by Agatha Frost
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
O ne week later, on Claire’s thirty-sixth birthday, she was more than happy to be alone in her closed candle shop after another busy Saturday. She placed the final shiny jar, completing the circular display of identical white candles.
Perfecting the new and improved fresh linen scent had taken a while, but she’d nailed it with the fifth version. A hint more Egyptian musk and a dash less jasmine had been all it needed. Simple when she knew the answer, but much like Eryk and Tomek’s murders, she had to go around the houses to get there.
After kicking the cardboard box through to the back room, she flicked off the lights and headed upstairs. The flat had been relatively tidy when she’d left that morning, but now it glimmered like a show home.
“You cleaned up.”
“I couldn’t help myself,” Janet said, lying on Claire’s bed and flicking through the latest issue of the Northash Observer. A fresh linen candle glimmered on the bedside table. “And before you ask why I’m rereading the article, it’s because I’m very proud of you.”
“Better than the women’s magazines,” she said. “They’d never have gone with ‘Business Owner Busts Bargain Booze Murder Madness!’ for a headline.”
“And a hair more interesting,” she said, tracing the words with a finger. “‘When asked where her unlikely detective skills came from, candle shop owner, Claire Harris, credited her father, Detective Inspector Alan Harris, now retired.’ He cried when he saw that.”
“It’s only the truth.” She settled on the bed. “Though ‘detective skills’ is a push.”
Janet slapped the paper shut and picked up her compact mirror to put in her diamond studs. Claire had been happy to oblige when her mother had asked if she could get ready for their drinks at the pub away from Moreen’s watchful eye.
“This new candle might be your best yet.” Janet inhaled as she fastened the stud at the back. “If you ever stop making this one, we’ll be having words.”
Claire grinned, pleased by how much her mother loved it. She’d made the candle specifically for her, after all – though she’d kept that part to herself.
“Don’t worry, it’s here to stay.” She dragged her finger around the front-page picture of Duncan, in a wheelchair, being escorted out of the hospital by police. “Tonight’s only a few drinks at the pub, isn’t it? No surprise party?”
“No party.” Janet blinked into a mascara wand. “That’s what you asked for.” She dunked the wand again. “You’ll never guess who I saw this morning.”
A quick change of subject was never a good sign.
“Who?” she asked, playing along.
“Linda and Joan from the WI.” Janet closed the mascara and tossed it into her small makeup bag. “Barred from the shop, eh?”
“I can explain.”
“You don’t need to.” She grabbed Claire’s hand. “Even though they denied saying anything bad about me, I know you wouldn’t have blown up like that unless you had a reason. I never liked them much anyway, so thank you.”
“You feeling alright, Mum?”
“I am.” She inhaled, rubbing the back of Claire’s hand with her thumb. “I’m feeling grateful that, for whatever reason, you’re always fighting in my corner. I haven’t always been the best to you, Claire.”
“Oh, give over.” Claire shuffled next to her mum and hugged her. “The past is the past. I love where our relationship is right now.”
Janet’s face lit up.
“Really?”
“Really.” Claire kissed her mum on the cheek. “Just promise if you ever commit light fraud again you won’t keep it such a secret.”
“I promise.”
In the chaos of Eryk’s shooting, Tomek’s hanging, the allotment raid, and Duncan’s confession, Janet’s pension fraud had, thankfully, slipped through the cracks. A cheque to the council to make up the money seemed to be enough.
“And try to bottle things up a little less,” said Claire firmly. “Emotions aren’t ugly, despite what your mother tells you. You don’t have to be fine all the time. And even if you don’t want to let all the Joans and Lindas know, don’t hide the bad stuff from your family. You can tell me anything.”
“Anything?” Janet inhaled. “I’m terrified of the future. I don’t know what to do with myself now. The post office was all I’ve ever known. Forty years. I feel like I’m being put out to pasture, but I’m not ready to retire.”
