by Agatha Frost
Julia walked through to the sitting room and was immediately startled to see her gran on the ground, crammed between the television and the coffee table. For a moment, she thought she might have fallen, until she saw her gran’s leg shoot up in the air as she lay on her side, her eyes glued to the black and white screen.
“Gran,” Julia announced herself. “Are you – okay?”
“Get down here and join me,” Dot panted. “It’s a Jane Fonda. Found it in a box of tapes in the attic. Still works.”
As though to prove otherwise, the videotape crackled, sending wobbly lines up and down the screen. Julia had offered to buy her gran a newer TV on more than one occasion, but Dot didn’t see the point. Julia noticed the smart watch flashing her heart rate on her wrist, and she let out a small laugh at her gran’s hypocrisy. She was sure if her gran somehow started a television club, she would want the biggest and latest model.
“Why is it on mute?”
“Can’t stand the woman’s voice,” Dot exclaimed as she stood up and started to jump side to side, copying the women on the screen, who looked like they were wearing clothes of a similar neon hue to her gran’s, even though they were in black and white. “You know how I feel about American accents, love. Like nails down a chalkboard. What’s that?”
Dot stopped to wipe the sweat from her face with a bright green towel as she glared down at the cake. With everything else that had been going on, Julia had forgotten all about her gran’s new healthy living obsession, or she had at least subconsciously hoped she would have been bored of it by now.
“It’s a salad,” Julia said hopefully. “It’s just trapped inside a chocolate cake. You can only get to it by eating the outside first.”
“I’ll get one plate,” Dot said coolly as she shuffled past Julia towards the kitchen. “I’ll have a single bite of yours. I thought I told you not to bring contaminants into my house?”
Julia put the cake box on top of a copy of Senior Fitness Weekly and picked up the remote control to pause the video. Jane stopped mid jumping jack, her arms and legs floating in the air behind the crackly static.
“Where are the rest of the girls?” Julia asked when Dot returned with the single plate and two forks. “Isn’t the whole point of a club to do something with other people?”
“They’re too weak,” Dot said bitterly, her wrinkled lips pursing tightly. “They can’t keep up with me!”
“Don’t you think you might be being a bit hard on them? Not everybody has your – how shall I put this – zest for life?”
“Somebody has to be hard on those old biddies, or else we all rot and die! You need to stay sharp and active, especially at my age, Julia. You should watch that documentary I told you about. It will make you see things very differently.”
Julia was sure it would, but getting fit and losing weight were the last things on her mind. She pulled the cake out of the box and instead of cutting a slice, she dropped it onto the plate and started digging from the middle.
“I suppose you heard of the murder outside of Barker’s cottage?” Julia asked through a mouthful of the milky cake.
“Emily Burns called first thing this morning when she saw all of the police. I went to the café the second it opened and Jessie – well, she told me what happened between you and Barker, so I thought you might like some time alone. I knew you’d come when you were ready.”
“That’s what I’m hoping happens with Barker,” Julia said, glancing at the clock as it ticked past three in the afternoon. “He said I couldn’t help sticking my nose into things.”
“He’s not wrong,” Dot murmured as she dug her fork into the middle of the cake. “The difference is, you’re not an idle gossip. You only stick your nose into the worthy causes. I don’t doubt that whatever you did was because you thought it was the right thing to do.”
“I did, at the time.”
“Then that’s all that matters.”
“How do you know if somebody is keeping something from you?” Julia asked as she stared down at the cake on the end of her fork. “I don’t think I know Barker as well as I want to believe that I do.”
“Why do you say that?”
“The way he reacted this morning, it felt like something more. He told me not to go digging in his past, but I only went looking for something based on what he had said to me.”
“What did you do?”
Before Julia could answer, she was interrupted by the roaring sound of a lawn mower engine starting up. She looked out of the window to the village green, expecting to see somebody trimming the neat grass, but there was nobody there.
“I’ve got a gardener in the back,” Dot explained. “I’ve let it get out of hand. So, what did you do?”
