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

by H. Y. Hanna

  “Jon gave a bottle of that lotion to Cassie as well!” I said breathlessly. “I tried to ring her but she’s not picking up. I’ve got to find her to make sure she doesn’t use any of the lotion! I’ve got to—”

  “We’ll go in my car. It’ll be a lot faster.” Devlin caught hold of my elbow and swung me around, herding me out of the hospital and towards the carpark.

  A few moments later, we were shooting out of the hospital grounds in his black Jaguar XK. Devlin handled the powerful car with expert precision, cutting skilfully between the lanes and driving at a speed which took my breath away. In less than fifteen minutes, we were pulling up with a screech of the brakes in front of Cassie’s flat in Jericho.

  I was out of the car before Devlin had even brought it to a complete stop and banging on the front door.

  “Cassie! Cassie! Open the door!” I yelled. “Cassie! Can you hear me?”

  Suddenly, the door was yanked open and Cassie stood there, a scowl on her face.

  “What do you want?”

  “That lotion that Jon gave you—have you used it?” I demanded.

  She looked at me like I was crazy. “What?”

  “Just answer me!” I begged her. “Have you used any of that lotion, Cassie? Do you feel okay?”

  Something in my urgency must have got through to her and her expression softened. “Yes, I feel fine, Gemma. Why?”

  I took a deep breath and tried to speak a bit more calmly. “Have you used any of that lotion?”

  “No, I haven’t opened it yet. I was finishing up my old bottle first.” She looked at me in bewilderment. “Gemma, what is this about?”

  “Do you have the lotion here? Can we see it?” Devlin spoke from behind me.

  Cassie’s expression grew suspicious. “Is this some stupid attempt to incriminate Jon? Because if it is—”

  “Cassie, please!” I said. “This isn’t us being spiteful or anything. A girl’s been murdered and another is in hospital. This is serious!”

  Cassie looked undecided for a moment, then stood aside to let us in. She shut the door, then led the way into her tiny living room.

  “Cassie? What’s going on, darling—?” Jon sprang up from the sofa as he saw Devlin. “Inspector O’Connor!” I thought I saw a flash of fear in his eyes but he said smoothly, “How nice to see you again. What can I do for you?”

  “You can answer some questions concerning your relationship with Sarah Waltham,” said Devlin bluntly. “And this time, I want the truth.”

  I saw Jon pale slightly. “What do you mean, Inspector? I told you the truth. Sarah was a customer and she was trying to get me to have a relationship with her, and when I refused, she became unreasonable and started causing scenes at my gallery in London…”

  Devlin raised the bottle of lotion encased in the plastic bag in front of Jon’s face. “Did you purchase a similar bottle of L’Occagnes body lotion to give to Sarah Waltham?”

  Jon stared at the bottle. “I…” He hesitated, then admitted, “Yes, I did. But it didn’t mean anything! I was just trying to placate her.”

  “Placate her?” Devlin raised an eyebrow. “Mr Kelsey, do you smoke?”

  “Well, no, I don’t smoke cigarettes. But I do have a cigar after dinner sometimes,” Jon said.

  Typical, I thought. Of course Jon Kelsey would be the type of man to have a pretentious cigar habit. And with cigars containing up to twenty times the amount of tobacco found in cigarettes, they would also be a highly concentrated source of nicotine.

  Devlin regarded Jon for a moment, then said, “I think you’d better come down to the station with me, Mr Kelsey, to answer some questions. You can come voluntarily or I can arrest you and formally charge you with the murder of Sarah Waltham and the attempted murder of Meg—”

  “WHAT!” cried Jon. “No, no! I didn’t murder anyone! This is crazy! You have to believe me! Look…” He looked desperately at Cassie, then turned back to Devlin. Raising his hands up, palms forwards, he said, “Okay, okay—I admit it—Sarah was more than just a customer. We… we did have a relationship.”

  I felt Cassie stiffen next to me.

  “But it was just a brief fling, nothing serious,” said Jon quickly.

  Devlin held up a hand. “I must caution you, sir, that you do not have to say anything, but anything you do say may be given in evidence, and it may harm your defence if you fail to mention something now which you later wish to rely on in court.”

