Chapter 4
Ihustled out of the garage, leaving Kevin to the wasps and the mice.
Jasper and Phil were keeping themselves occupied at the bottom of the garden. At least, Phil was keeping Jasper occupied at the bottom of the garden. He sat on the lawn, panting happily, as Jasper thrashed about in the flowerbed, crushing my plants and, presumably, looking for Phil’s tennis balls.
Phil liked to gather things and guard them, and if he could outsource the gathering part, so much the better.
Jasper shoved past an overgrown hydrangea and strode out of the bushes, the pockets of his gym shorts bulging.
“Hi!” he shouted at me. “That was quick!” He jogged over to Phil, pulled out four balls, and dropped three in front of him.
Crouching, he rolled the fourth a short distance over the grass. “Go on, Phil. Give it a go. You’ve got to fetch one of them yourself. Go on, I know you can do it. Dig deep. I believe in you, buddy.”
Phil heaved to his feet and, once Jasper had physically oriented him in the right direction, lumbered after the rogue ball.
He picked it up and tenderly carried it over to the rest, swinging his tail proudly at Jasper’s, “Good job!” He laid the ball down beside the others, nosed them into a tidy pile, and settled down to watch over them with his head on his paws.
Jasper bounced over to me with a big grin.
I lifted a brow. “Thanks for ruining my day,” I said, and headed for the house.
He followed me into the kitchen. “Whoops. Didn’t you?—”
“With you waiting, right outside? No, I did not!”
“Want me to go?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” I took a bag of beans out of the cupboard above the Gaggia and shook them into the grinder. There was some espresso left from the morning grind in a small canister next to the machine, but fresh was always best.
“Can’t be that mad about it if I’m getting a coffee,” Jasper said, and sat expectantly at the kitchen table.
I’d have made him a coffee even if I was angry.
I wasn’t, of course. It was impossible to get angry with Jasper. Irritated with him, yes. Angry, no.
“Can I have a latte?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He waited for the whirr of the grinder to shut off before he added hopefully, “Anything to eat?”
I passed him the packet of Hobnobs.
“Oh no,” he said, ripping into it with enthusiasm. “I shouldn’t.”
“All right.” I reached out to take the biscuits away and he clutched them to his chest, wide-eyed.
“I said I shouldn’t, not I won’t.” He jumped up and washed his hands at the sink then turned and leaned against the counter beside me, watching me pour the barista-grade almond milk I kept in the fridge just for him into a metal jug.
“With my metabolism, I can eat the rest of the packet.” He stuffed a biscuit into his mouth and chewed contentedly. “Won’t make a dent.”
Give him another couple of years. He’d be over the hump into his thirties and singing a different tune.
“In fact,” he continued, “I need the carbs. I’m off to the gym. I stopped by to see if Kevin was coming or not. He wasn’t answering his phone. Now I know why.” Jasper smiled around a mouthful of biscuit. “He’s got a different workout in mind.”
“Yep. And now that I’ve given him the green light, if I don’t physically make him stop, he’ll be at it until midnight. He’s a juggernaut.”
Jasper stopped chewing and stared at me.
I scowled. “I’m talking about the garage. It’s his new project.” I got busy steaming the milk.
Jasper munched his way through two more biscuits, watching, and after I’d knocked the jug against the countertop to dissipate any large bubbles that would spoil the microfoam, he said, “Charlie, make me a swan? Please?”
I was getting better at latte art, having made Kevin so many by now. I was confident enough that I’d quietly started adding a little rosetta or a tulip to customer lattes at The Chipped Cup.
Anything more complicated than that, I kept for Jasper and Kevin.
And even though it was the simplest design and the first one I’d mastered, only Kevin got a heart.
I made Jasper his swan while he sat back down and continued to mow his way through the packet of biscuits.
“It’s highly unlikely that you’ll be able to pry Kevin out of the garage today, even for the gym. Here you go.” I passed him the latte.
“Thank you.” Jasper admired his swan before dunking a Hobnob into the cup, like a barbarian. Despite his care, the swan lost integrity and spread out into an amorphous blob. The Hobnob was fine. “Aren’t you scared he’ll find more bodies in there?”
“No. The only stuff in that garage is mine.”
It used to be mine.
Now it belonged to the mice. I’d ceded ownership.
“Can we be sure?” Jasper mused. “One hundred percent sure?”
