by Agatha Frost
Claire paused to gather her thoughts. “Last time I was here, Opal mentioned that Jane still sent postcards, which, given her death, had to be impossible. I thought it was quite a strange thing for her to say.”
“As did I.” Diane sighed and glanced up at the ceiling. “She’s always been the sharpest knife I know, but recently, she’s been saying the oddest things.”
“I heard that Jane was seen driving out of the village in a taxi,” Claire revealed. “Maybe she did get away long enough to send some postcards, and came back later?”
“Perhaps.” Diane returned to the bucket and swished the mop inside. “I asked Opal about it the next day, and she denied ever having said it, which is typical of this recent behaviour. I’m the one who organises the mail and reads the important stuff to her. If postcards had been delivered, I would have seen them.”
“Maybe she was confused,” Claire whispered back, still convinced by the certainty with which Opal had spoken. “How old is she, exactly?”
“One hundred and two last month,” she said, glancing up at the ceiling. “We should all be so lucky.”
Claire smiled, but she wasn’t sure if such a long life was down to luck, a curse, or – according to Ray Bridges – a pact with the devil.
“Start unwrapping the food, dear,” Diane ordered, as she forcefully wrung out the mop. “Opal’s is clearly marked, but the rest is up for grabs. Help yourself to anything.”
Claire unloaded the paper-wrapped cartons from the bag; the one labelled ‘Opal’ was at the very bottom. She put that to one side and set to work unwrapping everything, revealing a large portion of chips soaked in salt and vinegar, two large individually wrapped fish, and two buttered tea cakes.
“Do you always eat alone down here?” Claire asked as she put the paper to one side. “Never with Opal?”
“Mostly, yes.” Diane swished the mop around the kitchen, impressively accurate and not missing a corner or tile. “Opal’s very particular. She likes to eat her dinner alone, facing the window, in silence.”
“And breakfast and lunch.”
“More of the same.” Diane chuckled lightly. “It’s not like it seems, dear. She’s just a very meticulous woman. She likes it how she likes it, and I’m happy to oblige. She’s been good to me over these years. Been like a mother, in some ways. I was only a girl of twenty when I started, and Opal has given me a home ever since.” She put the mop away and looked at all the food. “You’re going to think I’m a right fat sod ordering all this! I always put half to one side to have it again the next afternoon. Growing up, my mother always said I was a greedy little thing.”
“Do we have the same mother?” Claire asked, eager to pick out a chip but not knowing if she should start. “Shall we eat off plates?”
“Why create the washing up?” Diane dove in and plucked out a chip with a naughty little shrug. “Although, I will need to plate up Opal’s on the finest china. That, she insists upon.”
Diane fished out another chip before dusting off her hands and pulling down a stack of plates from a top shelf. Claire tossed a vinegar-soaked chip into her mouth. The salt tingled against her tongue, making her wonder about the first genius who’d decided to deep fry a potato. She owed them a lot.
“Rag pudding, chips, and mushy peas,” Diane explained as she unwrapped Opal’s meal after carefully selecting and polishing a plate. “Same order, every week. Never changes.”
Claire’s father was also a fan of rag puddings. The fleshy sacks of delicate suet pastry weren’t much to look at, but they were filled with beef mince fried with onions and coated in a rich gravy and were actually rather delicious. Claire always stuck to her usual fish and chips order, though, and while Diane hadn’t ordered the curry sauce Claire usually dunked her chips in, she was still enjoying every bite.
Diane slid Opal’s food carefully out of the tray and onto the plate like a magician who had performed the trick every Friday for years. She wiped along the edge with a towel, decanted the gravy from the polystyrene tub into a silver gravy boat, and loaded both onto an ornate tray with sparkling cutlery, a glass, and a sealed bottle of spring water, still dewy from being chilled.
Diane hovered over the tray, staring at her watch as though she could hear some countdown chiming down. After around thirty seconds of silence, she seemed satisfied and scooped up the tray.
