by Agatha Frost
She ran through the village, hurrying past The Plough pub, which buzzed with life, past the police station, and past Evelyn’s B&B. There was a small row of cottages at the end of the lane. She knew Edgar used to be a butcher in the village, and she remembered seeing his face at the meeting the day before, as well as in the allotment article photograph. She tried to recall which cottage was his out of the three, but it quickly became clear which it was. Only one of them had an elaborate and beautiful garden worthy of the Green Fingers.
Gulping hard, Julia unclipped the pristine white gate and hurried down the small path, colourful flowers everywhere she looked. She rang the doorbell, the chimes echoing down the hall. There was no answer. She banged her knuckles on the frosted glass, desperately hoping that the door would fly open and everything would be okay.
“Edgar?” she cried as she pressed her ear up against the wood. “Are you in there? It’s Julia from the café.”
Instead of hearing a reply, Julia heard a deep voice cry out, followed by what sounded like something heavy tumbling down the stairs. Julia stepped back, her heart skipping a dreaded beat. Something else thudded down the stairs, forcing Julia to drop to her knees. She pulled back the tricky spring-loaded letterbox to peer into the cottage. She looked through to the kitchen, where the back door was swinging in its frame.
Julia's eyes wandered to the bottom of the stairs, and just as she had feared, a man lay motionless in a heap on the floor. She jumped up, her heart thumping out of control. The panic rose in her, but she forced it down, closing her eyes for a second. She tried the door handle, but it rattled in the lock. With all her strength, she crashed her body into the door, but her small frame was not heavy enough to knock down the thick wood. She stepped back and looked around the garden, her eyes landing on a small gnome with a green hat and fishing rod amongst a bed of lavender. Without a second thought, Julia tossed the small gnome through the door’s window, and then reached inside to unlock it.
“Edgar?” she whispered as she hurried down the pink-carpeted hallway. “Edgar, are you okay?”
Julia rolled the poor old man over, her hand clasping over her mouth when she saw his vacant eyes staring aimlessly up at the ceiling. There was no denying he was dead.
“Julia?” Johnny’s voice cried breathlessly from behind her as he stepped over the broken glass. “Is that –”
“We were too late,” Julia said with a shaky voice as she stood up and clasped her hand against her forehead. “I knocked on the door, and then I heard him fall, and then –”
She remembered the second thudding down the stairs and the swinging back door. She hopped over Edgar, avoiding looking into his glassy eyes. She yanked on the open back door and stared pointlessly into the lavish green garden. She stepped out into the burning sunlight, the eerie silence unsettling her. Gulping hard, she looked for any movement. A butterfly fluttered past her before landing on a stone sundial, but the garden was otherwise still.
Julia turned back to the cottage and watched as Johnny called the police. Guilt surged up in her chest. How could she have suspected Johnny had imagined things?
She stepped back into the kitchen, suddenly noticing faint pink half-footprints on the black tiles. She looked at the pale pink carpet in the hallway leading up to Edgar’s body, but what was on the tiles was a thick liquid. Julia crouched and patted the mysterious pink substance with her forefinger. Rubbing it against her thumb, she lifted it to her nose. She presumed it was paint of some kind, but it had a distinct chemical smell that was strangely familiar to her. Realising it could be evidence, Julia stood up and walked carefully as she made her way to the front of the cottage to wait for the authorities with Johnny.
She no longer doubted the reporter, and she was going to do everything in her power to find out who she had heard flee Edgar’s cottage.
4
Julia placed a tray of fresh macarons on a table just as Emily walked into the café with Amy trailing behind her. Julia had only invited Emily to sample the macarons, but she was not surprised Amy had tagged along with her; she had been counting on it.
“These look delicious as always, Julia!” Emily announced as she took a seat at the table in the middle of the café. “They will be perfect for the party. We have permission from the council to hold it on the village green to attract as many people as possible. It’s all rather exciting, don’t you think?”
