by Agatha Frost
“I thought she’d gone into labour.”
“Very much still pregnant, last I saw.” John crouched on a level with the deceased’s face. “I’m so tempted to just lift her head up to check, but forensics would string me up.”
“Check what?” Barker asked, mind racing as his fingers tightened around the bag’s straps. “What happened?”
“Lynn Sweet.” John consulted his notes. “Cleaner, member of the book club your wife is part of. According to eyewitnesses, she choked to death on one of these.”
John motioned to the half-dismantled profiterole tower in the middle of the table. Julia had given it a different name over breakfast, but Barker had been too distracted with thoughts of Terry to catch it. Something French, maybe.
“Your wife had a lot to say.” John slapped the notepad shut. “Claims she didn’t see Lynn eat a profiterole despite what the other women in the book club think they saw.” Tilting his head, he squinted at Lynn. “On this occasion, much as it pains me to say it, I’d be inclined to agree with her. I can’t rule anything out yet, but Julia’s description of things doesn’t sound consistent with choking. If I could just have a look . . .”
“You know you can’t.”
John smiled as if to say easy now, and Barker couldn’t blame him. Close friends – or whatever ‘close’ was for two busy men in their forties – they might be, but Barker wasn’t John’s superior anymore. John had long since risen above his former detective sergeant ranking.
“You’re thinking foul play?” Barker asked.
“I wasn’t,” he replied, “but Julia said something that made me consider it. Apparently, Lynn downed a cup of tea right before faceplanting on the table. Poured it from this teapot, made by guess who.”
Barker’s jaw gritted, panic rising in his chest.
“Don’t worry, pal.” John patted him on the arm. “I don’t think your wife is a murderer. I’ll have to follow procedure, obviously, but I believe her when she says she didn’t slip anything into the woman’s tea. Evidently Lynn was also alone in the bathroom for some time before the incident. Need to cover all bases, and . . .”
John’s voice trailed off at the double slam of van doors outside the café. From his years liaising with the crime scene team, Barker knew that sound all too well.
“That’s us booted out,” John called to the officers inspecting the kitchen, gesturing at the door. “The way forensics rushes around, you’d think they were here to save a life.”
Barker took one last look at Lynn, sincerely hoping a mysterious medical issue had abruptly – but innocently – ended her life. The last thing Julia needed was a mystery right under her nose. If her reaction to the murder mystery train journey he’d surprised her with yesterday afternoon had proved anything, it was that pregnancy hadn’t dulled her natural detective instincts.
Leaving John to brief the white-clad crime scene investigators who had rushed into the café, Barker pressed through the even thicker crowd, ignoring the longing looks for information. Gossip flew around Peridale like no place he had ever known. Many versions of what happened here today would travel far and wide without him revealing a single thing.
A familiar motorbike ground to a halt on the edge of the village green, and Jessie’s older brother, Alfie, climbed off. He pulled off his helmet and frowned as he retrieved his phone from the pocket of his leathers. He typed something before spotting Barker.
“What’s going on?” he asked, running his tongue over the black ring in the corner of his lip. “Is Julia—”
“She’s fine,” Barker said before adding, “I think. I have no idea where she’s gone, but one of her book club members—”
“Mum?” Jessie’s cry cut from deep within the tight alley. “Mum?”
Hearing the sheer panic in her voice, Barker waved high above the crowd to catch Jessie’s attention.
“What’s going on?” she demanded, unable to stop scanning the crowd, just like Barker. “Where’s Mum?”
“I don’t know,” Barker replied. “Someone has died.”
“What?” Jessie frowned. “Who?”
“Lynn?” he said. “That woman who started cleaning my office last week. She dropped dead in the middle of the book club.”
Jessie let out a sigh from deep within her chest and, to Barker’s surprise, smiled. Not just a relieved smile, a genuine cheek-rounding smile. As she rolled her head back, the smile turned into a single shoulder-heaving laugh directed towards the grey sky.
