A dull scream sounded from inside the manor house.
“PARAMEDICS?” a voice screamed from the entrance.
TWENTY
Another death? My mind raced.
It definitely couldn’t have been Spencer given the additional facts.
Paul, Charlie, and I rushed into the building on the tail of two paramedics in the remaining ambulance. They’d stayed behind for this very instance, in case someone else was sick, or worse, dead.
The screams grew louder as we approached the ballroom.
Complete silence from the jazz band, and everyone as they stood to watch from their tables, a safe distance from whatever was happening. The last thing anyone wanted was fingers pointed at them.
“What happened?” Ruth asked breathlessly from behind me. “I was on the phone to Frank.”
There was a barricade of officers standing on guard at the kitchen door. Paul rushed through, as did Charlie, jumping from my arms.
Ruth and I were met with stern looks and scowls. There was no way we were being let through their guard. But between the spaces in their shoulders and arms, I saw a woman on the floor. I heard gasping and choking.
“The same thing which killed Finley,” I grumbled.
As Ruth caught her breath, I turned to her and shook my head.
“Frank doesn’t know anything yet,” she said. “Apparently, they’re still looking for something which could’ve killed him, and anyone could’ve brought anything in.”
Nobody stood guard at the door when you entered to search your bags, we weren’t exactly going through border security. “I want to see what happened.”
Ruth sighed. “What did Spencer say?”
“Remember the charity,” I said. Of course, she remembered. “Finley was a contributor as well. It was a way to have the men pay child support without the women being able to sue if they stopped—well, that’s what I think.”
“And Finley was a playboy, so—”
“Doesn’t narrow it down, at all.”
We were finally clear on one thing. It had to be a woman.
“Make way!” a voice boomed.
The paramedics moved swiftly, rolling a woman out of the kitchen on a gurney. She had an oxygen mask around her face, but I knew her, she was the women who’d offered to make coffee earlier.
“Sandra?” I said.
The police officers moved, and we were finally allowed into the kitchen were everyone rushed around like headless chickens. The waiters brushed by us, leaving kitchen with their hands wrapped shakily around metal trays.
Paul approached us, shaking his head.
“It wasn’t Spencer,” he said, his words a relief. “But the same symptoms as Finley.”
“So, does this mean you believe us?” I asked.
“I told you, this could mean two people are in on it,” he said. Slapping the two pages in his notepad shut before retiring it into his pocket. “But this time, it wasn’t him.” He itched at the balding spot on his head. “Sandra was one of four cooks. Another woman said she drank something, coffee, perhaps, and then choked up and fell.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Who?” he repeated back.
“Which other woman?” Ruth added. “Who saw what happened?”
Paul turned on a foot to look around the kitchen.
There were two younger women, talking to the two chefs. They were in their early twenties; I’d spoken very briefly to one of them—I think.
“Lorraine?” I asked.
Ruth nodded. “Do you think—”
“She’s the one who Finley had been with?” I finished her thought.
“What are you talking about?” Paul’s scowling face glared at us like we were performing sign language.
“The charity,” I said. “Helping women, if Lorraine was one of those women, and he stopped sending her money, she might’ve been angry.”
“And when Sandra found out, she tried to kill her too?”
Paul’s eyes widened. He looked around, in all directions before nodding to a chef. “Let me see.”
As Paul walked off, Charlie ran straight to my feet, cannonballing into my legs.
“Ouch,” I mumbled, glancing down at his small face.
“Did she have a nosebleed when she was being wheeled out?” Ruth asked.
“She had a mask over her mouth,” I replied. “Why?”
She stepped forward, leading towards the end counter. “Maybe wherever she was, there’s blood. And Finley bled from his nose before dying.”
“Where’s the cup she had?”
“They would’ve bagged it.”
Charlie walloped himself against my feet once again, whipping his tail at my ankle.
“What is it?” I asked him.
He darted to the right, straight for the counter where Ruth and I had been making coffees earlier.
I followed him, to where he stood, in front of a small brown puddle with a large undissolved white chunk in the centre of it.
“Eve,” Ruth grumbled. “Get him away from it.”
“What? What? Why?” I asked, but complied, calling Charlie away.
“I know what it is,” she said, her fingers pressing into her mobile phone. “I’ll be right back!”
“Wait? What is—” I droned off as she left.
Paul approached with a shake to his head. “They haven’t seen her.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“Where’s Ruth?”
“We found this,” I said. “She’s gone to call Frank, I think.”
“Is it—the—whatever killed him?”
Only a shrug could answer. I had no idea. And I wished I knew.
“Do you have a list of everyone at the party?” I asked.
“From Diane,” he said, “yes.”
“Ok. And we’re going to need to call Nora,” I said. “See if she knows who did this, if any names stand out. Maybe she knows who this Lorraine is.”
“We also have pictures,” he added. “The company photographer was on his way to the station earlier. He’s giving the memory stick to an officer there. But they didn’t come into the kitchen at all.”
“Lorraine’s the new suspect?” I asked.
