by Agatha Frost
“Don’t you have any family?” Julia asked, her heart breaking. “Brothers and sisters?”
“A brother. Timothy. We’re not close. My father died when we were little, and my mother couldn’t cope. They sent her to the nut house. They didn’t treat you right back then. They didn’t help you; they pumped you full of pills and zapped your brain. She was never the same after that. I woke up one morning, and she just wasn’t there. I think Timothy blamed me because I was the older one. We haven’t spoken in years. It’s just been Gloria and me. She was all I needed. She was my family, and now she’s gone, and it’s all my fault!”
Flora covered her face with her gloves and began to sob. Julia knew Flora didn’t like being touched, but she couldn’t help herself. She pulled Flora into a hug.
“Why’s it your fault?” she asked when Flora finally stopped crying.
“I should have known something like this would happen,” Flora blubbered. “I should have protected her like she protected me for all those years. In her hour of need, all I could do was stand by and watch her die.”
“There was nothing any of us could have done,” Julia reassured her. “Can you think of any other reason anyone would want to kill Gloria? Did she have any connections or history with the other members?”
Flora thought for a minute as she wiped away her tears.
“There’s Percy,” she said. “She and Percy had a thing about a decade ago. It didn’t go anywhere. It fizzled out before it really started. I think him being so much older than she put her off.”
“Percy Cropper?”
“They met at a magic show,” Flora explained. “Percy used to put on shows. He wasn’t very good, but Gloria thought he was funny. He charmed her. They only went on a couple of dates. She said he never put his hand in his pocket to pay for anything. She assumed he was using her.”
As Julia’s thoughts turned to Percy, the fireworks display began with a giant rocket exploding in the sky behind her. The bang made her jump, and she spun around to look up as red sparks scattered across the black canvas above. She watched two more fireworks pop and fizzle. When she turned back to Flora, she was gone.
Julia scanned the motionless, observing crowd, but she couldn’t see the tiny woman anywhere. She even looked at the edge of the forest, but the darkness claimed everything beyond the first row of trees.
“There you are!” Barker called to Julia when she returned, his eyes still firmly on the sky. “Where’ve you been?”
“Talking to Flora,” Julia said as she continued to look around the crowd. “She just vanished.”
“Well, she is a little freaky,” Barker said.
“Don’t say that.” A lump rose in Julia’s throat. “She’s harmless.”
She looped her arm through Barker’s and watched the impressive display. A never-ending stream of fireworks of every colour and size erupted above the village, the bangs echoing for miles around. After the last impressive shower of colour, the crowd applauded and cheered. From memory, Julia knew the festivities continued late into the night, with the teenagers and young adults sticking around until the early hours. It was something she had done with Roxy, Johnny, and Leah in their youth, but she wasn’t about to replay that old tape tonight.
After saying their goodbyes, Julia and Barker hopped over the wall and walked back down the lane hand in hand. She wanted nothing more than to go home, get into her pyjamas, and relax, even if her mind was still firmly fixed on Gloria and everything Flora had told her. She almost talked it through with Barker, but she held back, deciding that she wanted to talk to Percy to get a different perspective on Gloria’s life.
“Thank you for getting me out tonight,” Julia said when they were unravelling their layers back at their warm cottage. “Only a couple of people looked at me like I had two heads.”
“They have short memories around here,” Barker assured her. “They’ll forget all about it when the next thing comes along. And then we can have another wedding, and everything will be as it should.”
“You still want another wedding?”
“Don’t you?”
“After how the last one turned out,” Julia said as she kicked off her shoes, “it feels like tempting fate to go through that again.”
“Lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place.” Barker helped her out of her coat and hung it up on the hat stand beside his. “Everything will be fine.”
Julia smiled and nodded, even though she felt far from fine. Barker shut himself in the dining room to reply to work emails, leaving Julia to retreat to the sitting room with her notepad. Mowgli curled up on her lap as she scribbled down everything Flora had told her about Gloria on a fresh page. None of it felt important, but she didn’t want to dismiss any information, considering how little she had to work with.
