MILLIONAIRE’S SHORTBREAD AND MURDER

PERIDALE CAFE

BOOK 34

AGATHA FROST

PINK TREE PUBLISHING LTD

Published by Pink Tree Publishing Limited in 2025

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright © Pink Tree Publishing Limited.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

without the express written permission of the publisher

except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

For questions and comments about this book, please contact pinktreepublishing@gmail.com

www.pinktreepublishing.com

www.agathafrost.com

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ALSO BY AGATHA FROST

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3. The Fatal First Edition

2. The Plot Thickens

1. The Last Draft

Peridale Café

There’s always a cup of peppermint and liqourice tea and a murder to solve in the Peridale Café…

34. Millionaire’s Shortbread and Murder (Coming soon)

33. Cruffins and Confessions

32. Lemon Drizzle and Loathing

31. Sangria and Secrets

30. Mince Pies and Madness

29. Pumpkins and Peril

28. Eton Mess and Enemies

27. Banana Bread and Betrayal

26. Carrot Cake and Concern

25. Marshmallows and Memories

24. Popcorn and Panic

23. Raspberry Lemonade and Ruin

22. Scones and Scandal

21. Profiteroles and Poison

20. Cocktails and Cowardice

19. Brownies and Bloodshed

18. Cheesecake and Confusion

17. Vegetables and Vengeance

16. Red Velvet and Revenge

15. Wedding Cake and Woes

14. Champagne and Catastrophes

13. Ice Cream and Incidents

12. Blueberry Muffins and Misfortune

11. Cupcakes and Casualties

10. Gingerbread and Ghosts

9. Birthday Cake and Bodies

8. Fruit Cake and Fear

7. Macarons and Mayhem

6. Espresso and Evil

5. Shortbread and Sorrow

4. Chocolate Cake and Chaos

3. Doughnuts and Deception

2. Lemonade and Lies

1. Pancakes and Corpses

Claire’s Candles

Head to Northash to join Claire as she solves mysteries from her candle shop…

11. Spiced Orange Suspicion

10. Double Espresso Deception

9. Frosted Plum Fears

8. Wildflower Worries

7. Candy Cane Conspiracies

6. Toffee Apple Torment

5. Fresh Linen Fraud

4. Rose Petal Revenge

3. Coconut Milk Casualty

2. Black Cherry Betrayal

1. Vanilla Bean Vengeance

1

The café’s ageing pedestal fan gave a final pitiful whine, spat a puff of warm air, and died. Julia South-Brown pinched the bridge of her nose. Heat pressed against the windows like a curious cat, fogging the glass and plastering her fringe to her forehead.

“Oh, crumbs,” she muttered.

She thumped the plastic casing; the loose head wobbled in her grip, threatening to pop off altogether.

At last, the blades shuddered back to life, flinging a feeble breeze across the counter. The gust caught her neatly sketched courtyard plans and sent them skittering towards the revolving display cabinet.

Julia lunged and caught the pages, and only one customer was present to witness the scramble: Evelyn Wood, owner of the B&B up the road and self-proclaimed mystic. She lounged in the new high-back chair near the window, pale-pink kaftan draped over the upholstery. The fan stirred the fabric, but the heat had lulled her to sleep. The matching turban lay on the table beside a glass of iced tea whose ice had long surrendered. Soft snores fluttered between the fan’s uneven clicks.

She smoothed the rescued sheets out. The scruffy pencil lines indicated fresh planters, bistro tables, and a small gate leading to the new community square behind the café. If the council inspectors liked what they saw, the café would finally have enough outdoor seating to cope with Peridale’s new bustling market days. In spring, the market had felt like a novelty; now, with summer baked in, visitors streamed in from every lane as reliably as the church bells.

The café doorbell jangled, slicing through the haze. Evelyn didn’t stir, only her kaftan rustled. Julia pasted on her welcome smile, only for it to falter. The newcomers looked as if they’d taken a wrong turn out of a reality-TV villa.

The young man swaggered past the sleeping mystic to the counter, clad in a blinding white tracksuit, a chunky gold chain gleaming against the cotton. His trainers were so pristine that Julia suspected he travelled everywhere by hovercraft.

Behind him hovered an equally young woman whose blonde hair was so sleek and shiny it caught each of the café’s spotlights like a disco ball. She checked her reflection in a framed black-and-white photograph of the café, circa 1890, and slathered gloss on her already glazed lips.

“You the cake lady?” the lad boomed.

“I suppose I am,” Julia said, tugging her apron straight.

“Brilliant.” He offered a firm, clammy hand. “Gaz Collins. This is Kelly. We heard you’re the best ‘round ‘ere.”

Kelly managed a tight smile and drew a manicured nail along the countertop, as if testing whether the village café met the standard of her freshly minted set.

“I’m touched you’ve heard good things,” Julia said. “How can I help?”

Gaz leaned in with a cat-that-got-the-cream satisfied smile. “We need a show-stopper for a special party. Three tiers. Champagne sponge. Shimmer and sparkle, and all that. The works.”

Kelly pulled out her phone and thrust a Pinterest board towards Julia, where endless confections dripped with sugar flowers and edible gold leaf.

“And a buffet,” Gaz added as an afterthought. “Quality stuff. Not that frozen rubbish. No expense spared, but none of that caviar muck either. Just… food people actually want.” He paused, then asked, “You know what I mean, right?”

Julia raised an eyebrow. “I think so. Homely but extravagant?”

“See!” Gaz slapped the counter, making Kelly flinch. “This is why they say she’s the best. You want paying up front or after?”

“Let’s rewind,” Julia said, touched yet still confused. “I don’t even know the occasion.”

“Do you need to?”

“It helps. If you want any writing on the cake⁠—”

“We don’t,” Kelly cut in, a scratch of annoyance sharpening her tone. “What’s with all the questions?”

“Leave it, Kel,” Gaz warned, his voice slicing through the afternoon calm. He straightened, cracked his neck, and flashed Julia a smile, though it failed to land this time. “Look, it’s just for a big announcement.” He waggled his eyebrows, offering no details. “You’ll find out, alright?”

Kelly’s fingers tightened around her phone. “C’mon, Gaz, let’s just go to that place we drove past in Riverswick. It looked well posh compared to⁠—”

“You wanted the best, didn’t you?” Julia said, surprised to hear the words coming from her lips. The couple had thrown her off, but she didn’t retract the statement. “I mean, I’m sure you’d get a fine cake anywhere in the Cotswolds, but I know what I can do. You want three tiers? How about five?”

“See!” Gaz slapped the counter more like a drumroll this time. “Don’t scrimp. I want the best of everything.” He produced a thick wad of fifty-pound notes and laid it on the counter as though paying for a round of teas. “You’ll get the rest at the party.”

Julia gulped. Fifty-pound notes were a rare sight in the café, and even a quick glance confirmed there was nearly a thousand sitting casually on her counter. She’d just pitched herself harder than she’d meant to—bristling at the jab about Riverswick, where cakes cost twice as much and came pre-baked in plastic trays—but still, she hesitated. Something about them felt wrong. Off-key. Like watching someone breakdance to Beethoven.

But if this was only half of the money… that yellow patch of damp in the corner of the kitchen where Barker’s office vestibule connected whenever it rained wasn’t getting any smaller; the old fan wheezed; the unbuilt courtyard would need tables. She swallowed.

“How many people do you think will be there?” Julia asked, and when they shrugged at each other, she added, “It only has to be an estimate.”

Kelly let out a bright, showy laugh, the sort performed for an audience, then cut it short as if she’d remembered there wasn’t one.

“Just… a lot,” Gaz said, shrugging again as he stepped back from the cash as though it was a done deal. “Saturday after next.”

Julia blinked. This was getting even stranger. She stared at the money, wondering if it was even real, and if it was, had it come to her through legal means. There were a lot of fresh fifty-pound notes staring up at her.

“It’s legit, if that’s what you were thinking,” Gaz said, arching a brow to let her know he wasn’t surprised. “You got one of those special pens under that counter for checking notes? Check ‘em.” He tensed up, his fists digging into his pockets. “You wouldn’t be the first.”

A little reluctantly, Julia pulled the pen from the till and ran it across the notes, and the dreaded ink reaction didn’t happen. Gaz’s smile stretched while Kelly rolled her eyes. Rather than linger there, Gaz patted his pockets and pulled out a small pad, similar to the ones Julia used for her ingredients and recipes, among other things.

“Been having to make a lot of lists lately,” he explained, patting down for a pen. “Lots of change.” When one didn’t materialise, Julia plucked one from the pot on the counter, almost handing him the one she’d checked the notes with. “Cheers. I had an idea on the drive over here about something special we could have, but I don’t know what they’re called.”

She tried to look at anything except the money while Gaz sketched something hunched over the pad. Kelly drifted towards the wicker basket of newspapers by the window. She thumbed through the pile, drew out the top copy. After the briefest glance, she shoved it back in as though the pages had scorched her fingers.

Gaz tore off the page from the pad and pushed his handiwork across the counter, and Julia saw one of the most impressive drawings she’d seen in a while. It was a dissected drawing of some kind of food item that was so realistic, Julia’s jaw slackened, certain he hadn’t just scribbled the diagram.

“You know what these things are called?” he asked, tapping the layers. “A sort of hard chocolate on the top, that stringy caramel stuff in the middle, and those Scottish things at the bottom.”

“Shortbread,” Julia said, pulling the sheet closer. “I think you’ve drawn a perfect millionaire’s shortbread.”

Gaz’s face lit up, amused by something.

“Well, I’d say it’s fate,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “We used to have them in the canteen at college and I almost got fat from how good they were. Don’t think I’ve ever tasted anything so fancy in my life. Can you make tons of them and put our initials on the top? K & G? All fancy like those posh people do with their towels and all that.”

But Julia was still taken in by the detail of each layer. How did the shortbread layer look so much like shortbread, given how few pencil marks he’d made? And yet with a bit of colour, it looked good enough to eat.

“Are you an artist?”

Kelly gave a small, derisive snort.

“Used to sketch roofs and chimneys for the boss,” he said with another shrug. “He trained me up old-school. Only our eyes know what we’re actually looking at, he’d say, and our hands can capture it better than a camera.”

“And you left that job for a reason,” Kelly interrupted.

Gaz didn’t elaborate, and the silence thickened between them.

From the corner came a drowsy murmur. Evelyn, still slumped in her chair, mumbled, “Mind the storm clouds, dearies,” then resumed snoring.

Kelly startled, and Gaz offered a half-laugh that failed to land.

“Right, it’s boiling in here,” Kelly announced, turning sharply with a whip of her sleek hair. “I can’t take another second. The cake’s ordered, so let’s get back to see if we can catch the builders sitting around doing nothing like yesterday.”

“Where do I deliver all of this?” Julia asked.

After a moment’s thought, Gaz finally said, “I’ll send someone.”

Gaz pocketed the pen Julia had offered him, gave her a salute, and followed Kelly out after a spin of his squeaky new shoes. The bell jangled after them as they let the door slam into the frame, then the café fell silent.

Evelyn jerked upright, eyes wide. “Great Neptune! I was bobbing about on the Channel in a thunderstorm.” She patted her cheeks, glossy with perspiration. “I’m so hot I may as well have stepped straight from the bath, and even my iced tea’s turned into soup.”

“I’ll make you a fresh one,” Julia said, weaving through the empty tables awaiting the oncoming lunch rush. “On the house.”

“You are kind.” Evelyn fanned out her kaftan, retrieved her turban, and floated to the counter. “It took Mark fending off a toaster fire in the kitchen to exhume me from my ice plunge this morning.” She fanned herself with the laminated menu as a yawn fluttered out. “Did I miss much?”

“Only a couple placing a very extravagant cake order.” Julia tilted her head. “Any psychic impressions of who they might have been?”

Evelyn closed her eyes, fingers pressed theatrically to her temples. “Hmm. Were they an old couple who travelled here by boat?”

“Not quite.”

“Am I close?”

Julia squinted. “I don’t think so?”

“Hmm.” Evelyn nodded, something making sense to her. “Interesting. Then I’m not sure what that dream was about.” She accepted the fresh refill in her takeaway cup, and after lingering in the direction of the fan as it tried its best, she finally glanced at the clock. “I suppose I can’t avoid the B&B forever. I’ve been putting off saging and smudging Room Three since the young couple checked out. They were ever so… what’s a kinder way of saying obnoxious?” She slipped on her turban, offered a regal bow, and sailed towards the door. “I suppose I’ve said it now, but I’m rarely glad to see guests leave. Thanks for the iced tea and the comfortable chair. Almost bought it for myself from your dad’s antique shop. Try not to melt, darling.”

“Good luck with figuring out your dream.”

“You know… I think they were cats sailing the boat, not people at all.” She laughed harshly, as if even she didn’t quite believe it. “This heat really has been messing with me.”

With a waft of lavender and bergamot, she was gone before Julia could ask whether the initials K & G belonged to the young obnoxious couple.

Julia exhaled, alone in the café.

A rarity on a Saturday afternoon, but the wet British heat really did mess with everything.

She glanced at the newspaper basket and wondered if the heat was why Kelly had acted so strangely, but she hadn’t seemed to want to be there since the moment she’d stepped in. To her credit, she suited the Riverswick bakery more, with its Instagram-worthy flower arch over the front door.

Curiosity prickled.

What in print had rattled Kelly enough to stuff the newspaper back? Julia crossed to the basket, fished out the now crumpled issue, and smoothed it flat.

The headline glared up in bold italics: ‘Mystery Lottery Winners Rumoured to be Fern Moore Residents.’

There’d been speculation for months.

£1.2 Million.

How many fifty-pound notes would that be? She punched it into the calculator on the counter. Twenty-four thousand notes. Not enough to fill the room, but enough that it would be spilling over the counter. She glanced at the sketch again, remembering the satisfied grin on Gaz’s face as he’d rubbed his hands together when she’d told him the name of the sweet he’d so finely sketched.

“Who wants to be a millionaire?” Julia sang to herself, feeling faint ridges left behind on the page from a heavier hand on the previous sheet.

Running her thumb back and forth along the grooves, she tried to tell herself she was imagining the feel of six digits, all lined up neatly in a row, like lottery numbers.

2

Twenty minutes later, Julia’s daughter, Jessie, breezed into the café, cheeks pink from the heat and balancing two towering ninety-nines. Vanilla ice cream dripped down the cones, melting too fast in the afternoon glare.

“There were like… twenty people queuing at the ice cream van on Mulberry Lane.” Jessie handed one over, letting go just in time to catch the dribble before it reached her fingers. “I can’t believe there isn’t someone at the market selling this stuff.” She paused. “Maybe we should?”

“Maybe,” Julia agreed, licking at the melting ice cream like her cat, Mowgli, when she squeezed out his yoghurt treats. “But I thought we agreed one stall a month was enough for us?”

“Scared you’re going to kill someone else with your baking?” Jessie teased, throwing a wink before taking a bite of the flake. Through chocolatey-mush, she added, “I know, I know, you proved your innocence over what happened at the market launch, but I literally had to put a woman straight on Mulberry Lane just now. She said she heard a woman poisoned someone with a croissant in a café, but don’t worry, I set her straight.”

“Jessie, you don’t have to keep defending me.”

“Defend? Nah, I told her it wasn’t a croissant, it was a cruffin.”

Julia flicked a bead of melted ice cream at her twenty-three-year-old daughter, and Jessie flicked two right back.

“You proved you didn’t kill your old college bully,” Jessie said, toasting her ice cream. “So I told her that. She wasn’t from these parts. I let her off, but I guess that makes you a local legend now.”

“Don’t.”

“Like you weren’t already.” Jessie rolled her eyes. “Grim Reaper of Peridale, the way death follows you around…”

“And here I was having a nice afternoon.”

“Kidding, obviously. Anyway, all I’m saying is, there should be ice cream at the market so I don’t have to walk so far.”

“Mulberry Lane is around the corner.”

“And I can see the market,” Jessie said, looking past Julia through the beaded curtain to the closed back door. “Well, if there wasn’t a wall on the other side of the kitchen window. Which is a shame because credit to Katie, she designed a good-looking market. Wouldn’t mind staring at that when you glue me to the sink to do washing up in this heat.” She caught the sagging tail of ice cream in her mouth before it detached. “You could knock it down, open the whole area up. Got any further with the plans? You were scribbling when I left you.” She peered up at the counter. “There’s no way you drew that… shortbread?”

“Millionaire’s, and I didn’t.” Julia nodded to the counter where her sketches lay curled under a sugar jar to stop the fan whisking them away. “I’ve hardly touched the plans aside from figuring out how to draw a bistro table from this one angle. I’ve been dreaming up a rather more elaborate production.”

Julia inclined her head towards the bench outside, where she could still see the back of Kelly’s shiny hair. Despite leaving twenty minutes ago, they hadn’t moved from the bench. Julia assumed they were waiting for a taxi, but they just sat there with rigid posture, eyes scanning the green as though expecting snipers among the picnickers.

Jessie followed her gaze, squinting. “I saw those two earlier when I joined the back of the seven-hundred-person ice cream queue. He was gobbing off, waving all this money around. Paid over the odds for their ice cream. I was all the way at the back of the queue, practically in Narnia, but I swear he bribed her with a fifty.” She curled her lip before biting off the entire top of her cone. She forced it down after a few mouthfuls and asked, “What did they want?”

“A three-tier cake, champagne sponge, and an extravagant buffet to feed the five thousand at an unknown location,” Julia said, sighing, still staring at Gaz’s perfect sketch. “So, naturally, I offered to make a five-tier cake, which he paid nine hundred and seventy pounds in fresh fifties for. The stack is thicker than my mum’s old recipe book, and there’s more to come.”

Jessie snorted. “Obviously fake.”

“Obviously not.” Julia ran the invisible ink pen across them again, spreading the notes out to catch as many as she could. “And I’ve held them up to the window. They’re real, and they were serious. It’s… for a big announcement.”

Julia waited for the penny to drop. Jessie worked part-time at The Peridale Post when she wasn’t at the café, and she’d written the original article reporting the rumour that a local had won a massive sum. An anonymous source had tipped them off, and there’d been no developments since. The village had talked of little else, but the golden nugget—the winner’s identity—had remained elusive.

But while Jessie dabbed at her mouth with a napkin, still not connecting the dots, Julia became aware of a lanky teenager hovering across the green, near her gran’s house. He stood out for being the only person alone, loitering at the edge of the first wave of picnickers. But he wasn’t watching them; he was watching the café. Or more precisely, the bench outside. He wasn’t quite hidden, but he stood close to a streetlamp, half-submerged in the shadow, his green polo shirt a perfect match for Dot and Percy’s garden bushes. If Gaz and Kelly had spotted him, they weren’t returning the stare.

“Maybe they robbed a bank?” Jessie asked, arching a brow at Julia like she was mad.

Julia glanced down. Her ice cream had melted, running down her hands and over her unfinished plans.

“I was miles away,” she said, ditching the cone in the bin for a stack of napkins. “Only a first draft anyway. Can’t decide how I want to lay it out.”

“I still think you need to sit out in the courtyard for an afternoon. The light gets in weird. Can’t explain it.” Jessie frowned, glancing over her shoulder and out the window. “Who were you staring at just then?”

“Some kid,” Julia said, squinting. To her surprise, he was still there. “I think he’s watching Gaz and Kelly.”

“Who?”

“The flashy fifty-pound notes couple.”

As if on cue, a car pulled up to collect them. They left in a private hire taxi with blacked-out windows and a silent electric engine. The boy in the green polo bolted after them.

“That was subtle,” Jessie muttered, standing to pass Julia more napkins. “I recognise his uniform from a shop.”

Before they could puzzle it out, Dot and her gang wove through the picnickers, stepping over lunching locals like they weren’t—or shouldn’t have been—there. The bell above the door jangled, and Dot burst inside.

“They lied!” she declared, fanning herself. “That nice Welsh man on the television last night said we’d have rain by lunchtime to break this heat finally, but I’ve eaten my egg salad and I’m still⁠—”

“Horribly damp!” Ethel announced, pushing in after Dot. “Say you have air conditioning, Julia.”

“Yeah, Mum,” Jessie said, giving her a pointed look as she glanced up at the ceiling where she’d once suggested they install a unit during the last redecoration—and didn’t. “Only hot a little of the year, isn’t it?”

“Day fifteen!” Dot cried, collapsing into a chair. “If I could’ve climbed out of my own skin last night, I would have!”

“You often make me want to climb out of my skin, Dorothy,” Ethel fired back as she melted into the chair across from Dot. “Julia… something cold.”

The dogs came in with Percy, Lady and Bruce trotting straight to the water bowl Julia always kept filled. She grabbed bags of frozen mango from the fridge, ice from the drawer, and made up enough raspberry lemonades for everyone. She tossed the mango bags at the octogenarians and tipped the ice into the dog bowl. Bruce lapped gratefully, the silly French bulldog chomping at the cubes like treats.

Jessie cleared her throat. “Does anyone know who that man was, standing outside your house watching that couple?”

“What man?” Dot perked up, bolt upright.

“What couple?” Ethel did the same, spilling mango chunks, which Lady, the graceful white Maltese, happily caught.

“Our house?” Percy asked, loosening his already saggy bowtie as he pulled up a chair.

“My experience as an investigative journalist takes that as a no,” Jessie said, wiping her brow before snatching up her new soft brown leather Doc Martens backpack—Julia’s birthday present, and the most Julia had ever spent on any bag ever. “I’m taking my lunch break out of the café. I think I know where that shop is.”

“What shop?” the three asked in unison.

“I’ll let Mum explain,” Jessie said, offering a wink before vanishing through the beads and out the back door. “I’ll be ten minutes.”

“You said that when you went to get ice cream.”

“That’s because there were twenty thousand people in the queue before me. If only I had a fifty to make it disappear.” And then, under her breath, Jessie added, “I have a feeling I know who that couple is.”

And off she went, keeping her connected dots to herself, as if Julia hadn’t already got there.

“Julia… another…” Dot said, draining her lemonade in a few swift gulps. “And before you explain the mystery of the man with the dog on the street watching the shop⁠—”

“He didn’t have a dog,” Ethel corrected.

“I thought there was a couple?” Percy asked.

“Regardless!” Dot snatched up the laminated menu and began fluttering it furiously in front of her face. “Before then, Julia, I must know… when, oh when are you going to replace that rickety old fan?”

Dot, Percy, Ethel, and even the dogs looked at her expectantly. All Julia could do was peer through the beads at the closed back door. Jessie might have been the one running off after the boy in green, but Julia’s feet had been itching with curiosity ever since that couple waltzed into her café.

The walk to Fern Moore was mercifully short, though the scorched pavement made Jessie regret lacing her Docs so tightly. She’d visited the estate often enough for stories, yet every trip reminded her how far its concrete flats felt from Peridale’s postcard-green tranquillity. Two worlds, barely a mile apart.

As she crossed the patchy playground, a familiar profile snagged her gaze for the second time that day.

Billy Matthews. Her first love and long-cooled heartache, nudging a pram beside the wooden swings. A curly-haired toddler, his son, about a year old, squealed as Billy settled him into a rubber seat and gave a gentle push.

He didn’t spot Jessie.

He hadn’t on Mulberry Lane either.

She’d seen him coming out of the second-hand shop with the pram when she first arrived. She’d held up a hand to wave, without thinking twice. She hadn’t spoken to him in a while, and she hadn’t then. He looked right at her, and through her.

She wished she were more okay with that.

They had both moved on.

She’d travelled the world, he’d joined the army, and they’d come home separately, and different. But still them. For a while. A short-lived revival as friends. Deep down, she knew it wouldn’t be easy to stay close once Billy met Paige. And the baby didn’t exactly help. He’d wanted children back when they were teenagers, and Jessie had felt she had no choice but to end things.

She’d sent a congratulations message when she heard about the birth, finding out second-hand on Facebook. He replied with a polite thank you, and nothing more.

The break-up had been part of the reason he’d run off to enlist in the first place. A lifetime ago, some days. Other days, not so much. She pushed the hazy memories of summers past aside and kept walking.

The new SuperLocal mini supermarket dominated the corner, green signage blazing in the sun. Until last month, the unit had been a CostSavers, hardly glamorous, but its bulk-buy bargains had suited Fern Moore’s budgets.

The refit gleamed, yet the place felt colder, its polished aisles hiding prices that had crept beyond Fern Moore’s pockets. Homemade posters flapped over the windows: BOYCOTT CORPORATE GREED and BRING BACK FAIR PRICES. The automatic doors sighed open, releasing a welcome blast of air-conditioned relief.

Inside, the shop was unrecognisable. Gleaming tiles had replaced cracked linoleum, harsh LED strips banished every shadow, and shelves of ‘artisan’ products looked more suited to Peridale’s Mulberry Lane than a council estate.

Jessie scanned a price tag and winced. “Five quid for pasta sauce? Who’s paying that?”

A shout from the front snapped her focus. Three self-checkouts had replaced the old counter. At one, the lanky lad from the green fumbled with an ID badge around his neck, trying to override something on the system. His hands were too shaky, and his green polo shirt was darkened by spreading patches of sweat.

“Hurry up,” barked a heavily tattooed man looming over him. “I hate these stupid machines. You think I’ve got all day?”

“I-I’m trying,” the boy stammered. “The new system is⁠—”

“I don’t care about your system.” The man shoved him. “Just get it done.”

Jessie strode forward. “Oi! Who got your knickers in a twist? There’s no need for that, is there?”

The man sneered. “Mind your own business, sweetheart.”

“That’s not my name.” She folded her arms. “Try again, sweetheart.”

The boy’s name tag read Callum. Up close, he looked younger still: pale, acne-prickled, eyes silently begging for Jessie’s help.

“Whatever,” the man spat, grabbing his bottle of cider. It was the battery acid-tasting, bottom-shelf stuff she remembered from her own rough days—nights spent hunched by makeshift fires on the old Fenton Industrial Estate, the bottle passed for thin warmth when she’d had nowhere else to sleep. Before Billy and Fern Moore. Before Julia and Peridale…

“You haven’t paid!” Callum’s voice cracked.

The man knocked over a pyramid of energy-drink cans and stormed out. The soft-close doors stole the drama of his exit.

Jessie dropped to her knees, scooping the cans into a stack. “Big man. Chucking his weight about over a three-quid cider.”

Callum blew out a shaky breath. “It’s six now.”

“Ouch,” she said, righting the display. “Maybe he had a point.” She waited for a laugh that didn’t come until she arched a brow. It broke the ice, and he offered her a shaky breath of a chuckle. “You alright?”

Up close, Jessie spotted a yellowing bruise on his forearm.

“Cheers,” he murmured. “Second time this week. Zero-hours life. They call, I come in.”

Jessie softened. “I noticed you in Peridale earlier. You legged it.”

“Had to get here,” he muttered.

“What were you doing there?”

He fiddled with his name tag. “Do I need a reason?”

“You were watching Gaz and Kelly.”

He turned away, then, half over his shoulder, muttered, “So?”

“Why follow them?”

He hunched. “Who says I did? Gaz is my cousin. That’s it.”

“Cousin,” Jessie echoed, filing it away.

Before she could push further, a sharp voice cut across the shop.

“Callum! Did you just let that customer walk out without paying?”

A thin man in a shirt-and-tie power-walked over, manager badge glinting. He looked barely older than Callum but wore the expression of a boy playing CEO.

“It wasn’t his fault,” Jessie said. “The bloke was aggressive…"

“And you are?”

“She’s nobody,” Callum said quickly. “Just a customer.”

Cold dismissal where gratitude had been seconds earlier. Jessie stepped back before she made things worse.

“Are you buying something?” the manager asked.

Jessie glanced around the place, puckering up her nose like she smelled something rotten. “Nah, you’re alright. Not at these prices.”

Outside, heat slammed into her like a wall. She paused on the cracked pavement, heart still jittering. Callum’s bruise, his too-big polo, the resignation in his shrug: she recognised all of it. Once, that had been her: skint, exhausted, pretending bruises came from clumsiness, not corners life backed you into.

She pulled a notebook from her bag, jotted his name with a star, and made some notes: ‘Check on him. Cousin to Gaz. Scared of something.’

A rush of petrol fumes snapped her back as she wandered close to the road. Whatever Callum was hiding, she’d get the truth, gently. She knew his kind. Sugar before Salt, just like Julia had taught her.

Her faithful boots pinched with every step back towards the main road. Relief pivoted her towards the bus stop when she spotted the X24 direct to Peridale. She hopped aboard, tapped her card, and collapsed into a sun-baked seat. Two stops, ten minutes, blessed relief for her feet.

After sharing her theories about the young couple and the source of their suspicious money, the lottery topic settled over them like the heat, dense and unavoidable.

“I’d travel,” Ethel said at once. “Every place I’ve only read about. I’d buy a state-of-the-art camper van and see it all!”

