Fiona stared at it for several seconds, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. A large paring knife with a sturdy black handle and a blade about six inches long and one inch wide. Paring knives were normally used for chopping vegetables, so why was it bloody? Some of it had dried and some of it was still fresh.
She had to corral her thoughts. Maybe it wasn’t blood. Perhaps it could be something else.
Fiona’s mind had been shaped by years of reading crime novels. Conjuring up dastardly scenarios came easily to her. No matter how hard she tried, the idea kept pinging back into her head — had Sophie stabbed someone and was disposing of the evidence? If so, she hadn’t done a very good job. Plus, Sophie wasn’t the type. Smarmy, yes. Stabby, no. It would be far too messy for her, and she certainly wouldn’t be stupid enough to hide the weapon in a box of charity donations where it would be easily discovered, even if she had left it outside someone else’s shop.
But that begged the question, did Sophie know about the knife? Had she seen it and wanted to get it away from her shop, to make it someone else’s problem? Possible but not probable. The knife had been stashed in the bottom. Highly unlikely that Sophie would have dared to soil her regularly manicured fingers by delving down that far. One look at the foot spa and sandwich maker would’ve been enough for her to turn her nose up.
Fiona told herself to be sensible. Stabbings didn’t happen in Southbourne. Okay, the knife was bloody, but a lot of people donated things without cleaning them. The shop had a washing machine and several bulk-bought bottles of washing-up liquid under the sink for that very reason. The knife had probably been used to prepare meat and then tossed in the box of donations ready for the charity shop. Yes, that was a far more rational explanation.
A few niggles with that theory flicked away at her brain. Judging by the wet blood, the knife had been used recently, and from what Fiona could see, it looked fairly new.
Simon Le Bon pulled her from her thoughts. He was on his hind legs, stretching up to the pile of unwanted donations, sniffing the air, trying to get closer to the bloodied weapon.
“Get down, Simon. Down.”
He obeyed. Okay, it had piqued Simon Le Bon’s interest. But that didn’t mean it was human blood. It could be an animal’s, or it might not be blood at all. She had to be sure before she called the police.
Fiona left the box where it was, conscious that she didn’t want to disturb anything, and made her way across the road to the Cats Alliance, Simon Le Bon by her side. She shouldered open the door and was immediately distracted by the smell, or lack of it. Anyone who’d been thrifting in charity shops knew their distinctive tang, a musty, lived-in odour. Regardless of location, whether in Dorset or Doncaster, nationwide and possibly worldwide, they were united by their pungent second-hand fustiness. Eau de Charity Shop. All except for the Cats Alliance in Southbourne. It had no such smell. Fiona didn’t know by what sorcery Sophie had eradicated the collective odour of other people’s unwantedness, but she had. It didn’t look like a charity shop, either. It was light and airy with standout items tastefully displayed on plinths. A clean and uncluttered retail experience.
The ambience of the shop had momentarily diverted Fiona from her mission. She locked eyes with Sophie, who was leaning against the counter, arms crossed. Fiona noticed Gail in the back room, Sophie’s monosyllabic assistant and hamster of a woman. She was hunched over a futuristic phone and appeared to be fixing it with a slender screwdriver.
“Hello, Fiona. What a lovely surprise,” Sophie drawled, smiling like an assassin, and looking like one, with her rigid jet-black bob — dyed, obviously — and blood-red lipstick. And, of course, that cape still draped across her shoulders. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”
“You know what. You dumped one of your boxes outside my shop.”
Sophie feigned hurt. “Oh no, dear. It was already there. I saw that it had toppled over, causing an obstruction on the pavement and, like a good citizen and fellow charity worker, I picked it up and placed it safely back on top of the others.” Before Sophie had retired, she had worked in PR, and could spin a nuclear winter to make it sound like Christmas every day. “That’s what happened. Isn’t that right, Gail?”
“’S’right,” Gail mumbled, not sounding at all convincing.
