The Cat That Played The Tombola

by Fiona Snyckers

  The Cat That Played the Tombola

  The Cat’s Paw Cozy Mysteries - Book 3

  Fiona Snyckers

  Copyright © 2018 Fiona Snyckers

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without prior written permission of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Produced in South Africa

  Contents

  Untitled

  A note on the text

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  The Cat’s Paw Cozy Mysteries Will Return

  About the Author

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  A note on the text

  This novel uses American spelling and idiom, conforming to Standard American English.

  Chapter 1

  “Roll up! Roll up! Try your luck on the tombola. Hundreds of prizes to be won! Only two pounds a ticket. The more you play, the more you win. Roll up now and try the tombola.”

  Fay Penrose put down her megaphone and mopped her brow with a damp cloth. It was a glorious spring day - perfect weather for Bluebell Island’s annual spring fair. Fay would have thoroughly enjoyed the mild warmth of the sun if only she had been wearing a cotton sundress like all the other women.

  Instead, she was dressed in a three-piece suit. It weighed about a ton and was made of thick layers of scratchy nylon. It was certainly an eye-catching outfit. The waistcoat was pink, the pants orange, and the jacket with its long tails was candy-striped.

  Fay looked like a cross between a candy cane and a carnival barker, which was presumably the intention. The suit had been made for someone much bigger than her – her grandfather or great-grandfather, perhaps. Fay’s friend and colleague, Morwen, had shortened the pants so they didn’t look completely ridiculous, but they still had a tendency to drag on the grass however tightly she belted them at the waist.

  Fay straightened when she saw a family of four approaching. They were probably coming to buy tickets for the kids only, but she would see if she could charm them into spending more money.

  After all, it was all for a good cause.

  “Good afternoon to you!” she swept off her striped top hat and bowed with a flourish. “Have you come to try out our special family discount?”

  “Family discount?” said the dad. “We didn’t know there was such a thing.”

  “Of course, there is,” said Fay who had just made it up on the spot. “The tickets are normally two pounds, but if every member of the family plays, you get the tickets for one pound fifty each. That’s a total saving of two pounds.”

  The mom and dad looked at each other.

  “Seems like a good deal,” she said.

  Her husband nodded. He reached into his wallet and took out six pounds. “We’ll take the family discount then, thanks.”

  “How does it work?” asked the little boy.

  “You pull the handle to spin the barrel over here. When it stops spinning, you put your hand inside and pull out a ticket. If the ticket has a gold star on it, that means it’s a winner and I’ll tell you what prize you’ve won.”

  “I like the picture of the kitty-cat on the barrel,” said the little girl shyly.

  “So do I,” said Fay. “It’s really old too, which makes it extra special.”

  The tombola barrel was decorated with a Victorian painting of a smartly dressed cat pulling the handle of another tombola barrel which had a picture of another cat on it pulling the handle of a tombola barrel, and so forth. It was like a funhouse mirror.

  “Say, have you seen any of the real kitty-cats around here?” Fay asked the children. “We don’t call it the Cat’s Paw B&B for nothing.”

  The little girl giggled and nodded.

  “We nearly tripped over an enormous shaggy cat sleeping in the middle of the field earlier,” said the mom.

  “That would be Ivan. He’s a Siberian and sleeps wherever he likes in all weathers. I’m always tripping over him myself.”

  The family pulled the handle of the tombola one by one and handed their tickets to Fay who inspected them solemnly. This was the best part of her job. She had total discretion in deciding who got prizes and who didn’t. And because she was a soft-hearted soul, everyone got prizes. Luckily, there were more than enough prizes to go around. The only restriction was that each person was only allowed to try the tombola five times in the day. And because all the prizes were donated, the money raised was pure profit for the various charities that the spring fair supported.

  She saw how tired and overheated this family were looking and decided to give them a break.

  “Good news!” she announced, consulting her prize book. “Dad has won a free beer at the beer tent. Mom has won a manicure at the spa tent, and the kids have won free pony rides supervised by a qualified instructor.”

  She gave them their vouchers and they went away with big smiles on their faces. Fay couldn’t help feeling pleased with herself.

  “If you carry on in this reckless fashion, you will run out of prizes before the end of the day.”

  She turned in surprise at the sharpness of this warning. A woman in her fifties confronted her with her hands on her hips.

  “Oh, hello. It’s Mrs. Saville, isn’t it? I’m Fay Penrose.”

  “I know perfectly well who you are, Miss Penrose. That’s your grandmother’s legacy you’re tarnishing by playing fast and loose with the tombola prizes.”

