by Nancy Warren
I was sitting there staring into space when my cell phone rang. It was Rafe. “Lucy. What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?” Did the man spy on me? He didn’t even live here.
“Sylvia called me. She said there are police in the shop.”
Dread clutched my chest. “She didn’t come up through the trapdoor in the back room, did she? Did the police spot her?”
He must’ve heard the panic in my voice. “Of course not. She and your grandmother were heading home. They’d been out visiting.”
Thank goodness for that. There were plenty of other ways into the tunnels.
I told him swiftly what had happened. It was a relief to be able to actually tell someone and not have cryptic phone calls without revealing any information.
“What are you doing now?”
“I’m sitting here in my flat. Waiting for enough time to pass until I have to go across to Frogg’s Books and meet Molly.”
“You’ve got nearly an hour then. Meet me at the brasserie on High Street.”
I knew the restaurant. They did wonderful breakfasts, though I wouldn’t be able to face food. At least I could get out of here and away from the sounds downstairs.
“I’ll get a table in the back,” he said. “I’ll meet you there, or do you want me to pick you up?”
I was completely confused. “Are you in Oxford?” He lived about half an hour’s drive outside the city.
“I am. I had business that kept me here last night.” It was easy to forget that he was at his sharpest when I was sound asleep. I had no idea what kind of business he’d been doing, and I didn’t want to know.
“And what are you going to do in a restaurant?”
There was a thread of humor in his voice as he said, “Feed you. You haven’t eaten anything this morning, have you?”
How on earth could he know that? I’d drunk about two sips of my coffee and a cup of herbal tea.
“It’s important that you eat. And I want you out of that police crime scene. At least for an hour.”
Even the thought of a short break filled me with relief. “Yes,” I said. “I’ll meet you there.”
Telling Nyx to stay put, I grabbed my bag and ran down the main staircase and let myself out the front door of the flat, which let out into a small back garden. My snazzy new red car was parked in the tiny parking spot, but there was no point driving the short distance to High Street, so I grabbed my bicycle out of the shed. It didn’t take me more than five minutes to bike up to the brasserie. I locked my bike and walked in. The place was about half full.
Rafe was in the back at a table that was quite isolated. I was certain he’d chosen it deliberately. He had a cup of coffee in front of him, but I doubted he was drinking it. I walked over, and he rose as I approached, polite as always. I sat down, and he studied my face. “You look pale.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Not as pale as you.”
He was always slightly taken back when I made jokes, but a vampire in mid-summer looks pale indeed.
I was about to tell him that I couldn’t manage any food when the waitress arrived. She put a plate of cold smoked salmon and scrambled eggs in front of Rafe, a full English breakfast in front of me, and a plate of toast between us.
Without even asking, she filled my cup with coffee.
Rafe had ordered for me. Typical high-handed behavior. I was going to push my plate away when the scent of the food hit me and I realized how hungry I was. Maybe just a piece of toast.
I reached for a slice of toast and nibbled on it.
“I want to tell you about an idea I’ve had,” Rafe said.
How did he do this? I’d come here filled with horror and dread, thinking we’d go over all the details together, and suddenly he was making me wonder about this idea of his.
I didn’t care if it was the worst idea in the world. Anything that kept my mind off the horror in my shop was a good thing. I asked, “What’s your idea?”
“Dublin.”
“Dublin?”
“Yes. I want to take you there.”
I took a sip of coffee. “You want to take me to Dublin?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Have you been there?”
“No. Never.”
“It’s beautiful city. I’ve got some work to do at Trinity University. It would do you good to get away for a few days. Violet can watch the shop, and you can get those college girls in to help her.”
I had always wanted to go to Dublin. And he was right, it would be good to get away, but how could Violet or Scarlett or anyone work in a store where someone had been murdered?
As though he’d read my thoughts, he said, “I have to go in a couple of weeks. Plenty of time to decide if you want to come with me or not. There’s a little shop for sale that I think would make a perfect wool and knitting shop.”
My egg was perfectly cooked, the yolk slightly runny. I forked it up with bacon and beans. While my mouth was too full to speak, he continued, “It would be an excellent opportunity for your grandmother to get out of Oxford. Sylvia and I have talked about this a great deal.”
When I’d swallowed, I said, “But I’m not ready to franchise.”
“Sylvia would fund the entire enterprise. There’d be no cost to you. But we’d like you to take charge of the shop. Let your grandmother work in it part-time and hire some extra help.”
I would miss having Gran so close to me, and Rafe knew that. Gently he said, “She finds it very hard, you know, not being able to be seen in Oxford. But she won’t leave because of you.”
And I didn’t want her to leave. He continued, “We chose Dublin because it’s so close. It’s the only place she’s been willing to consider.”
“Close? You have to cross an ocean. Close would be, I don’t know, London or Birmingham, somewhere I could drive in an hour.”
“Lucy, there are several flights a day to Dublin. You can be there in a couple of hours.”
“It’s not the same though. You have to book flights ahead. I wouldn’t be able drive down and have a visit whenever I felt like it. See her every day.”