Fiona stared at Sophie, unflinching. “You’re lying. I know you’re lying because I saw you.”
“No, no, I’m telling you that’s what happened, isn’t it, Gail?”
“’S’right,” Gail muttered, giving Fiona the impression that her stock answer was a result of Sophie bullying her into agreeing with everything she said.
Fiona wasn’t deterred. “Well, that box has a knife in it that happens to have blood on it.” She watched Sophie’s face carefully to see how she reacted to that piece of news.
Sophie’s face dropped. It didn’t look like she had any spin prepared for that one. “W—what?”
“There’s a kitchen knife with blood on it in the bottom of the box left outside your shop.”
Swiftly regaining her composure, Sophie smiled. “Oh, Fiona, you do worry about the silliest things. One, it wasn’t outside my shop, it was outside yours. And two, you know the sort of rubbish people throw away. It’s probably pig’s blood. Someone killed a pig and then didn’t want the bother of washing up.”
“Who kills pigs round here?” Fiona pointed out. “This is Southbourne, not Clarkson’s Farm. And why throw out a perfectly good knife?”
Sophie put her hands on her hips. “You know, some people are so unsustainable. It makes my heart ache for the planet. I’m trying to do my best to change it, but me and Greta Thunberg can only do so much.”
Fiona nearly choked. “Sophie, you drive around in a diesel Range Rover.”
Sophie wrinkled her neat little nose dismissively. “Only to Waitrose and back. Where, I might add, the majority of my shop ends up in the collection for the food bank. And it’s not Waitrose Essentials I put in there, either. I donated a nice jar of garlic-stuffed olives the other day that I wouldn’t have minded keeping myself. But, no, I thought. I want a single parent to get a taste of the finer things in life, rather than living off Greggs steak bakes and the like.”
This was getting Fiona nowhere. Every situation that presented itself to Sophie, she spun into an opportunity to pat herself on the back and congratulate herself as the world’s most wonderful human being.
Fiona’s tinnitus cranked up a few notches, causing her to wince.
“Are you okay, dear?” asked Sophie with faux concern.
“I need to get back over there and report this to the police. There’s a potential murder weapon sitting in a box.”
Sophie blew out air from between her lips like an inner tube puncturing. “So melodramatic. Are you sure you want to bother the police with a dirty knife?”
“Positive. And once I’ve told them where the knife came from, which would be you, and they’ve taken it away for analysis, you can have your junk back.”
“Well, I really don’t think that will be possible. The items in that box aren’t right for my shop — if they had been outside my shop,” she added hastily. “They don’t fit with my edit, dear.”
That was the main difference between Sophie and Fiona, that word “edit”. Though Fiona used to work in publishing, she would never have dreamt of using the word to describe what was essentially rummaging through second-hand stuff in a cardboard box. And Fiona would rather die than call someone “dear”.
“And what exactly is your edit?” asked Fiona, then instantly regretted it.
Sophie giggled. “Certainly not sandwich makers and supermarket clothes, that’s for sure.”
“So you did look in the box, then?”
“I may have had a cursory glance. And what I saw wouldn’t have been right for my edit. It’s more upmarket, like the Bang & Olufsen home phone that Gail is fixing.”
Gail looked up from her work. “’S’right.”
Sophie stepped closer to Fiona, speaking in a hushed tone. “Gail’s not too bright but is an absolute darling at mending stuff.”
“Well, I think anyone who can mend a phone is very smart indeed,” Fiona replied, loud enough for Gail to hear.
Gail allowed herself a self-conscious smile, until Sophie shot her a look laced with barbed wire and broken glass.
“Anyway, I’m calling the police,” said Fiona. “So you’d better get your story straight because they will be paying you a visit.”
“You know, I donate to so many police charities, it will be nice to catch up with one of their officers.”
Fiona ignored her. The woman was as slippery as she was insufferable. She needed to get out of there fast. Sophie made her stressed, and stress aggravated her tinnitus, which was currently squealing at a pitch that only Simon Le Bon could hear.