by Agatha Frost
“My mum always said you weren’t painting if you weren’t making a mess.” He dunked his finger again, and this time drew two diagonal lines on her forehead above her brows, pointing inward. “Mate, why do you look so angry? Cheer up.”
“Are you trying to start a paint fight with me, Ryan Tyler?”
“You’re the one who started a paint fight, Claire Harris,” he replied, plunging all of his fingers into the paint and then flicking them at her, “but you know I’ll finish it.”
Ryan darted around the easel while Claire immersed both hands and rubbed them together like the paint was a silky moisturiser.
“I just want to give you a hug,” she called sweetly as she followed him around the easel with her palms outstretched. “Why are you running from me? Do I smell?”
“Always.”
“It’s a new perfume I’m trying.” She darted from side to side to the left and then right of the easel. “C’mon, mate. Give me a high five!”
Sensing he’d go right, Claire darted left, then right, and then left twice until she caught him out. When she went to press her palms against his chest, he caught her wrists and stopped her hands before they made contact. Their laughing synced up as they stared at each other.
The years of adulthood melted away.
They were kids again.
“I noticed the new perfume when I opened the door,” he said as he caught his breath, his voice low and husky. “I like it.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I didn’t know that I should.” Ryan’s tongue darted between his lips to moisten his bottom lip as his grip on her wrists loosened slightly. “Claire?”
“Yes, Ryan?”
“What are we doing?”
“Paint fighting.”
He laughed but shook his head.
“That’s not what I meant.”
Claire gulped, but speech deserted her as Ryan’s eyes darted down to her lips. His tongue ran slowly along his bottom lip, and his shaky breath was hot on her face. She’d spent enough years pining for him – enough years in love with him – to know that he’d never looked at her this way before. It was the look she’d dreamed about. The look she’d craved.
But they were friends. They’d always been friends, and that’s how it was supposed to stay. She’d decided a long time ago that she wasn’t going let being in love with him ruin what they had. He meant too much to her for that.
But then, she wasn’t the one with that look in her eyes.
“Daaad?” Amelia bellowed down the staircase. “Internet’s gone off again.”
Ryan blinked, and just like that, he darted for the door and ran upstairs. Frozen to the spot, Claire stared down at the paint-covered hands shaking out of control. He’d been about to kiss her. She was certain of it. But why? He’d never looked at her twice. Not like that.
She’d been in love with him before their Blue argument. She’d loved him when he left Northash, and even though she’d buried it deep down, she hadn’t stopped, not in all the years he was away and married to another woman.
Two decades of unrequited love had taught her that Ryan Tyler didn’t see Claire Harris like that.
He just didn’t.
Except he had – and it terrified her.
Leaving the mess in the new art studio behind, Claire hurried up the stairs. She could barely catch her breath. After washing her paint-covered hands in the sink, she left through the front door and didn’t stop walking until she bumped square into a fleshy mass coming out of the butcher’s in the central square.
“Claire!” DI Ramsbottom cried. “I was hoping to talk to you. Have you given any more thought to—”
“Not now,” she said without making eye contact. “Another time, Detective.”
Claire kept her head down until she got to the shop’s front door. She pushed, but it resisted. Locked, of course. She patted her pockets for far too long before she remembered she’d given her keys to Sally. Just as she raised her hand to ring the buzzer, a familiar voice across the square caught her ear.
“I don’t care what you think,” Ste, the taxi driver, shouted from his window. “You need to pay your fare!”
Sean stood outside Lilac Gifts, looking like he wanted to run away but was too scared to commit to any direction. Pulling her purse from her pocket, Claire hurried over. She glanced at the metre, took out £25, and passed it through the window.
“Keep the change,” she said, pushing forward an unconvincing smile. “Sorry about the confusion.”
“Right,” he said, frowning at her as he picked up the money. “Cheers, I guess.”
Ste drove away, leaving Sean and Claire outside the closed gift shop.
“Damon’s at my flat,” she said as she put her purse away. “I can get him, or you and me can go for a drink. I need one right now, and you look like you could do with one too. I’d like to ask you more about Taron. You’re close, aren’t you?”
Sean nodded, this time with his eyes on Claire’s face rather than the floor. It felt like progress, but maybe he was just getting used to being around her.
“Pub, then?” she asked, her voice still shaking and a little too loud from the shock. “On me.”
Sean nodded, and they set off.
“Claire?” he said as she pulled open the pub door.
“Yes?”
“You have paint all over your face,” he said. “Just thought you’d want to know.”
Chapter Seven
Claire felt like the clown she looked like as she washed the white emulsion off her face with hand soap in the pub’s cramped bathroom. Why had she run away? She used to lie awake at night, her parents snoring in the next room, dreaming about a moment like that. Why had Ryan looked like he was about to kiss her? A moment of madness? Paint fumes messing with his head? A silly game gone too far?
What if she’d imagined the moment?
The reflection in the mirror shook her head as watery white paint dripped from her chin. No, if Amelia hadn’t interrupted, he would have kissed her.