“Waste of time,” Dot said, wafting her hand. “Not at our age. I’d sort the cottage plumbing. Pipes moan like ghosts, and I can’t flush the toilet without waking up half the village.”

“And that’s just the smell,” Ethel muttered, finishing her second lemonade. “Julia?”

Julia smiled. “I haven’t given it much thought.”

“Surely you have!” Dot laughed. “A second café? A bigger house? A newer car?”

“I like my café,” Julia said, topping up their glasses. “I like my cottage, and I love my car.”

“To a simple life, I say,” Percy toasted his refreshed glass. “I’d sort out everyone I knew, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Dot and Ethel echoed.

“Then I think I’d put on one last magic show,” he said, squinting off into the distance. “Percival the Great, back for one night only. I never did get to take a final bow.”

“You can do a magic trick now,” Dot said, fanning herself with her eyes closed. “See if the new pool has filled up yet back at the cottage. Julia, I must insist you bring Olivia around for a splash tonight. It’s a grand old thing, and I managed to get thirty percent off.”

Julia eased into a chair behind the counter and pulled out Gaz’s sketch. The caramel-topped shortbread stared back, charming in its homemade ambition, but it was the reverse that held her gaze. The six numbers, neat and deliberate, the final one circled… like a bonus ball.

£1.2 million.

A fortune. And a headache to think about. She flipped to a blank page in her notebook and, like Gaz, began sketching possibilities for the five tiers.

The bus juddered through the fields and wheezed to a halt on Mulberry Lane, the winding Cotswold high street where honey-stone glowed neon. Katie’s Salon blazed bubblegum pink at ground level, windows advertising Brows, Brazilians and Blowdries in glitter vinyl. Behind it, a rickety fire escape led up to the cramped newsroom of The Peridale Post.

The ugly heat swallowed Jessie the moment she pushed through the door. The single sash window was jammed again, swollen in the sun. Veronica Hilt stood on one crutch, wrestling the frame with her free hand. Her grey hair spiked in every direction, matching the turquoise frames of today’s oversized reading glasses.

“Summer’s lease hath all too short a date,” Veronica muttered, quoting as she heaved. “Except when it bakes us alive.”

“It’s too hot for Shakespeare,” Jessie said, sliding her fingers under the sill.

“Young lady,” Veronica warned in a stern tone, “it’s never too anything for Shakespeare.”

“Spoken like a retired English teacher.”

Together they shoved, and the window shot up with a dusty groan, admitting a welcome puff of air scented faintly with acetone from the salon below.

Veronica eased back into her chair. “I wasn’t expecting you in today. Pray, tell, you’ve brought news and not heatstroke.”

Jessie dropped her notebook on the desk. “Better. I’ve got a solid lead on our mystery lottery winners.”

Veronica’s eyes sparkled behind those giant turquoise frames. “At last.”

“Name’s Callum Collins, cousin to a guy I suspect had the winning ticket.”

“What’s your source?”

“He’s skittish, bruised, and sitting on something big.” Jessie tapped the notebook. “I think I can prise it out.”

“Source, Jessie?” She peered over her glasses. “We haven’t had a single lead, outside of when that strange friend of your great-granny started wearing ball gowns to the post office to get people talking.”

“Ethel is going to do Ethel,” Jessie said quickly, not wanting to drag her mother into it. She decided her own version of the truth would be enough. “I saw them flashing the cash buying ice cream, and then I saw them in the village, and this Callum was watching them, and he left when they did. Bit weird, even for a cousin.”

Veronica hummed her agreement. “Especially for a cousin. If they were close, Callum wouldn’t have been watching them. He would’ve gone over. Are you close with your cousins?”

“My parents died when I was three weeks old,” Jessie said, deadpan, “and I was raised in and out of foster care until I was adopted by Julia.”

Veronica flapped her mouth open, and Jessie delighted in reaching out to tuck her finger under her editor’s chin and push her mouth back together.

Jessie winked. “You don’t have a snappy little Shakespeare quote for that one, do you?”

“Hmm,” Veronica hummed again, this time with pursed lips as she pulled herself closer to her computer on her wheely chair. “What is it they say about buses?”

“Don’t get the X24 if you don’t want to argue with a guy who insists on having the windows closed despite him not wearing deodorant?”

Veronica glanced over her glasses again, this time arching a disbelieving brow. “Ever the fighter of injustice, I see.”

“What is it they actually say about buses?”

“You wait a long time for one, and then two show up.” Veronica’s eyes lit up. “Consider our lottery tip-off source reactivated. Hello again, Slate123. They just sent another email, and you’ll want to see this.”

Jessie couldn’t have wheeled her chair across sooner, her jaw dropping as she stared at the one word filling up the screen in big, bold text: STOLEN.

3

The evening sun slanted through the cottage kitchen windows as Julia kicked off her shoes. The air smelled of McDonald’s grease and cut grass, far sweeter than the day-long fog of coffee and pastry at the café.

“Look, Mummy!” Olivia called from the breakfast bar. She pushed a tiny plastic car across a rainbow-splattered placemat, the crumpled Happy Meal bag poking out of the bin.

Barker glanced up from his laptop and stretched, spine popping. “Couldn’t resist the drive-thru picking this one up from nursery.” He ruffled Olivia’s hair, but she was too interested in her new car. “Quiet afternoon?”

“Once the teachers left.” Julia kissed the top of Olivia’s head, then planted one on Barker’s cheek. “You look settled.”

“As settled as admin allows.” He shut the laptop. “Catching up on tax spreadsheets is a laugh a minute.” He let out a yawn and nodded towards the garden. “Paddling pool’s nearly full. Fancy a splash?"

Julia peered outside at the shimmering water. “Gran’s roped Percy into filling a new inflatable pool too. She’s… expecting us.”

Barker groaned. “Tell me you’re joking.”

“My phone is on silent.”

With mock solemnity, Barker reached over and unplugged the landline by the fridge. “Can’t argue with that.”

Julia laughed, then paused. A single golden hair lay on the breakfast bar stool. She recognised it immediately as belonging to her stepmother.

“Katie’s been?”

“Dropped off old stuff of Vinnie’s for Liv.” Barker brushed it away, busying himself with packing his laptop. “Right… armbands?”

Olivia scampered off with her father into the back garden, the summer sun still high in the sky. Alone in the quiet kitchen with Mowgli circling between her feet for his dinner, Julia dug in her bag for her notepad. She’d been doodling ideas for the grand celebration cake all afternoon, trying—and failing—to match Gaz’s quality.

His sketch fell out, and she thought of the numbers. She looked around for a pencil. She didn’t know how she’d resisted all day, but she had. It hadn’t felt right. But… she needed to know. She eyed the wilting basil drying out on the windowsill, pinched a little soil, and dusted it over the paper. Back under the spotlight, six numbers emerged in a neat row.

7 19 4 22 10 31

Deliberate. A lottery line pressed hard enough to scar.

Barker re-entered, shorts damp. “Putting the lottery on?”

Julia wiped the soil from her fingertips with a damp cloth. Wringing it between her hands, she wondered how much to reveal.

“I’ve never been one for gambling, but I… I’m almost certain I met the mystery winners today.”

Barker blinked, rushing in closer. No one had been immune to the lottery fever, especially not Julia’s private investigator, and sometimes mystery author, husband.

“What gave them away?” he asked in a whisper. “It’s not Ethel, is it? I hear she’s still going down to the shops in fancy dresses.”

“It’s not Ethel.”

“No, I didn’t think so.” He scratched his salt-and-pepper beard as he stared at the numbers. “She wouldn’t have been able to keep it to herself for this long.” He glanced at Olivia, who was content to sit in the water, playing with her plastic watering can. “Anyone we know?”

Julia shook her head and told him about the couple who had ordered the champagne cake.

“And they wouldn’t leave a delivery address,” she added, “or a number. Someone will come, and I wouldn’t trust that, but they’ve paid me enough that I can experiment with ingredients I’d never usually touch for the sheer cost alone. Pure Madagascan vanilla, Valrhona chocolate, truffles from Bath, edible silver dust. It’s like they’re my dream customers.”

“Like?” Barker echoed, leaning against the breakfast bar. “You sure? Doesn’t sound like you think they are. Something’s bothering you.”

She closed the pad, tapping it against her palm as she watched Mowgli creep towards the edge of the pool.

“Just a feeling they’re in over their heads,” she said, before quickly adding, “But I know it’s not my place. I’ll cater their party, wherever it is, but I’m keeping an eye open.”

Olivia squealed from the garden. “Come see!”

Julia tucked the sketch into a drawer. “On my way.”

Sunlight flashed on the paddling pool as Olivia slapped the surface, sending a wave over the lip. It drenched Mowgli, who had been stalking the water for a sneaky drink. The grey Maine Coon hissed and bolted, his sodden fur clinging to his lanky frame as he skidded across the kitchen tiles.

She ran a tea towel over the grumbling cat while Barker danced through the spray, flinching with theatrical horror. The sight of the soaked feline, giddy toddler, and skipping husband was so ridiculous it broke the day’s tension, and Julia’s laugh rang out across the garden.

For a moment, she let the warmth and silliness wash over her.

Two weeks. She had two weeks to pull the cake and buffet together.

Nothing else mattered.

Not the mystery of whether Gaz and Kelly were the lottery winners, or Callum, the cousin who’d followed them. It wasn’t Julia’s place. Never was.

Her phone buzzed.

A text from Jessie:

Jessie

Lottery source says… STOLEN face with open mouth

It took all of Julia’s strength to put her phone on the breakfast bar and venture back out to the garden.

Barker tuned out of his laptop and into the soft buzz of the fridge and the louder rumble of Julia’s snoring through the half-closed bedroom door. The clock on the cooker read 00:34. His spreadsheet still glowed on the laptop: columns of PI and author expenses that refused to reconcile. He closed it with a groan.

Next to the deflated armbands sat an open notebook titled Next Book Ideas. The first page was blank save for one scrawl: Former TV chef poisoned at market launch with a cruffin? Barker tapped his pen, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to drag Julia through reliving that week.

But he needed something.

He was due at the village library next month for a signing, and if anyone turned up, they’d ask about the next novel — and he hadn’t a clue.

Or a body.

Or a murderer.

He rubbed his eyes. On the chair opposite lay another peroxide-blonde hair. Katie again. Julia’s stepmum popped in so often the cottage might as well have a revolving door. Friendly enough, but relentless about the ‘thank you favour’ Barker had promised: finding his long-lost father in return for solving the mystery of Katie’s missing mother.

His thoughts drifted to his office beneath the café, to the drawer holding Casper’s reply. Unopened for weeks. Barker hadn’t expected his eldest brother to respond so quickly after years of silence on the topic of ‘Who was my father?’

But Barker had lost the nerve to read it.

If he’d ever had it.

He’d never have sent the letter if Katie hadn’t kept pushing him.

A sudden scrape outside made him freeze. The front gate: swollen wood grinding across the flagstones. 00:38. Too late for visitors, even for Dot and her dogs, who liked to turn up at all and any hours.

Julia snored on, oblivious, while Barker crept to the front window and peered through the net curtain. A lone figure swayed on the lane, lit by the security light. Denim jacket. Bottle of something brown in hand.

Barker unlocked the front door but kept the chain fastened. “Can I help you, mate?”

The man looked up, eyes glassy. “Who wants to know?”

“You’re at my gate at half midnight. I reckon I’m entitled to ask that.”

“What are you?” he blurted, with a snort of a laugh. “A copper?”

Barker bit his tongue. It wasn’t the time to admit he was a retired detective inspector.

The stranger took a wobbling step forward, then back. A grab of the swollen gate steadied him. “Heard talk in the village earlier. Someone said the lottery winners were at some café today, and the owner lives up here. That true?”

Barker’s pulse ticked.

He thought of what Julia had told him — how the numbers had lined up in a neat, deliberate row on Gaz’s sketch. Whoever Gaz and Kelly really were, they’d brought with them a story that didn’t sit right. Lottery winners or not, the man on his doorstep was still a drunk, waving an accusation into the night. But part of him wanted to know more.

“Why do you care?” Barker called.

“Because...” the man slurred, wafting the bottle before it slipped from his grip and smashed on the path. “They don’t deserve it.”

“You think they stole the ticket?”

“I know they did.” He narrowed his eyes. “How do you know that? They did come into your café, didn’t they?”

Barker considered again whether to say anything.

Then: “Wrong house. Get home safely.”

“Come on,” the man slurred. “Just wanna know if it’s them. I was part of a syndicate, see. Got stitched up.”

“Sorry. You’re barking up the wrong tree.” Barker eased the door shut.

The man muttered, stumbled away into the dark. Barker double-checked both locks, then the back door. Olivia’s gentle breathing carried from her room; Julia’s snore turned into a snort and settled again.

Sleep had left him.

He grabbed the dustpan and brush and stepped outside to sweep the glass, scanning the lane as he worked. Veronica, the newspaper editor, seemed to be awake across the road — her lamp still glowing in the nearest cottage, but she was practically nocturnal.

Back inside, he flicked on the lounge lamp. The glare was harsh. Too much coffee. He tiptoed into the dining room, avoiding the creaky floorboard, and opened the sideboard. Behind dusty photo albums sat his old portable Remington — the typewriter he’d used for his first novel.

He set it on the coffee table facing the front window, fed in a sheet of paper, and blew away the cobwebs. Keys clacked softly as he began:

It was 00:43 when the drunk stranger called, looking for winners who weren’t ready to be found…

Barker kept one eye on the path outside, fingers moving with renewed purpose. If he couldn’t solve his own family mystery tonight, he could at least write about the one that had just opened his gate.

The wood chips of the Fern Moore playground still radiated heat in wobbly lines. The sun had gone, but the day clung to everything like sweat. Jessie leaned against the wall outside the closed SuperLocal on the corner, a clumsy semi-circle of teenagers around her, sharing a single vape that changed hands like a sacred object.

She coughed after every drag. She’d realised after a week in France that smoking wasn’t for her, and vaping was worse somehow. Like sucking in a lungful of chalk dust.

But they were all doing it, and when in Fern Moore…

“You cough a lot,” one of the lads barked.

“Summer flu,” she said, voice scratchy. “Keeps coming back.”

Someone offered her a swig of warm cider from a bottle. She passed.

“New shop’s weird though, innit?” she said, testing the ground. “Prices are pure madness. Five quid for a pasta sauce? Did they get the tomatoes from the moon or something?”

One of them snorted. “Yeah, but have you seen that dweeb that works there?”

“Callum?” Jessie asked, feigning vague disinterest. “Skinny lad, green polo?”

“Yeah, him,” said a girl in an oversized hoodie. “Bit of a melt.”

“Total melt,” another echoed. “Lives up there.” He pointed with his chin to the top floor of the block of flats. “Up with his dad. Nigel or Nobby or summat. Roofer, when he’s not out on the lash.”

“Old drunk,” someone muttered, and a few others nodded agreement as the bottle of cider made the rounds.

“Ah, there he is!” said the lad nearest Jessie, as a figure stumbled across the far edge of the playground. Jessie squinted through the shadows. “Never home before midnight, that one. My sister lives next door to him and said he’s always ranting and raving.”

“Kinda makes you feel sorry for the lad in the shop,” the girl said.

“I thought you said he was a melt, Tiff?” another pointed out.

“Yeah?” Tiff snapped back, snatching the cider — they hadn’t been using names until now. “Still doesn’t deserve being screamed at, though, does he?”

“No,” Jessie agreed, passing the girl the vape after skipping her turn this time. “He doesn’t.”

The girl’s eyes met hers, and Jessie saw she was grateful for the backup, though she’d never admit it aloud. She had a fresh scar on her left eyebrow where the hair was missing, like she’d had a bar piercing that had been ripped out.

“I heard he used to be a proper tough geezer,” one of them whispered. “Part of the Cotswold Crew years back, before they fell apart.”

“Wasn’t that politician geezer paying them off to rough people up?” another asked, but the rest shrugged. Jessie had covered the story a few years ago, but she couldn’t give the details without giving herself away as a journalist.

A man in a sagging denim jacket wobbled towards the swings. He tripped and landed in the rubber seat like a sack of potatoes. A bottle slipped from his hand and exploded against the metal frame, amber glass and liquid flying.

No one moved to help. Just snorts, mock applause, and one call of, “Alright, Nigel? Having a swing before bedtime?”

Jessie pushed forward. “Oi, pack it in.” She jogged to the swings as the man struggled upright.

“Don’t touch me,” he spat, swiping the air near her shoulder.

“Easy,” she said, holding her hands up. “You’re hurt. Sit down for a sec⁠—”

“They stole it from me,” he muttered, eyes wild. “It was mine.”

“What was?”

He staggered back again, and Jessie’s brain clicked.

Slate.

She called it into the night. “Slate one-two-three?”

The man froze.

Jessie stepped closer, heart rattling. “Slate as in roof slate? You sent the emails, didn’t you?”

He squinted at her. She pulled out her press ID, the laminated card catching the harsh glow of the nearest lamppost.

“It’s you, isn’t it? You’re the source.”

In one violent lurch, he lunged at her.

Jessie ducked and stumbled backwards. A chorus of swearing erupted behind her as the teenagers rushed forward, dragging the man away. One of them swung an arm in front of her. She’d only met them that night, but in a black hoodie, she was one of them.

Until they picked up her press badge.

“Hang on. She’s a journo?”

“Told you she was older than us,” Tiff muttered, nudging Jessie’s shoulder as she marched off. “Weirdo.”

Jessie didn’t wait. The nearest lad grabbed at her jacket but missed. She twisted and drove her knee hard into his groin. He dropped to the ground with a howl, releasing her ID. She snatched it up and ran, and didn’t look back.

Across the playground. Over the scorched grass verge. Past the bus stop and through the alley between two garages. Down winding country lanes, and then into the warm glow of the village.

She didn’t stop until she’d reached the side door of her flat above the post office, locked and chained it, and slumped to the floor. Her t-shirt clung to her like cling film, her legs trembled, and her breath came in shuddering bursts.

She wasn’t just sniffing out a story.

She’d waded right into the middle of it and blown her cover.

Jessie sank into her clothes-buried sofa, too pumped to sleep. The room was small, with a kitchenette in one corner and a single bedroom with an en suite she couldn’t swing a cat in. But it was hers. The kind of space you grew into rather than out of.

If she had the money…

She’d buy somewhere bigger. Maybe one of those Wellington Heights apartments with the high ceilings and the fancy blinds you could control with your phone. It would be nice. Comfortable.

But that wasn’t what mattered.

What mattered was having a roof over her head. Having a place she didn’t feel like running from. And compared to Callum and his dad, staggering drunk and angry across the playground, she had everything.

Something was going on in that family. That much was clear.

Nigel, the man she had just fled from, had to be Gaz’s uncle. That would explain why Callum knew too much but said too little. Why he watched instead of speaking.

Family ties criss-crossed beneath the surface like roots through old soil, and she and her mum were right in the thick of it now.

With the latest email from Slate123 still sitting under ‘Recent’ in Veronica’s inbox, Jessie had the sinking feeling this wasn’t just a quirky local-interest piece for The Peridale Post.

Nigel’s fury. Callum’s fear. Gaz and Kelly’s glossy smiles and flashy cash. The whisper that the winning lottery ticket was not won—it was stolen.

Two weeks until the party.

Two weeks to uncover the truth.

4

By the Saturday after next, Julia had baked her way from dawn to the high glare of midday. The café, thick with oven heat and the muggiest air Peridale had known in years, now resembled a pop-up banqueting hall.

Trays of miniature quiches cooled beside pyramids of salted caramel truffles. Cucumber sandwiches rested beneath damp kitchen roll, and nearby, dozens of stacked silver trays held hundreds of perfectly cut millionaire’s shortbread squares, recreated from Gaz’s drawing and dusted with gold glitter to spell out K & G on the top of each slice.

And in the middle of the stainless-steel island towered the showstopping cake: five tiers of champagne sponge, draped in ivory icing, topped with sugar roses glimmering with edible gold.

The culmination of a dozen test bakes, three failed icing prototypes, and two long evenings spent fine-tuning the champagne sponge until it sprang just right under her fingertips. Julia had experimented with fillings, piped samples for Sue to blind taste, and practised stacking until her hands knew the tiers by muscle memory.

This wasn’t just a cake.

It was her answer to the strange couple’s challenge, and she could only hope it matched the ‘best baker around’ reputation they’d heard. If Kelly hadn’t been so dismissive of her cosy little café, Julia might not have cared as much, but she knew what she’d be like on the day of the party.

“She’s going to check every detail,” Julia had said one night last week, when Jessie had ventured down from her flat next door, long after midnight in her slippers and dressing gown. “It needs to be perfect.”

“But you’re measuring gaps between the icing petals with a ruler,” Jessie had grumbled as she sloppily made herself a 2 am sandwich. “You’ve always been more of a homely baker.”

“And they’re getting homely, with a dash of extravagance. That’s what I promised and what they’ve paid for.”

“You need a new hobby,” Jessie said, throwing up a hand in defeat before shuffling away, mayonnaise dribbling down her chin as she bit into her sandwich. “As you were, Cake Lady.”

In the café, every available chair was claimed by villagers clutching gilded invitations, most of them being used as makeshift fans. Julia’s counter fan had officially given up last night, and the replacement wouldn’t get there until Monday, just when the heatwave was supposed to have passed.

Each bore the same message: ‘Meet on the village green at noon. Further instructions to follow.’

The gold-edged envelopes had materialised on every doormat in the village last Tuesday, hand-delivered before dawn like royal summonses.

By breakfast, the Peridale Chat group had gone into meltdown, theories flying faster than scones at a WI bake sale. The promised thunderstorm had yet to break, leaving the village sweltering under a dark sky that looked primed to explode.

Shilpa Patel, the post office owner, Amy Clark, the church’s long-suffering organist, and Evelyn from the B&B had commandeered a window table, fanning themselves with their invites and mopping brows with napkins.

“Further instructions,” Shilpa mused, tapping her card. “Who sends an entire village on a mystery hunt?”

“Someone with more money than sense,” Amy said, eyeing the buffet. “Although I’m not complaining. It’s nice to have a little excitement in the air.”

Evelyn adjusted her lavender turban. “I sense spectacle! Possibly fireworks… metaphorical or otherwise.”

At the counter, Dot planted both hands and sniffed. “This whole affair stinks of a prank, if you ask me.”

Percy, leaning against the back of a chair, dabbed at his shiny head with a pocket square. “An expensive prank. The invitation printing alone must’ve cost a month’s wages.”

Ethel breezed in, overdressed as ever in linen trousers, a wide-brim hat, and pearls that clacked with each step. “Money well spent, if you ask me. A touch of opulence never hurt anyone.”

“Opulence?” Dot rolled her eyes. “I bet you couldn’t even spell the word.”

“O-P-U⁠—”

“It’s about time you gave up this Joan Crawford act,” Dot interrupted, wafting the spelling away with a bat of her hand. “And for the record, no one believes you’re Peridale’s secret millionaire.”

“I never said I was,” Ethel replied, smoothing her hat brim. “But I’m glad you like my outfit, Dorothy.” She scanned Dot’s usual uniform. “I don’t much care for white blouses and navy pleats, but Percy… dapper as ever. Maybe you could teach your wife a thing or two about fashion?”

“Oh, please.” Dot’s eyes circled again. “I saw that exact outfit in the charity shop window last week. Someone else put it together. The only thing you know about fashion is being fashionably annoying.”

Julia half-heard the sparring, but her mind drifted to the money tin under the counter. A second envelope of crisp fifties had arrived with her own invitation, but no note inside, just another £950. She checked the mille-feuille’s flaky temperature again as anxiety prickled along the back of her neck.

“What if it is a hoax, Sue?” Julia muttered, hiding behind the revolving display cabinet stacked with cakes no one wanted to eat in the heat. “All this food, all that money… what do we do?”

Sue, Julia’s sister and part-time café assistant, set down a stack of china saucers.

“Worst case,” she said, “we hold the biggest street party Peridale’s ever seen. Your fancy spread won’t go to waste.”

Julia blew out a breath. “I suppose, it just… wasn’t the point.”

Sue squeezed her arm, her quiet confidence doing its best to steady Julia’s thundering pulse.

“If it is a hoax, we’ve survived worse than a practical joke, haven’t we?”

Julia parted her lips to reply, but a whoop from outside rattled the café windows. Chairs scraped back as customers stampeded for a view.

They spilled onto the pavement, blinking in the humid glare. Three sleek black coaches glided past The Plough and towards the green like swans on a pond, engines purring before settling into silence. Gold script on the doors read K & G, just like the millionaire’s shortbread waiting on trays.

Uniformed drivers in tuxedos stepped out in order, white gloves immaculate. “Ladies and gents, please board in an orderly fashion.” His voice carried, crisp as a royal butler. “We’ll be heading to Fern Moore.”

Gasps and grumbles rose at once.

“Fern Moore has about as much glamour as a damp dishcloth!” Ethel announced above the noise. “I dressed up for nothing?”

But despite the grumbling, the mystery refused to loosen its grip. Children bounced, eager for an adventure, while older villagers tutted about aching hips and the lack of toilets on coaches, even though Fern Moore was practically round the corner. Somewhere behind Julia, Evelyn declared the shift in air pressure to be “an omen of revelation.”

Back in the kitchen, Julia wiped her palms on her apron. “The party is at Fern Moore? Of course it is.”

“Are we supposed to teleport all this food over there?” Sue was already covering the quiches with foil. “Even with both our cars, we’ll be ferrying back and forth all afternoon.”

As if summoned, a knock sounded at the back door. Julia opened it to find one of the tuxedoed drivers, white gloves at the ready.

“Mrs… Cake Lady?” he asked, unsure of himself. “We’re here for the buffet for Mr Collins.”

She exhaled, a mix of nerves and relief. “Please, it’s Julia. Of course.” Turning back to the biggest and most expensive buffet she’d ever put together, she said, “Let’s get this show on the road.”

Barker lingered in the cool, dim light of his basement office, Casper’s unopened envelope balanced on his fingertips. One flick of the letter knife and decades of family mystery might spill out.

But Julia’s voice, as she conducted the transportation of the buffet, drifted through the ceiling, brisk and strained, and the decision fluttered back into limbo. He slid the envelope beneath his case files, locked the drawer, and jogged upstairs.

The kitchen looked like a scene from a heist film in progress. Sue directed two tuxedoed porters towards a refrigerated van parked on the edge of the market square. Julia was taking apart the five-tiered cake, white-knuckled like she might drop the layers she’d been sweating over for weeks.

Lingering by the edge of the bread stall, Jessie laughed, actually laughed, at something a new arrival had said. The man was about twenty-five, tall, with floppy hair and a handsome appearance in a soft-focus, nineties Hugh Grant sort of way. His sleeves were rolled up to reveal a watch that probably cost more than Barker’s car.

“Who’s that?” Barker asked under his breath.

Julia shrugged. “He said he’s here to oversee transport. I’ve been too busy panicking to ask his name.”

“Let them have their fun,” Sue whispered, passing Barker a tray of miniature millionaire’s shortbreads. “Us grown-ups have work to do.”

Barker followed his sister-in-law to the rear of the van, where most of the buffet now waited on foil-covered trays.

“Anybody else been around asking about lottery winners?” Barker asked as they hurried back into the kitchen for the next batch.

Julia handed him a silver tray. “No. And we still don’t even know if Gaz and Kelly did win.”

Barker shot her a look.

She sighed. “Okay, I know my optimism is bordering on foolish. Of course they won.”

A burst of Jessie’s laughter bounced around the market, the quietest Barker had seen the place since it opened.

He drifted away from the conveyor of bodies carrying trays to the van and moved in closer. Jessie spotted him and said something to the Hugh Grant lookalike, who gave Barker a polite nod before climbing into the front of the van.

“Friend of yours?” Barker asked, watching the van door thud shut.

Jessie turned back to the counter, adjusting the macaron stand. “Sort of. He’s called Freddie Willingham. Some neighbour of Gaz and Kelly, I think. He was vague. They sent him to collect the food.”

“Does he know them well?”

“I think so? I’m not sure.” Jessie rubbed the back of her neck. “We weren’t exactly chatting about them.” She hesitated, then said, “He recognised my tattoo. The kanji on my shoulder.” She tried to look at it. “It means water. He could read it. Turns out we went to a lot of the same places in Japan, just a year apart.”

Barker raised an eyebrow. “Small world.”

“If you think he knows something about all this, maybe ask him yourself.” Her cheeks were slightly pink as she walked off, ducking into the safety of the café.

Before Barker could go after her to see what that was about, Katie appeared from the market stalls, clipboard in hand, salon-perfect hair defying the hot breeze as a dry wind whipped up the dust on the new paving stones.

“Any news?” she asked, lowering her voice.

“The party is in Fern Moore. Still think it’s the lottery⁠—”

“Not about that,” Katie cut in, tilting her head. She folded her arms across her pink suit jacket and leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Has your brother replied yet?”