“Opal’s very particular about the time,” Diane called out as she hurried to the door. “Six o’clock, on the dot!”
Claire was about to get up to open the door for her, but Diane balanced the tray expertly on her hip, opened the door, slipped out, and closed it behind her before Claire could get out of her seat. Another magician’s trick.
Tearing off a chunk of the batter-covered flaky fish, she looked around the kitchen, feeling like she’d stepped back in time again – and not just because of the décor. Claire wasn’t sure she’d met many people who would be willing to spend their lives serving someone else. Still, from what Claire could see, Diane seemed to enjoy her work – aside from Colin’s presence. Perhaps Opal had a softer side that only Diane got to see? Claire’s imagination struggled to muster such an image.
As she chewed the fish, her gaze wandered to the large window and the path circling the small patch of grass around the large house she could see through it.
A face jumped out at her.
Em seemed to spot her at the same time, and she waved, immediately pointing to the conservatory door. She was with her father, Ray, who was walking Sheeba on a short rope lead. Rather than following behind his daughter, he eased himself onto the closest bench.
“What a lovely surprise!” Em gave her a quick hug when they met at the back door. “What are you doing back here?”
“Diane invited me back for fish and chips.” Claire licked the salt off her thumb. “I think she sensed that I was a bit down and wanted to offer an ear. She’s just gone up to feed your grandmother. Chippy Friday, apparently.”
“Oh, Claire!” Em’s hand rested against her chest, covering the large lily tattoo in the middle. “I’m so sorry to hear that you’ve been down. Would you like to talk about it?”
“I’m fine, honestly.” Claire forced a smile, glancing back at the bag containing the keys and records. “It’s just the shop. I got the keys back today, and I couldn’t bring myself to go inside.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t even feel right to be worrying about such a thing considering what happened.”
“Oh, Claire, I assure you that’s a very normal reaction.” Em smiled and pinched Claire’s cheeks. “You’ll know when you’re ready, and you don’t have to push yourself to do anything you don’t want to do.”
“I think there’s quite a few people out there hoping I just hand the keys back,” she said, glancing down at her shoes. “Agnes Reid seems to think I’m ruining Northash history, and after everything, I’m not sure I disagree.”
“I disagree.” Em clutched Claire’s hands. “I refuse to let my mother’s customers – the same women who have been hounding me for years, might I add –dim your shine! That tearoom has been living on borrowed time for years. There’s a reason it sat empty for so long. It was destined – and it still is! – to become Claire’s Candle Shop!”
“Claire’s Candles,” Claire said with a smile. “My friend Sally came up with it.”
“See!” Em gave Claire’s shoulders a gentle shake. “You’ve already got a name for it. You’ve got this, Claire. You’re going to make a great success of that shop, and all those doubters will eat their words.”
Claire’s smile widened, and she felt instantly less embarrassed about her earlier stalling. After a lifetime of not chasing her dream, it was a little ridiculous that she was once again avoiding it when the key to unlock the future was literally in her bag. If only she had accounted for murder when she’d been dreaming up her candle shop for all those years.
But Em’s positivity brought all her excitement flooding back.
“I’ll face it tomorrow,”
Claire said, feeling lighter already. “Come rain or shine!”
“That’s the spirit!” Em slapped her on the arm before leaning in and whispering, “Speaking of spirits, I can come ‘round and burn sage any time. Just say the word, and I’ll be there.”
“I’ll think about it.” Claire glanced back into the kitchen, and the records poking out of her bag on the chair caught her attention. “Don’t suppose you know anything about these?”
Claire crossed the kitchen and pulled the plastic bag out of her handbag. While Em examined the vinyls through the plastic, Claire scooped up a small pile of chips.
“45s by the looks of them,” Em said, turning them over. “You’ll be too young to remember those. They’re old jazz recordings.”
“They were in the attic with your mother.” Claire accepted the bag back and dumped it in her handbag. “DI Ramsbottom said it’s all they found up there. Was your mother a big jazz fan?”
