Drowned Vanilla (Cafe La Femme Book 2)

by Livia Day

  ‘They just — they knew I was upset.’

  ‘I was near enough to you in that club, Alice. I heard you begging them to do it. What was so important?’

  Alice bit her lip, tilted her head and basically used every tool in her repertoire to look like the innocent, injured victim all over again. ‘I can’t stand to see Annabeth being used for tacky entertainment like this. It’s cruel to her family and friends.’

  ‘Cruel,’ Jason repeated. ‘You know what, Alice? I have a really good lawyer. The best money can buy. Turns out that’s the one thing my dad is good for. And this lawyer has been asking a lot of questions. Like, what you said to me on the phone that night, to get me to the lake. About whose idea it was for me to bring my dad’s gun. How you even knew about the gun in the first place. And it’s becoming kind of obvious how good you are at worming information out of people. Out of me. I told you stuff I never should have.’

  ‘We’re friends,’ she said softly. ‘That’s what friends do.’

  ‘Friends,’ said Jason. ‘Yeah. We became friends really fast. I told you everything about me. All because — when I turned up on your doorstep, looking for Annabeth, you couldn’t lie and just say you were her flatmate.’

  ‘You wish I’d lied to you? Jason, that’s not who I am.’

  ‘You’d been lying for months. To everyone. People you lived with. Why couldn’t you lie to me? You never even tried. You wanted me to know the truth. About you pretending to be Anna. And I can’t help thinking that…’ and his voice shook on the words. ‘I think everything that happened this year is something you meant to happen.’

  Xanthippe tugged on my sleeve to get my attention, mouthing words at me that I couldn’t quite understand. I mouthed ‘what?’ back at her, and she rolled her eyes and waved her hands, and it was a few minutes before we realised that all three of the young people in the garden below were now looking up at where we stood on the steps overlooking them. Oops.

  ‘Hi?’ I ventured.

  Stewart gave them a small wave, and didn’t lower his camera.

  ‘Come on down, guys,’ said Jason, sounding tired and oh so grown up. ‘I don’t mind an audience, and we all know Alice likes to be watched.’

  ‘Why are you being like this?’ Alice shot back at him.

  ‘It’s been a rough month,’ he snapped back.

  Stewart, Xanthippe and I trooped down to the gate and let ourselves in.

  ‘Any insights, Tabitha?’ Jason asked me. ‘I’m bashing my head against a brick wall in a cardigan here.’

  ‘You’re all treating me like I’m the one who did something wrong!’ Alice protested, sounding close to the edge. ‘I didn’t do anything bad! I was in danger, and Jason saved me.’

  ‘Annabeth’s boyfriend,’ I said quietly. ‘That was what got me suspicious all over again.’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Xanthippe, frowning. ‘Have I missed something here? Annabeth didn’t have a boyfriend. Jason’s dad gave her the money to go the mainland.’

  ‘That was the weird thing,’ I said. ‘She told Shay she was seeing someone. Before she left. Why would she tell her brother that if it wasn’t true?’

  ‘To hide where she got the money from,’ said Alice, sounding panicky. Interesting.

  ‘That’s what doesn’t make sense,’ I said. ‘Sure, she didn’t want Shay to know she was letting Jason’s dad pay her to leave. But of all the lies she could have chosen, why that one? Why something that would make Shay think she was a horrible person? She could have pretended she won a scholarship, or got a loan, anything. Why let him think she was cheating on his best mate? Unless it was true.’

  ‘There isn’t a boyfriend,’ Alice said flatly. ‘There … isn’t.’

  ‘So where is he, this boyfriend?’ Shay asked, speaking up from where he was lurking along the fence line. ‘If Anna was telling the truth about him, where the hell is he? The police would have found him.’

  ‘The police did find him,’ I said. ‘We found him. They dragged him out of the lake.’

  Stewart made a thoughtful noise. He nodded, and grinned at me like I was the cleverest person he’d ever met. I loved it when he did that. It made my insides feel like black forest cake.

  ‘Malcolm Drake,’ Jason said slowly.

  ‘Malcolm Drake,’ I agreed. ‘He invited Anna to the city, got her into the film school. The money came from Greg Avery but the idea came from Malcolm Drake.’

