by Nancy Warren
“After everyone left, I took jumper cables from the boot of my car, attached one end to the electrical supply and the other side to a leg at the back. It was pretty ingenious, if I say so myself. When Gerry returned to the tent to examine the oven, as I knew he would, I turned the power on, and he was electrocuted the second he touched the oven handle.”
My eyes widened in horror. I couldn’t believe I’d ever been nice to this guy.
“When Marcus managed to convince the police he wasn’t the culprit, I planted the poker winnings in Aaron’s car. Bad luck that he found them before the police. Still, I’m sure they’ll get around to him. He is the obvious suspect.”
I was calling Elspeth and Gateau in my mind, but I was so scared I doubted the message was getting through.
“You have to admire my plan,” Gordon continued. “No one suspected me until you.”
“Run!” I cried to Gina. We broke into a run in separate directions. He couldn’t follow both of us, so hopefully one of us would get to help. The soil was wet underfoot, and my trainers sank into its depths. My head was whirring. There were broken branches and twigs everywhere. I mustn’t fall like poor Katie Donegal and break a bone.
All those months of practice baking, and I’d let my exercise regime go to the dogs. How I wished I’d kept up my track training. But I didn’t get very far before I heard a piercing scream from Gina. I stopped dead and spun on my heels. I couldn’t go for help and leave Gina, not if he was hurting the closest thing I had to a sister.
Gina was on the ground, and Gordon was tackling her. I ran straight toward them, faster than I’d ever run in my whole life, no longer concerned about the mud and twigs. I just wanted to get that beast off of her. I was only a meter away when I saw the knife. The handle was burnished black, and the silver blade was long and gleaming. I froze.
Elspeth said I was a witch. She said I had powers. If that was true, I really needed them now. I raised my voice. “Sisters, mothers, fellow witches, please help me stop this monster in his tracks. Dull his knife and his senses.” Then I added the witches’ blessing, “Blessed be.”
It was no kind of a spell, but I was untried, untrained and it was all I had. Gordon didn’t immediately turn into a frog, the knife didn’t fly out of his hand, but I felt an immense power surging through my body.
Still, I couldn’t reach her before he could hurt her. Fury, fear, love, it condensed like a ball of fire. I had no idea where it was coming from, but it took over like a life force. My hands filled with a jolt of electricity, a force I’d never felt before, and as I turned my open palms toward Gordon, I yelled, “Get off her!”
A beam of light seemed to fly from my hands and hit him in the back. He flew off of Gina’s body, into the air, and then slumped back against a tree stump.
Amazed, I bent down to Gina and pulled her to her feet.
“What on earth?” she began to say, staring wide-eyed at me.
Gordon was moaning in pain, but I saw that he was already reaching for the fallen blade. I grabbed for the knife while Gina yelled for help. Our cries echoed around the forest. I lunged, slipping in the mud as he was reaching. His fingers were on the knife handle.
“I don’t think so, Gordon,” said a familiar voice.
Elspeth! And by her feet was Gateau. Elspeth raised her arms, the wide sleeves of her billowy silk shirt catching the breeze, and began to say something in what sounded like Latin. The air became suddenly very still. Elspeth’s face was fierce in its concentration.
Gordon’s hands dropped to his sides, and he rolled back onto the ground. “What’s happening to me?” he murmured. “What’s happening?” He gripped his knees and moaned in confusion.
I stood back from Gordon. “Elspeth, you came.”
“I told you, Poppy. You’re not alone anymore. My dear girl, you and I have a lot to talk about, but right now, the most pressing matter is tying this scoundrel up. At the moment, he’s too weak to move, but I can only hold him so long. You need to find something to tie him with.”
I rushed to Elspeth’s bag (a red Hermes Birkin bag, I couldn’t help but notice—she really was a classy lady), but inside was only a tube of Chanel lipstick, a wallet, a big leather-bound book, and a huge set of keys. Apart from hitting him over the head with the book, nothing in there was helpful. I looked back at Elspeth, who was frowning in concentration, hands still out in front of her. Her scarf!
