Cozy Mystery: Dining With The Dead (A Millerfield Village Cozy Murder Mysteries Series)

by Carrie Marsh

  “Thanks,” Laura repeated.

  Twenty minutes later, he was dusting his hands down his overalls, and holding out a hand to shake hers.

  “You drive safe now, Miss,” he said, grinning. “You goin' so far, and all...”

  Laura sighed. It would probably take three hours, at the very longest. Less, on the train, if there had been a train that left from Millerfield. Besides, she thought to herself, I feel a bit scared around crowds just now...

  Laura paid the man and drove back home, shouting her thanks over her shoulder. It was drowned out by the wind and the sound of the engine, but the mechanic still waved and shouted his thanks.

  In the car, Laura leaned back against the seat and breathed out. She was feeling better away from the scents of oil and engines, and from the noise and strangers.

  “That note really scared me,” she mused.

  Laura usually liked meeting new people, and crowded, loud places had never scared her, despite having been raised in a relatively peaceful environment. It was strange to suddenly cringe when an engine roared, or to stick to the edge of a large group.

  “I really need this trip,” Laura decided. The thought of being away from the village, with the suspicion still held over her, and the threats, calmed her.

  “There is one thing I'll miss, though,” she thought as she entered the main street. That, she smiled, was Dr. Lucas.

  Since the night he had visited her, there had been a new dynamic between them – sudden shyness that she couldn't explain. Neither of them seemed ready to cross whatever barrier created the shyness, and it hung there, a beautiful, intangible mist.

  She drifted in, feeling light at heart.

  “Hi...!” she sang out, walking lightly past Janet's desk at the reception.

  “Hi...” Janet called. She did not look up, and Laura went into the restaurant feeling strangely sad.

  “She was always so friendly, before...” she said under her breath.

  “Eh?”

  Colonel Brand, an extremely old, extremely deaf restaurant regular, walked past under her nose.

  “Nothing, Colonel,” Laura replied. “Just talking to myself.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing!” Laura bawled, trying to sound cheerful while ramping up the volume fully.

  “Oh. Very well...” the old man replied, shaking his head., affronted “Don't have to shout...”

  Laura closed her eyes, struggling for patience. She took him a menu – Bethany was in the kitchen still – and went to her usual place behind the desk.

  Business was brisk at lunchtime, with many people Laura had not seen in the village before. Foreigners...Laura thought, and blinked. Had she really just thought that? She grinned. In a lull in the proceedings, she checked her messages, and was downcast to find one from Howard.

  At an emergency. Will miss lunch today. See you tomorrow?

  Laura sighed.

  Okay, she wrote back. See you tomorrow. Don't work too hard.

  She had become so used to having him in her life – their daily chats over lunch, their talk about their investigations, his easy presence. She would miss him.

  “He can't be here all day, you know...He isn't just yours.” She smiled. The thought of having him to herself was delicious, like some sinful pleasure, and she wriggled in her seat just considering it.

  “Laura Howcroft...You have work to do,” she reminded herself sternly.

  She organized the guest seating for a small conference party that had booked for lunch the next day, checked that the coach-party from Maidstone could stop there on Wednesday, and confirmed a reservation for a businessman, calling to check they had remembered to reserve a seat.

  “I guess villagers can be quite daunting...” Laura chuckled. She recalled her own preconceptions. She had also expected them to be disordered, chaotic, and speak Dialectic Kentish as a first language. She had been pleasantly surprised. And now, it seemed, she would have to go to London.

  But where do I start? She thought. I can't just walk into his office and ask if he's a murderer or not! She grimaced. She would have to make up an excuse to meet him.

  What if he left something in the hotel? She thought. What if he lost something...Then she stopped. Something had gotten lost at the hotel. Maybe it was his.

  What was it, she thought, that Chelsea was accused of stealing?

  In all the excitement around the murder, she had forgotten to find out. She wrote a note for herself: “Chelsea”. Then she set down her pen.

