Tea with Milk and Murder (Oxford Tearoom Mysteries ~ Book 2)

by H. Y. Hanna

  Tea with Milk and Murder

  Oxford Tearoom Mysteries ~ Book 2

  by

  H.Y. Hanna

  While at an Oxford cocktail party, tearoom owner Gemma Rose overhears a sinister conversation minutes before a University student is fatally poisoned. Could there be a connection? And could her best friend Cassie’s new boyfriend have anything to do with the murder?

  Gemma decides to start her own investigation, helped by the nosy ladies from her Oxfordshire village and her old college flame, CID detective Devlin O’Connor. But her mother is causing havoc at Gemma’s quaint English tearoom and her best friend is furious at her snooping… and this mystery is turning out to have more twists than a chocolate pretzel!

  Too late, Gemma realises that she could be the next item on the killer’s menu. Or will her little tabby cat, Muesli, save the day?

  ** Velvet Cheesecake recipe at the end of the story!

  Books in the Oxford Tearoom Mysteries:

  A Scone to Die For (Book 1)

  Tea with Milk and Murder (Book 2)

  ~ more coming soon!

  Sign up to my mailing list to be notified about new releases and other book news: http://www.hyhanna.com/newsletter

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This book follows British English spelling and usage.

  (eg. “in hospital” and “cake slice” are not errors but correct British usage)

  There is a Glossary of British Terms at the end of the story.

  DEDICATION

  For the Blue Boar crowd—

  thank you for the wonderful memories during my time at Oxford

  Copyright © 2016 by H.Y. Hanna

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-99425272-0-2

  www.hyhanna.com

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  EPILOGUE

  Glossary of British Terms

  Velvet Cheesecake Recipe

  ALSO BY THE SAME AUTHOR:

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  You know your social life needs work when your first Saturday night out in months ends in murder.

  Of course, murder was the last thing on my mind as I peered over the heads in the crowd, trying to see what people were looking at. From their excited murmurs and pointing and whispering, I expected some scene of horrific carnage—or a naked woman at the very least.

  It turned out to be just a big grey square with a red blob in the middle. Apparently, from the heated discussion going on between two of the spectators next to me, the red blob could either represent the surrealism of perfect geometric form or the angst of the artist’s tormented search for his mother’s approval but certainly not the pent-up aggression of today’s youths.

  I sighed and turned away from the crowd. This just confirmed to me that I didn’t “get” modern art. You may wonder, then, what I was doing wandering around a contemporary art gallery on a precious Saturday evening off work. Well, I was there to support my best friend, Cassie, who was an artist (and not of the grey-square-with-red-blob variety either)—and she was having her first exhibition, with tonight being the opening night party.

  I looked across the room and saw her, face beaming and cheeks flushed—though I wasn’t sure how much of it was from the excitement of her first exhibition and how much from the proximity of the tall, attractive man next to her. Jon Kelsey. Owner of the gallery, art dealer extraordinaire, and general smooth operator. As I watched, Cassie flushed even more while Jon slipped a possessive arm around her waist and bent down to say something to her. She giggled, then looked across the room and caught my eye. I hurriedly changed my grimace into a smile.

  Yeah, I have to confess, I didn’t like Cassie’s new boyfriend much and I’m a bit ashamed of my feelings. I know, I know—I should’ve just been pleased that my friend had found someone she loved and was happy—and believe me, I’ve tried really hard to like him—but there was something about Jon Kelsey that put me off. He was just a bit too handsome, too smooth, too arrogantly self-assured. It seemed unfair to take against a man just because he was too charming, but something about Jon Kelsey made me bristle.

  And to be honest, I wondered why Cassie was with him. Cassie had the typical fiery artist’s temperament, but with a warm, down-to-earth approach to life—and Jon Kelsey wasn’t her usual type at all. With his posh London accent, flashy car, and loud designer clothes, he was more the type that Cassie would normally only glance at with contempt.

  But maybe it was true that “flattery will get you anywhere”, because the honour of being chosen as such a high-flying art dealer’s latest protégée seemed to have gone straight to Cassie’s head. Or in this case, her heart. Their chance meeting at the Tate Modern gallery in London had turned into a whirlwind romance and now, barely four weeks later, Cassie was revelling in her status as the star of his newly opened gallery in Oxford.

  Not that her paintings really fit in there. That was another mystery. I knew that art dealers usually specialised in particular styles and, looking around the gallery, I could see that Jon seemed to favour huge empty canvases with random blobs of colour or strange Post-Minimalist pieces which resembled the products of a rubbish compactor. Cassie worked in a more traditional style and her paintings stood out like a paint-splattered sore thumb. I couldn’t understand why Jon had taken Cassie on.

  Then I glanced over at my friend again and thought maybe I could understand after all. At five foot two, Cassie was a classic “pocket Venus” and had the kind of curves I’d always envied. Rubens would have killed to paint her. And not just for her voluptuous figure. With her flashing dark eyes and generous mouth, she had a warm, sensual appeal that drew men like moths to a flame.