Flipping back to her list of suspects, she added: “Percy Cropper: Former Love Interest” next to Rita and Skye without thinking twice about it. It felt like a betrayal against her gran, but she knew very little about the man who was stealing her gran’s heart. Before she discounted him, she needed to talk to him and find out what he knew.
As she stared at her notes, she realised she had yet to talk to Skye. She glanced at her phone and considered texting Alfie to ask if he’d found anything out, but Mowgli was comfortable, and she didn’t want to disrupt him.
Instead, she picked up the remote from the chair arm and turned on the television, which was playing an episode of a baking competition show. Watching the bakers sweat over their creations made her realise how much she was missing her café, but before she could dwell on it for too long, her eyelids fluttered, and her mind slipped away.
8
Are you sure you don’t want to do something bigger for your birthday?” Julia asked as she fastened Barker’s tie in their bedroom the next night. “You don’t turn forty every day.”
“After the surprise party you threw me last year and everything that has happened so far this week, I’m more than happy having a quiet meal at The Comfy Corner.” Barker stepped back and assessed his shirt and tie in the mirror. “Why did Jessie have to buy me a pink shirt?”
“She knew you’d wear it because you care about her.” Julia dusted along his shoulders. “And teenagers are mean like that.”
“Do I look silly?”
She tilted her head and took the vibrant colour in.
“No.”
“Does it suit me?”
She tilted her head again.
“No.”
“I much prefer your present.” He tugged at the tight collar as though he feared the shirt was growing into his skin. “A box of monogrammed, leather-bound notepads is a writer’s dream. I might need them to scrap and restart my second novel if the publishers hate what I handed in last week. I worked my backside off finishing that first draft, and they haven’t made a peep.”
“When do I get to read it?” Julia fixed her diamond studs in her ears. “Or find out what it’s about, for that matter?”
“When I’m sure it isn’t entirely awful.” Barker sighed as he fiddled with his waxed hair in the mirror. “So, never?”
“I’m sure it’s perfect. If it’s anything like your first book, it’s going to be another runaway smash.” Julia tiptoed and kissed him on the cheek. “Now, enough doubt for today. It’s your birthday!”
“Doubt and worry seem to be my permanent setting since I ditched the police force and dove into writing fulltime.” Barker spritzed aftershave on his neck before helping Julia with her necklace. “Although, I don’t envy DI Christie with this case. Arsenic poisoning is nasty business. It’s almost impossible to trace because it’s so hard to buy. Unless they stumble on a signed confession, they’re going to have a tough time proving how she was fed the lethal dose.”
They slipped into their shoes and joined Jessie, who was waiting by the door, her face buried in her phone. She wore high-waisted blue jeans with a baggy black band t-shirt tucked in. A short, studded leather jacket and wedged
heel boots completed the outfit. It was a simple look she had worn more than once, but seeing her waiting by the door, a handbag slung over her shoulder, made her look so grown-up.
“What are you looking at, cake lady?” Jessie asked without glancing away from her phone. “I can feel your beady eyes staring at me.”
“I just think you look pretty, that’s all,” Julia said as she reached around Jessie to grab her pink pea coat from the hat stand. “Or is that not allowed?”
“Whatever.” Jessie pushed her phone into her pocket and grabbed her keys from the dish on the side table. “I’ll drive. That way, you can both have a drink.”
“I thought you’d want to have a drink, being the eighteen-year-old.” Barker brushed down his shirt. “We could head to a rave after the meal and show off my new shirt. I have a theory that if it gets under a black light, it’s going to glow like a neon sign.”
“When did you get so uncool, Barker?” Jessie rolled her eyes.
“About sixteen hours ago when I ceased to be in my thirties?” he said after checking his watch. “But thanks to your excellent fashion pick, people will see me coming through a fog on a dark night. That’s pretty cool, right?”
