Baking Bad--A Cozy Mystery (With Dragons)

by Kim M Watt

  “Hello,” Miriam said, feeling her own cheeks pinken, as if she’d interrupted something terribly private. “I left my cardigan behind.”

  “That’s fine, that’s fine.” The vicar couldn’t seem to make eye contact with her. “You’ll lock up when you’re done, yes?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Norman,” the woman hissed, and Miriam was momentarily confused as to who she was talking to. The vicar hunched his shoulders and hurried around the hall, heading for the vicarage. The woman pushed past Miriam in a cloud of expensive scent, the skinny heels of her boots stabbing into the lawn and making her stagger, slowing her pursuit. The vicar threw an alarmed look over his shoulder and broke into a jog. The woman began to sprint on her tiptoes, waving her arms wildly to keep her balance. The vicar vanished around the side of the hall, picking up speed, and the woman shouted, “Dammit, Norman!” as she went over on one ankle. She recovered admirably and raced around the corner after the vicar, and a moment later Miriam heard the clatter of panicked heels on pavement and figured they’d both made it onto the road.

  She shook her head, then went slowly into the hall. Each to their own. Whatever the vicar got up to with rich women from out of town was none of her business. She just needed her cardie.

  She almost decided not to take the herbal tea to the vicar that evening. He’d been terribly embarrassed, poor man, and the last thing she wanted was him trying to explain or making excuses. She really didn’t mind what he did. But he’d also be even more stressed after all that carry-on, and probably worried that she’d tell the rest of the W.I. what she’d seen. Not that she thought many of them would be bothered by it, but men could be so touchy. And more stress really did look like the last thing the vicar needed. So she decided that she’d go after all, but if he started talking about whoever the woman was, she’d have to make her excuses and leave. Or just run for it. She had plenty of experience offering support and guidance to friends, and to the people she told fortunes for, but a romantically entangled vicar wasn’t something she felt particularly well equipped to handle.

  Decision made, she ventured outside armed with secateurs. She was proud of her large, overgrown garden, full of pretty weeds and useful flowers, the grass long enough to brush her ankles as she walked barefoot from one plant to another. She collected a snip of vervain here, a sprig of lavender there, and some chamomile along the way, avoiding the bees and listening to the squabbling of the birds. Normally she loved being out here, in a wilderness of plants, but the day felt unsettled, and she thought it must have been the argument she’d inadvertently interrupted.

  She wasn’t exactly psychic, but she was Sensitive, as evidenced by the fact that she saw dragons very easily, even before she’d known to expect them. Her palm-reading and tarot card sessions were based more on observation and psychology, true, and she normally found what needed to be said to put people at ease more by empathy than any special powers, but she did feel things sometimes. Some days, like today, seemed cloudy even when the sun was out, and some nights had such bright edges that she couldn’t sleep, and had to sit in the garden instead and wonder at the beauty of it. Not that she told anyone about such things. She was one cat allergy away from being the village’s designated eccentric as it was.

  Inside, she washed the herbs, popped them in a muslin bag, then wrote a label with instructions to steep in hot (not boiling) water for five minutes before drinking. It might not solve the vicar’s woman troubles, or even do much for W.I.-induced stress, but it’d smell nice at least, and there was a lot to be said for that.

  For the third time that day she set off along the stream, this time in the rapidly deepening twilight of a very nice spring evening. She had a torch with her for the way home, but for now there was enough light to see the rocky little path, and the lights that were on in the houses on the other side of the stream looked homey and inviting. She smiled to herself as she walked – who would have thought that the vicar had such secrets? Or that he was called Norman. She’d never actually thought about him being called anything other than the vicar, and she couldn’t remember if he’d been introduced as anything other than the new vicar when he arrived to replace his predecessor. The previous vicar had been a nice man, too, but Miriam had a sneaking suspicion that the Women’s Institute meetings had proved to be too much for him. Either that, or, as it had been around the time that Jasmine had arrived, he’d been worried that the standards of cake were going to degenerate too much.