I slipped her silk scarf from around her neck and tied Gordon’s hands behind him. His eyes were wild, but his limbs were slack. I had no idea how to tie people up, so I tied as many tight knots as I could. “Gina, you and I can sit on Gordon until Elspeth can find help.”
Gina, dazed from the tackle and Elspeth’s sudden appearance, finally came to and said, “Poppy, the ribbon in my hair. It’s long, and we might be able to secure his feet with that.” She tugged at the black satin ribbon that was threaded into her French plait. It must have been about a meter long. She really did know how to be inventive with hair! Gina quickly unbraided her braid and released the ribbon.
I rolled him onto his belly and made that guy eat dirt. Gina joined me, and we both sat on his back as she wound the ribbon around his ankles twice over and then tied an expert knot. Gordon spluttered and coughed out some soil. Turning his head to the side, he spat and said, “You’re making a very big mistake, ladies,” he said. “No one will believe you. It’s your word against mine, and the police don’t have a thing on me.”
“We’ll leave that for them to decide, shall we?” Elspeth said, grimacing in concentration. She finally let her hands return to her sides and stood taking deep breaths. “Gina and Poppy, do you think you can hold him down until I come back? I’ll rush over to the tent and tell Detective Inspector Hembly we’ve apprehended the culprit and could use a little backup.”
But I could feel Gordon’s legs struggling and bucking against the ribbon. “Elspeth, I don’t think the ribbon will hold. It’s already starting to come loose,” I said.
“His belt!” Gina cried out. “Can you keep him weak for one more minute? I can slide off his belt, and we can use that for his feet.”
Poor Elspeth was clearly exhausted. Whatever it was she was doing really was taking its toll. Her calm and composed face was strained with effort, and the color seemed to be draining out of it with each second passing. She raised her hands again, and I saw a bead of sweat gather at her temple. We both jumped off Gordon’s back, rolled him over, and Gina worked with her super-fast hairdresser hands to loosen his belt. Gordon kept muttering, “get off me, get off me” over and over, but he was so confused by what was happening, his protests were barely audible. Gina took the belt and cinched his ankles together. We pushed him back down and resumed our positions.
Elspeth let her hands drop again. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”
There was a crunch of twigs underfoot, and a familiar voice said, “I heard screaming.” It was Sergeant Lane. He caught his breath and stared at us. “What’s been going on here?”
We must have looked a strange bunch, both of us sitting on Gordon, who was tied up with a Hermes scarf, a hair ribbon and a belt.
“They attacked me,” Gordon sputtered. “Get them off. I want them charged with assault.”
The sergeant came toward us. Whatever Elspeth had done, it was wearing off, and it was getting harder and harder to keep our prisoner still. I dug my knee into the small of his back, and he yelped in pain.
“He’s confessed to Gerry’s murder, and he tried to stab me,” Gina cried. “The knife is there.” She pointed at the wicked blade on the ground.
Behind the sergeant, a uniformed constable came running. At Lane’s order, he took a pair of silver handcuffs from the side of his trousers. We jumped off Gordon’s back, and while the constable handcuffed him, the sergeant formally arrested him and read him his rights. Gordon stopped struggling and lay very still, deadly still, as if this were all a dream and any moment he could wake up.
Sergeant Lane pulled G
ordon to his feet and held out Elspeth’s scarf for her to take. He looked as though he might say something, then just shook his head.
The two men escorted their prisoner back, and we three women followed. Sergeant Lane told DI Hembly what had happened, and they walked Gordon over to their police car. It was like watching a TV cop drama, the steps surrounding the arrest were so familiar, but I’d signed up for a baking show, not this. The blue lights flicked on and they put Gordon in the back, then the car sped away from us.
The faster, the better.
Chapter 16
Gina and I clutched hot mugs of steaming tea while Elspeth dished out clotted cream fudge. We were both still shaking. I’d known Gina all my life, and I’d never seen her so lost for words. She kept opening her mouth to speak and then closing it again. Her lovely long hair was crinkled from the braid, and it hung in waves over her shoulders. Somehow, during all the excitement, she managed to stay looking pretty.
