A Fete Worse Than Death

by Liz Hedgecock

  ‘So.’ Dev swept a hand round the array of cakes. ‘It’s a tricky decision, with all these amazing bakes to consider, but I have reached a verdict.’ He fished in his jeans pocket and brought out a folded slip of paper. ‘Phoo, it’s hot, innit?’

  A ripple of laughter.

  ‘Now, I liked every cake,’ Dev said, confidingly. ‘Every cake had something good about it. I won’t stop to tell you about them all right now, cos I know you want me to get to the winner, but they were brilliant.’ He swept his hand round again, and took a step back.

  Building suspense, thought Pippa. Come on Dev, get on with it.

  Dev consulted his piece of paper, and scratched his nose. ‘So, anyway. Here we go. In third place…’ He looked round. ‘Where’s it gone? Oh yeah. In third place…’ He staggered a little.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Dahlia’s cut-glass tones rang through the tent.

  ‘Yeah, fine. Bit dizzy. Hot, y’know.’ Dev leaned against a trestle table. ‘Third place — oh geez.’ He jerked forward, hands on thighs, and vomited on the ground.

  ‘Someone get first aid!’ yelled Dahlia, hurrying towards him. ‘Phone an ambulance.’

  ‘Be all right in a minute,’ Dev muttered, then sank to his knees. His T-shirt was splattered with vomit, in a range of colours.

  A shocked silence gave way to muttering. Norm was trying to help Dev up. The nurse from yesterday was pushing her way through. ‘First aid … excuse me … make way please…’ Dev was on all fours, coughing, and she knelt beside him, talking, feeling his forehead. ‘Everyone clear the tent, please,’ she shouted. ‘Has someone called 999?’

  Susan raised her hand. ‘I have them on the line,’ she said. ‘Yes, Higginbotham Hall, at the marquee. As fast as you can.’

  The nurse held her hand out for the phone. ‘Clear the tent now. Thank you.’ And people began to disperse, eyeing Dev as if he were a car crash, until the only spectators were the cakes, and Pippa.

  ‘You too, please,’ the nurse said, sternly. Then, into the phone. ‘I’m not a hundred per cent sure, of course. But it looks like a bad case of food poisoning.’ She glared at Pippa and made a shooing motion, but Pippa couldn’t move. She felt as if she had been turned to stone, frozen with utter horror.

  CHAPTER 13

  ‘Much Gadding police station, PC Horsley speaking.’

  ‘It’s me, Pippa Parker. You’d better come down.’

  Silence at the other end of the line. ‘What’s happened.’ Not a question; more an invitation to reveal the worst.

  ‘Dev Hardman’s collapsed. He was judging the bakery competition and was about to announce the winner when he threw up and keeled over.’

  ‘Has someone phoned an ambulance?’

  ‘Of course. But you were the obvious next step.’

  ‘I’ll come over.’ Click. Now there would be sirens wailing, and reporters scribbling, and — Pippa looked at the cakes, the beautiful cakes sitting so proudly on their stands. Those would have to go for testing. For all they knew, one was full of poison. Hundreds of pounds in cake sales gone, just like that.

  Maybe it was a bad egg, she thought. Maybe Dev’s sensitive to that sort of thing, and on top of all the cake —

  But he’d had a sliver of each. Hardly that, even. It was still a lot of cake, but she could have eaten plenty more than that without any ill effects.

  And after yesterday, some sort of foul play was the only real explanation.

  Pippa walked over to the nurse. She was talking to Dev, wiping his forehead with a cloth. Dahlia stood a little way off, looking simultaneously angry, concerned and disgusted. ‘I’ve phoned the police, and they’re on their way.’

  ‘Good,’ said the nurse. ‘I hope the ambulance beats them, though.’

  As if by magic a wail sounded, faint at first, but growing ever stronger. ‘Clear the tent, please,’ the nurse said, giving both Pippa and Dahlia a steely look. ‘The paramedics need room to work.’

  The ambulance was already past the car park, lights flashing, siren blaring. A couple of children started to cry, and the murmur of chat, like a hive of concerned bees, stopped altogether. The ambulance turned off the drive and drove onto the lawn, and the crowd parted before it in a silent wave. It drove right up to the marquee. Two paramedics got out and walked, a professional, not too hurried walk, into the tent.

  The crowd waited. Pippa held her breath.

