Charity Shop Haunted Mysteries Read online

  Charity Shop Haunted Mysteries Books 1 - 3

  Pinetar Township Boxset One

  Katherine Hayton

  Copyright © 2019 Katherine Hayton

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Cover Design by kathay1973

  Contents

  Mrs Pettigrew Sees a Ghost

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Mr Wilmott Gets Old School

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Miss Hawthorne Sits for a Spell

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Also by Katherine Hayton

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Emily Curtis ducked her head as Pete Galveston led her out of the storefront into a narrow corridor out the back. The charity shop building was old, from the turn of the century, and people must have been shorter at the time. She was only five foot five, but the ceiling felt dangerously close to the top of her head.

  “You’re okay with stairs?” Pete turned with a frown of concern on his face, making Emily feel about a hundred years old.

  “I’m fine with them,” she insisted, waving him forward. “Not a problem.”

  The reply came easily to her lips, but it was a lie. Everything she used to do without giving a second thought now presented a problem. Just the short walk from the car to the charity shop door had set off an ache deep in her right hip. By the end of the day, the dull pain would grow into a set of teeth, gnawing on her bones.

  But Emily had never been one to burden someone else with her problems.

  “How long have you worked here?” she asked, trying not to breathe too heavily as she navigated the steep staircase. “I don’t remember the store from the last time I was in town.”

  Pete gave a short bark of laughter. “Then you haven’t been in town for a long time. I’ve been working here for eight years but it was around long before that.” He pulled at the rainbow-coloured suspenders holding up his dark crimson jeans. “We’ve been on the main street all that time.”

  Emily shrugged an apology and Pete unlocked the door at the top of the stairs, opening it to reveal a flurry of dust particles dancing in a beam of sunlight. “Here we are.”

  Where the downstairs held the scents of damp wool and old leather-bound books, upstairs the room smelled of patchouli and lavender. Perhaps Pete noticed the wrinkle of Emily’s nose because he gave another of his strange laughs. “It’s from incense. The last woman we had working up here enjoyed lighting a cone every other day.”

  Emily nodded as she edged into the room, taking everything in slowly. Since the car accident, her eyes weren’t as reliable as they’d once been. Nothing was. She looked at every item, fixing on the odds and ends until they formed into a complete picture.

  The sunlight streamed in from a dormer window, cut into the slope of the roof. Old wooden floorboards, worn free of varnish, were set with gaps between them wide enough to lose a coin. A coatstand lurked in the corner of the room. Plastic supermarket bags stuffed full of old clothing and knick-knacks hung from each bronze hook, the sheen of metal lost to greening.

  Elsewhere, boxes took up most of the space. Cardboard boxes held together with brown masking tape sat atop wooden crates. Heavy plastic containers rested on the floor, sitting cheek to jowl with rusted metal trunks.

  An elegantly carved wooden chest caught Emily’s attention, and she ventured forward, caressing the chestnut protected with a sheen of varnish. Beautiful.

  “That came in this morning,” Pete said with a nod. “You’ll need to go out to the house today to collect the rest of the belongings. We like to make a move on these things quickly. Otherwise, it distresses the family and they might change their minds.”

  “Will there be much more?” Emily turned a concerned glance in his direction. “I’ve only got a Suzuki hatchback.” Once upon a time, she’d had a snazzy BMW Boxster with even less space than now. She’d traded down, taking part of the insurance in a cash settlement. The thought of her old car raised a lump in her throat for more reasons than one.

  “The housekeeper assured me it was just another few boxes. You can always make a couple of trips if there’s too many.”

  She nodded, forcing a smile to her lips to hide her worry over what that short sentence might mean. Her hip gave another dull groan, reminding her of the new physical limitations.

  “Did they give you a preferred time?”

  “Here,” he held out a small card. “I’ve written it all down for you.”

  Emily hesitated, blushing at her impediment. “Did the agency tell you I have limitations?”

  “Oh, right.” Pete put the note back in his pocket. “Sorry, I forgot. The house is at the end of Barbell Lane—do you know the place?”

  “Is that the one that intersects beside the tearooms?”