  “Is it nine-thirty already?” she said, amazed that the evening service had gone so quickly.

  “Yes, Miss,” Bethany agreed, walking past with the last plates.

  “Oh, hell!” Laura swung her legs out of the seat and walked into the main room of the restaurant. “Clean-up time...” she helped to carry the dishes out, straightening the tables and chairs and removing cloths and cutlery.

  An hour later, she drove home and parked the serviced car, still smelling faintly of oil, behind the house. Then she walked briskly through to the front door.

  As she reached out to check the mail, she paused. She was still slightly nervous about it, since the threat of two nights before.

  “Come on, Laura!” she encouraged herself, and stuck her hand inside. “It probably won't happen again...why would it?”

  She placed the mail on the kitchen table, and switched on the kettle.

  As she sorted through the mail, her heart clenched. There, in the pile, was a blank envelope.

  “No...” she whispered.

  She lifted it and opened it. The handwriting was the same as before.

  Trembling violently, she read the words:

  “You mustn't leave the village. If you do, you will die.”

  Laura fainted.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  SURPRISING INFORMATION

  “Oh...” Laura groaned. he moved, and discovered she couldn't. Her body was stiff and cold.

  She opened her eyes. She was in her own kitchen, lying on the floor. She looked about, and noticed envelopes scattered across the linoleum covering. Then she remembered.

  “Death threat,” she said mechanically. “I fainted.”

  She pulled herself into a sitting position and hauled herself into her seat at the kitchen chair. The note was still there on the table. Carrying it between finger and thumb, she walked to the bathroom, negotiating a path despite the rising ache in her head.

  She dropped the letter into the toilet and flushed it away.

  “That,” she said shakily, “takes care of that.”

  She was angry.

  How dare some stranger make a death threat to her!

  “I,” she said decidedly, “have had enough.”

  She made herself a cup of tea, and sat drinking it. The clock on the opposite wall stated that it was ten o' clock.

  “Still time for supper,” Laura decided matter-of-factly. “but first, I will text a friend.”

  She drew out her phone and sent a text to Howard.

  Had another threat. Am okay. See you lunchtime tomorrow?

  “There,” she said aloud. She felt much better, now that someone else knew.

  “I will not let you get the better of me!” She declared to the room at large, in case her would-be murderer were listening.

  She heard someone move in the corridor. She stiffened, then recognized the sound

  “Hello, Monty,”

  Hello yourself, Monty said briefly. I've been out for ages, and when I come back in, no-one's there to say hello, and there isn't even anything to eat...

  Laura sighed. “Sorry, Monty,” she said sadly. “I fainted. I got another one of those threat things...” Her voice trailed off.

  You did? Monty was alert. He, too, sounded angry. I have just about had enough of those things...

  “Me too, Monty,” Laura sighed. She walked back to the kitchen with him, to put more food in his bowl. “But,” she remembered, “how was your day?”

  Good! Mo
nty said. He sounded, Laura thought, self-satisfied. I went ratting in the fields. And I saw her again.

  “Her?” Laura, still feeling ill, was having trouble concentrating. She remembered he had mentioned some friends in the fields, so was in time to understand his next thought.

  Keillor.

  “Pretty name,” Laura said, putting his food down where he could reach it.

  It is, Monty agreed happily.

  “What did she say?”

  Lots, Monty said, looking up towards her. She told me all about her home on the farm, and that she liked it, and she did mention this Hogarth you mentioned. A big farm, she said, with a fancy gate. Good rats there.

  “Did she see anything odd?”

  She did, Monty said, swallowing another bite of food. She was ratting in the barn, there, when she saw a man.

  “The ghost?”

  No, Monty said patiently. This thing was definitely a man. She said he was nasty, and chased her when he saw her. Monty sounded offended.

  “Did she notice anything about the man? What he was doing there?”

  She said she didn't like him. She said she hoped he'd learned some manners since the first time she saw him, but apparently not.

  Laura almost dropped the bottle of tomato sauce she held. “She said what?”

