Chef Maurice and the Bunny-Boiler Bake Off (Chef Maurice Cotswold Mysteries Book 3)

by J. A. Lang

  “I knew you were innocent,” cried Angie, launching herself into her husband’s arms. “I knew it, I knew it.”

  “Well, this is all very well and good,” said Adam Monroe, from his seat over by the window, “Mr Mayor here getting himself out of the clink, but I don’t exactly see how this solves anything. Miranda’s killer is still out there, right?”

  “Not for long,” said Chef Maurice, waggling a finger. “As I was saying before Monsieur Rory came to interrupt us, the solution to finding the murderer of Mademoiselle Miranda was to be found, not in searching her own life, but in the life of Monsieur Rory here. It was to become clear that the killer’s real purpose was to bring down the life and career of Monsieur Rory.”

  “But who on earth would want to do something like that?” said Karole.

  “Perhaps, mademoiselle, that is something that you may answer for us.”

  Karole’s face blanched, as the room turned once more in her direction.

  “I put in front of you, Mademoiselle Karole, that you knew all along that Monsieur Rory would never come to leave his wife. He made promises, oui, but in your heart I think you knew you were simply, how do you say, a thing of play.”

  “That’s a lie,” said Karole, her voice trembling. “Rory loves me, he’ll tell you himself. He used to complain all the time about how things were at home, how she”—a manicured finger was jabbed in Angie’s direction—“was always nagging him to get ahead at work, to make more money so she could have more things for the house. How he had to be bigger, more important, than everyone else. He couldn’t wait to get a divorce and be with me instead. I loved him just as he was, not how I wanted him to be!”

  Chef Maurice shook his head. “You, mademoiselle, knew already of how Mademoiselle Miranda was blackmailing him. Perhaps you even gave her the information of your places of meeting, so that she might follow you. Under the pressure of the blackmail, he would be forced to choose between his wife and mistress. So he did. Faced with a scandal, he made his choice. But in your eyes, he chose wrong. He ended the relationship. So you sought to destroy him, as only a woman who is crossed in love can.”

  “That never happened!” yelled Karole, all poise gone. “He chose me. Rory, tell them the truth!”

  All eyes turned to Mayor Gifford who stood, with a giant-rabbit-in-the-headlights look, glancing back and forth between his wife and mistress.

  “Come, monsieur, it is necessary that they know the truth.”

  Two great shoulders sagged. “I guess you’re right. I should have done this a long time ago.” He looked down at Angie, and took both her hands in his.

  “Angie, my darling, I’m so very sorry for all the pain I’ve put you through these last few months. You’ve always been on my side, and I chose the most terrible way to repay you. But I need you to know something about Karole. Of course she has her faults, we all do. But I know that she, unlike you, would never stoop to murdering her best friend and framing her husband for murder.

  “Angie, I want a divorce. And then I’m going to marry Karole.”

  There was a squeal and Karole bounded across the room and threw herself into Mayor Gifford’s waiting arms. He enveloped her in a tight embrace, smoothing down her hair and kissing the top of her head. “It’s all going to be okay now,” he said. “It’s all over, don’t you worry.”

  “You haven’t a clue about anything, do you, Rory?” Angie had taken a few steps back and now stood, shivering, her thin voice carrying across the silence like wind through a reed. “After all I’ve done for you, sacrificed for you, and you think you’re going to throw it all away on a tramp like her? I won’t let that happen!”

  The cake knife, gripped tightly in her hand, was already making its way through the air when Chef Maurice launched himself across the coffee table and tackled her to the ground. The would-be weapon clattered across the floorboards, cake went flying, and PC Lucy stepped forwards to clasp a pair of handcuffs around Angie’s flailing wrists.

  The meeting was thus adjourned.

  Chapter 15

  The now-defunct Free Mayor Gifford campaign team, minus one founding member, had now decamped to the bar of Le Cochon Rouge, mainly because Chef Maurice was dying for a cup of coffee and no one (including the mayor) knew how to operate the machine in the Giffords’ kitchen. So they had hopped in their cars and followed him to Beakley, not about to let him get away without a thorough debriefing on the heady turn of events just past. Mayor Gifford had decided to join them, if only to avoid having to sit by himself in an empty house with only a tray of pulverised scones for company.

