A Valentine's Kill

by Mona Marple

  “What happened to his eye?” Sandy asked.

  “Fox got her. They don’t go out now, the world’s too dangerous for them. They stay here with mummy, don’t you? Yes, you do. Stay here with mummy.” Cherry cooed as she stroked the cat, who purred in appreciation at the attention. Sandy smiled to herself. She wondered if she would end up being a crazy cat lady herself if she remained single.

  “They look very happy,” Sandy said. “I was going to ask if you saw anything unusual the night Dick Jacobs was killed, but I guess from in here you wouldn’t have seen anything?”

  Cherry glanced at the floor and Sandy followed her gaze. Three more cats were eating pink salmon from a large bowl, smacking their lips if such a thing was even possible. “Such noisy eaters. Means you’re enjoying it, babies doesn’t it.”

  Sandy waited, watching the scene with as much interest as she could gather.

  Cherry turned her attention back to Sandy after a few moments of watching her beloved babies eat. “Monday night I watch my soaps. Get home early to sort the babies, they miss mummy all day, give them a love and watch TV in here. Never go in the front, want to see it?”

  The offer surprised Sandy, but she accepted. She knew that keeping one room for special occasions, or grown-ups only, had been a popular idea decades earlier. It was a sad thought to consider that Cherry had decided that half of her home’s living space was only to be used on special occasions she never had.

  She followed Cherry back down the hallway and into the front room, which Cherry unlocked with a key before opening. The room was incredible. A formal dining table with six seats was squeezed into the small room somehow, with place settings for six people, complete with three knives and forks for each person. A chandelier hung above the table, and the window was draped with thick gold curtains and an elaborate lace net curtain.

  “Wow, Cherry, this is amazing,” Sandy admitted.

  Cherry burst with pride. “For dinner parties. My mother always told me a lady is prepared at all times for a dinner party.”

  “And you’re certainly prepared. The dinner parties in here must be wonderful.” Sandy said.

  Cherry’s expression clouded for a moment, then she shook her head and gave Sandy a smile. “They will be.”

  **

  With Dorie’s cottage empty, a For Rent sign standing on the small lawn, and Coral at work at Books and Bakes, there was nowhere else for Sandy to go apart from The Tweed again, to see if Tanya was working.

  She pushed open the door and almost fell into Tom Nelson’s arms.

  “Sandy!” He exclaimed, his cheeks flushed with colour. He had taken hold of her by her waist to stop her barging into him, and for a moment his hands remained on her. Her heart skittered until he removed his hands and stepped to the side to allow her to pass.

  “Sorry, Tom. Always going a million miles an hour, aren’t I?” She said, with a smile.

  He focused his gaze down on the floor and gave an awkward cough. “Aren’t we all? I’m just off out, Tanya’s around.”

  And with that, he was gone.

  Sandy took a deep breath and walked through the bar, where Tanya was drying glasses and hanging them in place above the bar. She greeted Sandy with an easy, uncomplicated smile.

  “Early in the day for you Sandy, everything okay?” Tanya asked.

  “I don’t know,” Sandy admitted, plonking herself down on a bar stool. “I just don’t know.”

  “Wanna tell me all about it? I’ve had plenty drunker than you come in and bare their soul…”

  “No, no, I’m fine,” Sandy said. She shook her head in an attempt to clear her mind, to throw some of the thoughts out of her head. Tanya eyed her with concern. “I came in to talk about Dick Jacobs, I’m trying to see if anyone saw anything unusual when he was killed.”

  “What day was it again?” My memory’s like a sieve, honest, every day feels the same.” Tanya said. She was a bubbly, upbeat woman. Her personality made Sandy think of candyfloss. She was an ideal barmaid.

  “It was Monday, around 6 pm.”

  “I was here,” Tanya said. “Can’t remember anything unusual, I don’t think. Can’t remember anything at all actually! I’d be an awful witness, wouldn’t I?”

  Sandy smiled. She knew what Tanya meant. The days blurred into each other.

