In Sickness and in Death

by Alana Ling

  Twenty-Two

  An hour later, I was standing in front of the Guildfords mantelpiece waiting for everyone to take a seat, or to stand by the wall as was the case with a few of them, and doing my best to not get overwhelmed by everyone’s flavours. Which was why Sam was standing next to me.

  It had taken Daniel a lot of convincing to get everyone in the house in the middle of a workday but I think in the end, curiosity got the better of all of them and they arrived promptly.

  Sarah and Lesley Guildford were sitting on armchairs, both commanding the room with their presence. On the sofa were Gemima, Lloyd and Rory. All three of them looking flustered, but that was to be expected. Tom was standing at the wall next to the sofa, keeping a safe distance from Rory, but an even safer one from Tia Blakely who was sitting opposite her son and next to her husband, Jack. Robert was standing by the doorframe, next to Daniel, who was standing in front of the entryway, blocking anyone from coming in and mainly out. Sam was next to me, a smug look already across her face.

  The Guildford’s butler promptly arrived with large teapots and served everyone a spot of tea.

  Daniel got his cup filled and while everyone was busy pouring their milk and sugar, he approached me.

  ‘Are you absolutely sure?’ he asked me.

  I accepted a cup from the butler and thanked him. ‘No, in fact, I’m not.’

  Before he could protest, I stepped in front of him and got the attention of the room. Daniel went back to stand by the door.

  ‘Thank you all for coming on such short notice,’ I said.

  Tia Blakely ironed out her skirt and took a sip of her tea. ‘I don’t understand why you assembled all of us here.’

  ‘We’ll get to that, Mrs Blakely. For the moment, I beg for your patience as I’m going to tell you how our beloved Poppy came to an untimely death.’

  The look of bewilderment crossed everyone’s faces.

  ‘We all knew Poppy. Poppy was a great girl looking to make her mark in the world. Unfortunately, she did not go about it the right way. She angered a lot of people. But she fell in love. With a young man named Lloyd Blakely. And for the first time in her life she could see herself tied down with a family.

  ‘But then she found out he couldn’t have children and it shook her, but she wasn’t going to give up on her true love. Until, of course, the Blakely matriarch found out and wouldn’t stand for it. Poppy wanted to have an adopted family with Lloyd, and Tia wouldn’t accept anyone other than a true Blakely to continue the family line, so she broke them up.

  ‘But not before she made Poppy a deal,’ I said, eyeing Tia Blakely who raised her nose high in the air and glared me down.

  ‘Because, you see,’ I continued, ‘Mrs Blakely had found out her other son, her only fertile son, was gay. Her family line, the family name she married into needed to continue, even if the name wasn’t hers, and even if it meant both her children were unhappy.’

  ‘If you’re going to keep this charade up, we will be leaving. You’re making me out to be a monster—’ Tia started to get up.

  ‘Aren’t you?’ Sarah glared at her and Tia grimaced.

  ‘Please, Mrs Blakely. I promise it will be worth it.’

  Tia sat back down, not at all pleased, and I went on.

  ‘Mrs Blakely, you see, made a deal with Poppy to marry her gay son, Rory, in exchange for a large sum of money. Only she couldn’t see Lloyd ever again or else she would lose the money. Wouldn’t she, Mrs Blakely?’

  She glared at me, but didn’t say anything.

  ‘Poppy needed the money to break from her family and gain her independence, but she also loved Lloyd. What was she to do?’

  Sam interrupted my rhetorical question. ‘She faked a romantic interest with Robert, even though she kept seeing Lloyd, to throw Tia off. And then Poppy goes and gets murdered.’

  ‘Indeed, Poppy goes and gets murdered. Thank you, Sam.’

  ‘You’re welcome, Jo.’

  ’So, was it the mother-in-law, who found out Poppy broke the deal and even dared to make a new one with Rory, agreeing to give him a divorce after she’d got the money?

  ‘Was it Rory, who was planning on eloping with his boyfriend, but needed more time to save the money to do so?

  ‘Or was it Lloyd, who couldn’t stand seeing the love of his life marrying his brother? For money?’

  ‘Lloyd couldn’t hurt a fly,’ Gemima said.