  “Come on, then,” said Arthur impatiently, as they waited for Chef Maurice’s coffee cup to fill. “When did you first twig that it was Angie Gifford all along?”

  “Ah. This, I must admit, was a thought that happened much later in our investigations. When all the evidence showed the way to Monsieur Rory, yet still I was not convinced of his guilt, I began to think of what other solutions we may have missed. To frame a man for murder takes much planning. And who is in the best place to do this, if not his own wife or mistress?”

  “So, it was just a guess, then?”

  “A guess? Mon ami, you do not give me justice! Non, the first real clue to Madame Angie’s true scheme was when I remembered the cake.”

  The little group around the bar looked at each other.

  “What cake?” said Mr Whittaker finally. He was perched at the end of the row, hands on his knees, looking like a man who found the very idea of sitting on a barstool a tad risqué.

  “The Smarties cake of many colours that Mademoiselle Miranda made in her demonstration at the Spring Fayre. Arthur, you remember?”

  “I do, but I don’t quite see—”

  “Of course you do not see yet. I have not yet explained.” Chef Maurice tutted, while the rich smell of freshly brewed coffee drifted over the bar. He took a deep sniff and sighed.

  “Where was I? Ah, oui, the cake! And the photographs, we must not forget them. Remember the photographs taken of Monsieur Gifford and Mademoiselle Karole, through the windows of the Grand Hotel in Cowton?”

  Arthur nodded, while the pair involved glanced down at their feet with looks of suitable chagrin.

  “They were taken last month, in March, so the computer tells us. A very particular day, the day of the full moon, which showed most beautifully in the photographs.

  “And then we think back to Mademoiselle Miranda’s tale of inspiration for her many-coloured cake. She was in India in last month, she tells us, during Holi, the Festival of Colours. You see now? Non? The Festival of Holi is like the New Year of the Chinese—it changes each year, but follows the dates of the moon. And Holi is held on the full moon of the month, most usually in March. So, if on the day of the full moon, Mademoiselle Miranda was in India—as she showed us in the photographs of her holiday—how could she also be on the roof of the building which looks onto the Grand Hotel, taking photos from high above?

  “Non, the blackmail photos, they therefore were not taken by Mademoiselle Miranda, but by someone else. Someone that would know her reputation for such schemes. It was then I thought of her best friend, Madame Angie Gifford.”

  “So it was Angie who was behind the whole blackmail scheme?” said Arthur.

  “Look, how many times do I have to tell people, there was no blackmail going on,” huffed Mayor Gifford. “I know I’ve made some mistakes this past year, but paying off a blackmailer? Unthinkable.”

  “What do you mean, there wasn’t any blackmail?” said Gaby. “I heard the police found—”

  “Non, non, Monsieur Rory speaks the truth. In fact, it was a part of the story that did not make sense, even from the beginning. That Mademoiselle Miranda would discover the affair of Monsieur Rory, but not tell her best friend? This was most strange. So I thought, what if there had been no blackmail to start with?

  “Madame Angie, of all the people, knew well the character of Miranda Matthews. Perhaps Mademoiselle Miranda had told h
er of past schemes of hers. So it was not difficult to set things to frame her friend for blackmail.”

  “But why?” said Gaby.

  “Ah, it was part of a scheme most intricate. A very dark scheme, born of revenge. You see, to divorce Monsieur Rory here”—he waved a hand at the mayor, who was sat with his soon-to-be new fiancée in his lap—“would not be sufficient punishment in the eyes of Madame Angie. She wanted his life completely made to pieces. And so she made a plan to frame him for the most terrible crime of all: murder.

  “But there was a problem. Monsieur Rory, we saw, controlled all the finances. How would she survive when he was to go to jail? She had her teaching wages, but this was not much, and not enough for the creation of the cookery school she had dreamed of. But then, Mademoiselle Miranda, without so knowing, provided the final piece of her plan.