  “My grandmother’s legacy was all about kindness, Mrs. Saville. She loved the spring fair and she loved making people happy with the prizes. I think she’d be proud of how I’m running it. Besides, there are always so many prizes that we have plenty left over at the end of the fair. I’d rather see them going to people who will enjoy them rather than cluttering up my attic for another year.”

  The woman snorted. “Wastefulness – that’s what it is.”

  “I …”

  But she had already moved on to harass the person running the balloon-shaving competition at the next stall. This was the first time they had met, although Fay had been aware of her presence in the village for some time. She was the sort of woman who stuck her nose into every aspect of village life. There wasn’t a committee she didn’t sit on or an event she didn’t try to run.

  Fay was a newcomer to the village and had a feeling that Mrs. Saville was too. But whereas Fay tried to make herself agreeable to the villagers, the older woman seemed to be trying the opposite tactic.

  “How’s it going here?”

  Fay smiled as a more welcome voice made her turn.

  “You mean aside from the fact that I’m slowly boiling to
death in this suit?”

  “It’s a tradition,” said Morwen. “Your grandmother wore it every year. And your grandfather before her. It’s not that bad, is it?”

  “It’s worse,” grumbled Fay. “And the pants are turning green from dragging on the damp grass.”

  “Ah, well. We’ll send it off to be dry-cleaned, just like your granny did every year.”

  “I wish someone would dry-clean me. I feel like the makeup I put on this morning must be a distant memory by now.”

  Morwen took a proper look at Fay’s face and swallowed a laugh. “Okay, maybe you don’t look quite as put together as you did this morning, but who does? I’ve just finished a shift at the tea table and now I have to do one in the beer tent. I must be looking like something the cat dragged in.”

  Fay looked at Morwen in her pretty, sleeveless sundress and shook her head. “You look as cool as a cucumber. You look like I would have looked if I weren’t in this stupid suit.”

  Fay reached a hand over her shoulder and tried to scratch the middle of her back. She couldn’t quite reach the spot through the thick fabric.

  “I hate this waistcoat. It itches like a fiend.”

  “Was that Mrs. Saville you were talking to earlier?”

  “It was, yes. First time I’ve met her, actually.”

  “What was she moaning about this time?”

  “Oh, nothing too serious. Just that I’m disgracing my grandmother’s legacy by letting too many people win prizes at the tombola.”

  “She’s a real ray of sunshine, isn’t she? Don’t pay any attention to her. The tombola is always our biggest money-earner at the fair and your grandmother used to do exactly the same thing. Everyone won a prize when she was in charge. Look.” Morwen glanced towards the tea tent. “There she goes – spreading sweetness and light.”

  Mrs. Saville moved from stall to stall, stopping to have a word with each person. Each time she moved on, the person she had just been speaking to was left with a scowl on their face.

  “She’s not from around here, is she?” asked Fay.

  “She moved to the island about ten years ago. What tipped you off?”

  “She doesn’t sound like the rest of you. I’m starting to recognize the island accent. When I first got here, you all sounded the same to me. Now I can pick out the west country accent from all the other British accents. Mrs. Saville definitely comes from somewhere else.”

  “London, I believe.” Morwen spotted a teacher from one of the mainland schools leading a train of students towards the tombola.

  “You’re going to have your hands full in a moment. I’ll be getting on to the beer tent now. There’ll be fireworks when it gets dark and that signals the official end of the fair.”

  “When does it ever get dark around here? Last night, I went for a walk around the garden at nine-thirty and it was almost light enough to read.”

  “What can I say?” said Morwen. “We’re very far west here.”

  It was ten o’clock by the time the fireworks started.

  The temperature had dropped dramatically over the past two hours, making Fay almost grateful for her hot, scratchy suit. More than one lady in a sundress had borrowed her partner’s jacket as the evening wore on. Fay didn’t have a partner, so she made do with the scratchy suit.

  The fireworks display started tamely enough with Roman candles and pinwheels. Then it got bigger and brighter and noisier as it built to a big finale.

  Fay couldn’t help smiling as she saw the round eyes and enthralled faces of the children in the crowd enjoying the spectacle.

  As someone who had seen in many New Year’s Eve celebrations in Times Square, Fay was not blown away by the fireworks. But there was something magical about watching them here on Bluebell Island in the grounds of this house that had been hers for such a short time. It was the people that made it special. Some had become close friends, while others were still acquaintances, but they had all absorbed her into their community so warmly that she couldn’t quite believe it.

  The fireworks were getting louder and louder. Some of the noise-sensitive children put their hands over their ears. The display was spectacular but the noise intense.