  “Okay, well thanks anyway,” Sandy said, and then, unable to resist, she continued talking. “Where was Tom off to?”

  Tanya rolled her eyes. “I don’t know what’s got into that man of yours. Honest.”

  Sandy blushed at the description of Tom as her man. Maybe she wasn’t the only one who had thought their relationship had been romantic, after all. “What do you mean?”

  “Something’s rattled him. I’ve never seen him like it before. I mean, talk about Dick Jacobs, he didn’t help things.”

  “What do you mean?” Sandy asked.

  “Coming in here threatening to close us down, saying we’re a noise nuisance or something rubbish like that. That was Monday actually, I think. Yeah, yeah, it was. Tom went after him to see what he meant because Dick Jacobs always says - said - he’s got complaints but won’t tell you who made them, so Tom went to see who made the complaint. Never found him. And we know why, don’t we, someone had killed him. Nasty little man but he didn’t deserve that.”

  “You’re saying that he threatened to close The Tweed on the day he was killed?” Sandy asked as a chill ran through her body.

  “Exactly. And Tom’s never been the same since.” Tanya said. “Sort him out, eh, Sand. Have a word with him?”

  Sandy tried to smile but her head was swimming with thoughts she didn’t want to acknowledge. Silently, she stood up and turned from the bar.

  “We need to talk,” Coral said, standing by the pub door.

  11

  “How did you know where I was?” Sandy asked as Coral lead her out of The Tweed and into the street, where the rain had slowed a little.

  “I thought I’d go for a walk at lunch and I saw you come in here, thought maybe we could have lunch together,” Coral said. She crossed the road in front of the pub and walked past the library.

  “Where are we going?” Sandy asked.

  “To mine,” Coral said. Her footsteps were heavy and aggressive. She was in a foul mood. Sandy enjoyed the chance to have something to focus on instead of Tanya’s words.

  She followed Coral to her cottage and into the modern kitchen, and took a seat. Coral paced in front of her, biting a fingernail.

  “What’s wrong, sis?” Sandy asked. Coral didn’t lose her cool often, but when she did, she was completely unable to hide it. If Coral was unhappy, the entire world knew about it. She was keen on typing angry rants on her Facebook profile when someone annoyed her. Sandy always pretended she hadn’t seen them.

  “What’s wrong? You’re dating a murderer, that’s what’s wrong!” Coral said. The colour drained from Sandy’s face.

  “What! No, I’m not. I’m not even dating anyone but if you mean Tom, he didn’t do it.”

  “I heard what Tanya told you. I can’t believe you’re making excuses for him.” Coral said, and Sandy saw that her eyes were filled with tears. She wasn’t angry, she was upset. It was more serious than she had thought.

  “Coral, I know him. He would never kill someone.” Sandy said although a voice inside her questioned whether she knew him at all. She tried to silence that voice. Tom had been nothing but kind and respectful to her. Weren’t most killers charming, the voice asked. She groaned.

  “You barely know him at all. You’ve been dating a little, he could pretend to be anyone in that time. We’ve both known him for years and yet hardly know him at all, isn’t that strange?”

  “Not really,” Sandy said. “He’s just shy. Keeps himself to himself.”

  “You have to give this information to the police,” Coral said. Her pacing had intensified in speed. Sandy worried that she might make grooves in the expensive flooring.

  “The police hav
e already spoken to everyone. If they suspected Tom, they’d have questioned him, or arrested him.”

  “I’m done with this game of you playing police, Sandy. It’s too dangerous. You need to tell the police what you know, or I will.” Coral threatened. Sandy shook her head, stood up from the seat and pulled Coral into a hug.

  “I’m being safe.” She whispered. “I promise I am.”

  “No,” Coral said. She pulled away from the hug and shook her head. “You’re not changing my mind on this. The police need to be left to do this. Just leave it alone, please?”

  Sandy gazed at her sister, at the face she knew so well, and saw the fear written over it. “Fine. I’ll leave this one to the police.”

