by Agatha Frost
Mary rushed in with the drinks, and they both smiled, bowing their heads until she left. As loveable as Mary and Todd were, the locals all knew the walls at The Comfy Corner had ears.
“I can’t disagree,” Julia replied. “As much as I don’t like what she did at the shed, it’s not so much that—”
“It’s the fact she didn’t tell anyone before she did it,” Shilpa jumped in, taking the words right from Julia’s mouth. “And it’s not just that. She didn’t let Percy talk to Gus, she barged in on Amy’s interview, and don’t even get me started on her ruining Evelyn’s séance. This is not why I signed up for the group. It doesn’t have to be like that.”
“I tried telling her.”
“If she won’t listen to you, nobody stands a chance.” Shilpa sighed before taking a lemonade break and a steadying breath. “Evelyn was a shell of herself this morning. She’s far too sensitive for the Dots of the world. She felt such compassion for the boy, regardless of how little she knew about him. Have you read that article?”
“Jessie mentioned that too,” she said, patting for her phone. “What’s it about?”
“Everyone’s going on about it,” Shilpa said, checking her watch. “It’s better if you read . . .”
Shilpa’s eyes drifted to the door seconds before it opened. As though destiny had blown them through the door, Dot and Percy hurried in with Lady and Bruce at their feet.
“Usual table please, Mary, and two bowls of—”
Dot’s confident steps faltered when she noticed them in their corner. Percy collided with her, too preoccupied with squinting at the specials board.
“Julia,” she said, stiffening and presenting an unnatural smile, “and Shilpa. What a surprise.”
And just like that, the air became suffocatingly uncomfortable.
“Julia and I were just about to have lunch,” said Shilpa with unexpected firmness.
“During the quiet hour?” Dot looked around the restaurant as though she knew exactly what they were there to talk about. “Only time Mary and Todd say we can bring these in. It’s the early-early-bird dog special.”
Julia waited for a dig about her ‘NO DOGS’ sign or phantom hatred, but neither came; she almost wished they had, just so she knew things were normal between them.
But Dot’s eyes couldn’t quite focus on her.
Julia’s hopes that her gran hadn’t noticed her quick getaway the night before evaporated. As good an actress as her gran could be, every expressive line on her face told her story.
“About last night,” Dot started, pushing up her curls just as Lady attempted to bound up to Julia. “Sit!”
The dog did as she was told and promptly gobbled the treat that appeared at Dot’s fingertips. Percy did the same with Bruce, though it took a little bottom-pushing to get him all the way down into a sit.
“Since you brought it up,” Shilpa said, pushing back her chair so she could turn sideways and address Dot, “I want you to know I’m really not happy about how you treated Evelyn last night.”
“I just want to start fresh,” Dot insisted with a nod that told Julia her gran had spent the night convincing herself she’d done little, if anything, wrong. “I will go and talk to Evelyn when—”
“Please, don’t,” Shilpa cut in. “She doesn’t want to see you right now.”
“And she told you that for a fact, did she?”
“Yes,” Shilpa replied firmly, cutting off Dot’s attempt at a laugh. “This morning, before I left her in bed, barely making a lick of sense and surrounded by about a hundred crystals.”
“That’s just Evelyn.”
Julia wished Dot had left out the dismissive waft of her hand.
“No. That’s just Evelyn when she comes across someone like you,” Shilpa said, standing and retrieving her purse from her bag. “Sorry, Julia. I’ve lost my appetite. I wanted you to pass a message to your gran, but since she’s here, I’ll tell her myself.” She tucked a five-pound note under her barely touched lemonade and turned to Dot. “Like Evelyn, I quit.”
“Shilpa,” Dot said, stepping back. “I’m sorry. I . . . let’s just talk about this. I made one mistake.”
Shilpa looked prepared to repeat the list all things she’d said to Julia, but instead, she dropped her head. Evidently, Dot thinking she’d only made one mistake was bad enough.
“Julia, I really wish you had taken on the leadership,” Shilpa said as she pushed in her chair. “I can’t imagine we would have got here if you had.”
