Gingerbread and Ghosts

by Agatha Frost

  With a final kiss on Julia’s head, Barker headed for the door, leaving them alone in the kitchen. Jessie finished her toast, still not looking like she had woken up yet. After a slurp of hot tea, she stretched, letting out a long yawn, almost unhinging her jaw.

  “What needs baking?” she asked as she scratched under her arm. “There wasn’t much left in the café after that Christmas market yesterday.”

  “All done,” Julia said, nodding to the fridge. “I pulled out one of my Christmas cakes. It’s been maturing nicely since September.”

  “Ew,” Jessie said with a wrinkled nose as she checked in the fridge. “That’s gross. In that case, I’m going for a long, long shower.”

  With joints as stiff as an old woman, Jessie plodded off to the bathroom, leaving Julia to look over her notes again. She picked up the page she had written about the event at the Christmas market the previous day. As she listened to the sound of running water and Jessie’s out of tune singing, Julia continued to try and figure out why Marcus would leave his inheritance to Poppy.

  Her thoughts were broken when the sound of shattering glass echoed through her silent cottage. At first, she thought Mowgli might have knocked something over in the sitting room until he popped his head out of the bedroom to see where the noise had come from.

  “What was that?” Jessie called from the bathroom. “Are you alright?”

  Leaving her notes, Julia slid off the stool and walked slowly into the sitting room. Her heart sank when she saw the shattered window pane next to her Christmas tree.

  “What the –” she whispered as she bent down to pick up a small rock, a paper note wrapped around it in string like a badly wrapped Christmas gift. “Jessie, stay where you are!”

  With the rock in her hand, Julia hurried to the front door, still in her reindeer pyjamas. She stepped onto her doorstep, the cold stone stinging her feet. Looking up and down the quiet winding lane, she knew whoever had thrown the rock had already vanished. Craning her neck, Julia looked at the missing glass in her window, knowing it must have taken some force to throw the small stone all the way from the other side of the garden wall.

  “What the hell?” Jessie cried from behind Julia, a towel around her chest as she dripped water on the floorboards. “Who did that?”

  Julia closed the front door and nodded to the rock in her hands. She carefully unwrapped the string, letting the stiff paper bounce away from the stone. She turned it over, the giant red letters making her heart sink.

  “‘STAY AWAY’,” Julia read aloud. “‘OR YOU’LL BE NEXT’.”

  “Someone is threatening you?” Jessie cried as her teeth began to chatter. “I’ll kill them! What are we going to do?”

  “We’re going straight to the police,” Julia said, putting the rock and paper on the side table, eager not to add any more fingerprints to it. “This finally proves that someone else is behind all of this.”

  “This doesn’t prove anything,” DS John Christie said as he dropped the note onto the interview table. “It’s too vague.”

  “Too vague?” Julia echoed, stabbing her finger down on the red writing. “It says right there ‘YOU’LL BE NEXT’. Do I need to be dead for this to be serious?”

  DS Christie was a colleague of Barker’s with whom Julia had dealt before during the events surrounding Barker’s birthday the previous month; he had been dismissive of her thoughts then too.

  “It is serious,” DS Christie said as he leaned back in his chair before tugging at the tie around his neck. “But it doesn’t prove that it’s connected to this murder case. You get around, Julia. How many people have you annoyed this year? I bet half the village want to kill you for getting involved in all of the murder cases you have.”

  “And correctly solved,” Julia reminded him with a frown. “And I don’t ‘get involved’ unless there is a reason. My gran is behind bars for something she didn’t do.”

  “She did shoot and kill a man.”

  “But she didn’t know she was going to,” Julia corrected him, joining DS Christie and falling back into her own chair. “And you wonder why I’ve solved so many cases without your help? You can’t look far enough past the end of your nose to see what’s right in front of you.”

  DS Christie stared across the table at Julia, his jaw gritted tightly. She knew she was likely a couple of words away from getting herself locked up in a cell, but she was not sure that she cared much for her own freedom anymore if the person who switched the gun was onto her.