  That she hoped he'd learned some manners after last time she saw him, Monty repeated, eying her strangely.

  “She'd seen him before!” Laura exclaimed.

  He's there quite often, she said.

  Suddenly things were making a strange kind of sense. And it meant one thing. She had to go to Hogarth Place. Soon.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  SECRETS AND SURPRISES

  “Come on...!”

  Laura, sitting in her car at the end of the street, watched the fancy white Mercedes-Benz of her boss, Mr. Preston, roll slowly out of the driveway of his fancy house.

  It was evening, and she waited for the car to reach the end of the street before she discreetly pulled in behind it. She was following him.

  “Off you go...” she whispered. She knew where he was going – or she thought she did. It had not been easy, but she had managed to peep into his personal diary when he was out of the office for a meeting. She had found what she had hoped to find – the Hogarth Place farm address, and, this week, an appointment to visit it. She could hardly believe her luck! If she could follow him, and conceal herself nearby – perhaps in the barns beside the house – while they talked, she might learn something about the connection.

  “The link between the hotel and the farm is the key, I'm sure of it,” Laura told herself, narrowing her eyes as she watched the BMW drive slowly down the lane before here.

  She hissed in triumph as he pulled in at the gate of Hogarth Place. She pulled over and put off her engine at once, hoping he had not seen the lights. She slipped out of the door and closed it as softly as she could.

  Then, keeping to the deep darkness below the trees, she ran towards the gate. She slipped in and hid.

  As she watched, Mr. Preston walked up the path to the front door. She heard him press the bell, and saw the slanting gold light as the door was opened, and he slipped inside. The door closed.

  Laura counted to ten and then ran to the window.

  She peered in through the curtains, trying to see into the living-room. It was dark.

  “Where are you?” she whispered to herself. They did not seem to be in the living room. She slipped around to the side, which she presumed was the kitchen. The lights were off there, too. Walking around the back showed what might have been a bathroom, with no lights, and a fourth room. The only light was from upstairs.

  “That must be a bedroom,” Laura whispered to herself. She returned to the front garden to think.

  The air was fragrant with dew, the crickets singing. She sat in a midnight wonderland of velvet sky and the chirping of night creatures, and tried to think.

  Mr. Preston was upstairs, in farmer Hogarth's bedroom. That was odd. She had a thought, and slipped across to the shed to check if she was right.

  Farmer Hogarth had an old Mazda Rx7 – an old, but beloved sports-car. If he was at home, it would be there, in the shed, where she had seen it parked last time. It wasn't.

  “He is not at home,” Laura mused. That confirmed her suspicions.

  “Mr. Preston keeps himself busy, I think...” Laura whispered.

  As she walked back to the gate, getting ready to leave, she glanced up at the single light burning in the main bedroom.

  She did not judge. She would not judge. But the new information was a piece she had so long lacked.

  “Now I know why Mr. Preston is scared of nosey parkers...” she thought, smiling. He was having an affair, and he didn't want anyone to find out.

  Was that the only connection between the hotel and the farm? Laura wasn't sure. As she drove slowly back along the long road towards the village, a plan began to form in her mind. She had to follow this lead until she reached the very end of its possible answers.

  The next day, which was a Thursday, Laura dressed very smartly, and went in to work as usual. At lunch hour, she drove up to the farm. She was armed with a box of assorted biscuits she had brought back from Harrods – the fancy sort – and never eaten.

  She stood at the front door and knocked, politely.

  “Hello?” The lovely, curious face of Mrs. Hogarth appeared. When she saw a stranger, her eyes widened.

  “Hello,” Laura replied. “I'm Laura Howcroft – I work at the hotel? I wanted to bring these round to say thanks for the help your husband gave me earlier this week.”

  “Oh?” Mrs. Hogarth looked bemused, but invited Laura inside.

  “Thank you,” Laura smiled and walked in. The farmhouse was vast, the floor stone-flagged and the whole place a wonderful mixture of ancient tradition and modern luxuriousness. Laura sighed, appreciative.