The noise had alerted the others at the inn, and by the time the three of us walked back, we had an audience. Several humans and one ghost, who gave me a huge grin and two thumbs up.
When she saw the state Gina and I were in, Eve made us hot drinks, her hands trembling a little as we told her about Gordon and our time in the forest. We’d have to give statements down at the police station later, but for now we had some time to recoup and process the craziness that had just happened.
Elspeth came to join us, clutching a hot mug of creamy-looking cocoa and the box of fudge. She’d tied her neckerchief around the straps of her bag, and now I could see her throat, the pale and delicate skin and the pattern of her blue veins. It was easy to forget that Elspeth was Gina’s grandmother’s age. She was so elegant and composed, and her slim frame added to the sprightly and youthful air she showed on the screen. But now she looked worn out. No doubt we did, too.
“I don’t understand how you got Gordon off me,” Gina said. “I saw the knife. I was certain he was going to…” She couldn’t finish the sentence.
I glanced at Elspeth, who gave a tiny shake of her head. No mention of witches. I went with what I thought was part of the truth. “When someone you love is in trouble, you find extra strength.”
“That’s true,” Hamish said, sipping a whiskey. “I once witnessed a mother lift a car off her child when it was pinned underneath. Most extraordinary what we can do to save those we love.”
She leaned over and gripped my hand. “Thanks, Pops.”
Marcus was drinking a fancy coffee, as he was heading back to London soon. He looked pretty relieved to see someone else charged with Gerry’s murder. “So Gordon killed Gerry to punish him for sleeping with my wife?”
“I think it became an obsession with him,” I said. “He couldn’t kill the man who’d seduced his wife without being the obvious suspect, so he decided to kill other seducers. When he overheard Gerry telling me the story of your renovation and how he’d had an affair with your wife, he decided to punish him by proxy, I suppose.”
“And I was nearly charged with the murder,” Marcus grumbled.
“You didn’t come off as badly as me, mate,” Gerry complained from his perch on the window ledge.
“Aaron was the other likely suspect,” Elspeth said. “He was the electrician, after all, and he’d lost all that money to Gerry. It did seem like his crime, which meant Gordon nearly got away with it.”
“But why did Gordon put the poker winnings in my tip jar?” Eve asked. She was sitting down for once, enjoying a drink herself.
Aaron was sitting near the back and he looked at his feet. “Aaron?” I prompted. “Do you want to explain?”
He glared at me, but nodded. “I found the money in the boot of my car. I knew someone had planted it on me. Since I’d already endured a very unpleasant interview with the police, I decided to get rid of the money.”
Elspeth tsked at him, looking disappointed. “If you’d gone to the police, they might have caught Gordon sooner and Poppy and Gina wouldn’t have been nearly killed.”
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “But I thought I was in for it. Him being electrocuted and me being pretty free with the threats.”
“Yes. You really played into Gordon’s hands, there,” Jonathon said. His tone was hard.
“Gordon’s almost as good an electrician as I am,” Aaron reminded us.
Hamish nodded. “Once Gerry had been electrocuted, Gordon turned the power off at the breaker and removed the cables. He put them back in his car. Now forensics have hold of them, they can likely prove that those cables were used in the murder. He’d made sure that it was only the breaker for Gerry’s oven that was live, and that’s why none of the others showed any signs of being messed with. It was surprisingly clever. And Gordon might have gotten away with it, if it wasn’t for you two. He couldn’t resist boasting about how he’d executed the whole thing.”
“He was planning to kill us, so he could boast all he liked,” Gina said. “Isn’t that just like a man?”
“Come now, that’s not very fair,” Donald said as he came back into the bar. Now that someone had been arrested, Donald had returned to his smooth, showbizzy self. Gone were the frown lines that had been etched into his forehead, and there was a flush of pink to his previously pallid cheeks. His linen suit was ironed and only creased at the knees, and his hair had been swept away from his face again. It was like he’d pressed a reset button. “Not all men are the same,” he insisted. “Look at some of the contestants here, for example. Isn’t Hamish lovely, and Gaurav, Ewan and Daniel too. It’s easy to focus on the bad eggs, but we have so many splendid people on the show.”