Jessie laughed and shook her head as she opened the door. She shooed them out into the night before locking the cottage behind them. They climbed into Jessie’s yellow Mini Cooper, which had been a gift from Barker for Jessie’s eighteenth birthday.
Julia was rarely a passenger in Jessie’s car. Not because Jessie didn’t like driving, but because Jessie loved driving a little too much, and Julia never felt quite safe. No matter how many times Jessie insisted she had passed her test, her knowledge of clutch control, gears, and breaking seemed to contradict the result. Julia and Barker speculated that the driving school only passed Jessie because it was her eighth attempt and they were sick and tired of seeing her.
“Just ease it in!” Barker cried as they attempted to manoeuvre into a space outside The Comfy Corner. “I said, ease! Are you in first?”
“No!” Jessie cried. “Third!”
“Why are you trying to park in third?” Barker yelled back, almost throwing himself into the front seat. “First! You always park in first!”
“I know!” Jessie yanked the gear stick. “Why won’t it move?”
“Clutch!”
“Right.” Jessie put her foot down and put the car into first. “You’re stressing me out! I can do it fine when I’m on my own!”
The car jerked like a rollercoaster as Jessie attempted to fit her Mini into a space that would have been fine for a double-decker bus. She pulled up in the middle of the space in a diagonal line, and instead of straightening it up, she put it into neutral, yanked up the handbrake, and killed the engine. Barker looked like he was going to say something, so Julia rested her hand on his knee and shook her head. Leaving the car where Jessie had decided it belonged, they walked into the restaurant.
The Comfy Corner was the only place in Peridale that deserved to be called a real restaurant. The pub served food, as did Julia’s café during the day, but nowhere else had the homely atmosphere that the owners, Mary and Todd Porter, had created here. Newcomers often likened it to walking into an old friend’s home, which Julia had always thought was an apt description. It was also common knowledge in the village that The Comfy Corner had the best food in Peridale, if not the whole of the Cotswolds.
“Julia!” Mary greeted her with open arms. “You poor dear! Come here. Let me hug you.”
Mary was a curvy woman in her sixties, and, if gossiping were a sport, she would take the gold medal. Nothing got past her, and if you wanted somewhere to have a private conversation, you knew to stay away from The Comfy Corner. Despite being a one-woman rumour mill, she had a heart of gold and would give people the clothes off her back if they asked. She had known her husband, Todd, since childhood, and theirs was often the standard that most relationships in the village were compared to.
“I wanted to rush right over the moment I heard!” Mary pulled Julia in even tighter. “But you know I don’t get away from this place that often. It’s my baby. I did try to call, but the line was dead. Perhaps I have the wrong number?”
“We’ve had issues with the line,” Barker lied. “It should be fixed now.”
“Well, if there’s anything I can do for you, say the word.” Mary pulled away and cupped Julia’s face in her hands. “How about a bottle of wine on the house? The rest of your party are in the snug. I’ll bring through the bottle with some glasses.”
Leaving them to find their table, Mary scurried off to the bar. The restaurant had been a tavern centuries ago, and the snug was a separate room thought to have been a games room. Now, it was where Mary seated parties for privacy away from the rest of the restaurant. Casper and Heather were already seated at one end of the table, deep in conversation.
“Ah, here he is!” Heather clapped her hands together, startling Casper and making him spill a portion of his pint down his front. “The birthday boy! Finally forty! How do you feel?”
“The same.” Barker accepted a hug from Heather. “Should I feel different?”
“You will!” Heather cried as she took her seat. “I adored my forties. They were some of the best years of my life. I really came into being who I am. You spend your twenties lost, your thirties figuring yourself out, and your forties enjoying what you figured out in your thirties. And when you get there, you’re probably going to have a near mental breakdown when you reach your fifties, like your brother did.” Heather nodded at Casper. “But, in your sixties, life will slow down to a lovely pace. We’re both about to enter our seventies, so, in ten years, I’ll let you know how that goes.”
