by Carrie Marsh
“And maybe you can keep this, too?” Janet asked, handing her an envelope.
“May I ask what it is?” Laura asked, looking at it. It was a plain white envelope, a little creased, with the initials “N. M.” in the corner.
“It's that blasted old lady – excuse me. The one who was here for the post-office?”
“Mm?” Laura asked, remembering her. She had seen her herself, in the street a while ago.
“She left it here. Poor old thing. Still thinks it's a post-office, I think...” Janet sighed. “As I said – I don't want to get old!”
“Yes, you said,” said Laura, still holding the letter. “Better than dying young, though.”
“Don't be morbid!” Janet accused. Then she laughed.
“What should I do with this?” Laura asked, tapping the counter with the envelope she had.
“Search me. She said it was for a guest of ours. Before she could tell me which one, Mr. Boss Man appeared, and she just sort of wandered off.”
“Oh?” Laura frowned. She stared at the envelope. “It's not addressed,” she mused, shaking it. “I don't even know if there's anything in here.”
“Probably there isn't,” Janet sighed. “Poor old thing's confused.”
“I think so,” Laura agreed. “But I think I saw her around. She recognized me. Whatever else is wrong with her, she remembers people.”
“Good,” Janet agreed. “Though I hope she doesn't remember me! I was a bit short-tempered, I suppose.” She frowned. “I didn't mean it – it's just that there's so much to do!” she sighed. “Which reminds me. We need to talk.”
“About the fete?”
“Yes. I heard from the boss man that we need to make parking-space around the back.”
“I already spoke to Neville about it. He's taken down a fence.” Neville was the gardener and caretaker of the building.
“Thanks. So the balloon man should arrive today, right?”
“I think we need them next week, Janet,” Laura said gently. “The baking contest is next week, right?”
“Yes,” Janet agreed. “You're right. Let's schedule balloons for next Friday. That'll give us time, seeing as it's on Saturday and they'll deflate if they're up too long. I'd like to get the tent up earlier, though.”
“I agree,” Laura affirmed. “I'll call as soon as possible.”
“Can we enter?” Janet queried, “I've been looking up recipes for cheese danish. It's my favorite. Can't we enter, please Laura?”
Laura sighed. She had so much work to do with the organization, the everyday running of the restaurant, and the murder investigation she had privately undertaken. She really did not have time to enter a baking contest.
“Okay, Jay,” she smiled. “If you really want to. We should bake at your place, though. You have a bigger kitchen.”
Janet almost squealed. “Aw! Thanks, L. This is going to be such fun...” The bell rang at the reception desk and Janet raced off, still smiling happily.
Laura leaned back and sighed, then reached for the phone. She already had enough to do with the hotel being so busy, when would she find time for her investigations? She sighed again and dialed a number from Janet's organizing folder.
“Mr. Lewes? This is Laura. From the hotel? Yes. You agreed to do our balloons? We'll need you on Friday.”
She paused and listened to the thick dialect on the other side of the phone.
“What? It's broken down? Okay,” Laura clenched her teeth. “Oh, well.” she sighed. “If you can't get it fixed before the weekend, you'll just have to blow them up on the day. Does that work for you?”
After another wave of Kentish washed over her eardrums, Laura gathered that it was a deal. She thanked Mr. Lewes and hung up.
The tent proved easier, and the company promised to erect it on Wednesday. Laura sighed and ended the call, then put the phone down.
“It's already almost lunchtime,” she realized, seeing the clock across from her desk. Soon the customers would start arriving. She had so many tables that had been reserved, and they were launching their new menu that day, too. How am I going to investigate today? She launched herself to her feet, running to check that the tables were laid out and the “reserved” signs were on all the right tables.
“Bethany?”
“Yes, Miss Howcroft?”
“Get a fresh napkin for table fourteen, will you? That one has stains on it. And could you check that there's a sign on table twelve? I had a reservation for it yesterday evening.”
“Coming right up, Miss,” Bethany agreed.