Julia tried to think of what she had done, but the spluttering of the lawn mower working through the long grass was too distracting. She crammed the chocolate cake into her mouth, her brows furrowing tightly.
“I thought you fired your garden guy for accidentally cutting the heads off your tulips?”
“I got someone new,” Dot said, waving a hand dismissively. “Evelyn recommended him. Does it matter?”
“No,” Julia said with a shake of her head. “I thought you didn’t like Evelyn? I thought she was too ‘wacky’ for you?”
“Oh, she is. When she caught me looking at the ads in the post office window, she said she foresaw that I needed help. What a load of old codswallop! If that woman has the sight, then she needs her eyes tested. The man she recommended was charging a fair price, and quite frankly, I’m on a budget after buying this gizmo on my wrist.”
Julia crammed another forkful of cake into her mouth, unable to shake the uneasy feeling in her stomach. Instead of ruminating, or asking her gran more questions, she ditched the fork and the cake, and walked through to the dining room, where she saw Jeffrey Taylor forcing a lawn mower through the overgrown grass.
“Julia? What has gotten into you?” Dot cried as she chased after her. “It’s all that sugar and fat in the cake! It’s pushing you over the edge!”
“I'm all right, Gran,” Julia insisted, shaking her gran’s hands off her. “Your new gardener is the reason Barker is mad at me.”
“Julia, please tell me you didn’t -,”
“Gran!” Julia cried, cutting her off before she could finish her sentence. “Barker knows Jeffrey. He sent him to prison.”
“Jeffrey sent Barker to prison?”
“Barker sent Jeffrey to prison,” Julia said with a sigh. “He was sentenced to life on a serial murder charge.”
“There’s a murderer in my garden?” Dot muttered, her hand clasping over her mouth. “Call the police! Call the army! Call somebody! He’s in possession of a dangerous weapon right this second! Do you know how fast those blades travel? Fast enough to chop off my poor head!”
“Calm down, Gran,” Julia said, grabbing her by the shoulders to give her a good shake. “He was released because they found that he had been wrongly convicted.”
“So he’s innocent?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe isn’t good enough, my dear!”
“In the eyes of the courts, he is,” Julia said, narrowing her eyes on Jeffrey as he rammed the lawn mower over a tough patch of grass. “I’m not so sure. He makes me feel uneasy.”
“Why is he in Peridale, anyway?”
“Starting a new life, apparently,” Julia whispered as her gran joined her to stare out of the window. “That’s what Evelyn said.”
“Evelyn talks a lot of tosh! She probably foresaw it and skipped asking him,” Dot snapped with a roll of her eyes. “Oh, it’s quite exciting though, isn’t it? A convicted serial killer here in Peridale? Certainly beats any other gossip I’ve heard this week. Well, aside from the murder, of course. Do you think he was the one who bashed Jim’s head in with the rock?”
“Gran!”
“What?” Dot cried, waving her hands in the air. “You young ‘uns are too sensitive. Can’t call a spade a spade t
hese days without you getting on your FaceTweet and SnapBook, or whatever they’re called. Not everything needs a petition you know, sweetheart! I’m going to make him a cup of tea. He might have some juicy prison stories.”
Dot hurried off to the kitchen, leaving Julia to watch him work. He pushed the mower towards the end of the garden, the spluttering noise growing further away. When he reached the bottom of the long stretch of grass, he pulled his grey, sweat-stained T-shirt over his head to wipe down his face. In the jumble of dark tattoos covering the length and breadth of his body, a skull and crossbones between his shoulder blades jumped out at her, sending a shiver down her spine. She stared into the shadowy, soulless eyes of the inked drawing, unable to look away. Through the heat lines of the afternoon, she was sure she saw its mouth smirking at her.
Jeffrey suddenly looked over his shoulder, his icy blue eyes piercing across the garden and staring deep into Julia’s, as though he had known she had been standing there watching him the entire time. She took a step back into the darkness of the dining room, turning her attention to the kitchen while her gran poured milk into a cup of tea.