  At any rate, her launch party looked to be a raving success. The gallery was crammed with several art critics and wealthy collectors from Oxford, and there were just as many people admiring Cassie’s paintings as those looking at works by the more established artists. The gallery, housed in a converted 18th-century Georgian townhouse, provided the perfect elegant setting, and I had to admit that Jon had gone all out in hosting this party for Cassie. He had even set up a bar in the corner of the gallery, with a waitress mixing cocktails on demand for the guests.

  I raised my own glass of frozen lime daiquiri to my lips and took a sip. I didn’t normally drink much—okay, I admit, I’m a bit of a lightweight when it comes to alcohol—but I had a weakness for cocktails and this was scrumptious. I glanced over at the creator of the drink—the waitress behind the bar, who was now opening the cocktail shaker and pouring out a drink for a man waiting by the counter. She looked like she could be a university student, with wispy blonde hair and a cute upturned nose,
although her looks were spoiled by the sulky tilt of her mouth and the air of resentment that surrounded her like a black cloud. I glanced back at my own glass and decided wryly that I had better not annoy her at any point in this evening or heaven knew what she would put in my next cocktail!

  I looked at her again. She seemed so young… and then I grinned at my own thoughts. At twenty-nine, it seemed silly to label someone who was probably only six or seven years younger than me as “so young” but in a way, since returning to England, I did feel like I had left my youth behind. Well, I was a grown up now, with my own business to run. After eight years of climbing the corporate ladder Down Under, I had given it all up and come home on a crazy whim to open a tearoom in a quaint little Cotswolds village on the outskirts of Oxford.

  In fact, my feet were aching now from all the standing I had done today (Saturdays being one of our busiest days, as we were inundated with tourists keen to have the “English afternoon tea” experience) and I wished now that I hadn’t worn such high heels for the party tonight. I looked surreptitiously around for somewhere to sit—why were galleries always so devoid of furniture?—and spotted a couple of velvet upholstered chairs behind a pillar. However, my way there was blocked by a group of people standing around a large frame on the wall next to me.

  “Amazing,” said one woman, shaking her head admiringly.

  “Look at the use of white space, how it hints at the emptiness of our collective souls,” said another.

  The man next to her nodded. “I love how it just speaks… without speaking.”

  I leaned over eagerly to see what they were looking at. Maybe I lacked the gene for art appreciation but it looked like they were all admiring a piece of blank A4 paper mounted on a board. Trust Jon Kelsey to stock the sort of pretentious rubbish that attracted all the top prats in Oxfordshire…

  “Hey… enjoying yourself?”

  I whirled around guiltily to see Cassie beside me. Were my recent thoughts about her boyfriend showing? Quickly, I pinned a bright smile on my face.

  “Yeah, fabulous.”

  Cassie gave me a look. “Gemma. You can’t fool me. I can see that you’re bored.”

  I shrugged helplessly. “Well, poncy modern art isn’t really my scene—”

  “Shhh!” said Cassie quickly, looking hastily around. The group next to us was still contemplating the brilliant talent required to create a blank piece of paper and she drew a breath of relief. She looked at me severely. “Gemma… this is great art!”

  “Aw, come on, Cass…” I sighed impatiently. “Don’t tell me you agree with them and think any of this stuff is good?”

  She avoided my eyes. “Well, you know my style is more traditional so I’m not really in a position to judge—”

  “Rubbish,” I said rudely. “This is like the Emperor’s New Clothes where nobody wants to come out and admit that he’s naked—or that this so-called art is stupid.”

  “Hush!” Cassie said, throwing a quick look around again.

  I frowned at her. Since when had my friend started to care so much about what other people thought? Cassie had always been unapologetically candid and outspoken—it was one of the things I’d always loved about her and envied her for. Unlike her, I hadn’t grown up in a large, rowdy family of creatives, dancers, and artists, all championing honest emotion and self-expression—I was the product of a stiff, middle-class British household where restraint and polite reserve were the ideals. Ever since we were little girls, Cassie had always said and done the things that I wished I dared. And yet recently, my free-spirited friend seemed to be disappearing.

  And I knew why. My gaze travelled resentfully across the room to the suave man in the brocade silk blazer. Jon bloody Kelsey.

  Still… I felt a twinge of guilt. Maybe I was the one being unreasonable. This was an important night for Cassie—the first night of the opening of her exhibition—and surely it was understandable that she wanted to make a good impression?

  “Sorry, Cass.” I gave her a rueful smile. “Maybe it is just me and it’s my fault that I don’t get it.”

  “N-o-o…” she said, looking uncomfortable. “It’s not your fault. Maybe… well, maybe you just need someone to look at the art with you—you know, so you can share opinions and discuss the meanings behind the pieces…”

  If I studied that piece of blank paper with a whole library of scholars for ten years, I still wouldn’t have a clue how it was supposed to mean anything. But I bit my tongue and kept my thoughts to myself.

