Shadow Over Edmund Street by Suzanne Frankham (best e reader for android .txt) 📗

shop where she’d worked. Julie. No, Juliana. Juliana Fabbiano. She was sure Edwina had said the two of them had been to school together. She was the person who would know.

* Rose paced along the main street of the shopping centre, stopped outside the bookstore, her attention caught by an enormous poster of a Klingon—big and strong with evil in his eyes. Courage, she thought. She needed courage. The courage to barge into Fabbiano’s and voice her worries. To voice the idea that had consumed her for three days. It sounded so senseless, spoken aloud. She’d tried it at home, ‘Edwina bought the house for some weird reason, and in doing so, set in motion a chain of events ending in her murder.’

The conviction that she was right had grown, not diminished in the time she’d held it close. Now it was time to test the theory, put it out in the open, see what someone else thought.

She forced herself to cross the street, enter the shop. ‘Is Juliana around?’ she asked the man at the counter. A barrel of a man. Short and stocky. She tried to sound casual. Hoped it worked.

‘I’ll find her,’ he said.

‘Thanks.’

‘Hello. Did you want to see me?’ a woman asked, a few moments later.

Rose turned. Stared. Thought it couldn’t possibly be true, that this woman and Edwina were friends. Dumpy Edwina and this luscious-looking woman with wavy black hair held back over one ear with a purple clip. Her eyes outlined in black and lips painted scarlet.

Rose pulled herself together, her rehearsed speech forgotten.

‘Sorry. I’m Rose Jones. Are you Juliana Fabbiano?’

‘Fabbiano was my maiden name. Did you say your name was Rose?’

‘Yes. I know this is a bit strange, but I was a friend of Edwina’s and you, I believe, went to school with her?’

It was funny, thought Rose, as if she was watching the scene from a distance, that the mention of Edwina’s name was like dropping a stone in a pond. A heavy stone. The ripples were small to begin with, then large, untidy and unpredictable.

Juliana’s face showed a passage of emotions ending with wariness. ‘Yes, I know the name now. Rose. You were the Rose Edwina met. The one who …’ she stopped uncertain. ‘Yes, you were at the funeral. I remember seeing you there.’

‘Oh …’ Rose tried to stop the shock she felt from dancing across her face. How could she not have noticed this woman at the funeral? ‘I wondered if I could have a word with you, about Edwina?’

‘About her murder you mean?’

Rose nodded.

Juliana gave Rose the once over. Top to bottom. Then made her decision.

‘Joe,’ she called to the man at the back of the shop, ‘I’m going out for a while. Keep an eye on things, will you?’

‘Sure,’ he said, as he kept working, arranging red peppers in a basket.

‘Okay, Ms Rose Jones, let’s hear what you have to say. You can take me for a coffee at Jack’s Place.’

‘Jack’s Place? I will, if you tell me where it is.’

Juliana shook her head. ‘Newcomers. Follow me. I’ll lead

the way.’

* Jack’s Place turned out to be a bar, café and restaurant all in one, above the bookstore opposite. Rose wondered how many times she had walked past the narrow staircase winding to the top floor from the street below, and not noticed it. The room was dark, reeking of the sixties. The walls were painted a deep maroon and covered with mirrors and paintings reminiscent of a brothel scene from a movie. Persian rugs were scattered over the floorboards. Leather booths angled away from each other gave a sense of secrecy—discretion.

‘I can watch the shop from here,’ Juliana said as she slid into a booth next to the window. ‘Run back if it gets too busy.’ She waited until the coffees arrived, and she had arranged her skirt, her bag and herself before broaching the subject. ‘I have to be honest and say I was curious to meet you. Edwina changed a lot after she got to know you.’ Her words held a challenge. ‘Not in a bad way, I’m not saying you were a bad influence, but it was a

huge change.’

Rose held up her hands in supplication. ‘Not me, I swear. It was the exercise class, the raffle she won that kick-started

everything.’

Juliana took a sip of her coffee, signalled the waitress, ordered a piece of lemon pie. ‘The exercise class might have been the start of it. Some people might think so. But for me it was the hairstyle. I couldn’t believe it when she came back with a new hairstyle. Lost the perm. That godawful perm. I thought she had curly hair. I’d forgotten her hair was straight with a touch of natural wave. Quite pretty in fact.’

‘Oh yes, the hair.’ Rose grimaced. ‘You’re right. The change was extraordinary. Unbelievable, in fact. She was so sad. It was impulsive of me but it was her birthday and she needed a treat.’

‘She told me what you did. It was kind of you. It started a whole new chapter in her life.’

Rose felt the temperature thaw, relaxed and decided it was time to plunge ahead. She took a sip of her latte. ‘The reason I wanted to talk to you, well, the reason I’m here, the police you know, they asked me to try and think of anything unusual that had happened to Edwina.’

‘Yes. Same with me. I told them the last three years had been unusual. She was breaking the mould left, right and centre.’

Rose smiled. ‘I know. But I had this idea,’ she felt herself wavering, ‘well, more a conviction.’

‘Spit it out, girl. What do you think was odd?’

‘Odd? Okay, I think it was damn odd she bought that house. She told me, you see … she told me her friend used to live there, but her friend died. Said there was something she should have done a long time ago.’

‘Did she indeed?’ Juliana whispered.

‘Yes. It seemed weird to me. I mean,