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

by H. Y. Hanna

  “The Walthams’ housekeeper?” Florence frowned.

  I looked at her. “Yes, why? Do you know her?”

  “No… but do you know… I have a feeling I heard of her recently. Now, where had I heard her mentioned…?” Florence gazed off into space.

  “So is Muesli all right then?” Ethel said.

  “They’re keeping her overnight for observation,” I said. “But I have a feeling that the only thing that will need emergency treatment when I pick her up tomorrow will be my wallet.” I made a grimace.

  “I know! I just remembered!” Florence burst out suddenly. “My niece, Delia, who’s a nurse up at the hospital… she mentioned seeing the Walthams’ housekeeper… She was chattering about it because she’d read about the murder in the papers and she was really excited. She said she’d seen Sarah on Saturday just before the party, only a few hours before she was murdered!”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Well, Delia works in the ICU and she was on duty when Sarah came in to visit her father. Caused a bit of a scene, apparently. Tried to throw her weight around, but the Ward Sister would have none of it. Anyway, they were about to come to blows and the doctor was there and it was ever so embarrassing… and then the Walthams’ housekeeper arrived and poured oil on troubled waters.”

  “Really?” I said in surprise. From the conversation I had had with Nell Hicks, I wouldn’t have expected her to want to help placate Sarah—in fact, I would have expected her to join the lynch mob against the girl!

  “Are you sure it was the Walthams’ old housekeeper that Delia saw?”

  Florence nodded. “Yes, Delia said she’d made some of Sarah’s favourite shortbread biscuits. That was what had helped to distract Sarah and calm her down. Nell gave her a whole tin, which she said was especially baked for her.”

  I was even more astonished. Nell Hicks had sounded more like she would poison Sarah than bake the girl some of her favourite shortbread bisc—

  I drew a sharp breath.

  Nell Hicks had sounded more like she would poison Sarah…

  Maybe that was exactly what the Walthams’ old housekeeper had done? Made Sarah Waltham a gift of some poisonous shortbread?

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The tinkling of the bells on the front door made us look up. A young man in a courier’s uniform came into the tearoom.

  “Delivery for Gemma Rose?” he said, looking around and holding up a clipboard.

  My heart sank. Oh no. Not again. I stepped forwards with some trepidation. “That’s me.”

  He held the clipboard out to me. “Sign here please.”

  I looked him over and felt slightly reassured that he wasn’t carrying a huge box or anything equally alarming. “What is it?”

  He jerked a thumb outside. “I’ll bring it in. Just need you to sign here first.”

  I scrawled my name on the form and watched anxiously as he went out, then returned a few moments later wheeling an enormous padded object on a trolley. It was about the size of a fridge and barely fit through the door. All the customers stopped what they were doing and turned to watch curiously.

  “Where shall I put it?” the young man said.

  I gestured helplessly to the empty spot at the side of the counter. “Er… Over there, I guess.”

  He wheeled the trolley over, carefully deposited the enormous package, then doffed his cap. “Cheers.” And he was gone.

  “What is it, Gemma, dear?” Ethel asked, peering through her spectacles.

  “I don’t know,” I said. And I’m not sure I want to find out, I thought, eyeing the object nervously.

  Several of the customers had risen from their tables and come forwards to inspect the giant package. There was an atmosphere of hushed expectancy.

  “Well? Aren’t you going to open it?” Mabel demanded.

  “Yes, Gemma—let’s have a look,” said Glenda eagerly.

  I started tearing off the brown padding around the object and many of the customers sprang forwards to help me. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely, like children on Christmas morning, talking and laughing as they ripped and tore at the padded cardboard. I pulled off the final section of wrapping and stood back, gaping.

  I must be hallucinating.

  It was an elephant. An enormous elephant in hideous purple fibreglass, with its trunk curled up above its head and its mouth open in a maniacal grin. It was sitting on its ample behind, with its front legs raised, in the middle of an empty fibreglass pool with a rim of fake rocks and artificial flowers.