  “I’ll get the boys to look into it,” he said before walking over to the door to hold it open for Julia. “Just stay out of trouble, and call us if anything else happens.”

  Leaving the note behind, Julia walked out of the station and took her phone from her pocket. She pulled up the picture she had taken of the note while she was still at her cottage. She stared at it for the longest time outside the station in the hope she would recognise something about the handwriting, but it seemed to have been intentionally written in indistinguishable block capital letters. Tucking the phone back into her pocket, Julia headed towards her café where Jessie was already working. As she walked past the village green, which was now empty thanks to the Christmas market already having moved on, she looked over at her gran’s empty cottage on the other side. She let out a sigh, guilt consuming her for not having put the pieces together yet.

  “Julia?” a voice cried across the village.

  Julia turned towards the church where Shilpa was running towards her, barely recognisable in a pair of jeans and a loose kaftan shirt instead of her usual ornamental sari. Julia did not need to be right in front of Shilpa to feel the worry radiating from her.

  “What’s wrong?” Julia called as she ran to meet Shilpa halfway across the green, the early morning frost still hard underfoot. “Has something happened?”

  “It’s Jayesh!” Shilpa cried, her hands disappearing up into her hair, her face completely makeup free and her eyes lacking her usual dark eyeliner. “He’s gone!”

  “Gone?” Julia echoed. “What do you mean?”

  “I just checked his room to take him in a cup of tea, and he wasn’t there,” Shilpa cried, her hand resting on her forehead as she looked around the quiet village. “All his clothes are gone, and he’s not answering his phone.”

  Julia joined Shilpa in looking helplessly around the village for a moment as she tried to think logically about what she was hearing.

  “Where have you checked?” Julia asked, resting both hands on Shilpa’s shoulders. “Someone will have seen him.”

  “The village hall is locked up,” Shilpa said, her voice trembling. “I thought he might have gone for an early morning rehearsal. His father is driving around the country lanes looking for him. What if he’s run away and I never see him again?”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Julia said reassuringly as she looked back at her car, which was parked between her café and Shilpa’s post office. “Let’s drive around and look. If it takes all day, it takes all day.”

  Shilpa stared blankly at Julia for a moment as though the words had not sunk in. Julia gave her shoulders a firm squeeze, prompting Shilpa to nod her head. Arm in arm, the two women set off to Julia’s car.

  “Julia?” Jessie called from the bottom of the narrow alley after hefting a black bag into the large bin. “Everything alright?”

  “Jayesh is missing,” Shilpa said as she climbed into the car. “He vanished this morning.”

  “I just saw him,” Jessie said, looking down the country path that ran behind the café. “With Poppy. They just walked down here about ten minutes ago.”

  “They did?” Shilpa cried, half out of the car. “Where were they going?”

  “I dunno,” Jessie said with a shrug. “I was just emptying the mop bucket. They had huge bags though. Looked like they were going somewhere.”

  “Have you checked the train station?” Julia asked over the roof of the car. Shilpa shook her head, prompting them both to quickly jump
into the car.

  12

  Julia gave Jessie a quick wave before reversing out of the alley, her tyres screeching on the icy road. She drove slowly past the police station before immediately speeding up. She took the sharp corners and narrow lanes faster than she had ever dared, even though she did not know for certain they were even heading to the right place. She knew Poppy and Jayesh were planning to run away together; it would be very possible to assume they might never see either of them again, potentially leaving the truth uncovered and trapping Dot behind bars for the years she had left.

  “There’s a train going to Scotland in two minutes,” Shilpa read aloud from her phone. “Jayesh has an old school friend who is at university in Glasgow. Why would he do this?”

  “Maybe they have something to hide?” Julia suggested, pushing her foot down onto the accelerator as they flew over a bump in the road. “Something happened between Marcus and Poppy, and he left his entire inheritance to her. His wife wasn’t too happy about that, so maybe they’re running away from her?”

  They drove in silence until they screeched up in front of the train station at the exact minute the train was due to depart. They jumped out of the car and sprinted through the ticket office to the platform, just at the moment the electronic doors shuddered to a close.