  One of the paramedics came out, opened the back of the ambulance, and retrieved a stretcher. ‘Stand clear, everyone,’ he said, vanishing again.

  A few minutes later Dev was carried out, eyes closed. Pippa bit her lip, and blinked away tears. Poor man. He had come to help them, and this had happened. But he would be all right, wouldn’t he? The ambulance had come quickly, and they would be able to work miracles at the hospital. Of course they would.

  Dahlia intercepted the stretcher. ‘I’m with him. Can I travel in the back?’

  ‘Of course, madam,’ said the paramedic at Dev’s feet. ‘We’ll just settle him, and then you can get in.’ They lifted Dev in. ‘All right, madam.’ Dahlia’s long leg stretched up to the step, and she folded herself in, sitting beside Dev and taking his hand.

  ‘Okay.’ The paramedic reached for the door.

  ‘Wait a minute!’ shrieked Dahlia. The paramedic turned, and Dahlia murmured to him. ‘All right,’ he said, shrugging. ‘So long as he’s stable.’ Both paramedics jumped down, and the doors closed on Dev Hardman and his assistant. A minute later the engine purred into life, and the ambulance rumbled over the lawn, then crunched onto the drive. Another thing to annoy Beryl Harbottle, thought Pippa. Somehow, she didn’t think Lady Higginbotham would mind half as much.

  At least they haven’t put the siren on. Then a whoop sounded. The ambulance had vanished; but the siren began in earnest. It had left the grounds, and was heading for the hospital.

  A faint buzz of conversation, and a child pointed. ‘Look!’

  A police car. PC Horsley was coming, with his notebook and his knowledge of what had happened the day before.

  The car turned into the car park. It seemed a long time until PC Horsley appeared, helmeted and official. He made straight for Pippa. ‘I take it the chef has gone in the ambulance,’ he said, his eyes darting round the scene.

  ‘Yes. His PR person Dahlia has gone with him.’

  ‘Mm. Show me where it happened, please.’

  The cakes watched as PC Horsley examined the splatter of vomit on the grass, then circled the marquee, eyeing the baked goods. ‘No one else has eaten any of these, have they?’

  ‘No, just Dev.’ Pippa looked at the ground. ‘They were going to be sold, but obviously —’

  ‘Not now.’ PC Horsley said, curtly. ‘Did he eat anything else?’

  ‘Dev said he was going to have a cup of tea, I assume from one of the stalls. He said he’d skipped breakfast. Dahlia could tell you.’

  ‘Yes. Well.’ He swivelled round, taking in the scene. ‘These will need to go for analysis. Were they left alone at any point?’

  ‘Not really. I mean, there were always people in the marquee, all the time the cakes were being set up. But anyone could have come along with, I don’t know, a hypodermic syringe, and gone behind the tables, and injected one of the cakes —’

  ‘They’d have to have been quick,’ said PC Horsley. ‘Someone hovering by a cake that isn’t theirs, with one hand in their pocket. Surely whoever baked it would be watching like a hawk in case someone nobbled their cake.’

  ‘Yes. But the alternative is that someone put — something in their cake which would make people ill. Dev at least, and if the reaction hadn’t happened until after the cake was sold, maybe another ten or twelve people.’

  ‘There’s one way to find out.’ PC Horsley walked to the entrance of the marquee and surveyed the crowd, who gazed mournfully back at him. ‘All right, everyone. I am treating this as a crime scene. Please remain where you are. No-one is to leave without my permission. Is that clear?’


  The sea of heads bobbed.

  ‘I’m calling for backup,’ he said, pulling a radio from his belt. ‘Otherwise we’ll be here all day.’ He shot a look at Pippa. ‘Mrs Parker, I need to ask you to leave the tent as well.’

  ‘I understand,’ Pippa choked out, and taking a last look at the cakes, she walked through the doorway of the marquee, into the harsh, unforgiving sunlight.

  ‘Pippa!’ Simon’s voice. She could just see him, holding Ruby propped on his arm and waving with his free hand. He looked calm; but as she approached she saw it was the apparent calm of a swan gliding across the water, its legs working furiously beneath.

  Freddie was by his side. ‘Can we go on a ride now, Mummy?’ he asked, as soon as Pippa was close enough.

  ‘I don’t think so, Freddie. I think we’ll be closing the fete.’

