by Agatha Frost
Julia almost called out again, but she stopped herself. She walked through the open double doors to the dining room. The broken window caught Julia’s attention, as did the almost complete lack of glass on the table underneath it.
Holding her breath, she turned, wanting to run straight for the street, but an open door leading off from the dining room caught her attention. Through the shadows, she noticed a figure sitting in a chair. A relieved sigh left her lips and she relaxed for a moment. Squinting into the dark, it looked like whoever was in there was hunched over the desk writing something in the dark.
Julia pushed on the door, and it opened slowly. A strip of moonlight shone from the smashed window, illuminating the room. Even without the light, she had recognised Gertrude’s tightly roller set hair, but she hadn’t spotted something large and sharp jutting out from between Gertrude’s shoulder blades.
Julia inhaled deeper than she thought she could as the moonlight glittered against the tiny part of the knife that hadn’t been sunk into Gertrude’s flesh. Her eyes flitted to Gertrude’s glossy wide eyes and her slightly ajar mouth. Gertrude was still clutching a pen in her pale fingers. Julia attempted to scream, but no sound left her trembling lips.
Knowing there was nothing she could do for Gertrude, Julia ran back through the cottage and into the safety of the streetlight.
“I need the police,” Julia said frantically into her phone as she choked back the tears. “There’s been a murder.”
Dot’s cottage was one of the few constants threading through Julia’s life. It had been there for the little girl who had struggled with the death of her mother, and it had been there for that same girl when she was in her thirties and her marriage had broken down. Julia appreciated her Gran’s opposition to change. Dot still had the same eleven-inch black and white television she had always had, the same floral sofa she refused to replace, and the same collection of ceramic cats, which Dot dusted every day, looking out from her mantelpiece.
Julia moved the beef around the gravy on her plate, and wondered why for the first time in her life the cottage wasn’t providing that same safety and comfort.
“You need to eat something, love,” Dot said calmly, resting her hand on Julia’s. “You need to keep your strength up.”
“I can’t stop thinking about that knife,” Julia said. “It was so big.”
“That poor woman,” Sue said, who also appeared to be struggling to eat. “You’d be pushed to find anybody who liked her, but that’s no way to die.”
“You reap what you sow in this life,” Dot said, tapping her finger on the wood. “Let this be a lesson to all of us. Gertrude was a nasty piece of work, I’m just surprised it’s taken this long for somebody to do her in.”
Julia and Sue both looked wide-eyed at each other, before turning to their Gran, who pursed her lips without apology.
“Let’s not pretend she wasn’t the woman who wrote those nasty things about your café, Julia!” Dot stabbed her finger down on the piece of paper on the table. “Utter rubbish!”
There was a knock at the door. Glad of the distraction, Julia jumped up and hurried down the dark hallway. She passed a mirror and her pale complexion caught her attention. She was sure the colour would never return to her cheeks.
Inhaling deeply, she opened the door. A tall man loomed in the doorway, facing out towards the village green. Julia cleared her throat and the man spun around. It took Julia a second to recognise the man as her new neighbour, Barker Brown. He had swapped his faded jeans and white t-shirt for a well-fitting suit and a beige overcoat, which was turned up at the collar. His face was just as handsome.
Barker frowned down at her, with the same amused smirk from earlier in the day.
“Julia South?” Barker asked, checking a notepad in his hands, as though he hadn’t remembered her name from their first conversation.
“Yes?”
“Detective Inspector Brown.” He reached out his hand, a dark twinkle in his eyes. “I hear you discovered the body of a Mrs. Gertrude Smith. May I come in and ask you a few questions?”
Julia sat in the middle of the comfortable sofa and Detective Inspector Brown filled up one of Dot’s tiny armchairs. He looked around the small cottage with the same amused smirk Julia had come to know him by. It made her stomach squirm uncomfortably.
“Tea!” Dot exclaimed, hurrying in with a tray, containing what Julia knew to be her finest china teapot and cups.
