to Peridale, Julia’s mind raced. The boots alone weren’t concrete evidence, but the conflicting stories Dot and Billy had told her about Alfie’s whereabouts on the night of the burglary, and the fact he owned a large white van, screamed for further investigation.
10
After the wasp sting and the revelation of what had happened to Samantha during the storm, Julia wasn’t in the mood to continue her romantic picnic with Barker. Instead, she had him drop her off at the café, where she hid in the kitchen until the end of the workday.
Perhaps sensing something was wrong, Jessie didn’t interrupt Julia for most of the day. When the clock struck 5:30pm, Jessie ventured into the kitchen and didn’t immediately leave.
“What’s going on?” Jessie demanded, standing in front of the beaded curtain with her feet planted wide and her arms folded. “And don’t tell me nothing because you’ve filled that fridge with a dozen raspberry cheesecakes you’ve stress baked.”
Julia picked up the final cheesecake and opened the fridge. In her trance, she hadn’t realised how many she had made, slightly varying the recipe each time. She crammed in the final tray for overnight setting, with no idea what she was going to do with twelve cheesecakes tomorrow if somehow, they didn’t all sell.
“Does it have anything to do with that hit and run everyone was talking about today?” Jessie asked, her voice rising. “Talk to me, Mum. I hate seeing you like this. You look drained.”
“I’m sorry, love.” Julia smiled, hoping to ease the worry in Jessie’s eyes. “It’s been a tough couple of days. Do you ever just feel like the sky is falling in and you’re barely able to hold it up?”
“Not particularly.” Jessie arched a brow. “Is this your elaborate way of trying to tell me that you’re stressed?”
“You could say that.” Julia leaned against the island, glad to give her feet the relief. “I feel like I’ve been sucked into a tornado, and everything around me is spinning just out of view.”
“Okay, metaphor machine!” Jessie cried. “Can you stop talking in old people riddles and just spit out what’s wrong with you? You’ve been acting weird, and now I’m all worried.”
Julia laughed, glad of Jessie’s blunt honesty. She could always rely on her daughter to pick her up, she just wished she remembered how well it worked when she was avoiding being open. She might not have carried Jessie in her womb for nine months or even known her for the first sixteen years of her life, but nobody could deny they were mother and daughter.
“How about I tell you over a cup of tea?” Julia asked, already grabbing her coat off the hook. “It’s been a while since we’ve had a proper chat. I have some things I need to tell you, and other things I need to ask you, and Dot always says some things are best shared over a cup of tea. And I promise I’ll leave the metaphors and riddles behind.”
“Finally!” Jessie grabbed her grey denim jacket from the hook. “I’ve wanted to tell you that forever, but it never felt like the right time.”
“I understand the feeling.”
“You’re still doing it.” Jessie narrowed her eyes. “No more vagueness. C’mon. The sooner I get the kettle on, the sooner I find out why you’ve been replaced by an alien. I’m on to you, lizard woman.”
After locking up the front, turning off the lights, and setting the alarm, they left through the back door and walked the couple of steps to Jessie’s red flat door in the alley where they parked their cars.
Julia hadn’t reacted well earlier in the year when Jessie revealed her plans to move out of the cottage, but finding out she only planned to move above the post office settled her.
“It’s a bit of a mess,” Jessie apologised as they climbed the narrow staircase to the flat above the post office. “I wasn’t expecting company.”
Julia grinned, amused by Jessie being the host for once. Strange as it felt to have the shoe on the other foot and given the topics of conversation to come, perhaps not being in control of the environment might massage out her words in a concise and reasoned way.
“Wow,” Julia said, trying to ignore the mess that had taken over the flat. “You’ve certainly made yourself at home.”
“I don’t come into your house and judge your cleaning routine,” Jessie snapped as she rushed over to stack up the pizza boxes cluttered all over the small sitting room area at the front of the flat. “If I did, I would have pointed out that half a centimetre of dust on your mantelpiece I saw the other day.”
Julia’s first instinct was to flash all around the flat to start cleaning and tidying the mess Jessie had made. Along with the pizza boxes and takeaway containers all over the place, clothes were flung about, dishes formed a mountain in the sink, and the dining room table had been taken over entirely by hair appliances and make-up, which Jessie had been dabbling with more and more since her break-up with Billy.
“Let me wash up,” Julia said, already rolling up her sleeves. “I don’t mind. I—”
“Stop right there!” Jessie cried, pushing Julia out of the small kitchen. “I want to do it myself. I need to learn, don’t I?”
“When are you intending to learn?”
“Soon.” Jessie shrugged. “I haven’t quite found the balance yet, but I blame you for that?”
“Me?”
“Well, you had over a year and a half to domesticate me after my tumultuous upbringing in care homes and living on the streets.” Jessie shot Julia a playful wink. “You cleaned everything before I even had a chance to. I never realised how much stuff there is to do. How do people work, have a life, and keep on top of a house?”
“When you find out, let me know,” Julia said as she crossed over to the sitting room area. She plucked a bra off one of the large beanbags and tossed it to a slightly bigger pile of clothes in the corner before sitting down.
