Baking Bad--A Cozy Mystery (With Dragons)

by Kim M Watt

  “What was that, Mrs Shaw?”

  “Nothing,” Jasmine said, her voice far too high. “I’ll catch her.”

  “I think we should go inside and have a cup of tea and get you patched up, Inspector,” Alice said. “You and Mr …?” She trailed off expectantly, and maybe-S.B. scowled at her.

  DI Adams looked at her still-bleeding hand and sighed. “Alright. You have everything in the church?”

  “Oh, yes. We keep the kitchen very well equipped.”

  “Of course you do.” She nodded at the man on the steps, who was looking longingly across the churchyard. “Inside.”

  “What? But—”

  “Inside.” She started toward the steps, stopped, and patted her pockets. “I don’t – ugh. Can anyone see my phone?”

  Everyone looked at the ground, but there was no phone in sight.

  “I need my phone.” The detective inspector sounded almost bewildered, and Miriam didn’t really blame her. It was an unpleasant enough situation when you could see dragons. She hurried down the steps.

  “Where did you have it?”

  “I must have dropped it when the dog knocked me over,” DI Adams said. She was running her boot through the grass, still not looking at the dragons, and Amelia twitched her tail out of the way just before the inspector stumbled on it. Primrose pounced on it, and Amelia gave a muffled squeak of outrage.

  DI Adams straightened up, frowning. “What was that?”

  “Primrose,” Jasmine said, her face pink, and she hauled the dog away. “She, um, burped.”

  Amelia looked even more outraged, and Beaufort jerked his head toward the nearest gravestone. Miriam followed his gaze, and saw the phone lying just by Walter’s outstretched paw.

  “There it is, Inspector!” she exclaimed, then cringed as Beaufort glared at her.

  “Oh, thank God,” the inspector said, sounding almost like a normal person. With no sign of seeing him, she stepped over Beaufort’s tail and picked up the phone, her fingers almost brushing Walter’s claws. “That’d be all I need, a missing phone.” She straightened up, stepped over the High Lord’s tail again, and headed into the church, ushering a protesting maybe-S.B. ahead of her.

  Miriam, her hands pressed to her chest, lingered just long enough to see Jasmine hurry away with Primrose, still mumbling apologies to Amelia.

  “That was close,” Miriam whispered to Mortimer.

  He nodded. He’d gone back to that unhealthy yellow colour. “You best go inside. Lord Walter is going to be so unhappy.”

  Judging by the violent purple and green flashes on the old dragon’s hide, Miriam rather thought he might be right. She hurried inside and went to put the kettle on.

  In the kitchen, Alice cleaned the inspector’s hand with warm water and peroxide, then bandaged it neatly. “You’ll probably want to go to a doctor,” she said. “Never can tell with dog bites.”

  “Great. Is there one in the village?”

  “No. One tried, but he had to move. Not enough clients.”

  The DI gave that puzzled blink again, then said, “Okay. Wonderful.” She pointed at the man, who was grumbling to himself in the corner. “Name and contact details, then you can go.”

  “What?” Miriam said, before she could stop herself. “He was lurking around the church!”

  “I wasn’t lurking,” the man snapped.

  “You were in the supply cupboard!”

  “You were in the supply cupboard?” DI Adams said. She had her reclaimed phone out in front of her. There was something that looked a lot like dragon drool on the screen.

  “I was looking for the stairs to the steeple. I heard the, um, ladies come in, and was just going to slip out again without troubling them.”

  “Why not just ask us?” Alice asked, rinsing the bowl she’d used to clean the inspector’s hand.

  “I didn’t want to disturb you. And sometimes people get funny about strangers wandering around their church.” He put extra emphasis on “funny”, leaving no one in any doubt that he thought they were all a bit funny, and not in a ha-ha way.

  DI Adams shook her head. “Name and contact details.”

  “But—” Miriam began.

  “Ms Ellis, you have been found lurking around the actual crime scene as well as this church. I wouldn’t suggest you start telling me to arrest someone who looks less suspicious than you do.”