  The kitchen door swung open and my mother sailed out, resplendent in a chef’s hat and snowy white apron.

  “Oh, darling, how marvellous—it’s arrived!” she said.

  I turned glassy eyes on her. “Mother. What on earth is this?”

  “Don’t you remember, darling? This is that water feature I was telling you about!”

  I stared at her. “Water feature? What water feature?”

  “For the tearoom, silly! You see, Helen Green’s been doing this Feng Shui course and she told me that the Chinese believe that running water symbolises money flowing in—and especially if it runs into a pool, then it signifies wealth and a pile-up of assets. The pool must be at least eighteen inches deep, mind you. Anyway, so I thought—what could be more perfect than a water feature for your tearoom?” She beamed at me. “And luckily, I saw this one online—it was marked down hugely…”

  I wonder why, I thought sourly.

  “… and I thought it would be perfect.” She tilted her head and inspected the monstrosity in front of us. “Well, it is a little larger than it looked online…”

  I turned an incredulous gaze on her. A little larger? The thing was absolutely bloody enormous! It dominated the whole room—it was the only thing you could see as soon as you walked in—this monstrous purple elephant with a creepy smile.

  “I can’t have this in here,” I cried.

  “Why ever not?” said my mother. “It would go very nicely in this corner. Or by the front door…” She turned to look, then added, “But not on the right-hand side, darling. Helen says it may cause your husband to have a second family and become unfaithful.”

  Oh God. I feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience. My earlier charitable thoughts towards my mother vanished. I wanted to throttle her.

  Conscious of the entire tearoom watching and listening, I stretched my lips into a sickly smile and said, “Mother, why don’t we discuss this later?”

  “Well, all right, darling, but don’t you think we ought to plug it in and see how the water—oh!” My mother whirled suddenly as we all became conscious of a smell of burning coming from the kitchen. “My scones!”

  She dashed into the kitchen and the door swung shut behind her. The customers returned to their tables, and gradually the tearoom regained its previous state of calm, albeit with a new purple addition in the corner. Several of the children couldn’t resist coming over to look at the elephant and one particularly brave little boy climbed into the empty pool and reached up to touch the elephant’s trunk. I sat behind the counter and tried not to think evil thoughts about my mother.

  At least the rest of the day passed relatively uneventfully (and without any more deliveries of online purchases). At five-thirty, I locked the tearoom door with relief and climbed wearily onto my bike for the ride back into North Oxford. My mother had left earlier in her car; she had a bridge party to go to with my father that evening and I was glad. I was still fuming about the wealth-accumulating water feature and wasn’t sure I could sit through dinner with my parents without blowing a blood vessel.

  Instead, I enjoyed a solitary ready-meal from M&S on a tray in front of the TV, followed by a steaming cup of hot cocoa—made with rich Belgian milk chocolate and creamy, full-fat milk—and felt mellow enough afterwards to consider a truce with my mother the next morning.

  The BBC was showing a documentary about sexual fetishes, in particular those who were addicted to
the thrill of cheating and the danger of “getting caught” by their spouse or partner. There was even a pompous psychologist quoting an article published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology about “the cheater’s high” and how people were aroused by the smug satisfaction of being able to “get away with it”.

  Yeah, a nice neat academic explanation for someone who’s simply being a weasel, I thought. It was amazing how there was always some syndrome or psychological illness to excuse basic lousy behaviour these days. I made a face and switched channels, settling at last on a repeat of an Inspector Lewis episode. This was one of my favourite crime dramas on TV, not least because I enjoyed the Oxford setting and loved trying to guess the locations that each scene was filmed in. Although I had already seen the whole series, I eagerly watched the episodes again, marvelling at the interesting characters and clever mysteries. I would normally have been absorbed, but tonight, I found it difficult to keep my mind on the screen.