  His lip wobbled. ‘No — no cake?’

  She squatted beside him. ‘Did you see the ambulance, Freddie? And the man they put in it?’

  He nodded, eyes wide.

  ‘Well, he ate some of the cake, and that might be why he’s ill.’

  ‘Will he die?’ Freddie asked, louder than she would have wanted. A few people looked round with disapproving expressions.

  ‘No, no, of course he won’t die,’ Pippa assured him.

  ‘You don’t know that,’ muttered a woman standing nearby.

  Pippa glared at her, and took Freddie in her arms. ‘As soon as we leave here, we’ll go and do something fun. And I’ll buy you a cake.’

  ‘What is the meaning of this?’ Beryl Harbottle’s voice rang across the lawn. Lady Higginbotham, as before, was trailing in her wake, looking perplexed.

  PC Horsley stuck his head out of the tent. ‘Stay where you are please, Mrs Harbottle. This is a crime scene until further notice, and I cannot make any exceptions.’ And with that, he disappeared.

  Mrs Harbottle’s eyes searched the crowd for someone to vent her fury on. Pippa tried to hide behind Simon, but it was too late. Beryl Harbottle advanced like a tank, or a Dalek, like any merciless, avenging thing that Pippa could imagine. She drew herself up to her full height, flung her head up, and directed a death-ray glare down her nose at Pippa. ‘I hold you responsible for this — this — mess, Mrs Parker,’ she snapped. ‘This would never have happened in Barbara’s day.’ And she glided away, her death-blow delivered, without a backward glance.

  Lady Higginbotham remained, twisting her hands together. ‘I — um — don’t take too much notice of Beryl,’ she muttered. ‘Until we know what’s happened, we can’t judge. No.’ And she scurried towards the hall, a small, round-shouldered, tweedy figure which blended in with the shrubs.

  In the silence which followed an engine rumbled, and everyone craned their necks to see. Another police car was climbing up the drive. This one drove past the car park, and Pippa wondered whether it would follow the path of the ambulance to further desecrate Lady Higginbotham’s lawn.

  The car stopped, still on the path, and Pippa saw two heads conferring. On the driver’s side, a tall, skinny policeman got out, and scurried round to the passenger side. He was reaching for the door handle when it opened, and he had to jump back to avoid a collision. A shortish, sandy-haired man emerged, and as the pair got closer, Pippa recognised Inspector Fanshawe. The other policeman barely looked old enough to drive, and his helmet gave him the air of a child playing dress-up.

  The crowd retreated a little, cowed by the sight of two policeman in one place, a sight almost unprecedented in Much Gadding. ‘Where would I find PC Horsley?’ asked the inspector.

  Norm cleared his throat. ‘He’s in there, sir,’ he said, indicating the marquee.

  ‘Ah, thank you.’ Inspector Fanshawe peered at him. ‘Isn’t that — PC Rockall, as was?’

  ‘That’s right, sir.’ Norm touched a finger to his head, a gesture which looked odd without any headgear to touch it to.

  ‘Good to see you again. Although not in these circumstances.’ He vanished into the tent, followed by the youth.

  For a time there was silence; then conversations began, conducted in undertones.

  ‘How long do you think we’ll be here?’

  ‘I wonder if he’s all right?’

  ‘Maybe the cream turned on one of the cakes…’

  ‘So much for the tug-of-war. All that training wasted…’

  ‘That washing isn’t going to do itself.’

  ‘What if they take over the hall as an HQ? What will Lady Higginbotham do?’

  The young policeman burst from the tent and made for the police car at a run. He returned carrying a bundle of thin metal spikes like giant skewers, and a roll of tape, and began to set the skewers into the lawn around the marquee, waist-high, three feet from the tent itself. ‘Stand back everybody,’ he quavered. Once he had gone round the whole tent, he started to wind the tape round the stakes. POLICE LINE — DO NOT CROSS. Once he had cordoned it off, he ducked under the barrier and re-entered the tent.

  This isn’t real. This can’t be happening. Pippa felt sick and empty at the same time, and held tight to Freddie. Ruby, still in Simon’s arms, was beginning to fret and wriggle, and Pippa wondered how long it would be before they had to contain a full-blown crying fit.