  Miriam wilted under the inspector’s glare.

  “Name,” DI Adams said again.

  The man sighed. “Stuart Browning,” he said grudgingly, and Miriam and Alice exchanged glances.

  “Phone.”

  He gave it, and the DI wiped her mobile on her trousers, then rang him. His pocket suddenly started blaring, If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it, if you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it, and he hauled the phone out with a sigh, silencing it. DI Adams raised one eyebrow just slightly.

  “Kids,” Stuart Browning explained. “Can’t be bothered changing it. They just go and change it to something even more embarrassing.”

  “Fine,” DI Adams said. “Off you go.”

  “But—” Miriam started again, and Alice kicked her.

  “Yes?” the DI said, and Miriam remembered she shouldn’t know anything about S.B. Blood rushed to her cheeks, and for a moment the whole room got a little spotty around the edges, and she found herself thinking about orange jumpsuits again.

  “You should let Alice take a look at your leg,” she said to Stuart finally. “She’s very good at first aid.”

  “I’m not letting either of you two near my leg,” he said. “You sat on me, and she put a bag on my head. You’ll probably put salt in it or something.” He limped out, slamming the kitchen door as he went, and the DI took a sip of tea, but not quickly enough to hide a small smile.

  “So?” Alice said. “What now?”

  “Do you have anything to add to your story of being here to do flowers?”

  Alice pointed at the old flowers, folded into a plastic bag on the counter. “No.”

  “And your W.I. friends? Here purely by chance, were they?”

  “They often dog-walk together.”

  “Really?” The DI’s raised eyebrow was back.

  “Of course. The dogs get on very well.”

  The inspector shook her head. “Fine. Any idea either who was shouting for Walter outside, or who Walter is?”

  “None at all.”

  “Fantastic.” DI Adams took another mouthful of tea. “Then I shall be taking both of you home. And as I can’t seem to trust either of you to stay away from crime scenes and out of trouble, I will be having you watched.”

  “You’re putting us under house arrest?” Miriam squeaked. That was terribly close to actual arrest.

  “Nothing formal,” the DI said. “Not yet, at any rate.”

  Miriam looked at the remains of her tea and wondered what the black market in prison was like for herbal teas and infusions, and whether chia seeds were considered contraband. She also thought that if Alice and the DI hadn’t both been the sort of people who frowned on public crying, she’d start right now. As it was, she’d wait until she got home.

  13

  Alice

  Alice bent down to look at PC Ben Shaw, his long legs tucked in underneath the steering wheel of his car. It was a baby blue Smart car, and she wondered how, exactly, he expected to give chase to anything in it.

  “Hello, Ms Martin,” he said, giving her an apologetic smile.

  She patted the roof of the car. “Cutbacks?”

  His cheeks were normally on the red side, and now they looked positively painful. “We couldn’t really spare the patrol car, so I said I’d use mine. But then mine’s in the garage, so I had to use Jasmine’s. The inspector was spitting when I told her.”

  “I expect she was,” Alice said, and offered him a bowl with a napkin neatly draped over it. “I only had salad planned for tonight, so it’s not very exciting, I’m afraid. But it does have hazel
nuts and blue cheese, and raspberry vinaigrette.”

  “Oh. Um—” His cheeks were so red now that Alice found herself wondering if they’d spontaneously combust. She knew it wasn’t a scientifically documented phenomenon, but, well. She’d never seen anyone go that colour before. “The detective inspector says we’re not to accept any food from any of you.”

  Alice raised her eyebrows. “As I assume she means the W.I., she does realise that your wife is one of us?”

  “Yes. Well. She’s not very impressed that I’m the one here, but everyone else was rota’d on in town. There wasn’t any choice. And I did tell her that Jasmine couldn’t have done it, on account of her terrible cooking.”

  “Well.” Alice straightened up, neither entirely surprised nor entirely unhurt. The inspector was right to be cautious, but it irked her that she was still carrying around the weight of Harvey’s disappearance after all these years. She was quite certain that the only other person being watched would be Miriam, and that was probably only because they kept being discovered together. She sighed. “Very well. You do have some dinner, though?”