As the door closed behind Shilpa, Julia couldn’t take the compliment, especially since it was wrapped around an insult aimed at her gran. She understood Shilpa’s frustration and the seemingly blank stare in her gran’s glassy eyes equally well.
Julia could almost hear the penny dropping.
“I was hoping to see you,” said Dot, her voice small and dry. “I did call. I . . . I am sorry, Julia. I . . . I . . . Oh, this is so silly!”
Dot stiffened and stared at the ceiling. Some might have thought she was trying to summon divine intervention, but Julia knew she was holding back tears.
“Gran, you didn’t do anything to me,” she said. “And you didn’t do anything to Evelyn either. But she’s upset nonetheless, and with good reason.”
“I thought I was doing the right thing,” she said, blinking hard. “My father used to say—”
The blink ended, and tears rolled down Dot’s cheeks before she made for the exit with Lady trotting behind.
“She’s not storming off,” Percy explained as he hovered on the spot, clearly eager to go. “She doesn’t like people seeing her cry.”
“I know,” she replied softly. “Go on, Percy.”
He thanked her with a quick bow and hurried after her with cries of “My Dorothy!” Shilpa’s assessment revealed that she had a decent grasp on Julia’s gran, but she knew nothing of the side Dot only let her family see.
“Two chicken Caesar salads coming right—” Mary stopped and looked around. “Shilpa in the loo?”
“Might have to take those to go,” she said, already retrieving her purse. “Family drama.”
“Say no more.” Mary looked down at the salads. “Unless . . . you want to?”
On another day, Julia might have indulged Mary with a tale.
Today, she had to go after her gran.
Leaving The Comfy Corner with a paper bag of boxed chicken salads dangling from the pram’s handle, Julia turned right, ready to go straight to her gran’s cottage. The vision she had of Dot crying in the sitting room vanished with the sound of her gran’s voice. From the volume alone, it wasn’t difficult to figure out she was in the library.
“Your gran has lost it,” Neil whispered to Julia as she rushed through the front doors. “Doesn’t she know she’s screaming in a library of all places?”
While Neil looked after Olivia at the front desk, Julia followed her gran’s voice to the world travel section. Dot and Percy stood with leads in hand and chests puffed out, and they weren’t alone.
From the description her gran had given, Julia assumed the woman mirroring their stance was Ethel White. The description hadn’t been wholly accurate. From their slight frames to their outfits, Ethel and Dot could have been sisters, even despite the lilac tinge to Ethel’s hair and her being closer to Percy in height.
“Dot’s Detective’s?” Ethel laughed. “That’s your name?”
“Yes.” Dot snapped. “And when we start recruiting again—”
“Nobody will want to join your group.” Ethel looked her up and down. “Dotty Old Dot has gained quite a reputation for questionable behaviour in some circles as of late.”
“No doubt thanks to your gossiping.”
“I do not gossip,” Ethel insisted. “I’m merely a keen observer.”
The words could have been pulled right from Dot’s mouth, which probably explained why they only seemed to enrage her further. Julia wasn’t sure if she preferred this or the crying.
“Gran.” Jul
ia stepped between them to neutralise the tension. “Ethel, is it?”
“Yes,” she said, glaring. “And you are?”
“Don’t you speak to my granddaughter like that!”
Julia held up an arm as Dot tried to circle around her, and Ethel did the same on the other side. Behind the lilac hair, two men Julia had assumed were browsing stepped forward.
“Ethel, calm down,” said one with the familiarity of a friend. “If she said she didn’t write the article, maybe she didn’t.”
Was Julia the only person in Peridale to have left the house before the paper arrived?
The other man smiled at Julia, and she recognised Desmond. She took another look at the man who’d spoken: Gus, no doubt. The widower and the ex could stand to be in the same room, at least.
“She had to have written it,” Ethel lamented. “It was too accurate. She must have had the village hall bugged.”