Hesitant to answer with words, he gave a simple nod.
“Someone should clean this before we have another fatality,” he said.
Which meant he thought Sandra was dead.
It made sense, someone from the kitchen, they could go undetected. Nobody noticed the people in the kitchens, they were invisible people. Nobody photographed them, and nobody came to take their statements.
Paul handed me Spencer’s phone. “You know his code,” he said. “Call Nora. If she answers, come find me.”
“You want me to call?” I asked, my eyes blinking wildly.
“You’ve been useful,” he said, “so far.”
“I’m glad to see you’re not so hostile.” I smirked, although he’d already told me he was on his way out of Briarbury and onto the county constabulary as an investigator. All he wanted right now was a win, and with my short but successful track record, I’m sure he knew how to play the hand.
As Paul left, one of the waiters approached me.
“You okay?” I asked.
He gave me an odd look, cocking his head to the side. “I’m just coming to clean the floor.”
“Oh.” I bit my lips, feeling a flush of heat transcend through my body to my face. “I’ll let you get to it then.” I slapped my thigh to grab Charlie’s attention and moved out of his space.
I walked out into the ballroom, unlocking Spencer’s phone.
If anyone had an answer, it was Nora.
TWENTY-ONE
The phone rang out. Cutting to the voicemail after several rings. I attempted to call a dozen times before the jazz band started up and the clash of the symbol caught me off-guard, fumbling to catch the phone from the scare.
Charlie stayed by my side, which was new. He wasn’t running off looking for something to bark about, and for
that I was grateful.
“She has kids,” I spoke to him, and mainly myself. “She’s probably in bed, sleeping. But I’m sure if she woke up from one of those calls, then she’d understand the situation. I know she wouldn’t mind someone coming into contact with her to ask for her help protecting the father of her children.”
“Talking to yourself?” Diane asked, approaching me with two glasses of champagne.
“Sorry?” I mumbled, breaking concentration from my thoughts, and the ongoing worry about Lorraine. I hoped Paul was looking for her, if she was the killer, then she was on the loose.
“What happened?” she asked, handing me a glass of champagne.
I accepted the glass; it would be rude otherwise. “We think someone tried to kill someone else, the same way they killed Finley.”
“That’s awful,” she said, teasing at the end of her hair with a scrunched hand. “I mean, truly.”
“It means Spencer’s innocent,” I said in a hushed voice.
“Nobody is ever truly innocent, Eve.”
“Nobody?” Did she know something I didn’t?
She waved her hand around freely. “It’s a saying.”
“Diane,” a man said. “Happy birthday!” he said, giving her a hug and a kiss on either cheek. “I’m sorry I’m only just arriving.”
He was an older man with a full head of grey hair and dressed in a white and black suit outfit pulled straight from Saturday Night Fever.
“Billy,” she said, craning her head back slightly to look at him. “Let me get you a glass.”
“Have mine,” I said, handing the glass over.
A large smile flashed across his face, revealing the porcelain toilet white teeth in his mouth. “Thank you.”
“Oh, Eve is joining you at the newspaper on Monday,” she said.
“Eve, Eve,” he said, repeating my name in his mouth, smacking his tongue against the roof. “Nice name.” He shook my hand.
“This is Patrick’s uncle,” she said. “He’s one of the editors.”
I smiled, greeting him. “Nice to meet you, Billy.”
“In fact, I believe she’s working on something right now,” she said.
He chuckled. “When Julia phoned me and said someone had died, I said, what, there’s been a murder on the dancefloor,” he laughed louder; a cackle. “I had to really get a move on over.”
While, I enjoyed the Sophie Ellis-Bextor song reference, I felt it was in poor choice to joke about what had happened.
They walked off, with their arms hooked together. Ruth joined me, shaking her head.
I’d been waiting to find out what she knew.
“So?”
“Castor beans,” she replied.
“I think they’ve stopped serving food.”
“No, no,” she said, shaking her head. “The white powder, it’s ricin.”
“The poison?”
She nodded back. “I tried to contact Frank, but I think he was on the phone with someone else.”
“But you’re sure?”
“The symptoms, the signs, and the powder we saw in the clump.” She sighed, combing a hand through her black hair. “But I wouldn’t know how someone creates it, and it can’t be easy, especially if it’s so highly toxic.”
“But they use beans?”
“Castor,” she reiterated. “What happened when I left?”
I wiggled Spencer’s phone in her face. “Tried to call Nora.”
“And?”
“No answer.”
“She has children,” Ruth said. “And she’s practically a single mother without having Spencer around.”
“Probably in bed,” I said. “Which means we’ll have to wait until whenever to find out if she knows who killed Finley and framed Spencer.”
“Unless we find wherever the ricin came from.”
“Unless that.”
Ruth’s phone rang in her hand. Frank’s name flashed on the screen.
“Let me get this,” she said.
“Ask him if he knows how people create ricin.”
She nodded back before walking away.
Leaning against the wall, I puffed and pushed my chest. Castor beans sounded like food, and who better to create something from a food than to have a chef or cook do it. Someone like that would’ve had the skills, but poison wasn’t my forte.