“I’ll take that out,” Julia said, putting her hands on the cup.
“You will not!”
Julia firmly pulled the cup from out of her gran’s hands and hurried out of the open back door, closing it behind her. She glanced through the kitchen window, where her gran was glaring at her with her mouth ajar. Julia had more important things to extract from the mysterious newcomer than prison stories.
“I’ve brought you a cup of tea,” Julia said, applying her friendliest smile. “Thought you might be thirsty.”
Jeffrey took the cup from her, ignoring the handle and grabbing it around the middle as though it wasn’t hot. Without blowing, he took a deep gulp of the tea, finishing half of it in one go. He tossed the other half into the grass before passing the cup back to Julia. She stared down at the dregs of sugar at the bottom of the cup, unsure of what to say.
“We met yesterday,” Julia offered, smiling even wider. “Remember? At Evelyn’s?”
“I remember,” he replied flatly.
“I didn’t realise you were a gardener.”
“I’m not.”
“Oh,” Julia mumbled, her smile wavering. “Well, you’re doing a great job. I hope my gran is paying you well. You have to be pretty fit to push a mower through this grass. I’m sure it grows twice as thick as the rest of the grass in Peridale, but I’m sure you’re more than fit enough, what with your running.”
Jeffrey’s expression didn’t waver, his piercing eyes not looking away from hers. She was sure she hadn’t seen him blink yet. She waited for him to speak, but nothing left his lips.
“My gran is suddenly into fitness. I’m thinking of joining her for a jog, but I never know where to go. Where do you go running?”
Julia almost wanted to take the words back. It was painfully obvious that her embarrassing attempt to extract information from the man wasn’t going to work. When she finally noticed him blink, she eased a little.
“Around,” he said. “I should get on with this.”
“Of course,” Julia said with a nod, almost glad of a reason to step back. “Good luck with the rest of it.”
She turned around and hurried back to the cottage, her face scrunched up in humiliation. She almost wished she had just let her gran take out the tea to badger him about his time in prison. Before both of her encounters with Jeffrey, she had gone in with a clear idea of what she had wanted to find out, but he was so peculiar, it scrambled her brain and turned her into a nervous wreck.
“I know who you are,” he called across the garden, stopping her dead in her tracks.
“I’m sorry?” she replied, turning around.
“I know who you are,” he repeated as he rubbed his T-shirt across his tattooed chest. “You’re Brown’s girlfriend.”
Julia’s heart stopped, and her cheeks burned brighter than they ever had before. She opened her mouth to defend herself, but no words rolled off her tongue. She felt like she stood there for hours, staring wide-eyed across the garden at the tattooed stranger, unable to form a single sentence in her mind. It wasn’t until he turned and continued mowing the grass that she summoned the strength to run back into her gran’s cottage.
“Well?” Dot demanded. “What did he say?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” Dot cried. “You’re useless, my dear! Nobody knows about our new criminal resident yet, and I want first dibs on the gossip. Give me that cup. I’m trying again!”
Julia handed over the cup and walked through to the sitting room to grab the rest of her chocolate cake. She looked down at it, but it just reminded her too much of Barker, so she left it behind. She knew it would probably find its way into her gran’s bin, but she had no other use for it right now.
Leaving her gran to badger the gardener, she stepped out into the daylight. She looked across the village green, considering helping Jessie close the café for the day, but the thought of having to face the people who had heard she was the one who had found Jim’s body put her off. Instead, she headed off to the station to give her statement, knowing the sooner she could put the whole event behind her, the better.
Chapter 7
After a long and chaotic shift at the café, Julia was more than pleased to see Barker sitting on her garden wall when she pulled up outside her cottage. She could barely contain her smile as she climbed out of the car.
“I’ll leave you two to it,” Jessie mumbled, pulling her house keys from her pocket. “Try not to bite each other’s heads off again.”