Amy took a seat at the table next to Emily as Julia prepared a pot of tea. She was not sure if it was her imagination, but Amy appeared distant as she plucked at the bobbles on her pale pink cardigan.
“I must say I was quite surprised when your gran asked to join our little club this morning,” Emily said as Julia walked over with the tea tray. “I always thought she hated gardening.”
“I think the magazine visit has stirred something up in her,” Julia said with a smile as she carefully placed the tray next to the plate of colourful macarons. “Help yourself, and be honest. I’m still working on the flavours, so I’m open to criticism.”
Julia mulled over her thoughts as Emily and Amy took little bits of each colour, making small comments about how delicious they were. Amy did not suggest any tweaks, but Emily offered suggestions for stronger or subtler flavours. Julia took notes in her small notepad, but her mind was on the notes on the other side of the page that she had scribbled down after being interviewed by the police the previous afternoon.
“Quite terrible what happened to Edgar yesterday,” Julia dropped in as Emily poured herself a second cup of tea. “I heard he was a member of your club.”
“A founding member,” Amy said, the sadness clear in her voice. “There are not many of us left now.”
Julia noticed the little glance Emily shot Amy’s way, but Amy was too detached to notice. With her chin poking in the air, Emily poured Amy a cup of tea and added milk and sugar for her.
“Terrible way to go,” Emily said. “I’m glad my cottage doesn’t have an upstairs. I trip over the rugs enough.”
“He was pushed,” Julia said. “There’s no doubt about that. I was at his cottage when it happened. I heard the murderer run down the stairs before fleeing through the back door. Unfortunately, I didn’t see who it was.”
“How dreadful!” Emily cried dramatically, after taking a small sip of tea, her eyes narrowing to slits. “He was an excellent Green Finger. Beautiful garden.”
“Do you have any idea who might have wanted to kill him?” Julia asked, looking past Emily and straight to Amy, who was now furiously fiddling with the sleeves of her woolly cardigan. “Or if he was linked to Margaret and Elsie?”
“Their deaths were accidents,” Emily answered quickly. “Why should they be connected?”
“Because somebody warned of all three deaths before they happened,” Julia said before sipping her own tea. “I thought the deaths were nothing more than accidents until Edgar. Now I am certain the deaths are linked, as are the police.”
“Linked how?” Emily asked, her head tilting slightly.
“By your club,” Julia replied firmly as she leaned forward to rest her elbows on the table. “They were all members of the Green Fingers after all.”
“Coincidence, I’m sure,” Emily said. “Why would somebody want to target our group? We just grow flowers, for goodness sake.”
“They were founding members too,” Amy mumbled, her eyes widening as she stared blankly at her tea. “There are only three of us left.”
“Two,” Emily corrected her. “Malcolm is no longer a Green Finger.”
Emily instantly sat up straight, her face hiding behind her cup as though she had said too much. Julia resisted the urge to flip her notepad to her investigation page so she could scribble down everything the women were saying.
“Would that be Malcolm Johnson?” Julia asked casually as her finger circled her cup. “I spotted his daughter, Chloe, at the meeting yesterday. She was a couple of years below me at school, but it’s a small village.”
Amy loo
ked at Emily for permission to talk, but the look she received kept her silent.
“Malcolm was genetically modifying his plants with illegal chemicals,” Emily snapped, her eyes locking with Julia’s. “The results were quite beautiful, but as you can understand, it’s against our rules, something you might want to tell your gran. We only allow natural techniques in our club.”
“Understandable,” Julia said with a nod. “When was he pushed out of the group?”
“Three weeks ago,” Amy said quickly. “The whole group agreed he should go. It wasn’t just Emily.”
Emily’s nostrils twitched as she continued to stare at Julia. Julia was coming to realise she knew nothing of the woman she waved to across the lane when they were both enjoying their gardens. She would never have had Emily down as the ruthless type, but her steely look of determination told Julia that she had no regrets about forcing a founding member out of the group and that she would do it again if needed.