  “Oh, yes. I stopped at the bakery. They still had some sausage rolls and a cheese pasty left.”

  Alice gave him a severe look. “You’ll shorten your life, eating that stuff.”

  “Not as much as eating Jas’ cooking.”

  She smiled at him, aware that he was trying to make her feel better, and took the spare salad back through the little gate in her wooden fence and let herself inside. She put the bowl in the fridge for lunch the next day and leaned against the sink, looking out the window at the quiet green garden and its neatly mowed lawn. The house felt very still and full of anxious silence, and she could feel that horrible claustrophobia pressing down on her again, as if the police officer outside was only one of many, leaning over her too closely to allow her to breathe.

  She pushed herself off the sink, took the shed key from its place on the key rack, and marched outside. There was still plenty of daylight. She’d do some pruning. Her rosebushes could do with a little tidying.

  Her mobile rang while she was frowning at a rosebush, trying to decide if she needed to take a little more off the left-hand side to make it symmetrical. She pulled her gardening gloves off and fished the horrible thing out of her pocket. She tried not to carry it on her, but she was expecting a few calls. Jasmine had already rung, apologising over and over for not stopping the detective inspector at the church, although, as Alice had pointed out, their plans had not taken into account the belligerent tendencies of Lord Walter. Then Priya had called and said that, so far, they hadn’t turned up any suspicious male bakers. She’d been slightly cagey about it, and just kept saying that everything was fine and they’d keep looking, but her voice was higher that it usually was. Alice wondered what that might mean, but in the end she rather doubted that BestBakerBoy was their murderer. No one could get that upset over a village fete. Now she hit answer on the phone.

  “Gert,” she said, checking to make sure Ben was in his car. He was, sitting on the passenger’s side with his legs out on the pavement. She picked up a handful of cuttings and strolled toward the back garden.

  “Alice,” Gert said. “How’s house arrest going?”

  “News travels fast.”

  “Of course,” Gert said. “Any news on that end?”

  “We met S.B. at the church.”

  “Ooh, was that who it was? Rose told me that Miriam tackled someone who looked like George Clooney.”

  Alice chuckled. “Rose needs a new prescription.”

  “I thought as much,” Gert said, sounding disappointed. “Anyway, that’s good, because I turned up nothing on S.B.”

  “Violet?”

  “No luck there, either. Sue – that’s my sister-in-law’s niece’s sister-in-law, in the council?”

  “Yes,” Alice said, wondering if she should go and make a cup of tea. This could be a long story if Gert insisted on listing all her relatives.

  “She checked the marriage records, but the vicar’s never been married. No siblings listed, or naughty little vicar babies. I’ve got her looking for cousins and so on, but nothing so far.”

  “Well, that’s a shame.” Alice tried to keep her voice neutral, but her stomach felt tight and hollow. That brought them back to the W.I. in general, and her and Miriam in particular. Miriam with the belladonna, her with the vanished husband. She hadn’t missed the way the inspector looked at them after the phone call in the churchyard.

  “It is.” Gert was quiet for a moment, then said, more cheerily, “Shall I pop by with a bottle? We can play some cards?”

  “Best not,” Alice said. “But thank you anyway. I’m sure we’ll come up with a new plan.” She hung up and put the phone away, examining the long shadows of the garden and rubbing her thumb over the palm of her other hand restlessly. Then she sighed, put her gloves back on and returned to the rosebush, attacking it quite ruthlessly.

  The gardening made her feel better. The tidy execution of weeds that dared to invade her carefully laid flowerbeds, the judicious removal of overeager shoots and old blooms beginning to fade. There was always something terribly satisfying about bringing order to chaos, to corralling the out-of-control growth and shaping it into something beautiful and suitable. She’d never expect nature to follow such strict guidelines, of course. She was more than fond of the wild fells that rose up around Toot Hansell, of the beautiful disorganisation of heather and rock screes and tangled copses of skinny trees. That was as it should be. In her garden, however, a different set of rules applied.

