by Agatha Frost
“I promise I won’t be a stranger,” Dot said as they hugged outside her cottage. “And you have my number now, so you can call for a talk whenever you want.”
“And I appreciate it.” Adrienne clung tight. “You don’t have to visit every week – just pop your face in when you can. Thank you for giving my life some much-needed texture. I think I’m satisfied enough to behave for a while.”
“And Hannah?”
“I owe her an apology.” Adrienne tugged on her sleeve and looked at the bracelet she’d pulled out of the floorboards. “And maybe this since I accused her of taking it.”
“It really was lovely to meet you,” Percy said, taking Adrienne’s hand to kiss it again. “Until next time.”
“He’s a keeper,” Adrienne whispered to Dot as they hugged again.
After bundling Adrienne into a white taxi, they waved her off. Dot intended to stick to her promise. Arm in arm, Percy and Dot waited to lower their hands until the taxi vanished from view.
“Nice to see some life returning to the village,” Percy said as he turned back to the cottage, “even if it is that weird bit between Christmas and New Year.”
Dot looked across at her granddaughter’s café, where the lights were on and customers back after two days of darkness. Staring at the window, a memory suddenly flooded back, and she laughed.
“The donkey!” she cried as she shook her head. “It did kick right through that window. I can’t believe I forgot. Maybe I’m the one who’s losing it?”
“You’ll outlive us all, dear.” Percy held open the gate. “I know it’s not quite lunchtime, but how about some elevenses turkey sandwiches?”
“Sounds perfect.”
While Percy made the sandwiches in the kitchen, Dot went through to the sitting room to clear away the tea-things from earlier. A glossy Oakwood Nursing Home brochure sat where Adrienne had been, with a brief note written in the same handwriting as the bingo invitation.
In case you ever change your mind. It’s not so bad when you have people to enjoy it with. PS: Must try harder to finally make some friends here.
“What do you think?” she asked, showing Percy the cover when he bustled in with a tray of sandwiches and fresh tea. “Should we trade it all in and make our lives easier?”
“Do you want to?”
Dot thought seriously about it for a moment as she flicked through the impressive gallery of pictures.
“No,” she replied honestly, “but spending a day there has made me slightly less apprehensive about the possibility.”
Percy pulled the brochure from Dot. After a flick through, he stuffed it in a side drawer.
“We’ll consider it,” he said, sitting next to her as he dished out the food, “but only when we must. We’re doing just fine as we are, aren’t we?”
“I suppose we are.”
“Then we carry on,” he said, handing her a steaming cup on a saucer. “Living in the moment, one cup of tea at a time.”
Dot accepted the tea and kissed her husband on the cheek before resting her head on his shoulder. Boxing Day Bingo at Oakwood Nursing Home had been more eventful than she could have anticipated, but she was glad to have gone.
Not only had the experience quelled her fears and reconnected her with a good friend, but it had also made her take a step back. More than ever, she was grateful – and lucky – to be heading into another new year surrounded by people she cared about.
But before her mind ran away with her completely, she had to telephone a woman about a donkey.
Murder on the Christmas Express
A standalone prequel to Profiteroles and Poison, the 21st Peridale Café book, coming early 2021!
Julia had no idea why she was at Peridale’s tiny train station.
Wrapped up warm and hands buried deep in her pockets as a fierce wind whipped at her chocolaty curls, she looked up and down the station’s single platform. The screen was still blank, and the announcer hadn’t signalled that any of the regular trains were passing through any time soon. She’d expected at least some clues to how she would spend the day, but as of yet, none had presented themselves.
“I can tell you’re trying to figure it out.” Julia’s husband, Barker, smiled coyly as he pushed back his thick coat sleeve to check his silver wristwatch – a gift from Julia on his recent forty-first birthday. “If you direct your attention to the tunnel, all will soon be revealed.”
Following Barker to the edge of the platform, Julia peered into the tunnel, but only darkness and swirling leaves greeted her. Despite finding out about her Saturday morning ‘surprise’ only last night, Barker claimed to have had it planned for months – not that he would give so much as a hint about what it might be. She hadn’t even known the train station was their destination when they’d set off from their cottage that morning.
The best part was that she hadn’t needed to find cover for the café. With only a month until her due date, she’d reluctantly handed over the day-to-day responsibilities to her nineteen-year-old daughter, Jessie, who, to no one’s surprise, was running everything perfectly. Aside from antenatal appointments with Barker, baby-clothes shopping with her sister, and meetings for the book club she’d recently joined, Julia truly had nothing better to do.
She wasn’t too proud to admit how mindlessly bored she’d been lately.
A distant whistle echoed down the curved tunnel, standing Julia’s neck hairs to attention. Warm light slowly illuminated the darkness, and the first hint of steam forced its way free of the tunnel. The wind whirled the locomotive’s billowing smoke around them as the brakes screeched to a halt.
The cloud cleared, revealing a long, black, steam-powered train.
For a woman who drove a car from the 1960s and adored vintage dresses from the 1940s, it was quite possibly the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
“Oh, Barker!”
“Did I do well?” he asked nervously.
