by Fiona Grace
The French press was full of coffee, but there was also a teapot of tea brewing. A wide selection of chopped fruits were laid out on a plate, beside a large bowl filled with creamy-looking natural yogurt. Someone had unearthed the rarely used vintage metal toast rack, and filled it with toast. On a plate beside it was a tower of glistening bacon, and a pile of scrambled eggs. Meanwhile, Tom was at the stove, frying yet more bacon, while jostling shoulder to shoulder with Frank, who appeared to be stirring a huge pot of bubbling oatmeal. He was using the biggest pot Lacey owned, and it was filled all the way to the brim. Every available surface was covered in something—dirty mixing bowls, discarded utensils, empty egg cartons, spilled milk, splashed juice, fruit peelings, food scraps, appliances…
“What is going on?” Lacey demanded, hands on hips.
Chester barked.
Both men swirled from the stove to look at her. They looked startled, and each as guilty as the next.
“I woke up early to make you breakfast,” Frank said, quickly.
“Actually, I woke up early to make you breakfast,” Tom said. “But your father seems to think you’d prefer oatmeal. Which he’s making wrong, might I add.”
“Using powdered cinnamon isn’t wrong,” Frank contested. “And it’s a damn sight cheaper than cinnamon sticks!”
Lacey folded her arms. “Okay. This is ridiculous. Between the two of you, you’ve made enough food to feed a small army. Meanwhile, it looks as if neither of you thought to feed the poor dog, or let him out into the garden for his morning wee.”
Both men looked guiltily over at Chester, who was sitting by the back door with a perturbed look on his face.
“Tom,” Lacey said. “Why don’t you go and invite Gina over? We’ll need her help to eat all this. And take Chester with you, please.”
She phrased it as a suggestion, but it was actually a command. Tom seemed to take the hint. He turned off the gas stove and flung his greasy spatula on the counter, then trudged over to the back door, clicked open the latch, and headed out into the misty early morning with Chester.
As soon as the door clicked shut behind him, Lacey turned to Frank. “Dad. You need to stop competing with my fiancé.”
Frank frowned, looking affronted. “Competing? What on earth do you mean? I’m doing nothing of the sort! I just wanted to make you porridge for breakfast like I used to when you were a little girl in need of comforting. Don’t you remember? I made it for you that time your hamster died, and after that, you’d ask for it any time you were sad.” He smiled nostalgically. “I thought you’d appreciate the gesture, considering the circumstances…”
Lacey had no recollection of the event her father had mentioned. She couldn’t even remember having a hamster, let alone him making oatmeal for her when it passed away. But she didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
“That’s very sweet of you,” she said. “But is it true that Tom was already making breakfast when you started?”
“Yes,” her father muttered.
“Then surely you can see how that might have insulted him? If he was already making breakfast and you just ignored him.”
“I wasn’t ignoring him,” Frank said with a pout. “I told him bacon and eggs is an unhealthy breakfast for my little girl. And all that coffee, Lacey! You drink far too much. I suggested fruit and yogurt and a pot of mint tea, but he was absolutely stubborn about it. He downright refused to stop frying his greasy, artery-clogging food! If anyone was doing the ignoring, it was him of me.”
Lacey rubbed her forehead with two fingers, right between the eyes. She’d been awake barely five minutes and could already feel a stress headache coming on. This was the last thing she needed right now, what with everything else that was going on.
“Dad. Please,” she said. “I appreciate your concern. But I’m not a little girl anymore. I can make my own decisions about what to eat for breakfast. You can’t dictate that to me, and neither can Tom. I need you to both start behaving cordially, because there’s too much going on right now for me to umpire you.”
Frank huffed. But it was a relenting huff, not an apology. Still, it was the best Lacey was going to get.
The back door opened then, and Chester and Boudica came flying in. They were both damp from the dewy grass, and brought a cold gust of air with them, followed by a still grumpy-looking Tom, and Gina in her bright pink bathrobe and wellies.