  “Can I get you some coffee?” Mrs. Hogarth asked.

  “Yes, please,” Laura agreed, and followed her to the kitchen.

  “My husband is away in town at the moment...buying new seed stock,” Mrs. Hogarth explained.

  “He must go away often?” Laura guessed, and felt a sudden sympathy for this woman, left all alone on this windy, empty farm with three small children.

  “Oh, about once a week,” Mrs. Hogarth said, standing on a low stool as she fetched cups from a high cupboard on the far wall.

  “It must get lonely here,” Laura sympathized.

  “It does, sometimes,” Mrs. Hogarth agreed. “But one must do as one must...being a farmer's wife has its drawbacks,” she smiled a little sadly.

  “I'm sure it does,” Laura agreed. She helped the pretty woman to carry the tray through to the sitting-room.

  The tea was delicious – strongly flavored, served with rich, thick milk and oat biscuits.

  “You lived here long?” Laura asked, swallowing the crumbly remains of a cookie.

  “I moved here eight years ago. That was just before Seth was born,” Mrs. Hogarth explained, nodding her head at a series of portraits on the wall.

  “He's beautiful,” Laura said, admiring the rosy-cheeked boy in the photographs, complete with curly hair and a prim sailor-suit.

  “Thank you,” Mrs. Hogarth beamed.

  “Mrs. Hogarth?” Laura began.

  “Call me Noelle, please,” Mrs. Hogarth beamed.

  “Noelle,” Laura said, smiling. “I wanted to ask you...it does get lonely here, doesn't it?”

  “Yes,” the friendly woman said, though she suddenly stiffened.

  “And that's why Mr. Preston comes here sometimes?”

  “I...” The woman's face darkened, as if she was about to lose her temper. Then all the fight seemed to go out of her. Her face fell, and she covered it with her hands, crying loudly. “How did you know?” She asked, after a moment, looking up at Laura with eyes wet with her tears. “I know it's wrong, but it gets so lonely up here, and Grant...he's not an easy man, always. Alf
red is kind to me,” she sniffed. “To me and the children. You won't tell?”

  “I guessed,” Laura said simply. “And no. I promise I would never tell. You are safe.”

  “Thank you,” Noelle said, and reached out a hand to Laura. She took it. They sat side by side for a while in silence broken only by a lawn-mower and the sound of two children, playing roughly in the fields.

  “Actually,” Mrs. Hogarth sniffed, “it's a great relief. I hate keeping secrets, but who could I tell? If one person in this village knew, then the next day every person would. They're all back-stabbing witches!” She laughed, then blew her nose sadly.

  “I know,” Laura beamed. For the first time since she arrived in Millerfield, she felt like she had a true female friend.

  “Good,” Mrs. Hogarth beamed, and they both laughed.

  Laura stayed for tea, and then drove back to the village. Her heart felt light for the first time in an age.

  “At least,” she said under her breath, “that mystery is solved.”

  The mystery of Mr. Preston was solved, and perhaps the mystery of the threatening notes. And, best of all, she had found a friend.

  Laura drove back to the hotel feeling better than she had for weeks.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  MORE CLUES

  “And you found all that out by yourself?”

  Howard laughed, incredulous. It was Saturday, and he was seated at Laura's kitchen table, where they had just enjoyed a home-cooked meal of pasta. They had moved on to a delicious bottle of white wine Howard had brought, and as they drank they discussed their week's investigations.

  Laura sat back, feeling proud of herself.

  “I guess it was coincidence...” she said, modest. Something about Howard always made her happy and shy at once.

  “Coincidence, maybe, but you interpreted it. Clever girl!” He saluted her with his glass and then drank it back in one go. He sighed, leaning back in the chair.

  “How was your week?” Laura asked gently.

  “Tiring,” the doctor explained. “Though...” and here his eyes twinkled, “I have found some interesting news for you as well...”