“Then don’t.”
“But I’m not good at anything,” she said, sighing. “Not really. Who would hire me?”
“Now you’re just being silly.” Claire headed to the wardrobe to find something to wear. “You’re brilliant, Mum. You file my accounts, you can organise like nobody’s business, and look at what you did to my flat in half an hour. It looks like nobody even lives here, it’s that clean. You have more transferable skills than most people in the job market.”
“But what do I do?”
“Who says you need to figure it out right now?” Claire pulled two hangers from the wardrobe and showed them to her mum. “Which one?”
Janet assessed both, and Claire almost regretted asking. Her mother never agreed with her fashion choices, safe as they usually were. Anything that hadn’t originated in Marks and Spencer’s clothing department didn’t typically live up to her mother’s formal, middle-class standards.
“Which do you like?” Janet asked instead.
Claire almost made a sarcastic comment about needing to check her mother’s temperature, but she refrained. She’d felt several shifts since the night Eryk dropped his bombshell on Janet in the sitting room. Not all had been good, but since Duncan’s arrest, Janet’s attitude seemed to have shifted once more. Maybe it was only a couple of degrees to the left, but it was a change, nonetheless.
Claire opted for a scoop-necked black blouse, dark grey fitted jeans, and an oversized cream blazer. In the mirror, she looked altogether more grown-up than usual … but, then, her mother wasn’t the only one who had shifted.
Before her last birthday, she’d been single, living with her parents, and working in a factory. She barely recognised that life. And she loved the one she was living now.
Claire waited at the top of the stairs while her mother ran the taps in the bathroom. The gushing water wasn’t loud enough to cover the whispering.
“Ready?” Janet asked as she walked out.
“Let’s go.”
As she’d suspected, she heard a round of shushing as they approached the unusually quiet pub across the square. A chorus of “Surprise!” hit her like a wave as she entered the packed pub, where every face she knew from around the village was present and accounted for.
Last year, the idea of a surprise party in her honour would have made her skin crawl, but amazingly, she only felt love as the grinning faces crowded around her.
“Do you hate me?” Ryan whispered into her ear as he hugged her. “I’ve missed so many birthdays, I couldn’t resist.”
“So much for a quiet drink,” she said before kissing him. “But I could never hate you. How long have you been planning this?”
“He’s been at it all month.” Sally gave her a sideways hug. “Why do you think we all kept asking what you were doing for your birthday?”
“I had noticed. Cheers for giving me the heads up, mate.”
“Wouldn’t have been a surprise.”
“Enough chat!” Damon clapped his hands. “It’s a crime that the birthday girl doesn’t already have a pint of homebrew in her hand.”
While Theresa pulled Claire the traditional free birthday pint, she scanned the pub. Em and Ash were chatting in a quiet corner, and for the first time, Claire witnessed Ash’s smile.
“Your mother managed to get in touch with his father,” Alan whispered to Claire as he joined her at the bar. “He seemed shocked to hear how Ash was living.”
“Didn’t he kick him out?”
“He did,” he said with a nod, “but it seemed like he wan
ted to make amends. He’s supposed to be showing his face here to talk things through. For the child’s sake, let’s hope he does.”
Another absent father and another of her birthday parties; Claire hoped history didn’t repeat itself.
When she depleted her first pint, Damon placed another directly in her hand. She had a feeling it was going to be one of those nights where she didn’t have to put her hand in her pocket. And if it were, tomorrow would be one of those mornings she’d be glad she didn’t have to open the shop.
An hour into the party, while Ryan and Claire fought in doubles against Damon and Sally at the pool table, Leo popped his head through the door. She passed her pint to Sally and joined him in the small vestibule.
“Happy birthday,” he said, handing her a yellow envelope. “Hope you don’t mind if I don’t join in. I’m not sure I can face people yet.”
“Not at all,” she said. “You’re looking well.”