“Aside from Malcolm, is there anyone else who would want to target your group?” Julia asked, looking at Amy once more in hopes her loose tongue would reveal even more. “Three members dead in as many weeks does suggest a pattern is emerging.”
“I think you’re digging in the wrong patch, Julia,” Emily said with a forced laugh. “I know you have a certain reputation in the village for solving murders, but it’s merely a coincidence that these three were members of the Green Fingers.”
“Four,” Amy said.
“Excuse me?” Emily snapped.
“Yolanda Turner,” Amy mumbled with a small shrug. “She’s gone too.”
“Now that was an accident,” Emily said triumphantly. “She crashed her car into a tree. If there is a pattern, which I do not think there is, she doesn’t fit it.”
“Yolanda was a founding member too?” Julia asked.
“She was the founding member,” Amy said with a gulp. “It was her passion that brought us all together ten years ago. There were seven of us to start with, but the club has grown, and now half the village are Green Fingers.”
Julia nodded, deciding she had extracted enough information from the women. She glanced at Emily, who stared intensely at the plate of macarons, apparently realising Julia’s reason for inviting her to the café was nothing more than a ruse; a ruse that had worked.
“We should be going,” Emily said, standing up and leaving her cup of tea half-finished. “I’m meeting Mary and Brendan in the pub to talk about running the club. Keep up the good work with the macarons, Julia. I’m sure they’ll be perfect by the time of the party.”
Emily headed for the door, leaving Amy in her seat. She stared blankly at the murky surface of her untouched tea, the weight of the world on her shoulders. She stayed there for a moment until Emily cleared her throat. She hurried after Emily, smiling apologetically over her shoulder at Julia.
Julia scribbled down everything the women had let slip, filling over three pages in her notepad. She wrote down all seven of the founding members’ names on a fresh page and crossed out the four who had died in the last three weeks. She ticked off Emily and Amy’s names, leaving her with the only surviving member she had not yet spoken to: Malcolm Johnson.
After closing the café, Julia drove to her cottage at the same time Jessie arrived home from her one day a week at college. As usual, on Wednesday evenings, Jessie had her best friends, Dolly and Dom, with her. The tall platinum blonde twins greeted Julia with a hug as always, before retreating into the cottage.
As Julia started on a simple chicken Caesar salad for dinner, Dolly and Dom sat at the counter and played on their phones and fidgeted like children, while Jessie set up the table in the garden.
“Playing anything fun?” Julia asked as she sprinkled the cooked chicken in with the romaine leaves.
“It’s this new game that everyone at college is playing,” Dom said without looking up. “It’s just come out.”
“It’s so hard,” Dolly added, her tongue poking out the side of her mouth.
“What’s it called?” Julia asked.
“Tetris,” Dom said, glancing up at Julia from his phone. “You’ve probably never heard of it.”
Before Julia could say anything to the contrary, Jessie came in from the garden with Mowgli in her arms and said, “I’ve set the table up.”
Julia glanced at the cat clock on the wall with its ticking eyes and swishing tail. Their Wednesday dinner night had become her favourite event of the week, but it was not complete without Barker. He was usually there by now. She was not sure how long she could keep tossing the salad to stall them.
“He will be here soon,” Julia said as she carefully sprinkled in the croutons. “He’s probably just held up on a case.”
“Or he is trapped in a bank, and there’s a bank robber pointing a gun at him,” Dom said with a thrilled smile.
“Peridale doesn’t have a bank,” Jessie said, flicking his ear. “I’ll point a gun at you in a minute if you don’t shut up.”
Dom plucked a banana from the fruit bowl and pointed it at Jessie. Mowgli jumped out of her arms and scurried back into the garden.
“Stick ‘em up!” Dom demanded. “Or I’ll shoot.”
Without batting an eyelid, Jessie disarmed Dom with one swift move, sending the banana flying up in the air. She caught it and pointed it at his forehead with a satisfied smile.