Laura ran about the dining room, checking things, and then settled behind her desk, waiting for the guests to start arriving.
“Good afternoon?”
“Yes?” Laura blinked. The man who addressed her was shorter than her, with bottle-bottom spectacles and an earnest frown. He was wearing a very expensive suit, which seemed somehow at odds with his hesitant manner. She knew she had seen him before, but couldn't quite place him.
“I reserved table twelve?”
“Oh. Mr. Halston?” Laura said, checking the register. “There you are, then,” Laura smiled brightly, and pointed him to the table in the corner overlooking the field. Mr. Halston? That's the man with the missing brochure with the pictures of pastries...? I wonder.
Laura blinked, tuning back in to the conversation.
“...Thank you,” Mr. Halston was saying. “I arranged to meet Mr. Rawlinson here – could you tell him when he arrives, where I am?”
“Of course,” Laura agreed. She felt awkward somehow, as if her hair were being combed backwards.
This is Mr. Halston, my second suspect.
He might actually be a murderer, and the thought was not a comfortable one. She glanced at him as he sat in the chair by the window. He did not exactly look like a murderer, somehow. He seemed so innocent, with his big glasses and his earnestness. However, Laura thought to herself, one couldn't exactly tell just by looking at someone.
It was not long before Mr. Rawlinson turned up, and Laura directed him over to the corner for his meeting with Mr. Halston.
Mr. Rawlinson owns the corner café – the only other place in town that sells baked goods, Laura thought to herself idly. I wonder...
Unobtrusively, she drifted across the dining room towards table twelve, listening in.
“...And if you open a franchise of Halston Bakery, I can guarantee you'll be the only one within a fifty mile radius...”
“...I am interested, you know that, Mr. Halston. Very interested indeed.”
Laura's eyes bulged as she listened. That explained the baking brochure. It sounds like he owns a major bakery chain that is planning to move to Millerfield. I wonder how far they would go to minimize their competition.
“...this seems like an ideal location for our next franchise,” Mr. Halston was saying. “After all, the nearest one is in Bishopstone, and you don't have any bakery here?”
“Well,” Mr. Rawlinson cleared his throat, “not of last week we don't.”
Mr. Halston drank some beer, thoughtfully. Laura's eyes bulged. Not of last week? Not since Mr. Duvall was killed, he meant! How could anyone be so callous? Unless they had a reason to be...
She quickly set her thought aside and listened to the rest of the conversation.
“I'll leave the contract with you..?” Mr. Halston was saying. “You and Mrs. Rawlinson can read it and see what you think.”
“Good idea,” Mr. Rawlinson agreed.
The two men reached across the table to shake hands, and Laura drifted off quietly, trying not to look as if she had been listening.
At her desk, she was seething with ideas. She reached for her notebook and scribbled down some thoughts. Her hand shook as she wrote.
Suspect 1: Mr. Priestly. Motive? To become the most renowned baker in the district.
Laura chewed her pen and wrote another line.
Suspect 2 and 3: Mr. Halston and Mr. Rawlinson. Motive? To ensure Halston's is the onl
y bakery here.
Maybe both of them had murdered him at once? It was a nasty thought, and one she had to follow up. Their motive was the same, so why not work together. Would it show, if two people assaulted him instead of only one?
The day wore on, and the ideas turned around in her mind until late evening, dominating her mind. It was only as Laura drove back through the darkening streets that she remembered she had meant to visit the abandoned cottage.
“Things like that,” Laura decided flatly, “will just have to wait.”
She had a case to solve.
At home, almost as she crossed the threshold, her phone rang. It was a call from Howard.
“Laura!” He sounded tired. “Lovely to hear you. How was your day at work?”
“Oh, it was okay...” Laura ventured uneasily. “How was yours?”
“Exhausting,” he sighed. “But not traumatic – the worst I had to see was an infected splinter.”
“Oh, good,” Laura said. “That doesn't sound too terrible.”
“Luckily, no,” Howard said, and she could hear his smile.