And if it hadn’t felt so real, she wouldn’t have bolted. She’d been avoiding ‘real’ with Ryan for the best part of two decades, too scared to admit her feelings. And since he’d returned, she’d been too scared to lose him for a second time to even think about admitting the truth.
“You’re an idiot, Claire Harris,” she whispered to the streaky mirror as she scrubbed at her forehead under her damp fringe. “A prize idiot.”
A toilet flushed in one of the closed stalls behind her. Rinsing the last of the milky suds off her face, Claire turned off the tap as the lock clicked. A slender young woman with a thick head of black-rooted silver hair walked out, staring at Claire to let her know she’d heard her talking to herself. Too confused to be embarrassed, Claire tugged some blue paper towels from the dispenser and started dabbing at her face.
“Rina, isn’t it?” she asked. “I’m Claire, a friend of Damon’s. He might have mentioned me.”
“Oh, yeah,” she said, her accent something Claire couldn’t put her finger on with an American tinge. “The one with the candle shop? He’s mentioned you a few times.”
Now that Claire had Rina metaphorically cornered, her own messy thoughts made her forget why she’d wanted to talk to her in the first place. Scrunching up the paper towels and tossing them in the bin under the sink, Claire took a calming breath. She thought of all the tubes keeping Taron alive. The mental image was sobering enough to return her focus. Rina had lied. Claire needed to know why.
“I think I took your place at the convention,” Claire said, playing coy. “Captain Murphy, right?”
“Best pilot in the galaxy.”
“Did you get to the convention in the end?”
Rina shook her head. As she tugged at the paper towels and began drying her hands, she squinted slightly at Claire through the mirror. Claire offered a disarming smile, but this time, Rina didn’t return it.
“It’s a shame what happened to Tar
on,” Claire continued. “Were you close?”
“Yes,” she replied, ditching the towels in the bin. “He’s my friend.”
“Random stabbing, they’re saying.”
“Seems like it.”
“You were all supposed to be at the B&B together, weren’t you?” Claire remarked, casually standing between Rina and the door. “Well, not Mark and Daniel, but, by the sounds of it, they grabbed Taron and Sean’s rooms out from under them. You got here on Friday?”
“Yes.”
Claire nodded as Rina confirmed her lie, satisfied. When presented with the truth so clearly, she hadn’t expected Rina to continue clinging to the story she’d told Damon about rushing down on Saturday night.
“But you didn’t go to the convention?”
“I wasn’t in the mood.”
“But you didn’t tell Damon you weren’t going to the convention until Friday afternoon, right?” Claire stepped aside to let another woman into the bathroom. The newcomer took one look at them and went straight into the cubicle Rina had just vacated. “You came all this way from Glasgow only to pull out at the last minute?”
“Like I said, I wasn’t in the mood.”
“To celebrate your friend’s birthday with him?”
“What are you getting at?” Rina planted her hands on her narrow hips. “You’re asking me a lot of questions.”
“I’m just interested, that’s all.” Claire offered a subtle shrug. “Interested in finding out what happened to Taron. Interested in seeing if there’s anything in my theory.”
“What theory?”
“That the attack wasn’t as random as the police seem to think.” Claire stared Rina dead in the eyes. “Don’t suppose you’d know why any of your friends would want to stab Taron?”
The toilet flushed, and the woman left the cubicle, giving them both a wide-eyed look as she stood between them at the sink. Rina took the moment to squeeze past Claire and through the door back into the pub. Claire recognised the woman as one of her mother’s Women’s Institute friends; she gave Claire a strained smile for the sake of politeness, but judgement was clear as day in her eyes. Claire left without returning the smile.
On her way across the pub, she noticed Rina at a table tucked away in the shadow of the bar with Mark and Daniel. Their heads were low and tones hushed. The trio glanced over at her, all with the same icy stare, before resuming their quiet conversation. Perhaps her questioning would have gone a little better if she’d had her drink first. Though she’d asked what she’d wanted to ask, she’d been riding the wrong wave to get her there. On any other day – or after any other interaction with Ryan – she might not have been so intense.
After picking up two pints of dark homebrew from the bar, Claire joined Sean at her usual table in the corner. She set the drinks down and collapsed into the chair opposite him, pinching the bridge of her nose for a moment as she let out a frustrated sigh. Once again pushing her personal dilemma to the back of her mind, she focused on Sean. He still wore the grey jumpsuit from the convention two days earlier and clearly hadn’t showered, but at least he looked to have slept.
“Where did you spend the night?” she asked after a calming sip of the comforting drink.
“Hospital. I got into see him.” He stared into his drink, pain clear in his gaze. “I talked to him all night. Doctor said he might be able to hear me. Don’t think he could. I stayed until they told me I had to go. Slept on the chairs in the corridor.”
“You could have come back here.”
“Damon was mad at me.”
“He wasn’t,” she assured him. “He just wants to know what happened to Taron, like I do. You feel up to answering that question now?”
“You mean, if I stabbed him?” He finally looked at Claire. “I never had a brother, but Taron is like my brother.”
“Damon said you’re going to house share?”
“We were.”
“There’s every chance he could pull through.”