Barker tensed. “No change when you asked last night.”

“So, he hasn’t replied to your letter?”

With a hard lump as jagged as glass in his throat, he shook his head.

Katie’s face fell. “Really? Maybe he didn’t get it?” She looked off into the distance of the allotments behind the post office. “He wouldn’t move without telling you, would he?”

“No, Katie, listen, I⁠—”

“What about the birth certificate people?” She locked eyes with him, searching them for a shred of the same energy she had for the search. “You never know what they know or⁠—”

“I did all that,” he said, harsher than he’d intended. “Back in my twenties, when I gave it a proper go. Mum wouldn’t tell me, and she wouldn’t want me to⁠—”

“She’s not here.” Katie wasn’t going to drop it. She reached out a hand and rested it on his arm, her pink nails digging in like tender claws. “You are. You said something like that to me when I said my father wouldn’t want me to go digging in the family skeletons.” She tilted her head again, a sad smile lifting her inflated lips. “She’s been gone a decade. It’s… time.”

He sighed, resting his hand on hers before peeling it off. “It’s time for the party, Katie. I promised I’d help Julia set everything up on the other side. It’s going to take a village to⁠—”

“Just promise you’ll call him,” Katie said, dancing around him as he tried to turn to walk away. “Call Casper, and ask him what he knows about your father. He’s older than you, he won’t be around forever, Barker. You can’t ignore that little niggling feeling forever.”

But Barker had had a lifetime of practice.

Sidestepping Katie, he hurried back to the kitchen where Julia and Sue were carefully boxing the towering five-tier cake into individual sections.

“You might want to change that shirt,” Julia said, nodding at his chest. A dark patch of sweat had pooled against the grey fabric. “Do you need some water? You’re looking a bit red.”

“I…” Barker rubbed at his face, banishing the sheen that had formed. “… I have a change of clothes downstairs.”

Barker hurried down, locking the door behind him. He dropped the needle onto his vinyl before throwing off the T-shirt and digging through the emergency bag he kept. He hadn’t needed to use it since the days when Olivia would throw up her baby food onto his shoulder at the slight suggestion of a misaligned burping pat.

In fresh white, he collapsed into his chair, opened the drawer, and pulled out the envelope.

Then, he heard her voice.

Not Cass Elliot as she sang about a new day coming, but his mother.

“You know people say Mama Cass died eating a sandwich?” she’d said, the sun shining through the window behind her, impossibly bright and smelling like Fairy washing-up liquid. “I don’t think that’s true, poor lassie. Had a lot of troubles.”

He clenched his hand around the envelope. He couldn’t do it. Not to his mother. He’d promised he wouldn’t go looking on her deathbed. Why had she made him promise not to look?

He snatched up the antique letter opener Julia had given him for Christmas and sliced open the envelope, ripping through his finger on the way.

“Damn!” Barker cried out, clenching his hand.

But the pain from the cut wasn’t enough to distract him from the words on the page as his bloody drops mixed with the black ink on the paper.

The ink that made up a single line.

‘I’m sorry, lad. It’s the same answer as last time you asked. I really don’t know anything. Sorry.’

“Oi!” Jessie’s voice called down the stairs. “Stop being workshy, Dad. Lots to do!”

“You’re right,” he said, screwing up the letter and ditching it straight in the bin. “I’m coming.”

He’d always believed Casper didn’t know anything, but something tripped him up. The double apology. Sorry. Sorry. The first one was an apology for not knowing anything, so what was the second for?

He swallowed those old detective instincts.

“Lots to do,” he repeated, taking the stairs two at a time.

Back in the kitchen, Julia, Sue, and Jessie were laughing about something.

“Julia wants to drive these personally,” Sue explained. “She doesn’t trust the chauffeurs with the white gloves not to fling this cake off the next A road.”

“They might crash,” Julia said.

“I’m banning you from taking commissions,” Jessie warned. “It’s turned you into a proper Anxious Annie. Your old banger of a car is more likely to—Barker… you’re bleeding.”

He lifted up his hand, suddenly aware of the sting from the letter opener, as well as the blood pooling by his feet as more drops joined it. Julia rushed in with kitchen roll and a look of terror that he hadn’t seen from her before. He knew it wasn’t from the blood. It was from his flapping jaw, unable to speak, unable to move.

“I…” he managed, taking over, clasping the kitchen roll. “… it’s just a paper cut. Didn’t even notice.”

“Dad?” Jessie asked, half looking down her nose with an arched brow. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” he said, pushing forward the biggest smile he could. “Why don’t you take my car? It’s big enough to fit all the tiers in, and the suspension might help going over the speed bumps.”

Julia considered it for a moment, and he was glad to see the terror had vanished.

“Good idea,” Julia finally said, snatching up his keys. “You can follow along in mine if you⁠—”

“I’ll hop on the coach,” he said, not feeling in any state to drive a car, let alone Julia’s vintage Ford Anglia deathtrap. “I’ll be waiting on the other end.”

“Wherever it is,” Julia said with half a laugh, kissing his cheek before picking up a cake box like it contained the crown jewels. “After all this wondering, I can’t lie… I’m excited to see what happens next.” She blinked back to the moment, looking down at the blood-soaked kitchen roll. “There are plasters in the first aid kit next to the fridge.”

After wrapping his finger up, Barker sent them off in his car, and as he walked to the coach to join the back of the line still filling their way onto the last one, a strange feeling washed over him.

He didn’t know it.

Didn’t like it.

He’d lied and they’d believed him, and he didn’t know which part stung more.

Boarding the coach, he found a spare seat near the front and pulled out his phone. He hovered over Casper’s smiling face in his contacts. An army veteran, and older by a stretch. Barker had been a ‘I thought I was going through the menopause and couldn’t get pregnant’ baby. He’d always liked Casper the most, already an adult when Barker was a child. He wanted to tap the icon, but he couldn’t. Not on the coach in front of everyone. He couldn’t see them, but he could hear Dot and Percy, which meant they’d hear him.

Instead, he swallowed it down like he had the knife cut, and he opened the web browser. Awkwardly using the fingers that weren’t bundled in thick plasters, he searched for the name Jessie had told him about after her late-night trip to Fern Moore a fortnight ago.

‘Nigel + Roofer + Cotswolds.’

The man who’d dropped two beer bottles in one night. Barker had a feeling he’d be seeing that man today, and it didn’t take long to find the right trail.

Nigel Collins, of Collins and Son Roofing.

A string of reviews appeared, with his average star rating at 1.2 out of 5: Poor workmanship. Overpriced. Failed to show.

Many labelled him a ‘cowboy builder’ who’d ruined more roofs than he’d ever fixed. A few mentioned his apprentices, Gaz and Todd, weren’t as bad, though one reviewer recalled seeing Nigel berating them regularly.

Barker scrolled, his jaw tightening, until he found a photo attached to a furious one-star review titled: ‘AVOID THIS MAN AT ALL COSTS!’ A hand was raised toward the lens, trying to block the shot, but the grey hair, stubble, and sun-worn skin were unmistakable.

It was the same man who’d turned up at the cottage in the early hours, full of beer and accusations.

Barker’s thumb hovered over the screen. Given where they were heading, he had a feeling he’d see Nigel again before the day was out.

Jessie curled against the coach window, her gaze fixed on her phone as Freddie yapped beside her about the local cricket team she hadn’t even known existed. She’d assumed he’d travel back with the food, but the moment he’d spotted her through the coach window, he’d abandoned the refrigerated van and clambered aboard just before the doors hissed shut behind Barker.

Another message pinged through as she opened her inbox:

VERONICA (Supreme Editor)

Any quotes yet?

Hello?

Jessie??

JESSIE

Source acquired

Will report soon

“Supreme editor?” Freddie asked, raising an amused brow. “You’re a journalist on duty?”

“Do you make a habit of looking at people’s phones?” she asked, locking the screen.

“Always, especially when I think someone is about to give me their number.”

He offered a cheeky smile as he flung his head in a way that made those silly front hair curtains bounce across his face, but then he peered out the window like he’d only been joking. He resumed talking about the cricket.

“So, you’re old friends of Gaz and Kelly?” Jessie asked quickly, when he paused for breath after the van took a speed bump that made the people at the back yelp.

“New acquaintances.” He crossed one ankle over his knee, wearing polished loafers without socks. “They purchased a slice of my mother’s land to build that new house of theirs. Very modern, very shiny.” With a wicked smile, he whispered, “Mother hates it. It’s rather frightful.”

“Hates them, or the house?”

He considered. “Mostly the house, but she’s never been fond of ‘new money’.”

Jessie sniffed. “Sounds like a snob.”

“Oh, totally.” He laughed. “Don’t tell her I said that. I try to keep the peace, lest I awaken her wrath.” He glanced around, and in a gossipy whisper that more suited Dot or Ethel, said, “I once saw her whack my father with a golf club, and somehow he was the one who apologised.” He snorted a laugh at the memory, like it wasn’t one of the top ten most horrific things Jessie had heard in at least that year. “Don’t worry, he’s dead now.”

“Did she… kill him?”

“Could you imagine!” He laughed again, outraged. “Poor old sod died in his sleep, but that’s what you get when you marry a woman twenty years younger. He got a live-in nurse, and I had a man with white hair coming to my parents’ evenings.”

“I’m… sorry?” Jessie was out of her depth. She understood joking about your own past, but he said everything with such a trivial air that she liked him less with each passing moment. “That’s rough.”

“Don’t be, it was a lie,” he said with a wink. “He never came to my parents’ evenings. Mother did, of course. I must apply myself more!” His mocking tone took on a high-pitched shrillness that Jessie already didn’t like. “All turned out alright.”

“So, you didn’t buy that watch on Mummy and Daddy’s money?” Jessie asked, nodding at the diamonds glittering in the light as the sun speckled through passing leaves.

“Absolutely not! I’m in finance.”

Jessie rolled her eyes. “What does that even mean?”

But Freddie only flashed her a big grin as he peered at her through his hair. “Is Jessie short for anything?”

“Jessariah the Third. Now answer the question.”

His grin only grew. “Why do I feel like I’m being interviewed? You journalists are all the same, aren’t you? Can’t help yourself.” He ran his hands through his hair, slicking it back to the sides more as he leaned back into his seat. Shrugging, he said, “I invest. Crypto, stocks, shares, trading… that sort of thing.”

“Oh,” Jessie muttered, more to herself, wishing she hadn’t taken the window seat. Why had she been so eager to see him leave the van to join her on the coach again? “You’re one of them.”

“Prejudiced much?” He feigned a laugh, but that amused grin didn’t shift. “You wouldn’t even get it.”

Jessie returned the shrug and leaned further into the window. She’d met Freddie in far too many bars around the world. Australian Freddie. German Freddie. Japanese Freddie. They’d all bored her to tears by the end of the night, explaining a numbers game she didn’t care to know.

“So, I help people grow their money by⁠—”

“No offence, mate, but I didn’t ask.”

“But you did want to know something, didn’t you?” The grin vanished, and he pinned her with a look. “About Gaz and Kelly, I bet? Everyone wants to know about them.”

“Rumour says they’re the lottery winners.”

Freddie traced a finger along the armrest. “Rumours are rumours.”

“That’s not a no.”

“Nor a yes.” His smile returned. “Why, does your paper pay by the fact?”

She opened her mouth, but raised voices from the rear diverted the heads of everyone one row at a time. Barker stood halfway down the aisle, blocking an older man who was wagging a thick finger at a young lad slouched in a chair. Jessie jumped up and over Freddie, her Docs catching his knees as she hurried down the aisle before anyone else tried to wade in. She ducked under Barker’s arm to see Callum from SuperLocal, jammed against the window, looking crimson and close to tears.

“What’s going on?” she asked, already knowing it wasn’t nothing.

Nigel turned, eyes glassy. His lip curled as he clocked her.

“Do I know you?”

“Yeah. You do.” Jessie folded her arms. “Couple of weeks back. Playground. You launched yourself into a swing and tried to deck me when I asked about the lottery ticket. Ring any bells?”

Nigel squinted at her like she’d spoken in Morse code.

Barker stepped in. “I saw you that night too. You were standing on my garden path, remember? Beer bottle in hand. Going on about Gaz and Kelly.”

Nigel gave a dismissive snort. “You’re both talking rubbish.”

“There’s the Nigel I remember.” Jessie tilted her head. “For a man who shouts a lot, you don’t half go quiet when you’re caught.”

She glanced at Callum, but he was still folded into himself, eyes fixed on his knees like he might find a way out if he stared hard enough.

Something buzzed in the back of her skull.

What if it was Nigel behind the emails? The rants, the scribbled numbers, the whispers? What if he was just sending them in circles, stringing them along for the fun of it?

“What was the commotion?” she asked, keeping her voice even.

“I overheard him,” Barker said. “He was shouting at the lad here. Callum, isn’t it?”

Jessie looked between them. “That’s your son, right?”

Nigel blinked. “Yeah. So what?”

“So,” Jessie said, “that doesn’t give you the right to speak to him like that.”

Nigel straightened, squaring his shoulders. “Which means I’ll speak to him how I like.”

“Doesn’t work like that, I’m afraid,” she said, eyes narrowed. “Not while I’m around.”

“Oh yeah?” he asked, stepping in close, chin raised. “And who are you meant to be?”

Barker moved before Jessie had to, shifting just enough to put himself between them.

Jessie tried again to catch Callum’s eye, but he wouldn’t look at her. Wouldn’t look at anyone.

From three rows up, someone called, “Leave it out, Nigel, you’ve had enough!” A ripple of uneasy chuckles followed.

Jessie felt Callum shrink further into the window.

Freddie’s head popped up behind. “All under control?” he asked brightly.

Jessie ignored him. “Come on, Dad, let’s sit.” She steered Barker away to his chair, casting Callum a reassuring half smile. The lad managed a faint nod.

Freddie threw his arms out as though to say, ‘What about me?’ but she pretended not to notice.

Once they were seated and the coach had settled back down, Barker leaned in. “I was looking Nigel up online, and then low-and-behold I saw he was a few rows behind. Well, I heard him first. Bickering with that lad, but I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.” He glanced back between the rows like he could see something, but he abadonned it. “But then Nigel stood up and said ‘It was you!’ and tried to lamp him one. I just about managed to drag him back before he hit the poor lad.”

Jessie’s heart raced. “It was you?” she echoed. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know, I⁠—”

The coach crested a hill, and Freddie rushed back to their seats. Gripping Jessie’s headrest, he ducked and looked out the window, pointing with that grin she was starting to find offputting. “There she is.”

She turned to the window. Sun glared off a vast cube of glass and steel perched above manicured turf: Gaz and Kelly’s mansion. At the boundary, a slender woman in a floral dress—undoubtedly Beatrice Willington—stood behind a privet hedge, lips pinched as though holding back unpleasant words.

“Smile, Mother,” Freddie murmured under his breath. “Our new neighbours are watching.”

The coaches rolled through the open iron gates. Jessie’s stomach did a small somersault; storm clouds massed on the horizon, bruised purple against the noon sun.

Gaz and Kelly waited on a second-floor balcony in matching black and gold outfits. Gaz waved grandly, full of life. Kelly managed a weak smile before looking down at her nails, seeming like she wanted to be anywhere but up on show.

Beside her, Freddie straightened his cufflinks. “Something tells me this is going to be a party to remember.”

And whatever storm was happening, Jessie planned to have the headline before anyone else.

JESSIE

Coaches rolled up to a mansion, Gaz and Kelly look like Harry and Megan if they shopped at SportsDirect. It has to be them.

VERONICA (Supreme Editor)

GET THEIR QUOTES IMMEDIATELY!!!

“All caps and three exclamation marks?” Jessie said aloud to herself. “I think I deserve a promotion after this.”

She glanced at Barker, but he wasn’t listening. He’d been staring into his hands, picking at the plaster around his finger.

“You sure you’re alright, Dad?”

He hesitated for a moment and said, “Just dreading how long it’s going to take to get all the food out. Your friend is right, it’s going to be a party to remember.”

“He’s not my friend,” Jessie said, standing up as the coach shuddered to a halt.

She wasted no time rushing to the front of the aisle, bouncing on the bottom step before the doors shuddered open. If this announcement was going to way Jessie knew it was, she’d struggle to get close to the couple all day. Everyone would want their slice of the story. She needed to get in there first, and get it fresh.

There was no doubt a story as big as this wouldn’t go national, and she was going to be the one to break it.

5

The kitchen of the glass-walled mansion carried a faint duet of bleach and strawberries, odd yet strangely comforting. Julia smoothed her apron, aligned a stack of gold-edged napkins, and wondered where Jessie had slipped off to.

Beyond the wall of glass, the lawn posed as a stage for white-shirted waiters who drifted through the crowd with champagne trays, each moving as if born to do it. Lucky them.

“Another three platters of truffles by the bar,” Sue called from the fridge. “Guests are hoovering them up faster than Gran’s dogs under the table at Sunday dinner.”

“On it,” Julia replied, though her gaze drifted to Barker. He loomed by the sink, studying a bowl of melon balls as though he were about to pick up a pencil and start sketching them.

The door swung wide with a theatrical whistle.

“Oooh!” Dot exclaimed, fanning herself with her straw hat as her sensible shoes clacked against the marble, white, like everything else. “You could eat off this floor. I’m not sure this place suits Peridale much.”

“It feels like what we thought the future would look like back in the ’60s,” Ethel said, craning her neck to stare up at the stainless-steel orbs hanging low from the ceiling, casting a soft, even glow around the place. “It’s all a little… clinical.”

“Bright enough to be God’s waiting room,” Percy added, scurrying to keep up as he pulled his sunglasses down from his head, red from the high sun. “We told them we were catering and no one batted an eyelid.”

“A brilliant idea,” Dot declared. “Mine, of course.”

“I think you’ll find it was⁠—”

“Are those melon balls?” Dot charged past Ethel and straight to the buffet. “Oh, Julia, no offence, but… this isn’t your usual style. It’s all so⁠—”

“Extravagant?” Julia asked, hearing the hope in her voice.

Dot clicked her fingers. “You took the word right out of my mouth. Well, we’ll go and have a poke around this place, shall we, gang?”

Sue huffed, setting down the tuna-salad sandwich triangles with a clank of steel against marble. “So you’re not here to help?”

“We shall!” Ethel said, snatching up a vol-au-vent. “From afar, of course.”

“Moral support is important,” Dot said, offering a thumbs-up, and she took two vol-au-vents.

“Right you are,” Percy agreed, taking so many vol-au-vents that he had to rest them against his chest as Dot and Ethel waltzed off down a glossy corridor like they’d just entered their own private resort.

From another direction, Jessie finally showed her face. She looked disappointed by something.

Quote-hunting, no doubt.

Neither of them had admitted their deep interest in the lottery story to the other, and Julia was almost sure Jessie was keeping her out of the loop. To protect her, she was sure, but she’d had to hear the revelations about Nigel being related to Callum and Gaz second-hand from Barker.

“What did I miss?” Jessie asked.

She ditched her bag before washing her hands at the marble sink that dipped ever so slightly into the counter. The water came from nowhere, it seemed, yet appeared when Jessie put her hands to it, like an instinct. Sue nudged Julia and nodded at it; they’d spent fifteen minutes trying to figure it out, hands on hips, a step back from the thing.

“Just our gran being a nutter, as usual,” Sue said, tossing Jessie a towel to dry her hands. “I’d say we should get her tested, but she’s always been Gran.”

“Who is now far too busy to meddle in our lives,” Julia said, winking at her sister.

“Bickering with Ethel is a full-time job.”

After a chuckle and a deep breath as the crowd outside inched closer to the glass, many of them pressing their faces against it for a better look, the three of them set up without much instruction.

Julia had worked with Jessie since she was sixteen, and with Sue for the last few years. Now, her daughter and sister moved like extensions of her own hands.

By the time it came to positioning the cake, their practice paid off. The five tiers of champagne sponge stood tall and proud at the centre of the marble island without fuss.

“Well, sis,” Sue said, wrapping her arm around Julia’s shoulders as they paused, nothing more to do, “you did good.”

“Yeah,” Julia agreed, allowing the smile of relief she’d craved for days. It swept across her as fresh as the icy breeze from the vents. Modern buildings had one good thing, at least. “We did it.”

“I’ll make sure to get it in the paper.” Jessie snapped pictures on her phone. “It looks… what’s a word better than ‘extravagant’?”

“Sumptuous?” came Gaz’s voice from the top of the glass staircase. He wore a blinding white suit jacket, no shirt, and his skin had gone from sun-kissed to leathery in a fortnight.

“Look at this… just look!” Gaz spun, arms flung wide as if unveiling a new gameshow. “Welcome to our humble abode. I designed the place myself.”

Kelly drifted in his slipstream, lids glittered and half-mast, smile glued in place.

“This food, this cake… Julia,” he said, “it looks better than I could have imagined.”

“Thank you,” Julia replied, weighing pride against caution. He’d come down the stairs with a new persona after swapping the tracksuit for the real thing. “I hope it tastes⁠—”

“Uniforms are in the loo,” Gaz added, nodding off somewhere, casual as anything. “Black tees, white aprons. Smart.”

Jessie’s tray halted mid-air. “Uniforms? You want us to serve?”

“Well, yes,” Gaz blinked, baffled. “People need goodies handed round. That’s how these things work, right?”

Julia folded her arms. “We agreed on catering. Food and cake, not floor service.”

“Ah, the cake.” He turned to Kelly. “Exactly as you pictured it, yes?”

Kelly stared at the masterpiece for a single, brittle heartbeat, then shrugged. A hush spread like a slow ripple across a pond.

Gaz spotted a man in tails, snapped his fingers, and sauntered off. Kelly slipped after him, veering down a side corridor without a word.

Silence hummed in their wake.

Sue exhaled. “Who are they?”

“New money,” Jessie said. “According to their neighbour, at least. There’s already an over-the-hedge turf war in progress, but perhaps Beatrice has a point. I was half-expecting him to hand us juggling clubs.”

Julia forced a smile. “At least we get to see people enjoying the food. That’s what this is all about.”

“I thought it was the two grand he paid you?” Jessie said. “Now that I’m seeing all of this, he could have doubled it.”

Julia headed in the direction Gaz had nodded.

Two thousand for two weeks of prep and an afternoon of service. Perhaps Jessie was right, but it would be enough to buy those folding bistro tables with the copper legs she’d added to her cart six times but never quite dared to buy. Maybe some left over to treat that water stain in the kitchen.

She ought to be thrilled. Instead, her footsteps felt hollow on the polished floor, the corridor too wide, the air too icy. She gave a soft, breathy laugh, half at herself.

All that effort.

The sleepless nights over icing temperatures in this heat, the panic of developing buttercream that wouldn’t immediately slide off. For what? For a couple who’d offered a shrug and a finger-snap in place of thanks.

Silly, really, that she’d let it matter when it apparently mattered so little to them. They’d only wanted a buffet to impress their many, many guests; Julia would let them be the judges.

She was still smiling at her own foolishness when she heard laughter. Not her own echo, not a shared chuckle. This laugh was sharper. Nervous. Frayed. And it wasn’t meant for her.

Julia slowed. The next door was half open. Not a family bathroom, as she’d expected, but a sweeping glass-tiled space with three private cubicles along one wall and a slab of porcelain sinks opposite. More like a gym than a home. Kelly stood at the far basin, bent over something in her hands.

Julia’s shoe squeaked softly on the marble.

Kelly spun.

She clutched the pregnancy test like a blade. Her smile, brittle as sugar glass, fell away the instant their eyes met.

“Congratulations,” Julia offered.

“Negative.” Kelly’s laugh cracked like fine china. She dropped the stick into the bin and pointed at a basket by the radiator. “Uniforms are there.”

Then she swept away, the echo of satin fading down the corridor.

Julia changed, knotting her apron. On her way back, she paused at a study door, barely open.

“I’m not… but he’ll notice soon.” The whisper was Kelly’s. “I need more time.”

Julia froze, heartbeat tapping in her ears, then crept away before the clack of heels on marble could betray her again.

She re-entered the kitchen to find three familiar silhouettes being marched by a pair of black-clad security men: Dot, Ethel, and Percy, each indignant and flapping like hens.

Dot jutted her chin. “I told you, young man, we are with catering.”

“We have credentials,” Ethel added, though all she produced was a lipstick-smudged napkin.

Percy still had a handful of vol-au-vents. “We were only looking.”

The taller guard huffed.

Julia strode forward. “They are with me. I sent them to locate extra serving platters. We’re going to need them.” She turned to the trio. “Did you find any?”

Dot blinked over her cat-eye shades. “We found plenty of corridors.”

Ethel glanced at Percy. Percy shrugged, pastry flakes scattering.

“I’ll take over from here,” Julia said to the security guards before she thrust a stack of black shirts and white aprons into her gran’s arms. “Welcome to the team, gang.”

For a heartbeat, the three stood in stunned silence; being speechless was something they rarely were.

“Well!” Dot drew herself up as she passed out the uniforms. “When duty calls.”

The guards retreated, muttering about ‘amateurs.’ Julia turned back to her original crew. Sue shook her head in disbelief as Jessie tugged her borrowed shirt straight, more uncomfortable in a uniform than any of them.

Julia’s eyes drifted to the cake, still immaculate beneath the pendant lights. Yet the mansion’s air had shifted; it was colder now, knife-sharp, as though something had cracked beneath the gloss.

“Let’s survive the day,” she whispered. “Then we go home.”

The party had sprawled across the lawn like overwatered ivy. Guests nibbled artfully arranged canapés, pretending not to notice the heat pressing into their backs. Jessie, tray of stuffed vine leaves poised like a shield, threaded through the crowd and slipped into a shady dip in the hedge, where the real entertainment lurked.

Beatrice Willingham: parasol aloft, every inch a duchess exiled to a sterile world she didn’t belong in.

“This seat taken?” Jessie nodded to the spare chair.

Beatrice barely glanced up. “Waitstaff were forbidden to speak to guests in my day, unless asked a question.”

“I’m freelance.” Jessie’s grin flashed. “Peridale Post. The food is merely a bribe.”

Beatrice regarded her over an iced elderflower cordial. “Very well. Sit. Misquote me and I shall end your career.”

“Got it.” Jessie perched, drawing a notebook from the secret pocket in her apron. “I want to know about your new neighbours. I heard you’d had problems?”

Beatrice lifted her chin towards the glass mansion gleaming in the sun. “Kelly wanted this plot because it was the last slice of land officially within Fern Moore. Her sort can never leave their tragedies behind.”

“Her sort being…?”

“Social strivers with money yet no grace. They bulldozed the orchard I climbed as a girl and replaced it with mirrors and gym equipment. I fought the applications, and the local council defeated me.”

“You fought planning applications for land you sold them?”

“They paid above market, so I conceded. One cannot un-sell acreage, unfortunately.” Beatrice’s voice rose unexpectedly. “They said it would be classy… I assumed they meant modest.”

Jessie’s pencil flew. “So, you and your new neighbours have failed to bond.”

“Kelly is acceptable. He”—Beatrice flicked a fly from her sleeve—“is typical Fern Moore. Loud, flashy, forever quarrelling.”

“Quarrelling?”

“Shouting, doors slamming, sometimes at three in the morning.” She paused. “You did not hear that from me.”

“Naturally.” Jessie smiled.

Julia swept past with a tray of mini quiches, sweat beading at her temples. Freddie drifted behind, prosecco in hand, scanning the crowd for someone.

Beatrice took a delicate sip of her cordial, then narrowed her eyes at the mansion. “They won’t have much of it left by Christmas, you know.”

Jessie tilted her head. “The money?”

She nodded. “They think one million will last forever.” Beatrice sniffed a laugh, her finger resting under her nose. “But I know for a fact half of it’s tied up in that house already. The glass alone must have cost the GDP of a small island. By the time the roof leaks and the tax man comes knocking, they’ll be scrambling.”

Jessie’s pencil hovered, waiting for more to spill out.

“Freddie told me,” Beatrice said with a sigh. “Unfortunately, I raised my son to have a big heart. I did try to balance it with some sense, but he seems to have taken a shine to our new neighbours.”

Jessie’s ears pricked. “He’s helping them? With their finances?”

“I’m sure it’s pity. They haven’t a clue what they’re doing with any of it. And Freddie… well, he rubs his hands together and makes money.”

“Investing?” Jessie said, mostly to herself.

Beatrice waved a hand, already bored of the subject. “Something like that. I don’t get involved. The boy talks in riddles, so I switch off.”

Jessie followed her gaze back to the crowd. Freddie stood by the drinks table, charming a red-haired woman in a halter dress who looked flattered but bored. She gave him a tight smile, then turned away. Freddie, unfazed, rolled straight into conversation with a blonde in wedge heels before his previous grin had fully faded.

Why had Jessie got so flustered when she first met him? Something about that floppy hair bouncing as he laughed, that casual polish, like he’d walked out of an advert for good decisions.