“Look at this feast!” she exclaimed brightly, rubbing her hands with glee and inviting herself to sit down.
“The two men in my life wanted to treat me,” Lacey said, smiling at them both in turn. If they weren’t going to behave themselves of their own accord, then she was going to force them to. “Aren’t I a lucky girl?”
“I’ll say,” Gina replied, grabbing a piece of bacon from the stack. She chowed down on it. “Just a shame about the murder.”
“Yes, well…” Lacey replied, taking a seat beside her. As relieved as she was to have a buffer between Frank and Tom, she didn’t really want to be reminded of all the other troubles in her life. “Perhaps we should save the murder talk until after breakfast?”
Frank and Tom sat, too, neither looking at the other, and everyone began to serve themselves food. Tom had double the amount of bacon, toast, and scrambled eggs he usually would, and Frank had served himself an extra-large helping of oatmeal, before adding chopped fruit on top. Lacey, meanwhile, poured herself a small black coffee, before taking two slices of toast out of the rack and adding a sliced banana on top.
There. Best of both worlds. Tom’s toast, Dad’s fruit.
As they ate in silence, Lacey heard the squeak of the letter box, and the thud of the Wilfordshire Weekly landing on the doormat.
Gina jumped up. “Crossword!” she exclaimed, before scurrying out of the kitchen.
Gina always hated awkward silences. It was no surprise to Lacey she’d found a way to break it.
Gina came back in, the paper in her hand. Lacey was expecting her to say something like “One down, six letters,” but instead she said, “Erm… Lacey? I think you should see this.”
Lacey’s head darted up. She didn’t like the sound of that. “What?”
Gina turned the paper to face her. There, on the front page, was a black-and-white photograph of Queen Victoria’s letter. The headline read: FORGED ROYAL LETTER AT CENTER OF MURDER INVESTIGATION.
Lacey’s stomach dropped to her toes. “Oh no,” she said.
Gina placed the paper down on the table, and everyone crowded in to look.
“I’ll bet it’s on the tele, too,” Gina said.
They all hurried into the living room.
Lacey turned on the TV, and her mouth dropped open as the local news began. Not only was the murder and forgery the headline in the local paper, it was the headline on the TV station as well.
Just then, the house phone began to ring.
She left her dad, Tom, and Gina gawping at the TV, and went out into the corridor to answer it.
“Lacey? It’s Percy,” came the voice of her friendly antiques mentor. He sounded stressed.
“Percy, what is it?” she asked with concern.
“I heard about the murder.”
“Ah.”
“Lacey, this is terrible,” Percy said. “The news is going around the antiques world very quickly. Everyone’s saying you forged the letter.”
“Me?” Lacey exclaimed. “I’m innocent in all this! You know that. I even called you about it all, remember?”
“It’s not me that needs convincing,” Percy replied. “It’s the antiques community. This whole thing will ruin you, Lacey. Your career will take a mortal blow.”
Lacey gripped the phone tightly. She wasn’t going down with the sinking ship. No way. Her life in Wilfordshire, her store, everything she’d built, she’d fight for tooth and nail. In that moment, Lacey resolved to clear her name. Whatever it took.
“Not if I have anything to do with it,” she said, ending the call.
She went b
ack into the living room where Frank, Gina, and Tom were all still staring at the television, and clapped her hands for their attention. They startled and looked over at her standing purposefully in the doorway.
“Turn that thing off,” she said. “We have a murder to solve.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
They gathered together at the kitchen island, a fresh pot of coffee on hand to fuel them through the sleuthing session that lay ahead. Lacey grabbed her notebook and wrote Ronan’s name in the center of the first fresh page. Then she held the pen out, offering it to anyone who may want to chime in.
“All ideas. Any ideas. Nothing’s off limits.”
Gina peered at her skeptically. “You sure about that? Because the last time I offered a suggestion you bit my head off.”
Lacey twisted her lips. “That was before it was splashed all over the press. Things are different now.”