  ‘I loved Poppy,’ Lloyd said over Gemima. ‘I would never hurt her.’

  Gemima look pissed off and she crossed her arms in front of her chest.

  ‘No, of course not. Because, no matter Poppy’s faults, you did truly love her. Not that it was enough to save her. Because Poppy had angered a lot of people.’

  ‘Was it Robert, the fake lover who found out Poppy was lying to him and still seeing Lloyd?’

  ‘I-I would never touch a hair on her body,’ Robert said.

  I shook my head. ‘Of course not. You were so deeply in love with her you couldn’t ever do that. But still, people have killed for less.’

  ‘We all know Amanda killed Poppy. Why are you even going around accusing people?’ Gemima asked.

  ‘Ah, yes. Amanda. Who was so in love with her best friend, Rory, she wanted to protect him. She wanted to marry him and make him hers forever, only his affections were taken by Tom.’ The entire room turned to Tom.

  ‘I didn’t do anything,’ he said.

  ‘I know you didn’t. You were Amanda’s first victim, Tom, thankfully without much success,’ I said and he winced.

  ‘First? But what about Poppy?’ he asked.

  I point my finger to the ceiling. ‘Well, Amanda never intended to kill Poppy. She did deliver the final…floral blow if you may, but Poppy was never her target. See, Amanda saw Poppy frolicking with Robert and Lloyd and she was sick of it. But she didn’t plan on killing her friend. She happened upon her when she was already dying, and quickened the process, really.

  ‘Which means we have another killer in our midst. And who better to point the finger to than Poppy’s very best friend?’

  Sarah snapped her head to Gemima’s direction and her eyes opened wide.

  ‘I can answer that,’ Sam said, raising her hand in the air, like a schoolkid asking for permission to go to the bathroom. The room’s attention was drawn back to the both of us.

  ‘Gemima, ladies and gents, was Lloyd’s newest girlfriend, his rebound from a broken heart, but for Gemima to be with him, she had to ask permission from her best friend, Poppy, who gave her blessing to go ahead and so she did.’

  ‘I am not a rebound,’ Gemima shouted. Her teeth were smeared with pink lipstick yet again.

  ‘Of course not, my dear, you were a diversion,’ I answered. ‘Because Lloyd was never looking for a new girlfriend. He still had his old one. Only, he forgot to tell you, didn’t he? And you found out when you saw them at his hotel.’

  ‘Why did they have to lie to me?’ She sprang up with more fervour than anticipated. ‘If they’d only been truthful. Why would she lie to my face and let me think I had him all to myself?’

  ‘Gem, what are you saying? What did you do?’ Lloyd asked her.

  Lloyd stood up and grabbed Gemima by the wrists. ‘What did you do, Gem?’

  Gemima flicked her head with way more pride than she should have and answered him. ‘I got rid of the little tart,’ she said and her flavour of sour cherries became prominent in my mouth, overpowering everyone else’s, even Sarah’s horseradish sauce and Lloyd’s English mustard.

  ‘What?’

  Gemima saw Lloyd register her words and not respond the way she was hoping. She tried to hug him, but he pushed her away.

  ‘I did it for you. For us. So we could be together without her in the way,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t you understand, Gem, you were—what did you call it?’ He turned to me. Before I could remind him he flicked back to her, ‘A diversion. That’s it. I pretended to be with you so my mother didn’t suspect anyt
hing was going on with Poppy. This,’ he shook his finger between them, ‘was never real.’

  ‘But-but what about all the kisses, all the nights we spent together? It can’t all have been a lie.’

  ‘It was. I had to be convincing. My mother was getting close to the truth,’ he said and sneaked a peak at her.

  Gemima exploded. ‘You had to be convincing? In the privacy of my own bed?’

  ‘Come on, Gem, it was just sex. I never loved you.’

  ‘Are you joking? You bastard!’ She started slapping his chest before Daniel stepped in and seized her. He cuffed her and read her her rights.

  Sarah stood up and touched Gemima’s shoulder. Daniel let her turn around and watched Poppy’s tearful mother lash at her daughter’s murderer.

  The slap reverberated through my bones and Gemima’s face turned bright red instantly. Tears trickled down her cheeks. Sarah also broke out in tears.

