by Nancy Warren
Gordon squinted at the sun and pulled on a pair of dark sunglasses. He turned to me, smiling. “Glorious, isn’t it? Nothing so nice as the English countryside when spring is in full swing.” I nodded my agreement, wishing I could enjoy the spring day. Gordon was in good spirits, but I longed for some sense of normalcy again. I missed my quiet old cottage, the nights when Gina would come over with a bottle of wine and we’d cook a curry, chatting away while it bubbled on the stove. I thought about my parents in France, thinking I was having such a wonderful experience on the baking contest. I still wished I could call them, but they’d know immediately from my voice that something was wrong, and I didn’t want to worry them.
“This murder is the most excitement we’ve had on the Great British Baking Contest since that poor girl in season three slipped on half a pound of butter she’d dropped and sprained her ankle.”
Maybe that’s what had attracted everyone else to the show. Whether it was working behind the scenes or in front of the camera, everyone here seemed to be seduced by the drama. For my part, being filmed was unnerving. After watching the rushes, I’d seen how obviously nervous I was. Nothing about me said “natural performer.” I preferred a quiet, anonymous life, creating beautiful graphics on my laptop at home, dealing with the clients on video calls from the comfort of my kitchen. I wouldn’t have entered the contest in a million years if it hadn’t been for that blanket. And now, here I was, embroiled in a murder case.
As if he’d been reading my mind, Gordon said, “I guess this wasn’t what you were expecting when you came on the show, right?”
“Who could have predicted this? I can’t stop thinking about the last time I saw Gerry, how convinced he was that someone was trying to sabotage him. I just thought he was being a sore loser and told him to drop the whole thing. But he was right. I feel like no one here is what they seem.”
“Hey, you’ve got absolutely nothing to feel bad about, Poppy. Gerry was a sore loser. And personally, I feel bad for Marcus. What Gerry did was abominable. What could be worse than betrayal?” He grimaced and then seemed to gather himself, smiling brightly at me. “But I don’t imagine a lovely young thing like you would have experienced that, though. Who could betray that gorgeous face?”
I blushed and shook my head. “Don’t be silly, Gordon.” Gateau mewed at my heels, and I bent to pick her up.
“I mean it, Poppy. You’re a real beauty. There’s something so wholesome about you. You’re as sweet as American apple pie.”
I frowned. Gordon was taking the compliments a little too far for a working relationship.
He must have misjudged why I felt uncomfortable. “I’m separated—about to get divorced. Don’t tell me you haven’t heard. I know how Gina gossips. Believe me, my marriage is over.” He put his shoulders back. “I’m a free man now. Back on the market.” He gave me a wink that reminded me a little of Gerry, but it felt awkward. Being in the tent surrounded by memories of death would be more comfortable than this conversation. I sped up my pace.
Thankfully, the tent was just ahead, and I escaped having to reply to Gordon as Sergeant Lane waved and walked toward us. I called out a hello, probably a little too enthusiastically.
The tent still looked strange without the bustling chaos of the cast and crew. A couple of uniformed officers were wandering the grounds, and red and white tape had made a mess of the manicured lawns. There were a few men and women in yellow neon jackets working the site.
“Poppy,” Sergeant Lane said, smiling. “And your feline friend, I see. How are you today?”
“I’m all right. But Eve found a large sum of money stuffed into the tip jar. We believe it might be Gerry’s winnings.”
“Really?” Sergeant Lane said, scratching his head. “I’ll come right away.”
“The money wasn’t there when she started her shift. See if she can remember who was in the pub who might have wanted to get rid of evidence.” Gordon said the very thing I’d wanted to say.
The Sergeant looked at him oddly, maybe wondering why he was being given lessons in policing from the sound technician.
I’d have walked back up with Sergeant Lane, but Gina came running up to me. “Poppy!” I needed my best friend more than ever. I was so relieved to see her. There was so much to discuss, I didn’t even know where to start. Each day here had been like a lifetime.
