Murder at the Maples: A Flora Lively Mystery (30 page)

‘What did you say?’

‘I said, I’m not your friend. I was once, a long time ago. But not now. You’ve made sure of that, Aubrey.’

Mr Felix pulled a face. ‘My name’s not Aubrey. It’s Albert. And I don’t know what you’re talking about, for sure.’

Joy laughed and threw up her hands. She’d taken off her gloves, and Flora noticed that her skin really was almost completely free from tell-tale welts. She was getting better. And her breathing seemed calmer too. Her relief was short-lived.

Her friend had just drunk tea that was almost certainly poisoned with some strain of mould, brewed up by the former chemist.

‘I know you want to do this now, Joy, but we really should get you checked out. How much of it did you swallow?’

‘I drank most of the tea, Flora, and it was quite the most disgusting thing I’ve ever tasted. Herbal tea, my eye! You can’t beat a nice cup of English breakfast.’

Mr Felix grinned. He looked at his watch: a theatrical gesture, bringing his wrist up to his eyes, as if to tell them Joy didn’t have long anyway so there was no point rushing her off to the medical centre. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘let’s have it then. If there’s something you need to say to me we might as well get it over with.’

Flora pushed past him and ran into the kitchen. ‘Marshall, I don’t care if you have to pick her up and carry her, just get her out of here now.’

He nodded. But as they started back into the lounge, Mr Felix blocked their way. ‘Don’t be so hasty. You’re forgetting who I am. The only person who can save her now is me.’

An antidote? Flora mouthed the word to Marshall.

‘I don’t think so,’ he said, grimacing.

Mr Felix wasn’t listening – his attention was refocused on Joy.

‘So, you finally admit it.’ Joy’s voice was calm, unwavering.

‘Well, of course I’m him. You knew it as soon as you saw me, I know you did. Couldn’t stand it, could you? Being faced with the results of what you did all those years ago.’ He held up his right leg, lifting it with both hands. ‘Crushed, it was. Left me a cripple. While you and your cronies got off scot free.’

Joy’s voice was strained. ‘I never stopped thinking about it, Aubrey. I’ve lived with the guilt my whole life.’

‘Oh, my heart bleeds. Look at you, with your comfortable nest egg and your friends and all this luxury. I can’t afford to be here, they wanted to send me to the council place instead. But I had to come once I saw you. I recognised you straight away too, Joy Stevens. You’d managed to get your horrible skin condition under control, although I admit that threw me for a while. I had to be sure it was you. But as soon as I found your medication I knew.’

‘You swapped it, didn’t you?’ Flora couldn’t help herself, she had to know if she was right. Mr Felix’s eyebrows danced on his forehead.

‘Why, you’re a clever little thing, aren’t you? Yes, I knew you were on to me that day at the library. But it didn’t matter, I’d already decided on my final move.’ He looked at his watch again. A shadow passed over his face.

‘Not dead yet? Is that what’s bothering you?’ Joy smiled and reached down the side of the cushion. ‘You shouldn’t leave your old sample bottles lying around, you know,’ she said, wrinkling up her nose. ‘Although thankfully this one was empty. Flora, have you ever seen anyone living in such a disgusting state? Really, men do not fare as well as women when they’re on their own. They lack a certain pride, don’t you think?’ She held up a small cylindrical bottle, half full of a dark brown liquid. ‘Herbal tea, anyone? Although I don’t think you’d want to try this. It really is disgusting. This particular batch was meant for me, of course, so I’m sure it’s got a little something special in it. Arsenic, perhaps? Some kind of opiate? I’m sure the police will be able to tell.’

Mr Felix made a lunge for the sample bottle, but Marshall was one step ahead. He wrapped both arms around the old man’s waist, holding him off the ground while his good leg pumped frantically at fresh air.

‘Mould,’ Flora said, taking the bottle out of Joy’s hand and pulling her into a hug. ‘And you, my friend, are completely crazy.’

‘And brave, though. Come on, admit it – you’re impressed.’

Flora looked into Joy’s pale blue eyes and smiled. ‘You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met. I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you.’

‘No one will,’ cried Mr Felix, as Elizabeth arrived at the door, even more flustered-looking but now with two uniformed policemen by her side. ‘No one will believe you because it’s all lies. I’ve done nothing wrong.’

Marshall marched over to the doorway, still carrying the wriggling man in his arms. ‘He’s all yours,’ he said, setting him down.