Barker chuckled softly and dropped his head. When he looked up and met Julia’s eyes, she knew everything was going to be okay between them. She looked down at the plaster on her hand where she had almost sliced off a finger cutting a slice of toast because she hadn’t been able to concentrate all day.
“I was just sitting in The Plough staring into a pint, wondering why I wasn’t here with you,” he whispered, reaching out and grabbing Julia’s hand. “I owe you an apology.”
“So do I.”
“You were just trying to help,” he said with a quick wink. “I should never have talked to you like I did. To say the last couple of days have been stressful is an understatement.”
“Do you want to come inside? There’s a slice of chocolate cake with your name on it.”
“I was wondering if you wanted to come with me to the Fern Moore Estate?” Barker asked as he pushed away from the wall. “DS Forbes kindly informed me that Billy Matthews was caught trying to sell a phone he claimed to have found in a bush. I’ll give you one guess to figure out whose phone it was.”
“Jim’s?”
“Bingo.”
“They arrested him? Is it safe to talk to him now?” Julia asked cautiously. “I don’t want you to get in any more trouble.”
“At this rate, I’ll be lucky to get my job back now. Jim was the only person who was really in my corner. I owe it to him to at least try and piece this together.”
Julia didn’t need to hear any more. In minutes, they were driving out of the village and towards Fern Moore. She turned to Barker and couldn’t help but smile. They might have only been giving each other the silent treatment for one day, but it only confirmed the love she felt for him even more. There was nowhere she would rather be than by his side.
Fern Moore Estate was just outside of Peridale, but very separate. If you asked any villagers if Fern Moore was part of Peridale, they would deny it until they were blue in the face. The estate had always had a troublesome reputation. As a teenager, Julia and her school friends were advised to stay away if they didn’t want to get into any fights. As an adult, she drove past it on the A roads, happy to look in the other direction. Their search for Billy Matthews was her first official visit to the area.
The estate consisted of two large U-shaped buildings looking over two courtyards, which had been built in the early 1980s and housed hundred
s of families in small flats. External walkways ran along the fronts of the flats, acting as makeshift balconies. The courtyards appeared to be a meeting place for the residents, not unlike Peridale’s village green. Instead of regularly trimmed pristine grass, Fern Moore’s common area housed an out-of-date, vandalised, and graffiti-covered children’s play-park, which didn’t look safe for any child to be playing on. Julia wasn’t surprised to see the gate padlocked, and the park empty and full of beer cans.
“Billy Matthews is up there,” Barker whispered, pointing to a flat at the end of one of the walkways on the second floor. “Let’s not stick around too long.”
Julia nodded and hurried to keep up with Barker as they walked towards a narrow stairway, passing a lift that looked like it hadn’t been in use for years. Just like the park, graffiti covered so much of the stairwell that it was almost impossible to recognise the original wall colour underneath.
Their heels clicked on the concrete walkway as they passed all of the flats, each of them with a single-paned window and a blue front door, which didn’t look much thicker than plywood. Julia heard snippets of conversations, arguments, and television programmes as they rushed towards the last flat, neither of them wanting to linger for too long. Some of the flats looked more well kept than others, with clean curtains in the windows, and flower baskets decorating the frontage, but most looked as rundown as the dated complex felt. Julia loved her wide-open countryside too much to imagine ever living in such a confined space.
“I’m here so often they should cut me a key,” Barker mumbled as he rapped his knuckles loudly on the door. “Billy Matthews wouldn’t know how to stay out of trouble if his life depended on it.”
A woman screeched behind the door, her voice seeming to bounce and echo into every corner of the estate. The door cracked open, a chain stopping it from opening more than a couple of inches. A cloud of cigarette smoke greeted them, and Julia tried her best not to cough. When it cleared, they saw the squinting face of a woman in her late-thirties, clutching a cigarette between her lips, smoking it hands-free while she balanced a white-haired toddler on her hip. The woman was wearing a stained nightgown, which Julia guessed she had been wearing since that morning, rather than having just changed into it.
