by Nancy Warren
“Thank you. The thing is, I wasn’t here, and all I know is that she apparently died in her sleep. I don’t even know what was wrong with her. Would there be some kind of coroner’s report?”
He looked at me curiously. "You’ll want to ask your grandmother's doctor for that information. It wouldn't be a police matter." He kept his gaze on my face and I had the feeling that he could see inside my head to the worries I had about those broken glasses.
I tried my best to look inscrutable but I don't think I succeeded very well.
"Do you think your grandmother's death might benefit from further investigation?"
Honestly, I had no idea. Gran could have broken her glasses and bought new ones. But, then, where were the new ones? I didn’t have anything more than a hunch that Gran’s death wasn’t as straightforward as I’d been told. "I'll feel better once I’ve spoken to her doctor.”
Of course, being a woman who prided herself on never getting sick, Gran didn’t have a regular doctor. I had no idea who’d even signed her death certificate.
He nodded and then pulled a business card from his pocket. "If you want to talk about anything, give me a ring."
I read aloud from his business card, "Detective Inspector Ian Chisholm.” Now I understood why he wasn't in uniform. "I really appreciate this."
"All part of the service." His smile was his nicest feature, I discovered, when he treated me to it. Warm, intimate and sexy. Was he flirting? After Toad I had so little faith in men, or in myself, that I couldn’t believe a normal, attractive man might be showing interest in me. “And you are?”
I giggled, foolishly. “I’m Lucy. My grandmother ran Cardinal Woolsey’s just down the street.”
He slowed his pace and we walked together towards the wool shop, Nyx watching from her basket. “I met your grandmother. I went into Cardinal Woolsey’s to buy a gift for my auntie. She’s a champion knitter. Your grandmother helped me choose a pattern and some wool, and, as far as I could tell, Auntie was pleased with my gift. She’s knitting a sweater.”
“That’s nice. Gran was so well known, and did such a wonderful job with the store.”
“Be a shame to see it go. You live in a place like Oxford and think nothing ever changes, but of course it does.”
“Gran wanted me to take over the shop.” I don’t know what made me blurt that out. Perhaps, because I had no one to talk to about my dilemma.
He looked startled. “Aren’t you a bit young for a knitting shop?”
I was pleased he thought so. “Worse, I can’t even knit. I loved my grandmother, though, and the shop meant everything to her. I’m very torn.”
“Well, don’t do anything in haste.” We’d arrived at a somewhat old and battered Mini Cooper. “This is me. As I said, feel free to call me. Anytime.” And, with a final nod, he opened the door and climbed in. I kept walking, thinking I’d met two men in the last couple of days who were more interesting than any I’d met in the last few years.
I unlocked the door and entered Cardinal Woolsey’s. I suppose, had I not been thinking about my recent encounter with the dishy detective, I would have been a bit more perceptive to clues that something strange was going on under my nose.
I closed the door behind me, locking it carefully, then placed the basket on the floor so the cat could jump out. I was about to head upstairs when I noticed a woman standing looking at the baskets of wool.
Her back was to me. She was an older woman with pure white hair, wearing a flowered skirt, a black hand-knit cardigan, and sensible black shoes. I felt a pang of sadness seeing how very much she looked like my grandmother from the back.
But what on earth was she was doing here? How did she get in? I was about to question her when, as though she felt my presence, the woman turned.
If I’d still been carrying the basket, I’d have dropped it, cat and all. As it was, my hand flew to my mouth. I backed up until I banged into the door, staring.
The woman in the shop was my grandmother. Not someone who looked like her, it really was her. “Gran?” I asked, my voice shaking as I stared, fear warring with hope.
She reached toward me, and her face lit with her beautiful smile. “Lucy. My dear, I thought I’d never see you again.”
I rushed forward, feeling tears start to my eyes. When I gripped her hands they were so cold. “Gran. Where have you been? What happened? I don’t understand.”
She looked at me and a puzzled expression crossed her face. “I don’t understand, either, though I feel very peculiar.” She glanced around. “And why is the shop so out of order?”