  “In the contract they created for the cookery school, Mademoiselle Miranda would promise an amount of money for the project to cover the costs of the setting up of the school if she left—through choice or, in this case, through her death. It was at this moment that the sad fate of Mademoiselle Miranda was decided. Madame Angie would murder her best friend, and set up an appearance of blackmail to provide the motive required to frame her own husband for the act.”

  He paused to drop three large sugars into his coffee. “Does anyone here require un café?” he asked, waving the coffee tamper around. They all shook their heads, eager for the rest of the tale.

  “Very well.” He took a long sip. “So, it proceeds like this.

  “Madame Angie pretended to have no head for technology, but this is not true, as we see from her kitchen. She had already made a discovery of the affair, from the reading of phone messages, and perhaps in watching the mayor and Mademoiselle Karole together. Now, with Mademoiselle Miranda gone to India, she uses her keys to enter the appartement, borrows a camera, and follows her husband to his meeting at the hotel. She then puts these photographs into the computer of Mademoiselle Miranda. She also leaves the envelope and a fake note from Miranda in the mayor’s home study, ready for Arthur and I to find—it is not hard for her to use a paper that Miranda has already touched, so that her fingerprints show. She also burns the photographs in the fireplace, knowing it would eventually be searched. Last of all, she is the one who makes the payments from Monsieur Rory’s bank account to Mademoiselle Miranda.

  “And so, like this, the tale of blackmail is set, and it is time then for the second part of the plan.”

  “Bloody hell, there’s a second part?” said Adam Monroe, his forehead already creased from the strain of thought.

  “Oui. Madame Angie sets the date of the murder as the day of the Spring Fayre, an event where many people will be around, which will be of confusion to the police.

  “Then, a trap is made for Monsieur Rory himself. Once more playing the idea of blackmail, she sends him a note pretending to be Miranda, instructing him to meet her at twelve forty-five at Warren’s Creek. Miranda has, so Monsieur Rory thinks, photographs she wishes to discuss with him.”

  Karole looked at Rory. “So that’s why you went down there that day? You thought she was going to blackmail you?”

  “I had to see what she had to say, didn’t I? I wasn’t going to pay her off or anything.”

  Karole looked unimpressed.

  “If I may continue,” said Chef Maurice, “after Mademoiselle Miranda’s cookery demonstration, Madame Angie goes to the dressing tent and urges her friend to follow her down to Warren’s Creek, where the rare otters of the river have been seen. Mademoiselle Miranda, with no reason to distrust her friend, changes her shoes and follows her.

  “At the creek, they stand on the jetty. Madame Angie, perhaps, points to the otters playing in the water, encourages Mademoiselle Miranda to take a photo. And so, with her victim now in distraction, she brings out from her handbag—remember, they are so heavy, these bags!—a short iron pipe, held in a scarf or handkerchief. She is small but strong, Madame Angie. She strikes, hard, and Mademoiselle Miranda falls into the waters. The pipe, it is then thrown into the bushes, so that it may be found by the police.

  “Then, at twelve forty-five, while Monsieur Rory comes to the meeting place, Madame Angie is already making her appearance back at the Fayre. Remember, mon ami, how she even comes to me and Patrick at the hog roast stand, and says she cannot find Mademoiselle Miranda and Monsieur Rory? Already, she wishes to plant the idea into our heads. And she plants more than just ideas. The tail we found in the bushes, that surely was put there by Madame Angie, not on the day of the Fayre, but when we went later to make a search.”

  He paused and scratched his head. “I think that is all. Voilà, you have the story. Complete.”

  There was a little smattering of applause.

  “Amazing,” breathed Karole. “I can’t believe you managed to figure that all out yourself.”

  Chef Maurice puffed out his chest, apparently not the only male in the room who could be swayed by the charms of a young, wide-eyed mademoiselle.

  “But what about that new evidence that turned up?” said Arthur. “The reason they let Rory go. Was that all just part of the ploy to get Angie to confess?”