“For your information, your little tiff happened before I started my group,” Dot said smugly, tiptoeing around Julia’s arm. “And I overheard all that drama, which means anyone could have.”
“But the newspaper editor is in your group,” Ethel pointed out. “So, if it wasn’t you, how did he find out about everything?”
“Does it matter?” Desmond sighed. “We’ve admitted it to the police now, which means we can get on with our lives and focus on Penelope’s funeral.”
“But it makes us all look guilty!” Ethel continued shrilly. “You’re okay with that?”
“Yes, because I know I didn’t kill Penelope,” he said, stepping around her to exit the aisle. “It sounds like you have a guilty conscience, Ethel.”
“Nobody asked you, Desmond.” Ethel dismissed him with a shake of her hand. “Might as well tell you this now to save on the lunch I was going to buy you. You’re out of the Eyes. Now you’ll have all the time in the world for your other group.”
Desmond waved over his head as though he couldn’t care less and busied himself unloading a book trolley.
“Maybe it’s time to give it up, Ethel,” said Gus, pulling out a book, reading the spine, and returning it. “Like you said, that article was a hit piece.”
“Likewise, nobody asked you.” Ethel rubbed at her temples. “You’re out too. No point keeping Penelope’s sidekick around. You probably knew everything she did. I need fresh blood.”
“Penelope always knew you wanted her spot as leader,” Gus said as he passed her. “The difference is that people actually saw Penelope as a leader. She didn’t have to pry it from someone’s cold, dead hands.”
Like an angry French bulldog, Ethel screwed up her face as Gus walked away.
“Give my love to Vicky, won’t you?” she called after him.
Gus stopped in his tracks and stared over his shoulder, though only from the corner of his eye. Ethel’s pleased-as-punch grin showed she’d hit the nerve she’d intended.
“This is far from over,” Ethel said as she and Dot both stepped around Julia at the same time to eliminate her from the equation. “My new group is meeting me across the road in twenty minutes, so you’ve just done me a favour by showing up here and mouthing off. Then again, isn’t that what you do best?”
“If Penelope was covered in her killer’s fingerprints, next to a signed confession, beside a video tape of it happening, your bridge club still wouldn’t be able to figure it out.”
“That’s what you think, Dorothy?”
Ethel stepped up.
“It’s what I know, Ethel.”
Dot stepped up.
Julia sighed, waiting for a referee to pass them boxing mitts and mouthguards before ringing a bell.
“This is on,” Ethel said, eyes darting to Percy and Julia before snapping back onto Dot. “And you’re the first suspect. Don’t think people haven’t noticed how quickly you jumped in to take her place.”
“Likewise.” Dot fired back. “And this was already on, you just hadn’t finished napping to notice.”
“Watch your back, Dorothy,” said Ethel, extending a warning finger. “It’s a small village.”
“And you watch your—” Dot called after her as she quickly walked away. “And you watch – and you watch your back . . . Can she hear me?”
“I think she’s gone,” Julia said, letting out her held breath. “Dare I ask?”
“They were coming in here while we were coming out of there,” Percy explained in a whisper. “She was right about it being a small village.”
“The only thing she’s right about,” said Dot, floating back down to the ground. “The cheek of the woman! I wish I had written that article.”
“What is this article?”
“How have you not seen it?” asked Dot. “Some anonymous person wrote in exposing Penelope’s agenda. It finally all makes sense.”
Leaving them with the dogs, Julia returned to the front desk, where Neil was entertaining Olivia with the mechanism of the library stamp and a sheet of paper. As she’d hoped, the latest issue of The Peridale Post rested on the counter. She’d walked right by it on her way in, too distracted by her gran’s voice to even look at the headline: THE LIES OF PERIDALE’S EYES! Shocking secret crime-rising agenda of neighbourhood watch group exposed!
There was no time to focus on Johnny’s wordplay, for the front page was one of the more unusual she’d ever seen. With a clipboard acting as the background, five faces were mocked up in polaroid frames, each with a heading. The unsmiling, professional picture of Penelope that looked suited to her days as an accountant read ‘MURDERED!’, while pictures of Desmond, Gus, and Ethel had ‘SUSPECT!’ above them.