  ‘No,’ Alice said, and for once she sounded angry instead of meek and battered. ‘No.’

  ‘You never did say what you did in Sydney, before you ran away from that terrible but non-specific domestic situation,’ I said to her. ‘I think you were an actress. I think Anna replaced you in more ways than one. Was Malcolm promising to get her parts instead of you?’

  She looked utterly shocked. ‘Me? I’m not an actress, I’m…’

  ‘Oh, we know,’ I said firmly. ‘You’re apple pie and cardigans, and reading long books on rainy afternoons. You’re vanilla. But it never made sense, Alice. Why would someone like that ever set foot in a house wired with cameras? Why would someone on the run from an abusive boyfriend put herself on display? You had to be either an exhibitionist, or an actor. Pretending to be someone else, twenty-four hours a day, for three quarters of a year, in the face of actual surveillance. That takes work, or skill, or both.’

  ‘Jason, make her stop,’ said Alice in a small voice. ‘She’s trying to make me look bad. No one can prove any of this. It’s not true. I’m me. You know me.’

  ‘I don’t know who you are,’ Jason said quietly. ‘But I know Anna is dead, and I know I shot someone, and I know that … I wouldn’t have been there that night if you hadn’t made me think you were in danger.’

  ‘Jason,’ she said, looking devastated. If she was genuinely innocent, we were the worst people in the world to put her through this. ‘I’m sorry I brought you into it, you know how sorry I am. But you can’t blame me for your actions. You have to take responsibility for pointing the gun, and pulling the trigger…’

  ‘I know I do,’ Jason said calmly. ‘And I will. But I want you to admit your part in it. And I want to know if…’ He hesitated, his voice breaking. ‘You told me on the phone that he was violent, that he was coming for you, that he had hurt Anna and you didn’t know if she was going to be okay. You sounded so scared. Were you acting? He broke through the trees, coming at me and — after everything you said, I thought he was some kind of maniac. Were you telling the truth?’

  I hated to say what I had to next, because it might break Jason. I had hoped to make things easier for him, and I had a horrible feeling now that my interference tonight might make his life harder.

  ‘The thing is,’ I said in a low voice. ‘Alice, if he was the abusive boyfriend out for revenge, and you hit him over the head, almost killed him … why would he go for Anna first? I can believe he might have hit her, pushed her out of the way, even killed her in a moment of fury, that fits. But Anna’s killer held her underwater until she drowned. There were bruises on her arms. She struggled, and someone took the time to hold her there.’

  ‘Oh god,’ said Jason faintly.

  ‘That’s a lot of trouble for him to go to,’ I continued relentlessly, well aware that I was giving us all nightmares for a week. ‘For the wrong girl.’

  ‘He did it to make me scared,’ said Alice, face drained of blood. ‘He wanted me to see what he would do to me next.’

  It was a good story, and I was a complete bitch for disbelieving it. Except, it couldn’t be true.

  ‘Whoever killed Annabeth French really hated her.’

  ‘Anna was my friend,’ Alice protested in a ‘see, she’s got the wrong idea’ kind of voice. ‘Jason knows that. I liked her.’

  ‘All I know is what you’ve told me,’ Jason said in a quiet, broken voice.

  ‘You can’t PROVE IT,’ Alice howled, finally coming apart. ‘It’s just WORDS.’

  She was right. Almost everything I ha
d said was speculation. I had nothing tangible, no evidence for what Alice had done.

  ‘Good words, though,’ Stewart told me, patting me on the shoulder. ‘Believable words.’

  ‘I agree,’ Xanthippe said, standing so close to my other side that her arm brushed mine. I leaned into their touch. ‘Really, Tish. I’m impressed. I’ve been telling you for ages you should do the private detective thing. The little flourishes, making complete leaps of faith about other people’s character flaws, the almost paranormal gathering skills when it comes to gossip. Good stuff.’

  ‘Are you being sarcastic?’ I demanded.

  Xanthippe shrugged. ‘I’m not even sure anymore.’

  ‘What do we do now?’ Shay asked. He expected me to have the answers. Damn it. Possibly I should. Some answers would be great.

