The stink of burnt wood and plastic continued to drift from the bookshop. Astrid stood outside and peered through the window. The authorities had plastered DO NOT ENTER and DANGEROUS signs near the front of the building and the coffee shop. They’d also cordoned off the alleyways on both sides of the bookshop with barricades.
She stared at the damage for ten seconds and doubted there would be anything inside to help her find its missing owner. She had two hours to kill and couldn’t be bothered to head back to Evie’s house; she’d only have to leave again and return to the school to pick her up later. Her stomach grumbled and told her to get something to eat. She watched a customer exit the temporary coffee shop fifty yards away and settled on that.
Astrid pushed the door aside, finding less than half a dozen people inside. She picked an empty table near the window and sat down. As she waited, she removed her phone and went over the list of residents on Elm Street again.
There must be something I’ve missed. Why would those girls go into the house willingly?
A smiling woman approached with a notepad in her hand. There were more creases on her face than the surface of Mars, and her hair was as white as paper. Her name tag was MARY.
‘Hi there. It’s always nice to see new customers.’ She had a smoker’s teeth, discoloured and uneven, and looked tired with dull brown eyes. ‘What can I get you?’
Astrid picked up the menu and had a quick look through. ‘I thought you’d only serve coffee and maybe a few treats.’
‘We had to expand our options to stay open. So, what will you have?’
‘I’ll have a strawberry milkshake and bacon and eggs, please.’
Mary scribbled it all down, beaming as she did. ‘I love your accent. Are you British?’
‘Yes, I’m from England.’
‘Wow. I don’t think we’ve ever had someone from England here before.’
Astrid smiled. ‘I’m surprised you’re open, what with the fire at the bookshop.’
A tiny sparkle returned to her face. ‘Oh, we got lucky there. This place hadn’t been empty long from the previous owners, so everything we needed was still here. Then it was just a case of salvaging what we could from the other shop and borrowing the rest.’ She took a cloth from her pocket and wiped a stain from the table. ‘It was a shame for Jack, though. I’ll put your order in now.’
Mary turned away before Astrid could ask a question. She went through the list on her phone again while she waited for her order. It was a fruitless fifteen minutes staring at the names.
The smell of bacon and eggs drifted through the coffee shop as two more customers entered. An older man, name tag of TOM, brought her order over. She relaxed and took her time, having sips of the milkshake between mouthfuls of food. She went online and searched for the latest news on Adam and found nothing interesting. She was browsing through Jack Kennedy’s bookshop website when Mary returned.
‘Would you like dessert? We do a fantastic apple pie which I make at home. It’s fresh.’
‘That sounds great. Can I ask you a few questions first?’
A puzzled look crossed Mary’s face. Astrid indicated for her to take the empty seat at the table.
‘About what?’ She appeared reluctant, but sat down.
‘How well do you know Jack Kennedy?’
‘You want to know about Jack?’
‘He went missing after the fire, and I’m trying to locate him. Anything you tell me could help.’
‘Are you a private investigator?’
‘Something like that. Have you known him long?’
Mary glanced around the coffee shop, and then put her notebook on the table. ‘Well, it’s not busy at the moment and, if I can help find Jack….’ She placed her pencil on top of the pad. ‘We were the first businesses to move into this street nearly twenty years ago. We always helped each other, especially when the recession hit and everyone struggled.’
Astrid noticed the wistful expression on her face. ‘Did he tell you he wanted to be a writer?’
She smiled through those nicotine teeth again. ‘Oh yes; he’d come in for a coffee, jotting things down in those books of his. Tom and I would ask him about it, but he’d keep most of it to himself. I know he’d had a few disappointments over the years, though he did seem happier about it the last few months and I think he might have been on the verge of something.’
Indeed he was. This would have been the day when he’d have sold Evie’s book as his own to a publisher and probably made a shed load of money.
‘Did you spend any time with him outside of work?’
Mary raised a hand to her face as her cheeks turned a faint shade of pink. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Do you know what he did away from his bookshop, if he had any friends or relatives in the town?’
Are you aware he’s into sadomasochism? Or who his mysterious Claudia is? Could it be you?
‘Oh, he has no family; he did tell me that. I doubt if he had any time for friends.’ She turned to watch Tom clearing the table next to them. ‘Most of the people still able to run their business are spending all of their waking hours at work. I wish we had time for friends.’
Astrid sank back into her chair, the plastic cutting into her spine. ‘Okay.’
‘In fact, I think the only time I ever saw him talking to someone else was when Beverly fixed his computer.’
‘What?’ Astrid shifted forward.
‘He had a virus or something, I don’t know about this stuff, and he was moaning about it in the shop one day, said he was probably going to lose all his work. She took it off him and fixed it in an hour. And she wouldn’t take any money for it, no matter how much he protested.’