Tom leaned across the table and took the pen from her. “Let’s start with the facts,” he suggested. He wrote the word letter and connected it to Ronan’s name with an arrow, before adding three pound signs—£££. “We know, for a fact, that Ronan had come into a huge amount of money after selling the letter.”
Frank beckoned Tom to pass over the pen. He added forgery, and connected them both with an arrow. “And we know the letter turned out to be a forgery.”
A sudden idea hit Lacey. She took the pen from her father and added: fountain pen.
“Fountain pen?” Gina repeated.
Lacey nodded. “When I was at the crime scene, I overheard the cops say Ronan was stabbed with a fountain pen.” She shuddered as the horrible memories replayed in her mind. “Could that be a clue? A reference to the forgery?” She added a question mark after it.
“How do you kill someone with a fountain pen?” Tom asked.
“With brute force?” Gina suggested. “A lot of pent up rage?” She picked up the pen and mimed a furious stabbing gesture.
Everyone grimaced.
“Actually,” Lacey said, “there was only a single stab wound. The cop said it must’ve pierced his heart. There was very little blood at the scene, which suggests his heart stopped pumping pretty quickly.”
The two men bowed their heads solemnly at the somber news. Gina, on the other hand, added stabbed once to the diagram.
Tom took the pen from her and added the word: mistake?
“Mistake?” Lacey asked. “What do you mean?”
“Could’ve been an unfortunate accident,” he said. “Maybe the perp was holding the pen as a threat, to intimate him, and accidentally struck him in a fatal blow?”
Gina looked enthused. “Didn’t I say he was probably threatened! I bet they were pretending the pen was a knife in order to get his pin number off him!”
“OR,” Frank interrupted, holding his hand out for the pen. “It shows the opposite. A cold, calculated, preplanned killing. Think about it. What is more likely? The killer accidentally stabbed him in the exact manner that would cause death, or he researched it in advance?”
Lacey wasn’t sure if her father was just trying to contradict Tom, but it didn’t matter. It was a valid theory. She gestured to the paper. “Add it.”
As Frank wrote down his conflicting theory, Tom sat back in his chair and folded his arms. Clearly he assumed Frank’s suggestion was just to contradict his, because there was an unmistakable pout on his lips. Lacey rolled her eyes. Now was really not the time for them to be feuding.
“So what about suspects?” Gina said.
“Well, Lord Fairfax is an obvious one,” Lacey said, picking up the pen and adding his name to the diagram.
“But why would he kill if he’s already so rich?” Gina asked. “Seems like money would be the wrong motivation if he was the perp.”
“Humiliation,” Lacey said. “He only bought the letter in the first place because of some petty rivalry with his twin sister. A sort of one-upmanship contest. He paid to have it privately analyzed just because he knew otherwise she would. Then, when it was revealed to be a fake, he told me he would’ve been so publicly embarrassed that he would’ve ended up with PTSD! So, I wouldn’t put it past him to behave totally irrationally and overreact.”
“What a ridiculous man,” Frank commented. He added the word humiliation to the page.
“I doubt he’d have done it himself though,” Gina added. “I can’t see a man who wears velvet suits stabbing someone. Can you? If Lord Fairfax was behind the murder, my bet is he would have gotten someone else to do the dirty work on his behalf.”
“Hounslow,” Lacey said, clicking her fingers. “His dutiful valet. Never says a word. Always by his side wherever he goes.”
“The muscle,” Tom said with a nod. He took the pen and wrote valet next to Lord Fairfax. Then he tapped the word forgery contemplatively. “This is the bit I’m lost at. You spoke to Percy before agreeing to the auction, right? And he vouched for the auction house. Confirmed the authentication letter was genuine. So how did they make such a big mistake?”
Lacey sat back ponderously. “That’s a really good point. Lord Fairfax said his private analysis showed the forgery was visually a near perfect replica, but that it was the chemical composition of the paper that gave it away. The authenticator must’ve only done a visual inspection.”
“Don’t you think they’d be more careful, considering the value of the letter?” Tom said. “Seems to me like someone didn’t do their job properly.”