  Instead, my thoughts kept returning to the real-life mystery I was embroiled in. Who had poisoned Sarah Waltham? Was it Fiona Stanley? The girl certainly had ample motive and the means—as an artist, she had easy access to Prussian Blue, a source of cyanide—but I wasn’t sure that she had opportunity. There had been no cyanide in the tea at the party, so where and how had she managed to poison Sarah?

  What about Jon Kelsey? Again, he had the means—his darkroom must have contained sources of ferric ferricyanide—but would he have had the opportunity? He certainly wouldn’t have had a chance to doctor Sarah’s tea at the party… but what about earlier? Devlin had said that the poison could have been administered a few hours before Sarah came to the party. What had Jon Kelsey been doing last Saturday? I assumed that Devlin must have checked the man’s movements and it had all been kosher. Still, alibis have been known to be faked before… But he didn’t have any motive for killing Sarah, did he? I mean, yeah, she had been a nuisance and an embarrassment to him but surely that wasn’t enough to make you want to murder someone?

  And then there was Nell Hicks. I frowned as I remembered my conversation with the Walthams’ old housekeeper at the veterinary clinic that morning. I hadn’t imagined the bitterness and anger she had felt towards Sarah. Nell definitely had motive. But would she have had the means? I couldn’t see how she could have got hold of cyanide… On the other hand, she would definitely have had the opportunity when she met Sarah at the hospital on Saturday afternoon and offered the girl some of her favourite shortbread…

  I wondered suddenly if Devlin knew about Nell Hicks’s dismissal and the animosity between her and Sarah. He probably did—I was sure he would have been thorough in his questioning—but perhaps it would’ve been good if I told him what I’d learnt, anyway. It was just to help with the case, of course. Not because I’d longed to hear his voice or anything…

  He answered on the second ring. “Hello, Gemma.”

  “How did you know it was me?” I said in surprise.

  “Your name came up on my screen.”

  I felt a silly rush of pleasure that he had programmed me into his phone. “Have I… have I caught you at a bad time?”

  “No, just finishing up dinner.” I heard the sound of crockery in the background and wondered if Devlin was moving around his kitchen. I had visited his place once, during the investigation for the last murder, and been pleasantly surprised by his tastefully furnished converted barn in the Cotswolds countryside. Very much a bachelor pad as well, but nothing like Jon Kelsey’s pretentious lodgings.

  “Is something the matter?” he asked.

  “N-no… I was just… Did you speak to Lincoln this afternoon?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did he tell you about Nell Hicks—the Walthams’ old housekeeper—being there when Sarah went to visit her father on Saturday?”

  “Yes, he mentioned it. Mrs Hicks arrived at an opportune time, apparently—helped to calm things down between Sarah and the charge nurse.”

  “Especially because she had brought some of Sarah’s favourite shortbread biscuits, right?”

  Devlin’s voice showed a trace of impatience. “That’s right. What are you getting at, Gemma?”

  “Have you spoken to Nell Hicks herself?”

  “Not yet—I was planning to follow up with her tomorrow.”

  “Well, I have. This morning. She happened to be at the vet when I took Muesli in and she told me something rather interesting: she was dismissed recently from the Walthams and it was Sarah’s doing.”

  “Was she?” I could hear the interest in Devlin’s voice.

  Quickly, I recounted my conversation with the Walthams’ old housekeeper. “But it doesn’t make sense,” I said as I finished. “Nell was really bitter about her dismissal and quite hostile towards Sarah. So why on earth would she suddenly bake a batch of Sarah’s favourite shortbread biscuits and take them to give to her?”

  “You’re thinking that she may have put something in them…” mused Devlin. “It’s a hell of a risk to take, though. Anyone else could have helped themselves at the hospital and been poisoned too. Nell Hicks doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman who would be a serial killer. Even if she had a grudge against Sarah, she wouldn’t want to harm other people. Still… it bears following up.”

  “The only thing is I don’t know how she could have got hold of cyanide,” I said with a frustrated sigh.

  “Well, that’s actually irrelevant now because, as it turns out, the poison was not cyanide.”

  “What? Not cyanide?”

