Peridale Cafe Mystery 22 - Scones and Scandal by Agatha Frost

Author:Agatha Frost
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Pink Tree Publishing LTD
Published: 2021-05-24T16:00:00+00:00

10

Harsh morning sunlight burst through the white fluffy clouds, the first since the transition to cheerier spring weather. Julia’s end of the video call flipped its contrast, washing her out except for eyes, lips, and nostrils, and bright enough to make Jessie, in her much darker setting, squint.

“Where are you?” asked Julia, dragging Olivia’s pram into the shade of The Comfy Corner’s overhanging roof. “It looks like a tunnel.”

“Berliner Unterwelten,” Jessie said with a tight-throated inflection that made her pronunciation sound surprisingly spot-on, at least to Julia’s untrained ear. “Second World War tunnels and bunkers. It’s all still here under the city.”

“You’ve not—”

“Broken in?” Jessie cut in with a snort. “You’ve got break-ins on the brain, Mum. I’m here with a tour group.”

“I can go if you’re busy?”

“No,” she whispered, looking ahead as she set off after the tour group. “I need to hear the rest of this story.”

Julia leaned against a British Telecom ‘Fibre broadband here!’ green metal cabinet that had popped up since her last visit to the restaurant, glad to have Jessie for a little longer. Unlike their last one, this had been Julia’s call to make. She’d awoken needing a Jessie pick-me-up.

“The padlock sprang off, and he sprinted away before the police could get him.”

“Why does Evelyn even have bolt cutters?”

“The same reason my gran has a bulletproof vest and night-vision goggles.”

“Another normal day in Peridale.” Jessie’s laugh echoed around the tunnel, drifting off in slow stutters. “I miss the place.”

“We miss you too,” Julia said, swallowing a lump. “And then Evelyn quit the group.”

“And you haven’t spoken to Dot since?”

Julia shook her head. She wasn’t proud to admit she’d ignored the ringing phone as she was locking the cottage door that morning. Not wanting to leave Olivia on the doorstep had been a factor, but mostly she’d had a feeling the call was coming from her gran, and she hadn’t wanted to take it.

“I don’t know what to say to her,” she admitted, looking up as the sun drifted behind the white clouds again, turning them a brilliant silver; in the shade, the video remained consistent. “I’ve thought of little else since this morning, and all I can conclude is that she thought she was doing the right thing. I get why she thought that, but . . .”

“She should have told you.”

“Exactly.”

“I know she said it was spur of the moment,” Jessie said as she glanced into a room before continuing her walk through the tunnel, “but wouldn’t she have taken that padlock with her?”

“I hadn’t even considered that.”

“Your brain is going to jelly without me there to keep you on your toes.” Jessie winked into the camera. “Whatever the reason, it took guts to do it.”

“I can’t deny that.”

“Stupid, but brave.”

Jessie’s side to side eye darting suggested she’d reached a junction in the tunnel, and her sudden stillness suggested even more.

“Are you lost?”

“Nope,” she said merrily. “Maybe . . . a little. It’s fine. I’ll find Alfie. We’re talking again now, so—”

Julia’s heart dropped.

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