“Oh, please,” Jessie called as she filled up the kettle at the sink. “You’re the only person I know who keeps all the plates spinning. You run a café, have a house, a husband, you’re always a shoulder to cry on, you’re always there to help anyone who needs it, and you still manage to sleep, eat, and find time to bake outside your job. You even ran a marathon last month! You’re Superwoman, Mum, whether you believe it or not.”
Julia beamed, her heart as full as it could be. She should visit Jessie’s flat more often. She could grow accustomed to the mess if Jessie continued giving her uplifting pep talks.
“You’ll figure it out,” Julia said when Jessie walked over with a steaming cup of peppermint tea. “You’re right, though; this is your thing to figure out. Maybe I was a little too protective of the chores when you lived with me.”
“You practically ran it like a hotel.” Jessie collapsed into the other beanbag and placed her cup on what appeared to be an upright milk crate from the café disguised as a side table. “Don’t get me wrong, I loved it. After years of being tossed to the side like an old sock, it was nice to have someone care so much. Saying that though, I wouldn’t give this up for anything.”
“Really?” Julia looked around the flat. “You could get somewhere bigger one day.”
“I don’t mean this,” Jessie said, motioning to the surrounding stuff. “I mean my independence. It’s better than I thought it would be. I can stay up as late as I want, eat what I want, watch what I want, let in who I want, tell to go away who I want. And the best part is, I did it all with my own money.”
“You’ve done amazing,” Julia said before blowing on the surface of her peppermint tea. “As long as you know that
if anything ever happens, you are always welcome at the cottage with Barker and me for as long or as little as you need or want.”
“Thanks.” Jessie sipped her tea. “Although, if I were ever to come back, you and Barker would need to tighten up the screws on that bed of yours. Creaks like mad.”
Julia felt the blood rush to her cheeks as she hid her face behind her tea. She couldn’t see Jessie’s face, but she was sure she looked pleased with herself.
“I’ll have Barker take a look at it,” Julia said quickly before sipping her tea.
“So, what’s going on?” Jessie leaned back in the beanbag and looped her fingers together on her stomach. “And make it snappy, The Chase is on at six on the plus one channel, and I’ve taken quite a liking to that Bradley Walsh fella.”
“What?”
“I’m kidding.” Jessie winked. “See, you’re not the only one who can talk in riddles. Back to the topic of your tornado of stress and madness, or whatever you call it.”
Julia took one final relaxing sip of peppermint tea before putting it on the floor on a stack of DVD boxes.
“Do you want the good news or the bad news first?”
“Which one is the question?”
“Huh?”
“You said you had news and questions.” Jessie huffed as though she was speaking the most perfect sense. “Which one is the news, which one is the question?”
“The good news is the news.”
“So, I’ll take the question first,” Jessie said. “Then things can only go up from there.”
Julia suddenly felt very silly about her question. She knew exactly what Jessie’s reaction would be, but she had to bring it to her before trying to take things any further.
Julia inhaled deeply before asking, “Is there any chance Alfie could have been involved in the robbery at Peridale Manor?”
Jessie arched a brow. After a moment, she sat up with a disbelieving laugh.
“Oh, you’re not joking,” Jessie said, a sudden depth to her voice. “I thought you were playing with me, but your face is saying otherwise.”
“I promised I wouldn’t.”
“That you did.” Jessie cocked her head to the side and clenched her eyes. “Why on earth would you think my brother, the nicest guy in Peridale, would be involved in the robbery that involved having a gun pointed at your head?”
“When you say it like that, it does sound far-fetched,” Julia admitted. “But only one man pointed a gun at me, and I know that wasn’t Alfie. I didn’t even see the other person.”
“So, you’re just assuming it’s Alfie based on what?” Jessie leaned forward and turned her ear to Julia. “A psychic reading from Evelyn? And who even says it has to be a man? Isn’t that a bit sexist? Women can be burglars too!”
“It’s not just because he’s a man.” Julia sank deeper into the beanbag and wished it would swallow her up and take her to safety. “There are things that don’t make sense. He has the same boots as the man I saw with the gun.”
“And there’s probably one hundred men in the Cotswolds alone who have those same boots.” Jessie relaxed back into her bag, her nostrils flaring. “Anything else? I hope this good news is so good that I forget all about this part of the conversation.”
“Alfie doesn’t have an alibi for the night of the burglary.”
“Have you asked him where he was?”
“No, but Dot said he was out with Billy,” Julia said, hearing the tremble in her voice. “And Billy said Alfie left him before midnight. So, if he wasn’t at home, he was—”
“Here!” Jessie cried. “In fact, he was right there where you are now. I was having a down night on Friday. It was around midnight, and what I’d done with Billy hit me all at once, so I called Alfie, and like the amazing big brother he is, he was here within ten minutes. We drank wine, ate ice cream, watched crap films, and we were both here the whole night. I was glad he was here because that’s when Billy rang me all upset. Alfie was the only thing keeping me calm.”
“Oh.” Julia forced a firm smile. “I should have thought properly first. I just saw his boots today, and it’s been one of those weird days. I just jumped off the first cliff I found and hoped I’d land.”
