The Donaldson Case (9 page)

“I’m almost
afraid to ask what Fred’s sculptures look like,” Janet replied.

“Maybe they’re
both really famous and we just don’t
realise
it,”
Joan said.

“Maybe,” Janet
said doubtfully.
 
“At least it will
make us feel better to think that,” she added.

“They paid
cash in advance,” Joan told her.
 
“Just in case you were wondering.”

“I was,
rather,” Janet admitted.
 

It was a
couple of hours later when they heard footsteps on the stairs.
 
Molly wandered down to where the sisters
were reading in the sitting room.

“Where’s
Fred?” she asked, sounding disoriented.

“He’s watching
telly
,” Janet told her.
 
She showed the woman into the next room,
and Molly sank down next to her husband on the long sofa.

“We should go
out,” Fred said, glancing at Molly.
 
“I’m hungry.”

“I’m not,”
Molly replied with a yawn.
 
“I’d
rather just stay here and watch
telly
.”

Janet excused
herself and returned to her book.
 
A
few minutes later the couple emerged.
 

“Where can we
get a quick meal?” Fred demanded.

Joan gave him
directions to the nearest café.
 
As
soon as the guests were gone, she started making dinner for herself and
Janet.
 
They were still eating when
they heard the front door open.

“I’ll go, you
eat,” Janet told Joan.

“We’re back,”
Molly said brightly as Janet walked into the sitting room.

“If you’re in
for the night, I’ll put the chain on the door,” Janet said.

“I don’t think
we’re going anywhere else tonight,” Fred replied.
 
“We’re just going to watch some
telly
and relax.”

Several hours
later Janet insisted that Joan head to bed.
 
“I’ll wait up in case the guests need
anything,” she said.
 
Janet was
surprised when Joan actually agreed.
 
Clearly her sister was exhausted.

After another
hour, Janet decided to check on the
Nicholsons
.
 
In the lounge, Fred and Molly were both
fast asleep.
 
Molly was snoring
gently.
 
Janet considered her
options and then sighed.
 
She’d have
to wake them.

She picked up
the remote from the floor.
 
It must
have fallen out of Fred’s hand.
 
After switching off the
telly
, she knocked
loudly on the door.
 
The guests both
sat up quickly.

“Good
evening,” Janet said.
 
“I wanted to
make sure you were both okay and found you asleep.
 
Surely you’ll be more comfortable
upstairs.”

“I wasn’t
sleeping,” Fred said grumpily.
 
“I was
watching
telly
.”
 
He glanced at the now black screen and frowned.

“It was a long
day,” Molly said.
 
“The drive took
ages.”

“Yes, well,
why don’t you both head up to bed?” Janet suggested.
 

“Yes, let’s,”
Molly said.
 
She got to her feet.

“I wanted to watch
the rest of the
programme
,” Fred protested as Molly
pulled him up.
 

“It’s probably
finished,” Molly said.
 
“Let’s get
some sleep.”

Janet took a
moment to tidy the lounge behind them, hoping they’d be tucked up in their room
before she got upstairs.
 
Their
bedroom door was just closing as Janet reached the top step.
 
She let herself into her room with a
sigh of relief.
 
Having guests was a
strange mix of excitement, tension, stress and chaos.
 
She wasn’t sure whether she liked it or
not.

Chapter
Nine

Janet was up,
showered, dressed and ready to help her sister make breakfast before eight the
next morning.
 

“They said
they’d probably be up around nine,” Joan reminded her as Janet paced around the
kitchen.
 
“You should have slept
later.”

“I will tomorrow,”
Janet said.
 
“Except they’ll
probably be up early tomorrow.”

It was nearly
half nine when the couple came down the stairs.

“Full English
breakfast?” Joan asked them when they appeared in the kitchen doorway.

“Oh, I just
wanted coffee and maybe some toast,” Molly replied.

“We’re
vegetarian,” Fred said.

“An omelet?”
Joan suggested.

“I know some vegetarians
eat eggs, but we don’t,” Fred told her.
 

“Beans over
toast?” Janet asked.

“Just toast is
fine,” he replied.
 
“And lots and
lots of coffee.”

Joan nodded.
 
She’d made coffee earlier; now she
poured some into mugs for the guests.
 
Janet got busy at the toaster, filling two toast racks as quickly as she
could.

“I have
several jams and marmalades.
 
What
do you prefer?” Joan asked.

“Nothing for
me, thanks,” Molly said.
 
She took a
bite of her dry toast and washed it down with coffee.
 
“This is good.”

“I’m fine as
well,” Fred said.
 

Joan set a
fresh pot of coffee brewing.
 
After
a moment Janet excused herself.
 
There was no point in her watching the couple eat and nothing she could
do to help Joan with the coffee.
 