  “That’s it. Follow it right down to the end, past the creek, and there’s a double-storied villa, red brick and ivy. That’s them. After ten o’clock, the housekeeper said.”

  “Okay.”

  “You shouldn’t feel embarrassed, you know. We’ve all got problems.” Pete ran his fingers through the four-inch beard, which sat below a bushy moustache—the twirled ends gleaming with wax. The extravagant facial hair didn’t cover the impact of his meth-damaged teeth. “I didn’t see myself ending up here, either. You have to do the best you can with what you have.”

  The bell from the front door of the charity shop tinkled, drawing Pete’s attention. “I’ll be back in a minute. Have a good look around.”

  He ran down the steps with an ease that made a lump rise in Emily’s t
hroat. In the long months since a truck broadsided her the intersection of Harewood and Greers Road, she’d often given in to self-pity. It wasn’t an attractive feature but as her injuries forced her to give up one thing after another, it was a habit she found hard to break.

  Her eyes caught their reflection in a tarnished mirror, suspended on an oak frame. The silver curls still took Emily by surprise, even though she’d removed her first white hair with a cry of disgust at twenty-seven. A good twenty-five years had passed since then.

  Somehow, the process of aging had taken place without drawing her attention. Now, she was an old woman. A useless old woman. Without thinking, her fingers crept up to her forehead to trace the puckered lines of her scar across her brow and down her cheek.

  With a shake of her head, Emily backed away and forced her thoughts back to the task in hand. She opened the wooden chest, searching for a distraction. On top of the items was an embroidered sachet. She raised it up to her nose, breathing in the aroma of sandalwood and vanilla.

  When she’d been a young girl, her mother made similar sachets for Emily to store in her underwear drawer. Like the wallpaper lining she’d replaced every springtime, it was a ritual that had disappeared over the years. Nostalgia rose in a bubble, tightening her chest.

  Underneath lay a set of napkins. The delicate needlework formed a different pattern on each, detailing a variety of forest wildlife in cream stitching on heavy cream fabric. The pieces were rolled and crimped as though recently removed from napkin holders.

  Emily supposed the holders must be far more expensive—sterling silver or gold leaf—but her heart wished she could see them. Even if it was only to take a glimpse before handing them back to the family.

  At the back of the chest was a painting. She pulled it out, having to insert her fingers along the front to remove it without jerking.

  Before Emily turned it over to verify the artist, she knew Maurice Detrere had painted the portrait. The precise brush strokes formed as much a part of his signature as the thumbprint and name scrawled on the back.

  “Found something interesting already?”

  Emily jumped. She’d been lost so deep in her own thoughts she’d missed Pete’s tread on the stairs. “This painting is by a good artist.” She turned it around for him to see. “It’s a pity it won’t fetch much at auction.”

  Her new job entailed searching through the deceased estates gifted to the charity shop and identifying and selling high-value items through private or public auction. Rather than pay a wage, the role granted her commission of ten percent on each successful sale.

  “Why not?” Pete moved closer, squinting at the woman’s image captured in the rich oils.

  “Portraits never do.” Emily stared at the painting, feeling a pang of loss. Maurice Detrere had captured an expression of quiet sadness enveloped in a strong dignity.

  A beautiful woman but unsatisfied.

  “They only mean something to the family or friends who knew the model, unless it’s the Mona Lisa. No matter how talented the artist, nobody wants to bid top dollar to have a stranger’s image hanging on their wall.”

  She looked back at the wooden chest. The other contents were kitchen or dining room items. As well as the embroidered napkins, there were enamel milk jugs, a china tea set, and a huge collection of crockery. The painting didn’t fit in with the other treasures.

  “I wonder if they intended for us to receive this.” Emily moved back to the chest, stroking along the handle of a striped teacup. “They might’ve placed it in here by accident.”

  “What about the gold frame?” Pete edged closer, his eyes still fixed on the painting. “Is that worth anything?”

  “No. It’s been replaced.” Emily held the picture out again, pointing to the line of discolouration along the backing. “I imagine the original was in keeping with the price of the commission, but this is just gold paint on wood. It doesn’t even fit.”

