by Morgana Best
With five minutes to go, there was a knock on the back door. Agnes soon returned with Scorpius Everyman. Typical. I had expected he would be first to arrive. The aunts greeted him warmly, and I marvelled at their acting skills. I supposed having to hide the fact that they were vampires for many years had honed their acting talents. What’s more, the aunts in their true form actually still looked like young women. They had disguised themselves as elderly women, but I suspected that when they went out at nights and didn’t tell me where they were going, they dropped their disguise. I shook my head. I really didn’t want to think about that.
Sam Innis was the next to arrive. Aunt Agnes introduced him to Dorothy and Maude. He winked at me again, and I wondered if there was something wrong with his eye, or whether he was flirting with me.
Aunt Agnes left the room to answer another knock on the door, and this time returned with both Lucas and Harry Friar. I saw Scorpius watch my reaction to Lucas, so I giggled and fluttered my eyelashes. It was a last-minute decision, but I had to act like any non-vampire woman, and any non-vampire woman would be attracted to Lucas, given that magnetic thing, for want of a better word, he had going. Scorpius would be suspicious if I acted otherwise. Still, the moment did not go unnoticed by Sam, and he narrowed his eyes.
I thought I caught a glimpse of approval on Lucas’s face. Of course, he would know what I was doing. Aunt Agnes offered everyone wine, and all accepted. It wasn’t Witches’ Brew, of course. “I hope everyone likes garlic?” Aunt Agnes said, and everyone said that they did. “The entrée tonight is roast garlic marsala cream sauce, along with marinated artichokes that we grew in our own garden,” she added.
“It sounds delicious,” Scorpius Everyman said slowly in that icy, menacing tone. His words sounded like a threat rather than a compliment. Lucas remained silent.
“Garlic is only a problem if two people are about to kiss, and only one of them has eaten garlic,” Sam said to no one in particular. I could feel Lucas’s tension mounting, even from where I was sitting, but I was sure everyone else was oblivious.
Within moments, Aunt Agnes had served everyone. I wasted no time in bringing Harry Friar to the attention of Scorpius Everyman. “I hope the police haven’t been too hard on you, Mr Friar.”
He looked up, his spoon halfway to his mouth. “Call me Harry, please.” He smiled at me and then continued. “No, and I’m surprised that they haven’t. I mean, you’d think I’d be their prime suspect and all.”
“And why is that?” Lucas asked him.
I figured that Lucas already knew, but was also trying to bring Harry to the attention of the insidious Scorpius Everyman.
“Well, of course, as you know, Joseph Maxwell was my cousin, and I’ve come to Lighthouse Bay for the reading of our grandfather’s will. To my surprise, my grandfather left Joseph everything. My grandfather and I didn’t have a very good relationship, but considering he had two grandsons, I would have expected him to leave us an equal share.” He made a noise that was halfway between a choking sound and a grunt. “Well, even if he left Joseph more, you’d think he’d leave me something!”
I nodded. “Yes, you would. And so you were worried that the police would suspect you, because you were upset that your cousin inherited everything.”
Harry finished his mouthful before speaking. “That’s right. There was a lot to inherit, though, so I’m surprised that the police haven’t bothered with me.”
“But they did ask you not to leave town,” I said, pleased that I had managed to mention that point in front of Scorpius. “And you now inherit your cousin’s share, as well as his entire estate. Isn’t that right?”
Harry shrugged and did his best to look unconcerned. “Sure,” he said, “but the police haven’t really shown any interest in me. I suppose that’s because everyone in town hated Joseph. In fact, I’d never met anyone who had a good word to say about him.”
“Except your grandfather,” Lucas said dryly.
Harry shot Lucas a look of pure malice. That was a revelation to me—Harry had seemed entirely laid-back and affable until now. Now it seemed as if he had a quick temper. I thought Aunt Agnes was clever to seat Harry between both Lucas and Scorpius. I wasn’t too keen to be sitting directly opposite Scorpius, but it would have been worse to be sitting directly opposite Lucas.
