“You’ll want to prune back some of the shrubbery around the front of the cottage.” Her granddad had come over to help her harvest some of her garden, clear out three of the beds, and plant carrots, fennel, spring onions, and a few varieties of lettuce in preparation for a winter crop. They’d already gotten the netting set up for peas. “How are you doing, poppet?”
“Fine.” Motts directed water toward a particularly parched patch of herbs. Her granddad cleared his throat loudly. “I’m getting there.”
Working in the outside was cathartic. In the month since Jasper’s arrest, life had gotten back to as normal as it ever was for Motts. She’d spent much of her time crafting orders and tending her garden.
“Heard young Mikey came by to visit you last week.” Her granddad never shied away from asking her potentially hard questions. “Marnie mentioned it the other day.”
“When did you run into Marnie? Buying a wedding dress?” Motts finished up watering her parched plants. She set the watering can into the shed and grabbed her gloves. “He wanted to thank me for the peony bouquet. Never even knew it was for him to help him memorialise his gran. She loved peonies, apparently.”
“And your young man?”
“Not my young man.” Motts missed Teo since he’d moved. Her heart was only dented, however, not broken. “What does it say if I’m only slightly sad? More like a friend went away.”
“He didn’t touch your soul, love.” Her granddad leaned against the side of the shed. “You wait until you find the right one. What about the other detective? The one from London.”
“He’s a friend, Granddad. Plus, he’s busy working on several cases including Jenny’s. Said it might be a few months before he has anything to tell me. Everyone isn’t lucky to find something like you and gran have.” Motts carefully picked the dead leaves off one of her shrubs. “Soulless soulmates solve silly string.”
“Yes, they do.” He chuckled. “Come on then. We’re almost finished here, and we can sneak by the Salty Seaman for a late lunch.”
“We had lunch already.”
“An extra one then.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be on a low-sodium diet?” Motts remembered her grandmother giving him quite a lecture on the subject not even a week ago. “Are fried fish and chips on the menu?”
He waved one of his gardening gloves at her. “You wouldn’t deny your dear old granddad a last delicious delicacy, would you?”
Rolling her eyes at him, Motts decided what her grandmother found out later wouldn’t hurt her directly. Her granddad seemed to enjoy it when the love of his life caught him with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar. Non-autistics were very strange when it came to relationships.
They finished up in the garden, gathering up her tools to clean and safely store in the shed. Motts quickly returned Cactus and Moss to the cottage for their naps. Her granddad washed his hands and met her by the front door.
“Ready?”
Motts ran into his back when he stopped suddenly. “Granddad.”
“You’ve a visitor.” He kissed her on the top of the head. “We’ll save the Salty Seaman for another rainy day. Your gran will be waiting for me.”
She eyed Teo, who stood by his car. He hadn’t mentioned a return trip to Cornwall. “How are the dales?”
“Dalish.” Teo reached into the back seat of his car and pulled out a box. “I brought you a collection of chocolate from Kacao. You’d love it. A little chocolatier in Richdale.”
“You should’ve told me you were coming.” Motts waved him into the house, laughing when Cactus immediately raced over to climb up the detective and sit on his shoulder. “He missed you.”
“I did email you.”
“I was having an ‘I can’t respond to emails’ week.” Motts shrugged. She accepted the precious package of sweets. “Coffee and chocolate?”
“Of course.” Teo followed her into the kitchen, taking a seat at the small table. “We finally got the complete story from Jasper.”
“Is that why you’re in Cornwall?”
“And picking up the last of my parents’ belongings. Moving is a pain, particularly across the country.” He leaned back in the chair, petting Cactus, who remained on his shoulder. “You’d know all about that.”
“Never again.” Motts didn’t think she’d ever voluntarily move out of her cottage. She finished up the coffee and set a mug in front of him. “What kind of chocolate is this?”
“Thins.”
“Thins?” Motts peeled the lid off the box. “Shards of chocolate?”
There was a mixture of flavours of quite thin strips of chocolate. Motts tried the white chocolate raspberry ripple one first. Well, I’m going to inhale this entire package.
“There are truffles as well.” Teo gestured toward one of the multiple individual packets within the box. “So, Jasper.”
“Yes.” Motts had heard through the village grapevine that Jasper had asked to speak with the detectives. “Did he confess to anything new?”
“Not really. Confessed to the murder of his mum and helping her to dispose of his grandmother. He did offer a motive of sorts. Greed. They wanted the run of the family business. And he grew tired of sharing with his mum. I imagine his brother would’ve been next. As I said, none of his story surprised us. Just nice we won’t have a long drawn-out process through the courts.” Teo shook his head. He reached out to snag one of the hazelnut praline truffles. “A tragedy.”