Now, watching him work the lawn like a sales pitch with legs, she wasn’t entirely sure what she’d seen.

Freddie caught her eye. His grin widened, and with the instinct of someone who never missed an opening, he started weaving his way through the guests.

Jessie’s thoughts snapped back to the real story. “You said they had over a million,” she said, eyes still on the crowd. “It’s them, isn’t it? Gaz and Kelly?”

Beatrice let out a long, theatrical sigh. “What do you think?” she murmured, then rose with her drink and drifted off, parasol tilting in her wake, not bothering to notice people ducking and diving out of her way.

Almost before her seat had cooled, Freddie slipped into it.

“Have you had a chance to reconsider that phone number yet?” he asked, eyebrows raised as if he were doing her a favour.

“No.”

He blinked. “07…?”

Jessie looked up at the house instead. The balcony above the kitchen had been empty all afternoon, but now Gaz and Kelly had stepped into view. They weren’t alone. A man stood with them, thin-framed and sandy-haired, his arms folded like a security guard but dressed like any other guest.

Freddie followed her gaze. “I could tell you who that is... if you give me your number.”

She didn’t answer, just pushed through the crowd.

“It’s Gaz’s best friend,” Freddie called after her. “Todd. Dragged him along from Fern Moore for the ride.”

Jessie didn’t break stride.

She took one step and collided with a young woman.

“Watch it,” the girl snapped, clutching her drink. Hair scraped into a severe bun revealed a pale scar bisecting her eyebrow where it looked like a piercing had been torn out.

The girl from Fern Moore.

“Tiff?” Jessie blinked.

No hoodie today, no cider bottle. The fitted black dress and tottering heels transformed her, yet her attention was fixed, laser sharp, on Gaz up on the balcony.

Not with admiration, but accusation.

Jaw clenched. Eyes narrowed… she was like a fuse burning down.

Jessie’s instincts stirred.

Something was waiting to explode.

Julia poured another round of elderflower fizz. Sunlight bounced off the catering trays, turning the kitchen windows into mirrors, and sweat pricked beneath the collar of her borrowed shirt. The cheerful smile she had kept in place all afternoon threatened to crack.

“If I won the lottery, I’d buy every post office in the Cotswolds,” Shilpa announced, snapping open her fan like a playing card. “Too many are closing. I’d hand one to each of my children, put my feet up, and finally master the art of doing nothing.”

Amy Clark, fanning herself with an invitation, sighed. “I’d mend the church roof once and for all, then book the longest cruise available. One with butler service, somewhere cold. I’m tired of melting.”

Evelyn, her lavender turban immaculate, stirred a glass of fizz. “I’d purchase every house in Peridale, then give the keys to anyone who needed them. No more bidding wars, no greedy landlords.”

All three turned to Julia.

She hesitated. “I… haven’t decided.”

“Everyone has a dream,” Shilpa coaxed. “Not that it matters, I suppose. It’s not like we won.”

Before Julia could reply, cutlery chimed against glass. She shaded her eyes. Gaz stood on the balcony, Kelly at his side in black and gold, Todd, who Jessie had pointed out as being an old friend from Fern Moore, hovered behind. Gaz spread his arms and waited for silence to settle over the crowd.

“Thank you all for coming!” he boomed. “You’re probably wondering why we invited you all here, so… surprise! We’re the lottery winners.” He forced out a laugh. “It’s us!”

Silence smothered the lawn. Someone coughed.

“What?” Gaz cried. “Aren’t you happy for us?”

Muttered replies drifted back; the air turned thick and sluggish.

Jessie, at Julia’s elbow, murmured, “This will never play the way he thinks. Too much envy.”

But one voice offered, “We’re happy for you!”

“Of course we are!” another added, and a ripple of reluctant applause passed among the guests.

A ripple passed through the crowd. It wasn’t quite applause, not quite approval. Julia watched the shifting expressions, some cheerful, some slack-jawed, many already calculating. It wasn’t hard to imagine the internal monologues.

Could they sponsor the school roof?

Invest in my husband’s garage?

Buy raffle tickets at every fate from here to Oxford?

She wondered how many of them were already rewriting memories, recasting their conversations with Gaz and Kelly as friendships. A few pound signs could do that to any village.

Gaz pressed on. “Listen, we know it’s a big shock, but we’re still the same Fern Moore kids, just with a bit more coin. That’s why we built here, right on the edge. It’s Fern Moore until the bushes start. You can see the blocks from here.”

Julia craned her neck, but she could not. The view remained a blur of sun and hedging, and Kelly, standing behind him, didn’t appear interested in the scenery. She lingered just out of the spotlight, smiling like someone who’d performed it in a mirror and forgotten the point halfway through.

“Now,” Gaz shouted, “let’s get this party started!”

An embarrassed cheer followed. Julia glanced at the cake through the glass, then at Kelly, whose smile still hadn’t shifted.

Dot barreled past, aprons bundled in her arms like they were ready for the wash. “Ethel’s given up the ghost. So has Percy. And frankly, so have I.” She thrust the aprons at Julia and said, “I declare this whole spectacle an anticlimax. Suddenly, I don’t care who won the lottery.”

With that, she vanished into the crowd, leaving Julia holding a tray of sandwiches no one wanted and a pair of aprons still warm from wear.

Something felt skewed, as though a picture frame hung slightly crooked. Nothing about this day matched the promise of the invitation. And it was far from being over.

The polite afternoon had mutated into a full-blown rave by the time the first streaks of amber cracked the sky. Music hammered through the glass walls like a second heartbeat, and the once-pristine lawn now lay buried beneath a tangle of dancers, drinkers, and shouters.

Jessie wove among them, reminded fleetingly of her clubbing days in Berlin, though, frankly, the Berliners had been better behaved. She ducked as an empty beer can flew overhead and clattered into the flowerbeds. Half the villagers had already trudged back towards Peridale in search of shade and sanity, while twice as many strangers had poured in like Grey Goose on an open tab.

She’d got the jump on the story, even if the golden couple themselves remained elusive. She’d caught glimpses of Kelly vanishing down a corridor, Gaz half-surfacing above the crowd like a politician on the run, but by the time she broke through the cluster of bodies, they’d slipped away again. Just as predicted, everyone wanted their slice of the newly minted pair.

Hidden in the pantry, wedged between a tower of champagne flutes and a tray of sweating vol-au-vents, she had fired off a breathless first draft between bites of cucumber sandwich. Local intrigue was about to go national, whether or not Gaz ever gave her a quote.

Freddie, on the other hand, she couldn’t get rid of with a cattle prod.

He cornered her at every turn, launching into another tale of the yacht he very nearly bought, still angling for her number with the tenacity of a salesman on commission.

“Jessariah,” he purred, aftershave freshly applied and already doing battle with prosecco fumes, “you’re a well-travelled girl, aren’t you?”

“A woman,” she corrected, not bothering to answer the question.

“So many sharp edges,” he said, leaning closer. “Come with me to Dubai. Tonight. I’ll call a car and arrange a plane before the sun fully dips over the horizon. You and me.”

Jessie tapped her chin like she was weighing up a biscuit choice. “Hmm. What a tempting offer. But I think I’ll have to pass.”

“How you tease⁠—”

She stamped on his foot. Not too hard, just enough to surprise him. Then she ducked behind him and vanished into the crowd.

Her brother Alfie had taught her that trick—“A swift exit requires a decoy or a distraction, or failing that, a tactical heel”—before he’d gone swanning off around Eastern Europe. Czezia, last she’d heard. Working in a zoo. He called sometimes, but like Billy, he felt more past than present these days.

She’d half-expected to see Billy here. Unless he was avoiding her as expertly as he had on Mulberry Lane. She hadn’t spotted that daft smile once.

Pushing through the swell of partygoers, she caught a flicker of shiny blonde hair disappearing at speed down the corridor towards the bathroom.

Kelly.

Jessie hesitated. The sensible part of her wanted to follow. But then, just behind the towering fig tree, she spotted a white-suited figure shifting awkwardly.

Gaz.

And with him—Tiff.

She’d waited all day to corner one of them, and now, just like buses…

“Why doth girlfriend flee down yonder corridor while boyfriend hides behind a ficus with Lady Tiff of Fern Moore?” she muttered, creeping forward. “Sounds better when Veronica says it.”

Gaz smiled at Tiff, the brittle sort of guilty smile people wore in police photographs. Tiff’s gestures stabbed the air as she hissed vitriol at him, her highlighted cheeks catching the light. She looked older all made up, though still a few years younger than Jessie. She had never been a slinky-dress-and-slicked-back-bun sort of girl, but she recognised an argument between old flames when she saw one.

It was like looking back at her and Billy, with too much history in too little space.

Gaz jabbed the air, his voice low and sharp.

Then, without so much as a warning breath, Tiff slapped him. A flat, echoing crack. Even the bass line stumbled.

Gaz rocked back, stunned. Tiff vanished into the gold balloons without a word. He dabbed at his lip, stared at the smear of blood on his finger, and slipped away into the crowd.

The party pulsed like one immense creature, breathless and frenzied, too big for its skin. Then a roar sliced through the noise.

“Nigel!”

Nigel Collins barged through the crowd and seized Gaz by the collar. “I know it was you!”

Gaz shifted from shock to a sneer. “You’re drunk.”

“You stole it. My syndicate ticket. You and your slimy girlfriend.”

“Our syndicate,” Gaz snapped, trying and failing to peel Nigel’s fingers from the lapels of his white jacket. “And is that why you’ve been stalking me all afternoon? I bought my own ticket.”

“I know you⁠—”

“Check the numbers, old man. The syndicate’s were 4, 12, 25, 34, 54, 58. Four, the age I was when I broke my leg. Twelve, the age you were when you first saw Star Wars. Twenty-five, when Todd’s mum died. Thirty-four, your flat number. Fifty-four, Todd’s flat number. Fifty-eight, the age you broke your back falling through that factory roof.” He barked a laugh into Nigel’s face. “We never changed them, but it doesn’t matter. Those weren’t the winning numbers.”

Jessie held back. She needed every scrap.

But Nigel wasn’t listening. He shook Gaz again, harder this time. Nobody else stepped in. In fact, Jessie was fairly certain a few of them were enjoying it. She’d sensed the jealousy ripple through the lawn just moments before the strained congratulations started.

“And you dragged your own cousin into it?” Nigel shouted, pinning Gaz against the buffet. “What sort of man does that?”

Gaz flinched as Nigel shoved him.

Plates clattered. Jessie lunged, catching the cake stand just in time. A dozen mini trifles weren’t so lucky, exploding across the marble like creamy bombs.

Gasps rippled through the guests.

“Enough!” Todd, Gaz’s friend with the sandy hair and matching tan suit, wedged himself between them. “You’re family!”

“Who cares?” Gaz spat. More blood hit the floor. “Get out. You weren’t invited.”

Nigel trembled. “You’re throwing me out? After everything I did for you? I gave you a job. I gave⁠—”

“Nothing but grief.” Gaz spat more blood, grabbing a scrunched napkin to dab his chin. “You’re a joke.”

“Go home, old man,” Todd ordered. “You’ve had enough.”

“I’m your boss.”

“I quit,” Todd said simply. “Two weeks ago. Or didn’t you notice? I guess you’ve not been turning up to the job sites either… but no charge there.”

Nigel’s mouth opened to argue back, but he looked as though the ground had tipped sideways beneath him.

Jessie scanned the onlookers, searching for Callum, but the lad had vanished hours ago.

Nigel turned on his heel, kicked over the second champagne tower, and stormed off. Glass sang against the stone tiles as the thickening crowd hopped back.

Barker appeared beside her, wide-eyed. “What was all that about?”

Jessie adjusted the top layer of the cake, which had tilted dangerously during the scuffle, then wiped cream from her hands on a napkin dripped with on the other edge with Gaz’s blood.

“Exactly what we expected,” she said. “An extravagantly sumptuous catastrophe.”

By the time the sun slipped behind the hedge line, the party had collapsed into something formless. The music still thumped, yet no one danced. Empty prosecco flutes littered every surface, and Julia stared at the remains of her cake: five tiers half-devoured, sugar roses sagging into the icing. There were finger marks like someone had ripped a chunk out with their hand. And somehow, the jagged edge that could only belong to teeth.

She sighed and looked around for her hosts as the party disintegrated. They were nowhere to be seen, but then, they hadn’t been for much of the night. The sense of something unfinished lay on her shoulders like damp laundry.

Sue appeared with a weary sigh. “Dot and Percy have bundled Ethel into a taxi. She tried to start a conga line with the fig tree after finding that extra crate of fizz in the kitchen.”

Julia managed a thin laugh. “Sounds about right.”

“I had to pry the glow sticks from Gran,” Sue added, looking down at her hands. “Still got a bit of the paint on me. I wonder if she’ll ever notice it exploded all over her yellow blouse.”

“Keep her away from a black light,” Julia said, shaking her head as she declined the car keys Sue tried to hand her. “I’m going to stay a little longer. Thanks for today, Sue. I couldn’t have⁠—”

“Anytime,” Sue cut in, kissing her cheek. “I won’t ask why you’re staying. I’ve learned it’s best to sleep at night if I don’t know what you’re up to half the time. Because you’re always up to something.”

Julia waved her off, unable to deny the truth of it.

Alone again, she sliced a piece of cake from one of the few sections still intact and sat on the edge of the island to eat it. The sponge was light, the champagne subtle, the icing just the right side of sweet. A good bake. One of her best. And almost entirely wasted.

She thought back to the bathroom. Kelly’s laugh hadn’t sounded joyful. It had cracked with relief. Then the phone call.

‘I’m not… but he’ll notice soon. I need more time.’

Not pregnant, and Gaz would find out? That only meant one thing. Gaz thought she was.

Before Julia could finish the thought, Jessie hurried over, hair wind-tossed, phone clenched in her fist.

“Veronica will skin me if I leave without a quote. Any sign of either of them?”

“Not since the fight,” Julia said.

Jessie groaned, rubbing her forehead.

“Did you see Kelly drinking tonight?” Julia asked.

Jessie frowned. “Don’t think so. Why?”

“I saw her in the bathroom,” Julia said. “She’d just taken a pregnancy test. Negative, but she sounded relieved. I overheard her making it sound like… someone else thought she was pregnant.”

Jessie straightened, eyes narrowing. “If she’s lying…”

“But why, though?” Julia asked.

“Oh, come on, Julia. The guy just became an overnight millionaire. Of course people are going to try attaching themselves to him. And she’s not the only one.” She looked around, but they were alone in the kitchen area, the buffet long since picked clean of the good bits. “There’s this girl. Tiff. I met her briefly a few weeks ago. She’s been watching Gaz like a hawk all day, and then she slapped him right before Nigel had his slice and⁠—”

A ripple of alarm rolled across the glass cave.

“Turn the music off!” someone shouted.

The speakers cut out mid-thump. The silence hit hard, thick and unnatural. All heads swung towards a frosted-glass door on the far side of the house. A guest stood squinting, rapping the pane with the flat of his palm.

“This door’s locked,” he called. “But I think I can see someone on the floor.”

“They’re not moving,” added another, closer to panic.

Julia’s stomach dropped. She met Jessie’s eyes before they ran.

By the time they reached the door, a small crowd had gathered, murmuring and craning. Julia pressed her hands to the glass. The frosting blurred everything inside, but she could just about make out a shape on the ground, something outlining them.

The handle wouldn’t budge.

Jessie tried to shoulder the door open while someone shouted that they needed to find a key.

Barker appeared, his eyes flinty. “Stand back.”

He grabbed one of the DJ’s heavy speakers, yanked the cable free, and hefted it like a battering ram.

“Seriously?” the DJ yelled, but Barker had already swung.

The speaker slammed into the glass. Once. Twice. On the third strike, the pane shattered, sending a spiderweb of cracks racing out. It seemed to hover there for an eternity before the whole thing collapsed inward with a crash, the frosting dispersing like smoke.

Silence fell across the party for the second time that day.

Beyond the broken threshold, a private cinema lay in frozen stillness. Plush seats, a wall-sized screen, and an ornate fireplace. No windows, and like the rest of the house, everything was white.

Except for the slick of blood fanned out beneath him, framing his white suit in a pool of scarlet ink.

Barker stepped through the wreckage, crouched beside the body, searched briefly for signs of life, then rose, his voice grim.

“We’re too late.”

Jessie muttered something, but Julia couldn’t manage words. She stood frozen, staring at the pool with no where to go on the marble as the white fabric of the suit drank it up.

Her voice sounded distant, oddly flat when it came out. “This door was locked, and there are no windows. So, unless Gaz…”

She didn’t finish.

“…Whoever did this had a key.”

And just like that, the party ended.

6

Police lights skimmed across the glass, washing the manicured lawn in pulses of blue. Barker stood in the cinema-room doorway and inhaled the damp night air, searching for relief that didn’t come. The copper tinge of oncoming rain threaded the air, but the pressure under the cloud-heavy sky kept dropping. Behind him, the remaining guests murmured like pigeons, but the corridor itself felt suddenly clinical.

Footsteps approached with crisp assurance. Detective Inspector Laura Moyes appeared, vaping until the very last second before stepping through the doors. Her dark blonde hair was wound into a neat coil, still damp, as if she’d jumped out of the bath to rush over. It was almost midnight.

Her gaze swept the scene once, slowly and methodically: the shattered glass, the stunned faces, the stretch of blood blooming on marble. Then she locked eyes with Barker.

“Trouble follows you around, mate,” she said, clapping a hand to his shoulder. “I hear you smashed the window?”

“Someone owes the DJ a new speaker.”

She sighed. “Isn’t that what insurance is for?”

PC Jake Puglisi emerged behind her, already gloved up and chewing gum like a camel about to spit. Moyes snapped gloves onto her own slim fingers and nodded to Barker.

“Brief me, Brown.”

Barker ran a hand through his dark hair, gaze fixed on the blood as though it might tell him how it got there.

“It’s quite a tangle,” he said, scratching his stubble.

“Untangle it.”

So, he filled her in. Gaz and Kelly, recent lottery winners, had moved into a new house a few weeks ago, with their wealth still fresh. They’d been planning a special night to unveil their new life, excited for their big reveal. Julia, meanwhile, had landed the catering gig and they’d been privy to all sorts of conversations so far.

Moyes gave a small nod, her expression unreadable.

“Gaz had a bit of a showman streak. Champagne towers, suits without shirts, the works. But he wasn’t popular. There’s Uncle Nigel, who turned up drunk and ready to fight, and not for the first time.”

“What’s the issue?”

Glancing around, he dropped his voice. “He accused Gaz of nicking the syndicate ticket. Gaz claimed the numbers didn’t line up, but that didn’t matter to Nigel.”

“And you mentioned a cousin?” Moyes asked, glancing up.

“Callum. Quiet lad. Works in the new Fern Moore shop. Then there’s a woman called Tiff, an ex-girlfriend, possibly more recent. Jessie might know more. She saw her slap Gaz right before Nigel almost flattened him against the buffet.”

Moyes raised a brow.

“We’ve also got a best friend,” Barker added. “Todd. Worked with both Gaz and Nigel on roofing jobs. Been around the house all day. Overheard them saying they’re ‘like brothers’ a few times. Think they must have grown up in the flats together.”

“Mm.” Moyes looked over her shoulder at the murmur of uniformed movement behind them. “And this is the first I’m hearing about any of it. You lot really do love to keep me on my toes.”

Barker scratched the back of his neck, then added, “There’s also tension with the neighbours. The land used to be theirs. The Willinghams?”

“Dad was done for tax evasion,” Moyes said, not needing to recall. “Died a few years ago and passed it all on to her.”

“Interesting,” Barker said, glancing towards the bushes. Beatrice was still watching proceedings, as she had all night. “That’d explain why she sold the land despite not wanting anyone on it. She acts like she still owns the place, apparently.”

Moyes tilted her head. “In what way?”

“A snobby one,” he said. “They’re a right pair. The son, Freddie, is some finance type. He cornered Jessie earlier, started talking about a holiday in Dubai. The way she told it, it sounded more like kidnapping.”

“Dubai?” Moyes gagged. “All gloss and no soul.”

“A bit like this place.”

“Glad I wasn’t the only one,” she said. “It feels like an Apple store. Who’d want to live in a place like this?”

“I’m still yearning after Howarth House, deep in the forest. That’s what I’d spend my lottery money on.”

“Don’t tell me you waste money on that rubbish?”

“Never,” he said. “Anyway, back to Freddie. I didn’t like him the second I saw him.” Barker dropped his voice, remembering Jessie and Freddie chatting on the edge of the market square, unable to look away. That morning felt like a lifetime ago. The plaster on his finger had peeled off from all the handwashing, but the cut from the letter opener still stung. “Blokes with those haircuts are always up to something.” Moyes looked at him like he’d switched languages, so he mimed curtain-like fringes across his forehead. “You’ll understand when I meet him.”

“Right,” she said. “How are you so in the middle of all this?”

Barker sighed. “We’d have been on the other side of the party if Julia’s reputation as a baker didn’t precede her. They heard she was the best.”

“Best baker or sleuth?” Moyes asked, lips slightly pursed. “This is all so... odd. I can’t say I’ve handled a case like it.”

“It’s not every day you meet someone who’s won the lottery, but... it felt like something was coming. Maybe not this, but something.” He stepped aside as another PC brought in evidence bags. “Still, the strangest part is the room itself.” He nodded inside. “Have you noticed?”

Moyes glanced around. “Only one door in, until you threw the speaker.”

“Isn’t that what insurance is for?” he replied, lips twitching into a smile.

They shared a look that was tired, familiar, but not without warmth. The quiet understanding of those who’d walked too many crime scenes, never in uniform at the same time, but understanding all the same.

“There’s no chance he did this to himself,” Moyes said, crouching beside the body. “Even if he could reach, it’s too... brutal.”

Barker joined her, careful not to disturb the scene. “That’s an entry wound, isn’t it?”

“Looks like quite a large knife, if I had to guess. Forensics will confirm when they get here, but...” She trailed off, gesturing at the arc of blood. “There’s so much of it I wouldn’t be surprised if they punctured the lad’s heart.” She looked up and snapped her fingers at Puglisi. “Start a search of the grounds for a knife. It may have been ditched in a panic.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He nodded and vanished down the corridor.

Moyes stood again, dusting her knees as she peeled the gloves off. “Knife suggests it wasn’t necessarily premeditated. If they did hit the heart, they could have got lucky.”

“But the locked room suggests it was planned,” Barker said. “This wasn’t a heat-of-the-moment argument. Someone planned their exit, and unless they had a key⁠—”

“Then I start with the people who could have had a key,” Moyes cut in before he could theorise any further. “Thanks, Brown. You’ve got me up to speed. Now, if you don’t mind, run down to the services just off junction six. It’s the only place...”

“To get decent coffee this late,” he said for her, refusing her offer of money. “I know it well. Haven’t been there in years.” Pulling open the front door, he called back, “There’s an alright doughnut shop there too. I’ll get enough to go around, on me.”

“You really don’t have to⁠—”

“On one condition,” he said. “Figure out what’s going on before I get back.”

“Sure,” she replied, yanking off her blue gloves. “Sounds easy.”

Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked. Julia stood beside Jessie at the edge of the lawn, arms folded, the pair of them watching the aftermath unfold as if it was a terrible play they couldn’t leave.

“None of it makes sense,” Julia murmured. “The house, the fight, the slap, that poor lad…”

“Too much money,” Jessie said, rubbing her temples. “Too fast. People lose their heads. And now someone’s lost more than that.”

They both fell quiet, watching the scattered guests mill about, waiting for permission to leave or for the next scene to unfold. Then Julia nudged Jessie, nodding towards the steps leading up to the house.

Kelly sat alone on the bottom step, arms wrapped round her knees, head bowed. Her glitter had smudged into tear-streaked war paint. Freddie and Todd hovered nearby, both clearly trying to speak to her, both being ignored.

“She shouldn’t be alone,” Julia said, frowning.

“Doesn’t look like she’s managing it,” Jessie replied.

They watched as Freddie leaned down, saying something with a greasy smile that made Julia squirm. Todd stepped forward and said something else. Freddie rolled his eyes. Todd scowled. Words sharpened. Shoulders squared.

“Back off,” Freddie snapped. “She doesn’t need you swanning around like some tragic soap hero.”

“And she doesn’t need you sniffing around like an opportunist in snakeskin shoes,” Todd fired back. “You didn’t even know her before all this.”

Jessie stepped forward, voice sharp. “Seriously? Today? A man was just stabbed, and you’re measuring who’s got there first⁠—”

Kelly stood up with a sob that turned into a shout. “Enough!”

Both men froze.

She shoved Freddie. “Get away from me.”

She shoved Todd. “You too.”

Then she stormed up the steps, through the doors, and into the house. A stunned hush followed her.

“Everyone get out!” she screamed from inside. The walls seemed to rattle.

Nobody moved.

“I said out,” Her voice cracked at the edges, raw and trembling.

DI Moyes appeared, hand already brushing the cuff pouch at her belt. “Everyone just calm⁠—”

But Kelly spun, wild-eyed. “Why is no one listening to me?”

Then she ran.

Back through the glass kitchen doors, past the remains of the buffet. She paused, eyes darting to what was left of the cake, and in one sudden motion, she swept her arm across the table.

The clawed and knawed at remains of the champagne spectacular splattered across the white marble in a whip streak that ran up the wall.

Kelly dropped to her knees and folded over herself, sobbing. The sound didn’t match the room. It was too human for a place like this.

Julia ran in. She didn’t hesitate. She dropped down beside Kelly and wrapped her arms around her. Kelly let herself fold in, like a child who’d finally stopped pretending to be fine.

Her body shook as if it were carrying thousands of volts.

“I’ll find out what happened,” Julia said quietly.

Kelly blinked at her through mascara and tears. For a moment, she seemed to study Julia, really see her, then she gave a single, tiny nod before a fresh wave of sobs overtook her.

Julia held on. Somewhere in her chest, she knew one thing.

This girl hadn’t stabbed Gaz.

But someone had.

And for once, she’d already been watching.

The service station was lit up like a football pitch, its fluorescent glow pressing back against the early hours. Barker stood at the counter, scanning the menu as the bleary-eyed barista blinked at him.

“Twenty Americanos,” he said. “Extra shots in all of them.”

The barista didn’t blink so much as stare. The kind of hatred that said, ‘I’m only here because of you.’

“And twenty doughnuts,” he added. “You pick.”

That earned a mutter and a blink.

A few minutes and a small financial crisis later, Barker was carrying cardboard trays and paper bags out to his car. He loaded them into the back, settling them in the spot where the champagne cake had once sat; the cake he still hadn’t tried. He made a mental note to try a slice when he got back, assuming there was anything left.

Then he saw him.

Across the car park, a man was shouting at a driver who’d just locked his door. Barker recognised the hunched shoulders, the wild jabs of his hand. It was Nigel.

The driver peeled away with a screech. Nigel staggered towards another car, already lining up his next target, but the second driver sped up before Nigel could even reach the window.

And then Nigel turned.

His eyes found Barker.

Barker shut the car boot and locked it. “Nigel, wait.”

The drunk blinked like a man underwater, then turned and stumbled away.

Barker jogged after him, calling again, but Nigel was quicker than he looked. He weaved between parked cars, then made a sudden dart towards a bus waiting under a floodlight. The doors were just closing when Nigel jumped on.

“Stop!” Barker shouted, breaking into a run.

Too late. The bus hissed and began to pull away.

But Nigel wasn’t finished. He turned at the last second and flung something from his coat pocket. It struck Barker square on the shoulder, hard enough to make him stagger.

A box, no bigger than a wallet.

Barker picked it up, dusted it off, and opened it. Inside sat a flashy men’s watch, glinting beneath the service station lights. He turned it over.

An inscription.

‘Well done.’

He pocketed the watch, rubbed his shoulder, and walked slowly back to the car.

If Nigel was innocent, he was doing an excellent job of making it look otherwise.

Outside, forensics officers moved with calm focus. White figures gleamed beneath the floodlamps as they zipped up their suits, unlatched crates, and prepared to sweep the house.

Julia lingered near the shattered glass door.

Everyone else had drifted away, been ushered out, collapsed into silence, or numbed into inaction. Even Kelly had vanished, leaving only the ruined buffet and a smear of icing like war paint across the kitchen counter.

Julia realised she was alone.

The crime scene was right there. Earlier, shock had blurred the details, but now, as the hours of the long day wore on, her mind, though foggy, began to clear. The first time she’d entered this room, she’d noticed only one thing: the single way in and out.

She turned and stepped carefully into the cinema room, avoiding the worst of the glass.

Then she saw it.

Not on the marble, but against the base of the nearest white chair. A dark smudge no bigger than a slice of bread, but unmistakable.

She crouched and touched it.

It was dry, crumbly, clinging faintly to her fingertips. And it hadn’t been there before. Soil?