  She was still musing on what old vicars did, exactly, in their retirement, when she climbed the stile that led over the wall of the churchyard. The evening light was gentle on the old gravestones, lending them soft edges, and the trees kept heavy green watch over everything. The musty scent of stillness and silence followed her past the church to the vicarage, where she rapped on the door politely. There was a light on in the kitchen, and another in the living room, but no one answered.

  She knocked again. “Vicar? It’s Miriam. I brought you that tea, if you still want it?”

  Still no answer. Maybe he couldn’t hear her properly and thought she was the shouting woman, still chasing him down. She peered in the kitchen window to the side of the door, but it was empty, just a container of leftover cake sitting in the middle of the table. She knocked again, more loudly, then picked her way through the garden to the living room windows. She’d just see if he was inside, then she could leave the tea on the door handle if necessary. For one moment she wondered if she was better off not looking, in case she caught him with the expensive-smelling woman, but he hadn’t looked like he had any intention of being caught by the expensive-smelling woman, let alone with her. So she’d just check that he was okay.

  Through the open curtains of the small living room windows she could see that the TV was on, and the vicar’s legs were stretched out from a chair that had its back mostly to her. She leaned over the scraggly bushes in the garden (it needed weeding) and tapped smartly on the window. The vicar didn’t move. Maybe he was asleep? It wasn’t even eight o’clock, though. There was a worm of unease twisting in her belly, and she was aware again of the darkness of what should have been a lovely late spring day. She extricated herself from the garden, mumbling under her breath as a particularly aggressive rose bush plucked at her skirt, and padded along the wall, to where she had a better view of the vicar.

  He was sprawled in a stiff, high-backed chair that looked at least a little more comfortable than the lumpy sofa, and for one moment Miriam was sure he was asleep after all, that Gert’s cordial and the excitement of the afternoon had worn him out entirely. Then she saw the mug on its side by the chair, a darker tea stain spreading across the old green carpet and the plate fallen next to it. There was a cupcake wrapper with a morsel of cake left in it sitting sadly on top of a hardcover book that had fallen to the floor with its pages all fanned out, and still Miriam tried to convince herself that he was just deeply asleep. The poor man had had a very exciting day.

  But his eyes were open, and he was staring blankly at the ceiling, and try as she might, she couldn’t explain that.

  “Oh dear,” she said softly, pressing a hand to her heart as her vision swam with unexpected tears. “Oh, you poor, poor man.”

  2

  DI Adams

  Detective Inspector Adams (whose mother called her Jeanette, although very few other people did) was not happy. There were several reasons for her not being happy, including but not limited to the fact that although she’d moved to Leeds from London, her mother was still trying to set her up with a nice young(ish) man who lived just down the street from her childhood home; and the fact that it was uncomfortably hot in the kitchen of the village hall but she was still wearing a suit jacket that she didn’t want to take off, because that seemed terribly casual. And this particular crime scene was already far too casual, which was the main reason she was not happy at this very moment.

  “James,” she said sharply to the tall detective constable who had driven up
from Leeds with her, “who are all these people? Why do they keep coming in?”

  He shrugged, shuffling his feet without looking at her. He’d taken his jacket off and looked considerably cooler than she felt. “I’m not sure. They seem to be local.”

  “It’s a crime scene.”

  “Well, not technically. I mean, the actual crime scene is at the vicarage …” He trailed off as she glared at him, palming a thin sheen of sweat off her forehead.

  “Why is there food?”

  “It’s traditional,” a new voice said, and DI Adams turned to find herself face to face with a slim older woman bearing a large plate of mini quiches, garnished with cherry tomatoes and sprigs of thyme. “I guess it’s really to feed the family in their time of grief, but in this case, well. It’s just what we do.”