Barker and Alfie exchanged confused glances.
“Dot’s waving us over,” Jessie said, gazing across the green with the eerie smile still on her face. “Two guesses where Mum went.”
Jessie jogged across the village green before either Barker or Alfie could speak a word.
“Any idea what that was about?” he asked as Alfie locked his motorbike. “Not the usual reaction to finding out someone has just died.”
“It’s not my style to talk about Jessie behind her back,” Alfie replied darkly, “but I’m worried about her. She called half an hour ago asking how much money I could get hold of.”
“Money? What for?”
“She didn’t say.” Alfie tucked the helmet into the compartment at the back of the bike. “I was fixing up a burst pipe in Riverswick, but I came straight over to get some answers out of her.”
Julia had also mentioned her concern that something was going on with Jessie a few times in the past week. Barker had been too busy with the Terry Trotter case to give it much thought. To him, she’d seemed like a typical moody teenager. Still, he’d never been as good at reading between Jessie’s lines as Julia was.
Leaving the crowd, Alfie and Barker headed to Dot’s cottage. After dropping his emergency hospital duffle bag in the hallway, Barker found Julia in the armchair by the electric fire in the sitting room, scribbling in her notepad. When she looked up, she abandoned her writing to rush across the room as quickly as her belly would allow her.
“Oh, Barker,” she whispered as she clung to him. “Lynn’s dead.”
“I know,” he replied, pulling away and holding her at arm’s length. “Are you okay?”
“I think so.” She blinked heavily, like she really wasn’t sure. “I think I’m in shock, and—”
“Tea!” Percy, Dot’s short round husband, announced as he shuffled in with a full, clattering tray. “Everyone get comfy. Dot’s making sandwiches, and I’ve put out all the best biscuits.”
Leaving Percy to fuss over Julia, Barker slipped out of the room. He popped his head into the kitchen where Dot was slathering butter on slices of white bread. Before she roped him into helping, he followed the unmistakable sound of whispering into the dining room. He entered without knocking, hoping to catch the whisperers off-guard.
Jessie and Alfie stopped talking immediately. Jessie was still smiling, and the shakiness of the pricked-up edges unsettled Barker to the core. As though he could sense what Barker was about to ask of him, Alfie left.
“You know you’ll have to solve this if the police don’t come up with an answer in the next few days?” Jessie said as she examined the collection of framed photographs on the mantelpiece. “There’s no way Mum won’t jump into—”
“Why do you need money?”
Jessie rolled her eyes. “He told you, then.”
“That doesn’t matter.” Barker stepped towards her and ducked slightly to meet her eyes. “What’s going on? Your mum has been worried about you, Alfie’s clearly worried about you, and now I’m worried too. Are you in trouble?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It really does.”
“No,” she replied firmly, though she still didn’t look his way. He followed her gaze through the window to the bleak garden outside as a hazy hint of sun broke through the thick clouds. “It really doesn’t. Not now. Just forget it.”
Like most teenagers, a stubborn streak ran through Jessie’s centre, but never like this. This was new. She might not call him �
�dad’, but that didn’t change the way he felt about her.
“Does this have something to do with Lynn?”
Jessie clenched her jaw as though to suppress a reaction – a response in itself.
Barker knew that look well. He’d seen it across the table countless times while interviewing suspects. He’d hit a nerve.
“It really doesn’t matter,” she repeated.
“That’s not an answer to the question.”
“Well, it’s the only answer you’re getting.” Jessie set off around the dining table. “Please trust me. It doesn’t matter.”
Before he could stop her, Jessie left. He followed and found her already perched on the arm of Julia’s chair. She stared as though daring him to continue the conversation while they all sipped from Dot’s best china.
Nothing good would come from pushing it, but that didn’t unravel the knot in his stomach.