She straightened slowly, gaze sweeping the rows of white chairs. There, another smear, on the rug near the screen. Just a scrape of dirt against the corner.

Someone had come back in.

Had they hidden something earlier and returned to retrieve it? The knife? And if so, no one had noticed. But Julia knew that smudge hadn’t been there in the ‘before’ picture her mind had taken.

She stood, mind racing.

Glass crunched behind her.

DI Moyes stood there, arms folded. “What are you doing, Julia?”

“This wasn’t here before,” Julia said, pointing to the smear.

Moyes stepped closer, peering down. “And how can you know that?”

“Because everything in here was white. The walls, the chairs, the screen, the carpet, the fireplace. The only thing that wasn’t white was the blood. Believe me, I noticed.”

Moyes followed her gaze, lips pressed into a thin line.

“I think someone came back in,” Julia said. “After the chaos. After Kelly left. Maybe they took something. Maybe they hid something.”

Moyes pinched the bridge of her nose. “Julia⁠—”

“I know what I saw.”

The DI studied her for a long moment. Then she sighed and stepped aside as the forensic team began to file in. Suit-clad figures swarmed the room, armed with cameras and swabs, murmuring observations into clipped radio mics.

“I’ll look into it,” Moyes said. “I’ll ask around. But Julia, go home. Keep your eyes and ears open, but leave the rest to us. From what I hear, you’ve been on your feet since dawn, and you look ready to drop.”

Julia glanced one last time at the chair and the smudge. The room tilted as the exhaustion finally caught her. The long day, which had begun at five with a whirring mixer and a dozen checklists, now fell on her like a shattered pane of glass.

“Fine,” she said. “But don’t ignore it. Please.”

Outside, the air had shifted. The heat had broken into a warm, soaking rain, the kind that felt more Spanish than British. It dripped down her neck as she crossed the driveway, but she didn’t flinch.

She looked for Kelly, but saw only Jessie and Barker on the front step, their heads bowed together, speaking in low voices.

Julia joined them.

“Where’d she go?” Jessie asked, already soaked through.

“No idea,” Julia replied.

“She’s not the only one,” Barker said, rubbing his shoulder. “Nigel was at the services. Drunk and causing trouble, as usual.” He winced as he rolled his arm. “I tried to stop him, but he threw something at me and legged it onto a bus.”

“Do you need to go to the hospital?” Julia asked.

“It was just a watch box.” He pulled it out. “Looks expensive. Had a message engraved: ‘Well done.’”

“Odd trophy,” Jessie murmured. “You think he stole it from Gaz?”

“Maybe,” Barker said, snapping the box shut and pocketing it. “Or a warning. He’s now effectively on the run.”

The three of them sat in silence, watching the rain darken the stone steps as it soaked them through. After sweating for so long, the sudden cool was almost welcome.

“Time to go home,” Julia murmured.

Jessie nodded. “Veronica’s going to have me in the office all day tomorrow. I swear it should be illegal to work Sundays.”

Barker stretched his legs into a puddle. “We’re two weeks ahead of the official investigation. Let’s not waste it.”

Julia looked up at the glass mansion one last time, its polished walls blurred by the rain.

“Let’s find the truth,” she said, pushing herself up from the step with the last of her strength. She held out an arm to each of them. “Before this glasshouse shatters.”

7

The new fan arrived on Monday morning, sleek and silver, humming pointlessly on the café counter as the summer rain continued to lash down. It had been pouring since Sunday morning, a relentless grey that soaked the pavement and dulled the colours of the hanging baskets outside. Julia sipped lukewarm tea and tried not to think about how she’d spent most of Sunday horizontal, blinking at the ceiling in that strange aftershock of adrenaline and grief.

The café still bore the scars of Saturday’s early closure before the party. She’d yet to push the chairs in, and there were gilded invitations scattered everywhere. Julia rarely left her café in a state like this, but she hadn’t been able to summon the energy to put everything right.

Dot leaned against the counter, a blanket around her shoulders and her expression set to ‘expert witness’.

“If Gaz did steal that ticket,” she announced, slicing a cherry scone in half, “then surely Nigel did it. I don’t care how cross you are at someone, you don’t start grabbing lapels in public unless there’s real rage behind it.”

Julia, staring at the empty display cabinets, looked up. “You think it was Nigel?”

Dot gave a little shrug. “He’s on the run, isn’t he? What more do you need to know?”

Julia frowned, the pieces rearranging themselves in her mind. “You, Percy and Ethel went for a wander before the security team brought you back, didn’t you?”

“Just a little look round,” Dot replied innocently. “Nothing criminal. Though there was something, now you mention it.”

Julia turned her full attention to her gran.

“There was a man,” Dot said. “Bit funny looking, floppy hair at the front like he’d lost a fight with a hairdresser.”

“Freddie Willingham?” Julia said. “He took a shine to Jessie.”

Dot clicked her fingers. “Smarmy fella, if you ask me. I can tell.” She tapped the side of her nose. “Ethel said she could smell it on him too.”

“Smell what?”

“Dodginess. You know Ethel. She talks a lot of nonsense.” She paused to push up her short, grey curls at the back. “But a broken clock strikes right twice a day.”

She drew the blanket tighter, glaring at the grey day. “Far too cold today.”

From the kitchen, Jessie’s voice rang out. “You were complaining it was too hot a few days ago!”

“All I’m saying,” Dot called back, holding her hands up in defeat, “is there’s a happy medium somewhere and the British weather never seems to hit it.”

Julia smiled, but it faded quickly. “This guy. Freddie. Why did you notice him? Did he do anything strange?”

“He was on the phone. Talking about some kind of ‘done deal.’ As if he were trying to convince someone of something. I didn’t really pay attention. I was too busy trying to see if they had a pool. Thought I might dip in and cool off. We all had our swimming costumes on under our outfits.” She shook her head in disgust. “Turns out the pool we bought at a discount had a very nice discounted section in the side.”

“You mean a hole?”

“Flooded half my kitchen on Friday night!”

Julia leaned against the counter, mind ticking. “We know Freddie’s smarmy, but this ‘done deal?’ That’s something. And there’s the fight over the lottery ticket. And someone ends up stabbed in a locked room.”

Dot peered at her sideways. “Dusting off the old notepad and pen? I did notice you run around, crime-fighting a lot less these days.”

“I don’t run around ‘crime-fighting.’” Julia laughed at the suggestion, glancing at the clock. Fifteen minutes to set the café right, not that she’d be there when it opened. “I can’t look the other way. Not after everything I’ve overheard. I want to get to the new house on the edge of Fern Moore before the crowds start building.”

“You won’t be the only one heading there,” Dot agreed. “I imagine there’ll be camera crews and all sorts of tourists.” She shuddered at the thought, as though she’d never lingered outside a scene of scandal in the village several times. “I should get back to the cottage. Ethel and Percy are on the second day of their prosecco hangovers.”

“And you?”

Dot cackled at the suggestion. “My body is a well-oiled machine. I might be turning ninety come the new year, but I’m as fit as a fiddle!”

As always, Julia wished she had a shred of her gran’s energy, which she tried to summon after Dot left by picking up all the invitations. The party had been doomed from the moment they decided to throw it in the way they did.

When Julia had all the invitations in the bin and the chairs back where they belonged, Jessie emerged from the kitchen with a tray of cakes that looked slightly more homespun than usual, but she had done everything single-handedly this morning.

“People will be too busy gossiping about the dead millionaire to notice the rough edges,” Jessie said as she added them to the revolving display cabinet. “I’m heading to Fern Moore too. See if I can track down Todd, Callum, Tiff, Nigel… anyone who might know what happened.” She paused, lowering her voice. “Barker’s still trying to track Nigel down after his runner. No sight or sound of him yet, and he’s usually quite active online posting his… political views.”

“Do I want to know?”

“Probably not, but the point is, he was posting and sharing up to five times a day almost every day, and nothing since Gaz died.”

“If only we knew where that bus was going,” Julia said, readjusting the victoria sponge and chocolate cake so that the messier sides weren’t facing out under the spotlights. “Gaz was right about the syndicate, at least. The numbers weren’t the ones Nigel shouted. I checked the winners from the weeks around when the story was first leaked to the papers, and they weren’t close to matching the numbers Gaz read out.”

Jessie raised an eyebrow. “Dad said you found some possible lottery numbers etched on some drawing?”

Julia pulled her notepad from beneath the till, flipping through pages. “Oh, yeah. They’d imprinted from the previous page, and… I swear I put the drawing in my pad.” She tipped in upside down and shook it, and then checked her apron pocket for good measure. “It was in here.”

“When did you last see it?”

“Saturday morning.”

“Probably not important,” Jessie said, pushing Julia’s car keys across the counter. “Honestly, I’m starting to think Nigel’s just a drunk who lost the plot. He broke his back years ago, and that can’t have been easy. If he is behind Slate123, he might have made the whole thing up out of bitterness.”

Julia sighed. “Maybe. Still, I want to see the house again to see what Kelly thinks. It would be nice to have a conversation with her outside of a few words.”

Jessie nodded, patting the keys before sliding them again so that Julia had to catch them.

“I’ll hold down the fort,” she said, throwing on a fresh apron before tying up her shoulder-length hair in a bobble. “Veronica’s already fending off calls from the nationals. It’s only a matter of time before news readers descend in helicopters.”

“Don’t jinx it,” Julia said, scooping up the bag she’d packed for Kelly last night, “the last thing I need is another crowd to fight through.”

Barker hunched over his laptop in the cramped office beneath the café, the tap of his fingers on the keys doing nothing to mask the tinny jingle blaring from his phone.

Olivia was curled up on the leather sofa beside him, eyes glued to a screen of dancing cartoon fruit. The song looped every thirty seconds. He’d counted.

He put on his reading glasses and tried to focus. Bus timetables weren’t usually this complicated. Three potential services had left the service station that night. Two of the logs contradicted each other. The third hadn’t been updated for six years, but it was the one that had the closest bus—though none matched up fully with the time Nigel had been at the stop.

According to his bank app, the twenty coffees and doughnuts were bought at 12:19.

If the 342 had been twelve minutes late, Nigel could have ended up anywhere between Exit Six and Oxford.

Barker’s eyes narrowed at a blurry photo attached to a timetable correction email. A blue bus. Same route. Different operator.

He zoomed in and read the logo printed along the side. A new name since the last time they updated the schedule? It was worth a punt.

With Olivia still commandeering his phone, he crossed to his desk and dialled the number on the landline.

“Yep?” a woman on the other end said.

“Is this Pilkins Buses?”

“Yep.”

“Hello. I’m a private investigator, and this is going to sound a bit strange,” he began. “Early hours of Sunday morning. Did anything… strange happen on the 342 to Oxford?”

There was a pause, then the woman barked a laugh. “Strange? Love, that covers every shift after dark.”

“Fair,” Barker said, already bracing to be brushed off.

“Hang on,” she added. “You’ll want Ron. He was on that route.”

Muffled shouting. A shuffle. Then a new voice.

“This is Ron.”

Barker repeated the question.

“Nigel, you’re after?” Ron asked. “Chap told me his life story. Chatted the whole way. He was trying to convince me that someone had cheated him out of the lottery. Said he was going to get his own back. That it was all sorted.”

Barker swallowed. It was vague. Too vague to be a solid confession, but it showed intent.

“Do you know where he got off?”

“Just past the Riverswick Bypass. Made me pull over, threw up in the bushes, then legged it into the woods. I tried to shout after him, but he said he was like a homing pigeon and reckoned he’d find his way home. He wasn’t the first drunk to ramble nonsense after midnight.”

“Right. One more thing. Did he say anything… specific? About hurting anyone?”

A laugh, slower this time.

“Murder, you mean? No. Not directly. Just the revenge stuff. He was angry. Oh… when he got on… I noticed something sticking out of his coat pocket. When he fished about for change, I joked, ‘Wouldn’t have a knife, would you?’ He looked blank and said no. But he didn’t prove it.”

Barker’s heart sank.

“Thanks,” he said. “That’s really helpful.”

Before Ron could say more, he hung up.

He grabbed his keys from the desk.

“Come on, Liv.”

Olivia didn’t respond as she clambered off the sofa, still watching the screen where the fruit were still dancing.

“Do you want to go and see your big sister in the café?”

She nodded, eyes fixed on the phone. Barker tried to take it from her. She clutched it tighter, lips wobbling.

Maybe this was why Julia didn’t let her on YouTube.

“You know the fun part of Daddy being a private investigator?” he asked as he followed her up the stairs. “You spend all morning with spreadsheets and maps and bus routes… only to find you’ve got to walk ten minutes up the hill.”

“Silly Daddy,” Olivia replied.

He glanced back into the office before he closed the door. The second letter he’d written to Casper waited in an unsealed envelope. He wasn’t sure if he’d send that one, but he’d needed to get his thoughts down.

They felt like words best said to a brother’s face, yet Casper lived all the way up in Harrogate.

He was almost glad of the distraction Fern Moore offered.

He dropped Olivia off with Jessie and set off for the council estate that had once given him and his badge so much grief.

8

Julia had half-expected to find the house wrapped in crime scene tape and silence. Instead, she found parasols.

Beatrice and Freddie lounged in white rattan chairs on their side of the lawn, a full afternoon tea set between them made up of a silver teapot, fine china cups, and finger sandwiches. A woman in a black-and-white apron bent to refill their cups. In the distance, Julia caught sight of their house: a brooding stretch of dark brick half-consumed by surrounding trees. Tall chimneys sagged into the sky like crooked hats, and ivy had begun reclaiming one corner.

It couldn’t have looked more different from Gaz and Kelly’s glass box, perched like a spaceship at the other end of the land.

Julia walked over with the heavy bag over her shoulder, steeling herself. “Hello… I don’t know if you remember me⁠—”

“Are you the lady who does the ironing?” Beatrice asked, not looking up from her cup. “You were expected on Thursday.”

“I was at the party,” Julia said, holding her smile.

“She’s a waitress,” Freddie added, brushing crumbs from his pale blue shirt. “I saw her serving.”

“I’m not a waitress,” Julia replied, gently but firmly. “Well, sometimes I am. I own the café in Peridale.”

“Oh, is that still there?” Beatrice said, brightening.

“The café?”

“No. The village.” Beatrice let out a sharp, theatrical sound that died uncomfortably on the breeze. “I suppose society is just a concept, isn’t it? If you don’t engage in it, it doesn’t exist.”

No one laughed with her. Freddie took a long sip of tea.

Julia tried not to sigh. “Any updates from the crime scene?”

“Looking for the knife, if that’s what you mean,” Freddie said, finally meeting her eye. “Still haven’t found it.”

“She’s still in there,” Beatrice added, nodding towards the mansion. “Kelly. Hasn’t come out since. She keeps switching between sobbing and smashing up the place. If she keeps it up, there won’t be a glass left to shatter.”

She lifted her cup in a dry toast.

Freddie visibly winced, then stood and wandered a few paces away, as if distance might dilute her.

Julia didn’t wait to be dismissed.

She turned and set off for the new house.

The path twisted around a bed of architectural shrubbery and up towards the front steps, but Julia slowed as a low hum reached her ears.

As she rounded the corner, the full view stopped her cold.

A wall of journalists blocked the door, their cameras raised, microphones thrust forward, phones held high on extended arms. Dictaphones flicked red lights. One reporter was already speaking into a shoulder-mounted video camera. Another stood on a folding stool for a better view inside.

Julia stared.

So much for quiet questions and fresh eyes. The vultures had landed.

Julia didn’t bother trying the front door. With journalists crammed across the steps like barnacles, there was no chance of slipping in unnoticed. She circled the house, boots damp from the sodden lawn, and tried the side gate. Locked. But the back, where the garden swept into scrubland, offered more promise.

A window hung ajar near the rear bathroom, the very one where she’d seen Kelly with the pregnancy test. Julia glanced around, ducked beneath the frame, and slipped inside.

The smell hit first. Not rot, not yet, but something stagnant. As if the air had forgotten how to move.

She eased the window closed behind her.

Kelly was there, curled in the corner of the sterile bathroom like a forgotten coat, half-asleep and wedged between the tub and the cabinet. At the click of the window, she startled, eyes wide, scrambling backwards.

“I’m sorry—” Julia fanned her hands gently. “It’s okay. I come in peace. I promise.”

Kelly blinked at her, breath catching, but the panic ebbed. Her limbs sagged with exhaustion. “What are you doing here?”

Julia unzipped her bag. “I brought you some food. Easy dishes that can be thrown in the oven. Cottage pie. Lasagne. My husband made his beef stew too. It’s about the only thing he can make, most of the time.” She offered a smile that wasn’t returned. “I wasn’t sure if you’d been eating…”

Kelly stared as if Julia had started speaking Dutch.

“Thanks,” she mumbled eventually.

“Need help getting up?”

A small nod.

Julia crouched and offered her arms. Kelly’s palms were scratched and bruised, fingertips raw; she really had been breaking things. Julia steadied her as they stood, both of them moving like women twice their age.

The hallway outside the bathroom told the rest of the story.

Broken glass scattered the floor. The grand buffet had been stripped down to chaos. Icing smears still decorated the marble like battle wounds. The bloodstain beyond the missing cinema door had been scrubbed away, but a pale outline remained, and so did the dry smudge Julia had noticed on the white chair.

Kelly said nothing.

“Kelly!” Todd’s voice carried from another room. He sauntered in as though he owned the place. “There you are.”

He stopped when he saw Julia. “Who’s this?”

“She made the cake,” Kelly said, her voice dull.

“I’m a local,” Julia said. “Concerned villager. Just wanted to check in.”

“We’re fine,” Todd said. “You can leave us alone.”

Julia gave him a nod that didn’t reach her smile. “Kelly, could we talk? Just us, quickly?”

“No,” Todd said.

But Kelly hesitated. Then nodded. “Come on. We’ll go upstairs.”

At the top of the glass staircase, the bedroom glittered like a disco ball. Mirrored wardrobes, diamante-framed dressing table, chandeliers dangling like overgrown earrings. It was cold despite the sparkle. The bed hadn’t been slept in.

Kelly perched on the edge. Julia joined her, careful not to sink too deep into the overly soft mattress.

“Is there any truth to what Nigel said?” Julia asked. “That the ticket was stolen?”

Kelly shook her head. “No. I picked the numbers. I wrote them down and gave them to Gaz. He said he was feeling lucky and wanted to do a second ticket on top of the syndicate.”

“They always played the syndicate?”

“Every week. Nigel’s been doing it for years. Gaz and Todd usually went to cash it because Nigel would forget.”

“At the SuperLocal on the corner at Fern Moore?”

Kelly shrugged. “I guess? I don’t know. Does it matter?”

Julia tucked that away for later. “Do you know Callum?”

“Bit of a weirdo, but harmless. Why?”

“I think I saw him following you. The day you came to my café?”

Kelly blinked. “That feels like a hundred years ago, but he wasn’t following us.”

“You’re sure?”

“We asked him to come,” she said slowly. “We thought someone was following us, and we couldn’t figure out who. Gaz asked him to keep an eye out.”

“So… it probably was Nigel?”

“Yeah. It stopped after that. I mean, I’ve not left the house since the party, but… it doesn’t feel the same.”

“Why would Nigel follow you?”

Kelly looked down at her hands. “Because we made it obvious, didn’t we? We tried not to. We kept wearing the same clothes, Gaz kept going to work. He didn’t want everyone to know, but then Gaz quit roofing, and we started… shopping. A lot. People asked questions. Nigel was the first one to say it. ‘Was it you?’”

“And Gaz said?”

“He said no. Told him we won on a scratch card. That became our story. But we knew it wouldn’t last.” She shook her head. “We didn’t want it to leak out like gossip. So, we planned the party. We’d tell everyone at once. The lottery rep said not to hide it too long. People always find out, she said. It’ll ruin your life if you keep it secret, she said. But Gaz didn’t want to tell anyone. He thought… they’d take it away.”

“Who would take it away?” Julia edged closer.

Her voice faltered. “Doesn’t matter now. I don’t even know who gets the money. We weren’t married. We were only together for six months. His dad lives in Ireland. He’ll probably get it all.”

“Lucky sod.” The voice came from the doorway. Julia turned to see Todd leaning against the frame, arms folded, his expression unreadable. She hadn’t heard him approach.

He stepped into the room, holding a glass of water, and handed it to Kelly. She took it with a shaky hand, gulping it down as if it might wash away the past few days. Todd pulled back the covers, and Kelly crawled in without a word, curling up like a child at home sick from school.

Todd turned to Julia, his tone gentle but firm. “You’ll understand that she needs some space.”

Julia nodded. “Of course.”

“I’ll look after her,” he added. “It’s what Gaz would have wanted. She needs people she can trust around her.”

Julia studied him. She didn’t know much about Todd, just that he’d been Gaz’s friend and colleague, but she still needed to know so much more from Kelly. She wanted to ask about the pregnancy test and the overheard phone call. Yet her eyes were closing, and Todd was hovering right behind.

“Do you know who would have wanted to hurt Gaz?” she asked, crouching by the side of the bed. “If the ticket was stolen⁠—”

“It wasn’t stolen,” she insisted. “I wish people would stop saying that. He bought that ticket fair and square. But I knew we should have kept it to ourselves. There’s always someone…” Her lids fluttered as her voice slowed before adding, “… someone out to get you.”

Todd didn’t need to tell Julia to leave this time. He followed her out to the corridor, pulling the door softly behind him.

“You worked with Gaz, didn’t you? On the roofs?”

“Roofs, chimneys, walls, you name it, we did it. We were good at it, especially when Nigel wasn’t around. When he did show up, everything took twice as long and cost twice as much.” He paused, his gaze distant. “Gaz didn’t tell me he’d won. But I knew. He started giving me money. He said he got lucky on the horses, then a scratch card, and then the dogs. Nobody’s that lucky. But I never asked. He was my best mate. We’ve known each other since primary school. I had to wear a patch for a lazy eye in Year Two, and no one would talk to me. Gaz walked right up and said, ‘You look like a pirate.’ We played pirates until the bell rang. Been inseparable ever since.”

“That’s a sweet story,” Julia said. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

He nodded his thanks, but she still had more questions.

“Do you know who Tiff is?”

He rolled his eyes. “Tiff’s his ex. They broke up a few months before he won. I didn’t know at the time, but people were whispering before the party. I think she figured it out and tried to get back with him. He wasn’t having it. She couldn’t let go of him, or the idea of the money. Not that it was ever hers.”

“What’s she like?”

“You might want to talk to her,” he added, stepping back into the bedroom. “I didn’t really know her. It was a fling. We didn’t introduce each other to every girl we met, or we’d have been doing it every other week. Kelly’s the only one who stuck with him. I’m still waiting for mine. You might want to go out the way you came. That crowd’s only getting thicker. I’m tempted to throw water on them from the balcony.”

Julia didn’t return his strained laugh.

“They’ll get bored eventually. It just might take a while for ‘eventually’ to come. The truth will help.”

“Let’s hope we find it, for Gaz and for Kelly. She needs to move on from this somehow.”

“I’ll do what I can,” Julia promised.

“Thank you,” he said, frowning in a way that made him look a lot younger than the way he strode about the place suggested. “I… I wish we’d opened up more, you know? If I’d known he was in trouble, I could have helped⁠—”

“If you know anything,” she said, almost pleading. “Anything that could be useful?”

Todd looked at her, weighing her seriousness, then jerked his head toward the nearest window. He nodded across the lawn, where the dark Willingham house loomed beyond the trees.

“Honestly, I don’t really know them,” he said in a low whisper, “but Gaz did tell me two things about them. The mother’s been making their lives hell since long before their planning application was accepted. I know it’s not to everyone’s taste, but Gaz project-managed the whole thing and pulled it off ahead of schedule. I can’t believe he won’t get to live in it.”

Julia recognised the tragedy, but she was itching for the second thing. She leaned in a fraction closer, her gaze fixed on Beatrice as she hurried across the lawn to her house just as the rain moved back in.

“That son of hers?” Todd muttered.

“Freddie?”

He nodded. “According to Gaz, he was all over like a rash every chance he got. Said the only reason he hadn’t lamped him was because he didn’t want to make enemies of his new neighbours.”

“Wise.”

“Yeah, he could be,” he said with a sigh. “Sometimes.”

They shook hands, and Julia retraced her steps, slipping back out through the window.

Outside, Freddie was wandering the grounds, looking around aimlessly.

“How’d you get on?” he asked.

“I couldn’t get inside,” Julia lied.

Freddie sighed and wandered off, leaving Julia to make her way down the long, winding lane to her beat-up, aqua-blue vintage Ford Anglia.

Time to get back to the café, fill Jessie in, and swap places.

9

The Fern Moore estate always brought Barker back to his old police days, when the lift rarely worked and the top floor usually meant trouble. Still, here he was, following a digital breadcrumb trail of Nigel’s old football posts and slightly terrifying ‘political’ rants.

He’d posted a selfie on match day outside his flat. Thirty-four.

He knocked on the grey door.

No answer.

He knocked again, harder.

Then came the click. The door creaked open, and Barker blinked into a gloom of cigarette haze and the scent of something that might have been a stew. Nigel stood there, neither drunk nor quite present. He wore a zip-up hoodie that had seen better days and stared at Barker as if he were a bill collector.

“Remember me?” Barker asked. “I last saw you driving away from me on a bus. Or should I say, running away?”

“You were chasing me,” Nigel said evenly. “You found me, so I’ll give you that. You might as well come in. You’re not the first.”

Before Barker could reply, a voice called from inside.

“Fancy seeing you here, Dad.”

“Of course you’re related,” Nigel grumbled. “You lot are all the same.”

“Brunettes?” Jessie asked.

“Villagers!” he cried, tossing a finger towards Peridale. “Can’t seem to leave us alone.”

“You came to my house in the middle of the night when my daughter and wife were asleep,” Barker reminded him. “And you left a smashed bottle for me to sweep up.”

He stepped into the flat, the soles of his boots sticking faintly to the lino. Jessie was perched on the edge of a collapsible camping chair, notebook balanced on her knee, focused on her writing. She barely looked up.

“Afternoon,” she said.

“I thought you were working?”

“I am,” she replied, scribbling in her pad. “And you were chasing bus routes?”

“I chased them to here.”

Nigel groaned as he settled into his armchair, draped in a patchy blanket. The flat was small but cluttered to the rafters: old prints of Fern Moore from the eighties, at least three broken clocks, and a pile of unopened letters so high it leaned like a miniature Pisa.

Barker remained standing.

“You sober now?” he asked. “You were in a state on Saturday.”

Nigel scowled. “I wasn’t that bad. Bit of a moment, that’s all.”

Jessie flipped a page. “You told me Gaz ‘dragged’ Callum into something. What exactly did you mean?”

“That boy never used to lie,” Nigel said, squinting at the wall as if it had betrayed him. “Gaz, I mean. He was a daft lad, full of it, but not a liar. Then the money came. And he started looking over his shoulder, and I noticed.”

Barker folded his arms. “Start at the beginning.”

Nigel hesitated. “We played that syndicate every week, like clockwork⁠—”

“It wasn’t your syndicate ticket,” Jessie said, flipping back a page. “I checked the numbers, like Gaz suggested you did. They’ve never been winners.”

“But I know it was stolen,” he repeated, refusing to give up. “Especially after I saw him with Callum last week.”

Barker frowned. “What was Callum doing?”

“Just standing there in the shop, looking like he wanted the ground to swallow him. Gaz was waving an envelope around, bragging, and Callum looked like he wanted to deck him one.”

“Why didn’t you step in?” Jessie asked.

“I was about to,” Nigel barked at her, “but Gaz went off, and Callum wouldn’t tell me what was going on. That’s when I saw it… the lottery machine right there. He noticed me noticing it, and then he ran off too. He’s always been too soft for his own good, and he can’t lie for toffee. I know.”

Barker couldn’t believe the change in Nigel from the ranting man at the party and again at the coach station. He still had his barbed edges, but maybe daylight softened him. Or maybe the presence of a journalist and a PI had forced a cleaner performance.

Jessie tapped her pen. “So, you think Callum knew the ticket wasn’t Gaz’s?”

Nigel didn’t answer directly. “He’s too soft. Like I used to be.”

Barker continued scanning the flat and noticed something by the door. Boots, caked in mud. Julia had insisted that someone had tracked soil through the cinema room after Gaz had been found. He noticed it, but said nothing.

“So, tell me,” Barker said, voice firmer. “Did you stab Gaz?”

Nigel scoffed. “Kill my own nephew? Have you lost your mind?”

“No,” Jessie cut in. “But you have if you think we’ve forgotten how you threw him around like a ragdoll at his own party. You were angry, right before you ran off. We get it. It’s a lot of money. Especially if you thought it should have been yours.” She leaned forward, meeting his dropped gaze. “But just for a moment, park the idea of the syndicate. What do you really think was going on?”