  Pete clapped his hands together. “Take it back, then. You can ask the family when you’re picking up the next load of stuff. We don’t need anything stored up here that won’t sell. It’s hard enough to turn over the goods we have downstairs as it is.”

  Emily nodded, leaning the painting against the side wall. It slid further down, the sudden movement making it appear as though the woman in the image had jumped. She gave it a hard stare, then readjusted it so the portrait faced the wall.

  “Good idea,” Pete said, moving over to a cardboard box with a determined expression on his face and a box cutter in his hand. “You don’t want someone looking at you while you’re trying to work.”

  Chapter Two

  Pinetar township might have gained a charity shop on its main street since Emily left as a teenager to attend university, but little else had changed. The road through the centre of town still didn’t present much of an obstacle for visitors or residents crossing against the lights. The tearooms still had an honesty box next to the till for when the manageress took her breaks.

  Best of all, the drive to the end of Barbell Road took Emily into the oldest part of town. Houses built at the turn of the century when Pinetar fancied itself an important trading post and rest stop on the long trek out of Christchurch.

  The old villas stretched out with long verandas built to take advantage of summer heat that didn’t get started until February, then was over in a snap. Grapevines weaved through the carved roof supports—a variety found throughout the Canterbury region with purple fruit, tart, and packed as much full of seeds as juice.

  Trees in this suburb—the streets wide enough to take a dual horse carriage and let it turn around without trouble—were well established and sourced straight from good old England. The colonialists who planted them had razed the native Kauri and Totara to make way for the imported Oaks and Weeping Willows. Given the median age at the time, the men must have died long before their handiwork bore fruit.

  The sturdier brick houses were lovely to look at and disastrous to use. Working from plans drawn up in a country on the other side of the world, in New Zealand they captured shadows instead of the sun, turning their residents paler and colder than the upper classes they’d left back home.

  Still, the addition of skylights and double glazing had taken care of those problems in recent decades. The heat pump vents might blemish the brickwork, but they drew the damp out of the wooden fittings and eradicated a century of endemic mould.

  Emily pulled the car up alongside the creek and walked over to the fence meant to protect little children from succumbing to its liquid embrace. As she leaned on the rickety edge, doubting it would stop an adventurous toddler, a cooling breeze lifted the grey curls away from her forehead.

  Watercress and weeds flourished along the sides of the creek bed. The trickle of water at the base of such luxuriousness was a disappointment. Only a surging river could have done the plenitude of greenery justice.

  A long time ago, she’d played on those banks during the long school break over summer. She’d placed her shoes on the footpath, socks rolled into balls inside, before charging down to sink her toes into the mud.

  The dim light piercing through the intertwining branches overhead had always felt like a shelter built especially for children. Under the lush foliage, you couldn’t hear your mother calling out to come and help her with supper or hang out the washing. Ignorance was the perfect excuse.

  For a brief second, Emily fought the urge to take her shoes off and plunge down the bank without delay. It was her hip rather than common sense that stopped her. A twinge as the muscle cried out for a better blood supply. Going downhill posed its own problems but it would be nothing compared to the Herculean effort of having to clamber back up to the roadside.

  “The time is ten o’clock,” Emily’s watch announced. Without the ability to read numbers or words any longer, robotic voices had become her steadfast companions.

  It was a short walk to the front door, then she hesitated, steeling herself for the grief that would be wri
tten over the family’s faces. A husband and son, Pete had told her, along with a gardener and housekeeper who’d been with them for decades.

  Emily pressed a hand against her stomach to steady it, then knocked on the door. Enough time passed that she was about to try again when footsteps approached. A woman answered her knock, aged in her sixties, grey hair pulled back in a bun.

  “Hello,” Emily said with a compassionate smile, “I’m from the charity shop. I’ve come to collect the rest of Mrs Pettigrew’s belongings.”

  The woman gave a curt nod and stepped back, waving Emily indoors. “They’re all packed up, ready to go. Through here.”

  She led the way to a side room, which looked to be a storeroom judging from the dimness, the swollen creak of the door, and the dust. A trail marked where the chest already delivered to the shop had been dragged, twin lines showing where the rounded feet had touched the floor.