Stepping aside to admit Dot and her mountain of hastily made triangle-cut sandwiches, Barker once again hoped Lynn’s death had an innocent explanation – and this time, not just to stop Julia falling headfirst into unpicking another potential murder.
He might not be a detective inspector anymore, but he understood why Jessie’s strange smile had so unsettled him. It was another expression he was familiar with from those suspect interviews: the smile of someone who thought they’d just got away with something.
The smile of the guilty.
Not Jessie, he pleaded.
Anyone but Jessie.
3
Julia
The small bus rounded a tight corner in the narrow lane and bobbed straight into a deep pothole. Passengers groaned, and Julia’s head banged against the cold window as she stared blankly into the nothingness of the dark countryside. Even that wasn’t enough to shake her from her thoughts.
The book club.
Lynn.
And, of course, what everyone expected her to do now that the sun had set, risen, and set again without a resolution to the death she’d witnessed in her own café.
“Hello? Earth to Julia?” Sue’s hand waved in front of her face. “How do we change Katie’s mind?”
Her younger sister’s voice brought her back to the present, and Julia blinked. She’d tuned out of the conversation when the topic of the impending baby shower came up not long after they’d boarded in Cheltenham. She had no idea when their stepmother, Katie Wellington-South, had entered the conversation.
“Change Katie’s mind about what?”
“Having the baby shower at her cottage?” Sue squinted at her. “Come on, Julia. I know what you’re thinking, and you don’t need to. Given enough time, the police will figure it out.”
Julia glanced down at the shopping bags filled with baby clothes to add to her already comprehensive collection at home. Baking was her preferred therapy, but on this bleak Monday, she hadn’t been in the mood. Sue hadn’t given her much choice about getting out of the village for a city shopping trip. With Julia’s car trapped behind police tape, Sue had come armed with the bus timetable and a pocket full of change. Julia went along with the excursion to see if her sister’s insistence that retail therapy would do the trick would prove accurate. As distracted then as she was now, Julia couldn’t remember most of what they’d bought.
“What’s wrong with having the baby shower at Katie’s cottage?” Julia asked, forcing interest; it was, after all, an event they were planning for her.
“It’s a little . . . small.” Sue shrugged. “Hardly Wellington Manor, is it?”
“We’ll all fit.”
“Only just. I still don’t understand why they don’t live in the manor until it sells. It could be ages before a buyer . . .”
The yellowy lights of tower blocks in the distance caught Julia’s attention, and her thoughts once again drifted away from Sue’s voice. She squinted, certain the lights belonged to the Fern Moore housing estate that lay just outside the village. Julia reached across her chattering sister and rang the bell on the pole.
“What are you doing?” Sue demanded, slapping Julia’s hand away. “This isn’t our stop.”
“I know.” She pulled herself upright with the assistance of the empty seat in front of her. “I’ve been going over and over everything since Lynn died yesterday, and you know what I realised?” She squeezed past her sister into the aisle, holding the pole as the bus rocked. “She was never anything but nice to me, and yet I didn’t know a thing about her. I didn’t ask enough questions, and now it’s too late.”
“And you’re going to find answers at Fern Moore of all places?”
“Lynn lived here. She mentioned living with another woman. The least I can do is pay my respects.”
“But . . .” Sue stood, bags in hand. “You can’t. What about all this stuff?”
“Take it home, and I’ll pick it up tomorrow.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No offence, Sue,” Julia said, offering her sister a strained smile as the bus crawled to a halt, “but you never even met Lynn. I’ll call you.”
“But Julia—”
“I’ll call you.”
The doors shuddered open next to a bus stop lit by a tall streetlamp, and Julia climbed out. Conflicting music pounded from all directions, a potent reminder that despite sharing Peridale’s postcode, the rules were vastly different here.
“Couldn’t help but overhear. You’re looking for Mavis Morgan,” an old woman said as she exited the bus after Julia. “Flat 42. Watch how you go.”
Dragging her wheeled shopping bag behind her, the woman hurried towards the two utilitarian blocks of flats that made up the estate.