She made her way to the library and pulled the books away from the panel
they’d not managed to open.
 
For
several minutes she worked on sliding it in every direction, but it simply
wouldn’t budge.
 
When she heard
movement in the sitting room, she put the books back and locked up the library.

“They’ve gone
for the day?” she asked Joan, who was just shutting the front door.

“Yes, off to
soak up inspiration from the dales, I gather.”

“If all they’re
going to want is toast and coffee every day, breakfast will be easy,” Janet
remarked.

“Indeed,” Joan
said.
 
“Easy and boring.”

Janet
grinned.
 
“You can make me an omelet
every morning, if you get bored.”

Joan
laughed.
 
“I’m not that bored,” she
replied.

Back in the
kitchen, it only took a moment for them to tidy up.
 

“Maybe we
should get some different types of bread,” Janet said thoughtfully.
 
“If that’s all they’re going to eat.”

“That isn’t a
bad idea,” Joan replied.

They headed to
the closest grocery store, and Janet selected several different loaves of bread
while Joan picked up a few other little things.

“That’s quite
a collection,” Joan said when she rejoined Janet.

“There were so
many different choices and they all looked and smelled wonderful,” Janet
replied.
 
“I got a little carried
away.”

“Let’s just
hope Mr. and Mrs. Nicholson like a bit of variety,” Joan said.

As they drove
slowly through
Doveby
Dale, Janet suddenly pulled
into the car park for the small row of shops.

“Did we need
something here?” Joan asked.

“I thought we
could see if the chemist is open,” Janet replied.
 
“And maybe meet Matthew Rogers.”

“I’m glad your
brain is working,” Joan said.
 
“I’ve
been so preoccupied with worrying about our guests that I forgot all about
Michael’s little problem.”

Janet knew
that wasn’t strictly true.
 
Even
when Joan was fussing over the guests, she had been preoccupied.
 

They made
their way along the pavement and Janet was happy to see that the shop was open
when they arrived.
 
A soft buzzer
sounded as they made their way through the door.
 
After a moment a man walked out from the
back of the store to greet them.

“Good morning,
ladies, although it might be afternoon by now.
 
I’ve rather lost track,” he said with a
bright smile.

Janet smiled
back.
 
The man was younger than
she’d expected, probably in his thirties, with blond hair and blue eyes.
 
If she’d been thirty years younger, she might
have found him attractive.
 

“What can I
help you with today?” he asked.

Joan looked at
Janet and Janet found herself caught in the same lie yet again.

“I just need
some headache tablets,” she said.

She heard Joan
smother a laugh as the young man turned and showed her to the appropriate
display.
 
As Janet followed, she
glanced around and wondered to herself why she hadn’t requested any one of the
thousands of other products in the shop.
 
She shook her head at her own stupidity as she walked past facial
tissues, cosmetics, shampoo, soap, and the myriad of other things such stores
carried.
 
In front of the tablets, she
made the same choice she always made.
 

“We tried to
stop in last week, but you were shut,” Joan said as the man rang up Janet’s
tablets.

“We had a
small staffing issue,” the man replied.

“Oh, really?”
Joan remarked.
 
“We were quite used
to Mr. Carter.
 
He always took good
care of us.
 
I do hope he’s okay.”

“He needed a
bit of surgery, that’s all,” the man replied.
 
“He should be back in another month or
so.”

“And will you
be here until he returns?” Joan asked.

Janet looked
over at her sister, feeling slightly stunned.
 
All this chattiness was very out of
character.
 
Joan was
focussed
in the man behind the counter.

“I should be,
yes,” the man said.
 
“I’m Matthew
Rogers, and I’ve been sent from the head office to cover for Mr. Carter until
he’s well enough to return to work.”

“There have
been ever so many different people in here,” Joan said in a confiding
tone.
 
“It’s quite disconcerting to
find a new man here every time we come in.”

“Yes, well,
that’s why I’m here,” Matthew said soothingly.
 
“I shall be in place for the foreseeable
future.”

“I’m quite
sure the man who was here last week gave me some rather bad advice,” Joan
said.
 
“I had a cold, you see, and
he suggested some sort of over-the-counter medicine that didn’t help in the
slightest.”

“I am sorry,”
Matthew said smoothly.
 
“Head office
is aware that the coverage in this shop hasn’t been the best.
 
Again, that’s one of the reasons that
I’m here.”

Joan
nodded.
 
“Well, we’ll look forward
to seeing you again,” she said.
 
“Ready?” she asked Janet.

Janet picked
up her bag and nodded.
 
She quietly
followed her sister out of the store.
 
When they were back at the car, she finally had to speak.

“What just
happened?” she asked Joan.

Joan
flushed.
 
“I don’t know what got
into me,” she said, a bit sheepishly.
 