‘Wait!’ Joy struggled to her feet and held out her hand. She picked her way across the room and stood facing a furious Mr Felix, who was now flanked by the policemen with Marshall positioned behind. ‘Aubrey, there’s something I need to say to you. Something I’ve wanted to say for over sixty years.’

‘I don’t know who this Aubrey is,’ Mr Felix said loudly, waving his hands. ‘She’s completely lost it. Drugs, you know. There’s a lot of it about.’

‘Save it, fella.’ Marshall’s voice was laced with ice. ‘Listen to what the lady’s got to say.’

Joy took a shaky breath and held Flora’s hand tightly. ‘Aubrey, I’m sorry. For what we did to you all those years ago … and for Jack. I’m truly sorry.’ She leaned into Flora’s arms and sighed. ‘I’m glad I had the chance to say it at last.’

One of the policemen led a protesting Mr Felix away; the other looked around the room and raised an eyebrow. ‘Does anyone want to tell me what’s been going on here? Does this have anything to do with your missing warden?’

Joy turned to Flora. ‘Yes, what exactly has been going on with the warden? You and her were having some kind of battle of wills up there at the funicular. What was all that stuff about the charity?’

‘We were fighting for you, Joy,’ Flora said with a weary smile. ‘But I had no idea you were so capable of fighting your own battles.’ She linked arms with her friend and nodded to the policeman, Elizabeth and Marshall. ‘Come on. We’ve got quite a story to tell you. But I think we should do it over a nice cup of coffee.’

‘Oh, I prefer tea,’ said Joy, wrinkling up her nose.

‘Really?’ Flora gave a shaky laugh. ‘I’m not sure I’ll be able to look at a cup the same way ever again.’

Epilogue

‘One thin and crispy with salami, one deep pan with spinach and egg.’

The waiter laid the two plates on the small round table. Flora eyed Joy’s pizza with her lip turned up. ‘I don’t know how you can eat salami. It’s gross.’

‘Ha! Says the girl who thinks having a fried egg on top of a pizza is normal fare!’

‘It’s on the menu, Joy. It can’t be that weird.’

‘Well, we’ll just have to agree to disagree, won’t we?’

They tucked into their lunch in companionable silence. But after only three mouthfuls, Flora laid down her fork.

‘I’m so sorry, Joy.’

Her friend sighed. ‘Not this again. You have to let it go, Flora. Believe me, I know all about holding on to something you feel guilty about.’

‘I can’t let it go.’ Flora reached for Joy’s hand. Clear-skinned and ungloved, her eczema was healing up fast. ‘I can’t forgive myself. The whole time you were suffering, struggling with it alone, I just thought you were imagining it all. I thought … well, it doesn’t matter now.’

‘No, go on. What did you think? Maybe if you tell me you’ll finally be able to shut up about it.’ Joy tucked into her pizza cheerfully. The new medication was giving her a healthy appetite.

Flora took a sip of water and looked at her glass. ‘Well, I suppose it was the guilt that threw me. Guilt can be a terrible, confusing, messy thing. I figured you felt bad for how you treated that boy all those years ago, so guilty you never even told Eddie about it, and you’d lived with that for years.’

‘And you thought the guilt made me imagine that Aubrey had come back to find me, ready to exact his revenge?’

‘Yes. I thought it was just your guilty mind playing tricks on you. After the stress of losing Eddie, and then what happened to Otto … Well, you can see how it might have seemed.’

Joy smiled. ‘It’s great to have Otto back. He misses you though.’

‘I miss him too.’ Flora had taken him over to Joy’s that morning. She couldn’t imagine how empty the bungalow was going to feel when she went home.

‘Anyway, I should have believed you. The truth is, I think I was channelling my own guilt, looking at it through my eyes, not yours.’

Joy stopped chewing. With her mouth full of pizza, she said, ‘What on earth do you have to feel guilty about?’

‘When I was fourteen, my parents told me I was adopted. They’d been agonising over it for years, trying to work out the best time to tell me. It was a shock, and I was at that age where you think your parents are everything and nothing, you know? Invincible, but also mortifying. They pulled the rug out from under me – I would have given anything to have known nothing about it, to have gone on for ever thinking Peter and Kitty Lively were my real parents. My annoying, wonderful, flawed, crazy parents.’

‘It must have been hard for them. Trying to do the right thing.’

‘Well, I know that now. But I was a teenager. I was angry. I told them both that I hated them, that I wished I knew my real parents, wished I lived with them instead. I said some terrible things.’