“I am?” He pushed up his glasses. “Thanks. It feels good to be sleeping again. Most nights, anyway. The police dropping the charges against me has helped. My dad gave a statement saying I was coerced.”
“You say that like he did you a favour. You were coerced.”
“I know.” He peered down at his shoes. “No matter how scared I was, I still had a choice, and I did make things worse. Berna keeps reminding me the situation was bigger than me. Maybe she’s right.”
“You were just a guy working in the wrong place at the wrong time.” She patted his shoulder. “How’s Berna doing?”
“As good as can be expected, given the circumstances,” he said, pushing his hands into his pockets. “Anna too. They’re settling in with Anna’s sister. Being around their family seems to be helping.”
“Funny how that usually does the trick.”
“Yeah,” he said sadly. “I … I don’t really have anyone left now.”
“Oh, Leo, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“No, it’s fine.” He smiled. “Listen, I’m not just here to give you that card. I’m here to say goodbye too.”
“Where are you going?”
“Poland,” he said, exhaling heavily. “Berna’s asked me to fly over. We’re going to see how things go. After everything my dad did, I never thought she’d give me another chance.”
They stepped aside to let a short man with dark blond hair walk past them and into the pub.
“Is that what you want to do?”
“I have nothing left here,” he said, looking over his shoulder into the darkening square. “Don’t even have a job now. I have no idea what it’ll be like living in Poland, but I’ll be with the girl I love. And I’ll be there for our baby. Growing up, my dad wasn’t really there for me. After my mum died, he stepped up a little bit, but look how that turned out.”
Claire hadn’t known Leo’s mother was dead. She knew little about him other than he was the young guy in the post office with the glasses and mild acne who’d get endearingly flustered whenever she went in.
“I suppose I should go and pack,” he said, tensing up his shoulders as he rocked back on his heels. “Ticket is booked for the morning. Don’t suppose you know which buses get near the airport?”
“I usually get a taxi.”
“Ah, I can’t afford that.” He rocked again. “For all Eryk’s faults, he always paid me on time. That wasn’t so much a priority for the week my dad was in charge.”
Claire pulled her purse from her blazer pocket, fished out all the notes she had, and stuffed them into Leo’s hands. It was at least a hundred pounds. She definitely couldn’t have made the gesture on her last birthday; it was another potent reminder of just how far she’d come in a year.
“Claire, I can’t—”
“It’s my birthday,” she said, putting her purse away. “I’m about to get very drunk for free, so it’s not up for discussion. It’s only what I would have spent buying rounds. Why don’t you come in for one? Nobody will say anything.”
“I’m not sure.”
“It’s your last night in Northash,” she said, wrapping her arm around his shoulders. “You can’t leave without one last pint of Hesketh Homebrew.”
Once she had Leo set up at the bar with her father, DI Ramsbottom drifted over with a plate from the buffet.
“You came across well on the news,” she said, lifting her drink to him, an unspoken ‘well, this time’, lingering in her pause. “Enjoy your moment of glory?”
“Much better without a pesky journalist trying to catch me out.” He bit into a cocktail sausage. “It’s your name on the front page, though, not that you don’t deserve it.”
“You’ll get the next one,” said Alan. “Join me for a whisky.”
As Ramsbottom climbed onto a tiny barstool, she looked over to the corner. Ash was sitting with the man who had snuck in through the vestibule. They were locked in a tight embrace, both crying.
“It’s not natural, is it?” hissed Moreen, standing by the bar and sipping her plain tomato juice. “A boy with hair that long. Looks like a girl, and you know how I feel about that. It’s not right.”
“Oh, Mother,” Janet snapped. “Give it a rest.”
“Don’t backchat, girl!”
For a split second, Claire thought her mother would apologise and go back to her wine. Instead, Janet put down the glass and rose from her bar stool.
“Why does it matter how long Ash’s hair is?” Janet asked, her eyes firmly on her mother. “Well?”
“It’s not normal.”