“I just started talking and I couldn’t help myself.
 
I think I’m just so eager to help poor
Michael that I got carried away.”

“Well, you did
very well,” Janet said.
 
“I don’t
think we learned anything, but it was interesting watching how the man reacted to
the questions.”

“He seemed
like a very pleasant young man,” Joan said.

“He did,”
Janet agreed.
 
“But that leaves us
without any suspects at all.”

Joan
nodded.
 
“Yes, I
realise
that,” she said, sighing.

“But what’s
going on now?” Janet asked.
 
They’d
been standing next to their car, talking, and Janet could still see the front
of the chemist shop.
 
She watched as
Matthew walked out of the shop.
 
He
looked up and down the street and then went back inside.
 

“It looks as
if he’s locking the door,” Joan whispered.

“And he’s
turned off the open sign,” Janet said.
 
“Maybe it’s time for his lunch break?”

“I think he’s
up to something,” Joan said.
 
“Come
on.”

Joan walked
off quickly, leaving Janet to catch up.
 
“Where are we going?” Janet demanded.

“To see what’s
happening,” Joan told her.
 

Janet shook
her head.
 
Her sister was behaving
entirely out of character.
 
Joan
slowed her steps as they walked past the shop.
 
The sign on the door now read “closed,”
with no note of explanation.
 
Joan
kept walking, past the shop and then down past William Chalmers’s antique
store.
 
There was a small,
single-lane road after that, which appeared to turn and run behind the row of
shops.

“Let’s go,”
Joan whispered, pulling Janet along the road.

Janet was
about to object, but stopped herself.
 
There was no way she wanted to start being the sensible sister.
 
That was Joan’s job.
 
If Joan wanted to start being more
adventurous, Janet was going to simply go along.

The road was
more of a narrow lane with small parking spaces for each store.
 
The first door along the back of the
building had a small sign that read “WTC Antiques.”
 

“It should be
the next door, then,” Joan hissed.

They crept
forward slowly, with Janet hoping that Joan knew what she was doing.
 
Janet didn’t have a clue.

There was a
low wall that separated the space between the shops.
 
It was no more than three feet tall and
about ten feet long.
 
Now Joan
ducked behind it.
 
Janet rolled her
eyes and then joined her sister, wincing as she crouched down.

“Now what?”
Janet demanded.

“I don’t
know,” Joan whispered.
 
“I just
wanted to see what Matthew is doing.”

“He’s probably
sitting in the back room, eating his lunch,” Janet said.
 

Before Joan
replied, the door at the back of the chemist shop swung open.
 
Janet gasped, earning a stern look from
Joan.
 

“Of course I
still love you,” Matthew was saying.
 
As he emerged from the doorway, Janet could see the mobile phone in his
hand.

“I’m just
stuck up in
Doveby
Dale, otherwise I’d be there for
your birthday.
 
You know that,” he
said.

Matthew lit a
cigarette and inhaled deeply.
 
“We
can celebrate in a few weeks,” he said.
 
“I’ll buy you something really special to make it up to you.”

The sisters
watched as he finished the call and then punched in another number.
 
“Hey, I got your message.
 
What’s wrong?”

A second
cigarette was lit from the first as he listened.
 
“Ah, honey, you know me better than
that,” he said after a while.
 
“I’m
stuck in
Doveby
Dale, working, otherwise I’d be there
to go with you to your cousin’s wedding.
 
You know I love you.”

Janet looked
at Joan and they both shook their heads.
 
As Matthew paced back and forth, talking and smoking, Janet felt her leg
muscles begin to cramp.
 
After
another minute, the smoke that was slowly filling the small lane began to make
her nose tickle.
 

“I need to
move,” she hissed at Joan.

Joan shook her
head.

“I’m going to
sneeze,” Janet said, struggling to control her nose.

Joan rolled
her eyes and then went back to watching Matthew.
 
He hung up from the call and punched in
another number.

“Hey, baby,”
he said in a sexy voice.
 
“I was
thinking of you all morning.”
 
He
turned his back and then walked back into the store.
 
The moment he disappeared, Janet jumped
up and began to walk back the way they’d come.
 
Joan followed.

They’d only
gone a couple of steps when they heard Matthew’s voice again.
 
Janet glanced back.
 
She could just see him standing in the
doorway of the shop.
 
Suddenly the
distance between them and the end of the row of shops seemed enormous.
 
They were going to get caught.
 
Janet just hoped that Joan had an
explanation ready when the man spotted them.

Joan grabbed
Janet’s arm and then pulled her towards the building.
 
They heard Matthew still talking on his
phone as Joan tried the handle on the back door to the antique shop.
 
A moment later the sisters were staring
at a very surprised-looking William Chalmers.