Free Shallow Be Thy Grave by A. J. Taft Page B

wife died.” She lowered her voice although Lily was pretty sure there wasn’t anyone else in the house. “He’s a bit of a tyrant. I keep trying to put it down to a broken heart. Insists on having the-”
    “So you can’t help us?” interrupted Lily. Grace’s mention of dead relatives reminded her of the reason they were trying to track Fiona down. She watched Grace select the programme on the washing machine and push the start button. “We really need to get hold of Fi. Her granddad’s died.”
    “Oh.” Grace straightened up and her hand went to her throat. “There’s me blathering on again. She’ll be really upset. Oh, course, he’s your granddad too.” She fixed Lily with a look of sympathy. “I’m sorry.”
    Lily shrugged off the apology. She didn’t want to be reminded of her involvement in the family, because that would lead to other thoughts, thoughts she didn’t want to acknowledge right now. “We need to find Fi.”
    “Oh blimey. All I know is they were going to Amsterdam first.”
    “But she told her dad she was looking forward to getting a sun tan,” said Lily. “It’s not sunny in Amsterdam.” Lily paused and said with a little less certainty. “Is it?”
    Grace flicked the switch on the side of the kettle. “Do you want a cup of tea? Kettle’s just boiled. My mum sends Yorkshire tea bags over. And there’s gateau. Or pain au chocolat?”
    “Why Amsterdam?” asked Jo. “I mean, apart from the obvious.”
    “Brigitte’s got them a job there.”
     “Why would she tell her dad she was heading south?”
    “I don’t know. I think the plan is they’ll go to places like Portugal or Spain, once they’ve earned some cash, and the tourist season gets under way. Maybe she didn’t want him to worry.”
    “What do you mean worry?” asked Lily.
    “Well, you know, Amsterdam, it’s a,” she searched for the right word, “a vibrant city.”
    “When did you last actually see Fiona?” said Jo, sitting down at the table and pulling her notebook out of her bag.
    “Last week, a couple of days before they set off.”
    “When exactly last week?”
     “It must have been,” Grace glanced at a long, thin calendar that was tacked to the wall, “the 3rd.  A week ago today. Thursdays are my morning off, although,” she glanced at the mountain of clothes, “you wouldn’t always notice.”
    “And how was she? I mean, how did she seem?” asked Lily.
    “Good,” Grace paused for a moment as if thinking for exactly the right words. “A bit distracted. It was all a bit last-minute.”
    “She rang me,” said Lily as Jo scribbled things down. “Thursday night. She left a message, sounded really upset. Do you know why?”
    Grace looked puzzled. “No. Maybe she was sad to be leaving Paris? I mean she’s got,” there was a slight pause, barely noticeable, but Lily heard it, “friends here.”
    “When was she going?” asked Jo. “To Amsterdam, I mean?”
    “The Saturday. They’d booked their train tickets. She showed them to me.”
    Jo opened her notebook. “So Saturday, 5 th May.” She wrote something down. “Ok, well we’re getting somewhere. Do you know whereabouts in Amsterdam?”
    “Brigitte’s got friends over there, a guy called Frank.”
    “Frank.” Jo wrote it down in her notebook and then sucked thoughtfully on the end of her pen.
     “Ok, so Amsterdam,” said Lily, trying to catch up with the sequence of events. “Do you know where they’re staying?”
    “No,” Grace raised her index finger up in the air, like Lily had scored a point. “And that’s the weird thing, because she promised she’d ring me as soon as they got there and got settled. They should have got there by Sunday.”
    The feeling of gnawing anxiety returned to Lily’s stomach.
    “Brigitte’d got them a job in a café. Choice Exact.” She shrugged and looked at them both. “I thought it was a weird name for a café.”
    Lily glanced across to Jo. “We’ll have to go.”
    Jo