She seemed to feel the same. “Can we go for a walk?” she asked. “There’s something I really need to talk to you about.” She looked at Gordon apologetically. “It’s girl stuff,” she explained, shrugging.
“That’s fine. I need to check my equipment, anyway. They told me to check with you to see if that’s all right?” he asked Sergeant Lane, who said he could, so long as he didn’t take anything away.
From the intense look on Gina’s face, I felt a cold sensation of mounting trepidation spread across my body. I wasn’t sure I could take any more bad news.
Chapter 15
If I could describe Gina in three words, they would be: glossy, immaculate, and bubbly. So looking at her now, I could see that something was deeply wrong. She still looked perfectly turned out, and she’d done her hair in a French braid threaded through with black ribbon. However, rather than her usual toothy grin, she had a furrowed brow, and her eyes were full of concern. She took me by the hand, and we walked past the ornamental lake, the swans regal in their line formation, and the manicured garden beds that would soon be full of roses in bloom, until she turned in the direction of the forest and ushered me forward.
We headed for the footbridge I’d crossed only a few hours ago.
The sun broke through the leafy canopy, casting angled shadows on the forest floor, and I could smell the beautiful bluebells before we even stepped foot into the shade. I noticed that Gateau had wandered off again. That cat was either all over me or nowhere to be seen. I trusted what Elspeth said, though, that Gateau and I had chosen each other. My feline friend always seemed to return to me the moment I needed her most.
Gina hadn’t spoken a single word for the duration of the walk, and to say I was worried was an understatement. Normally I couldn’t stop her from incessant chatting. It was one of the things that made her such a great hair and makeup artist: She knew exactly how to put people at ease. Finally she stopped, and letting my hand drop, she turned to face me. We’d been going so fast, we were both a little out of breath.
“Goodness, Gina, what is it? You’re terrifying me!” The sun had gone behind the trees, and I pulled my linen shirt tight around my body. The fabric was too flimsy to be protective or warm.
She took a few deep breaths and gathered herself before letting her words tumble out. “I went to the tent this morning to pack up my makeup bags and hair tools, and before they realized I was standing there, I overheard the policemen talking. They said it was almost certain that someone in the cast or the crew of the show murdered Gerry. It was no accident. They’ve ruled out the possibility of any strangers being able to access the set that day.”
She stopped and took another deep breath. “Poppy, that means it’s one of us! You cannot trust anyone you’ve met here. No one. Right now, some crazy murderer is running around, and even the people who seem super kind and lovely are potential threats. You need to stay away from everyone you’ve met here until this is sorted.”
She put her hands on her hips, her signature move for when she meant business. I tried to tell her that I was grateful she was being protective, but I’d only really made friends with Gerry, Florence, and Elspeth from the show. One was dead, the other was too concerned about her nail polish to have time to think about murdering anybody, and Elspeth Peach was a national treasure and the same age as Gina’s grandmother—surely she couldn’t be warning me to stay away from her.
“I know. You’ve missed a lot of it, but we’ve all come to realize it was someone we know.” I caught my lower lip between my teeth. Should I tell her about Aaron? No. Better to wait until the police worked out who’d done it.
“But you were with Gordon just now. I don’t think we can trust him. I know all of the crew so much better than you, Poppy, and Gordon has had some serious issues of his own.”
I asked her to explain what she meant. Gina was always happy to gossip. “Gordon used to be one of the most happy-go-lucky guys on the crew. He was known as a bit of a jack-the-lad, always pulling silly pranks like putting a Whoopi cushion on Elspeth’s seat or planting fake spiders in the sandwiches. Used any opportunity to tell a silly joke. He was a lovable goof and popular on set. But midway through the last season, when Gordon turned up to work one morning, it was like he was a different person. Gone were the jokes and pranks, and in their place was a moody, irritable, and irrational man.”
“Really? He seems so friendly.”