Joy shook her head. ‘They wouldn’t have minded. They probably expected far worse.’

‘I know. They were saints, the best parents anyone could wish for. But I said it, don’t you see? And even though they never brought it up again, I still knew I’d hurt them.’

‘And you always felt guilty?’

Flora swallowed. Did Joy need to hear all this? Did she even want to?

‘I went totally off the rails. I got my ears pierced, started drinking, hanging around with a bad crowd. I got a tattoo – Mum hated it. She was so disappointed. Said I’d ruined my looks.’

‘I had wondered about your tattoo. It’s very – surprising.’

Flora smiled. Good job Joy didn’t know about the other one.

‘The day before my mother died, she told me she loved me more than anything else in the world. No matter what.’

‘Ah, that’s lovely. For you and for her. It must have given her great peace.’ Joy speared a slice of salami and popped it into her mouth. Her eyes were full of kindness.

Flora remembered it so clearly. The bedroom had been unnaturally quiet – no kids shouting outside, no dogs barking or hedges being trimmed. The machine that regulated her mother’s morphine dose hummed gently next to her bed; every movement her mother made, every rustle of the sheets, made Flora wince. The morphine only managed the pain, dulled it into something bearable. She knew her mother was suffering, despite the brave smile.

‘Flora,’ said Joy, pulling her out of her reverie. ‘I doubt she even remembered your teenage years. Not in the way you think, at least. She had twenty-seven years as your mother, and half of them came after the day they told you the truth about your birth. She was a lucky woman. I would have given anything for a child, Flora, especially one as caring as you. No, don’t brush the compliment away. You’re far too self-deprecating, but that’s an issue for another day. You need to let it go. She loves you more than anything else in the world and always will, no matter what.’

It was a while before Flora could speak again. She dried her eyes on a serviette and smiled weakly.

‘I should be better at this stuff, don’t you think? I do have a degree in psychology.’

Joy brushed her words away. ‘They teach you nothing at school or university. Life is the only educator we need. You were looking at my situation through the filter of your own experiences – I imagine it’s very common. Anyway, I really did have reason to feel guilty. What we did to Aubrey was terrible. It was right for me to be called to account. And I guess I’d always been expecting it to happen, one day.’

‘Not like that though,’ Flora objected. ‘You didn’t deserve to be terrorised. You didn’t deserve to die for it!’

‘No, maybe not.’ Joy shrugged and picked up the dessert menu. ‘But there you go.’

Flora was struck again by her amazing resilience. ‘You really were sure all along, weren’t you? You were sure Mr Felix was Aubrey because–’

‘Because he was,’ Joy finished wryly. ‘I recognised him alright, but you weren’t the only one to second-guess it – I couldn’t believe my own eyes at first. I passed him in the dining hall and I was ninety per cent sure. He looked at me and there was something in his expression. Not hate, nothing as extreme as that, it was more like pleasure. Recognition and pleasure. Like he’d been waiting for this moment and was happy it had finally arrived. I should have marched right up to him and said, “Hey, you’re Aubrey, aren’t you? The caretaker’s son. I’d know you anywhere. And there’s something I need to tell you, Aubrey. I treated you appallingly and I’m really, truly sorry. There’s not a day in my entire life that I haven’t felt bad for my part in what we did to you and I hope you can forgive me.”’

‘I wonder what would have happened if you had?’ Flora doubted it would have changed anything. Mr Felix was clearly a bitter old man on a mission.

‘I was too afraid. There was something about him, don’t you think? Something menacing?’

Flora said nothing. She didn’t want to admit that she’d found Mr Felix about as menacing as a caterpillar. Which didn’t bode well for her skills as an amateur detective. Not that she was taking Marshall’s suggestion to heart. If this fiasco was anything to go by, Flora’s investigative acumen was hardly likely to be in demand.

‘You did work out what the warden was up to,’ Marshall had pointed out. ‘And you rescued Joy from Aubrey.’

‘She rescued herself, after I’d sent her off alone with a man hell bent on revenge after convincing her he was totally harmless,’ Flora had countered.

‘Do you think it would have made a difference?’ Joy asked softly. Flora looked up at her friend. She was gazing at a point beyond Flora’s shoulder. ‘Do you think he’d have left me alone if I had just acknowledged him and said sorry?’

‘I don’t know, Joy. He was pretty twisted. Look at what he did to Otto.’