  “And it’s quite lovely of you,” the dean said, accepting the quiches eagerly. As the person responsible for overseeing the various parishes in the rural deanery, he’d arrived not long after the detective inspector, and other than making tea for everyone he’d done nothing but get in the way, as far as she was concerned. The local police must have called him at the same time they’d asked Leeds for reinforcements, which had been mid-morning of the day after the murder, so God alone knew what evidence had gone missing already. The Skipton lead DI was on holiday in Cyprus, which apparently meant that there was no one in the area who had the experience to carry out a murder investigation. “Spring’s a quiet time up here,” the local sergeant had told DI Adams when she arrived. “Too much work for most folks to do for much murder or the like.”

  DI Adams had volunteered immediately when the detective chief inspector in Leeds had announced the case, eager to get to grips with her first murder as lead investigator. Technically she wasn’t in charge, of course, not in a murder case, but the DCI had made it clear that he expected it’d be some sort of misadventure rather than homicide, and as she was a big shot cop from down south he was certain she could handle it. She’d managed not to put a fake Cockney accent on and say “awright, guv” or something equally in keeping, and had instead grimaced, nodded, and said that she was sure she’d have it tied up in no time.

  She’d been here half an hour and was already wondering if she might have made a bit of a miscalculation. As well as the steady stream of women bearing baking trays and cake tins and Tupperware containers in and out of the hall kitchen, there were three dogs barrelling around the hall itself, a cat had just come in the kitchen window and stolen a piece of fish pie, setting both the dogs and a couple of women shouting, and the woman who’d discovered the body was being plied for details by more civilians than officers, who were mostly standing around drinking tea and eating biscuits.

  “Isn’t it lovely of the ladies?” the dean asked, and DI Adams dragged her attention back to him. He looked like he had enjoyed quite a lot of lovely dishes over the years.

  “I’m quite sure it is, sir, but there really are far too many people in and out of here. We already know that the victim spent his last morning here, and it really shouldn’t have been turned into a bloody cafe like this. Sorry,” she added, not quite sure if “bloody” was the sort of thing a dean of the church might take offence to.

  “Victim,” someone said, and burst into tears.

  “Oh, Jasmine,” the mini-quiche lady said, relieving the crying woman of a Pyrex dish of – something. DI Adams wasn’t at all sure what it was, only that it was blackened on top and appeared to be bleeding underneath. The mini-quiche lady handed the dish to the DI, whispered, “Throw that one out. She’s a lovely girl, but it’s not worth getting salmonella over,” and led the still-sobbing Jasmine into the hall.

  DI Adams stared at the plate in horror, then shoved it at one of the local constables. “Get rid of that, would you?”

  He looked offended. “That’s my wife’s, that is.”

  “Jesus Chr— sorry, Dean. Look, just put the damn – sorry – put the bloody dish in the fridge or something out of the way, and clear this room, would you? I want everyone out of here. Now!”

  DI Adams remembered that her mother used to say that trying to get her and her two brothers organised was like herding cats. In her mind, it was a silly expression, but she was starting to see the meaning of it. For every two women who were ushered out of the kitchen, another two or three popped in, all brightly inquisitive between the condolences they offered the dean. There were an awful lot of pearls and cardigans going on, and respectable floral skirts with sensible shoes, and the mean age of the Women’s Institute seemed to be well north of fifty. Which you would think would suggest reasonable behaviour, but instead seemed to make them even less manageable.

  The local uniformed officers, two constables and the sergeant who’d offered the snippet of wisdom regarding murder in the spring, were milling around a little helplessly, saying things like, “That’s a wonderful-looking shepherd’s pie, Miss Robinson, but would you mind just waiting in the main hall? Oh, yes, of course, pop it in the fridge first if you want,” and “Oh, Mrs Hart! Is that your famous spiked bread and butter pudding? Wait, let me get you a cuppa.” Her DC, James, was trying to be a little more forceful, but the women kept patting his arm (and in one case his bottom) and walking right past him, and he was starting to look slightly panicked. Meanwhile, the dean was floating about, graciously accepting all these offerings of food like some hostess at a Tupperware party. The DI took a deep breath and massaged her temples with one hand. She wasn’t going to start shouting. She was the DI in charge, the lead investigator, a woman who commanded respect. She did not shout. Her mum shouted. She was not her mother.