“You did very well.” Julia rose on tiptoes to kiss her husband, though her bump pressed against his stomach and made the gesture a little more awkward than it had been before. She glanced back at the train, and said, “I’m in a jumper and maternity jeans. Am I not a little underdressed?”
“Everyone here is welcome as they come,” announced a cheerful voice as the door to one of the many carriages opened. “You must be our Peridale pickups. We’ve been preparing for your stay. Would you like to come aboard?”
“I’d love nothing more,” Julia said, already unbuttoning her winter coat as she stepped into a small mahogany-panelled compartment. “I’ve always wanted to ride on an old train like this.”
“Then I’m glad you picked us to be your first,” said the impeccably dressed man as he held out a hand to shake. “My name is Jonathan, and I’m absolutely delighted to welcome you aboard the Christmas Express. I’m afraid I shall have to correct you, though. This is no mere train ride. But more on that later.” Jonathan the conductor opened a door and motioned for them to enter. “Please, let me show you to your seats before the driver sets off again.”
Julia stepped inside, her smile widening. A spiced cloud of festive scent hit her as she entered the softly lit carriage. Stunningly decorated for Christmas, the long Art Deco carriage appeared to have multiple functions. Four shiny mahogany tables reflected the twinkling festive lights. A glamorously dressed couple of around retirement age occupied one. They nodded and smiled at Julia as both sets of eyes went straight to the bump jutting out from her open coat.
Beyond that was a bar, a platform that looked like a stage, and a beautiful Christmas tree filled with glass ornaments swaying gently with the train’s movement as it inched forward. Julia hadn’t put her tree up yet, but just being in the room with one made her want to send Barker up to the attic to fetch the decorations the moment they returned home. Not that she was in a rush; she could easily stay aboard the train all day.
“The two of you will be seated here.”
Julia shrugged off her coat be
fore sitting at the empty table Jonathan indicated. Before she had a chance to worry about where to put it, Jonathan took it from her and hung it in a closet concealed behind a shiny wooden panel. After scanning the carriage, the conductor took a step towards the door and offered a slight bow.
“I’ll be leaving you in the capable hands of my beautiful wife, Melanie, while I check on our other guests.” Jonathan held out a hand in the direction of the bar, and the woman polishing a glass behind it gave them all a smile. “You’re free to move around the train, but I’m certain you’ll find everything you need in here. The bathroom is through the door on the other side, and all drinks and food are complimentary. Christmas lunch will be served in due course. In the meantime, drink, have fun, be merry, and please, enjoy the music.”
Before Julia could point out the distinct lack of music, the door on the other side of the cabin opened at the exact same time Jonathan bowed out of the room. A young woman in a slinky, beaded flapper dress perched on a stool behind an old-fashioned silver microphone, the height of which someone had already perfectly adjusted to land at her red lips.
“Can you believe this place?” Barker whispered, leaning across the table and grinning. “It’s like stepping back in time.”
“It’s magical.”
Lit by a hazy spotlight on the ceiling above her, the singer sat with her eyes closed until the cabin filled with instrumental music. Smiling, she swayed, only opening her eyes when she first started to sing. Her voice was soft and husky, perfectly suited to the jazzy cover of ‘White Christmas’.
“Do you know if you’re having a boy or a girl?” asked the woman across the aisle.
“We’re keeping it a surprise,” Julia said, resting her hand on the bump. “Not long to go now.”
“You look ready to drop!” The woman reached across the aisle and held out her hand. “I’m Sandra, by the way, and this is my long-suffering husband, Bob. Say hello, Bob.”
“Hello, Bob,” the man parroted.
They all laughed, and before long, they were chatting like old friends as the music played and the calm winter English countryside blurred by.
Julia was in heaven. She couldn’t have designed a more perfect day.
An hour into their journey, Jonathan returned with a young, formally dressed server by the name of Alexander. He brought in silver trays carrying the most delicious Christmas dinner Julia had ever tasted. After a classic prawn cocktail salad, they ate a full turkey dinner with all the trimmings, followed by a dessert of Christmas pudding with brandy cream, although they kindly served Julia non-alcoholic cream.
By the time Julia pushed away her final plate, she was more stuffed than she’d felt in months, regardless of the giant-feeling life she was growing.
“That,” she said, dabbing at the corner of her mouth with her napkin, “is how you do Christmas lunch.”
As though sensing everyone had finished, Alexander and his trolley returned to clear their plates. While he stacked everything on a shelf concealed by a curtain, the train zoomed into a dark tunnel. In the absence of a view, the blackened windows reflected the goings-on in the cabin. Jonathan and Melanie chatted at the bar behind her, and the singer still serenaded them from her stool.
“Is that the brakes?” Julia whispered as the distinct whine of metal on metal pierced the air. “Why are we stopping?”
“I don’t know,” Barker replied, looking around. “They don’t look too worried about—”
The lights cut out, and Julia and Sandra let out yelps, although the latter followed it up with a laugh. Though the music continued playing, the singer’s voice trailed off. People moved about the cabin around Julia, not that she could see anything. She reached across the table and grabbed Barker’s hands at the same moment the train rocked to a complete stop.
