by Fiona Leitch
I checked the clock; we were bang on schedule, despite me being waylaid earlier by the worried bridegroom. I hoped he was just panicking and that everything was back on track. Surely nothing could stop this wedding now? And surely that blasted dog, which was still barking somewhere out in the hotel gardens, would shut up soon?
Both my questions were answered by a high-pitched, hysterical scream from just the other side of the window.
Chapter Four
All three of us flew out of the kitchen and into the service yard which backed onto the business end of the hotel. We followed the screams, which had subsided into panicky cries for help, around the corner of the building and out into the grounds. Over towards the fishpond, where only last night I had sat talking to Mel, a small crowd of hotel staff and guests was beginning to gather.
Tony, half-dressed in his morning suit, arrived at the same time as us.
‘What the bloody hell’s going on?’ he said.
‘I don’t know,’ I said, a horrible feeling starting to form in the pit of my stomach. Whatever was happening, it obviously wasn’t good. ‘Have you heard from Cheryl?’
He looked at me, his mouth open in shock. ‘No. You don’t think…?’ We turned to the crowd.
‘Let me through!’ I said, with enough authority that the crowd had already parted before they realised I was just the caterer.
The dog had finally stopped barking but was still there, whining softly as a shocked early wedding guest – Tony’s mum, Brenda – patted its head absentmindedly.
‘Who is it?’ Tony roughly pushed a woman in a big, stupid hat out of the way. ‘Is it … is it Cheryl?’
‘No,’ I said. Even if I hadn’t recognised the dog, the bleached-blonde crop was a dead giveaway.
Mel – ex-Mrs Penhaligon, tanker driver, and erstwhile wedding-crasher – lay on the ground, the peroxide hair matted with blood, her skin cold and pale, and her eyes lifeless. I thought at first that she’d hit her head on the bench we’d sat on the night before – much of the blood seemed to come from a wound at the back of her head, and it was pooled on the ground beneath – but there was another wound, caked with dark-red blood, on her forehead. Falling over and hitting your head twice, once on the back and then at the front, seemed pretty unlikely and would’ve taken some doing, meaning someone had done this to her. Germaine, faithful to the last, must’ve stood guard over her mistress’s body for hours, barking in the vain hope that someone would come. But they’d come too late.
‘Thank God,’ Tony burst out, then realised what he’d said. ‘Not that Mel’s dead, that Cheryl—’ He stopped, overcome with emotion, and sank to the ground next to his ex-wife’s body.
The next hour was a blur. The hotel manager, Mr Bloom, was called into the grounds. He was a well-groomed, fastidious little man; he reminded me of Hercule Poirot, if the Belgian detective had neglected the little grey cells and gone into the hospitality business instead. Bloom took one look at the corpse and swayed violently, and for a moment I thought we’d have another body laid out next to poor Mel, but he rallied magnificently, if somewhat effeminately, and organised his staff with the efficiency of a general going into battle.
The hotel and wedding guests were herded into a function room – not the one we’d used last night, which overlooked the gardens, but one on the other side of the building which was rarely used as it afforded a not-so-lovely view of the car park and long driveway. Tea, coffee, and the odd nip of something stronger were offered around to calm nerves as the police were called, and velvet ropes, which were normally used to cordon off wedding ceremonies in the garden, were press-ganged into use in place of police incident tape.
I corralled Daisy and Mum back into the kitchen before either of them could get a look at Mel’s body. I could see that Daisy was a bit peeved at missing out on the spectacle, but there is such a thing as being too young to see such an upsetting, grisly sight. Poor Mel.
I set my sous chefs back to work preparing the vol-au-vents and throwing together some canapés. I didn’t imagine that the wedding would still go ahead, even if Cheryl showed up, but there was a room full of guests next door, all of whom were in varying degrees of shock, excitement, or titillation. Nibbles are always good for calming people down and it’s hard to gossip or speculate when your mouth is full of prawn cocktail.
I found Tony sitting alone in the hotel dining room, which had been beautifully laid out by the hotel staff for the wedding banquet. The wedding cake, a magnificent five-tiered creation decorated in crisp white icing and purple sugar-paste flowers, had pride of place on a table at the back of the room, next to the head table. Tony hastily dried his eyes as I approached and sat down next to him.
‘Mum’s having a lie down,’ he said. ‘Dad’s keeping an eye on her. It’s given them both a bit of a turn. I forget sometimes that they’re getting on.’
‘Are you okay?’ I asked, although I could see he wasn’t. ‘Have you got hold of Cheryl yet?’
‘No.’ He stood up and strode to the window, looking out into the garden as if searching for his erstwhile fiancée. ‘Where the hell is she? I’m going out of my mind. What if—’ He stopped, not wanting to say it, so I said it for him.
‘What if Mel isn’t the only victim?’
He whirled round to look at me. ‘You don’t think something’s happened to her, do you? You said she was just suffering from last-minute nerves.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said simply. Another alternative had occurred to me, but I wasn’t sure how he’d take it. ‘There are three possible scenarios, as far as I can see. One, she’s done a runner.’ I held my hand up to stop him talking. ‘Whether that’s because she’s changed her mind and she’s not coming back, or she’s just gone to clear her head, I don’t know. Two, whoever killed Mel didn’t stop at just one victim.’ Tony shuddered, turning away from me to look out of the window again. ‘And three…’
‘Three?’
‘She killed Mel. And that’s why she left.’
My words hung in the air between us. Tony didn’t turn round but I could see the set of his shoulders had changed.
‘Tony.’ Through the window I saw two police cars arrive, lights flashing but no siren. They were followed closely by a van – the scene of crime guys, I guessed. Or the funeral home.
‘Tony, the police will ask you—’ I reached out and put my hand on his arm. He spun round to look at me and I was taken aback by the anger in his eyes. In all the years I’d known him, I’d never seen him look so furious; but then, how well did I know him these days? We’d been friends for a very long time and I’d always made sure to look him up when I came to visit my parents, but I hadn’t lived here for nearly twenty years and in that time the longest I’d spent in his company was the odd evening in the pub with a big group of old school chums.
I automatically took a step back. He stepped forward, closing the gap again.
‘How dare you say that!’ he hissed. ‘Cheryl would never do anything like that. You didn’t know her; you didn’t even like her—’
‘Didn’t? Or don’t?’ I didn’t like the way he was talking about her in the past tense. He looked confused for a moment, then shook his head.
‘Don’t twist my words! Bloody typical. Once a copper, always a copper.’
I stared at him, holding his furious gaze steadily, until his shoulders sagged and he dropped his eyes. He pulled out a dining chair and sat down heavily, knocking over an empty wine glass that had been set out on the table. He reached out to set the glass upright again, his hand shaking.
‘I just meant, she’s gone, hasn’t she? She’s not d— She can’t be. She’s left me. I hope.’ He laughed humourlessly. ‘It’s supposed to be my wedding day and I’m hoping my bride-to-be has jilted me at the altar.’
I pulled out the chair next to him and turned it around, sitting astride it to face him.
‘The police are here and they’ll want to talk to you,’ I said softly. ‘They’ll ask you about the argument be
tween Cheryl and Mel last night.’
‘I know.’ He reached out to fiddle with the dessert spoon on the table in front of him, twisting and tapping it on a side plate seemingly without realising what he was doing. Tap, tap, tap.
I took a deep breath. He might not like what I was going to say, but it was preferable for him to get angry with me rather than the police.
‘Mel made some … accusations against Cheryl,’ I said.
Tony looked at me anxiously. ‘What kind of accusations?’ he asked. Tap, tap, tap.
‘She said the Laity family were after your shop and that’s why she was marrying you.’
Tony dropped the spoon and looked at me for a second, then gave a short laugh.
‘Is that what she thought? Trust Mel to bark up the wrong tree.’
‘So there’s a right tree to bark up, is there?’
He picked up the spoon again but didn’t speak. I reached out and grabbed his hand before he started with the irritating tapping again.
‘You were expecting me to say something else then, weren’t you?’ I had this … this feeling that there was something Tony wasn’t telling me. ‘Is there something else? Something you’ve found out or thought of since this morning?’
He looked at me as if trying to decide whether or not to speak. He’d just opened his mouth when—
‘Mr Penhaligon?’
We turned to see a tall, fair-haired, and (it has to be said) absolutely gorgeous guy of about thirty-five standing in the doorway. He was square-jawed, oozed testosterone, and looked like he should be in a Hallmark movie wearing a lumberjack shirt and running a pumpkin farm somewhere in the Midwest. The mid-west of America, obviously. The mid-west of England would be Birmingham, which wasn’t known for either its romantic heroes or its cucurbit agriculture. Behind him I could see a couple of uniformed police officers talking to some guests who were loitering in the hotel foyer, along with what I assumed were more plain-clothed coppers.
Tony stood up. ‘Yes.’
‘I’m DCI Withers’ – Withers was not a good name for a Hallmark romantic hero, but you couldn’t have everything, I supposed – ‘and I’m leading the investigation into Mrs Penhaligon’s death.’
‘The ex-Mrs Penhaligon,’ said Tony sharply. I put my hand on his arm warningly.
‘I was under the impression she still went under that name?’ said Withers. Tony shrugged. I wanted to slap him; he was making himself look guilty – if not of murder, at the very least of being an unsympathetic, stroppy bugger.
‘She did. Poor Mel. Tony’s just upset,’ I said. ‘Understandably.’
Withers gave me an appropriately withering look up and down. ‘Who are you? The chef?’
‘Jodie Parker, ex-Metropolitan Police officer. I was based at Kennington.’
‘And now you’re a chef. Based in the kitchen.’
Arrogant git. ‘Yeah.’
He dismissed me. ‘Okay, someone will possibly want to talk to you at some point, so don’t leave. Mr Penhaligon, let’s you and me have a little chat about what happened last night…’
Chapter Five
I had no idea what else to do so I went back to the kitchen and started chopping apples with the biggest, sharpest knife I could find. And now you’re a chef. The implication being that I couldn’t hack it – I brought the knife down hard on an innocent Granny Smith – in the police force. Git. He had no idea why I’d left the force and no idea how much I missed it, despite loving spending more time with Daisy and being able to do something I enjoyed almost as much: cooking, or, at the moment, pulverising fruit into tiny pieces.
‘Everything okay, is it?’ Mum said carefully, exchanging wary looks with Daisy as I executed another apple and tossed the core aside. ‘Didn’t we need to peel them first?’
Ah crap. I stuck my knife in the wooden chopping board, ramming the pointy end into it and leaving the handle sticking up – the blade vibrating with a small but satisfying boing – and swept the apple pieces into a bowl.
‘Here.’ Daisy took the bowl from my hand and replaced it with a mug of tea, immediately making me smile and reflect on the fact that I really was lucky to have such a great life, regardless of what DCI Withers, with his clean-shaven but rugged jawline and his chiselled abs (which obviously I hadn’t seen but could imagine only too well), thought.
‘I brung you up proper, din’t I?’ I said, in my worst Cockney accent. She shrugged.
‘Put the kettle on, Daisy, and don’t ask questions,’ she said, and Mum and I laughed.
‘That’s my girl. Thank you.’
We stood around drinking tea for a while, not sure what to do. Was there any point in preparing the rest of the food? The wedding was due to take place in an hour and, as far as I was aware, there was still no sign of the bride. Plus, the ceremony was meant to be happening right next to a crime scene, which was not terribly conducive to romance and didn’t bode well for a happy marriage. If there is such a thing as a happy marriage, I thought cynically, but then I was off men – even (especially) good-looking detectives – so who was I to judge? And Cheryl must have heard about Mel by now; surely if she’d just changed her mind and bailed out of marrying Tony, she would at least have texted him to let him know she was okay? To my mind that left just two of those possible scenarios: she was dead too, or she was the murderer…
But why would she have murdered Mel? Mel’s accusation – vague and enigmatic as it was – was hardly earth-shattering, and by the sounds of it Tony wouldn’t have taken it seriously enough to call off the wedding. Or had she uncovered more about the Laity family than she’d let on to me? We’d kind of been friends through Tony, but we’d never been really close and there was no reason for her to trust me. Then again, I was beginning to suspect that Tony himself knew something; he’d definitely looked shifty when I told him what Mel had accused Cheryl of. And I’d left him to walk around the grounds that morning, to see if the runaway bride was just outside getting some air. How could he have missed Mel’s body? The dog had been barking when I left him and if it had been me, I probably would have headed that way to see what all the noise was about or at least ask the owner to shut the mutt up.
Another unwelcome thought rose into my mind. If Tony had suspected that Mel knew something bad about his wife-to-be, could he have decided to shut her up? Or had he discovered Cheryl packing her suitcase and, realising she was leaving him, lost his temper and killed her to stop her going, then Mel because it was her fault?
Or had I just lost my entire mind? Tony wasn’t a killer, my treacherous thoughts whispered to me again, but how well do you even know Tony these days?
‘Penny for your thoughts,’ said Mum. I shook myself; I wasn’t going to share what were probably – hopefully – completely unfounded suspicions with anyone, particularly not my mum, who, bless her, had no real filter when it came to gossip and would more than likely share everything I said at the next village coffee morning, even if she didn’t intend to.
‘They’re not worth as much as that,’ I said, smiling at her and Daisy. ‘Come on, let’s pack up everything and just stick it in the fridge for the moment. I can’t see this wedding taking place now, can you?’
So we clingfilmed everything and put what we could in the hotel fridge; there was more room for it here than at my house, and I wasn’t sure what Tony would want me to do with all the uneaten food anyway. I was just about to go and find Mr Bloom, the manager, to tell him what I’d done and that I’d be back to move everything when I knew what was happening, when DCI Withers came into the kitchen.
‘Mrs Parker?’
‘Yes?’ My mum looked up and smiled at him; he looked at her, then at me, confused.
‘No, I meant—’
‘I’m Ms, not Mrs. Mrs Parker is my mum,’ I said.
‘Shirley,’ said Mum, ingratiatingly. She had an eye for a good-looking young man, which was sometimes rather embarrassing.
He nodded impatiently. ‘Okay, Ms Parker. Can I ask you some questions
about last night?’ He stood back slightly, as if indicating for me to follow him.
‘Of course,’ I said, not moving. Petty, I know, but I wasn’t going to make it easy for him. I’d noticed the slight, mocking emphasis on the Ms too. Mum held up a mug.
‘Do you want a cup of tea? Kettle’s not long boiled.’
‘No, thank you. Can—?’
‘You sure? I can always boil it again; won’t take me a minute.’
‘No, thank you, I’m fine.’ DCI Withers was indeed starting to wither under my mother’s charm offensive. ‘If we could go somewhere a little quieter?’
‘We’ll be quiet,’ said Daisy innocently. She was almost as nosey as me. It’s a family trait. Withers was not going to be beaten by a twelve-year-old, though.
‘Thank you, but no. Ms Parker? Shall we?’ He stood back and firmly indicated the doorway. It would have been churlish (although entertaining) to mess him around any more.
He followed me out of the kitchen. I stopped and turned to him and he pointed towards the function room we’d used last night.
I went in and sat down at a table, waiting for him to join me. He took out his notebook and pen and sat opposite me.
‘So, Mr Penhaligon tells me you’re an old friend,’ he said conversationally. He was well spoken in a BBC newsreader kind of way with the lingering hint of a regional accent, which I couldn’t quite place. Maybe he was from a pumpkin farm in Birmingham, after all…