Astrid’s mind raced away from her. ‘Is Beverly a customer of yours?’
Mary burst out laughing. ‘No, nothing like that; she’s our daughter.’
‘Is she a computer specialist, a technician?’ Who better to place a Trojan horse on an unsuspecting person?
‘Well, she’s always been good with computers even when she was young, and we did think after university, she’d end up at one of those tech companies. I mean, she finds it easier to be around machines than people, so we were both surprised when she landed a job teaching at the school.’
Astrid nearly fell from the chair. ‘Does she teach at the elementary school?’ Did she know the Glick girls?
‘No. Beverly works with middle and high school kids. Tom and I hoped she might have started a family of her own by now, but, well, with the problems she’s had…’ Her eyes glanced upwards as her voice faded out.
Astrid gave no thought for pressing this tired and stressed-out woman about her personal life, her brain stitching together a map inside her head which showed how Adam was innocent after all.
‘What sort of problems does your daughter have, Mary?’
She laughed nervously. ‘Oh, she’s fine now, just a little quiet and reserved. We try and talk to her, but it’s hard with the hours we work.’ She glanced at her husband as he served a customer at the front of the shop. ‘But she had a difficult childhood, after the… after the accident.’
‘Do you want to talk about the accident?’
Mary’s face relaxed, distant light flickering at the back of her eyes. ‘It’s funny, really.’ She wasn’t laughing anymore. ‘We tried several therapists, counsellors, and psychiatrists with her over the years, you know, to get her to talk about what happened, but I don’t think we’ve ever spoken to anyone about it.’
Astrid reached across the table and touched Mary’s hand. ‘It must have been a great strain on you. Sometimes it’s better to get everything out and not hold it in.’
Mary patted her on the fingers. ‘I believe you’re right.’ She took another deep breath. ‘She was five years old when it happened. We never called her Beverly then; it was Bev. Our little Bev.’ Her voice trembled. ‘We’d just taken over the shop and were working every hour we could; nothing’s changed much there.’ The nervous laugh returned. ‘So we left her at a friend’s house whose older brother babysat them both. That’s when it happened.’
All the pieces came together inside Astrid’s head. ‘Was that friend Evie Church?’
Mary nodded. ‘Yes, and her brother Adam was looking after them.’
‘But something happened?’
‘We don’t blame Adam; we never have. But he was playing video games upstairs when the girls snuck into the basement. It should have been locked. Their dad was always working on something for the church and had tools and bits of metal and wood stored down there. And that’s when it happened.’
‘The accident?’
Mary let go of Astrid’s hand and wiped a tear from her eye. ‘The girls must have been playing down there, running around after each other, when Bev fell and… and…’ she struggled to finish the sentence.
‘She injured herself?’
‘Bev fell on to a metal pole. We were lucky. It could have been so much worse; it could have gone through her heart or her head. Instead, she put her hand out, and it cut right through her palm. Adam heard the screams and ran into the basement.’
‘It sounds terrible, but not life-threatening. It was traumatic for Beverly, though?’
‘It left a large circular wound in the middle of her hand, and around the edges were lots of smaller scars shaped like an octopus’s tentacles. But that wasn’t the worst of it.’
‘That was how she reacted to it?’
Mary put a finger to her mouth, then let go when her lips stopped trembling. ‘She hated the scars in her hand, having to look at them every day, thinking what the other kids would say to her. You know how cruel they can be.’
Astrid nodded. ‘I do.’
‘She couldn’t bear to leave the house looking like that, so she began curling her fingers forward to cover up the damage. Beverly held them like that all the time, never moving them, never using that hand for anything. She stopped cutting her nails until… until… well, it resembled a crooked branch ready to spring open and claw your eyes out. It took years for her to relax her hand. When she left school and went to university, we thought she’d put it all behind her.’ Mary stared at her husband. ‘If you wait long enough, you can adjust to anything.’
Astrid placed money on the table and got up. ‘You and Beverly live in the house across from Adam Church and your surname is Shaw?’
Everything had clicked into place, and she’d completed the murder map for the Glick girls.
‘That’s correct.’
‘Is it okay if I go to your home and have a word with her?’
There was no point worrying this poor woman by telling her it was likely her daughter was a child murderer. Mary got out of her seat, looking happier.
‘You were right; it was good to talk about it. I know Beverly is better because she’s leaving town soon to find a new job, but she won’t be at home now. She left us a note saying she had to go to school today.’
‘She’s gone to work?’
‘No, she’s there for the reunion. She said she had one final thing to take care of before she leaves.’
Astrid didn’t say goodbye, didn’t wait for her change. She was out of the door and running as the clocks struck four-thirty all over town. She jumped into the car and drove off without checking the traffic. It was fewer than forty seconds before the other vehicle plunged into her side, and both cars tumbled off the road.