Page 114 of The Little Flower Shop By the Sea
Miley and I stand calmly on Caroline’s doorstep and ring the bell.
Johnny answers again. He’s holding a large glass of red wine.
‘Good evening, Johnny,’ I say in my best polite voice, trying not to look at the wine. ‘I’d like to speak with Caroline if I may?’
‘Er… she’s with someone right now,’ Johnny says, looking hastily behind him.
‘That’s OK,’ I say, walking straight past him into the hall. ‘I can wait.’
‘Johnny, whatisgoing on out there?’ Caroline calls, appearing from a room to the left of their large hallway. ‘Do we have another guest? Oh, it’s you, Poppy,’ she says, and her smiling face immediately tightens into a scowl.
Jake follows her into the hall.
‘Poppy,’ he says, acknowledging me as Miley scampers across the floor from my arms to his. ‘What are you doing here?’ He gives me a meaningful look.
‘Has she given you your picture back yet?’ I ask calmly.
‘Actually I was just about to go and get it for Jake.’ Caroline looks between the two of us suspiciously. ‘But now I’m not so sure…’
Jake pulls a face that suggests by charging in unnecessarily, I’ve messed everything up.
‘Oh, you’ll get it for him all right,’ I say, my voice much calmer than I feel. ‘And you’ll fetch Lou’s picture of the sweet pea, and Stan’s picture of the forget-me-not while you’re at it. And,’ I say before Caroline can interrupt, ‘the letter from Queen Victoria too.’
Caroline’s face gives nothing away.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ she says, glancing quickly at Johnny.
‘Oh, I think you do. You see I found your homemade cellar in your garden just now, with a little help from Miley.’ I wink at her, sitting happily on Jake’s shoulder again.
‘So? We’re allowed the odd glass of wine, aren’t we?’ Caroline lets out a nervous laugh. ‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘Nothing, nothing at all, if the wine you’re drinking hasn’t been stolen from someone else’s cellar!’
‘Johnny, remove this…personfrom my house!’ Caroline waves her hand limply in my direction. ‘I don’t need to stand here listening to these ludicrous accusations. I have more important things to do with my time.’
‘Like steal pictures? Yes, we know,’ I say as Johnny looks at me but doesn’t make a move. ‘I’ve seen the wine in your pretend cellar, Caroline. It’s Trecarlan’s wine. And we both know how I know that, don’t we?’
‘Johnny!’ Caroline shrieks suddenly, making Miley jump with fright and hide in Jake’s arms. ‘I told you to change the labels, but oh no, you said no one would ever see them!’
‘Would someone please tell me exactly what is going on here?’ Jake asks.
Caroline turns away with her arms folded while a shamefaced Johnny stands looking like he always does – good for nothing.
‘Seems it’s down to me to explain then,’ I say, eyeing them with contempt. ‘Now, where to begin… How about we start with the fact you stole bottles of vintage wine from the cellar at Trecarlan Castle, bottles that had their own unique Trecarlan labels attached to them, and you began doing this when you found yourself, as chair of the Parish Council, left in charge of the house?’
Caroline doesn’t flinch, but Johnny drops his eyes and stares intently at a threadbare patch on the carpet.
‘Or how about when you were down in the cellar, stealing the wine, you just happened to find a package containing an embroidered picture of a forget-me-not, together with a letter from Queen Victoria, which you realised on further investigation might be worth rather a lot of money, if you could only find the other three pictures in the set?’
I wait for a response from Caroline this time. She scowls, but says nothing.
‘OK… how about when you spoke to a few of the more – how can I put this kindly –gossipyolder members of the Women’s Guild, you found out what might have happened to the other pictures, and that they might still be in the vicinity. But when you started your search you couldn’t even find the one you knew was most likely to still be in St Felix… the one that belonged to my grandmother.’
Caroline twitches slightly, but still doesn’t speak.
‘You looked, Caroline, didn’t you? You looked hard to begin with. That’s why you lost interest in the shop after a while and let the other ladies of the Guild take over and run it, because you couldn’t find what you wanted in there. In fact, I think you gave up looking for the pictures altogether for a while, until you happened to be in Lou’s house one day and saw her picture, isn’t that right?’
Caroline turns and glowers at me, but she still won’t say anything to incriminate herself, so I continue:
