Bunburry--Sweet Revenge

by Helena Marchmont

  “Oh, Clarissa,” she whispered. “What have you done?”

  6. The Saviles

  Rosemary Savile bent down to her husband, who was lying stretched out on a sofa, and kissed him on the forehead.

  “No, darling,” she said, “no, I don’t think you’re going to die.”

  “That’s your opinion,” he groaned.

  “My professional opinion,” she pointed out. “I keep telling you, you’ve just got a bit of tummy upset.”

  “I feel dreadful. I don’t know why you won’t call the doctor.”

  “Darling, just rest. The doctor won’t tell you any different from what I’m telling you. With all the water and rehydration drinks I’ve been pouring into you, you’ll be absolutely fine by tomorrow.”

  Men, she thought tolerantly. They made such a drama out of being ill, and David was one of the worst offenders. If he got a sniffle, he convinced himself it was potentially fatal flu.

  “Alfie’s coming to see you,” she said cheerfully. “You’ll enjoy that, won’t you?” She was conscious she was speaking to him as though to a fretful toddler, which was exactly how he was behaving.

  “I don’t think I’m well enough for visitors,” he said, clutching the tartan rug she had wrapped round him.

  “That’s fine. Just lie there with your eyes closed, and I’ll chat to Alfie instead.”

  There was a knock on the drawing room door.

  “Come in,” she called, and there was Alfie. He looked as effortlessly stylish as ever in his dark chinos and a navy-blue shirt with a glimpse of Paisley pattern at the cuffs. She could tell they hadn’t come from a discount store.

  “One of your staff let me in and told me to come up,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  The floppy brown hair didn’t completely hide an anxious frown. He sounded hesitant, almost ill at ease.

  “Alfie, my love, you know it’s always a pleasure to see you,” said Rosemary, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “Come and sit down. What can I get you? Are you driving? I won’t offer you alcohol, then. But tea, coffee?”

  “Nothing, thank you.”

  She didn’t know Alfie well – he was David’s friend, David always being up for a Bunburry cream tea – but she liked him. He always seemed a little forlorn. He needed mothering. She hoped Betty Thorndike was looking after him.

  Right now, he looked as though he could do with tea and cake to cheer him up. But he had brushed away the offer with the air of a man on a mission.

  “You’ve made it just in time,” she told him. “The invalid on the couch is on the verge of expiring. Another half hour and you might have been too late.”

  David waved a feeble hand from his recumbent position on the couch. “Alfie, kindly tell Florence Nightingale here that I’m seriously ill.”

  Rosemary was surprised that Alfie didn’t respond to the banter.

  “I’m afraid someone is seriously ill,” he said. “Morgan Sutcliffe, Greg’s grandfather. He’s in hospital.”

  “Morgan?” exclaimed David, swinging his legs off the settee and sitting up. “But he was fine at the wedding. Frail, but otherwise okay. What’s wrong with him?”

  “Food poisoning?” asked Rosemary. She wasn’t surprised by Alfie’s nod and turned to her husband. “We had a phone call earlier from environmental health, while you were asleep. I thought there must be a problem of that sort when they said they understood we had been at the wedding and asked if anyone had been unwell. I told them David was.”

  She turned back to Alfie, who was sitting awkwardly on the edge of the other maroon sofa. “I’m sorry to hear about Morgan. Was anyone else affected?”

  She noticed his frown deepen. He seemed surprised by her question.

  “Almost everyone,” he said.

  “Really? When was this?”

  He gave the ghost of a smile. “During the afternoon tea. Specifically, while the harpist was playing I Could Be Happy With You.”

  “Well, darling,” she said to David, “it looks as though you were a trend-setter. Alfie, David felt unwell before the afternoon tea. Luckily, we’d come in the car, and I decided to bring him home right away. It was only when I got the call today that I wondered whether other people might have been affected.”

  “What do you think it might have been?”

  Rosemary had the impression that he wasn’t seeking her opinion, but just wanted to hear her answer. She hesitated. It was Alfie who had put them in touch with the ladies who made the fudge. The ladies who turned out to be keen amateur sleuths and who arrived to help after the tragedy at the party.

  She didn’t want to upset Alfie but there was no point in hiding her suspicions.

  “I’m sorry, Alfie, but I think it may have been the fudge,” she said.

  “The fudge? How could it be the fudge?” The protest came from her husband, not Alfie.

  “Why do you think it’s the fudge?” asked Alfie. “Why not the lunch?”

  Rosemary had expected him to be angry, or argumentative, or defensive, but his question sounded completely neutral.

  “Easy,” she said. “First of all, David and I had exactly the same at the wedding breakfast – smoked salmon followed by venison. And I’m perfectly well. Second, it’s normally at least a few hours before food poisoning takes effect, so it was too soon after the meal. Third, in the morning David couldn’t find his cravat and was faffing so much that he had no time for breakfast before we had set out. The fudge was the first thing he ate. And fourth, after the wedding, I went to take photographs while my beloved husband led the charge on the marquee. And with his sweet tooth, you can imagine how much fudge he got through.”

  “I didn’t have that much,” David remonstrated.

  “My love, I’m amazed there was any left for anyone else. I’ve seen what you’re like when you scent sugar.”

  She shook her head at him in mock reproof and he grinned back. He was definitely on the mend.

  But she had better be honest with Alfie. “I did voice my suspicions to environmental health. I know you’re very friendly with Liz and Marge, but if something’s gone wrong, it’s important that it gets put right as quickly as possible.”

  “Of course,” said Alfie. “I quite understand.” He paused, then said: “What do you think might have gone wrong?”

  Rosemary hadn’t considered this.

  “Salt,” said David suddenly. “Liz could have accidentally knocked salt into the mix. Like salted caramel.”

  He hadn’t mentioned this, which surprised her. He loathed the trend for putting salt into sweet things, claiming it ruined the taste.

  “There was salt in the fudge?” she asked.

  He subsided. “No,” he muttered. “I was just trying to think of things that could make you ill.”

  Sometimes she wondered what they taught them at Eton.

  “Anyway,” she said, “salt is an emetic, and you weren’t sick. We’re looking for something with a laxative effect.”

  Alfie stood up and paced across the floor. “Laxatives,” he said. “You buy them over the counter. How would you get them into the fudge?”

  “You mean other than knocking them into the mixture accidentally?” asked David

  “That’s exactly what I mean,” said Alfie. “I don’t think there was anything accidental about this.”

  Rosemary was startled by the suggestion. “Who would do such a thing?” she asked.

  “That,” said Alfie, “is another question entirely. But it could help if we knew how easy it would be to doctor the fudge.”

  It was understandable that Alfie would want to shift the finger of blame away from his friends. The environmental health checks would determine soon enough what had happened. In the meantime, she could at least take his question seriously.

  “You could use crushed senna pods. And it would
be possible to grind up laxative tablets and then scatter them over the fudge, perhaps press them in,” she said. “Or break capsules open and do the same with the contents.”

  “But surely you’d taste it,” said David, who she was pleased to see was showing no signs of collapsing back on to the sofa. “The fudge tasted the same as usual.”

  “It depends on the brand,” said Rosemary. “Some have a bitter aftertaste, some don’t. But I still don’t see how it would work. If you added it after the fudge had been made, you would notice the different colour and texture.”

  “I see how it would work!”

  Rosemary blinked as David impatiently tossed aside the rug she had wrapped round him. He had clearly decided that this was more interesting than being an invalid.

  “How?” she asked.

  “It was the same fudge as usual, but it was covered in little bits of gold. I thought it was an attractive way to present it for the wedding, but what if the gold was to conceal the laxative?”

  Alfie looked similarly animated. “That’s certainly a possibility. Can either of you think of any reason why anybody would want to ruin the wedding?”

  “Absolutely none,” said Rosemary, glancing at her husband who looked equally baffled.

  “And did you notice anything out of the ordinary apart the gold decoration? Anyone acting unusually, guests or staff?”

  David shook his head. “I’m afraid all my attention was on the fudge.”

  Alfie was still pacing. Give him a meerschaum pipe and a deerstalker, thought Rosemary, and he would make a convincing Sherlock Holmes. Or even better, have him playing something melancholy on the violin.

  Alfie paused. “Were you friends of the bride or groom?” he asked.

  Rosemary waited for her husband to answer. He was the one with the connection.

  “Neither,” said David. “We didn’t really know either of them. I’m a friend of the groom’s father, Simon Sutcliffe. Actually, friend is going too far. Acquaintance. We know each other through the Rotary.”

  Rosemary saw Alfie’s puzzlement. “We were a little surprised to be invited, but when we got there, it was full of local worthies, a couple of mayors, a county court judge, even the lord-lieutenant. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, Alfie, why us? David has become something of a celeb because of the Pride and Prejudice film. I think some people confuse him with Mr Darcy.”

  “An easy mistake to make,” murmured David, smoothing back his hair.

  The first time she met Alfie, she had enjoyed his humour, the way he teased David and Oscar. But right now he didn’t even seem to notice the repartee, let alone respond to it.

  “What do you know about Morgan Sutcliffe?” he asked.

  “Virtually nothing,” said David. “Simon’s dad. Around eighty, I think. We’d never met him before.”

  “You don’t know about any shady practice, any problems he might have been involved in?”

  “Not a thing,” said David.

  Rosemary thought of the gaunt old man sitting in the wheelchair. He hadn’t looked capable of doing anything at all, let alone anything shady. She had noticed his swollen ankles. It was possible he had heart or kidney problems, and she wasn’t surprised he had ended up in hospital. The effect of laxatives on his system could be devastating, and it might well be too late to reverse the damage.

  “Thank you, that’s been really helpful,” said Alfie. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you, especially when David’s not well.”

  “Actually, I feel fine now,” said David. “I could do with a little snack.”

  “No food until tomorrow,” said Rosemary firmly. “Fluids only. I shall be watching you like a hawk, my boy. But Alfie, you haven’t even had a coffee. Please may I get you something?”

  He held up his hand. “Really, nothing, thank you, Rosemary. I must go.”

  “How’s Betty?” Rosemary asked. “I hope everything was all right when she had to dash away from the party like that.”

  He seemed momentarily taken aback, and then he gave a laugh that sounded slightly forced: “Yes, all was well, thanks. She’s actually away travelling at the moment.”

  That explained it. The poor man was missing his girlfriend. They had made a good-looking couple. Betty Thorndike looked so like her supermodel mother, and Alfie himself wouldn’t look out of place on a magazine cover.

  “We enjoyed meeting her,” Rosemary said. “When she’s back from her travels, the pair of you must come and stay for a few days. There are lots of good walks in the estate.”

  “Thanks again,” said Alfie. “I must go – I’ll show myself out.”

  Left on their own, David said: “That really is a very good idea of yours, darling. It would be nice to have them round We could invite Oscar as well.”

  “No, darling,” said Rosemary. “No third wheel. We want Alfie and Betty to have a lovely romantic break.”

  7. Liz and Marge

  Emma was already at Liz and Marge’s when Alfie got there on Monday evening. She didn’t actually have her arms round her great-aunt this time, but she was sitting protectively close to her.

  Marge hopped off her rocking chair. “Tea? Or G and T?”

  “I’ll stick with the non-alcoholic version, thanks, Marge. Important to keep a clear head.”

  “A clear head for what?” Marge demanded.

  “Our big announcement,” said Emma.

  Marge’s eyes, already magnified through her glasses, widened further. “Your big announcement? You’re not -”

  Alfie cringed. He had long suspected that Liz and Marge had hopes of a romance between him and Emma. They seemed blissfully unaware that Emma’s behaviour towards him made it clear she wasn’t remotely interested.

  What was Marge about to say? Engaged? Pregnant? With a jolt, he thought of Vivian. Vivian had been around the same age as Emma, but it had never been an issue that he was more than a decade older than her. It was different with Emma. She treated him with a cool indifference that suggested she thought he was hurtling towards boring middle-age, if not that he was there already.

  “Yes,” said Emma. “A big hand, please, for the Bunburry Parallels who are at this very moment riding to the rescue and will send the dastardly Sergeant Harold Wilson packing.”

  “What?” Marge swayed a little and grabbed at the mantelpiece to steady herself.

  Alfie was surprised by such a strong reaction. She surely couldn’t really have expected Emma to announce that they were a couple?

  “Since I’m free of the day job, Alfie and I are going to investigate what happened. Aunt Liz, you mustn’t worry. Everything’s going to be all right.”

  Alfie wasn’t looking at Liz; he was looking at Marge. She was heading back to the rocking chair, staring fixedly at the floor, but before she moved, he had seen her face. It wasn’t just shock. It was also fear.

  “I’ve already made inroads with the catering staff,” said Emma. “And Alfie’s been talking to the Saviles. Any joy, Alfie?”

  “Not really,” he hedged. Rosemary, with her nursing background, had confirmed all Emma’s speculation about the fudge, and how long it had taken people to get ill. He didn’t want to spell that out to Liz and Marge. He was still trying to process Marge’s reaction, and Liz seemed barely to be reacting at all, sitting silently by Emma, her gaze unfocussed. This wasn’t a good time to discuss how the fudge might have been doctored. He needed to talk to Emma privately.

  “I just wanted to let you know I’m aiming to speak to Philip tomorrow.”

  Emma nodded. “Good. I’ll be getting hold of the wedding photographs and video. And Aunt Liz, could we have some of your fudge to check out?”

  “No!” It was Marge who spoke, not Liz. “There isn’t any. The environmental health inspector took it.”

  “All of it?” asked Emma.

  “There was virtually none
left,” said Marge quickly. “Liz was making it for the wedding and she hadn’t gone on to the other orders yet.”

  “What about the fudge from the wedding?”

  “Like there’s going to be any left,” scoffed Marge. “You know how popular it always is.” Marge’s chair was rocking wildly. There was no sign of her making the promised tea.

  “I’ll take myself off to the Horse and catch up with you all tomorrow,” said Alfie.

  Liz looked at him vaguely and Emma gave him a curt nod. There was no response from Marge.

  As he walked to the pub, he puzzled over Marge’s behaviour, reaching no conclusion. It had almost felt as though she was actively trying to prevent them investigating, rather than helping. Perhaps she was afraid for Emma, that if Sergeant Wilson discovered she was carrying out an unauthorised investigation while suspended, that would be another black mark against her.

  And the unauthorised investigation hadn’t got very far. The main casualty, other than Liz’s business, was Morgan Sutcliffe. Was he collateral damage, or could he have been the intended victim? Edith said he wasn’t a nice man. Enough to have enemies who wanted to injure him? There was an easy way to find out: ask Edith.

  The pub was relatively empty with only a few of the tables occupied. Nobody was seated at the bar, where Edith was serving.

  “Edith, light of my life,” he greeted her. “Could I trouble you for a half of Brew?”

  “A half?” she grumbled. “How are we supposed to make a profit if you’re drinking halves?”

  “Edith, I’m shocked to hear you talk like that on a Sunday. Love of money is the root of all evil. But if you stay and chat to me, I might be persuaded to have another one.”

  “It depends,” she said, slanting the glass under the beer tap. “What do you want to chat about?”

  “There’s only one possible topic - how wonderful it is to be back in Bunburry, in the company of the finest barmaid in five counties.”

  She handed over the half-pint with a cackle. “Alfie McAlister, I’ve missed having you around. It’s too quiet without you.”