  Her words made Coral burst into tears and crash into Sandy’s arms. “Thank you, thank you. I can’t lose you too. I can’t lose you too.”

  The reference to their parents brought a lump to Sandy’s throat and she allowed herself to cry. They had experienced too much loss in their short lives. She couldn’t do anything to risk Coral being left alone.

  **

  They walked back to Books and Bakes hand in hand, each exhausted in that way that only comes from sharing high emotions. When Coral had stopped crying, they had sat together in the kitchen, laughing self-consciously until the puffy redness around her eyes reduced a little. Sandy felt like a school child who had been playing hooky as she walked across the village green with her sister.

  To Sandy’s surprise, when she pushed open the door, Bernice was serving customers.

  “What are you doing out here?” Sandy asked. Bernice had been a permanent fixture in the kitchen over recent weeks, either baking or washing pots.

  “Boy wonder’s taken his job back,” Bernice said with a grin.

  The curtain that separated the kitchen from the counter opened and Derrick appeared, an enormous smile plastered across his face.

  “Are you well enough to be down here?” Sandy asked.

  “Good as new!” He said, and took a dramatic spin behind the counter. He seemed to be pain-free, his movements back to being smooth and easy.

  “I’m so happy for you!” Sandy exclaimed.

  “Me too,” Bernice admitted. “Nice to see the front of house again.”

  “I couldn’t have taken a lunch break otherwise, didn’t you realise that?” Coral asked.

  Sandy laughed. “No… I didn’t. Must have had other things on my mind.”

  Coral gave her hand a squeeze.

  “I guess that means I’m needed upstairs?” Sandy asked. If Derrick was back in the kitchen, the till upstairs in the bookshop was unmanned.

  “It sure does,” Derrick said. “I never want to sit down again.”

  “Fair enough,” Sandy said with a laugh, and walked through the cafe and up the stairs to her beloved books. A few people were browsing through the aisles, and Derrick had made a ‘Please Use The Cafe Till’ sign and taken the cash drawer out of the till. Sandy removed the sign and found the cash drawer locked away in the storage room and set it up for use.

  Being sat at the counter there, surrounded by books she had amassed herself over a period of years, she felt a calm return to her. Coral’s words attempted to break through the peace in her mind but she refused to allow them.

  Instead, she grabbed a small box of new stock and carried it out to the counter. She would add them all to the stock catalogue with the handheld scanner while manning the till. The box had been brought in by a young, nervous-looking couple a few days before. Unwanted Christmas presents they had added to their shelves year and year for fear of offending the people who had bought them, they explained. A house move further away from relatives had given them the courage to get rid of the 30-odd brand new books.

  “What do you like to read?” Sandy had asked them, curious about their real reading preferences that family appeared to be so ignorant of. The couple had looked at each other and blushed, and for an awkward several seconds neither of them answered.

  “We don’t like to read.” The man had explained. The woman nodded furiously beside him.

  “Had to buy a bookshelf for these.” The woman added. “Put it up in the living room.”

  “Do you think that might have made your family think you really liked… erm…” Sandy said, peering into the box to see what the books were. “Er… decoupage?”

  The woman gasped and covered her mouth. “Well, I never! I never thought of that! Did you, Graham? Did you think that?”

  “I never.” The man said, his mouth gaping open.

  Sandy had offered the couple £20, a ridiculously low price for so many brand new books on a specialist interest, and they had readily accepted. They were clearly desperate to rid themselves and move on into a book-free chapter of their lives. Sandy had never had a single request for a decoupage book, so was doubtful about whether they would sell, but it was hard to predict what would take a person’s fancy.

  She scanned them and found a half-empty shelf in the crafts section, where she made them fit.

  Then, she sold two books about Yorkshire Terrier dogs to a woman who looked like one herself, complete with a top knot in her hair finished with a bow.

  And then she sold three books on fiction writing to a man in a top hat, who didn’t say a single word to her during the transaction.