I rubbed my hands up her arms trying to warm her. Her face was pale, her eyes searching my face. “Gran, you don’t have your glasses on. You can’t see without them.”
She put a hand to her face and blinked as though she was only now noticing that she wasn’t wearing her glasses. “Isn’t that a funny thing? I see you perfectly well.”
“I’m so confused. Miss Watt said you were…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. I couldn’t say the word dead, so I substituted ‘gone.’
“Gone? Where would I have gone? I’ve been so looking forward to your visit.”
As happy as I was to see her, something was terribly wrong. “Did you have some kind of accident? I found your glasses, and they were broken, and I think there was blood on the floor.”
She looked around the shop. “I don’t remember. It’s all so fuzzy. The last thing I recall, I was here, working as usual. Someone came in…” She searched the shop again as though she could bring back her memory by actually looking for it. As her gaze moved around the shelves she said, “What’s the Cashmere Tweed doing where the Cotton Cashmere should be?”
I was about to suggest we go upstairs for a proper chat when I heard noises coming from the back room where Gran offered knitting classes. A woman peered cautiously from behind the curtain and then, seeing the two of us, walked in. I recognized her immediately. She was the woman I’d seen with Gran the day I arrived.
She looked like Helen Mirren, very glamorous in a way that embraced her older years. Her silver hair was stylish, her make-up perfect and she wore the most beautiful hand-knit dress in an intricate pattern. It was wearable art all done in soft greens that matched the faded moss color of her eyes. She also looked annoyed. Her lips were pursed and she said, quite sharply, “Agnes! What are you doing up here?”
My grandmother turned to look at her. “Why Sylvia. Are you early for the meeting?”
The woman shifted her gaze to me. She smiled, a cold smile. “The shop is closed until further notice, I’m afraid. Perhaps you can see yourself out?”
Obviously, I didn’t show myself out. I said, “I’m Agnes’s granddaughter, Lucy.” My mind was jumbling with questions. Strangely, the one that came to the fore was that yet another strange person was wandering about the shop. She’d appeared from the back room, soundlessly. “How did you get in here?”
Her lips folded even tighter. “Oh dear, this is rather a pickle. I have to speak to Rafe,” she said almost to herself. “He’ll know what to do.”
She seemed to think that she was in charge, when the shop belonged to Gran. I wondered how many men in Oxford were called Rafe. “Do you mean Rafe Crosyer?”
Her eyes widened. “You know Rafe?”
“Not well. But we’ve met.”
“Did he explain to you about your grandmother?”
“Explain what?” As I recalled, he’d asked me for information about her death. But there were those strange clues that maybe Gran hadn’t been quite right in her head recently. Had she been put in a home or something? But why say that she was dead?
She ignored my question, shaking her head. “He might not know Agnes is dead. He’s been away.” She gave a tiny gasp and her gaze darted towards me. I felt like saying, “Yep, outside voice.” But I didn’t. I was too shocked. What did this woman mean that my grandmother was dead? She was standing right in front of us, looking as puzzled as I felt.
Wa
s this glamorous older woman a crazy person? Had she been holding my grandmother hostage? Had the two of them escaped from a dementia home? My mind was in such a turmoil I wondered if I had fallen asleep and not noticed. Finally, after we both stared at each other for a good twenty seconds, the woman who called herself Sylvia said, “Agnes and I are going to go in the back of the store for a little while. Rafe will know what to do.”
I shook my head. I’m not a very brave person, but my grandmother looked frail and confused and I love her as much as I love anyone in the world. I was not letting her out of my sight. “Wait. I’m calling him right now.”
“Rafe? You can’t call him now.”
It was the middle of the afternoon on a Wednesday. I couldn’t imagine why not. I told the very bossy Helen Mirren look-alike that Rafe had told me I could call him night or day.
I got my wallet. Instead of pulling out Rafe’s business card, I chose DI Ian Chisholm’s. Let this woman think I was phoning Rafe. It would keep her calm while I called the cops. While I was retrieving my mobile from my bag, Gran and Sylvia spoke quietly in the corner. I have particularly acute hearing, but Gran had obviously forgotten this fact. Her voice was perfectly audible when she sighed and said, “It’s so lovely to see Lucy again. I’ve missed her so much.”