  ‘Right, everyone!’ Pippa jumped. She hadn’t even noticed Inspector Fanshawe leaving the tent. ‘There’s no sense keeping you any longer than we need to. Please form a line in front of that stall. We’ll take names and contact details, for now. We shall also conduct a search of bags and belongings, and ask you to empty your pockets. Once you have undertaken this, and we are satisfied, you may leave.’

  The young policeman came out of the tent carrying two chairs, followed by PC Horsley with another, and they set themselves up at the WI stall. ‘Would someone mind dealing with this jam?’ called the inspector, holding up two jars and looking helpless. A woman in a fisherman’s top rushed forward, her mouth tight. She pulled a box from beneath the stall, and began packing the jars into it. Meanwhile, the crowd was drifting towards the stall, not too fast, not wanting to seem too eager to be dealt with, but moving purposefully nonetheless.

  A typical summer day out, thought Pippa, moving with the crowd, Simon beside her. Jam, a marquee, and attempted murder. Again.

  CHAPTER 14

  ‘Just keep away,’ said Simon, adjusting his tie. ‘Maybe take the kids somewhere, go for a drive. There’s no point torturing yourself.’

  ‘Mm,’ said Pippa, from under the covers.

  She would rather forget yesterday. It had taken half an hour to reach the front of the queue for the policemen, during which Ruby had sucked her fingers, dribbled on Simon’s shoulder and her own dress, and treated Simon as an activity centre. Pippa’s handbag was emptied and found innocent, although Simon frowned at the miscellany of dismembered pens, used tissues, forgotten lollipops, and copper coins which lay next to Pippa’s phone, purse and keys. His pockets, of course, contained nothing more than his wallet, a handkerchief, and the car keys. ‘You can put it all back in,’ said PC Horsley, making a note. ‘We’ll be in touch.’

  They walked to the car park and eyed the two cars. ‘Let’s go somewhere,’ said Simon. ‘We may as well make the most of the day. We’ll drive home, have a quick lunch, and then go in yours.’ Was it Pippa’s imagination, or did Simon put the kids into her car with unusual speed? She motioned to him to roll the window down, but he was already backing out of his space. She sighed, got into the Mini, and put the radio on loud to try and forestall questions from Freddie.

  Simon drove, and took them to a local stately home. A nice lunch, a wander round the formal gardens, and a stroll in the park, where the deer lay like sphinxes in the shade, gazing at them impassively. Simon wheeled Ruby, and Freddie ran on ahead, prospecting for an ice-cream van.

  ‘I know what you’re doing,’ said Pippa. ‘You’re keeping me away from the media.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Simon, his eyes on the path ahead.

  ‘It doesn’t mean I’ll
stop thinking about it.’

  ‘But at least you’re getting some fresh air.’ Simon speeded up.

  They had stayed out as long as they could, until Ruby was clamouring for more food. At home they fed and settled her, then watched a film with Freddie, and had a snack picnic on the rug. ‘That was fun, Mummy,’ he said, when Pippa tucked him in. ‘Can we do it again?’

  ‘Yes. Maybe,’ said Pippa, hoping she wouldn’t ever have a reason to do it again.

  They put their phones in the kitchen that evening, by mutual consent, and switched them to silent mode. ‘I’ll check them every so often, in case the police call,’ said Simon. But they didn’t. He reported that Lila had called twice, Imogen once, and Sheila three times, between their two phones. ‘I just hope Mum doesn’t get to hear of it.’

  ‘In Tenerife? Please God, no.’ The thought of Sheila picking up an English newspaper and discovering her daughter-in-law’s crisis over a continental breakfast was more than Pippa could stand.

  And now it was tomorrow, and Simon had already changed the station on the radio from a local to a national one, the moment it switched itself on. But it was no use. When the news came on, it was the third item: ‘Celebrity chef Dev Hardman has been rushed to hospital with suspected food poisoning after judging a baking contest in Gadcestershire. The competition, held as part of a fete in the v —’

  Click. Simon glanced at Pippa, watchful.

  ‘It was bound to come out at some point,’ said Pippa. She was surprised at how detached she felt. But Simon already knew. It would be different when she was going about her daily life, having to face people for the first time after it had happened.

  The incident which had probably ruined any chance she had of ever working in PR again.

  ‘It’ll be a nine days’ wonder,’ said Simon, heading for the bathroom. ‘Something else will come along, and they’ll forget about it. Anyway, they don’t know it was the cakes.’