On the right side of the clipboard, the picture under ‘BURGLAR!’ caught Julia off-guard. The deep line in the chin and the small print underneath confirmed that it was Callum, but she’d never have recognised this slightly younger, fresher-faced version who bore little resemblance to the shadow of a man she’d encountered through the shed window the night before. He was on the softer side of a normal weight, too.
And if the headline wasn’t eye-catching enough, Johnny had printed The Agenda in the middle of the clipboard, right there on the front page:
Until her death, Penelope Newton, 72, used her position as leader of local neighbourhood watch group, Peridale’s Eyes, to distract and deceive you. From what? Her grandson, Callum Newton, 20, and his insatiable need to break into YOUR homes! Story continues on page 5 . . .
“You heard Ethel,” Dot said, leaning against the desk. “It’s accurate, and this time she can’t deny she said it. I’d say she’s just outed herself as the culprit. If not her, it’s one of the group. They all found out about this at the village hall. That’s what I overheard. Someone exposed Penelope to her group before revealing everything in the paper.”
“The article doesn’t say who,” Percy chipped in, “but I’d bet a gold coin it was the anonymous person who sent this in.”
“What do you say about a meeting at mine tonight, Julia?” Dot asked, her face far too hopeful. “We could try and regroup to get to the bottom of this?”
Thumbing through the paper to get to the fifth page, Julia wondered if honesty would be the best policy right now. Though she’d decided earlier that she was done with the meetings and whatever was left with the group, after Shilpa’s declaration, she just couldn’t be another quitter.
“Maybe let the dust settle for a day?” she suggested. “See how everyone feels tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Dot shook her head. “No, we must act now. There’s both a burglar and a killer out there right now, and it’s almost worse that they’re not one and the same. Now we know they’re connected.”
“I think I’m going to be busy tonight,” Julia said, opening the paper and flattening it out. “I have a thing with Olivia.”
“Why don’t we go home, my love?” Percy suggested, tugging Dot towards the door. “Put the kettle on and see what’s on the telly?”
“Telly?” Dot pulled away from him. “Thing? What thing? I don’
t . . . Oh, I see. Yes, I understand.”
And from the pain in her eyes, it was clear that her gran did understand what Julia had wanted to avoid saying. Dot left, and this time, Percy followed her without trying to claim Dot wasn’t storming out; if he had, it would have been a lie.
“You did the right thing,” Neil said, passing Olivia across the desk as the phone rang, “and I wouldn’t believe everything you read in the paper. Desmond is a decent guy, and from how he described it to me, Penelope was just trying to look out for her only grandson.”
Neil picked up the phone, and Julia stared at a picture Johnny had found of Penelope, Desmond, and Callum. Taken in a happier time, they were all smiling at the camera. Callum was around ten or eleven. Next to that photo was a school picture of Melinda Newton identical to the ones Julia had of herself from around that time.
“Not just her only grandson,” she whispered as she set Olivia down in the pram. “Her last connection to her daughter.”
“I’m glad someone understands,” Desmond said over Julia’s shoulder, and she noticed the line in his chin for the first time. “Penelope was only doing what she thought was best.” He examined the photo Julia had been staring at. “Melinda hated that picture. Said it made her face look too round or something.” He chuckled, and in a darker tone, said, “Whoever wrote that article has quite the imagination, though I will admit some bits are correct.”
“Only some?”
“It’s more what isn’t there,” he said. “How’s your friend’s ankle?”
Without waiting for a response, Desmond pushed the book trolley away and vanished into the library. As Julia folded up the paper to pore over in private, she wondered what Johnny’s ankle had to do with anything, and why Desmond’s delivery had made it sound like a warning.
11
J ulia was halfway up the lane that led to her cottage before turning around and heading back to the village. A day alone with only Olivia’s babbling, the cartoons, and her thoughts didn’t appeal to Julia after the friction with her gran.