“Yes.” I took the milk jug over to the sink, squirted some washing-up liquid into it while the hot tap ran, and grabbed the sponge.
“Deirdre Sharpe was dead and buried long before any of those boxes made it into the garage. I recognise every single one. They’re all mine.
Nothing of Deirdre’s is left, because Kevin dealt with it months ago.
You know this. Remember how Liam nearly blew a vein? ”
“Oh, I remember.”
I finished scrubbing the jug, rinsed it, and set it on the draining board.
“Hmm,” Jasper said.
“What, hmm?” I wiped down the counter, wrung out the cloth, and hung it over the tap to dry. When I turned to him, Jasper had a thoughtful look on his face. I didn’t like it.
“What if…?” he said, and trailed off into a heavy silence.
“What if what?” I asked when all he did was stare at me.
“What if she isn’t dead and buried?”
“She is.”
“But what if she isn’t?”
“Jasper,” I said, slowly and firmly, “she is. Suzanne Lawson found Deirdre in her armchair when she brought Phil home after his afternoon walk one day. She’s dead.”
“Fine. She’s dead.” He paused. “But what if…what if she’s not buried?”
“She is buried. She had a funeral. It was very well attended, according to Suzanne. People said lots of nice things that they now regret.”
“I know. I’m just thinking out loud here.”
“Maybe keep it in your head.”
He ignored me. “It would make a good twist, wouldn’t it? If the police dug her up and found the coffin empty?” He gasped. “No! Better yet, if they dug her up and instead of Deirdre in there, they found another clown! Nothing beats the clown.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Why on earth would they suddenly decide to dig her up?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Let’s say…oh. Okay! How about something unexpected surfaces in the investigation? A new lead.”
“Right. They dig up the coffin, they open it up, and surprise! A clown. Who put the clown in there?”
“An apprentice. No. A disciple.” He shivered. “I’ve got goosebumps. Don’t you think that would make an amazing story?”
“As long as we’re brainstorming fiction here, and not an article. Even then, it’s a bit far-fetched.”
“God, yes. Fiction. My journalism days are over. Even if Ray’s dad hadn’t scared the crap out of me when he almost sued me for that time I called him a serial killer, the stress nearly finished me off.
I released that dream a long time ago. No regrets.
Did Ray ever tell you that his dad’s friends framed the article and hung it up at his dad’s local pub? ”
“He mentioned it.”
“No more articles for me, ever. I do enjoy dabbling in a little fiction every now and then. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s good to have hobbies.”
“What kind of fiction? Can I read some?”
“I honestly don’t think you’d be into it,” he said, looking shifty.
“You don’t know what I’m into.”
“I’m pretty sure you won’t be into this. Besides, it’s private. It’s personal.” He stuffed another Hobnob into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “I haven’t been in your garage before,” he said after a moment through a mouthful of crumbs.
“Why would you?” I’d barely been in it.
“Is there anywhere you could hide a body? Any nooks and crannies?”
“Jasper, I don’t want to brainstorm any more stories with you. I’m thrilled you have a hobby, but it’s not my thing and?—”
“No space for a secret room in the roof? I’m not brainstorming now, I’m curious.”
“It’s a garage. The roof is exposed. The only things up there are beams and cobwebs. And a wasp nest, according to Kevin.”
Knowing my luck, probably bats, too.
“What about the walls? Any unusually thick walls? She could have a whole row of them lined up, just like in your bedroom.”
“I think it’s safe to assume that the police have gone over every inch of the property by now, looking for exactly that sort of thing.”
“Is it, though? Safe? They’ve missed a trick more than once,” Jasper said.
He quickly added, “Do not tell Liam I said that. He gets very touchy about it. He’s been yelled at a lot by his superiors.
The police really hate being made to look incompetent.
Especially the guys at the top. They love having someone to blame.
What about under the floor? Did they look under that? ”
“They couldn’t look under it. It’s a concrete slab.
Someone did come over with ground-penetrating radar to check the garden and the house foundations.
I’m confident they’d have included the garage in the scan.
When I said they went over every inch, Jasper, I mean every inch.
There are no more bodies on my property. ”
“If there are,” Jasper said, “then I’m sure Kevin the Chipping Fairford Corpse Finder will find them.”
I didn’t try to hide my smile. “Don’t call him that,” I said sternly.
Jasper grinned at me.
Our amusement did not last long.
Kevin banged the back door open. “Charlie,” he said. “I found something.”