Dot set the tray on the table and retreated to the back of the room, where she stayed until Barker cleared his throat. She scurried back through to the dining room, where she and Sue would no doubt be pushing glasses up against the wall to overhear every word.
“You told the officers on the scene that you were walking home and saw a shadow in the window, and the open door?” Barker asked after consulting his small notepad. “Long way to walk home, isn’t it? Forgive me because I don’t know my way around the village yet, but isn’t your cottage on the opposite side?”
Julia shifted in her seat and picked invisible lint off of her mint coloured dress, wondering why she had lied about her intentions behind visiting Gertrude. She pulled the hem past her knees and straightened out her back, deciding honesty was the best policy.
“I was going to see Gertrude to ask her a question,” Julia said, avoiding admitting to her lie. “I saw the figure and I assumed it was Gertrude. I walked up to the door and I knocked, but the door swung open, and then I heard glass smashing. I thought she might be in trouble, so I called out for Gertrude, but she didn’t respond, so I went inside to see if she was okay. I saw the broken window and I decided I was going to get out of there, to call the police, and that’s when I saw her body.”
Julia tried to stay strong but she felt the tears welling up in the corners of her eyes. She plucked her handkerchief from her pocket and quickly dabbed them away, not wanting to appear weak in front of the detective.
“I understand it’s a difficult time for you,” Barker said, completely devoid of any emotion. “What can you tell me about the shadow you claim to have seen?”
Julia was taken aback by the insinuation that her story wasn’t true. It suddenly struck her that she was possibly a suspect.
“I don’t know,” Julia said, trying her best to focus on the blurry image in her mind. “It was dark. There were no lights on in the cottage. I just saw movement, called out, and then I heard the glass smash. Perhaps they were going to leave out of the front door, and then they saw or heard me so they panicked and escaped through the window?”
“Why don’t we leave the speculating to the police?” Barker arched a brow and appeared to be concealing his amused smirk. “You said you were going to ask Gertrude a question. What was that question?”
Julia told him all about how Johnny Watson had visited her café to tell her about Miss Piston’s venomous review, and how she had made the connection between piston and organ.
“Organ?”
“Gertrude plays the organ at the local church,” she said. “Played the organ. She’s done it for as long as I can remember.”
“So you put two and two together and discovered a body?” Barker mumbled, and Julia was unsure if the question was rhetorical or not. “Is there anything else you can tell me about Gertrude Smith? Do you know who could have done this?”
Julia’s mind flashed straight to Roxy Carter, and their meeting in her café that morning. She couldn’t believe she was considering one of her oldest friends could be capable of murder, but it was something she was considering. She decided she would tell Detective Inspector Brown this piece of information, but only after she had had a chance to speak with Roxy herself.
“Gertrude comes into my café every morning at ten,” Julia said. “She has four pancakes with honey, raspberries and blueberries and a cup of tea.”
“I was looking for something less trivial,” Barker said with a sigh. “About her relationships or her affairs.”
Julia pursed her lips and adjusted
herself in the seat once more. She wanted to give the Detective a piece of her mind, but she was aware she was the only person who had any real information about the murder and she was her own alibi, so she bit her tongue.
“She has a son. William.”
“Any friends?”
“Gertrude wasn’t the type of woman to have friends,” Julia said. “She was deeply religious and she didn’t suffer fools gladly.”
“So you’re saying she had enemies?”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Julia said, disliking how Barker could so easily twist her words. “I just know that she’s upset a lot of people in this village over the years.”
“And you’re one of them,” he added.
“I suppose I am,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “But not enough to murder her.”
Detective Inspector Brown stood up, his head almost hitting the beams in the low ceiling. He pulled a card out of his inside pocket and handed it over to Julia. It contained his name, title, phone number, and the address of the village police station. She suspected they were freshly printed.