  Someone cleared his throat. I looked towards the gate and have never been so pleased to see Bishop in all my life. ‘Mind if I join you?’ Great, now he was being sarcastic too.

  ‘Please,’ I said fervently.

  He looked from me to Stewart and Xanthippe, and then the seething teens in the corner. ‘If you’re finished and everything. I mean, I’d hate to interrupt by bringing actual professionalism into this.’

  ‘Bishop!’ I wailed.

  ‘I want you to make them stop harassing me,’ said Alice, every inch the victim. ‘They can’t do this. I want to go home.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to interview you at the station,’ said Bishop, his voice as deliberately calm as if this was a Cary Grant movie, and he had just spotted a stray jaguar in a library.

  ‘You can’t listen to her,’ Alice said, her voice getting higher and more frantic. ‘She’s making things up, there’s no evidence! She’s not the police. Arrest her!’

  ‘I don’t know what Tabitha has been saying to you,’ said Bishop, giving me a stern look. I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at him.‘I missed most of it, probably a good thing. And believe me, arresting her is on my top ten list of things to do in the New Year.’

  ‘Hey,’ I protested.

  ‘But I need to talk to you, Alice Conway, about blackmail,’ Bishop went on. ‘We’ve been talking to your housemates and some of their statements raise questions.’

  ‘They wouldn’t,’ Alice said, and her voice had a touch of venom in it. I almost collapsed with relief. The nice façade was cracking, finally

  Bishop nodded. ‘They both claim that you threatened to expose the history of The Gingerbread House website to their families, and that you used this to force their silence over what happened on the night Malcolm Drake was killed. They also now claim to have witnessed the blow you struck to his head in the driveway of your house. In addition, you compelled Libby Fleming to approach Pippa Avery in order to attempt to extort money from her. There are several other complaints against you, but those will do for starters.’

  ‘I didn’t make anyone do anything. If people want to do things for me, it’s because I’m a nice person,’ Alice screeched, all but stamping her foot.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Jason sourly. ‘Really nice.’

  Shay looked at Bishop. ‘Detective Sergeant, Tabitha has a theory that Alice killed my sister. That she set Malcolm Drake and Jason up that night. Oh, and that Drake was Annabeth’s bloke.’

  Bishop just looked at Shay. And then he looked at me. His face showed nothing — no approval nor disapproval. I smiled my best smile.

  ‘Did it have to be New Year’s Eve?’ was all he said, finally.

  ‘Timing’s everything?’ I ventured.

  He made a noise under his breath. It was probably best that I couldn’t translate.

  26

  WHY IS VANILLA FRENCH ANYWAY?

  I’m glad you asked. The official method in the early days of ice cream pioneers in Philadelphia was to mix cream and sugar together, and freeze. As sophisticated recipes go, it’s only one step up from adding Milo to a cup full of snow. Their first favourite flavour in Philly was lemon. US President Thomas Jefferson (who apparently didn’t have anything better to do) and/or his private French chef, introduced two revolutionary concepts: eggs (by way of the frozen custard method preferred today) and vanilla (the pods were imported from France, despite the fact that he could have saved money getting them directly from Mexico. Especially as this was the time of the French Revolution).

  How do you make vanilla ice cream as interesting as its origin story? I decided finally that if you’re going to go with vanilla, you might as well use both boots. And there’s more than one culinary association with ‘Philadelphia’.

  PHILLY VANLILA SUNDAES

  (AKA FRENCH VANILLA WARFARE)

  Ingredients:

  2 cups cream

  500g Philadelphia Cream Cheese (NOT the low fat variety)

  1 cup caster sugar

  4 teaspoons pure vanilla essence

  Instructions:

  Heat cream and sugar in small saucepan over low heat until sugar has dissolved. Chill to room temperature. Add to cream cheese and vanilla essence, puree until fully blended, and chill in fridge overnight or for at least 3 hours.

  Scoop out balls with an ice cream scoop or melon baller, depending on preferred size, then roll in biscuit crumbs, crushed nuts, crumbled chocolate, poppy seeds or fairy sprinkles before freezing.

  Serve ice cream ‘truffles’ in sundae glasses with vanilla custard and whipped cream. Fresh strawberries and blueberries would save it from being insanely over-vanilla, but if certain people have been going on about how marvellous and unparallelled vanilla is as a flavour? They don’t deserve to be saved from themselves.