Sylvia scolded, “You cannot show yourself to the living. I know you’re new at this, but there are rules. Nothing but harm can come to us if we break those rules.”
Rules? Did the crazy woman have my grandmother in some kind of cult? My hands fumbled as I punched in the inspector’s number. I didn’t want to alert the crazy person who seemed to have my grandmother in her power to what I was doing. Luckily, he answered right away, “Ian Chisholm.”
“This is Lucy Swift. We met earlier today.”
His voice warmed immediately. “I’m delighted to hear from you. How are things at Cardinal Woolsey’s?”
“That’s why I’m calling you. There’s something going on here that’s worrying me.”
“What is it?” Something in my voice must’ve alerted him to the fact that I wasn’t calling to flirt or ask for a date. I was full-out terrified and I had no idea what to do.
I licked my lips. “I wonder if you could drop by the store?”
“On my way.”
I turned back to the two women still whispering in the corner. I hoped the detective would arrive quickly. I had no idea if Sylvia might be dangerous. Something about her suggested that she could be.
“Was that Rafe?” she asked.
I was about to speak when a deep male voice said, “Did you want me?” And then Rafe walked out from the back of the shop. I blinked, and wondered again if I was dreaming, but my cell phone was still in my hand and when I pinched my arm I felt pain.
He took in the scene at once. “Ah,” he said.
Sylvia turned to him, looking annoyed. “Is that the best you can do? Rafe, this is a disaster. I cannot manage Agnes. She was an insomniac in life and she appears to be one in death. I barely get a wink of sleep worrying she’ll get out of bed and go wandering. Yesterday she actually went outside in the daylight.”
He ignored Sylvia. He was looking at me. And at the phone in my hand. “Whom did you telephone?” he asked. His tone was mild enough, but authoritative. This was a man who was used to having his questions answered promptly and no doubt his orders obeyed. I lifted my chin. “I called the police. I don’t understand what’s going on here but I think my grandmother is in danger.”
Sylvia shrieked. “The police? No. Rafe. Stop her.”
Once more, Rafe ignored her. He came closer to me and held my gaze with his. His eyes were serious and, I thought, sincere. “I know this is going to be very hard for you to understand, and there isn’t much time. For everyone’s sake, I need you to tell the police that you made a mistake. We’ll explain everything to you, but if you bring in outsiders you’ll put us all in danger.”
“In danger of what? I don’t understand. First, everyone said my grandmother was dead, and now here she is as large as life, but she doesn’t remember anything. Something sinister is going on.”
He let out a heavy sigh. “Something terrible did happen here. Look at your grandmother. Look carefully.”
Something about his words made a shiver go down my spine. But the closer I was to my grandmother the safer I could keep her so I followed his instructions. When I was very close to her he reached out and lifted her chin. “Look carefully. What do you see? On her neck?”
There were two very clear puncture wounds on Gran’s neck. “They look like bite marks.” I looked at Gran. “Did a dog bite you?”
It was Rafe who answered. “Not a dog.” Even as Sylvia said, “Rafe, no,” he spoke over her. “Your grandmother was bitten by a vampire.”
Chapter 7
My first impulse was to laugh and so I did. I burst out laughing. Not the humorous hahaha of someone who’s heard a good joke, but the hysterical laughter of someone who will soon be carted away to a place where the walls are padded.
No one laughed with me, and soon my chuckles subsided. Rafe’s eyes never left mine. “I’m sorry. It would’ve been far better if you had never found out. And, of course, you can never tell anyone.”
“Are you serious?” I looked at all three of them. My grandmother didn’t seem at all sure, but the other two nodded, looking extremely serious. Now it came back to me how Rafe always had cold hands, and was unavailable to meet during the day. “Are you two—” I couldn’t finish the sentence. It was too absurd. But they obviously knew where I was going and they both nodded slowly.