“Howard?” she asked, suddenly recalling something.
“Mm?”
“You saw the body, right?”
“Mr. Duvall?” His voice sounded tense. Laura knew he did not like to think about postmortem cases, but she had to ask. She drew in a sharp breath.
“Yes.”
“Did you want to ask something about it?” Howard asked gently.
“Yes. The marks on the body. The bruises, the marks around his throat. Do you think only one person assaulted him, or could it have been two?”
“I'm not sure,” Howard said slowly. “Do you think I should check?”
“I think so,” Laura said cautiously. “I am starting to wonder if it wasn't two people.”
“Okay,” Howard said dubiously. “If you think I should, I could probably ask Captain Browne for permission to check again...”
“Thank you!” Laura beamed. “That would help me so much!”
“Laura,” Howard said, with tenderness in his voice, “you have to stop tormenting yourself about this murder. It wasn't your fault, you know.”
“I know,” Laura said noncommittally, “but I can't let go now.”
She had started work on the case, and the more she discovered about it, the more the case drew her. She was too deeply involved now to get out.
She fed Monty, made her own dinner, and tried to distract herself with the crossword puzzles in the newspaper. It didn't really help. She was hooked by this case, and it would not let her go until she made some conclusions.
“I suppose I should go to bed,” she yawned, when the clock showed eleven-thirty. “I can always find out some more tomorrow.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
TEA AND MYSTERY
The next day dawned on a hive of activity at the hotel. With a few days to go before the competition, Laura found her day taken up with organizing the tent, assisting the new arrivals and briefing the kitchen team for their role on the day.
It was a tense morning, and Laura felt constantly hounded by her investigations. She wanted to do more work, but she was tied down – not only by time, but by waiting for Howard's investigations to be concluded.
Waiting for Howard proved too tedious, and, by her afternoon break, Laura found she could not sit still without doing something to do with the case.
“Come on...you can go faster than that.”
Gripping her steering wheel with impatience, Laura found herself stuck behind a tractor. She had decided to go out to the village, driving through to visit Mrs. Robbins, the deceased man's neighbor.
“I need to know if Mr. Rawlinson was there...or Mr. Halston. Or both of them.” Laura said aloud. That would be a deciding factor. She had already asked Mrs. Robbins about the visitors to the house, but maybe she had forgotten something? This time Laura had pictures of the suspects. Mr. Halston was easy to find – as the founder, the Halston bakery website portrayed him rather prominently under “About us”. Mr. Rawlinson had a Facebook account, which doubled as advertising for the cafe. She had printed pictures and carried them with her in a folder.
“That might make it easier to...oh, forget it!” she muttered under her breath, flicking her indicator and overtaking the tractor. Mr. Hugo, the farmer and driver of the tractor, shook a fist at her and she grinned and waved.
“Finally!” she let out a sigh as the row of cottages appeared on her left. She slid out of the seat and went over to the door, remembering to take her clipboard with her. She had one this time.
She knocked on the door and Mrs. Robbins opened.
“Hello,” she said cheerily. “It's you again! Come inside. I was just making tea.”
The scent of baking engulfed Laura as she entered the small cottage, and she breathed in, feeling her mouth water.
“Here,” Mrs. Robbins said kindly, indicating a seat. “You must be freezing!” she mimed shivering and inclined her head towards the overcast sky. “Have a scone and some tea. Sugar?”
Laura nodded enthusiastically, and settled down at the table. “Thank you,” she said politely.
“Not at all,” Mrs. Robbins said cheerfully, and placed a small plate before Laura, the china entirely dwarfed by the huge, homemade scone laying on it.
“Thank you...” Laura said faintly. She had never before felt intimidated by baked goods, but she was just then. The size was impressive.
“Not a bit of it,” Mrs. Robbins repeated, and sat down, sighing heavily. She bit into her own scone, and wiped the strawberry jam off her lips with her hand.
“I wanted to ask you some more questions,” Laura began, reaching for her teacup.