Nigel looked cornered. For a moment, Barker thought he might snap again. But instead, his shoulders sagged. Barker held his breath, impressed by Jessie’s honesty; the newspaper was doing her good.

“Talk to Callum,” he muttered. “See if you can get the truth out of him. I’ve tried.”

Jessie didn’t blink. “Is that why he’s got bruises on his arms?”

Nigel flared. “You think I’d lay a hand on that lad? If he got them anywhere it was from Gaz. They might have been cousins, but Gaz has never bothered with him until he was suddenly walking around with new trainers every two days like an idiot. Then he wants Callum at his beck and call, reminding him they’re family and how important it is. Rubbish. He wanted a lap dog. I saw him do the same to Todd on building sites. Always bossing him round, acting like he was the boss and not me. Started to properly turn off the lad.”

Barker smelled the bravado sneaking in, the same stench that had filled the mansion after their kitchen confrontation hours before Gaz’s murder. Nigel winced, reaching for a battered packet of painkillers and dry-swallowed two tablets.

“Just... go,” he said.

Barker didn’t move. Instead, he pulled something from his coat and placed it on the coffee table.

“Not until you explain this.”

Nigel squinted at the watch box.

“You threw it at me before you got on the bus,” Barker reminded him.

Nigel looked through the fog of memory. “Right. So what? I found it in the grass. It looked expensive, so I pocketed it.” He shrugged. “Finders keepers, right?”

He reached for it, but Barker snatched it back and slipped it into his coat pocket.

“Finders keepers,” Barker said, a little too satisfied with himself.

Nigel’s lip curled. “You’ve no idea what you’re messing with.”

“Oh, I’ve got a pretty good idea,” Barker replied coolly. “Drunk uncle, falls out with the family, storms off with a chip on his shoulder and a bottle in his hand. I’ve seen your type a hundred times over.”

“What were you?” he snorted. “A barman?”

“Detective.”

“Dad,” Jessie warned, barely lifting her head from her notebook, but Barker caught the flick of her eyes, tight, disapproving.

Barker didn’t stop. He’d seen the crack in Nigel’s bravado and pushed harder.

“Let me guess. One night you finally had enough of Gaz mouthing off. You just said you’d started to turn on him. How far gone were you?”

Nigel stiffened. The room felt smaller, the air tighter.

“I managed to run for that bus, didn’t I?” Nigel fired back.

“But you didn’t remember doing it until I reminded you.” Barker stepped forward, voice low. “I’ve sat across from men like you in interview rooms more times than I care to count. Loud, swaggering, soaked in lager. And when the red mist clears, they can't quite remember where the knife came from, only that it ended up in someone who’d pushed them just a little too far.”

Jessie stood now, voice firmer. “Barker.”

She hadn’t called him that in a while.

But it was too late. Nigel’s face twisted with fury.

“You think I’d stab my own nephew?” he spat. “You sanctimonious swine! Get out. Both of you!”

Barker blinked. For a moment, even he was surprised he’d gone there. Jessie tugged his sleeve, already heading for the door. Nigel followed, wild-eyed, slamming it behind them with a shout that echoed down the stairwell.

Outside, the wind struck sharply across the open walkway. From here, the estate’s courtyard stretched in weary concrete lines, benches burned, bins tipped over. Barker leaned against the railing, arms crossed. They’d pumped money into it a few years ago and left it to start falling into ruin again, as was the cycle.

Jessie spun on him. “What was that?”

Barker stayed quiet, eyes fixed on the horizon.

“No, seriously,” she said, batting him with her arm. “You went full Detective Inspector Full Force in there. I was there for the story, not the accusation. I could’ve learned so much more if you hadn’t waded in like a bull in a china shop.”

He scratched his jaw. “I’m sorry, Jessie. It’s an old technique and I… went too far.”

“Yeah, you did.” She crossed her arms. “Seriously, Dad, is everything alright with you? You’ve been… off.”

He didn’t answer immediately as he ran his thumb over the letter opener cut on his finger. It still stung.

“I’m fine,” he finally said. “It’s a complicated case. And it’s not like anyone has employed me as a private investigator on this one, I just want to find out what’s happening. Feels a bit like the old days, almost… chasing a case without the promise of a penny at the end.”

“The police did pay you a hefty detective’s salary,” Jessie said, her expression tense for only a moment longer. She softened and asked, “Would you go back?”

The question hung there, weightless and kind. It let him know she’d forgiven him.

“If you’d asked me a few years ago,” he said, “I’d have said no.”

“And now?”

He shrugged, the ghost of a smile at the corner of his mouth. “What was Nigel saying before I got there?”

Jessie’s nostrils flared as she exhaled, clearly wanting to push more, but she let it go.

“Mostly about his back,” she said sympathetically. “He told me about falling through that factory roof and how it never really got back on his feet.”

“Funny how one day can ruin your life.”

“Hilarious,” Jessie replied, arching a brow at him.

They set off walking, leaving the grey door at thirty-four behind.

“How did you find it?”

“He posted a selfie. You?”

“One of the syndicate lottery numbers that Gaz read out when Nigel was about to rip his head off.”

“Did he talk much about Gaz?”

“That is why I was there,” Jessie said, bristling again. “Gaz’s mum died when he was a kid, and his dad moved to Scotland. Nigel, as good as raised him. Gave him a trade, kept him in line. And got rejection in return.”

Barker nodded slowly. “So, this is about more than the ticket.”

“He’s hurt,” Jessie said. “Let’s be honest, Gaz is more suited to a dad like Nigel than Callum. I think Nigel’s more hurt that Gaz didn’t bring him in, like keeping the money secret proved he never mattered.”

They stood in silence for a moment. Below, a dog barked in the distance. Someone slammed a door on the floor beneath. Jessie turned, peering over the edge. She set off without another word.

“Where are you going?” Barker called after her.

“To see what Veronica thinks,” she said, not breaking stride. “But first...”

She was gone before he could follow. Barker remained where he was, watching the estate move around him. He let his gaze drift back towards the flat behind him, the door firmly shut. Nigel wasn’t innocent in temperament, but Barker wasn’t sure he was guilty either.

Guilty of pride, bitterness, and too many missed chances, maybe.

At the party and even at the service station, Barker might have believed it. But now? He wasn’t so sure. His interview style had pressed a nerve, just not the one he’d expected.

You could never be certain someone wasn’t performing. Yet, the way Nigel had roared about not killing his own nephew hadn’t felt staged. Not to Barker.

He used to have a good record with his gut instinct across the interview desk. That’s how he rose through the ranks so young. Would he go back? Retiring from the police before he turned forty had never been part of the plan. But then, nothing in his Peridale life had been. He’d been wading through uncharted territory since day one, and he was still wading now.

And he knew exactly where he needed to wade next.

The Willingham house.

The underpass between the blocks of flats stank of damp and Lynx Africa, its graffiti-tagged walls echoing the music struggling from a phone speaker.

Tiff was there again, slouched against the bench that ran the length of the wall. Her makeup was smudged, her hood up, but Jessie recognised the bright acrylic nails and the way she lit her cigarette like she didn’t care who was watching. The same woman who’d slapped a millionaire at his coming-out party. The rest of the gang kept their distance, as though they knew Jessie wasn’t here for them.

Jessie didn’t pretend.

“No tricks,” she said, approaching. “Just questions.”

Tiff didn’t look up. “You journalists never stop.”

“Don’t you want to know what happened to Gaz?” Jessie asked, aiming for earnest. “Unless you did it, you might know something.”

That earned a flicker of interest. Tiff scooted over, making space.

“Alright. Five minutes.” She almost spat the words. “And I didn’t stab him, if that’s what you meant.”

Jessie sat. The concrete was cold through her jeans. She let the silence stretch a little.

“You loved him, didn’t you?”

Tiff exhaled hard through her nose. “Don’t get soft.”

“I saw the slap. That wasn’t hatred. That was heartbreak.”

Tiff looked away.

“You know Billy Matthews?” Jessie asked.

Tiff nodded. “Lived four doors down from me for a bit.”

“My first love.”

Tiff spat a laugh. “Seriously? I mean, he’s kinda fit, but… I don’t see him for you. You seem… posh.”

“I’ve had my fair share of nights down on the ground,” Jessie said, wanting to laugh at the idea of ever being seen as ‘posh.’ “Look, I get it. I met some guys travelling, but it’s never like that first one. Gaz was that for you, wasn’t he?”

Tiff sighed. “We both gave college a go. Met there. Fell in love and dropped out together. Promised me the world, didn’t he? Holidays, a house away from here, kids…” Her gaze drifted to the wet concrete and she drew her knees in. One of the lads noticed and nudged the others. Jessie half expected them to start digging at her, but they moved further down the tunnel, giving them more space.

“He was stringing me along,” Tiff muttered, chewing her bottom lip. “Had me sneaking into the B&B, telling me he was gonna leave Kelly, that it was just until he ‘got himself sorted.’ Never knew what that meant.”

“Did you know he’d won?”

“He said it was a scratchcard. You can get a few hundred grand on some these days. Assumed he meant that, but at the party⁠—”

“You slapped him.”

Tiff drew her knees up under her chin. “He told me he was going to propose. It was all set up for right at the end of the party.”

“To Kelly?”

Tiff nodded. “Yeah. He said it like it was nothing. Like I hadn’t been there before her. Like I didn’t matter. That’s why I slapped him. And he deserved it.”

Jessie nodded, letting that hang. She didn’t disagree.

“You know how it looks, though?” she said. “Slapping him in front of everyone. Police haven’t spoken to you yet?”

Tiff tensed. “Not yet.”

“Then get ahead of it. Give me your version of the story. Let people see the truth before they see the headlines.”

Tiff stood abruptly, the movement sharp. “Is that all this is about?”

“No, Tiff. I get it. I come from this world, I⁠—”

“But you don’t live in this world, do you?” Tiff cried, her voice echoing as she tossed her arms out, backing away to the safety of her gang. “You’re just a tourist like the rest of them now, darlin’.”

She vanished into the dark with a flick of her hood, swallowed by the shapes of the gang behind her. Jessie stayed where she was, the bass still thudding faintly in the air, her notebook untouched, her stomach on edge. The worst part was, she couldn’t bring herself to disagree with Tiff.

She pushed herself up and set off back to her car.

The tour was over.

Or, it would be—after one more stop.

The SuperLocal banished away the gloom. She walked inside its icy, air-conditioned perfection, a single flickering bulb above the crisps throwing twitchy shadows across the Quavers.

At the till, Rav was counting cigarette packets into neat rows.

Jessie stepped up. “I’m looking for Callum. Is he working today?”

Rav paused, eyes still on the packets. “He doesn’t work here anymore.”

She straightened. “Since when?”

“This morning,” he said, without a shred of remorse. “I had to let him go.”

Jessie’s brow creased. “Why?”

He scratched his cheek, clearly uncomfortable. “I got an anonymous email from someone who claimed Callum helped someone commit fraud.”

“Did they provide any evidence?” Jessie pushed. “Or say what kind of fraud?”

“No, but I just can’t risk having someone like that working in my shop, can I?”

Her stomach tightened. “It wasn’t an email from a Slate123?”

He squinted. “Yeah. That’s the one. How did you know? Didn’t make much sense to me.”

Jessie glanced past him to the office door, though she wasn’t really looking. That name again. Slate123. Was Nigel behind it, trying to shift suspicion before it landed too close?

“Whoever it was,” Rav added, stacking the last of the packets, “told us to check the date stamps on the tickets from that week and said we’d find something.”

Jessie’s thoughts raced. Could the winning ticket have been swapped? If Callum had handled a bunch that week, had someone used him without him even knowing?

She nodded once. “Thanks.”

Rav gave a small shrug and turned back to the till. Jessie pushed through the doors into the brightness outside, the sunlight momentarily blinding after the artificial shop glare.

Someone had wanted Callum gone.

She had a feeling she was getting closer to finding out why.

After closing the café and stacking the chairs, Julia, Barker, and Jessie sat around the middle table in the glow of the sandwich fridge, with three mugs of coffee and a stack of notes between them. Outside, the rain had finally stopped, but the windows still glistened with condensation.

“Nigel was different today,” Barker said, resting his forearms on the table. “Not drunk. Not yelling. Just... guarded. Like he was performing for us, but couldn’t quite keep the mask in place. I don’t know if he’s covering his tracks or someone else’s.”

“Callum,” Jessie said. “It keeps coming back to him.”

Julia looked over her notes. “Evelyn said the couple at her B&B booked separate rooms and had secret visitors. One of them was Tiff, and the other was Freddie.”

Jessie tapped her pen. “And Tiff confirmed Gaz was planning to propose to Kelly. It broke her. But she clammed up the second I mentioned putting anything into print.”

“And still no knife,” Barker added. “No motive that sticks.”

Julia exhaled slowly. “It all feels... warped. Like the truth is behind glass, and we keep wiping at the wrong side.”

“There’s something else,” Barker said, glancing between them. “I noticed Nigel had muddy boots. I’ll let Moyes know so she can have them tested against that stuff you found in the cinema room, Julia. You’d be amazed how much you can tell from a bit of dirt.”

Jessie leaned forward. “Forget the Cluedo game. Callum is at the centre of it.” She exhaled, eyes clenched. “If someone went as far as to get him fired, I’m worried about him.”

“He could be the one who stabbed Gaz,” Barker said, typing out a message to DI Moyes. “I know he’s quiet, but people do snap.”

They fell into a silence weighed down by too many theories and not enough evidence.

“We keep digging,” Julia said, sipping the strong black coffee and wishing it were a peppermint tea, if not for the need for caffeine. “We’re halfway down already. There’s no point stopping now.”

10

It was Tuesday morning, and the café hummed with regulars sheltering from the drizzle. The warm air clung close, barely stirred by the new fan. Julia moved behind the counter at pace, wiping her brow with a napkin between steaming milk and slicing cake, keeping time with Sue’s steady rhythm of clearing tables. Jessie worked the till with her hair tied up, expression calm but alert.

DI Laura Moyes stood beside the revolving cake display, her cream coat damp with mist and catching the spotlight. She cradled a cup of iced tea against her neck, her voice low.

“I’ve just come from processing the alibis,” she said. “Kelly and Todd have finally told me where they were during the murder.”

Julia glanced over from the espresso machine. “Finally?”

“They kept dodging the question, so I pressed,” Moyes said, glancing over the Victoria sponge, eyeing the café for curious ears. “Turns out, they were upstairs. Together. Apparently, they’ve been having an affair.”

Julia blinked, setting down a cup. “With Gaz’s best friend?”

“Kelly said she knew Todd before Gaz. Said the spark never really died. Gaz changed too quickly—she couldn’t keep up. Sounds like she wanted her old life back.”

“No wonder she clung to that Fern Moore flat.”

“She’s still only nineteen,” Moyes added softly. Jessie looked up from the till. “And he was only twenty. They were kids.”

“Kids playing house,” Julia murmured. “But I think she helped write the script.”

Moyes took a sip. “Go on.”

Julia slid a lemon drizzle slice from under the counter. “I walked in on her that night, taking a pregnancy test. She laughed when it was negative.” She lowered her voice. “I overheard her on the phone. She said someone thought she was pregnant. That ‘he’s going to notice.’ I think Gaz thought she was.”

“He was going to propose,” Jessie said, speaking up. “He told his ex at the party. Tiff. Lives at Fern Moore. Caution: slaps hard.”

“A good old-fashioned shotgun wedding!” Percy chuckled, shuffling past with his tray for lunch with Dot. “Haven’t heard of one of those in a while!”

“We have a new word for it,” Moyes said darkly. “Entrapment. If Kelly lied about being pregnant, and Gaz proposed because of it, with that much money at stake...” Her words drifted.

“Sounds like a motive to me,” Jessie said, slamming the till drawer shut.

Julia hesitated. She’d believed Kelly, crying on the kitchen floor, covered in cake. But anyone would’ve looked innocent in that moment. Why hadn’t Kelly or Todd mentioned the alibi sooner? She hadn’t asked, but still.

“Maybe Todd was the one on the phone,” she said.

“Or Freddie,” Jessie offered, passing Shilpa her change. “He’s clearly got a thing for her.”

Moyes stepped back and placed her cup down. “All useful. But I’m overdue back at the station, and this gives me plenty to chase, Miss Kelly Winters.”

“Does she?” Dot said, reaching for napkins. “I heard she summers.” She chuckled at her own joke. Jessie laughed once. Moyes missed it, lost in thought.

“There’s something else, isn’t there?” Julia asked.

Moyes smiled. “You really are in the wrong profession. Yes. Kelly sent Gaz twelve texts, four minutes before his death. He didn’t reply.”

“What did they say?” Jessie asked.

“Still working on it. Decryption isn’t what it used to be.”

“Damn those data laws,” Jessie muttered. “You’ll find a loophole. You always do.”

“Could be nothing,” Julia said, trying to keep her bias in check.

“Right, go redesign your courtyard or something,” Moyes said, tossing her napkins in the bin. “And get a dehumidifier. Roxy can’t sleep without one. It’ll change your life... for half the year.”

Julia laughed. “I’ll look into it.”

Moyes turned and left, vanishing into the drizzle.

Jessie joined Julia, drying her hands. “You believe their alibi?”

Julia kept her eyes on the revolving display. “They were quietly intimate earlier. He brought her water. Put her to bed. I believe they could have been together.”

“Romance at its finest,” Jessie said.

“But does it clear them? I don’t know. It doesn’t explain the timing. Or the locked room. Or the knife.”

After taking over from Sue at the sink, Julia looked up at the yellowing water stain as the rain hammered down. They had the money to fix it now, but six days of rain were forecast. She couldn’t help noticing the timing—money to fix it, but it was too late to stop the leaks. Typical. As she dried her hands at the window, she stared out at the courtyard where puddles pooled around crates and bins. They’d need to be moved. Covered. She’d need to do something about the smell. So much to think about.

“Can I go out for an hour?” Jessie asked, poking her head through the beaded curtain. “Moyes gave me a story to chase.”

“Lunch rush is over,” Sue said with a ‘it’s fine by me’ nod to Julia.

Julia smiled. “Go. We’ve got it under control.”

Jessie stepped into the drizzle, the café bell clinking behind her. Rain slicked the cobbles as she crossed to the car park behind the post office. The extra turns to escape the new bay still annoyed her, but the yellow Mini started on the first try.

Ducking into her car, there was a theory about Callum forming. Something about the way he’d hovered on the edges, always apologising with his eyes, constantly ducking out of conversations like he was scared to speak.

Then there was Kelly’s quiet confession to Julia. She’d asked Callum to follow them that first day Jessie met him, to make sure Nigel wasn’t sniffing around. That put Callum closer to Gaz and Kelly than anyone. If he was following them around, he had to know they’d won.

Jessie wasn’t sure if there was a way to get it out of him. But she had to try.

She drove across the damp village roads, wipers doing their best. The flats loomed grey and square ahead, their rows of boxy homes pressed tight around the glowing SuperLocal shop, too bright to ignore.

Jessie stepped inside, blinking under the harsh lights. The aisles were stacked and spotless, red discount stickers everywhere like warnings, but no customers in sight. A tinny pop song played from somewhere near the freezers. She passed the empty checkouts, the only noise her own footsteps.

“Hello?” she called, but her voice just bounced back at her.

A grunt came from the back. She followed it to the manager’s office.

Rav looked up from his desk, a half-eaten Pot Noodle steaming beside the keyboard. “Oh. You again.”

“Lovely to see you too, Rav,” Jessie said, stepping inside.

“Why do you keep coming here and causing trouble?”

“Seems like you’re the one in trouble,” she said, nodding to the screen. “Got a minute? I wanted to ask about Callum.”

“Not really.” Rav rubbed his temple. “Police want the CCTV from the day the ticket was checked. The lottery people made them bring it back to where they bought it to be verified, but I don’t know who was working that shift. I lost the rotas. And the footage from that day? Gone. Whole thing’s missing.”

Jessie stepped closer, the smell of chicken and mushroom instant noodles weirdly comforting. She ate her own fair share after long days juggling the café and the newspaper.

“Someone wiped it,” she said. “Unless it’s from before the takeover?”

Rav frowned up at her, sucking up the noodles. “What takeover?”

“The new look? New shelves. New prices.”

He gave a dry laugh. “Just a lick of paint and a rebrand to a slightly classier market. I’ve always run this place.”

Jessie couldn’t believe her ears. “So you stripped it out and upped the prices for... ambience?”

“To attract the customers you want,” he muttered. “Not that it’s worked. It’s rather quiet out there.”

She sighed. “You don’t say.”

She peered at the screen. Neat rows of dates lined the display, each with a watchable clip from when the shop looked less like a spaceship, except for the day Gaz won. One column stood blank, stubbornly holding back its secrets.

“Was Callum working that day?”

“Told you, can’t find the rotas. Got the spring cleaning bug during the refit. Might’ve binned them by accident.” Rav stabbed his noodles, twirling them on his fork. “You don’t think Callum did something dodgy for Gaz, do you? Cousins and all.”

Jessie didn’t answer. She wasn’t in the mood for an interview. On her way out, the sliding doors beeped, and she ducked under the awning of the Turkish barber’s next door.

JESSIE

Day ticket was verified = footage wiped. Nigel hinted Callum might’ve had something to do with a swap. Rotas also missing. Callum is the key.

VERONICA (Supreme Editor)

Good work! Come back to the office, I’ve got something to show you.

What?

You’ll want to see this in person…

Cryptic. And a bit weird.

You’re closer than you think.

Still uncertain, Jessie pocketed her phone and ran back to the Mini. She dove in, rain on her shoulders, Callum still fixed in her mind.

If he’d been the one to verify the ticket, what had happened that made someone wipe the footage?

She pulled her collar up and headed for the office on Mulberry Lane, not sure she could take one more ‘cryptic and a bit weird.’

Later in the afternoon, Julia sat out the back with her only customer, Evelyn, and a pot of peppermint and liquorice tea. They’d never taken tea out in the yard before, and now Julia could see why. Even with the rain on hold, the sun sat at an odd angle beyond the high stone wall housing them in, just like Jessie had warned. Julia remained in complete shadow, while Evelyn, in her white kaftan, glowed, squinting through the glare as the sun caught every crystal.

Behind them, the market buzzed with a new rhythm Julia was starting to enjoy. She missed gazing out at the quiet field, but a bit of life never hurt.

“Well,” Julia said, screwing up her latest sketch of the courtyard. “Time to rethink.”

“A radical change of direction!” Evelyn declared, tapping her mug. “There’s nothing like a new surge of energy to unpick a knot. Speaking of knots…”

“Actually,” Julia interrupted with a small smile, “you might be able to help me with something. The other week, when Gaz and Kelly visited me to order their cake, you mentioned having some guests at the B&B. You said they were a bit… difficult?”

Evelyn’s eyes widened, her whisper full of drama. “Yes! They went by Ben and Polly, but I realised it was the lottery couple after the fact. Oh, Julia, they were awful! Rude, entitled. They booked a shared room but also had separate ones that the other didn’t know about, and both were sneaking guests in like they thought the other wouldn’t notice.”

“Other guests?” Julia leaned in, half-blinded by the sunlight catching her eyes.

“I wasn’t paying close attention,” Evelyn said, her voice softening, “but one of them stood out. His hair moved like it had a life of its own. He walked in like he owned the place. I said, ‘Good morning, how can I help you?’ and he didn’t even look at me... just breezed straight past like I was invisible.” She spread her arms, and Julia agreed that it was a near-impossible task to ignore Evelyn. “I felt like I was running a hotel.” She sipped some tea as though to get the taste of the word out. “My grandson thought it was good for business that they had three rooms for two weeks, but I really was glad to get in there with my sage. I daren’t let anyone in for ten days, at least.”

Julia frowned. “I think the guy you saw was Freddie Wellingham.” Why was he visiting Kelly in a B&B she was staying at under a false name?

Evelyn sipped her tea. “Kelly seemed… scared of Gaz. Small. Timid. He didn’t even seem to see her most of the time. Like she was an afterthought.”

Julia remembered their first encounter. Kelly shrank at the sight of the newspaper. Julia had taken it as judgment, and there had been some, but she hadn’t noticed the obvious other thing, too dazzled by Gaz’s one-man show.

“He treated her like an accessory,” she said aloud.

“That’s it!” Evelyn beamed. “Your third eye is wide open, my dear.”

Julia leaned back. “When she destroyed that cake, it felt real. The grief, the rage. But it’s all muddled now.”

Evelyn peered into her mug, then swirled the last of the tea leaves.

“What do you see?” Julia asked, half-teasing.

Evelyn didn’t smile. She frowned, then muttered something under her breath. “It’s best you don’t know.”

Julia leaned in. “Try me.”

Evelyn hesitated, then whispered, “A coiled snake. Something hidden in plain sight. Something dangerous. A truth too big to swallow all at once.”

Rain began to fall again, soft and warm, soaking into the cracked concrete. Julia stood, gathering the teapot and cups before they hurried inside. She saw the snake when she ditched the cup, quickly rinsing it out.

“If it’s that hidden in plain sight,” Julia said, “I’m sure someone will see it soon.”

When Evelyn went about her day, Julia got to deep-cleaning the kitchen. She needed to focus her mind.

The alibi Moyes had shared still nagged at her.

Not the content, which was messy enough, but the timing. The timing of when they chose to reveal their alibi just didn’t sit right.

The rain continued to drizzle as Jessie jogged across the back alley and into the back door of The Peridale Post office. Upstairs, above the salon, Veronica’s nails tapped on her keyboard.

“Took your time,” Veronica said without looking away, her giant red specs perched on the edge of her nose. “You’re going to want to sit for this.”

Jessie pulled off her coat and shook the water from her sleeves. “What’s this about?”

Veronica swivelled her screen. “Another email.”

Jessie stepped closer, her stomach already twisting. On-screen was a blank white background, with one stark line of black text:

‘If I don’t get what’s owed to me, Gaz won’t be the only one.’

Below, a familiar signature: Slate123.

Jessie sank into the battered office chair next to Veronica, squinting. “Same IP address?”

“Nope. Different. Masked and routed through proxies. But the writing style is the same. Capitalisation, spacing, tone. Threat level just upgraded from weird to worrying.”

Jessie leaned back. “This was sent this morning?”

“About half an hour ago. Just before I told you to come. Whoever it is, they know we’re still looking. And they’re getting twitchy.”

“It’s like they want us to break the story about what went on about Gaz’s ticket.”

“But not solve his murder.”

Jessie scanned the screen again. “Gaz won’t be the first implies there’s more coming. Someone else is in danger.”

11

Barker didn’t slow after leaving Nigel’s flat. He followed the wet, winding road through the countryside. The Willingham estate rose ahead, modern glass slicing through the grey like a ship in fog. He ignored it. Instead, he turned off early, taking a gravel path lined with overgrown hedges and puddles deep enough to pop the tyres.

Behind the showpiece stood the original house, hidden from the view of the road. It wasn’t small, but it wore its years for all to see. Sandstone blackened by time. Ivy swallowing the windows. Slates slipped from the roof like loose teeth. The kind of place that had once stood proud, now forgotten behind its flashy sibling.

It reminded Barker of the house in Howarth Forest he wished he could save with a dream and a pot of gold.

Romantic from a distance.

Up close, all rot, cost, and heartache.

But if he’d had the winning ticket, the scaffolding would already be up.

He’d only played the lottery once, at sixteen years old, feeling lucky. His mum’s voice rang sharp in his memory.

“It’s a tax on hope. Don’t fall for it, lad.”

He never played again, but someone did have to win it, as they’d all seen. He looked back at the glass house, still stuck on the locked room behind the glass doors he’d had to charge down.

A scream ripped through the air.

Glass shattered. A woman’s voice followed, shrill and panicked.

He reached for the handle before he could decide if he should.

Inside, Beatrice Willingham stood at the top of the stairs, half-swallowed by a silk dressing gown, shrieking down at the chaos below. Her hair clung to her face as hands flailed and flapped.

“Stop him!” she cried. “My son’s gone mad!”

Freddie was in the hallway, red-faced and wild, swinging at the framed prints lining the wall. One fell. Glass exploded across the floor, and he still didn’t stop.

Barker moved fast. He crossed the room in seconds, grabbed Freddie by both arms, and pulled him back. “Enough, kid.”

Freddie writhed, broke free with a shout, then clutched his head with both hands.

“The coin crashed!” he screamed, doubling over. “It burned!”

His chest heaved. He turned and punched the wall. The old lime plaster cracked, and dust puffed.

Beatrice wailed, screeching at the top of her lungs. “He keeps saying that! I’ve no idea what it means. I checked the FTSE this morning. Everything’s fine, darling. It’s fine, isn’t it? Is it stocks?”

“Cryptocurrency?” Barker ventured. He stayed crouched, speaking to Freddie at eye level. “Is that where the money went? The money from Gaz and Kelly? You put it into Bitcoin?”