  “Damn!” Shilpa cried as her fists beat down on the door. “We’re too late!”

  Julia ran along the platform, her eyes glued on the windows. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw the back of a redheaded woman reaching up to put her large bag in the overhead compartment. When she was done, she turned around, and Julia’s heart skipped another beat when she locked eyes with Poppy. Behind her, Jayesh was sat at a table, his eyes also glued on Julia.

  “They’re here!” Julia called as she ran back to Shilpa, not wanting to waste another second. “Come on! The train is stopping at Riverswick next. I think we can beat them.”

  They doubled back, sprinting through the ticket office again. The second they were back in the car, Julia sped out of the station, almost hitting a little old lady dragging a shopping cart in the process. When they were back on the road, Julia dug into her memory banks to remember the quickest way to Riverswick village. A shortcut she and Sue used to take on their bikes sprang to mind, forcing her to take a sudden sharp left to cut down an old dirt track running alongside a farm.

  “At least we know they’re safe,” Shilpa cried, her voice shaking as the car bounced along the stony road. “That boy hasn’t been thinking clearly since Poppy came into his life.”

  They took another sharp turn back onto a winding country lane. Julia allowed herself to smile when they zoomed past the black and white ‘Welcome to Riverswick village’ sign jutting out from a bush. When the train station came into view at the end of the road, they shared a quick smile.

  “I think you were a rally driver in a previous life,” Shilpa said, her hands firmly on the dashboard to steady herself as Julia skidded to a halt. “Let’s hope that wasn’t a waste of time.”

  As though fate was smiling down on them, a train eased out of a tunnel and onto the platform as they sprinted to the station, which was even smaller than the one in Peridale. Without even checking that it was the right train, they both jumped on when the nearest doors opened. Shilpa stepped forward to press a button to open the doors to the compartment, but Julia pulled her back.

  “If they see us, they can jump off, and I don’t think we can outrun two teenagers,” Julia whispered. “I need to talk to Poppy to find out the truth, and if that means trapping her on a train, that’s what I need to do.”

  Shilpa nodded her understanding. They stood out of view from the carriage, smiling awkwardly at the conductor when she came out of her cabin. Neither of them moved until the doors closed, and the train shuddered into life.

  “The next stop is Cheltenham at nine-twenty,” a robotic voice announced, letting Julia know they had at least fifteen minutes on the train whether they were on the right one or not.

  Shilpa pressed the button and the internal doors slid open. They walked down the carriage, checking the faces of the passengers in the almost empty train; none of the early morning commuters jumped out at them. Julia gulped as they pressed another set of buttons to take them into another carriage.

  They entered a tunnel, blocking out the outside world. The train shuddered, swaying from side to side as it sped up even more. Shilpa grabbed hold of the back of a chair to steady herself, causing the suited man sitting down to scowl up at her. Julia smiled an apology as she passed. Shilpa suddenly ground to a halt at the moment they burst out of the tunnel, the early morning sun blinding them. Shilpa nudged Julia in the side as she nodded down the carriage to a table.

  “It’s them,” Shilpa whispered over her shoulder. “Let’s move in slowly.”

  As the train rattled from side to side, zooming in and out of another short tunnel, they made their way slowly down the carriage towards the table where Jayesh and Poppy were seated, both looking out of the window as the countryside whizzed past. Without saying a word, Shilpa and Julia took the empty seats next to them, causing them both to spin around.

  “What is wrong with you, boy?” Shilpa cried as she slapped Jayesh around the back of the head. “What do you think you’re playing at? Hm? Running out like that and taking your things. Your father and I were worried sick!”

  “Dammit, Mum!” Jayesh cried, his cheeks darkening. “Why couldn’t you just let us go? I would have called you when we arrived.”

  “In Scotland?” Shilpa cried, slapping him around the back of the head again. “Was I supposed to be okay with my youngest son running away? Was I supposed to be content with a phone call at Diwali and on my birthday? Stupid boy! I raised you better than this.”

  “It was my idea,” Poppy whispered, her voice small as she looked down at her fingers as she chipped off her red nail polish. “I told Jayesh to stay, but he insisted on coming with me.”