“He’s better now, but back then he barely spoke, and when he did it was to snap at people over nothing. It was like he’d had a personality transplant. It was really affecting morale, so the crew staged an intervention. Gordon broke down and said that after working with the baking show for so long, he and his wife had wanted a better kitchen. They hired a contractor for a full kitchen renovation. They wanted to fully gut it and build their dream one from scratch. You know the kind of thing: floating island, swing-door cabinets, marble work surfaces, granite tiles on the floor. The lot. It took ages.”
“That’s stressful on anyone.” I remembered when my parents renovated our Seattle kitchen. It was tough on all of us.
“But when the renovation was almost complete, Gordon came home from work early one day and found his wife in bed with the contractor. He was devastated and handled it badly. He threw his wife out, attacked the contractor and tried to smash up the new kitchen, but it had been so well built, he could barely mark it.
“We all felt terrible for him and did everything we could to make him feel better. Took turns having him over for dinner, nights out at the pub. We even organized a couple of fun staff trips to paintball and abseiling. But nothing worked. That is, until the season ended. In the break, he went on a cruise by himself to see the Northern Lights and came back a changed man. He was jolly and outgoing again. Couldn’t speak highly enough about traveling and seeing things abroad. The cruise seemed to have done the trick.”
“I’d say it did. He was just hitting on me.”
She leaned forward. “Don’t date him, Pops. I’m telling you, he’s got a bad temper.”
“Don’t worry. I’d never date Gordon Bennett. He gave me the creeps.”
“I just can’t help worrying about the similarities between what happened to him and what happened to Marcus.” She shook her head. “But there are thousands of contractors. And how could Gerry possibly be the man he’d found in bed with his wife? One of them would have said something.”
It was twisted logic, and it took me a moment to catch up. “Oh, Gina. You don’t think Gerry slept with Gordon’s wife, do you?”
“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “Wouldn’t it be too much of a coincidence that he made off with Marcus’s and Gordon’s wife? Gerry’s not that hot.”
I was glad Gerry had stayed at the inn—he’d surely take great offense at that. “And if it wasn’t Gerry who slept with Gordon’s wife, then he’d have no reason to kill the man.”
I couldn’t tell her that Aaron Keel was the prime suspect, at least on my list, not without explaining that I’d received a hot tip from a ghost. Anyway, Gordon had mentioned the money timeline to Sergeant Lane, so hopefully they’d track the cash back to Aaron within a few hours and this would all be over.
But wait. Gordon had only walked in after Eve had found the money. I’d been standing there the whole time he was flipping through the cash and then we’d left the pub together. Eve had never said anything about the money not being there when she started her shift.
I was thinking furiously. Could Gordon have planted the money on Aaron? Could the over-friendly sound guy have killed Gerry? “What if he wanted to rid the world of all contractors who seduce their clients?” I was stretching here, but Elspeth had told me to follow my intuition, and it was definitely pulling me along this path.
Gina shook her head. “But how would he even know that Gerry had seduced Marcus’s wife? It’s not like they were friends, and if Gerry had boasted over a poker game, Gordon wasn’t there to hear it. So I’m imagining things.”
She made to turn back, but I stopped her. “Gordon did know about Gerry and Marcus’s wife,” I told her. “He heard him admit to the affair.”
Her eyes went round. “What?”
“We were mic’d. I remember Gordon warned us that anything we said would be overheard. It was when Marcus first acted rude to Gerry. I honestly don’t think he’d noticed him, and then after Marcus was rude to him, he suddenly laughed and said he’d renovated Marcus’s house. He even joked that Marcus’s wife was hot and if he had spent time with her, he’d added those hours to his bill.”
“Gordon is almost as good an electrician as Aaron is. Pops, we have to tell the police.” I shivered. Gordon had been flirting with me only minutes before.
There was a crunch of branches breaking underfoot, and I felt a sudden spear of terror. “I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” said Gordon.
Gina and I froze. I reached out and took her hand so that we stood facing him, united. I couldn’t believe he’d followed us into the forest without us noticing. He must have been deadly quiet, or, more likely, we’d been so engaged in our conversation that we hadn’t paid attention to noises around us.