“I know.” Sean sipped his drink, but it didn’t seem to have the same comforting effect on him. “Taron doesn’t want to house share anymore. He told me last month.”
“Oh.” His expression told Claire everything she needed to know about how much that fact upset him. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“He explained it. It makes sense,” he said, still sounding a little lost. “He doesn’t want to live in England forever. Once he has his degree, he wants to move to Japan to become a translator. It’s been his dream for years. I understand why he doesn’t think it’s a good idea to house share until then. I’d get too used to it, and then it would be harder to adjust all over again when he left. That’s what my grandparents say. It’s better I stay with them.”
Sean’s gaze wandered over Claire’s shoulder and tracked something to the door. She craned her neck just in time to see the back of Rina, Mark, and Daniel as they left the pub.
“Would have been nice if they’d come over to say hello.” Claire took another sip. “They’re your friends.”
“They’re not.”
“Not even Rina?”
“No.”
“Do you like Rina?”
“No.”
“Do you trust her?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Sean hugged himself, staring at the carpet as though tracing the patterns with his eyes.
“Everything changed when Rina joined our group,” he finally said. “It used to be me, Taron, and Damon. You only need three for Dawn Ship. But it’s better with more. Mark came along in the early days. He was different, then. He brought Daniel. He’s not a good player, but I didn’t mind him.”
“And Rina?”
“She’s only been in the group for two years,” he said, his eyes suddenly fixing on Claire. “She acts like she’s in charge of everything. I think it’s because she’s rich. She made a lot of money investing in Bitcoin. She never spends it. Says she’s saving it for something special but won’t say what. We were fine before her. Mark added her to our group. Introduced her as his girlfriend.”
“Damon said they had an on and off thing.”
“Yes.”
“Are they on right now?”
“No.”
“You know that for certain?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I can’t say.”
Claire nodded, starting to understand how Sean’s mind operated. He was cut and dried, black and white. If she asked a specific question, she would get a specific answer, but he volunteered nothing without being prompted. If only she knew the right questions to ask.
“Is it a secret?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Are you keeping a lot of secrets?”
“A few.” He traced his finger around the rim of his glass. “People tell me things because I don’t tell other people if they ask me not to.”
“Is it Rina’s secret?”
Sean didn’t fire back a response immediately, and his expression turned thoughtful.
“No.”
“But it’s connected to Rina?”
“Yes.”
“Rina and someone else?”
“I can’t say.”
“Because they asked you to keep it secret?”
“Yes.”
It was Claire’s turn to pause and think. Someone had asked Sean to keep a secret about Rina that somehow confirmed she wasn’t currently in a relationship with Mark.
“Is Rina seeing someone else in your group?”
“I can’t say.”
“I’ll take that as a yes then,” she responded, leaning forward. “Sean, it might be connected to what happened to Taron. Keeping secrets won’t help Taron if . . .” Her voice trailed off. “Japan. Rina is from Japan?”
“Yes.”
“Taron wants to move to Japan.” She leaned in further. “Is it Taron? Are Taron and Rina together?”
“I can’t—”
“You can’t say
.” She collapsed back into her chair and looked right through Sean as her mind worked. “Taron and Rina are secretly a couple, but she’s suddenly stuck to Mark like glue? Does Mark still have feelings for her?”
“I don’t know,” he offered. “Daniel thinks Mark’s obsessed with becoming a huge streamer to impress Rina. She used to talk about wanting to stream, but she never started.”
“Do you talk to Daniel a lot?”
“Sometimes,” he said with a shrug. “He’s nice to me when Mark isn’t around. He’s in love with Rina too.” Sean picked up his pint and took a drink before adding, “He never told me to keep that secret.”
Claire’s fingers drummed on the table as motives galore suddenly unravelled before her eyes.
“It’s a love triangle,” she thought aloud, “but with four people. Rina and Taron are a secret couple, Mark is her ex, and Daniel is her . . . admirer? Does Rina know Daniel loves her?”
“No,” he stated. “And it’s called a love quadrangle. I looked it up. Triangles only have three sides.”
“Three,” Claire echoed. “Wait. Dawn Ship requires three players minimum. How did Mark and Daniel enter the tournament with just the two of them?”
“Because Rina was there.”
“At the convention?” She suddenly sat up straight. “You know that for certain?”
“I saw her.” He held his hand out. “Give me your phone. I can prove it.”
Claire didn’t hesitate. She pulled out her phone. She’d missed one call from Ryan, and two more from the phone box she recognised as the one Em always used when she couldn’t find Claire; Em loathed mobile phones and preferred the red phone box nearest to her narrow boat on the canal. Claire shook her head. She’d deal with the calls later. For now, she had a liar to expose.
“It’s Mark’s vlog from the day of the convention,” he said, sliding the phone back to Claire after some quick typing. “I put it on double speed. Nobody should have to sit through one in real time.”
As the video sped by, Mark’s huge eyes stared right at her through the camera as he acted like a fool. He wasn’t in costume, nor was Daniel. As the frenetic editing catapulted them from place to place, Claire recognised the stalls and booths behind them. At one blurry moment, she was sure she saw herself and Damon in the background near the Doctor Who corner of the exhibit.