“Why?” Janet pushed. “What difference does it make to you? What difference does anything that anyone does make to you?”
Moreen stiffened, nostrils flaring. “Watch your tongue, Janet. You forget to whom you are speaking.”
“Oh, I know exactly who I’m talking to.”
“I am your mother!”
“I am your daughter.” Janet planted her hands on her hips. “And I’ve had enough of your poison. Enough. When does it stop? When do you realise that the things you say can hurt people?”
“Like you’re a saint.”
Moreen’s voice rose so loudly the chatter died down around the bar. Theresa and Malcolm trained their eyes on mother and daughter, clearly ready to jump in when needed.
“You’re right.” Janet tossed her hands out. “I’m not innocent. I’m more like you than I want to be. The way you brought me up to fear you, the control – I don’t want that. You infected me.”
“This is how you speak to your mother?” Moreen slammed her glass down on the bar, spilling tomato juice. “No wonder your daughter’s such a perpetual disappointment.”
Gasps shuddered through the silence, but Claire only shrugged. No matter the subject, Moreen always got her digs in whenever she could.
“Despite me, my daughter turned out wonderfully,” Janet said, holding her head high even as her bottom lip quivered. “You’re nothing but a bully, Mother.”
“A bully?” Moreen stretched out a finger. “You know nothing. Had I ever spoken to my mother as you’re speaking to me now, she would already have lashed me with the cane. At least I never hit you!”
“So, that’s how you sleep at night?”
More gasps followed, but Claire was too stunned to react. For the first time in her life, Moreen looked speechless. Her mouth gaped as she tried to say something, but the words didn’t come.
“Why are you still in Northash if you hate it so much?” Janet asked.
“I wanted to spend time with my family.”
“Then you have a funny way of showing it.” Janet exhaled and looked down for the first time. “I’m too old and too tired to put up with you anymore, Mother. If you want to spend your final days spitting acid, go right ahead. I choose not to be around it. I need to break this cycle. I think the time has come for you to go home.”
Behind her snarl, Moreen looked as though she was fighting back tears. But she’d never let them fall, not even when faced with her daughter’s honesty.
>
“Very well,” she said, primly clasping her hands at her waist. “I will be on the first train home in the morning.”
Moreen turned on her heel and left, though the mood in the pub didn’t immediately revert to what it had been.
Janet collapsed onto her stool and picked up her wine as Alan clutched her free hand.
“Good for you,” Greta said, patting her on the back. “Good for you, Janet.”
“Was I too harsh?”
“I’d say you were positively restrained, dear,” Alan said, raising his glass. “You didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.”
“She’s ninety.”
“Which just means she’s old enough to know better,” Greta said before clapping her hands several times. “Right, everyone, you’ve had your performance for the evening. Back to it. My definitely not disappointing Claire’s birthday isn’t going to celebrate itself.”
As the party reluctantly picked up, Claire hugged her mother from behind.
“I’m sorry for doing that tonight of all nights. I should have waited.”
“No, you shouldn’t.” Claire squeezed tight. “I’m proud of you, Mum.”
It took another round of drinks and Theresa turning up the music for the party atmosphere to return. Ryan and Claire beat Sally and Damon at pool three times in a row before they gave up and stopped asking for rematches.
“I probably should have mentioned I got quite good at pool in Spain,” Ryan whispered to Claire as Sally and Damon wandered off. “Is something going on with those two?”
“Oh, absolutely,” she whispered back as they slunk off through the front door one after the other. “I don’t know what, exactly, but it’s sweet they think I haven’t noticed.”
“I would never have put them together,” he said, wrapping his arm around her shoulders, “but it kind of works.”
“Apparently they have chemistry.” Claire chuckled as she took the first sip of her third pint. “Not that Sally admitted who she was talking about, but I know.”
In the corner, Ash and his father stood after almost an hour of deep conversation. As they walked to the door, Janet followed them out.