“Don’t try it, blondie,” Jessie said. “I fought scarier kids than you on the streets.”
Dom let out a nervous laugh as Dolly chuckled underneath her hair. She snatched the banana from Jessie, unpeeled it and bit off the tip.
“I’m so hungry,” Dolly mumbled through the mushed banana. “I could eat a family of zebras.”
Julia glanced at the clock again, and then down at the salad. She passed the salad to Jessie before grabbing four bowls from the cupboard.
“It’s not like it will go cold,” Julia mumbled to herself as she selected cutlery from the drawer.
They walked out into the garden, where Jessie had set up the cast iron table in the middle of the grass. Tall trees surrounded her small lawn, casting a soft shadow against her cottage. Julia loved her garden. It was not prize worthy, or up to the standards of the Green Fingers, but it was her private place that felt separate from the rest of the village. It was one of the things that had attracted her to the cottage.
They ate the salad under the clear evening sky, while Dolly, Dom, and Jessie chatted about the things they had been baking during their college course. Julia tried her best to stay engaged, but her mind was firmly fixed on the recent deaths. She glanced at her watch, knowing that whatever was keeping Barker must have been serious.
When they finished eating, she took the dishes back into the kitchen, and the front door finally opened. Barker hurried in, full of apologies.
“Did I miss it?” he called as he pulled off his tie. “It’s been manic at the station.”
“It’s only salad,” Jessie said as she pulled his bowl from the fridge. “Anything juicy?”
“You know I can’t say,” Barker said, glancing at Julia to let her know he would tell her when they were alone.
They surrounded the counter in the kitchen as Barker wolfed down his salad as though he had not had a chance to eat all day. Dolly and Dom did their usual trick of asking Barker questions about his cases, wanting to know every gruesome and gory detail. He had become good at dodging their questions and speaking without revealing anything real.
When he finished, Julia poured them all glasses of the lemonade she had freshly squeezed when she had arrived home. She waited for the teenagers to naturally drift into the sitting room as they always did. Instead of following, Julia hung back.
“I had to interview Johnny again today,” Barker said quietly when the TV turned on in the other room. “I know what you’re going to say, but he’s the only person who seems to know what is going on.”
“So, you’ve made him a suspect?”
“Not officially,” Barker sa
id defensively. “I’ve convinced the boss to give me more time, but he’s eager to notch things up. Aside from your witness statement and the obituaries, there’s no actual proof.”
Julia sighed as she rubbed between her eyes. She knew it had been too good to be true when the police had eagerly lapped up her statement. When it came down to it, if things did not tick the right boxes, nothing would ever be solved.
“I’ve known Johnny since I was four-years-old,” Julia said. “The only reason he knows so much is because he’s a damn good reporter. He spotted something nobody else did. Without him, you wouldn’t even have a scrap of evidence that any of these deaths were murders.”
“He sounded quite fond of you,” Barker said with a playful grin. “Spoke very highly of his old school chum.”
“We went on a date once,” Julia said with a shrug as she slid off the stool. “We both decided we would work better as friends.”
“Both of you?” Barker asked with an arched brow.
“Yes,” Julia lied. “He’s a good guy. You’re barking up the wrong tree there.”
Barker stood up and wrapped his arms around Julia. He pulled her in, so she slipped her arms inside his suit jacket. His lips met the top of her head, soothing her in an instant.
“For what it’s worth, I don’t think in a month of Sundays that he did it,” Barker whispered. “He’s too sweet. You almost want to pet him.”
“Have you got a crush on him, Barker?” Julia joked as she pulled away from the hug. “Because he is single.”
“Very funny,” Barker said with a roll of his eyes. “He has a crush on you though. Do I have to fight him? I know it will be like kicking a puppy, but he’s prettier than me with those curls and doe eyes.”
“You have nothing to worry about,” she told him as they walked arm in arm into the sitting room. “There’s only one man I love, and he’s in this cottage.”