“Everyone hated Joseph,” Harry said after a slight hesitation. He spat the words viciously. I risked a glance at Scorpius, but he was concentrating on his food, seemingly oblivious to Harry’s outburst. I had to remind myself that Scorpius wouldn’t make his interest obvious—he was a practised Cleaner, after all.
“Yes, you said he had just gone through a nasty divorce, and you said you overheard him have an argument with the antique dealer in town the other day,” I said to Harry, managing to present the other two suspects to Scorpius. Scorpius did not so much as raise an eyebrow.
“That’s right,” Harry snapped. He was obviously still angry at Lucas’s words, although I thought that an overreaction. Maybe Harry was the murderer, after all. I would have to find out exactly how much Joseph had been left in the will, and whether he was a wealthy man in his own right. The grandfather no doubt lived in town, and the lawyer must be in town as well. That would certainly help my investigations.
I figured that Lucas was doing his own investigations, but I also knew he had to be careful how he presented these to Scorpius. “So, who do you think killed your cousin?” I asked Harry.
If Harry did not think that polite dinner conversation, he showed no sign. “You know, it could be anyone, half the town. Maybe it was that antique dealer. Maybe some people were in it together. Maybe it was someone with a bad internet connection. You know, I’ve always wondered why people with bad internet connections don’t murder internet providers.” He lowered his fork to his plate with a thud, earning a glare from Aunt Agnes. “Maybe this was the first time. Do you know how annoying it is not to have internet? I was pretty upset when you didn’t have it the other day.” He picked up his fork and waved it at me.
Scorpius spoke for the first time. “Is that why your cousin came here, to Mugwort Manor, because of the internet connection?”
Harry leant a little further away from Scorpius. “How should I know?” he said in a small voice. “I told Miss Jasper that there wasn’t any internet, and then later on, it started working. I didn’t even know my cousin had been here until I was told.”
“Did Linda Williams tell you?”
Harry’s brows knitted together in an expression of bewilderment. “Linda Williams? No. Who’s she?”
His question remained unanswered, because Scorpius returned to his food.
My hair stood on end. Clearly, Scorpius still suspected Linda, despite the fact Harry had freely admitted he was now the beneficiary of a will, and had mentioned both the argument with the antique dealer and the fact that the victim had recently gone through a nasty divorce.
I supplied the information. “Linda Williams was a boarder here. She left two days ago, the day you arrived.”
Harry nodded. “Oh yes, I saw her. I assume it was her, anyway.”
“Her husband was killed in one of the cottages here only recently,” Scorpius said in that same icy monotone.
All the aunts shot him a glare. Harry dropped his fork once more. “You’re kidding! Is there a serial killer around here?” His face had gone deathly white.
I heard Sam gasp. All of us had forgotten about Sam. I had simply told him a body had been washed up on the beach, and he had assumed it was a drowning. Now, we had made it very plain that there had been two murders in a short space of time, and one of them in one of the cottages. I was only glad that the subject hadn’t turned to the murder of Lucas’s cousin, which happened on the day of my arrival in Lighthouse Bay.
“There’s a serial killer around here?” Sam said. I judged his tone as one of morbid interest, rather than fear, but I might have been wrong.
Nevertheless, I hurried to reassure him. “No, no
thing like that. Linda’s husband had an altercation with one of his customers back where they lived, and when the customer saw him in Lighthouse Bay, the customer followed him out here and killed him. The man is in police custody now.”
Harry, for one, did not look relieved, far from it. “But that’s two murders you’ve had here in a short space of time!”
Three, I thought, but I was hardly about to point that out. “Linda’s husband, um, died here, but your cousin died down on the beach in a public place,” I said. “There’s obviously no connection. It’s all a coincidence.”
Scorpius narrowed his cold pale eyes. “I don’t believe in coincidences.”
I was more than a little exasperated. “Well, it has to be a coincidence, because Paul Williams’ murderer is in custody. That man had nothing to do with the murder.”
“Not this one,” Scorpius said under his breath, but his words were loud enough that everyone could hear them. Before I could say something, he pressed on. “What makes you think Mr Friar’s cousin died on the beach?” His tone was accusatory.