“Let’s go back outside,” I told Charlie.
The room was becoming stuffy and hot with all the people, now dancing around. Most of them had forgotten what just happened moments ago, and that was possibly because there wasn’t anyone screaming about a dead body.
The articles they’d had drafted on their phones were now something they’d deal with in the morning, there wasn’t anything to tell these people the killer was still out there.
Except one person, they knew. Wherever they were.
“One last look,” I grumbled, peering through the circular windows in the kitchen doors.
The room was a mix of two groups, the two younger cooks talking to the chefs, and two waiters standing in their corner, seemingly opening another bottle of champagne, squeezing a towel around the neck and over the cork so the almighty pop wouldn’t scare people to think someone had brought a handgun to the party as well.
Back out in the reception area, were a cool breeze rolled through and whipped around my neck, providing me with an extremely nice cool massaged sensation. The woman Finley had brought was finally out of the area, as was Ben, the man who’d been at the reception desk.
“Hello,” Zara said, waving at me.
“Hi,” I replied, approaching her. “Have you seen a woman in a cook’s uniform?”
She pressed a hand to her chest. “The one that was taken into the ambulance?”
“No, another.”
She sighed heavily. “Too many people in and out, absolutely freezing” she said. “You know this place is hundreds of years old, there’s draughts coming in from all places.”
“And what about the balding man with the serious face?” I asked, painting Paul’s image.
She snorted. “Think he’s outside,” she said.
I glanced to the empty chair at her side. “And your colleague.”
“Ben,” she said. “He’s in there, getting us a couple plates of food.”
At least it wasn’t going to waste.
“I’ll leave you to it,” I said, turning to head outside.
In view from the doorway, Paul stood butting a cigarette out into the bin. He shrugged and scoffed at me.
“It’s been a rough night,” he begrudged.
“I’m not judging you,” I said.
He shook his head. “Did you call her?”
“No answer.”
“Just the luck, isn’t it.” Hunching his shoulders, he walked away from the door. “Didn’t find the other cook either.”
“Sir, there’s someone driving up in a car,” an officer, running straight to Paul. A voice of static came from the talkie strapped to his lapel. “She just got out of the car. Are we letting people come in?”
“Get the name and ask what they want,” he said.
I shrugged. “I don’t see why people coming is an issue, we should be looking at people who have left already. Like the woman from the kitchen, nobody has seen her since Sandra was taken into the back of the ambulance.” I glanced around the roofs of the cars to spot the ambulance in the corner, stationary without lights.
TWENTY-TWO
Nora Anders arrived in her small red hatchback. She was in fits of tears, crying and begging for the officers to let her see Spencer.
I watched, after following Paul to the entrance drive where she’d been stopped. Her two children were sleeping in the back of the car, all the lights on, shining ahead from the headlights. She threw herself on the ground, her voice growing louder.
Charlie, noticing her in distress, barked before running straight towards her. I chased after him the best I could in my short heels.
“Eve, what are
you—” he cut himself off.
“Let me see him, please,” she begged as Charlie nuzzled his head at her arm.
“Get her up,” Paul nodded to an officer. “Bring her car off the road as well, I don’t want it to cause a jam.”
She handed the keys to an officer as she stood with his help.
“He didn’t do it,” she said. “He didn’t do it.” Walking closer towards me as Charlie trailed after.
“What do you know?” I asked.
She wiped her eyes and sniffled. “I saw it online.”
“I tried calling you from his phone.”
She gasped, quickly frisking herself for her phone. “It might be in the car. Maybe—maybe I left it.” Once again, tears came quickly down her cheeks.
“Listen,” Paul said. “It’s okay. I’ll take you to see Spencer.”
“You will?” she said, turning to Paul, a huge smile on her face. “Please, I just want to make sure he’s okay.”
The officers went on ahead with Nora, while Paul walked behind alongside me. He wrapped a hand around the back of his neck, pulling at the tension.
“I want to keep an eye on you,” he said.
“What for?” I scoffed.
“The notes match,” he said. “For Finley, for Spencer, and for you. Finley is dead, Spencer was almost imprisoned, and you—” he shrugged. “You’re a meddler. Probably why someone knows you were looking into it.”
“Yeah,” I mumbled back. “I had been in the kitchen, and I was talking near to the cooks, so it’s possible Lorraine heard. Plus, the cooks had been out of the kitchen earlier to place food, it’s possible they went back out and did more of the same, going undetected.”
He nodded along with the theory. “I have the officers looking for her,” he said. “Someone is trying to get an ID on her car, but nobody has left, so she’s either on foot in the fields, or she’s still inside.”
“With Nora here, we can get her to help us.”
“If she wants to.” He rolled his eyes.
“If it sets Spencer free, then surely, she’ll help.”
Or so, that was the idea. The hysterics she’d been in when she arrived, it was a surprise she’d made it this far driving at all. But I had no idea where she’d been living or how far she’d driven at all.
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