“Barker…”
“I’m here.”
Deep in the darkness, a man groaned.
When the lights flickered on, a woman screamed. Turning to the source of the sound, Julia could hardly believe her eyes. The conductor, Jonathan, lay slumped over the corner of the bar, a wood-handled knife jutting out between his shoulder blades. The singer added her scream to Melanie’s, and Julia bit her tongue to avoid joining them.
“My husband!” Melanie cried as she stared at Jonathan in horror. “Somebody has murdered my husband!”
“Oh, God.” Julia scrambled for her phone. “We need to call someone. We need to…”
Her phone was useless; she had no signal whatsoever this deep in the tunnel.
“I’ll go ask the driver what the hold-up is,” said Alexander, already pulling open the door.
The minutes that followed felt like a bizarre dream. Barker and Bob pulled Jonathan down from the bar, confirming he was dead before moving his body to lie on the floor in the small closed space between them and the bathroom cabin. While the two men spoke in private on the other side of the door, Julia left Sandra – who seemed to relish the chaos – and approached the bar where Melanie was sobbing into her arms.
“I don’t even know what to say,” Julia said gently, her eyes darting to the spot on the bar where the man had been just moments earlier. “I have no idea what’s happening right now, but I know I’m sorry for your loss. He seemed like a lovely man.”
“Thank you, he was.” Melanie lifted her head. Despite the wailing, her eyes seemed devoid of any actual tears. “Which is why I don’t understand why someone would do such a thing. Someone took advantage of our breakdown and loss of power to sink a knife into my husband’s back.”
“Or they orchestrated it?” Julia scanned the cabin, looking first at Sandra and then the singer. Alexander had yet to return from his visit to the driver. “There are so few people in this cabin, and it had to be one of us. Unless anyone heard any doors opening and closing?”
“Oh, good observation!” Sandra exclaimed, jumping up to join her. “I listened intently the moment the lights cut out. No doors, but someone ripped back the curtain of the trolley. I wonder if that’s where they took the knife from?”
Hand pressed to the small of her back, Julia waddled over to the trolley and tugged back the curtain. A carving fork jutted from the picked-over turkey carcass, and its handle was the same wood as the knife in Jonathan’s back.
“Looks like there was another knife in here,” she said, crouching as much as her belly would allow and pointing to the two-inch slit in the skin next to the carving fork.
“You’re really good at this.”
Julia thought about mentioning that she’d had a hand in solving the odd local crime here and there, but she decided against it. As nice as Sandra had seemed all afternoon, this apparent excitement over the man’s death was off-putting. Thankfully, the doors on both ends of the cabin opened just then, giving Julia a reason to leave her. Barker and Bob returned through one, and Alexander through the other.
“Someone blocked the tunnel with a car,” Alexander revealed. “They’re working to have it moved, but it’s going to take some time.”
“What if another train comes?” Julia asked.
“We’re the only train on this line today,” he replied, before adding hastily, “That’s what the driver said, at least.”
The server squeezed past them and headed for the stage. As he moved to comfort the singer, she brushed him away and took a seat alone at one of the empty tables. She stared blankly through the window as though seeing something the rest of them couldn’t.
“Got through to the police,” Barker said, resting a gentle hand on Julia’s shoulder as she observed the young woman. “They’re on their way, but it’s going to take some time to get down to us.”
“This is insane,” Julia whispered, pulling Barker into a tight hug. “We’re trapped on a train with a dead man and the person who killed him. What do we do?”
“We have some time,” he said, kissing her cheek as he pulled away. “We could see if there’s a way to solve it before the police get here.”
“You’re pr
oposing we solve it?” Julia arched a brow. “Seriously? Who are you and what have you done with my husband?”
“I’m a private detective, and you’re as good as one.”
“I’m also heavily pregnant, in case you hadn’t noticed.” She pointed to the bump. “And ever since that … fiasco on our honeymoon over summer, I’ve kept my promise to stay out of police matters. You barely let me investigate the contents of the refrigerator without forcing me into a chair, and now you’re suggesting we actually jump in?”
“As long as I’m here,” he said, hands cupping the sides of the bump, “I won’t let anything happen to either of you.”
Julia peered more closely at the scene surrounding her. Though the carriage had felt spacious upon first boarding, it now gave the impression of a tin can. Looking at Melanie, Alexander, and the singer whose name she’d yet to learn, her mind put together a quick list of curiosities.
“Find out where Alexander was when the lights went out,” she said to Barker in a low voice. “If he was by the trolley, perhaps he heard something that could give away who took the knife.”
Barker nodded and strode across the carriage to Alexander, now sitting on a barstool and cradling a glass of something dark poured over ice. He sipped it sharply as Barker sat next to him; they spun away to face the wall.
“My name is Julia,” she said as she awkwardly shuffled into the seat opposite the singer. “Were you close to Jonathan?”
“Rita,” she replied, her voice soft and sultry, gaze still forced into the dark. “And yes. We were close.” She glanced over her shoulder at Melanie, still sobbing at the bar. “We were passionate lovers. He was going to leave his wife for me. We were going to run away and start a new life together.”