  Ten minutes later she was thinking that she was just going to have to abandon her principles and start shouting anyway. The steady tide of people in and out of the kitchen had barely reduced at all, and somehow the local officers had been roped into making tea and stacking plates and organising the fridge. Then mini-quiche lady walked in, silencing James with a glare that made DI Adams straighten up quickly enough to set off a twinge in her back.

  “Detective Inspector?” the woman said, and extended a slim hand, devoid of rings or decoration. “Alice Martin. Chair of the local Women’s Institute.”

  “DI Adams,” she said, trying to match the older woman’s perfect posture, and feeling suddenly dishevelled in her too-hot jacket. Alice’s grip was firm and calloused.

  “What do you need?” Alice asked.

  “I’m sorry?”

  The chair of the W.I. made an impatient gesture. “Everyone out? Everyone in the hall? This softly-softly approach you have your men using will have absolutely no effect, you know.”

  The DI felt her cheeks heat up. It was like being addressed by her grandmother, if her grandmother had been small and white and about twenty years younger. “I can see that.”

  “So, tell me what you need. Always use local influence, Detective Inspector. It gets you a lot further.”

  DI Adams frowned. “These officers are local.”

  Alice made a sound that would have been a snort, if someone quite so elegantly turned out would do such a thing. “They’re young men, all of them. What do you think they can do with women who remind them of their mothers? Or are their mothers, in some cases,” she added, nodding at a woman with startling red-dyed hair, who was straightening the collar of one of the uniformed officers. He’d gone very pink.

  “Well, what do you suggest, then?” DI Adams asked, more sharply than she’d intended. This was all she needed, some busybody trying to tell her how to do her job. And young men? The local sergeant looked at least ten years older than she was.

  “May I?” Alice asked, and the detective inspector sighed, then waved her on. Why not. It certainly couldn’t make things worse. “Thank you.” Alice clapped her hands together three times, a hard, brisk sound that cut above the babble in the kitchen, and all eyes turned to the trim woman in her teal green cardigan. “Everyone out of the kitchen,” Alice said, her voice calm, and DI Adams had to stop herself followi
ng the women who had been milling around the counters as they exchanged glances then wandered out.

  “Not you,” the inspector called, not bothering to hide the exasperation in her voice as the two constables made to leave as well. They stopped, looking embarrassed, but she ignored them and turned to Alice instead. “Can you get them all to quiet down in there?”

  “Of course,” Alice said, and smiled.

  DI Adams watched her go through the door to the hall, and a moment later the excited babble that had been roaring around the big room dropped to a murmur, then a hush.

  “We’re ready for you, Detective Inspector,” Alice called, and the DI looked at the local officers and the dean, lined up against the counter as if waiting for inspection, all looking slightly nervous.

  “Right,” she said. “Local influence.” Then she straightened her jacket and went into the hall.

  Ten pairs of eyes followed her as she walked to stand in front of the little stage. It was at the same end of the hall as the kitchen, and there was a door marked “backstage” to one side of it, and one marked “toilets” to the other. The DI was faintly surprised to find that there weren’t more people sat in the folding chairs, most of them still gripping cups of tea and all looking distinctly worried. It had sounded like a lot more.

  “Is this everyone?” she asked Alice.

  “Yes. Everyone who was at the meeting with the vicar yesterday, too, if that helps.”

  It did, actually, but that was none of Alice’s business, so DI Adams just nodded and glanced at the dean, hovering nervously in the doorway to the kitchen. He had his jacket off and chocolate icing on his shirt. James stood just inside the main door, arms folded, trying to look authoritative. The local officers, huddled together behind the two neat rows of chairs, weren’t even trying.