Claire's Candles Mystery 05 - Fresh Linen Fraud by Agatha Frost

Author:Agatha Frost
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Pink Tree Publishing LTD
Published: 2021-03-29T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

N eighbours twitched at their curtains as shouting filled the warm evening air in the cul-de-sac. Claire didn’t need to wonder which of the large, detached houses the commotion was coming from; she recognised the voices.

“It’s a funny world where I have nicer things to say about my daughter-in-law than her own mother!” Granny Greta roared from the sitting room as Claire quietly opened the front door. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“I should be?” Moreen cried back. “How many of my children are in prison for murder?”

Claire winced as she kicked off her shoes. Of all the people to bring up Uncle Pat in an argument, of course it had to be Mean Moreen.

“You evil…” Greta’s words trailed off, pain gnawing at the edges of her voice. “You keep Pat’s name out of your bitter mouth.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m so close to walloping you right now.”

“Violence must run in the family.”

“Keep this up, and I’ll slap you so hard I send you back to whatever era supplies your hideous wardrobe!”

Still lingering by the door, Claire stifled a laugh. She heard her father sigh in the kitchen down the hall.

“Newsflash,” Greta continued when Moreen didn’t bite back. “They stopped requiring that hemlines graze the floor a century ago. You should know. You were there.”

Not wanting to get dragged into the fray, Claire crept past the open door, only glancing in long enough to see her grandmothers planted on either side of the coffee table. Once in the kitchen, she pushed the door gently against the frame to close it.

“They’ve been at each other’s throats for half an hour, little one,” Alan revealed, accepting Claire’s kiss on the cheek as he fried onions in a pan. “I’ve given up trying to separate them. Something tells me they’re enjoying the drama.”

“What caused it this time?”

“Greta wouldn’t get out of Moreen’s armchair,” he said through slightly pursed lips. “My armchair, not that I’ve been able to sit in it since she arrived.”

“Is Mum hiding in the downstairs bathroom again?”

“Garden,” he said, adding chopped garlic to the pan. “At least, I assume that’s where she is. If she’s climbed over the fence and escaped through Ian’s farm, I wouldn’t blame her.”

Leaving her father to turn up his mud-caked portable radio, Claire exited through the back door. She scanned the pristine garden, but there was no sign of her mother. On the hill beyond the farm, the Warton Candle Factory stood proudly against the bleeding sunset. She didn’t spot her mother running around the fields either. At the bottom of the garden, the door to her father’s beloved potting shed was slightly ajar.

“Is that you, Alan?” Janet asked softly as Claire pushed open the door. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

Claire entered the shed, expecting to see her mother standing uncomfortably, surrounded by the dust, mud, and cobwebs. She wasn’t, nor was she at the potting desk. Of all places, Janet balanced on the small, upturned terracotta plant pot in the corner that had remained unmoved since Claire’s childhood.

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