  “I’ve had a report back from the toxicologist,” said Devlin. “Just a preliminary one but it very definitely rules out cyanide as the cause of death. There just weren’t high enough levels in Sarah’s body to account for her death.”

  “Well, then, what was it that killed her?”

  “It’s still not confirmed—he needs to run a few more tests—but the toxicologist thinks it may have been a compound called Beta-Pyridyl-Alpha-N-Methylpyrrolidine, better known to you and I as nicotine.”

  “Nicotine? You mean… like the stuff in cigarettes?”

  “Yes. Apparently nicotine is a highly toxic plant alkaloid—in high enough doses, it depresses the brain and spinal cord and paralyses skeletal muscles, including those in your diaphragm.”

  “So is that what Sarah…?”

  “She showed several of the symptoms of nicotine poisoning, such as unsteadiness, confusion, convulsions, difficulty breathing… and ultimately respiratory failure.”

  I shuddered. Even though Sarah hadn’t sounded like a nice person, no one deserved to die like that.

  “So does that mean we’re back at Square One?” I asked, dismayed.

  “Not exactly—but it does mean we have to reassess. For one thing, nicotine can be a slower-acting poison than cyanide. Death often occurs a few hours after ingestion, depending on the rate of absorption. Several of the witnesses I spoke to at the party mentioned that they thought Sarah was drunk, because of the way she was slurring her words and having trouble coordinating her movements… but the pathologist actually found normal levels of blood alcohol in her body, meaning that she was not drunk. So that may indicate that the poison had already started to work when she arrived at the party, but she hadn’t realised.”

  “That girl, Fiona—I saw her using nicotine patches,” I said suddenly.

  “When was this?”

  “At the party. I went out to get some fresh air and I saw Fiona come out and start smoking a cigarette, then she changed her mind and applied a nicotine patch instead.”

  “Hmm…Very interesting. Nicotine patches have one of the highest concentrations of nicotine,” said Devlin. “I think I’m going to have another little talk with Miss Stanley tomorrow.”

  “There was something else…” I said hesitantly. “When I was in the garden that night… I overheard something.”

  “You didn’t mention this before.” Devlin said, a tinge of reproof in his voice.

  “I… I wasn’t su
re it meant anything and I didn’t want to upset Cassie…”

  “It’s something to do with Kelsey?”

  “Well, I’m not sure it was him. They were whispering so it was hard to recognise voices. But I thought it sounded like him…”

  I repeated what I had heard to him, then added with a sheepish laugh, “It sounds so cheesy, doesn’t it? Like some kind of bad B-movie dialogue. That was one reason I didn’t mention it before now. It sounded so ridiculous, I didn’t think it could really mean anything serious… And besides… Well, I know I don’t like Jon and I wondered if my own bias against him was colouring my interpretation. You know, sometimes you hear what you want to hear.”

  “You should still have come to me with the information,” said Devlin sternly. “You should have trusted me to be sensible and discreet.”

  “I know… I’m sorry. I just… you don’t know how sensitive Cassie is about Jon. I didn’t want to throw suspicion on him unnecessarily. If I’m wrong, Cassie will never forgive me…”

  “Better that she gets mad now than find out later that she’s with a potential murderer,” said Devlin.

  “Are you seriously considering Jon a strong suspect?”

  “I had my suspicions about him from the start. Oh, he’s got a very good story, but… call it sixth sense if you like. I don’t trust Jon Kelsey. And in my experience, when it comes to murder, the killer is often someone who knew the victim. Whatever Jon might say, I think there was more to his relationship with Sarah Waltham than he let on.”

  I thought suddenly of the lace thong that the Old Biddies had found under Jon’s bed. Should I tell Devlin about that? But if I did, Devlin would probably want to claim it as evidence. No, I’ll check with Cassie first, I decided. It was only one more day. She’d be back from Italy tomorrow. It would be terribly embarrassing if it turned out to be just part of her lingerie wardrobe.

  “And what about any other boyfriends? Last time you mentioned that you were checking that out.”