  ‘She loved you. You were her best friend. How could you do this to her?’ she wailed.

  Lesley reached her in time to take her in his arms and comfort his wife.

  ‘Please! Poppy only ever loved herself. And money. Everyone else was just her way of passing time,’ Gemima yelled.

  Police officers entered the room and removed Gemima. The whole room was still in shock. Poppy’s parents stood in a corner and cried in each other’s embrace. Tom was squeezing Rory’s hand. Robert’s eyes were red, but he didn’t wipe them, he stood by the wall as if nothing had happened, although I could see he was trying to come to grips with what he’d heard.

  ‘It’s all your fault, witch!’ Sarah shouted at Tia. ‘If you let your kids be happy, none of this would have happened.’

  Tia looked up and tried to get a grip of her husband’s hand, but he pulled it away from her. When she turned to him the disgust in his face was apparent. I still wasn’t sure how much he’d known about everything that was happening in his children’s lives.

  Daniel pulled me away from the room and led me outside and I was thankful for it. Revealing a murderer was fun. Staying in a room for the aftermath? Not so much.

  ‘Well done,’ he told me when we were out of earshot. ‘You had me worried there, for a second, that you weren’t right.’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t so sure myself,’ I explained.

  Daniel’s face turned into a frown.

  ‘It turned out fine, though, didn’t it?’

  He looked up to the sky for a moment, and then back to me, and with a sigh he admitted it. ‘I guess so. What made you connect the dots?’

  ‘What you said when you came back from meeting her.’

  ‘What, that she had no clue who gave her the Prosecco?’

  I shook my head. ‘That you met her at the hospital.’

  ‘And? That’s it? That’s the clue you were going by?’

  ‘When I told her Poppy was poisoned by hemlock, she couldn’t pronounce it. She said she didn’t know what it was.’

  Daniel’s head bobbed. ‘How does a biochemist not know what hemlock is? I see. Well, when I asked her she said she couldn’t imagine how it got in Poppy’s system. She must have used her knowledge to produce an extract she could use to poison her.’

  ‘You’d think she’d know to use aconite, which acts fast and leaves no trace…’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Daniel frowned again. It didn’t suit him.

  ‘I’ve done my research. What do you think?’

  I smiled. He smiled.

  ‘Well done, Jo. And thank you. You’ve been a real hindrance with this case, but it all paid off.’

  ‘Hey!’ I slapped his forearm, a rock solid forearm, even under his shirt and coat.

  ‘Do you want to grab a drink? To celebrate?’

  The police car with the second murderer drove off and Daniel took Sam and me to his car and drove us back to town. The Oak Tavern was our next stop.

  Twenty-Three

  Four days later, Sam and I were back in the party planning game, and with the sweet sixteen out of the way, that gave us a chance to focus on the future. Today, we were working from home, with Alfie prancing about every now and again for attention and then plonking back down on his kitchen bed.

  ‘Well,’ Sam said, ‘we’re getting there.’

  I took a deep breath before answering. ‘Half of them cancelled. I was booked up for the rest of the year. Now we’ve got big gaps in-between and the whole reason why I hired you was because it was going to get really hectic around here. But now…’ I said with a hitch in my voice.

  ‘Now, we can get new clients and rock their world.’

  ‘But, I might not be able to afford you if we don’t.’

  She shrugged. ‘I’ll get a part-time job until you need me again. I don’t mind. But, let’s not worry about that for now.’ She grabbed my hand and the action, combined with her smooth cucumber flavours, soothed me. ‘All right, want a drink at the pub? I promised Jamie I’d pass by on my way home.’

  I grabbed Alfie’s lead and put my shoes on. His tail wagged merrily around. Poor thing, he was bound to be disappointed with his short walk from the house to the pub across the street.

  When we walked in, Jamie greeted us with a strawberry daiquiri for each of us and a bowl of crisps and nuts to go with it. Alfie was brought a large bowl of water and a doggie treat. We sat at the front, by the floor-to-ceiling window with a sea view.

  ‘Well, ladies, congratulations on your amateur sleuthing,’ Jamie said, raising his glass in the middle of the table and charming us with his smile. ‘To a job well done.’