“It wasn’t Bitcoin. We all missed the boat on that. It was a new one. A climbing one,” Freddie hissed. “It was going to double, triple—it was a sure-fire win.”

“What goes up,” Barker said, steady.

Freddie spun on him. Barker thought the punch was coming. His jaw tensed, but he didn’t move.

Freddie stopped just short as his breath caught in his throat. The fury cracked.

Then he leaned forward and smacked his forehead against the wall. A dull thud. Barker rolled his shoulders, folding his arms; even Olivia didn’t throw tantrums like this.

“I can’t do it anymore, Mother,” Freddie muttered at last, his voice dropping to a reasonable indoor value. “Father is gone. You need to accept it. I’m not him. I told you what you had to do to keep the lights on for your ridiculous lifestyle, and you didn’t listen.”

“I sold the land, didn’t I?” Beatrice cried. Her voice was small now, like a child explaining herself. “I did my part!”

“You sold it, yes,” Freddie snapped, “and made their lives hell in the process. You crushed them. For what? To cling to a house that was never supposed to be yours? You were the maid, Mother.”

“Frederick, how dare⁠—”

“Don’t think Father didn’t tell me.” He let out a hollow laugh. “The way you look down your nose, it’s almost funny, isn’t it? Give up the performance, Beatrice. It’s over. We’re broke. At least you know what that’s like.” The laugh turned delirious, his gaze distant as he peered through that annoying hair always in front of his eyes. “I have no idea how to be poor, but I’m sure I’ll manage.”

“You’re not making sense⁠—”

“They’re going to come for the estate, Mother,” he called out as clear as a judge. “The banks will eat you alive. And you know what? I think I love her.” He turned to stare in the direction of their new neighbours. “Kelly. I think I actually love her. But you ruined that too. Like you ruin everything.”

Beatrice descended a step. “Freddie, my son. That’s not fair!”

Freddie didn’t look back. He stormed past Barker and shoved the door open.

Rain slapped the tiles in his wake.

Silence followed, heavy and still. Beatrice stayed on the stairs, fingers trembling on the bannister. Mascara ran down her cheek, the tears held back until he’d gone. She looked at Barker with a longing for help, but he didn’t respond.

She sniffed, lifted her chin. “Who gave you permission to enter my home?”

Barker stayed by the door. “If I hadn’t, you’d be bleeding by now.”

She stepped down another stair, her jaw clenched. “Get out. Get off my land.”

He didn’t argue.

The wind slapped his face as he stepped outside. The drizzle had returned, fine and persistent. He walked away without looking back.

He didn’t like Freddie and hadn’t from first impressions. But now, at least, he understood him. Desperation warped people. It made them dangerous. But the meltdown might have been the first real thing Freddie had ever done.

Maybe he’d finally stepped out of his mother’s shadow.

Or maybe, Barker thought, flipping up his collar, he’d stepped into something far worse, and was about to walk right into a prison cell.

The sun had finally shown up, steaming the rain from the grass and warming the flagstones outside the cottage. Jessie had dragged the paddling pool out, and Olivia was making the most of it, soaking every towel in reach and filling plastic cups with pond weed and imagination. Chinese takeaway cartons littered the garden table, half-finished and already going cold.

Julia sat with her feet up, a limp spring roll in one hand and her phone in the other. Barker was beside her, equally worn down, unwrapping a battered prawn cracker as if it might reveal the meaning of life.

“Willingham,” he muttered, shaking his head. “I don’t know which of them is worse.”

“They’re both desperate,” Julia said, popping a lukewarm prawn into her mouth. “Beatrice has been faking status for decades, and Freddie’s only just realised he’s not the king of anything. That meltdown was about more than crypto. He said he loves Kelly. That doesn’t make him innocent. If anything, it makes him worse.”

Barker’s phone buzzed just as he bit into a spring roll.

He squinted at the screen. “It’s Moyes.”

Jessie appeared in the doorway, dripping wet and wrapped in a towel. “What’s happened?”

Barker swallowed. “Kelly’s been arrested.”

Julia felt her chopsticks freeze in mid-air.

“What?” Jessie’s voice pitched up. “Why?”

“Hang on,” Barker said, eyes flicking over the screen. “She’s still typing…”

Another message popped up.

A screenshot. A laptop screen. It showed a string of messages styled like a mobile phone interface. Jessie stepped forward, her towel slipping, hair still streaming down her back.

“They actually did it,” she said, squinting. “They cracked the encrypted messages.”

Together, they read the texts aloud:

Hey

I love you

Meet me in the cinema room

I have a surprise

Don’t tell anyone

Come alone

Lock the door

Turn off the light

Close your eyes

And think of heaven

Jessie paused on the last one, her face screwing up. She read along with her lips.

“He was lured in there,” she managed to say. “Kelly sent these?”

“Or someone using her phone?” Barker said quickly. “Freddie? Todd? Callum?”

Jessie huffed. “Callum could barely look at Gaz without flinching.”

From the garden came a pitiful mewling.

“Mowgli,” Julia sighed, already standing. “Olivia! What have I told you about watering the cat?”

The garden gate creaked as Mowgli flew in, soaked and betrayed once again.

Julia stopped in the kitchen doorway, hand on the frame. She pictured it again, that moment after Gaz’s death, Kelly in her arms, crying so hard she couldn’t breathe. Julia had believed it. For a moment, she’d really believed it.

But if she took that one moment out of the picture and looked at everything else? Someone who’d do anything to make the future bend her way.

Julia didn’t like that she couldn’t rule her out.

Not anymore.

Jessie hunched over the desk in her flat above the post office, fingers hovering uselessly over her laptop. Tropical house music drifted over from Richie’s Bar across the green, mixing with the whirr of her old laptop as it struggled to cool itself. She’d been working on the article about what happened at the party in chunks all day, but the angle kept shifting.

Kelly’s arrest had turned everything on its head, and the nationals were still hounding Veronica for updates. Jessie had been feeding across every confirmed detail she could get her hands on, but the thread felt like it was slipping.

She was midway through redrafting her opening paragraph for the fifth time when the buzzer hummed through the flat.

“Ugh,” she muttered, kicking her foot into a shoe as she stood, only to trip over another pair left in the hall. She caught herself against the wall and grabbed the phone off the intercom.

“Who is it?” she asked, brushing her hair out of her eyes.

Silence.

“Look, if it’s those kids that keep hanging around the market every other night, I’ve already told you where I’ll shove that electric scooter if you don’t stop pressing my door⁠—”

A strained voice came through the crackle. “It’s me. It’s Freddie.”

Jessie paused. “Oh. Right.”

“Can I come up?”

She hesitated. Every instinct screamed no. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“Please. It’s important.”

She stared out through the netted curtain, thinking.

“No,” she said finally. “I’ll come down there, but I want you stood at the top of the alley where I can see you. I heard about your crash-out, dude. You’re not on stable ground right now.”

Silence again.

“Fair,” he said eventually. “Fine.”

Jessie waited until she saw the dark shape of him through the window, standing awkwardly at the top of the street. She slipped her doorstopper into her pocket and headed down.

Freddie looked rough. His hair was greasier than usual, and his shirt hung off him like he hadn’t bothered buttoning it properly. His eyes were red-rimmed, too wide.

“I just wanted to say sorry,” he said, arms folded. “I’ve realised what a pig I was. And… I can prove my alibi.”

He reached into his pocket, and Jessie flinched.

He noticed, and his face twisted. “You really don’t trust me that much? I thought we clicked.”

“For about three minutes,” she said flatly. “But you never seemed to get the hint. In fact, you went out of your way to avoid the hint.”

“You want me to get on my knees and beg for forgiveness?”

“No. Squeal like a pig.”

He cracked. “What?”

“You said it yourself.”

“Jessie—”

“I’m messing with you,” she said, though she wasn’t really smiling. “No, I don’t trust you. But go on. How can you prove it?”

He held up his phone, thumb already swiping. Jessie stepped forward, keeping a careful distance. He scrolled through dozens of selfies and shaky videos taken in a bathroom mirror, smudged, low-lit, and embarrassingly Instagram model-ready. Freddie pouted, posed, and flexed. He looked like he was auditioning for the role of the worst man she’d meet in a queue at a bar.

“They’re all time-stamped,” he pointed, tapping the image to bring the time and date up along the top. “I was in there for a while. And the police said Gaz was likely stabbed before midnight, right?”

Jessie’s eyes narrowed. “Why were you in the bathroom that long?”

“I was waiting for Kelly. I told her to meet me there if she felt the same way about me.”

“And did she?”

Freddie’s face folded in on itself. “What do you think?”

She didn’t answer. The photos were cringeworthy, but they made a point. It was a stupid alibi, but it held. Unless, of course, he’d timed it on purpose. Unless this was all part of the show.

“The first time I knew about Gaz’s death was when I heard the glass shatter. That’s when I left the bathroom and found out just like everyone else.”

She stepped back. “Alright. Fine. But get lost.”

He held his hands up in mock surrender. “I will. Loud and clear.”

He turned and walked away, not hurrying, just drifting like a man who’d stopped expecting anything. Jessie watched him go.

She didn’t know if it had been an act. One last desperate performance from someone about to be caught. Or maybe he really had lost it earlier. It had felt real.

She went back upstairs, double-bolted the door, and drew the curtains, but not before she spotted him again.

Freddie stood outside Richie’s Bar, one hand on the doorframe, the other in his pocket. He looked back up at her window.

He didn’t wave. He didn’t shout.

He just stared. A moment too long.

Jessie snapped the curtains shut.

12

The wind had picked up.

It whistled through the corners of the cottage like it was trying to get in.

“You awake?” Julia whispered into the dark.

He rolled over with a grunt, punching the pillow beneath his head to knock the lumps out. “Startlingly so.”

She sighed, propping onto her elbows. “Do you think we should rule Freddie out?”

Barker didn’t answer right away. Mowgli sprang off the bed with a meow and disappeared into the hallway.

“I don’t know,” Barker said at last, rubbing his face. “The Willinghams have all proved themselves deceitful. But murder… that’s a big leap.”

“We need a big leap,” Julia said. “I don’t think I’ll sleep for a while.”

“Me neither. What’s keeping you up?”

She shifted, staring at the shadows on the ceiling. “Kelly’s texts. Has Moyes replied yet?”

Barker grabbed his phone off the bedside table, squinting at the screen. “It’s half-past one in the morning. Nothing. Last message was that they’d taken her in for questioning.”

Julia sat up. “What about you? What’s stuck in your head?”

He sat up too. “The boots. The soil on the boots at Nigel’s flat. I keep thinking it was a match.”

“Think you’d recognise it again if you saw the same soil?”

“I think so,” he said. “Did you take a photo?”

“No, and I should have. But the house’ll still be empty, and I doubt anyone’s in a rush to scrub the place down.”

She threw back the covers and swung her legs over the side. “There’s a heads or tails chance that the bathroom window is still unlocked.”

Barker didn’t argue. They moved fast.

Jessie was asleep on the sofa in the sitting room, one hand hanging over the edge, the TV still glowing with a muted wildlife documentary. Mowgli had curled up on her rising and falling chest. She had come up an hour ago, too ‘freaked out’ to sleep alone. She’d flopped onto the sofa and muttered something about the market making her flat feel exposed lately.

Julia scribbled a quick note, just in case.

They parked near the main road and continued on foot. Barker didn’t trust the place not to have alarms, even if it looked empty. In the dark, the glass monstrosity loomed like something mid-renovation, half-finished or half-abandoned. Strange how cold it felt now. The kind of house that never quite earned the right to be called a home.

The wind tugged at his coat as they circled the side. The bathroom window was still open, just like Julia said it would be.

He held it open for her. “I’d feel worse about breaking and entering if this place actually felt like someone’s home.”

She didn’t reply. They slipped inside.

It was colder than he expected. The walls swallowed sound, and every step echoed off metal and concrete. They moved fast through the dark, guided only by the torch on his phone. His breath felt loud.

Julia went straight for the white cinema chairs. Barker was close behind. The dark mark was still there, as she’d described.

“That’s not it,” he said, crouching down. “I don’t even think that’s soil.”

He touched it, brought the smear to his nose. The scent hit instantly.

“Ash.”

He looked up, already turning towards the chimney. It stood under the cinema screen, cold and elegant, all polished and pointless. A showpiece, but a wide one.

Footsteps creaked overhead.

“If you were in here and needed to get out,” Barker said, low, eyes fixed above, “you’ve only got two options.”

“The door,” Julia replied, already moving.

“Or the chimney.”

She was there first, crouching to peer in. “I think it’s wide enough,” she said. “There are stones inside. Like steps.”

Without hesitating, she climbed up and turned, beckoning him.

He joined her, pressed close together in the narrow space, holding their breath. He looked down at the slim fire pit beneath their feet, his fingers searching for grip. His foot slipped as torchlight flickered through the room. Julia grabbed his jacket, and he regained his footing. Thankfully, the howling wind muffled their sounds.

“Someone there?” a voice called.

They didn’t move.

It was Todd.

Barker heard the faint shuffle of feet on the glass stairs. Todd’s voice drifted in again, quieter this time. “If it’s that photographer again, I’ll call the police.”

Footsteps again, the slap of bare feet on cold glass, and then a door slammed above.

They exhaled.

Climbing out wasn’t graceful. Soot and ash streaked Barker’s coat. Julia had dark smears across her jumper and cheeks. His own hands were filthy, and his knees were worse.

He brushed his palms off uselessly. “I think we just proved our theory.”

“They were in here the whole time,” Julia said, staring at the hearth. “They didn’t need to figure out the locked door because when they left, you’d smashed it open.”

“They never came back,” Barker said, imagining a figure watching and waiting while a party of people reacted to the body they’d just found.

“They didn’t need to.” Julia glanced down at the smudge she’d initially thought was soil. “They just needed the right moment to slip out. No need for a key, and no clever trick. Timing.”

“And a very big chimney.”

They crept back through the dark towards the bathroom, trailing ash behind them.

Up at the main Willingham house, Joni Mitchell blared in denial of the night.

“I think some people are in for a rude awakening tomorrow,” he said.

13

Jessie stirred on the sofa, her cheek pressed into the armrest, blanket tangled around her legs. A floorboard creaked near the kitchen. She didn’t open her eyes, not at first, just listened. Julia and Barker were back. Whispering. Something about... a chimney?

She cracked an eye open. The hallway was dark except for the faint halo of Barker’s phone torch arcing across the floor. She caught a glimpse of Julia’s face as the light shone on her. She looked like she’d been rolling around in mud.

Jessie shut her eyes again. Chimney? What now?

Mowgli, asleep on her ribs, suddenly sprang off with a disgruntled chirp, knocking the cushion from her side. Jessie groaned and sat up, her joints clicking. Her mouth was dry. She reached for the glass someone had left on the coffee table, water long gone warm, and downed it in one go.

Then her phone lit up. The glow stabbed at her eyes.

Three new messages.

Unknown number

I got your number from Billy. It’s Callum.

Can we meet at Fern Moore now? I’m scared and I don’t know who to turn to. I don’t know why but you seem to care.

Please it’s urgent. I know what happened.

Jessie’s breath caught.

The last one was sent eight minutes ago.

She didn’t hesitate. She threw off the blanket and bolted for the door. Shoes forgotten. No coat. Still in the spare pyjamas and dressing gown she kept here for nights like this. She didn’t realise she was barefoot until she was in the car, pressing the cold clutch with her toes and slipping at the cold rubber.

On my way. Don’t move.

She flung the phone onto the passenger seat and tore off into the night, the tyres screeching on wet tarmac.

The roads were quiet, and by the time she arrived, Fern Moore felt… wrong.

No music boomed from the flats. The SuperLocal shop, usually glowing like a lighthouse, sat dark and blank. The lampposts flickered. The few dogs that always barked in chorus behind the flats were going at it again, but their howls felt more like a warning tonight.

Then she saw it.

An ambulance, parked awkwardly beside the food bank. Billy worked there.

Her heart stuttered.

Was she too late?

She slowed as two paramedics helped a woman down the metal stairs strapped into a carry chair, a red blanket pulled up to her chin.

“I’ve broken my hip before, deary,” the woman was saying cheerily, her words lilting like a lullaby. “Really, I’m fine. I’ve already taken two paracetamol.”

The medics didn’t argue. They lifted her into the ambulance with a groan.

Jessie carried on, cutting across to the play park.

Her chest tightened. Where would he be?

Then, through the faint yellow glow of light, she saw someone near the tunnel. The same walkway where she’d spoken to Tiff. Someone leaned against the wall, as if it were the only thing keeping them upright.

“Callum!” she called, raising a hand.

He didn’t respond as he stared at her with wide, dark eyes. One step forward. Then another. He staggered.

Jessie ran.

She caught him under the arms as he buckled, lowering him to the tarmac, her knees scraping on the grit.

His hands were pressed to his stomach. Blood seeped through his fingers. Lots of blood.

“No, no, no, no, no…”

“I… I know…” he gasped. “What happened. It was me. I… I… knew the ticket wasn’t G-G-G-Gaz’s. But I looked the other w-w-way. I… I c-c-overed my tracks… I… I’m really cold…”

He clenched his eyes, his breath ragged. Blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth.

Jessie yanked off her dressing gown and pressed it to his stomach, her hands slick with warmth. She didn’t know what to do.

“Who did this to you?” she begged, holding his face upright. “Callum. Come on, don’t give up. Who did this to you?”

His lips moved. Nothing came out.

“Help!” she screamed. “Help! Please! He’s been attacked!”

The ambulance. Just down the street. Had they gone?

She kept shouting. Rocking slightly. One hand holding the jacket tight, the other gripping his.

14

The cottage kitchen felt like it belonged to another world. Pale light was beginning to stretch through the windows, but it wasn’t dawn yet, just the first suggestion that the darkness might finally loosen its grip.

Julia sat at the breakfast bar, fingers curled around a lukewarm mug she hadn’t sipped from in an hour. Jessie was beside her, her hoodie pulled over her head, her face an expressionless void, her chin tucked to her chest. Barker leaned against the oven, arms folded tight as if holding himself together.

No one spoke.

The cat clock flicked its eyes and swished its tail as the fridge hummed. Somewhere outside, a bird chirped, signalling that it was time for everyone to get ready for a busy day.

“Sounds hopeful,” Julia muttered.

Jessie let out a weak snort, but it dissolved before it could become a laugh. “I hate it. It’s a lie.”

They’d dozed in pockets, twenty-minute naps that left them groggier each time. Only Olivia had managed a full night, curled up in bed with Mowgli, untouched by the world unravelling around them.

Julia stared into her mug. Coffee had long ceased to be the solution. She pressed the rim to her lip, but didn’t drink.

“Someone needs to say it,” she said at last, her voice hoarse. “If Kelly was in custody…”

Jessie lifted her head, slowly. “Then she didn’t stab Callum.”

“Unless she was working with someone,” Barker added, but it sounded feeble, even to him.

“She has the means to pay someone to do it,” Jessie said. “I don’t trust her.”

“She might be a liar,” Julia said, slowly. “And manipulative. And who knows what she’s hiding, but if she was in a cell when Callum was attacked…”

“She didn’t do it,” Barker finished.

Julia let out a long breath and leaned back in her chair. The kitchen shifted slightly in the light, less grey now, more blue. Still bleak, but a different kind.

“She didn’t do it,” she repeated. “Not alone, anyway.”

They sat with that.

The kettle clicked as it cooled, and Barker got to work making them fresh drinks. The silence thickened again, but this time, it was sharper. More focused.

Someone else was still out there. Someone who had waited in the dark and chimneys. And they’d struck again.

Julia pushed her mug aside and leaned across to pull back the kitchen curtains to let the first hint of morning light in.

“We’ve been pulled in too many directions,” she said. “All of us.”

She went to check on Olivia. The child was still fast asleep, one hand curled into a fist against her cheek, the other resting on a soft, matted edge of Mowgli’s tail. Julia opened the curtains gently to let the sunrise wake her naturally, then glanced down at the scattered art supplies in the corner.

A piece of paper stuck out from beneath a folder. It was Olivia’s best attempt at colouring a millionaire’s shortbread, the edges pink and green with felt-tip pens. Julia picked it up.

“There you are,” she said under her breath.

It must have fallen out of the pad, or Olivia had taken it.

Either way, she was glad to have it back.

She held it up to the light of the brightening sky, able to see the numbers through the shading.

7, 19, 4, 22, 10, 31.

Julia returned to the kitchen, still holding the page. Barker had gone to wash the evening away in the shower.

“Jessie,” she asked, “do you still have the winning numbers?”

Jessie blinked, already scrolling through her phone. “Yeah. I found them when checking Nigel’s syndicate numbers. It could be one of two weeks given when the leak came to the paper.

“Read them both out,” Julia said.

“Nine, twenty-nine, thirty-four, thirty-nine, forty-four, fifty,” Jessie read. “And two, twelve, twenty-five, twenty-seven, thirty-two, forty-seven.”

Julia held up the drawing.

“The numbers Kelly wrote down for Gaz weren’t winners either, no more than Nigel’s syndicate numbers.”

Jessie looked up, it clicking into place.

“He did steal someone’s ticket,” she said. “And this proves it.”

DI Moyes stood near the fire pit at the bottom of the garden, arms folded, as she couldn’t seem to look away. The ash inside was clumped and cold; it had last been used weeks ago, and the wood was charred but never fully burned. Morning mist threaded through the grass. Birds were trying their best, but the pre-dawn calm remained.

Barker joined her, hands deep in his pockets.

“Why did you want to meet so early?” she asked, yawning the words away.

“They used the chimney,” he said. Not quite looking at her. “The cinema room had one. Narrow, but just wide enough. It was never about the locked door.”

Moyes didn’t speak at first. Just stared into the fire pit.

“So, that explains why Nigel’s shoe soil didn’t match the sample we took from the cinema room.” She connected the dots without Barker needing to explain more. “We found the knife,” she added, sitting on the wooden log. “Wedged into the hedge behind the east side of the house. We think they might have dropped it as they ran off. It’s a nasty thing. Thick, sharp, a little blunt.”

“Not the sort you’d find in a kitchen?”

Moyes shook her head, pulling out her vape. She clicked it, but the light flashed, the battery drained. She sighed, tucking it away. “We’ve sent it off for analysis to confirm it’s the same knife that killed Gaz.”

“How’s Callum?”

Moyes gave him a look sharp enough to cut through the morning fog.

“Don’t,” she said. “He isn’t dead. Not yet.”

She turned away from him, jaw tight.

“Then we keep pushing,” Barker said. “You’ve got the knife, but there are other ways to skin a cat.”

Moyes’ phone buzzed. She checked the screen.

“She’s been processed,” she said with a conflicted-sounding sigh. “An officer has just escorted Kelly back to her public display box. Finally managed to clear the press away this morning with a new cordon, but we can’t protect her forever.”

Barker was already standing. Moyes narrowed her eyes.

“Where are you going?”

“To see her. If she’s going to tell the truth about any of this, it’s going to be now.”

Moyes followed him into the kitchen. Julia was buttering toast, and Jessie stood beside the kettle, both of them pausing when Barker rushed through.

“Kelly’s home,” he said.

Julia dropped the knife back onto the plate. Jessie had already grabbed her coat. They both moved like they were coming too.

“Someone needs to watch Olivia,” Julia called, stopping in the hallway.

Barker turned to Moyes. “Can you?”

DI Moyes blinked. “Seriously? What do I know about babysitting a three-year-old?”

“I don’t know,” Barker said, clapping her shoulder. “But you’ll know a bit more by the time we get back. I owe you a drink.”

“Several drinks.”

Barker took that as a yes.

He was out the door before she could add terms and conditions.

Outside, Jessie and Julia were still dithering over cars until Barker beeped his. They both jumped and climbed in without a word of argument.

He pulled out quickly, the tyres crunching against the old lane, the first burst of orange peeling up over the horizon beyond Peridale Farm in the rearview.

“You think she’s going to talk?” he asked.

“She won’t have a choice.” Jessie didn’t hesitate. “No more tip-toeing.”

“I hope so,” Julia said, seeming to be listening to the birdsong waking up the village as they wound down the lane. “For everyone’s sakes.”

Barker nodded, eyes on the lane ahead. He wasn’t leaving there without answers.

Not this time.

15

The front of the house shimmered in the early sun. Julia had never liked the place, but something about the light that morning made it softer. Rainbows danced across the gravel drive where the double-height windows caught the sparkle in the tarmac. For a brief glimpse, the house looked almost magical.

But the spell broke as soon as they stepped inside.

Empty takeaway trays and pizza boxes lined the island where the buffet had been. The cake icing still hadn’t been cleaned up from the floor, where flies now buzzed around the remains of the champagne sponge.

Julia stopped first. She reached out and touched Barker’s arm. He followed her gaze to the cinema room.

Kelly sat curled in the chair on the edge, the one with the ash stain across the side. From this angle, Julia could see the trail left by whoever had run from the chimney and out of the room, unaware of what they were leaving behind.

The room was dark except for the projector. On screen, a flickering video played, showing jumpy clips stitched together without polish or flair. Gaz’s voice, younger and brighter, laughed behind the camera. Kelly blew out candles, tackled him into the sea, danced with ketchup on her top, bleary-eyed like they were on their way home from the pub.

There were photos mixed in. Old mobile snapshots, grainy selfies, screenshotted messages, saved memories. In the early ones, they looked so young, and it had only been six months ago. Happy in a way none of them had seen before. Somewhere along the timeline, the sparkle in their smiles began to dull. New clothes appeared. Bigger rooms. Better lighting. But something else vanished.

“I found it in the projector,” Kelly said. Her voice came thin and flat. “On a flash drive. He must’ve put it there. I think he was going to propose.”

She didn’t look at them as they exchanged glances, none of them confirming what Tiff had told Jessie.

On the screen, Gaz sang badly over a birthday cake. Kelly rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t hide her smile. Then another clip of the two of them lying on a sofa, silent, content, and quiet.

He hadn’t been pretending. Not the whole time, at least. But something had gone very wrong along the way.

That much was clear.

And Kelly, finally, looked like someone who understood what she had lost.

Jessie stepped forward, arms folded, tone tight.

“You lied about a pregnancy,” she said. “Made it up to push Gaz into committing to you, didn’t you?”

Kelly didn’t move. She stayed slouched in the chair, legs pulled up, mascara drying in clumpy streaks.

“I thought I might be when I told him,” she said quietly. “But I wasn’t. I knew I wasn’t. I just… wanted him to stay. To settle. To stop floating around like none of it mattered. I thought if I said it out loud, maybe it would become true.”

“You’re right. I’m awful. But it wasn’t always like this. Before the win…” She trailed off, eyes flicking up to the screen where Gaz was waving a sparkler around in slow motion. “I know he’d started seeing Tiff again. I didn’t need proof. You could just feel it. The money changed everything. Changed him. Changed me. Like kids in a sweet shop… we didn’t know when to stop.”

She looked around at the grand private screening room, with its glittery cushions, LED strip lighting, and scattered takeaway boxes.

“A cinema room?” she said, and laughed. “In my house? Who did we think we were?”

It started as a breathy chuckle, but it kept going. Her shoulders shook. The laugh turned wild and wet and didn’t stop until the tears came again. She wiped her face with the back of her hand, eyes glazed.

Julia looked at Barker, then at Jessie. No one spoke. She knew that kind of laugh. Three a.m., sat on the kitchen floor with a teething, sleepless Olivia on her shoulder. When the only way to get through was to laugh or scream.

Barker crouched by the chair.

“Did you send the texts?”

Kelly blinked at him. “What texts?”

“The ones Gaz received. The threats. The countdown.”

She shook her head slowly.

“No. I lost my phone at the party. Didn’t even realise at first. Didn’t seem important. I didn’t know about any messages until the police were kicking the door in.”

The video looped back to the start. Gaz was laughing through a mouthful of cake, the clips flickering in Kelly’s eyes. She’d stopped blinking.

“He said it would be easier than this,” she said softly. “He told me if I just stuck it out, married him, I’d get half. We’d split after, and I’d have a clean break. He made it sound simple.”

She looked up at them, searching for something in their faces.

Pity, maybe. Mercy?

“I had nothing,” she said. “Do you know what that’s like?”

Julia stepped forward. “Who made what sound simple?” she asked, keeping her voice steady. “Who told you that?”

They didn’t move.

The question waited, unanswered.

The crash of shattering glass tore through the house.

Nigel stormed in through the wreckage of the front door, shards raining down behind him, fury vibrating off him like heat. His boots skidded across the tiles, dragging dirt and blood and glass in his wake. His chest heaved, and his eyes were wild.

“That’s poorly designed!” he barked, jabbing a thumb behind him at the ruined frame, like the door was to blame for not withstanding his rage.

Then he saw Kelly.

He charged.

“You—!” he roared, hand outstretched. “You did this! You stabbed my son!”