Casper half-stood up, using the table for support. He stared at Barker with narrowed eyes before jiggling his moustache.
“New shirt?” he asked, arching a brow.
“Birthday present off Jessie,” Barker explained, blushing as pink as his shirt. “I’m still trying to figure out how to wear it.”
Jessie gave a small snort while Casper grunted disapprovingly. They all took their seats around the table, with Julia choosing a seat with a view through the door to the rest of the restaurant. She noticed Mary hurrying around the bar with a stack of menus under one arm and a bottle of wine in her other hand.
“There you go!” She placed the wine in the middle of the table before passing out the menus. “We debuted our new festive menu yesterday, so feel free to dig in! I’d recommend the pigs in blankets pie or the turkey stuffing roast, but you can’t go wrong with anything my Todd is cooking. I’ll be back in a moment to take your orders.”
Julia stared blankly at the menu, but her mind was somewhere else entirely. She was thinking about one thing, and one thing only: arsenic. She had spent the whole day doing as much research as possible on the poison, and all she had concluded was that anyone could have slipped Gloria the lethal dose at any point on the morning of the wedding.
“I like the sound of the pigs in blankets pie,” Barker said to Julia, breaking her from her thoughts. “What are you getting?”
“Same.” She put the menu down and pushed forward a smile. “Sounds good to me.”
While Heather and Casper chatted about their plans for a holiday in the new year, Julia drifted back into her thoughts. She wished they had invited a couple more people so her mental absence wouldn’t be as noticeable. She tried her best to smile and nod when there were natural pauses in the conversation.
“This is on me,” Barker announced, “so order whatever you want. I’m getting my second royalty payment next week.”
“I really did enjoy your book, Barker,” Heather said as she scanned the menu. “I couldn’t believe you wrote it! And I mean that with love because it was very good! We talked about it in our book club. I didn’t mention that you were my brother-in-law until after we’d discussed it.”
“And?”
“Everyone loved it!” Heather exclaimed. “Even you read it, didn’t you, C
asper?”
“It was my bathroom book,” he explained before sipping his pint. “You know I like to take my time.”
Mary entered the snug and made her way around the table to take orders. When she was finished, Julia’s mind slipped away again, this time back to her wedding day. She drifted away so much that when she reached out for her glass of wine, she missed completely, the side of her hand grazing against the damp glass. The cold sensation shocked her, and she jerked her hand, sending the glass flying at Barker. The white wine splashed against his pink shirt, darkening the fabric.
“Oh my!” Julia cried as she reached for her napkin. “I’m so sorry!”
Jessie snickered under her breath as Julia flapped at the stain with a tissue.
“It’s fine.” Barker rested his hand on hers and dabbed at it with his napkin. “You’ve somehow made it even pinker. I think I’ll need to dry it in the bathroom. I’ll be right back.”
Barker excused himself from the table, leaving Julia to finish mopping up the spilt wine. Her cheeks heated at her clumsy mistake. She hoped they hadn’t noticed how far away she had been from their conversation.
“Any luck finding the rings?” Heather asked quietly, leaning across the table. “I didn’t want to ask in front of Barker in case it hit a nerve again.”
“For the last time, I didn’t lose them!” Casper announced. “They were in my pocket, and then they weren’t. I had nothing to do with it!”
“I know, I know.” Heather patted him on the shoulder. “Julia?”
“Nothing yet.” She screwed up the napkins and placed them on the end of the table. “I was at the church yesterday morning. I meant to ask Father David, but he seemed lost in a world of his own.”
“They’ll turn up when you least expect it,” Heather said with a definite nod, “and in the place you least expect. Life has a funny way of working like that.”
Barker returned from the bathroom, his shirt somewhat dryer, but still stained. From the determined look on his face, Julia could tell he had something to tell her.