“No. You wouldn’t.”
He ate the smoked salmon sparingly, but I knew he wouldn’t eat the eggs. I leaned over and helped myself to the scrambled eggs.
“London and Birmingham are out precisely because they are too close. Agnes knew people in both places.” He had a point.
“You don’t think any of her customers would go to Dublin?”
He smiled at me ruefully. “If it were up to me, your grandmother would go to New Zealand or Canada, but she’s refused. Dublin is as far as she’s prepared to go.”
“Well, I will go look at the shop. I won’t promise anything more.”
“That’s a good start.”
We chatted a little longer, and before I knew it, I’d finished my breakfast, drunk a cup of coffee and had a refill. I checked the time on my cell phone. “I’ve got to get going.”
He nodded with satisfaction. “You look better. You’ve got some color back.”
“You know, one of the most annoying things about you is that you’re always right.”
He shook his head. “Not always.”
I got up to leave and realized we hadn’t talked about the murder at all. I turned back. “Don’t you want to grill me for details about the dead woman?”
“Later. I wanted to give you a break.”
Annoying or not, he could be very thoughtful. And he was right. I did feel better for a meal.
Chapter 8
I cycled back to my shop feeling better for breakfast, fresh coffee, and a break from the grisly discovery. However, my break was over. I suspected it was going to be a very long day.
Rafe and I had very deliberately not talked about the murder, but he’d know soon enough. He’d told me he’d known Enid Selfe before she showed up in my life this weekend. I wondered if he knew much about her past, like any enemies she might have had.
; I was also fairly certain that Rafe would start his own investigation, no doubt aided by Theodore, the undead private investigator who had been a policeman in life. No doubt they’d be aided by any of the bored vampires who were currently awake and looking for something to do. It might be boredom that drove them, but the vampires in Oxford had proven themselves to be excellent amateur detectives. Unfortunately, they got a lot of practice.
I had a talent for stumbling upon suspicious deaths without even trying. We all have our talents, but I’d have preferred to be good at something useful, like fashioning balloon animals.
As I cycled down Harrington Street, I was pleased to see that Ian had remembered to get all the police and emergency vehicles out of the area. I very much hoped they had already moved the body. I didn’t want to share my quarters with the deceased Enid Selfe any longer than I had to.
If it weren’t for the light on inside my shop, I could easily believe it was empty. I rode on past, not even turning my head for a peek, and parked my bike in front of Frogg’s Books. I was a few minutes early, so I let myself in with the spare key, put on some lights, and headed for the cupboard where I knew Alice and Charlie kept the kettle and tea things. I suspected that Molly was going to need a nice strong cup of tea for shock when she heard the news.
One of Alice’s ideas since she’d been working for Charlie had been to start a book club at the shop. Charlie had first turned up his nose at the idea, and then they’d argued about what kind of book club it should be—he wanted to challenge readers intellectually, and she wanted to choose books that were more accessible but still open to debate. Since she was the one who ran the book club, naturally, she managed to get her own way.
I set up the table and chairs that they used for book club in the back room, and then I waited. I wasn’t terribly surprised when Molly didn’t show up alone but had brought Becks along with her. She came in full of energy and the kind of focused determination that impressed me even when I wasn’t suffering from shock. As it was, I felt numb and rather stupid, while they seemed keen and far too full of purpose. The first words Molly said were, “Your shop looks all right, Lucy. What’s going on?”
“It can’t be a power outage,” Becks continued, “because we saw lights on.”
“No signs of flood. No fire.” They glanced at each other, and I could tell they’d run various scenarios back and forth as they’d driven in. Together they said, “Was it some kind of home invasion?”
“Or is part of the house falling in?” Molly asked, looking anxious. “That happened to an uncle of mine once, termites. The whole staircase collapsed one day when he came down it. He was lucky all he did was break a leg.”
Before their guesswork reached aliens in spaceships, I spoke up. “Why don’t you both come into the back room and sit down? I’ve made tea.”
That’s how English I’d become. Before even giving bad news, I felt they should have tea in front of them. It wasn’t so much a barrier against bad news as a cure-all. Not that this could be cured, of course, but at least drinking tea gave them something to do while they absorbed the terrible news.
Molly appeared irritable. “We really don’t have much time, Lucy. Forget the tea and tell us what’s going on.”
I would not be rushed. I took the fresh pot of tea, three cups, milk, sugar and the pocket of rich tea biscuits that I’d found in the cupboard into the back room. I’d already organized chairs and switched on lights. They could follow me or not.
Naturally, they did. Once we were sitting down and they both had tea and I’d poured myself a cup for good manners, I said, “I’ve got some terribly bad news.”
There was a tiny pause, and then Molly asked, “Well? What is it?”
There was no easy way to say this. “I came down early this morning to check that everything was ready for the filming today,” I began. They were both staring at me with that laser gaze. “I found Enid Selfe in my shop.”
Molly’s eyes flew open wide. “Does that woman have no sense of decorum? She showed up at your shop at the crack of dawn?”