“You’ll have to stop by the station tomorrow to make an official statement, but I’m satisfied with what you’ve told me,” Baker said, sounding anything but satisfied. “If you think of anything at all, give me a call. I’ll see myself out.”
Barker opened the living room door, and Dot fell into him. She jumped back, straightened out the pleats in her skirt and smiled politely.
“Thanks for the tea,” he said, before turning back to face Julia. “Oh, and Julie, try not to find any more dead bodies, will you?”
“It’s Julia.”
“Right,” Barker said, a small smile tickling his lips as he turned. “Goodnight.”
Detective Inspector Brown left the cottage, but his presence lingered, as did his smile. Julia looked down at the business card and ran her fingers over his name. She resisted the urge to shred it into a million pieces. Barker had seemed more interested in point scoring than actually getting information from her. Tucking the business card into her dress pocket, she tried to figure out why that was.
“You’re blushing,” Sue said, jabbing Julia in the ribs. “I think you like him.”
“Like him?” Julia scoffed. “The man is practically intolerable.”
“But quite handsome,” added Dot, seemingly forgetting her own gossip from earlier in the day. “Quite handsome indeed.”
Julia couldn’t bring herself to disagree with her Gran.
Later that night, Julia curled up by the fire in her cottage with Mowgli at her feet. She sipped a cup of her favourite peppermint and liquorice tea and grabbed her ingredients list notepad from the side table.
She flipped past a list of things she needed to pick up to make a chocolate orange fudge cake and turned to a fresh page. She bit the lid off the pen and wrote ‘Gertrude Smith’ in the centre of the small page. She circled the name until the ink tore a hole in the paper and ripped through to the next page.
After taking another sip of her tea, and letting the sweet liquorice coat her throat, she reluctantly drew an arrow from the circle and wrote ‘Roxy Carter’. She didn’t want to think her oldest friend could be capable of murder, but she knew she had to prove otherwise.
“You’re barking up the wrong tree, Barker,” she whispered to herself as she carefully closed the notepad.
Peridale was a small village, so church attendance was slightly higher than most of the United Kingdom, but that didn’t explain the circus Julia was witnessing at St. Peter’s Church for its Sunday service.
“Everybody in the village has turned up,” Dot whispered into Julia’s ear as they shuffled into the crowded church. “There are only four reasons people have turned up today and three of them are connected to Gertrude’s death!”
“Isn’t that why we’re here?” Julia whispered back. “I wouldn’t have been here if you hadn’t let yourself into my cottage this morning and shook me awake. I thought you were the murderer coming to get rid of the only witness!”
“I’m here every weekend!” Dot said, pursing her lips as she adjusted her finest church hat. “I come to pray. I’m a very religious woman, you know.”
“Don’t lie, Gran,” Sue said, who was linking arms with Dot on the other side as they tried to find somewhere to stand. “You’re usually fast asleep in bed when Sunday service is happening.”
“Shhh! Not in God’s house,” Dot said, pointing up to the church’s high ceiling. “What He doesn’t know won’t hurt Him. I’m here in spirit and I pray in my dreams.”
“What do you pray for?” Sue asked.
“That He saves your souls, and that He brings a new man into Julia’s life.” Dot said, so loud that the people in the back row of the pews turned.
“I do not need a new man,” Julia whispered, thinking instantly of the unopened divorce papers that were still sitting on her kitchen counter, waiting for her signature. “What are the four reasons that you think people are here?”
“Well,” Dot said coyly, obviously glad Julia had asked. “I’ve given this a lot of thought. The first reason is that people are here to ask for protection from the murderer on the loose. The second is that the murderer is here asking for forgiveness and everybody is waiting for somebody to slip up.”
That thought had crossed Julia’s mind and it was one of the reasons she had rolled out of bed and crawled into her clothes. She had held Mowgli as close as he would allow last night, and the sun had already started to rise by the time she finally fell asleep. The image of the knife sticking out of Gertrude’s back hadn’t allowed her brain to stop trying to piece the puzzle together, no matter how tired she was.