He went on to enthuse about how this tragedy had brought us bakers closer together. As we healed our wounds, we’d become closer as a cast. It was a touching idea, but I was finding it hard to wrap my head around the prospect of baking again. How was I going to recoup my energies and concentrate on chocolate tortes and making madeleines?
“The next ordeal will be giving my statement to the police. I’ll have to relive it all again.” Gina looked terrified. I reached out and took her hand to squeeze it. “You’ll be fine. All you have to do is tell the truth. And you’re the queen of that. I always come to you when I need someone to dish it like it is.”
She gave a little laugh and stood to leave, stretching out her back like a cat. “I’d better do something about my hair before I go anywhere.”
Elspeth looked at me. “I think you and I could benefit from a walk. Some fresh air and a chat?”
I agreed, and after Donald telling us not to venture too far from the inn, Elspeth linked my arm, and we set out.
As we walked, the pebbled path crunched beneath our shoes. Elspeth bent down and picked a daisy from the lawn. She twirled it between her slender fingers and seemed to be deep in private thoughts. It was hard to imagine that just over an hour ago, I’d been sitting on the back of a murderer, trying to stop him from stabbing my best friend. I shivered. I must have looked wiped and also perplexed because Elspeth said, “My dear child, you’ve had the most extraordinary forty-eight hours, and I’m guessing that you have many questions for me.”
“Elspeth, I don’t even know where to begin.”
She kept walking, and my feet followed her of their own accord. My thoughts were crashing about like a stormy sea. She looked into the distance where Broomewode Hall stood at the top of the hill and said gently, “Poppy, you have some extraordinary gifts, the full extent of which I don’t think you yet realize.”
“I called for help. I was so desperate when Gina was in danger. I made something up and called for my sisters and mothers. I don’t even remember what I said. But some force did come over me. And then you arrived.”
“Yes. I told you, you’re not alone. And, of course, I was particularly sensitive to you, as I’d made you that protection spell.”
“The stone was like a homing device?” I touched the amethyst I still wore.
She laughed softly. “Something like that.”
We turned away from Broomewode Hall and the vast white tent, whose calico awnings had witnessed both the highest joys and deepest horrors over the past few days. The forest was ahead of us, and we both turned instinctively away from there, too, and instead toward a rose garden that was not yet in bloom. I stared at the almost empty flowerbeds, the long necks of the bushes that would be weighed down with heavy petals within the next couple of months. And then I told the great Elspeth Peach some things about my life that only Gina and my parents knew. I visualized a soft yellow rose blooming, and I opened up in a way that I had never done before with a stranger.
I began with how I’d arrived at the Philpotts’ bakery and no one had ever been able to find my mother. I explained to Elspeth about some of the ghosts I’d seen. I found spirits to be good company and, on the whole, a friendly and even informative bunch. I told her that I’d seen Gerry today, and that he’d helped solve his own murder. I shared how Mildred, the ghost who dwelled in my cottage’s kitchen, had previously been a cook, and she’d helped me practice for the baking contest. It was wonderful to talk about all the things I usually kept secret.
I even admitted that really I’d come on the show for one reason only: to try and find out more about my birth parents. I’d spotted the same pattern as my blanket in an oil painting hanging in Broomewode Hall. That’s why I was really here.
I paused and took another deep breath. I could feel the warm rays of the sun on my neck. I couldn’t believe all of this had just poured out of me.
“It must be very hard not to know where you came from,” she said. “But I think I might be able to throw a little light on the origins of your special gift.”
We had finished circling the rose garden, and Elspeth led me to a bench on the path. “We witches are blessed with incredible gifts of healing, intuition, and we can cast spells that disrupt the natural order of things, for good or bad. That is down to the individual witch, but I already know that you are one of the good ones.”