“Girls, girls,” he said. “Why do you look scared? Come on, it’s me. The weekend has gotten to you both. I’m not the monster you think I am. You need to calm down.”
Gina glanced at me and back at him. “We were talking about family. Not about you, Gordon.” She laughed. “Don’t go getting paranoid.”
He made a tsking sound and came closer. He held out something small and black. “This is a directional microphone. I rarely use it, but it’s very good for picking up conversations outside of normal hearing range. Still think I’m being paranoid?”
I put my free hand on my amethyst. I hoped Elspeth had put a doozy of a protection spell on this stone because I had a feeling I was going to need it. I cringed, realizing I’d called Gordon creepy and he’d heard me.
“No one thinks you’re a monster,” Gina said, her voice trembling a little. “We were just worried about you. You’ve had a rough year.”
“That little story you just spun to darling Poppy here didn’t sound like concern. It sounded more like fear-mongering. And slander.”
“Absolutely. You could sue us,” I said. Let him get a lawyer, anything, but please let us get out of here.
He took a step forward. I flinched. My heart was pounding against my amethyst, and I could hear blood rushing in my ears. Sweat began to gather at the bottom of my back.
“Come on, Poppy. Don’t look so afraid. It’s just Gordy here, your lovable sound guy. I only followed you to invite you for a drink tonight.”
He’d heard us figure out he’d probably killed Gerry, was he playing some sick game of cat and mouse?
“Poppy doesn’t want to go for a drink with you. I think you should let us pass,” Gina said. I felt her hand shaking, and I gripped it tighter. Above our heads, the birds were flying between the trees, rustling the leaves and chirping to one another. The scent of bluebells was suddenly sickly sweet, too pungent, too cloying.
“I think Poppy can answer for herself,” Gordon said, gritting his teeth.
I tried to smile brightly, anything to show Gordon that I wasn’t going to be bulldozed by his psychopathic mind games. “Gina’s right. I’m not really in the mood for a night at the pub.”
“You want to run to the police and tell them a bunch of lies. It wasn’t Gerry who renovated my kitchen.”
“Of course, it wasn’t,” I said.
“Do you think I’d have worked with the man who seduced my wife? Don’t be crazy.”
De
spite his attempt at being convincing, I still didn’t believe a word he was saying. His smile was unnatural and there was a sheen to his skin that I didn’t like. My eyes darted about the forest, looking for the best exit, and then I sized Gordon up. He was a little paunchy around the belly. I figured we had a chance to outrun him, especially if we headed in opposite directions. I looked down, hoping he couldn’t see my lips, and whispered, “You run for the tent, I’ll head for the pub.” One of us ought to be able to reach help.
“Why are you planning an escape route, Poppy? I just told you there’s nothing to worry about.” He shook his head. “I’d have liked to take you out for a nice dinner tonight.”
“Look, you were under stress. Everyone will understand,” Gina said.
He sighed. “You’re a lovely young woman, Gina. So is Poppy. But the two of you have some serious trust issues. I overheard you telling Poppy about my cruise, but you missed the best part. I went to see the Northern Lights and it was beneath those mesmerizing lights, the swirls of emerald green and vivid pink and intense blues, beneath that absolute wonder of the universe that I decided. I wouldn’t let anyone ever get away with infidelity again. I vowed to become vigilant, to keep my eyes and ears open for any would-be cheaters, any men who thought that a woman’s marriage vows weren’t worth the paper they were written on. So imagine my joy when the show brought one such specimen right to me. You were all warned, weren’t you, not to discuss private matters while your mics were on? But I guess Gerry thought he was above that, just as he did when he slept with Marcus’s wife.”
He’d been talking with rapid speed, eager to spill his story. He stopped and caught his breath. He was smiling again, and it was not an endearing smile.
“I heard Gerry telling you he was going to have another look at his oven. I had no idea I wasn’t the only one with a vendetta against Gerry and that Marcus was actually sabotaging Gerry—he really helped me out. I’ll have to buy him a drink sometime. Even Aaron did me a favor, making threats over that poker game.