  The shadows were deep and rich by the time she dropped the garden rubbish in the compost bin, put her shears and trowel away in the shed, and let herself back into the house. She stood for a moment on the threshold of the dim kitchen, listening to the evening cries of the birds behind her, her back still warm with the last of the sun and a pleasant little sweat salty on her lips. She’d have a bath, she decided. It wasn’t really a summer thing to do, but it’d be good for her after the garden. Stop her stiffening up too much.

  She had one shoe off and was reaching down to remove the other when she stopped, a frown drawing tight lines at the corners of her mouth. In the centre of the kitchen was a rug. It was a big Turkish style thing, given to creams and pale blues that broke up the warmth of the polished wood floor and reflected the cream cabinets. She was very fond of it, and as it was far enough from the counter, the only mishap to befall it so far had been Miriam spilling red wine on it. There was still a pale grey shadow two thirds of the way from the left edge that made the younger woman go pink every time she saw it. But otherwise it was softly worn and perfectly clean.

  Except for a few blades of grass, stark against the pale, as if someone had trodden across it on their way to the hall. And she didn’t wear shoes inside.

  For a moment, she considered going to get Ben. He was just outside, and while he was presumably there to make sure she didn’t go off murdering anyone, rather than the other way around, she didn’t think he’d object to coming and taking a look for intruders. Especially as she could think of no other reason that she would have an intruder than the fact that she’d been poking around in a murder investigation. She frowned at the grass. If there was an intruder. Might she have brought the grass in on her trousers earlier? Might she be mistaking her own unease for that sense of wrongness, of things being not quite right?

  She took a deep, slow breath, steadying herself, then slipped her other shoe off and locked the door behind her. Unlike the rest of the population of Toot Hansell, she did lock her doors when she was out and when she went to bed. Although not when she was in the garden. She padded barefoot across the kitchen, her feet soundless on the heavy wooden flooring, and checked the door to the cellar. It had a tendency to slip its latch and swing open, so she’d put a pretty, old-fashioned bolt on the outside of it not long after she moved in. It was still shut, and she nodded sharply to herself. Clear.

  She eased the co
rner cupboard open, and selected her least favourite frying pan, a flimsy thing with a cheery pattern of daffodils around it that had been a prize at the fete a few years ago. She wasn’t quite sure why she’d kept it, but it could make itself useful now. She wasn’t about to waste her good pans on some good-for-nothing’s head. And it was plenty heavy enough to make a dent. She shouldered her weapon, and advanced slowly into the hall. Alice Martin, Chair of the Toot Hansell Women’s Institute, was not the sort of person to call a police officer in on shadows and nerves. She wasn’t going to have that said about her.

  The hall bathroom was clear. So too was the cupboard under the stairs. She moved quietly, methodically, aware that the sound of doors opening and closing would be giving her location away, but equally aware that leaving a hiding place unchecked was inviting disaster. The living room, with its big bay windows that looked over her garden (her wonderfully neat garden, a small part of her mind noted approvingly) was empty, and she could see Ben playing with his phone in the Smart car, not even glancing at the house. The living room had double doors that opened onto a small dining room. It used to have a door through from the kitchen, too, but she had blocked it off.

  She rarely entertained, and she certainly never had dinner parties, so the dining room had become her library. Three of the four walls were lined with bookshelves that reached to the ceiling, and a small set of wheeled stairs roved around the room. There was an old wooden coffee table with a scarred top, and a couple of comfortable chairs with soft red upholstery. There was a window seat with soft cushions, and a chaise longue lived in here too. In winter it was a small, cosy space of different worlds and different times, while the snow fell soft beyond the windows and a fire grumbled in the grate. Alice loved her library, and now she glared at the double doors with something like reproach. They were closed. They were almost never closed.

  She opened one door slowly, standing well to the side and ready to jump back. It was dark inside, the curtains on the window drawn, and she cursed herself for not noticing that when she was in the garden. She hoped she wasn’t slipping.