  Suddenly Fay heard something – a sound that didn’t belong. Every muscle in her body tensed as she registered that it was a gunshot. She had heard it too many times before – that unmistakable whip-crack of a bullet breaking the sound barrier. It had been close, too. Very close to where she was standing.

  Fay looked around, her head moving from side to side. No one else seemed to have noticed it. On the other side of the field, next to the kebab stand, she saw a figure slowly sinking to the ground.

  Fay took off at a run before her brain registered what was happening. In seconds she was at the person’s side. A huge firework lit up the field and she saw that it was Mrs. Saville. She had been hit in the center of her chest and was quite dead.

  The moment Fay realized that there was nothing she could do for the victim, her attention turned to everyone else at the fair. There was an active shooter running around in this overcrowded situation. The thought of a shooter on the loose among so many civilians turned her knees to water.

  The fireworks were still too noisy. There was no way she could make herself heard over them. She wanted to grab her megaphone and yell at everyone to shelter in place – the standard warning given to civilians caught up in an active shooter situation. But no one would hear her. There was nothing she could do. A feeling of helplessness threatened to overwhelm her.

  Her ballistics training kicked into gear. Where had the shot come from? Where had the shooter been standing?

  Taking her best guess, she ran back across the field to where the shot might have originated from. It was not far from where she had been standing.

  Fay pushed her way through the crowds staring agog at the fireworks. Near Mrs. Saville, people were starting to realize that something was wrong. A small group of people were kneeling around her, trying to raise the alarm.

  As she emerged through the crowds, Fay found herself near the ticket booth of the Ferris wheel. A glint of something metallic caught her eye.

  There on the ground lay an old-fashioned silver revolver.

  Chapter 2

  Fay let her breath out in a whoosh of relief.

  This wasn’t an active shooter situation. The shooter had fired the gun, abandoned it, and left the scene. There was no reason to think that anyone else was in danger.

  The fireworks were building up to a big finale. There was a flurry of bangs and crashes, with spectacular illuminations lighting up the sky. Then suddenly it was all over, and silence fell like a blanket over the Lower Field of Penrose House. It lasted for no more than a second before the crowd cheered and applauded. Most were still unaware of what had happened.

  Fay stood next to the gun, unwilling to leave it until it could be taken into custody by the proper authorities. She slipped her phone out of her pocket and took photographs of the gun with the flash on. It was lying on the grass untouched, exactly where she had found it.

  The group of people gathered around Mrs. Saville was getting bigger. They stepped aside as two figures arrived on the scene. It was Bluebell Island’s doctors, and Fay was very pleased to see them. The elder was Bartemius Dyer – known affectionately as Doc Dyer – and the younger was his son, David. He was a Harvard-trained surgeon, and nobody had yet dared to give him a nickname.

  Fay knew that Mrs. Saville had been dead before she hit the ground, but she was glad that the Dyers had arrived to take care of the body while she guarded the murder weapon.

  People were drifting towards their cars or setting out on the short walk to Bluebell Village. The fireworks marked the end of the spring fair and people wanted to get home for the night. Those who had come from the mainland would catch the last ferries back to Falmouth or Truro.

  “What happened? Why are you standing here?” Morwen hurried over, looking anxious. “Is it true that Mrs. Saville has been hurt
?”

  “She was shot dead. I heard it happen during the fireworks. I thought there was a shooter in the crowd, but then I found this.” She pointed to the revolver.

  “Oh, wow.” Morwen bent to pick it up but stopped when Fay caught her arm. “Okay, right. I suppose it’s evidence, isn’t it?”

  “Definitely.”

  “What a strange object. It doesn’t look real.”

  “It’s real, all right. Just very old.”

  “Are you sure this is what killed Mrs. Saville? It looks like a child’s toy or a fancy-dress prop.”

  “I’m positive. This gun has just been fired. You can see by looking at the barrel. It’s still warm too. I held my hand near it to check.”

  “But who on earth …?” Morwen looked around as though the shooter would be found loitering nearby. A loud, aristocratic voice made them jump to attention.

  “What on earth is going on here? I demand an explanation.”

  It was Lady Chadwick. She was accompanied by Nella Harcourt. They were the two great ladies of the village. Fay’s grandmother had been their equal, but at thirty Fay knew she was too young to be seen as anything more than a child in their eyes. Together with Morwen, these two ladies had organized the spring fair. Every year, it was held either at Chadwick Manor or at Penrose House. This year it was Penrose House’s turn.

  “Is it true that Mrs. Saville is dead?” demanded Lady Chadwick. “It was the electromagnetic fields, wasn’t it? They struck her down.”