“I’ll take that metaphor as an apology.” Jessie relaxed, her smile returning as she reached out for her tea. “So, what’s the good news?”
“I’m pregnant.”
Jessie spat out her tea, her eyes nearly popping out of her skull.
“You better not be joking with me.”
“I’m not.” Julia smiled from ear to ear. “I mean it. I’m four weeks pregnant.”
Jessie put her tea down and dove across the room, landing softly on Julia to wrap her in a giant bear-hug. They sank into the beanbag, Jessie sobbing into her hair. When Jessie pulled away, tears ran down her bright red face, but she was laughing through them.
“I can’t believe it!” Jessie cried, her hands resting on Julia’s stomach. “You’re actually pregnant. How did Barker react?”
“He doesn’t know yet.”
“You can’t keep this from him! He’s going to notice eventually. You’re going to blow up to the size of a house!”
“It’s not from lack of trying,” Julia replied, the guilt consuming her again. “Every time I try to bring it up, something happens. His phone rings, he gets stung by a wasp, or he’s telling me his book has been cancelled. It’s never the right time.”
“Stung by a wasp?” Jessie chuckled.
“This afternoon.”
“Wait, did you say his book has been cancelled?” Jessie went back to her own beanbag and rested on her arms on her knees. “Poor guy. Is he okay?”
“I think he felt better before the wasp stings.” Julia attempted to laugh. “He’s torn up deep down, but he’s putting on a brave face. This was his childhood dream, and it’s up in flames.”
“At least he did it once,” Jessie said. “Most people dream of doing something their whole lives and never get there, but he got one book out there into the universe. I can imagine he’s relieved not to have that stress over him anymore.”
“I must admit, I did enjoy that thought,” Julia replied, feeling even guiltier. “Although I just want him to be happy. I don’t care what he does.”
“He could re-join the police?” Jessie suggested before her eye lit up. “Or he could become a private investigator! Barker Brown, PI. It has a little ring to it, don’t you think? He could hide in shadows in trench coats, smoking cigarettes and catching out cheating wives and insurance fraudsters.”
“I’ll make sure to pass on the suggestion. Perhaps without the cigarettes.”
“Well, he needs to come up with a plan soon.” Jessie nodded at Julia’s stomach. “You’re going to have another mouth to feed before you know it, and believe me, it’ll cost you more than I did. Oh, and you’re not to sleep until they’re about four-years-old. I saw enough sleep-deprived foster mothers to know nothing good comes of it.”
“Can you go back to massaging my ego?”
“It’s true!” Jessie laughed. “But guess what, you’re going to be amazing at it all like you already are. Superwoman, remember?”
“That’s better.” Julia sipped her tea with a smile. “Oh, and there’s the whole thing with the burglary. My dad and Katie are broke, but she doesn’t know, although she does know he cancelled the insurance, and I’m sure they haven’t spoken a civil word to each other since. I think their marriage is in real trouble. My dad’s lied to her so much, but he thinks he’s protecting her. And her dad’s in hospital, too. They’re going to lose the manor if they can’t come up with a plan soon.”
“She can’t be that dumb, Julia,” Jessie said with a roll of her eyes. “Surely she’d know if they were broke?”
“My dad’s a good liar.”
“Is there anything else, while we’re here?” Jessie asked after a sip of peppermint tea. “An incoming missile or a sixth toe you’ve grown that you want to surprise me with?”
“Now you really are joking.” Jessie laughed. “I’ve heard it all! What are you doing about the burglary? I’m guessing you’re investigating?”
“Sort of.” Julia tilted her head from side to side. “I’ve been talking to a few people my dad thinks might have been involved, but so far, he’s been barking up the wrong trees. Now, though, I am truly invested. The robbers killed a poor girl from Fern Moore on their way to the manor in the storm. I only found out this afternoon. I need to get to the bottom of this for her sake. I met her once. No one even noticed she’d gone missing.”
“Poor girl.”
“I know.”
“What are you going to do about it then?” Jessie asked. “With Alfie out of the frame and a bun in the oven, I’ll help you tackle the next thing to slow down some of this stress tornado. Who else is on that list of suspects in your notepad?”
“How did you know I’d made a list?” Julia asked as she reached into her bag.
“Because you always make a list.”
Julia flipped to the page with the names her father had given her. She had entirely ruled out Louise Henshaw, the former housekeeper. After speaking to Conor O’Flannigan, the electrician, she was quite confident he only cared about getting the money he was owed. Only one name remained.
“Dale Michaels,” Julia read aloud. “The former groundskeeper. Worked there for fifteen years.”
“Why did he leave?”
“My father didn’t say.”
“Why did the others leave?”
“Because they weren’t being paid.”
“Two out of three sounds like a pattern to me.” Jessie slapped her knees and stood up. “Where does this Dale Michaels live?”
“I don’t know.”
“Has the baby brain got to you already?” Jessie sighed. “I’d bet the little sprog is only the size of a grain of rice. You’re slacking, Julia. C’mon, let’s go and find this dude. I’m driving. I don’t trust you not to drive us off that metaphorical cliff you claimed to have jumped off earlier.”