“We mean no harm,” Rafe said. “We meet regularly in your shop. Your grandmother has always been very good to us. And now she’s one of us.”
“You meet in the shop? But what do you do here?”
They looked at me as though I’d said something very stupid. Rafe and Sylvia answered together, “We knit.”
I’ve heard it said that among their other powers, vampires can look at you in a certain way and get you to do their bidding. But that’s not why I agreed to keep their secret. I didn’t believe for a second that my grandmother was a vampire. I didn’t believe in vampires. They were creatures of fiction, not personalities who knitted socks and crept along the dark streets of Oxford. But, on the other hand, his warning felt serious to me. If I brought the police in they would investigate. I didn’t know what they would find, but on the wild possibility that it was true and my grandmother were undead, I had to protect her.
Even as I agreed to Rafe’s plan, I wondered if I was as crazy as the rest of them. I had no idea. Sometimes you just go on instinct.
Rafe lifted his head. I have acute hearing, but nowhere near as sharp as his. “He’s coming. Sylvia, Agnes, we must go.”
“Gran!” I hated that she was following them obediently into the back of the shop. She turned, smiled her sweet smile and said, “It’s all right, Lucy. Everything’s going to be all right.”
They headed for the back and I said, “You’d better come back as soon as he’s gone. I want a full explanation.” Rafe paused in the doorway leading to the back. He turned his head and looked at me. “Don’t worry, we’ll be back tonight. Our knitting club meets here every Wednesday at ten.”
Trust me to find myself in the only shop in the world that ran a vampire knitting club.
They had barely left the front of the shop when there was a sharp knock on the door. I tried to pull myself together and push the horror of the last few minutes to the back of my mind. I forced a pleasant smile on my face and opened the door. Ian Chisholm stood there. All signs of the cheerful, mildly flirtatious guy were gone. He said, “Lucy? Are you all right? What’s going on?”
I shook my head, holding onto the smile even though I wanted to tell him everything. He was so clearly alive and human and warm, but I’d promised and, until I knew more, I didn’t dare tell the police this absurd vampire story. “I’m sorry. I’ve been so foolish. Please, come in.”
He e
ntered and glanced rapidly around the shop before shutting the door behind him. He didn’t know me very well. I hated for him to think I was the kind of foolish person who calls the police for no reason, but it was the only plan I had, to let him think I was exactly that foolish.
“I heard strange noises here in the shop, and I thought we had a break-in. But I’m such an idiot.” I laughed in a slightly hysterical way. “It was the cat. I’m not used to having a cat. Well, in fact, I don’t have a cat, as you know, this one seems to be a stray. Anyway, I forgot all about her and then I heard these strange noises and panicked. I thought I’d had a break-in.” Nyx, obediently, poked her head out of a basket of wool on one of the shelves.
As though I’d directed her, she jumped from that basket to a higher shelf and, as she did so, her back paws knocked the basket so its contents tumbled to the floor, hitting knitting needles on the way down that landed on the wooden floor with a clatter.
I dashed over and began picking up the needles and pushing them back into the basket. “You see what I mean? I was upstairs and heard all this noise. I knew I’d locked the shop when I came back from the store and I was convinced someone had broken in. I’m so sorry I bothered you.”
“It’s no bother You can thank me for my time by making me a cup of tea since I had to cut my lunch short.”
I couldn’t pretend I didn’t have tea, since he’d seen me buying it and the milk at the store. I couldn’t think of a reason to get rid of him so I decided the easiest thing was to give him his tea and send him on his way. “Of course. The kitchen is in the flat upstairs.” I picked up my groceries, opened the door and ushered him through.
He was perfectly pleasant, but I felt that he wasn’t, in fact, off duty. It seemed to me, that he was acting very much like a detective, his eyes searching and his brain busy.
I’m no actress at the best of times and I was still in shock, but I did my best to act cool. I made tea and brought it into the living room. We sat side by side on two chintz chairs and he said, “ I found out the name of your grandmother’s doctor, the one who signed the death certificate.”