“The third reason,” Dot continued. “People are here to see who is taking over Gertrude’s organ playing duties.”
“I hadn’t thought of that one,” Sue gasped. “I wonder who it is.”
“My money is on Amy Clark,” Dot said, tapping her finger on her chin thoughtfully. “Everybody knows she’s been after Gertrude’s position for years. Gertrude is the far superior organist, which is why she hasn’t missed a Sunday service in over forty years. She once dragged herself out of bed with the most terrible flu and still played amazingly. I wouldn’t be surprised if Amy Clark was thanking God on her knees when she found out the news about poor Gertrude, God rest her soul.”
“You’ve changed your tune from last night,” Sue said, rolling her eyes.
“Not in the Lord’s house,” Dot said, nodding to the large statue of Jesus hanging from the cross at the front of the packed church. “The fourth reason is that people are genuinely here for the Sunday service.”
Julia had to admit she wasn’t one of them. She wasn’t particularly religious, although she did believe something was out there, she just hadn’t figured out what yet. The only times she attended church services were for christenings, weddings, funerals and Christmas Eve mass. She looked around the church, smiling to people she recognised, knowing most of them had only shown up for the first three of her Gran’s four reasons.
A fifth reason had also compelled Julia to attend the service, but she decided to keep it to herself. She wanted to see if Roxy Carter would turn up. When she had finally fallen asleep in the early hours of the morning, she had been plagued by a terrible nightmare of Roxy standing over her with a large knife, ready to strike her down.
Julia had already scanned the faces of the attendees sitting in the pews and Roxy Carter’s bright red hair hadn’t jumped out at her. She was naturally ginger, so when she applied the red dye over the top, it made it look like her hair was made from pure flames. Julia had always admired Roxy’s bravery to go for such a bright colour, and even though Roxy pulled it off with ease, Julia couldn’t see herself doing the same.
Turning her attention to the people still filing into the packed church, her heart skipped a beat when she noticed Roxy’s sister, Rachel, followed by their mother, Imogen Carter. Julia waited for Roxy to follow Imogen, but she didn’t. Her heart skippe
d another more intense beat when Detective Inspector Brown waltzed in behind them.
Julia quickly turned her attention to the front of the church, just in time to witness Amy Clark shuffling out of Father David Green’s vestry. Julia didn’t want to be cynical, but even from her distance she could see what could only be described as the second smuggest smirk she had seen all weekend. She glanced to Barker Brown, the owner of the first, who was standing four people away from her, looming inches above everyone around him. Even though he too was staring ahead, she could feel him looking at her out of the corner of his eye.
Amy Clark walked over to the organ and unbuttoned her coat. She was wearing a bright pink woollen cardigan, a diamond brooch twinkling from its breast pocket, with a pale blue pleated skirt, tan tights and a pair of sensible black shoes. Her usually wild and frizzy hair had been pristinely set into neat curled rows, making Julia wonder if the hairdresser had opened specially for Amy that morning for her big appearance.
The second Amy sat down on the stool and cracked her fingers, the frantic whispering started. Julia watched as heads turned and eyes widened when her fingers touched the organ’s keys. The whispering turned to talking and then to almost shouting as ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ bellowed through the pipes. The noise from the congregation didn’t fall until Father David walked out of his vestry with a sad smile on his face.
“Not as good as Gertrude,” Dot said rather loudly above the music. “Wolf in sheep’s clothing. Amateur stuff!”
Father David delivered a lengthy and heartfelt eulogy for Gertrude, which caused more than a couple of people to clutch their tissues and hankies to their eyes. At one point, Father David even looked like he was going to shed a tear, but he held himself together. He ended his speech by commenting on the impressive turnout, and how he hadn’t seen such a full church in his twenty years of service. The hint of sarcasm in his voice caused more than a couple of people to squirm in their seats, and if Julia had been sitting, she would have been one of them.