  New Year’s Day is one of the few days of the year when it is not only understandable but practically compulsory to avoid work of any kind. So against all logic and reason I always go to the café and cook brunch for my staff, business associates and random mates who fancy a feed.

  Darrow refers to it as the gathering of the suspects — a rather less funny joke this year.

  This was a better turnout than the previous New Year’s, which was just Darrow, Nin, and Ceege with his then-girlfriend Katie. I had just returned from my dad’s funeral in Queensland. Cooking had helped me feel slightly less crappy, as had the company. But that was a year ago, and much has changed since then.

  I hadn’t slept. The previous night’s events with Jason and French Vanilla and Bishop kept swirling around in my head. When I finally got up, let myself into the café and started to make berry and white chocolate croissants, as well as muffins so heavy with chocolate chips that they practically qualified as fudge, I began to feel better.

  I always feel more human in my kitchen.

  Nin turned up about ten, and I repeatedly had to beat her out of the kitchen with a broom in order to make her put her feet up and relax. It was easier once Stewart arrived, because he took charge of the coffee making, and chatted to her in that devastating Scottish accent of his until she relented, and put her feet up.

  I fried bacon, mushrooms, and French toast.

  When Darrow turned up, I threw on some sausages, and told him if he wanted pancakes, he would have to make his own.

  It took an hour before he let me back into my own kitchen, and when he emerged he had used up my entire blueberry supply on a high stack of lopsided but scrummily thick pancakes that made us all deeply happy for some time.

  Lara and Yui managed to drag themselves out of bed before noon, so they scored blueberry pancakes too, but we’d eaten the last of them by the time Xanthippe and Ceege made a bleary appearance. They had gone on somewhere after Noir Nights closed, and both of them had glitter in their hair.

  I reclaimed my kitchen, and started cooking more bacon. There’s never enough bacon.

  ‘Room for one more?’ said a voice at my doorway.

  I turned, and saw Leo Bishop. Still one of my favourite people, whether he’s cranky at me for interfering with police business or kissing me breathless.

  I offered him my cheek, and he kissed me lightly
.

  ‘Long night?’ I asked, pouring him a coffee from the chef’s pot. I wasn’t willing to share him with the others quite yet. I went to the station when he took in Alice, and Bishop had spared a few minutes to listen to my theory. It was more than I had expected.

  I hadn’t kissed anyone at midnight, being too wrapped up in other things. But Stewart had sent me a ‘happy new year fistbump’ via text, which made me smile.

  Bishop sat at the table now and stretched out those long legs of his. ‘I haven’t been to bed yet. I hate cases like this. Compulsive liars are the hardest to crack, especially when they believe their own narrative.’

  I blinked. ‘Alice is still sticking to her story?’

  ‘Stories. She’s long past lost any continuity or logic. We sent in new people to interview her, and she started over with an entirely different version.’

  ‘That’s good news, right? It’s proof she’s lying. No gaslighting us all into thinking she’s the wide-eyed victim.’

  ‘Suspicious,’ Bishop agreed. ‘We’ll get to the bottom of it. Police in Sydney are working to gather evidence that Annabeth French and Malcolm Drake knew each other. Libby and Melinda will both receive counselling. They’re still making excuses for Alice — she did as good a number on them as she did on Jason Avery. So much for Little Miss Innocent.’

  ‘Dad always said that no one was innocent,’ I said, putting bacon on a plate for him with the last piece of French toast and a good heap of mushrooms.

  ‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but your dad was deeply cynical about the world. How on earth did you turn out the way you did? All bubbly and full of hope. Well, hope and pastry and coffee and designer salads and…’

  ‘I’m cynical too,’ I protested. ‘I changed, this year. After everything that happened last time, I stopped trusting people.’

  Bishop smiled at me, a deep smile that curled my toes. ‘You didn’t, though, did you? If you’d stopped trusting people, you wouldn’t have cared what happened to Jason. You believed in him when everyone else had written him off. You trusted your instincts. You’re still the same squishy-hearted Tabitha. And you make no sense to me whatsoever.’