  “Because I love you,” Jayesh said, reaching out to grab her hands. “I wouldn’t let you go alone.”

  “By the arms of Shiva, boy!” Shilpa muttered as she planted her face in her hands. “Children do stupid things in the name of love.”

  “I’m nineteen!” Jayesh cried, his brows tensing over his eyes, similar to a look Jessie liked to pull. “And it’s no different than my dad. You ran away because your mum didn’t want you to marry him.”

  “That was different,” Shilpa said. “She wanted me to marry a nice Indian boy, but I’d already fallen in love with your father, and my mother wasn’t going to stand by while I married a man with Gerald Smith for a name! And people wonder why I kept my father’s surname. Shilpa Smith! Sounds like a bad drag queen.”

  “Exactly,” Jayesh said, squeezing Poppy’s hands. “You can’t help who you fall in love with, Mum. I love Poppy, and I wasn’t going to leave her.”

  Poppy looked at Jayesh in the same way she had at him during the Christmas market before Catherine had attacked. Julia could not help but also smile because their love seemed so pure, even if there was a hint of sadness in Poppy’s eyes.

  “Why are you running away, Poppy?” Julia asked calmly, turning in her seat to face the young woman. “It only makes you look like you’ve done something wrong.”

  “But if I stay, I have to live with the stares of people looking at me wondering why Marcus left me everything,” Poppy said. “And it makes it look like I switched the gun, and I swear on my mum’s life that I didn’t.”

  “I wouldn’t blame you if you did,” Julia whispered. “After what he did to you, no one would blame you.”

  Poppy frowned at Julia for a moment before looking at Jayesh who looked just as confused.

  “But he didn’t know,” Poppy said. “Not until I joined the club as part of my college course.”

  “Didn’t know what?” Julia asked, looking at Shilpa who could only offer a shrug. “I saw you in his dressing room. I saw him brush your hair and make you cry. You don’t have to ke
ep his secret. I know it’s difficult to talk about, but if you told people the truth, they’d understand. They’d see he left you his money out of guilt.”

  “It was out of guilt,” Poppy said as she reached into her pocket to pull out a folded-up photograph. “But you’ve got it all wrong. You didn’t see what you think you saw. He was my father.”

  Julia and Shilpa both gasped at the same time as Poppy put the photograph on the table between them. Julia stared down at what appeared to be a cast photograph taken outside the village hall in Peridale. Julia spotted Marcus standing in the middle of the picture, a redheaded woman next to him. For a moment, Julia was confused because the woman looked just like Poppy, but Marcus looked younger. She turned the photograph around, glad to see that someone had dated the picture.

  “‘The cast of ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ – Peridale December 1997’,” Julia read aloud. “Is this your mum?”

  Poppy nodded as she took the photograph from Julia. She stared down at the redheaded woman in the picture, who did not look much older than Poppy was now. Marcus, on the other hand, looked to be in his forties.

  “I never knew who my dad was growing up,” Poppy said, her finger resting on her mother’s face. “She never wanted to talk about it. I knew I wasn’t like the other kids with two parents, but I stopped asking eventually. She’d get upset and angry. I never expected to find my dad. I never went looking for him, and he couldn’t come looking for me because he didn’t know I existed.”

  “Marcus was your father?” Julia asked, the thought still confusing. “When did you find out?”

  “About two weeks ago,” Poppy said, turning the photograph over to read the caption. “I joined the Peridale Amateur Dramatics Society in September as part of my college course. I was only supposed to be working backstage, but I loved every second of it. As the weeks passed, Marcus started acting stranger and stranger around me. He’d lose his temper at me for no reason, and I didn’t understand why he was picking on me. It wasn’t until my mum came to pick me up one day that he figured out who I was. Catherine was smoking a cigarette in front of the church, and Marcus was reading over his lines. Mum would never come in, she’d just pull up long enough for me to jump in. She would never tell me why she left the club, and she tried to stop me from going. I think the only reason she let me was because it was part of my education. She wanted me to have a better start than she had.”