I was getting angry, so I was less intimidated by him at that moment. “It was just a throwaway remark,” I said. “How would I know where he was actually murdered? I don’t know anything about tides. For all I know, he could have been thrown off the cliff at the lighthouse and washed up here, or he could have been murdered in one of the towns down south.”
Everything froze. It was as if I couldn’t breathe. Scorpius Everyman’s entire focus was upon me. “Is that what you think happened?” His words were sharply spoken.
I waited until the air returned to my lungs before saying, “I have no idea.”
“Have the media been around yet?” Sam asked. “It seems a really good idea for a story.”
“The police have ordered a media ban,” Lucas said at once, but I was sure he was lying.
“Are you a journalist?” I asked Sam. That would be just what we didn’t need, the media walking into a situation like this. In fact, a journalist had only just left one of the cottages, a most unpleasant woman by the name of Lila Sanders.
He threw back his head and laughed. “No, I’m a dental hygienist. I came here for a job interview. I walked through town before I came here, and I could see that dentistry would be very popular here, for the sort of work I do.” He leant closer to me, not that he could get too close with a table between us, and for that I was grateful. “You have very nice teeth, Pepper. Are they veneers?”
“No, they’re just normal natural teeth,” I said, a bit worried he was drawing attention to my teeth. The subject of teeth naturally drew one’s mind to the subject of vampires, at least to my way of thinking. I tried to think of a way to change the subject, but failed.
Aunt Agnes must have been thinking the same thing. “So where do you currently live, Mr Innis?”
“Sam, please. I live at the Gold Coast, near Burleigh Heads, to be precise. I don’t really like it there, because it’s full of all sorts of new-age hippies eating healthy food, and cleaning their teeth with charcoal-based toothpaste instead of the good old fluoride-based toothpaste.”
“I clean my teeth with charcoal-based toothpaste,” I said, somewhat perversely happy to be given the chance to annoy him. And besides, it was the truth.
Sam looked horrified. “And I do coconut oil pulling, too,” I said, trying to irritate him further.
“Well, I think you need to ask your dentist about that,” he said sternly. “Which dentist do you go to?”
It was none of his business, but I resisted the urge to tell him so. “I haven’t been in town long,” I said, hoping someone would change the subject in a hurry. To my surprise, Sam himself was the one to change the subject. “So I take it you’re not married?” The question was, of course, addressed to me, and from the corner of my eye I could see Lucas’s glass of wine pause momentarily halfway to his mouth.
“No,” I said. I shifted in my seat in my discomfort that Scorpius Everyman was now looking at me intently, obviously interested in the subject, too.
Sam was still speaking. “I can’t believe that, a pretty girl like you? Surely you must have a boyfriend.”
“No,” I said. “I have no time for that. I’m far too busy here, what with managing Mugwort Manor.”
Sam winked at me again. “Perhaps someone could persuade you to change your mind.”
While he was speaking, Aunt Maude left the table. Now she returned and handed him a tissue. He looked at it, startled. “What’s this?”
“A tissue,” Aunt Maude explained patiently.
Sam frowned deeply. “Yes, I realise that, but what’s it for?”
“Well, people use it for blowing their noses, and wiping away tears if they’re crying,” Aunt Maude said slowly, “but I thought you could use it to wipe your eye because there’s obviously something wrong with it.”
Sam still looked confused, so I spelt it out for him. “You keep winking at me, so Aunt Maude thinks something is wrong with your eye.”
I thought he would be offended, but he burst into raucous laughter, showing a full set of bright white teeth, and even his tonsils. If he had been a horse, I would easily have been able to tell his age. “I like your family, Pepper. You must tell me more about them over dinner sometime.”
Lucas looked daggers at him, but thankfully, Scorpius was staring straight ahead. I wondered if I should feign interest in Sam. He was a good-looking man, so perhaps Scorpius would be suspicious if I didn’t show a little interest in him. Sam was an outrageous flirt, and even if I wasn’t interested in Lucas, I wouldn’t have been interested in him, but Scorpius had no way of knowing that. Instead of shutting Sam down, I offered him a coy smile.