Fern Moore’s reputation was known all too well. Most people in Peridale were scared to step foot anywhere near it, especially at night. While that trepidation wasn’t without reason, Julia had learned that, like most places, a few rotten eggs were responsible for that negative impression, and most of the residents were decent people.
Head down and hands buried deep in her pockets, she set off towards the courtyard. The place’s recent makeover was still mostly holding up. Once a common meeting ground for the local gangs, they’d replaced the old metal climbing frames in the centre with a more natural wooden playground more suitable for children.
The new twenty-four-hour mini supermarket, CostSavers, was still in business. To her surprise, a small café had opened in one of the usually empty units next door, although its shutters were down for the day. The graffiti had snuck back in waves of colour, but it added some spirit to the brighter-than-usual white of the council’s fresh lick of paint. The lift, a relic once permanently ‘out of order’ was working, thankfully; Julia wasn’t sure she’d have managed all the stairs in her current condition.
The lift wheezed up to the second to last floor, and after scanning the numbers on the doors, she found flat 42 nestled in the far-right corner of the open concrete walkway. Coronation Street’s familiar theme sang out behind the net curtains; someone was home, at least.
Julia knocked even as she realised she had no idea what she even wanted to discover. She’d made notes about Lynn but had barely been able to fill a front and back page. In the absence of actual knowledge, she’d focused on her own impressions of Lynn’s character.
“Who is it?” a voice called through the door.
“Mavis? My name is Julia,” she said, wondering if that meant anything. “I was part of Lynn’s book club. If it’s not a good time, I can—”
The chain rattled, and the door cracked open. A woman of at least seventy, her grey hair in plastic rollers underneath a blue gingham scarf, looked Julia up and down. Her eyes lingered on the bump like most did these days.
“Julia?” She nodded. “Lynn mentioned you. Come in.”
Mavis opened the door wide and stepped aside. Julia walked in, stunned by how large it was compared to the other Fern Moore flats she’d seen. It occupied the entire corner of the building, and large picture windows overlooked the fields surrounding th
e estate. Decorated traditionally, the open plan living area included a sitting room, where the TV was playing; a dining area; and a corner kitchen.
“I was just baking,” she explained as she shut the door. “Jam roly-poly. I know it’s old-fashioned these days, but it was Lynn’s favourite, and . . .”
Her words melted into tears as she clutched the head of a high-backed armchair in front of the telly. Mavis fought them for a moment before straightening and crossing over to the kitchen.
“Forgive me,” she said, sniffing hard as she picked up a mixing bowl. “It’s been a strange couple of days. Tea?”
“Peppermint, if you have it.” Julia reached into her handbag and pulled out an individually wrapped tea bag. “And if not, I always carry my own.”
“I suppose they don’t like women in your condition drinking caffeine these days.” Mavis accepted the tea bag and switched on the yellow plastic kettle in the corner.
While that was true, Julia had liked peppermint tea long before her bump had put an end to caffeine – though she had always favoured the peppermint and liquorice variety. Since liquorice was on the list of foods to avoid, she hadn’t had her old favourite since discovering she was pregnant. She still missed its distinct sweetness with every plain peppermint cup.
“Lynn’s favourite, you said?” Julia glanced into the bowl – way too much flour, but it wasn’t her place to mention it. “I run a café, and I never knew that. I’d have made it for her.”
“Oh, you’re the café lady.” Mavis wagged a finger after pulling two cups from the cupboard. “She brought home some of your chocolate cake the other week. Wouldn’t stop talking about how moist it was. I finally tried some to shut her up, and she was right. Lynn was like that. Could talk the ear off a donkey.”
Mavis clung to the counter, and more tears welled up, but she sniffed them back even quicker. Julia glanced at the door, wishing she’d stayed on the bus and returned after more time had passed. The kettle pinged, and Mavis poured boiling water into the waiting cups.