  All three of us cheered and sipped our daiquiris.

  As we looked out at the sky and the sea, a couple of men walked past the window, one was wearing a salmon pink shirt and blue jeans and the other a long grey shirt, a black waistcoat and a black bowtie. Their hands were connected and they entered the pub.

  The taste of candy floss and blueberry muffins penetrated my already sweetened mouth and I set my glass on the table.

  Tom and Rory closed the door behind them and before I could call them out, Sam was on the case.

  ‘Rory! Tom!’

  They turned and noticed us, a smile on both their faces – a new addition to their features. They approached our table.

  ‘Hi Sam. Jo.’ Tom greeted us. ‘And…Jamie, isn’t it?’ he said, turning awkwardly to our friend and reluctantly shaking his hand.

  Rory side-eyed the exchange. ‘I take it this is the handsome fellow that hit on you the other night?’

  All of us turned and looked at him. Tom nodded.

  ‘I really didn’t mean to do that. I didn’t realise you two were.’ Jamie’s voice trailed off. No one realised those two were an item. That was the whole point of Tia’s arrangement.

  ‘Oh, it’s all right, dear boy. How were you to know? Besides, I can’t blame you. My man is quite the stunner.’ He grinned and Tom blushed.

  ‘I’m sorry if I’m being rude, but why are you holding hands in public. I thought your mother was adamant about you,’ I said while hiding myself behind my glass.

  ‘You’re quite right,’ he agreed. ‘Problem is Mother is mortified by what has taken place because of her meddling. I know she didn’t really show it the other day, but I think we were all in shock. I think she’s trying to make up for what she has caused, so she has given us her blessing—’

  ‘Begrudgingly,’ Tom said.

  ‘So, she’s not threatening writing you off anymore?’ I added.

  ‘No, and in all honesty, in the end, it didn’t matter. We were going to run off together, as you well know. The only reason why I made her believe I was okay being in the closet was so I could save enough of my trust fund to move to France and not need her money anymore.’

  I nodded.

  ‘I thought your father was the loaded one,’ Sam said.

  Jamie and I glared at her, but she didn’t seem to realise her rudeness.

  Thankfully, Rory chuckled. ‘You have met my mother, right? In fact, you’ve met bot
h my parents. Who do you think runs the house? It might be my father’s money on paper, but Mrs Blakely is the watchful eagle. Not that it matters now. With both Gem and Amanda on their way to life sentences, Lloyd taking a job in Berlin for the foreseeable future, and the whole story getting out, my father is filing for divorce. So my mother has other stuff to worry about. Anyway, I wanted to thank you. Both of you. Without your…involvement, I don’t think we would be here holding hands in front of everyone.’

  Rory bought us all a round at the bar and made Kit bring them across to us. When he passed my daiquiri, he winked at me and I smirked.

  ‘What are you up to, ladies?’ Kit asked, pointedly looking at each of us, including Jamie, who flicked him the bird and they both laughed.

  ‘Just discussing murder,’ I said. ‘You know. Everyday stuff.’

  ‘Ah, yes. I heard you caught another killer. Well done, Jo.’ He stared at me and my chest heaved under the faster beating of my heart.

  ‘I helped,’ Sam cut in.

  Jamie shushed her. ‘Can’t you see they’re having a mo?’

  I pursed my lips and took my eyes off him. Kit gave me a cheeky grin and left us to our own devices. I was already getting used to his handsome face making me feel all hot and bothered.

  ‘So…you and Mr Rider?’ Jamie cooed.

  ‘I don’t understand what you mean.’

  ‘I might be a lot of things, but stupid, I am not,’ he said.

  The door opened and Daniel came through. He leaned on the table and I introduced him to Jamie.

  ‘Jo, can I speak to you outside?’ he asked and I followed him out, passing Alfie’s lead to Sam, while Jamie went ‘uh-oh’. Sam slapped his hand and he protested by being louder.

  Daniel took me to the arched side street, where the pub usually dumped their rubbish in the winter, and where Kit had now extended his garden tables to in hopes of attracting more people during the summer months.

  ‘What’s up, Daniel?’

  He looked at both sides of the alley before focusing on me.