  And she sold a single book on military tanks to a man with a ruddy complexion who asked if there was any movement on the price. That question was the one that annoyed her most. It suggested that her pricing structure was plucked out of the air and she always refused to reduce a book’s price.

  To Sandy, books were precious. One of life’s greatest joys and treasures. If she priced her books as low as some customers would like, she’d go out of business, and then where would her customers buy books from? So, she stood her ground and insisted that the price wouldn’t be reduced. Most people paid the full price when they saw her determination and Sandy had decided that some people just loved to haggle and try and get a bargain.

  The ruddy-faced man huffed and puffed a little but presented a crisp £20 note to pay for the modestly priced £2.99 book. Sandy gave him a winning smile and counted out his change.

  She returned to the storage room then to get another box of new stock to catalogue, but saw that there were no boxes in the room. There was no new stock.

  She took out her notepad and made a note to remind her to find more stock. Some of the shelves were looking a little empty. Customers were buying books quicker than she was adding to the selection. A good problem to have.

  Coral’s warning about Tom flashed through her mind suddenly, causing her heart to sink. Could her sister be right? Could gentle, sweet Tom Nelson have killed Dick Jacobs? And if he had, what did that mean about Sandy and her ability to judge a person’s character, something she had always prided herself on being able to do both fast and with accuracy.

  She groaned and pressed her thumbs into her temples, pushing the thought and the awful questions from her mind.

  For the afternoon, she would focus on her books, her business, her wonderful team of friends downstairs who allowed her to dash off and investigate murders while they dealt with customers and cakes and chaos. She would think only of the good things in her life.

  For the afternoon.

  Difficult decisions could wait for another day.

  12

  Sandy gave in after a sleepless night and got up and took a quick shower, turning the water to the highest temperature she could stand and forcing herself to stand under the heat until her body was almost numb. She towel-dried her body and gave her hair a quick dry with the hairdryer, then forced it into a bun and dressed in black leggings and a long black t-shirt.

  Having pulled on black knee boots and her yellow mac, she left the cottage, emerging into a still-dark world of silence. She climbed into her creaky old Land Rover and turned on the engine, then drove the short distance to Books and Bakes.

  Sandy turned the radio off in the car as the thoughts in h
er head were deafening on their own, and focused on how the headlights threw light on the dark road. The way her investigation had been designed to throw light on the unknown.

  Now, she had learned that switching on a light came with a risk that the things hiding in the darkness may be things she didn’t want to see. Thoughts she didn’t want to think. Possibilities she didn’t want to consider.

  There was only one thing to do when she was this anxious.

  Bake.

  She let herself into Books and Bakes, switched on the lights and locked the door behind her.

  She knew what she needed to bake.

  She walked into the kitchen and collected the ingredients, then pulled from her handbag the two large bananas she had brought out with her from her fruit bowl at home.

  In a large saucepan, she mixed sugar, corn flour, salt, and milk. She mixed for longer than was needed, past the point of the ingredients being smooth, enjoying the task to focus on and the memories it resurfaced for her. Then she cooked the mix over a heat until it became thickened and bubbly before she reduced the heat and continued to cook for two minutes.

  She had prepared this recipe so many times over the years that she knew how long was enough with no timer to run down those two minutes for her.

  In a separate bowl, she cracked two eggs and beat them, then added a little of the hot mixture to them before returning it all to the pan, where she brought the mixture to a slow, gentle boil, which she continued to cook for two more minutes as she stirred it.

  She removed the mix from the heat then and stirred in butter and vanilla extract, creating a custard, which she transferred into a bowl, covered with clingfilm and placed in the fridge. Then she pulled out a ready-made pastry case from the cupboard and placed it in the oven to bake at a low temperature.

  She had thirty minutes to wait for the mixture to refrigerate, and a lifetime’s thoughts to keep her busy.

  Not wanting to face any of them, she returned out front, made herself a large mug of mocha, and took a seat in the cafe, where she forced herself to focus on the smell of the vanilla from the kitchen until she was lost in the memories.