Lacey clicked her fingers. “You’re right!” She jumped up from the island and grabbed her laptop, quickly typing Westminster Auction House into the search bar. A fancy-looking website appeared before her, playing baroque music in the background.
Lacey read aloud: “The world famous Westminster Auction House caters to the elite of Britain. We deal exclusively in royal paraphernalia, property, land and heirlooms, ensuring the riches of the blue-blooded stay just that.”
Lacey grimaced. No wonder Ronan had been loath to work with them. At least she’d invited mere mortals to her auction.
She clicked on the tab for staff members, scrolling through the artistic black-and-white photographs until she found the name from the signature at the bottom of Ronan’s authentication letter—Harold Watson. He was a fairly young man for the line of work he was in, and Lacey realized as she scanned his bio that he’d gotten the job through sheer nepotism; he was the son of the current owners. She rolled her eyes. How the other half lived!
There was a telephone number beneath his photo, and Lacey grabbed the telephone from the bracket on the wall. Frank, Tom, and Gina watched her curiously as she punched the number in, and twiddled the cord nervously in her fingers as she waited for the call to connect.
“Westminster Auction House, Antoinette speaking,” a very plummy-sounding woman said.
“Hello, I’d like to talk to Harold Watson,” Lacey said. “He appraised an item I sold at auction, and it turned out to be a fake.”
There was a pause on the line. “Are you the auctioneer from Wilfordshire?”
Wow, Lacey thought, the news had traveled all the way to London already. Percy wasn’t over-exaggerating when he’d said her reputation was on the line.
“Yes,” she said stiffly. “I sold the letter in good faith.”
“I’m afraid Harold isn’t here,” Antoinette said rapidly. “He’s been on vacation all of this week and won’t be back for another couple of days.”
“Oh, really?” Lacey asked, unsure what to make of that. She looked over at her father, Tom, and Gina, and covered the mouthpiece. “He’s on vacation.”
“That’s convenient,” Gina muttered. “I’ll bet he scarpered the second he realized his mistake!”
“Leaving Lacey to face the music,” Frank added.
Lacey turned back to her call, removing her hand from the mouthpiece. “So he’ll be back sometime next week?” she asked.
“That’s right,” Antionette said.
“Fine. I’ll call back then. Please tell him to expect my
call.”
She put down the phone and was about to return to the others to carry on their mind-mapping session, when she caught sight of the clock on the kitchen wall. It was already past nine.
“Gina!” she cried. “Look at the time! We’re late for work.”
“Oh no,” Gina said, jumping up. “Finnbar!”
Frank frowned with confusion. “What’s wrong with Finnbar?”
“We’ve never left him to open up the store on his own before,” Lacey said, hurriedly, as she began zipping around the room gathering her things and throwing them into her purse. “He’ll be a nervous wreck.”
“Mornings are the busiest time!” Gina added, running for the back door so quickly her bright pink bathrobe flew out like a cape behind her.
Chester leapt to his feet, watching excitedly at the sudden chaos that had erupted around him.
“See you there!” Gina cried, before she darted out the back door.
And with that, Lacey temporarily abandoned her effort to solve the murder. She was now more worried about rescuing Finnbar.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Lacey, Frank, and Chester hurried into the store—a record ten minutes after she’d realized they were late, Lacey in a blind panic. But rather than a stressed Finnbar in a flap, she discovered the young man sat behind the counter, calmly reading from his PhD textbook, looking perfectly relaxed.
“Ah, there you are,” he said, looking up from his tome, just as Gina came careening in through the door after Lacey, red-faced and panting, with Boudica huffing in behind her.
Finnbar frowned at the state of them all.
“I’m so sorry we’re late,” Lacey said, hurrying over to the register. She decided not to explain the real reason for their tardiness, knowing it would only cause the oversensitive Finnbar more angst.
He looked at her with a perplexed expression. “Is everything okay?”
“With me?” Lacey said, rapidly. “Yes. Of course. But are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he replied. “Why wouldn’t I be fine?”