“It’s not tragic,” Motts disagreed. “Disgusting. Disgusting dastardly devilish deed. He destroyed his family for money. Money. It wouldn’t have bought him anything but hollow comfort. Poor Mikey. I don’t know how he copes with all of this. I suppose Ashby helps.”
Once the dust had settled, Ashby returned to Cornwall. His relationship with Mikey had progressed. Motts had seen the two strolling along the coastal path a number of times; she thought they both deserved to find some happiness together.
“I made Cactus another sweater.” Teo handed her a small bag from his pocket. “It’ll be cold enough soon. This’ll help on his garden adventures.”
Motts blinked at the sudden change of subject. “He’s missed you.”
“Just Cactus?”
“Moss missed you as well.” She grabbed an orange chocolate truffle, enjoying her first bite into the outer shell and the creamy citrus centre within. “We’ve had a lovely summer.”
“Motts.”
She stared down at the box of chocolates, not wanting to have the conversation, whatever he’d come to say. “You’re lovely. I’ve missed you. Long-distance relationships don’t work for me. And I’m thrilled you had a promotion.”
“Motts.”
“I’m not moving to Yorkshire. I like my cottage.” Motts peered up to his nose. He seemed sad. “Can we not make this unnecessarily awkward? Despite my gift for turning everything into an uncomfortable mess?”
“Motts.”
“Yes?” She resisted the urge to chatter about nothing to keep from having an actual conversation.
Teo was silent for several long seconds. “You are lovely. I missed you greatly. I hope we’ll stay friends.”
“Oh. The best of friends.” Motts reached across the table to grab his hand. She felt oddly weepy. “The best of friends. Still pleased you wandered down the primrose path with me?”
“Definitely.”
Watching Teo drive off a few minutes later, Motts suddenly found her cottage too quiet. The weather had turned gloomy and chilly. She grabbed her raincoat and wellies to trudge down to the café for an early supper.
She paused at the top of the stairs, tilting her head to allow the soft raindrops to hit her face. Dreary days didn’t bother her so much. Not in Cornwall with the crashing waves in the distance and the seagulls' complaints carrying on the wind. From gentle drizzles to thunderous storms, they added to the magic of the place.
Drizzling dreary days.
“Hello, Mottsy.” Vina breezed by when Motts entered the café, arms loaded with mugs and plates. “Come into the kitchen. Amma’s working on a new masterpiece with Nish. You can play taste-tester with River.”
“Afternoon, dearie.” Leena swept her up into a flour-dusted hug. “Come try these new macarons. Pistachio macarons with a masala chai cream. My Nish is trying to turn them into profiteroles as well.”
“Now, we hate to gossip.” Vina paused to glare at her brother when he coughed loudly. “Rose at the Salty Seaman claims your granddad mentioned a certain detective. And Marnie thought she saw his vehicle driving up the hill to your cottage.”
“And driving away again.” Motts accepted the glazed profiterole. “Pistachio glaze on top?”
“Hence the green tint.” Nish nodded. “Plus the masala chai cream on the inside.”
“Isn’t he brilliant?” River grinned at his boyfriend.
Motts watched the two interact. They behaved a lot like her grandparents tended to when together. Playful and clearly falling head over heels for each other. Something she hadn’t even felt the hint of with Teo. “Jasper confessed to conspiring with his mum and then killing her.”
“Not exactly an earth-shattering revelation.” River grabbed another one of the slightly lopsided profiteroles. He tossed a second one gently to Motts. “We assumed he’d done that at the least.”
“What did you expect? Him to pull off a mask and go ‘I would’ve gotten away with it except for the pesky autistic with the naked cat’?” Vina finished loading the dishwasher. She wandered over to grab Motts by the hand. “Come on. You can help me close up shop.”
After locking up, Vina dimmed the lights slightly. She switched off the open sign. Motts leaned against the counter, waiting for the inevitable.
“Are you all right?” Vina dragged her over to begin putting the chairs into place. “With Teo?”
“Fine.” Motts shrugged.
“Fine?”
“I don’t know.” Motts shoved one of the chairs too hard against the table, almost knocking it to the floor. “Not fine. I’m not….”
“Sobbing into a pint of ice cream?”
“No.” Motts shifted the next chair more gently. “I wouldn’t mind the ice cream. I was sad. I’ll miss him, as I said. Just more like the loss of a dear friend.”
“On to the next adventure then.” Vina draped her arm across Motts’s shoulders. “You never know who’s right around the corner.”
“With my luck, another set of skeletal remains.”
If Motts offered just the right level of mystery and escapism, be sure to check out book three, Pickled Petunia.
Want more cosies from Dahlia? Check out the complete Grasmere Cottage Mystery Trilogy and her London Podcast Mysteries series, starting with Cosplay Killer.