If the worst came to the worst, I would have to go on a dinner date with Sam, but I would make it clear to him that it was just as a friend. I was still sure I would have to fend him off, but hopefully that would throw Scorpius off the track.
By the time the main course arrived, I had entirely lost my appetite. I pushed a small piece of roast potato around my plate with a fork. Paul, Linda’s husband, had been killed with solanine, the substance found in green potatoes, and I hadn’t looked at a potato the same way since.
Sam continued to flirt with me, and Lucas continued to give off uneasy vibes, probably due to the fact that I hadn’t outright rejected Sam’s advances. I only hoped that Scorpius Everyman didn’t know I was acting.
Aunt Agnes served a large pavlova with a flourish. “There’s cream and ice cream to go with this,” she announced proudly.
My spoon was halfway to my food when Scorpius addressed me abruptly. “Why hasn’t your friend, Linda, come to dinner tonight?”
Aunt Agnes answered for me. “None of our friends are here. This is the weekly dinner for boarders, and boarders only.”
Scorpius did not look satisfied by her reply, and I wondered if he thought we had advised Linda to stay away because she was guilty of a heinous crime.
“About that antique dealer you heard your cousin, Joseph, have an argument with just before he died,” I said to Harry. “Who was it?”
“Joyce Batson,” he said. “She was screaming at him, and I mean screaming.”
“Did you tell the police?” Aunt Maude asked him.
He nodded. “Of course! Anything to throw suspicion off myself.” He laughed rather too loudly after he said it.
“But you didn’t exaggerate, did you?” I said. I was beginning to wonder about his story.
He looked highly offended. “No, I didn’t. I think Joyce Batson killed my cousin. I know it wasn’t me, and I know it wasn’t Marianne Compton.”
Now I was confused. “Who is Marianne Compton?”
Harry had already tucked into the pavlova. “Joseph’s ex-wife, his newly ex-wife,” he said, vestiges of pavlova rolling around inside his mouth in full view, given that he spoke with his mouth open.
I averted my eyes. “But it could have been anyone in town who killed him,” he continued, seemingly oblivious
to the fact that it was not polite to eat with one’s mouth open. “Joseph was solely responsible for the bad internet in this town. He was lazy, and he couldn’t be bothered.”
“But I thought internet companies were handled by offshore centres these days,” I said.
He shrugged. “I’m sure that’s true, but someone has to inform them, don’t they! And Joseph was a nasty, spiteful man. He got what was coming to him. Of course, don’t tell the police I said that.” He laughed again and then gulped another large piece of pavlova.
I was beginning to wonder whether Harry could, in fact, be the murderer. Surely no one would be so overt about it, unless that in itself was a clever ploy. I remembered seeing true crime shows on TV where someone had been convicted for the murder years later. The documentary showed footage of the person being interviewed on TV at the time, and the person was convincingly innocent.
And what was the Task Force doing? Was this matter related to the murders down south or was it a copycat killing? I, for one, did not have the answers.
Chapter 11
After the rest of the meal, which was largely passed in silence, the aunts invited everyone into the living room. Aunt Agnes set about lighting a fire, because even though the days were hot, the nights had taken on a slight chill.
We all assembled, glasses of wine in hand, in the living room. I gravitated to the fire, because I always found the sight, smell, and sound of fires comforting. However, the way the firelight reflected on the sharp planes of Scorpius’s face was not comforting—rather, quite the opposite. It gave him an intimidating appearance, like when someone shines a light on their face from underneath, throwing a menacing cast upon it. Scorpius needed no help from a light source to produce a menacing look upon his face, so the firelight only served to make it that much worse.
Aunt Agnes lit a row of candles on top of the mantelpiece, from which emanated the pungent scent of rose geranium. I wondered if the aunts had thrown powders under the seats, powders such as calamus and liquorice for compulsion, and sugar for sweetening, but I supposed they had not dared in case Scorpius discovered them. Of course, it was quite a jump from being a practising witch to a vampire, but Scorpius might not see it that way. There was no point taking chances.