“Not that I recall.” Em shook her head, waving to her father through the window as he signalled he was leaving. “If I don’t force him to get out and get some fresh air, he just stays cooped up in the house.” She glanced in the direction of the chippy takeaway, but her eyes slid over the food like it wasn’t even there; Claire, on the other hand, couldn’t stop picking up chips. “Have you unlocked any more of this riddle surrounding my mother?”
Claire was about to relay the information DI Ramsbottom had given her about Jane’s cause of death, but she stopped, unsure if it was her place to tell Em such shocking news.
“Claire?” Em prompted, resting a hand on her shoulder. “What is it?”
“I was at the station earlier, and DI Ramsbottom told me your mother’s cause of death,” she said, unable to meet Em’s eyes. “Poison.”
Em backed away, hand lifting to her mouth, and genuine shock rippled across the woman’s usually placid face. Tears lined her lashes immediately, and she didn’t stop them falling.
“I weep for the tortured soul who could poison another human being,” she said, wiping her tears away with her fingers. “Are you sure?”
“According to the autopsy.” Claire wished she hadn’t said anything. “I shouldn’t have told you.”
“No, no.” Em’s smile returned. “They would have spent days trying to chase me down. No phone, and I never sit still for more than five minutes. It’s just . . .”
Her voice trailed off, and she slipped into one of the chairs. To Claire’s surprise, she reached out and grabbed a chip.
“I forgot how good salt tasted,” she said, laughing as she reached for another. “I haven’t had chips in—”
A shrill scream pierced through the air and cut Em off. Abandoning the chips, they ran for the door. The echoes of the scream still bounced around the cavernous entrance hall as they opened the door. They hurried in and found Diane at the top of the stairs, hunched over against the bannister. One hand rested on her stomach and the other on her mouth as tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Diane?” Em called, running up the stairs. “What is it?”
“Oh, sweet Em!” Diane cried, tumbling into Em’s arms. “It’s your grandmother. I’ve been trying to wake her, but she’s not responding. I – I think she’s dead.”
As the words sank in, Claire’s eyes wandered straight to the muddy footprints trailing along the tiles from the kitchen and up the left-hand side of the steep, open staircase.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Even though Sally lived in ‘Upper Northash’, Claire rarely ventured there, although her visits had become more frequent since their recent rebonding.
Sally lived in one of the five large detached houses in the cul-de-sac beyond the top of the park exit. Built in the 1930s, the homes were spacious, with huge bay windows to let in all the light of Northash across the top of the park. Each had a garage, a driveway, and a fenced-off garden. Given the nearness of the park and the police station on the corner, Sally’s neighbourhood made Claire’s parents’ cul-de-sac feel relatively rural in comparison.
“Bloody hell, mate!” Sally exclaimed as she opened the front door. “You don’t half find yourself in it lately!”
“Last time I try to sneak in a chippy behind my mother’s back.” Claire pulled Sally into a hug. “I think I need a drink.”
“Come on.” She opened the door fully and stepped to the side. “I can have the cork out of the red wine before you’re even sat down.”
Claire always felt most grown-up when in Sally’s home. It was decorated beautifully throughout, as modern and stylish as could be. The tones were calming and neutral, the carpets thick and soft, and the furniture all real wood and perfectly proportioned. Nothing stood out; every detail a complement to the thing by its side. It was a level of style so perfect Claire could barely comprehend it.
Rather than going into the sitting room at the back of the house, they went into the spacious dining room at the front. Two long-stemmed wine glasses greeted them, accompanied by a bottle of red wine with the corkscrew already driven into the top.
Claire sat down at her usual corner of the table, putting her handbag on the chair next to her; she was still carrying the records around.
“And I thought I had a bad day,” Sally said, popping the cork. “I had back to back viewings from hell all afternoon. I’ve been dreaming about this since lunchtime.”