  “You know you could have brought a date tonight,” said Cassie slyly. “Maybe you should have asked Devlin if he had the night off?”

  “And why would I have asked him?”

  Cassie gave an innocent shrug. “Oh, I don’t know… Maybe because he used to be the love of your life and you are now both back in Oxford…” She grinned. “Not to mention the fact that he’s a dashing CID detective with looks worthy of James Bond?”

  “I told you, things between me and Devlin are over. That was eight years ago and we’re completely different people now.”

  “Exactly.” Cassie’s grin widened. “Maybe that’s why you guys might have a chance this time round.”

  I rolled my eyes. She was like a terrier with a bone on this subject. “You keep your sticky fingers in your own love life and out of mine,” I said.

  Cassie laughed. “Speaking of love life—has Seth got a girlfriend or something? I was really surprised when he told me he couldn’t come tonight and when I asked why, he was very evasive. You know how he never normally misses anything we’re involved in—he’s usually so supportive…” She sounded slightly wistful. “I wondered if there was a girl or something—someone he’s fallen head over heels for and now he’s abandoning his oldest chums?”

  I gave Cassie a sideways glance. I could make a good guess as to why Seth hadn’t come tonight. It wasn’t because of a girl he had—it was because of a girl he couldn’t have. Seth, Cassie, and I had been a firm trio since university days—ever since that first week in Michaelmas Term when we’d arrived as Freshers together. And I think Seth had been carrying a torch for Cassie ever since that first week too. But Cassie had only ever seen him as a good friend and shy, studious Seth had never got up the courage to try and change her mind.

  I had thought that things might be changing at last—I don’t know if my return to England had been a trigger or something—but recently, Seth seemed to be making hesitant attempts to get Cassie’s attention… a shy invitation to dinner, a sweet gift of flowers… then Jon Kelsey had arrived on the scene and swept Cassie off her feet. I imagined that the last thing Seth wanted to do was come tonight and stand around watching Cassie and Jon act like two lovebirds.

  I realised that Cassie was still waiting for my answer. “Um… I don’t know. I don’t think so. Maybe he’s got university society commitments.”

  After graduation, Seth had chosen to remain in the hallowed cloisters of Oxford University and had steadily climbed the rungs of the academic career ladder, recently taking up an appointment as one of the youngest Senior Research Fellows in Chemistry at Gloucester College.

  “Well, I think it’s very poor show and I shall tell him when I next see him,” Cassie grumbled. “I mean, I went to listen to his three-hour chamber music ensemble and that time when his colleagues decided to do a chemistry-themed pantomime!”

  Before I could answer, Jon Kelsey joined us, immediately sliding that possessive arm around Cassie’s waist again. I felt my hackles rising slightly, although I didn’t know why. It wasn’t like I was a rampant feminist or anything, but there was something about the way Jon treated Cassie that made it feel as if she was a trophy. Not that she seemed to mind, I reminded myself—and that was all that mattered.

  “What are you girls nattering about?” said Jon with a patronising smile.

  “Nothing much,” I said quickly, before Cassie could answer. “This is a great party, Jon.”

  “Yes, my events are always first cla
ss,” he said. He looked down at Cassie and gave her a squeeze. “Nothing but the best for my artists. Especially my favourite artists.”

  Cassie flushed and giggled. I looked at her incredulously. Cassie didn’t giggle. She did big, hearty, belly laughs, or she chuckled evilly in amusement—but she didn’t giggle like a vapid schoolgirl. At least, not before she met Jon Kelsey, I thought sourly.

  “Oh, you’re wearing the new cufflinks I gave you!” said Cassie suddenly, pushing Jon’s suit sleeve back to look at his cuffs. “But… I thought you said you were going to wear the Cartier ones?”

  “I was but I couldn’t find one of them. Anyway, this being such a special night for you, I thought it was more fitting that I should wear yours. Not that I don’t think of you all the time…” He gave Cassie a squeeze.

  “Oh, you…!” Cassie giggled again and looked up at him adoringly.

  I couldn’t face the thought of standing there much longer, watching her make goo-goo eyes at Jon.

  “Excuse me, I’m just going to pop to the loo,” I said, giving them both a bright smile.

  They barely noticed my departure and I made my escape with relief. Threading my way through the crowds, I headed for the corridor at the other end of the gallery which led to the rear of the building. But as I approached the swinging doors of the public toilets, I noticed a slightly open door farther down the corridor. From the draught of cold air wafting in, I realised that it led outside, probably to the rear gardens.

  On an impulse, I walked down the corridor and out through the door, stepping into a courtyard filled with miniature trees and potted flowers. Slowly, I wandered across the flagstones, breathing in gratefully of the crisp night air. Everyone had told me that I would struggle with the cold winters back in England after the sunny climes Down Under, but it was actually the central heating that got to me. With the late November weather turning icy recently, everyone and their mother seemed to have put their central heating on full blast—and I spent half my time feeling irritable and muzzy-headed in the hot cloying atmosphere.