I tried not to relive those terrible moments, but, of course, as I told the women, I saw it all again before me. “I don’t think she did arrive at the crack of dawn. I think she might’ve been there all night.”
“What? She slept over in your store?”
I wasn’t doing this at all well. I shook my head. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but Enid was dead.”
They exchanged glances and stared at me again in tandem. Molly looked like someone who’s predicted disaster and been proven right. “Was it termites? Did a rotten beam fall on her or something?”
I almost wished I did have a shop full of termites so I wouldn’t have to tell her the truth. “No. It wasn’t termites.”
Molly shook her head quite firmly. “No. She can’t be dead. We’re only one day into filming. Nobody dies until the show is wrapped.” She didn’t sound as though she were joking, more as though it was in the contract everyone signed. Show up on time, follow Teddy’s instructions, oh, and don’t drop dead.
Becks seemed slightly more human. “Lucy, how awful for you. You found her? Dead?”
“I did.”
“I’m so sorry. Was it a heart attack, do you think?”
“Or a stroke?” Molly suggested. “Maybe an aneurism. She didn’t look sick yesterday.” Then she clutched her chest. “Tell me it wasn’t anything infectious.”
Here we went again with the guessing game. Where was Ian? He told me he’d be here. “The police are still determining the cause of death.” I pushed the packet of cookies toward them. “Rich tea?”
Molly said, “It must have been a brain aneurysm.”
Oh, I wished.
Ian arrived soon afterward. I told him in an undertone that I had already spilled the beans, as he was late and I couldn’t hold them off. “I told them she was dead but not how.”
He didn’t seem too perturbed. “How did they take the news?”
“Like it was an inconvenience to filming.”
“But they seemed surprised?”
“Yes.”
“Still, they are in films. I suppose they could be acting.”
I didn’t bother telling him they were producers, not actors. He’d find out for himself soon enough.
Two uniformed officers came in behind Ian. He said, “As the knitting students arrive, keep them in the back room. We’ll interview each of them separately. We can do one in the front room.” He raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Is Charlie up there?”
“No. I think he’s with Alice.” Alice lived in a little house that was much nicer than Charlie’s rather ramshackle flat above the shop. He seemed to spend a lot of his time there these days.
Ian said, “Good. You’ve got the keys for upstairs?”
I did. I hadn’t checked with Charlie first, but I doubted he’d mind if his flat was used as an interview room to trap possible murderers. Would he? “Let me run up and make sure it’s tidy.” I’d also quickly phone Charlie and make sure he was okay with this plan.
Charlie’s flat was like Charlie: disorganized, bookish, and rather charming. At least the dishes were done and there weren’t clothes all over the place. He picked up the phone right away. “Lucy. Did you get in all right?”
“I did. Thank you. Look, Charlie, the reason I needed your shop is that one of the students in the televised knitting class was murdered last night in my shop.” It was a relief to be able to tell him the truth.
“Good Lord. Was it Enid Selfe?”
My jaw literally dropped. “How did you know?” I didn’t want to add Charlie Wright to the list of suspects.
“Because she was uniformly unpleasant, self-absorbed and irritating. I’m a peaceful man, and I felt like doing her in myself.” I thought of Ian downstairs and decided not to encourage Charlie in that line of conversation. Hurriedly I told him that Ian wanted to use his flat as well as the shop to conduct interviews. He said it was fine and just to make sure to lock up
after they all left. “After all, if one of them is a murderer, they might also be a thief.”
Chapter 9
We didn’t have long to wait before the first arrivals. Annabel and Ryan came in together, chatting and laughing. They looked as though they’d grown quite close in the short time they’d known each other.
They must have picked up on the dark atmosphere, for when they got to the back room, where Molly asked him to sit down, Ryan asked, “What’s going on? Why all the long faces?”
They glanced at Ian and probably thought he had something to do with the production company, so they didn’t pay much attention. Molly said, “Let’s wait until everyone is here.”
They exchanged glances and then both sat down and took out their lacework and began to knit. Naturally, I hadn’t even thought to bring mine with me. The knitting shop owner was the one who forgot her knitting. Figured. Still, in fairness to me, I was also the only one who knew about the murder. Frankly, it would be a while before I looked at knitting needles as anything other than a murder weapon.
Vinod arrived next, and about five minutes later, Helen and Gunnar walked in together.
Teddy came in, and to my surprise, Douglas was with him.
When everyone was assembled around the table, they looked at Molly for explanation, and all she said was, “This is Detective Inspector Ian Chisholm of Oxford CID. He wants to talk to us all.”
Gunnar glanced up sharply. “Police? What are the police doing here?”
Helen looked around the table with a puzzled expression. “Should we wait for Enid?”
“With a bit of luck, she’s not coming,” Ryan muttered.
I thought he’d regret those words very soon.
Ian spoke up then. “I’m sorry to tell you all that Enid Selfe was found dead this morning.”
“Blimey,” Ryan said.
“But why are the police here?” Annabel asked, looking around as a uniformed officer came in.
Ian replied, “Because she was murdered.”
Ryan went pale. “Look, what I said a minute ago, obviously, I didn’t mean…”