Claire only ever drank red wine at Sally’s; it seemed the height of sophistication. Of course, when the grown-up wine came out, so did the grown-up conversations. She was usually happy to listen and nod – and she would tonight – but she was emotionally drained after listening to Diane wail for the past few hours. Claire had come straight to Sally’s after they took Opal Jones away from Starfall – or Oak House, as the deceased had preferred.
“It was marriage counselling today,” Sally said, filling the glasses to the brim, tripling what Hesketh would have poured. “I always feel worse after it. I’m not sure how much dragging up every little past mistake is helping our marriage.”
Claire gulped her wine. Sally often talked about her marriage woes, shattering any illusions Claire once had about her friend’s ‘perfect’ life. The closer she looked, the more exhausting keeping all the plates spinning seemed.
“Do you think you’ll make it through?” Claire asked, sipping more wine.
“The counselling?” Sally peeled back the net curtain and peeped out. “Or the marriage?”
“Both?”
Sally sipped wine as she stared across the circular patch of grass in front of the park’s back entrance. When word of Jane’s death spread around the village, floral tributes had popped up instantly. Claire had yet to see any for Opal.
“I don’t know.” Sally let the curtain fall and sat at the dining room table. “I’m bored of talking about it. I’m bored of hearing my own voice talk about it, and I can see everyone else is getting bored with it too.”
Claire wouldn’t have used the word ‘bored’ – more ‘underqualified’. She was rubbish at talking about relationships, especially the existential questions and complicated issues connected to marriage. Claire could write her entire relationship history on the back of a postage stamp, and none of it had come close to matrimony, much to her mother’s despair.
“It’s this constant game of give and take,” Sally continued when Claire didn’t fill the silence. “Pull and push. And I have no idea what I’m doing.” Sally topped up her glass, which was somehow already half empty. “I never thought marriage would take so much effort! Should it be effort?”
“I really don’t—”
“How did our parents do it?” Sally stared vacantly at the wall; Claire was pretty sure her friend wasn’t even talking to her anymore. “They made it look easy. Well, they did until they divorced when I was fifteen. I don’t think things have been right in my life since.”
Claire could mark the first significant shift in their relationship back to that period. They were always the two girls at the back of the class more interested in t
alking than doing their work. Sally’s parents’ divorce shifted things, and Sally turned things around in time for the final exams, bolting ahead right before the finish line.
Claire, however, limped along in the dust, uninterested in anything school had to offer. From then on, Sally had never stopped sprinting.
Their friendship had ebbed and flowed over the years, but Claire was happy the tide had finally come back in, marriage troubles and all.
“I don’t think they knew what they were doing either.” Claire sipped her wine; like everything else in Sally’s house, it was probably the best money could buy. “We were just too young to notice.”
“I hope so.” She stared into the silky surface of the red liquid. “Ellie and Aria are like sponges right now. Every bad thing I say is fired back at me in stereo. Surely they can pick up on the tension in the air?”
Claire glanced at the carefully staged, professionally shot photographs of Sally with her husband, Paul, and their two daughters, Ellie and Aria. They were the model family in every way – on the surface, at least. Even without Paul there to create sparks with Sally, Claire could feel the tension radiating from her friend from across the table. If this was married life, she didn’t know why everyone was always in such a rush to sign up for it.
“He’s taken them to Pizza Hut,” Sally said after a sharp sip. “It was his idea. I think he likes it when we have a girl’s night. Gives him a night off.”
Claire decided not to say what was on her mind. She got the impression, especially recently, since she’d been visiting more, that Paul didn’t like her. Though she’d known Sally twice as long, Claire knew better than to get between her best friend and her husband, so she pretended not to notice.
“Here I am blabbering about the same old, same old.” Sally sighed and lit the black cherry candle Claire had given her over lunch. “We should be talking about you. You’re the one who is going to need counselling after witnessing all these deaths.”
“I didn’t witness this one,” Claire said, watching the flame take hold of the wick, “and technically, I didn’t witness Jane’s either.”