  “Non, the evidence, it is real. But perhaps ‘new’ is not the correct word. We had, in fact, already seen it. But we did not see!” He pulled out from one pocket a creased printout from the video of Angie pinning the new bunny tail onto Mayor Gifford’s costume. “These new cameras, they are most powerful today. Mademoiselle Lucy and I watched the video again, but this time with more care. And then we saw!” He pointed at something glinting in Angie’s hand. “Before Madame Angie makes the attachment of the new tail, she brings out the little scissors to cut the first tail off!”

  Arthur remembered the little boy in the video. Look, Mummy! She’s stealing his bunny tail!

  “From the mouth of babes,” he groaned.

  “So Rory never actually lost his tail?” said Karole. “But I thought—”

  “Ah, but when Madame Angie came to you and told you of the lost tail, she made sure that you were busy inside the face-paint tent and would not be able to see for yourself. And to her husband, she tells him she has a new tail to pin to him, and of course he believes her. Why should he not? Husbands, they let their wives brush the dust from their shoulders, the food from their beards. They do not stop to check in the mirror each of these statements.”

  “But what I still don’t get,” said Gaby, “is if she wanted revenge on him so badly, why didn’t she just club him over the head instead?” She waved a hand at Mayor Gifford, who looked affronted at the suggestion.

  “Ah, but that would not have been correct to her personality. Madame Angie, she told us herself, could never be a chef, because she wished to always see the results of her work. So for her, the best punishment for Monsieur Rory was a fate that he would have to live with. To be named a cheat and murderer for all to see.”

  “Revenge is a dish best served cold, eh?” said Arthur.

  “Oui. But one, I think, that should be left from the menu altogether. It does not, in my mind, leave a very good taste at all.”

  Chapter 16

  The thick padded envelope thumped down on the doormat.

  Patrick looked up from his list of pros and cons. He’d spent the afternoon adding to the columns, in an attempt to drown out his thoughts about PC Lucy.

  I’m sure it won’t be a very hard decision, she’d said.

  But had it been said with a tinge of sadness—or relief?

  He’d be damned if he was going to move to the Lake District just to save his girlfriend the trouble of dumping him outright.

  So he sat at the kitchen table of his little flat, carefully penning down new pros and cons, with the help of the Internet and an old copy of The Intrepid Traveller’s Guide to the North of England.

  Thump.

  He stopped, halfway through the latest con on his list—‘The Lake District is home to two native British carnivorous plants’�
��and went to investigate this oddly timed arrival. It was getting dark outside, and far past the postman’s usual hour.

  He sliced open the packet, half-expecting to find some newfangled kitchen gadget, courtesy of a certain French chef. Instead, he found himself staring at a small handheld voice recorder.

  Press play, instructed the message taped to the back.

  So he did.

  One minute later, the pros and cons list neatly filed in the recycling bin, Patrick was out of his front door and running down the lane, a huge grin on his face.

  He had finally made his decision.

  The little group of visitors had long since departed, and Chef Maurice and Arthur were sat at the bar, a celebratory bottle of vintage Port between them.

  The front door banged open.

  “You followed me around taping me?!” yelled PC Lucy, striding in waving a little black voice recorder. She was followed by Patrick, who was attempting to mirror his girlfriend’s ire, and failing miserably.

  “Pardon?” said Chef Maurice.

  “Nothing to do with me,” said Arthur.

  Alf, who had been edging his way back to the kitchens, froze as four pairs of eyes zoned in on his back.

  “It was all chef’s idea,” he mumbled, then made a dash for it.

  PC Lucy turned her stare back to Chef Maurice, who was spreading a pungent lump of blue-veined roquefort onto a cracker.

  “I thought it would be a good experiment to take a leaf from Mademoiselle Miranda’s library,” said the chef, unabashed.

  “It was a private conversation! You had no right to send Alf tailing me around like that!”

  “Ah, but it worked, non?” said Chef Maurice, with a glance at his sous-chef, who was grinning ear-to-ear.

  “Looks like you’ll be putting up with me a little while longer, chef,” said Patrick, putting his arm around PC Lucy’s shoulder. “And we’ve got news. We’re moving in together.”

  “Congratulations,” said Arthur.

  “Ah, so you now decide to stay?” said Chef Maurice, with all the visible interest of one who has just been told the weather forecast in Sydney.