“Fire away,” Mrs. Robbins said placidly.
“You know Mr. and Mrs. Rawlinson?”
“Aye,” the woman replied. “Know them well. They've run that place they own for fifteen years now.”
“Were they ever visitors of Mr. Duvall?”
“Sometimes,” she conceded. “Not on such good terms, both being bakers in a small town, eh?” she chuckled. “But I've not seen them here for about a year?”
Laura picked up her scone and licked some cream off the top. It was intensely rich. She bit into the confection, and closed her eyes, enjoying the crumbly warmth.
“Mm?” She asked, through a mouthful, writing down notes. She swallowed. “Do you know why they stopped visiting?”
“No,” Mrs. Robbins admitted. “I don't, actually. I didn't know Mr. Duvall well. Strange man. Kept himself to himself. We nodded over the fence, but confide something like that? Not likely.” she chuckled and drank some tea.
“And no one else visited him? A shortish man with big glasses, say?” She dug into the folder and drew out the photograph, holding it across the table towards her.
“No...” the woman closed her eyes, clearly thinking back. She lifted the paper closer to her eyes, scrutinizing it, and then shook her head again. “No one like that. Not seen a bloke like that in the village that I can think of.”
“Thank you,” Laura said, and wrote down some more notes. It wasn't surprising that Mrs. Robbins hadn't seen him before – he was from out of town. Unless he had been visiting here, there would be no reason for her to have seen him. “And thank you for the scone – this is absolutely delicious.”
Mrs. Robbins nodded. “Old family recipe. Always thought I should try my hand at baking. I could open a shop, like,” she added, smiling.
“You could, certainly,” Laura agreed.
She stayed and chatted for a while, and then left.
In her car, she sighed and looked through her notebook. She had found something out – that Mr. Duvall and Mr. Rawlinson were not on good terms, and saw each other as rivals. However, if Mr. Rawlinson had not visited in about a year, it seemed unlikely that he would have escaped unnoticed if he had visited the day of the murder.
Laura breathed out shakily. She had found out almost all she could. It did suggest that nei
ther man were involved, though Laura hesitated to completely rule them out. They did, after all, have a straightforward motive.
There was only one person left to interview. And that was Mr. Priestly himself. She had to find out where he was on the fateful day.
If it couldn't have been him, Laura thought resignedly, then I will start investigating other options. He was still the only person Mrs. Robbins remembered seeing. He was still her best bet.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
FRIGHTENING ENCOUNTER
The next day, Laura felt brave and decided it was time to tackle her primary suspect. She could not put it off anymore. She waited until her afternoon tea break, and, swallowing hard, she drove the five miles through to the neighboring village. It was a cloudy day, and the fields whipped past, cool under the shadow of the clouds. As she pulled up outside the cafe, it started to rain, a light drizzle that barely fell, hanging in the air like mist.
“Mr. Priestly?” Laura said shakily. She was standing on the top step of Beaverton's bakery in Drayton, feeling very scared. She was, after all face-to-face with her chief suspect, who was fortuitously on the front step, carrying a tray.
“I'm Priestly,” he acknowledged calmly. “Call me Al.”
He was standing with his back to Laura, dispensing pastries from his tray to the table of one of the customers. He finished his job and turned round to face her.
Laura cleared her throat. She was virtually sure that this man was a murderer. He was asking her to call him by his familiar name? She wasn't sure she could do that. It was hard enough to stand on the top step of his bakery, which now seemed rank and vile, full of lurking dangers.
“Thank you,” she said instead, skirting the issue of the name. “If you don't mind, I have some questions to ask you?”
“From the newspaper, are you?” he asked mildly.
“No...” Laura said hesitantly. “Why?”
“Oh,” he blinked. “Thought you might be doing a feature on the baking contetht,” he explained. “And were interviewing the competitorth.”
“No,” Laura said again. “I'm a market surveyor, and I'm finding out about bakeries in the Canterbury district,” she explained. She had a story ready this time.