“Is he…?” Jessie managed.

“He’s hanging on by a thread.”

He lunged, arm swinging forward, but Jessie got there first. She shoved against his chest. Julia joined, blocking his path. Barker moved in fast, grabbing Nigel’s jacket and wrenching him back.

Nigel fought them like he didn’t even see them, his eyes locked on Kelly, spit flying from his mouth.

“You think I’m stupid? Think I don’t know what you did?”

Kelly shrank into the chair, eyes wide but unreadable.

It took all three of them to restrain him. And even then, only just.

“He’s dying and you’re sitting here watching a clip show like it’s nothing!”

Kelly flinched but didn’t move. Jessie stepped in front of her, arm instinctively out.

“Calm down, Nigel. This isn’t helping.”

“Helping?” he barked. “You think I care about helping? I want the truth. It’s her boyfriend who got in my son’s head. Gaz is no nephew of mine.”

Julia moved alongside Jessie, voice low and steady. “You need to leave. We’re talking, that’s all.”

But Nigel wasn’t listening. His gaze had shifted. Fixed on the glass staircase.

Todd.

Julia hadn’t heard him come down this time. He was wearing beige socks to match his sandy hair and cream tracksuit. He’d left the tags on the joggers, and she wondered if he knew.

He forced a laugh at Nigel, holding his hands up like he was walking into a pub fight he hadn’t started.

Nigel’s voice cracked. “You got him stabbed, not us.”

Then he charged.

Todd didn’t even flinch. Barker stepped in before Nigel reached him, grabbing him by the shoulders and dragging him back, feet scraping on the polished floor.

Todd straightened his collar. Still smug. “He’s off his rocker,” he said, shaking his head. “Always was. I should’ve quit years ago.”

“My wages kept a roof over your head!”

“I don’t think he needs wages anymore,” Jessie said under her breath, her glare locked on Todd.

Barker’s phone buzzed. He glanced down.

Moyes

Knife confirmed. Same one that got Gaz. Roofing knife. Tar stripping type. Definitely murder weapon.

Barker looked over at the chair where Gaz had bled out, the image from that night still seared into the walls. The silence hung, thick and ugly.

Julia stepped back, eyes narrowing. She noticed he had a white t-shirt under the hoodie, and the edge was darkened with what looked like dried blood.

“What happened?” she asked quietly.

Todd tugged at the shirt, freezing in place. “I cut myself on a job earlier. Sharp tools. Occupational hazard.”

But his voice faltered.

Kelly shifted. Her eyes went dull. “You asked who promised me it would be easy.”

She looked up.

“Was it Freddie?” Jessie asked, moving closer to Kelly.

“Freddie told me he’d make us richer, kept saying we had to invest. I gave him everything I could get my hands on.” She deflated, her eyes softly closing like she was ready to go to sleep after the longest day of her life. “But that’s not what I meant.”

When she opened her eyes with slow fluttering lashes, her weary gaze swept the room and landed on Todd.

“Todd didn’t go to work today,” Kelly said, getting out of the chair. She walked over to Nigel, who was standing back with a bewildered look and said. “Sorry about what happened to Callum. He was a good kid, and you’re right, Gaz did lead him astray and I stood back and let it happen.”

Julia watched as Todd’s jaw clenched. Once. Twice.

And she understood.

“The chimney,” she said softly. “It wasn’t just a hiding place. It was a clue.”

Todd didn’t move.

“It was your knife,” Julia said, eyes locked on his. “Your roofing knife.”

The room stood still.

Jessie turned, her voice sharp.

“Nigel, do you swear on Callum’s life you aren’t behind the Slate123 email address?”

“I have no idea what that means.”

Jessie dropped her head, her shoulders heaving up in a pained groan. “Oh, I wish I didn’t believe you, Nigel, but I do. There’s another roofer, right under our nose this whole time.” She turned to Todd. “You texted Gaz that night. You got him into the room. I have a surprise for you. I love you. Close your eyes and think of heaven. You might have used Kelly’s phone but you were speaking from the heart then.”

“You murdered Gaz,” Julia said, her mouth suddenly dry.

Todd stared at her.

He didn’t blink. Didn’t answer.

The silence did it for him, and the eyes of a guilty man searched the room for another quick exit.

16

Todd looked for the door. Any door. Any crack in the walls that hadn’t already closed around him.

“You going to say something?” Jessie asked, stepping closer to him as he lingered by the bottom of the stairs.

“Anything?” Barker added. “Now would be a good time.”

Todd opened his mouth. Closed it again. His throat worked, but no words came.

“It was you?” Nigel said, his voice cracked and hollow. “You killed my nephew? You stabbed my son?”

Todd shook his head, but his eyes betrayed him. The mask started to crumble, piece by deliberate piece, like slate tiles slipping off the roof in a storm.

“You promised me it wasn’t you,” Kelly said. Her voice had gone sharp, high-pitched like she couldn’t control it. “I lied to the police for you about our alibis. Lied, Todd. Because you told me it wasn’t you.”

“It wasn’t supposed to happen like that,” Todd muttered, barely above a breath.

Julia stepped closer, eyes narrowing on Gaz’s supposed best friend. “You were up that chimney. I bet if we dig through your washing basket, we’ll find the clothes caked in soot and ash. It’s quite roomy up there, isn’t it? Roomy enough to hide.”

The last flush of colour drained from his face.

Jessie took a breath. “Why now, Todd? Why then? What made you do it?”

Silence fell again. Todd didn’t look at her. He turned to Barker, his expression unreadable.

“Before Gaz proposed to Kelly,” he said, voice level, “he asked me to be best man. Can you believe that?” He gave a dry, twisted laugh. “I thought I could forgive him. I really did. So I bought him a watch.”

Barker stepped back, fished something from his pocket, and tossed a box onto the marble floor, right where Gaz had fallen. “This one?”

Todd nodded, slowly. “Ah, I did wonder where that went.”

“I found it,” Nigel said, his tone turning icy.

Jessie’s voice cut through. “So, what? You were going to give it to him if he came clean?”

“I had a plan,” Todd said. “Test him. Man to man. Let him tell me the truth, and I’d forgive him. Maybe we’d go back to how things were before. That’s what I wanted. That’s all I wanted, but with my winnings with me.”

“And when he didn’t?”

Todd looked up, face hardening. “I went to plan B.”

He didn’t flinch.

“I killed him.”

No one moved.

The confession should have surprised Julia, but she’d known from the moment she’d seen Callum’s blood on the edge of his shirt.

Nigel looked like he’d turned to stone.

“Why should he get it all?” Todd cried, throwing his hands out. “The win. The girl. The new life. We came from the same place. He liked being the big man. But it was just an act. Always was. And me? I was the shadow. The sidekick. Meant to smile and clap and be grateful for his scraps.”

Barker stepped forward. “He stole your ticket?”

Todd let out a long breath. “We used to buy the syndicate ticket together every Saturday afternoon on our lunch. You can always find a ticket somewhere, anywhere you’re working. Me and Gaz. Always. It became a habit. One of us would forget, one of us would remember—it didn’t matter which because we never missed a week. Did we, Nigel?”

Nigel nodded once, like a hinge straining.

“We’d be in the pub most Saturdays, watching the numbers come in, dreaming how we’d spend it.” Todd almost looked wistful as he recalled. “We never really thought it’d happen. But it was our little ritual.”

“What changed?” Jessie asked.

“Gaz felt lucky,” Todd said, snearing. “He had a feeling. Wanted to do a ticket just for himself. He had Kelly write some numbers down.”

Kelly lifted her head. “It was after a baby scare. He thought maybe it was a sign that we were meant for more.”

Todd’s jaw clenched. “Except it wasn’t fate. Not those winning numbers. They weren’t his.”

He turned to her, voice lowering.

“7, 19, 4, 22, 10, 31. I knew them. When I started to figure out what he’d done, why he’d skipped that Saturday, why he suddenly had a freaking rolex on his wrist… I knew what he’d done.” He trained his cold, pleading stare on Kelly, tilting his head. “Seven is your birthday month. Nineteen, your age now. Four, how many kids he always said he wanted. Twenty-two, the age you said you wanted for your first. Ten, the age you said you were happiest before moving to Fern Moore.” He paused. “Thirty-one… that one stumped me.”

Kelly’s voice came gently. “The day I met you. I fancied the pants off you, Todd,” she said, her voice cracking. “You didn’t notice me. Not until Gaz did.”

Todd flinched. A quiet beat passed.

“I wanted to buy a ticket too,” Todd said, puffing out his chest. “If my best friend was feeling lucky, so was I. One lucky dip, please. Pick my numbers for me. It’s not like it matters, does it?” He threw his hands out, letting out a cackle from deep within. “It’s not like you’re going to win, is it?”

“You’ve been playing me this whole time,” she said. “You only showed you wanted me after he got that Rolex. You told me you’d always liked me but were too shy.”

Jessie took a sharp step forward. “You sent the emails. Slate123. The leak, grassing on Callum, the threats.”

Todd’s voice barely wavered. “Callum swapped the ticket. He knew what he was doing. Gaz told him to, and when I finally confronted him about it, he was waiting for you, so I let him see you, to get up his hopes that you might save him, and then I asked him why he looked the other way.”

“And what did he say?” Julia gulped.

“That family looks the other way.”

“That’s my boy,” but Nigel’s voice held no pride now.

“You stabbed him for verifying a lottery ticket?” Julia said, cold and clear.

Todd didn’t respond. He didn’t have to.

Nigel staggered back a step. “It was you.”

Todd still said nothing.

But Nigel had heard enough.

He lunged, grabbing Todd by the collar and yanking him across the cinema room. They slammed against the wall. The screen behind flickered, Gaz and Kelly in happier days, kissing on a pier, protecting across Todd’s face as Nigel’s grip moved closer to his former employee’s neck.

No one moved to stop him. Not yet.

“You stabbed him. That sweet, stupid boy, and you tried to kill him for money?” Nigel bellowed, spit flying. “And my nephew? He was a prat, but he looked at you like you were brothers.”

“Brothers… wouldn’t treat each other… like we did,” he said, a nervous laugh coming out between chokes as he struggled, boots sliding on the tiles, face reddening as Nigel pinned him hard. “I… can’t… I can’t…”

“Stop,” Kelly said quietly. Then louder. “Stop!”

Julia was the first to grab at Nigel’s shoulders while Barker grabbed Nigel’s arm, dragging him back yet again. Jessie stepped between them, spreading them wide apart. Nigel’s hands were still shaking, but raised like claws as Todd slid to the floor, gasping for air as he struggled to catch his breath.

“Water,” he said.

Kelly marched across to the kitchen, filled up a glass, and then threw it on his face. “And you’re lucky I didn’t throw the whole thing at you.”

In the distance, sirens lit up the night sky with their loud light show, and Julia had never been so relieved to hear them.

Barker pulled out his phone. “You get all that, Moyes?”

Nothing.

“You muted yourself,” he said.

“Right!” came Moyes’ voice. “Daddy, Olivia says she wants cereal.”

“Under the kettle,” Julia, Barker and Jessie said in unison.

“Oh. Yeah. And I got it.” Cheerios bounced into a ceramic bowl. “My officers should be pulling in about now.”

Outside, blue lights danced across the gravel drive like a sweet chariot.

Todd struggled to sit up, the projection still playing across his defeated face, the fight finally gone from his limbs. No more sneaking. No more lies.

The projector clicked. The film looped again.

Gaz laughed through a mouthful of cake. Kelly smiled.

And that was it.

17

The last of the uniformed officers ducked under the scene tape where the front door had been. Barker watched them go, the shattered glass shards crunching beneath their boots as they stepped out into the morning light. The house felt emptier now, quieter too, and that silence gave the whole place a strange, eerie calm.

Todd had been dragged out, Nigel wandered away, and Kelly was somewhere upstairs.

Then came the sound of wheels snagging on the glass.

Moyes came in backwards, dragging a pram through the splintered doorway with one arm while clutching a stuffed toy orange in the other. Barker winced as Olivia let out a wail so high-pitched it rattled the last remaining nerves in his spine.

“Your child,” Moyes announced to Julia, extending the pram handle like it might detonate. “I don’t know how you do this. I really don’t.”

Julia swooped in just in time, scooping Olivia into her arms before the next shriek could land. Barker watched the way her face softened instantly, how her shoulders relaxed just slightly.

“Me neither, some days. The terrible twos came a little late,” she said, kissing Olivia’s cheek.

Moyes flopped into one of the dining chairs, exhaling as if he’d just crossed a desert. “She’s been chanting about dancing fruit like some kind of demon all morning. I spent twenty minutes putting on a fruit-only memory retelling of Les Mis with your fruit bowl, and she didn’t seem to like any of it.”

Barker folded his arms and leaned against the doorway. “Thanks, mate. I appreciate you trying.”

“Likewise,” Moyes said, glancing around at the mess of a once-opulent room now dulled by what had played out. “A closed case is a closed case.”

Barker nodded slowly, letting the truth of that settle in. This one had taken it out of all of them. A mess of lies, hurt, love, and desperation. And in the end, it all came back to something simple. Greed. Envy. And a need to be seen.

Todd had tripped over his own game in the end. He couldn’t help himself; every move was destined to get him noticed. His roofing email, his roofing knife, his chimney roofing experience… they should have seen it, but it pointed at Nigel too. Todd had managed to just about get one over on them, but he hadn’t thought out the details anywhere near as much as he’d thought he did. He was scrappy and resourceful, but thankfully sloppy.

“Pub?” Moyes asked, rubbing her hands together.

Barker raised an eyebrow. “It’s nine in the morning.”

“Exactly. Pub! You owe me, remember?”

Barker considered, then nodded once. “Fine. There’s that little service station off Exit 6. We can get a pint and a proper full English and they don’t ask questions.”

Moyes stood. “Perfect. Lead the way.”

Barker held the door open and let the last of the morning light in.

Case closed.

Julia took one final sweep through the rooms for Kelly, but with her nowhere to be found, she finally felt the glass house as it heated up for another day, the perfect air conditioning abandoned. Maybe only Gaz had known how to set it.

That was when she saw him: Nigel, leaning against the side of the house with a cigarette balanced between two fingers. The morning light caught the faded scar on his cheek and painted everything gold.

He didn’t look at her when she joined him. He didn’t need to.

“I’m sorry about what happened to Callum,” Julia offered.

“Me too,” he replied, tossing the cigarette. “I won’t say he’s tough because he’s not, but that might be what gets him through this. He’ll take well to the resting, if he gets out of surgery.”

“He will,” Julia said, offering him a smile. “A little hope will get you through too.”

“Yeah,” he said, his lips quivering into something close to a smile, the closest she’d seen. “Cheers.”

But Julia wasn’t finished. She pulled out the sketch with Olivia’s colours and the lottery numbers that had given the stolen ticket away, finally.

“Did you teach Gaz to draw?” she asked gently.

Nigel gave a small nod. His eyes were glassy, fixed on something beyond the fields.

“Could barely hold a pencil right when he came to me,” he said, holding back a little. “He was almost as good as me by the time he jacked the trade in.”

“You should do more of that,” Julia said. “Drawing. If you’re half as good as him...”

He scoffed, shrugged. “No money in it.”

“Then do it because you love it,” she said, watching him from the corner of her eye. “It’ll do you some good.”

Nigel’s mouth twitched. Not quite a smile, but close.

“I should get to the hospital. Be with Callum.” He lit another cigarette, then hesitated. “Cheers. Really.”

Julia nodded. “If you ever fancy a small roofing job, pop by the café in Peridale one afternoon.”

He gave her a glance. “Yeah. I just might.”

And then he walked off through the long shadow of the house, a little slower than before, but more himself somehow. Something had shifted.

And Julia let him go.

Jessie headed to Fern Moore under the pretence of tying up loose ends, but really, she just wanted to be sure. She hadn’t seen Billy since dodging him at the park after the Mulberry Lane near-miss, and something about it kept gnawing at her. She thought maybe she’d imagined the look on his face, or the lack of one.

The drizzle had settled into a fine mist by the time she reached SuperLocal. Posters calling for a boycott covered almost every surface like a second skin. Jessie blinked through the fogged window and spotted Tiff behind the till, clearly in her first shift and making Rav’s life a living nightmare. He was trying to show her how to use the discount gun, but she kept scanning it upside down.

Jessie smiled to herself and kept walking.

The food bank was hidden down a narrow alley, tucked quietly beneath a fading awning. Inside, it was peaceful. Shelves were being stocked with new donations, and Billy was bent over one of them, placing cans into neat rows. In the corner sat a pram. Jessie's stomach twisted.

She didn’t even know the baby's name.

Billy looked up and grinned when he saw her. “Jessie,” he said, bright as ever. “Fancy seeing you here. How’s it going?”

Before she could speak, he pulled her into a big hug. Jessie froze, then hugged him back, confused.

“You don’t hate me?” she asked, pulling away.

He laughed. “What’re you talking about? Have you met Ronnie yet?”

“Ronnie?” Jessie laughed.

Billy pointed to the mural on the wall, a lovingly rendered spray painting of Ronnie Roberts, the late local hero who had quietly funded the food bank for years. Billy had done that and the countryside mural in the newspaper office.

“Couldn’t think of a better name,” he said.

“I like it. He looks like you.”

Billy nodded towards the pram. “He looks like his mum, but he’s got my eyes when he smiles. Got her cheek, though. No getting around it.” He narrowed his eyes, his eyes lighting up with curiosity. “Why would I hate you?”

Jessie hesitated. “The other day. On Mulberry Lane.”

Billy blinked at her.

“You didn’t see me, did you?”

“If you mean when I was trying to find Ronnie some new clothes that wouldn’t break the bank... wasn’t I wearing sunglasses?”

Jessie squinted. “Right. I think you were. Sorry, Billy, I... I didn’t even come here to talk about that. I came to thank you. For giving my number to Callum. You might have saved his life.”

Billy sobered. He rested a hand on her arm.

“Right, yeah. I heard you found him. He remembered us being together from back in the day. Funny how people notice those things. We’re not the young generation anymore, are we? Makes you realise how much we’ve all changed.”

Jessie noticed it. Billy looked older—one year older than her at twenty-four—but he looked more grounded. Calmer. Less fizz, but still sparkling. Fatherhood had softened the edges. It had been all he’d ever wanted when they were together. Back then, her answer had been a firm ‘no, thank you’. Now, she wasn’t sure.

“It didn’t work out with Paige,” he said, as if from nowhere. “We parted kind of like friends, but after Ronnie came, we realised we weren’t going to get along as parents. I wanted to give it a proper go, and she just… wasn’t as keen. She has him weekends, which is easy when you have flats on top of each other.” He scratched the back of his head, blushing. “You’ll never believe this, but after working here and managing this place the last few years, I managed to save up a bit for a little mortgage on one of the old places that needs a full refit. It doesn’t get much light, but they were practically giving it away. Good thing we chase gentrification away like a blood-sport round here.”

“Billy Matthews,” Jessie whistled. “A father and a property owner. I can’t believe I’ve lived to see the day.”

“Or this one,” he said, patting her arm and squeezing gently. “It’s good to see you, Jessie. Always is.”

“Yeah,” she said, swallowing thickly. “Same.”

“Let’s go for a drink sometime,” he offered. “A coffee?”

He really was different. Maybe he wasn’t the cider-on-a-bench Billy anymore after all.

“You know where I work,” she said. “I’ll make the coffee.”

“I’ll bring the good looks,” he said, flexing his arm and pulling a face that made her crack up laughing.

“Shut up,” she said, swatting him. “See you around, kid.”

She bent over the pram. “See you around, Ronnie.”

He babbled something.

Crikey. He really did have Billy’s eyes.

Jessie walked out back to her car, unsure why she’d convinced herself Billy hated her because some time had passed. And why finding out the opposite was true had lit a fire in her chest she hadn’t realised was still burning.

“Oh no,” she whispered.

18

Aweek later, Nigel stood on the café roof, sleeves rolled, hammer in hand. Julia watched from below, hands on hips, squinting against the sun.

“You missed a spot on the left side,” she called, joking.

“No, I didn’t,” he shouted back, not looking. “I’m doing it in order.”

He was faster than she’d expected. Methodical, too. And when he climbed down an hour later, she noticed two things at once: he’d shaved, and she couldn’t smell beer.

“Is cash alright?” she said, already reaching for her bag.

“Don’t,” he said, wiping sweat from his brow. “We’re even.”

Julia paused. Then nodded once. “How’s Callum?”

“Getting there,” Nigel replied, glancing back up at the patchwork of slates. “Reckons the nurses are spoiling him rotten. The doctor said an inch to the left, and that would have been his heart. Seems like that’s where Todd was aiming.” He spat at the ground before kicking his ladder down. “May he rot in hell.”

“And may Callum keep recovering,” Julia said, giving him a quick hug.

“Yeah, he deserves it.” Nigel gave a small grunt of agreement, but there was something softer in his face than usual. Not quite a smile, but close. “Here,” he said, reaching into his pocket. “Just something quick I did.”

While he got on with packing up his van, Julia opened the small piece of paper ripped from a lined pad to see a gorgeous, detailed pencil sketch of her café. Before she could say thanks, Nigel drove away.

She went inside and looked at the framed pictures on the wall, taking down the one of a generic cupcake among all the history and local achievements. She placed the sketch in the frame and took a step back.

Perfect.

Once Jessie and Sue arrived, both pausing to marvel at Nigel’s unexpected generosity and the visible change in him, Julia quietly excused herself. She left them in the warm hum of the café and drove to Kelly’s glass house, a white paper box of fresh bakes on the passenger seat.

Kelly took it from her without a word and led her inside.

Julia had visited every day, though she had a feeling today would be her final visit.

They sat together, Julia perched lightly on the arm of the armchair, while Kelly curled up on the sofa with a blanket around her. It wasn’t particularly cold, but the chill in the room wasn’t coming from the air. The were curtains now, covering every window, a display cabinet no longer. The TV was on mute, flickering pictures. Tea cups littered the surfaces, each one half-drunk and abandoned.

“I’m not trying to cheer you up,” Julia said, once the silence had settled and held. “Just eat. That’s all.”

Kelly gave a short nod. She still hadn’t really spoken.

Julia let the moment be.

“You know,” she said gently, “Beatrice was like this last week. Curtains closed. Phone off. Shut the world out so it couldn’t hurt her.”

Kelly gave a weak smile. “Works for her.”

“Does it?” Julia tilted her head. “She’s outside right now, kicking and screaming while the bailiffs carry out her furniture.”

Kelly blinked and stood. She peeked through the narrow gap in the heavy curtains.

Sure enough, down the road, Beatrice was in full theatrical meltdown as her extravagant things were carried away one by one into a van. A chipped chaise longue clattered inside with no ceremony. A bust lost its head on the edge of the door. Her shrill protests cut through the otherwise quiet slice of countryside.

The son was nowhere in sight.

“Freddie texted me,” Kelly said, voice low. “He’s in Dubai. Asked if I wanted to join him after he found enough for a one-way ticket.”

Julia raised an eyebrow. “And what did you tell him?”

“Nothing,” Kelly said. There was a sharpness there now. The first thread of steel. “Blocked and deleted.”

Julia smiled. “Good girl.”

The silence returned, and Julia cracked a millionaire’s shortbread in half and passed one piece to Kelly.

“You’ll get better at spotting them,” Julia said. “The ones who say all the right things but do all the wrong ones.”

Kelly bit into the chewy shortbread, chewing slowly. “You think I’ll be alright?”

Julia took a moment. “I think you’ve just had a crash course in life lessons some people don’t learn until they’re fifty.”

Kelly looked down, then spoke without lifting her head. “I’m giving some money to Callum. Just a bit. Feels like the right thing to do. Enough to get away from Nigel. Get himself a room. Try again somewhere new.”

Julia nodded. “That’s good. That’s really good.”

There would still be grief. Still quiet days. Still curtains. But there was light in Kelly’s eyes again. Dim, but not gone.

There was every chance she was going to be absolutely okay.

19

The demolition party had been Julia’s idea. Officially, it was the start of the makeover, but unofficially, it was an excuse to let off some steam. The back courtyard was packed with family and regulars, all donning safety goggles, gloves, and neon construction helmets Katie had left over from the market building days.

Dot, Ethel, and Percy stood at the front, squinting suspiciously at the scene.

“What on earth is going on?” Dot muttered.

“Have they made The Purge legal?” Percy asked, clutching his helmet like a shield.

“We watched that last week on Netflix,” Dot said, almost proudly. “Whose house are we heading to first, gang?”

“Don’t tempt me,” Ethel replied, swinging her sledgehammer like she meant it. “Mrs Bates took the last pork chop two weeks in a row. How does that even happen?”

“Aren’t you supposed to learn to behave at their age?” Sue whispered to Julia.

“No,” Julia said, slipping on her gloves. “I think you just stop caring.”

She stepped forward and cleared her throat. “Alright, everyone! After much thought and planning, and a few helpful conversations with the council, I’ve decided to go ahead with my little back patch makeover. But a courtyard just won’t do anymore. As Jessie said, the light just isn’t right.”

She hoisted the sledgehammer and swung it into the centre of the back wall. With a satisfying crunch, the bricks crumbled, bursting outward to reveal the vibrant market behind. Colour and sound poured in: laughter, sizzling food, bright bunting flapping in the breeze.

“Why just hear it,” Julia said, catching her breath, “when we can be part of it?”

She peered through the gap. The market was in full swing, shoppers browsing, kids laughing, music playing from a stall that sold vinyl and sausages. In ten days, bistro tables with copper legs would line the threshold. New customers would walk right past, tempted in by coffee, cake, and whatever magic they could bottle from the chaos that had become their home.

Later that afternoon, after the last bricks had crumbled and the goggles were off, Katie pulled Barker down into his office.

“You need to face this,” she said, wiping dust from her hands.

Barker raised an eyebrow. “Face what?”

“Go to Harrogate. Speak to Casper. Properly. Face to face, brother to brother.” She looks down at the ground, then at the bin. “I know what his reply said. I’m sorry, Barker, but I got Julia to let me in.”

“Katie…”

“It’s only three hours from here. Two and a bit, if you drive like my Brian does. You’ve put it off long enough.”

Barker shook his head. “I can’t.”

“You have to,” Katie said, her voice gentle but firm. “You’ll never settle until you do. Not really.”

He didn’t argue. Not this time. While the courtyard still smelled of brick dust and hope, he slipped away.

The drive north was steady. Easy, even. The weather behaved. When he pulled up outside the small house he hadn’t been to since the day of their mother’s funeral, his hands were sweating more than they should’ve been. It was a modest place, neat and surrounded by trees just starting to turn gold. Their beloved camper was parked on the driveway.

Heather, Casper’s wife, answered the door. She blinked in surprise.

“Barker!” she said. “Oh. I didn’t know you were coming.”

“I didn’t either,” he replied.

She hesitated. “Casper’s home. He’s just in the back. Come in.”

The hallway smelled of lavender and something baking. Barker stepped inside, his boots clicking on the stone tiles.

Casper appeared from the conservatory, wearing reading glasses and holding a copy of The Times. He looked older than Barker remembered, the limp from his fake leg lost at war worse, but maybe that was the shock of seeing him after a few years.

“I want to know,” Barker said, without preamble.

Casper’s shoulders lowered. “Barker, I⁠—”

“You know something,” Barker cut in, “I’ve just driven three hours to ask you to tell me what you couldn’t in writing and don’t lie to me. I need to know.”

“Please, Barker,” Heather started, trying to steer him away. “Why don’t I make you some coffee?”

“I’ve always liked you, Heather,” Barker said, holding up a hand. “I’m sorry I’m visiting like this, but I need to know. Okay. i always have. Just… tell me.”

“Very well. But you won’t like it.”

Barker waited.

“All I ever had was one name. John. That’s it. No surname. Just John.”

Barker stared at him. “That’s it?”

“Exactly. John what?” Casper gave a bitter smile. “It felt cruel to tell you, so I didn’t. I’m sorry, lad. Really. That’s all I know.”

Barker took a breath. Nodded once. “I believe you. This time.”

They stood awkwardly, then moved in at the same moment. The hug was brief, but the weight behind it was years deep. When they stepped apart, Heather was still watching.

“You still have readers, don’t you?” she asked. “From your books?”

Barker nodded. “A few hundred turning up at the library for a signing tomorrow, apparently.”

“Then why not use them? Record a video.” Her face lit up. “Put out an appeal. Someone might know something.”

“Heather…” Casper warned.

But Barker was already thinking it through. It was a resource he hadn’t had during his big search in his twenties. But now he had a network. Quiet, patient access to more people who might know something.

“Can I use the conservatory?”

Casper let out a deep disapproving sigh.

Heather showed him in and shut the door.

He sat at the little writing desk, sunlight spilling across the floor. He took a long breath and opened the camera on his phone.

He hit record.

“Katie,” he muttered. “What have you got me doing?”

Then, he began.

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