  Jon nodded, then took a deep breath and said, “Sarah came into my London gallery, as I said, and was very flirtatious. I took her out to dinner—and then we started seeing each other for a while—that is, until I realised that she seemed to be taking it very seriously. I saw it as a fling, nothing more, whereas she saw a ring on her finger. So I tried to break it off and that’s when she got nasty. The part about her stalking me and causing scenes in my London gallery is true.” Jon gave a helpless shrug. “I tried to reason with her—explained that I wasn’t interested in a long-term commitment—but she just wouldn’t take no for an answer. Then I hoped that things might fizzle out when I was away from London for a while, setting up the gallery here in Oxford—so imagine my dismay when I realised that she lived in Oxford! I had a nasty shock when she walked into the gallery on the first day we opened.”

  “So you lied to me that night at the party,” said Devlin. “You told me that you hadn’t had any contact with Sarah after leaving London—that the party was the first time you’d seen her again—when in fact, you had seen her since coming to Oxford.”

  “Only twice,” said Jon. “The first time was the day she came in and the second was when she bullied me into taking her out for a drink. I agreed on the condition that it would be the last time. Sarah seemed to agree and I thought maybe she was finally coming round. That’s when I gave her the lotion—as a sort of a parting gift, I guess. Anyway, I thought it was all fine after that… until she turned up at the party.”

  He gave Cassie a pleading look. “I didn’t say anything because I was worried that I would lose you, Cassie! I wasn’t sure you would believe that Sarah was just a fling and that it was all in the past anyway. I was trying to figure out a way to tell you, and then she came to the gallery that night and spoiled everything.”

  Cassie’s face softened. She started to move towards Jon but I jumped forwards, barring her way.

  “Where were you yesterday evening?” I asked him.

  He looked at me warily. “Yesterday? I was in Italy. I flew back this morning.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “You’re a liar. I saw you myself in North Oxford yesterday evening. In the lane beside the Walthams’ residence, in fact. You were probably trying to sneak into the Walthams’ house to get hold of this bottle of lotion from Sarah’s room and remove it.”

  “What? That’s a ludicrous idea!” cried Jon. “Why on earth would I want to do that?”

  “Because the lotion is poisoned. It contains a lethal amount of nicotine and is what was used to kill Sarah.”

  Jon stared at me, his jaw dropping. I had to admit that if he was faking surprise, he was doing a really good job. “That’s… that’s crazy! Ridiculous! I never put poison in anything!”

  “You just admitted to giving Sarah a similar bottle of lotion,” Devlin reminded him.

  “Yeah, I did, but I didn’t put poison in it! I had nothing to do with Sarah’s murder and I can prove it.”

  “How?” said Devlin.

  “That’s not the same fragrance as the one I gave her,” said Jon, pointing to the bottle in the plastic bag. “That one says it’s Sweet Almond. The bottle I bought Sarah was Lavender—same as the one I gave Cassie. And in fact…” He dug into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. “I think I’ve still got the receipts here. And you can check on my credit card account too—it’s got the product number with the purchases. I’m sure if you check with the L’Occagnes store, they’ll confirm that my purchases were all Lavender.”

  I fell back and looked at Devlin in
confusion. Could Jon have been telling the truth? Did that mean that he wasn’t the killer after all?

  “You still haven’t explained what you were doing in North Oxford when you should have been in Italy,” Devlin said evenly. “I can confirm that easily enough with a call to the airport authorities.”

  “I—” Jon hesitated, his eyes going to Cassie again.

  She frowned. “You told me you weren’t coming back from Italy until this morning.”

  “I lied,” he admitted. “I came back yesterday. But it wasn’t to break into the Walthams’ property or anything,” he added quickly.

  “So why did you return early?” asked Devlin. “And why did you lie about it?”

  Jon squirmed slightly. “I… well, I had a sort of… assignation, I guess you could call it.”

  “An assignation?” said Devlin sharply.

  “Oh, not a criminal one!” said Jon. “A… a romantic one.”

  Cassie took a sharp intake of breath.

  Jon looked down, unable to meet Cassie’s eyes. “I… I’m sort of having an affair on the side… with my assistant, Danni.”

  “So why were you by the Walthams’ property then? You haven’t explained that,” said Devlin.

  “That day I came to pick up Sarah for that last drink, she told me to come to the side gate because she didn’t want anyone to see me at the front door. She had some problem latching the gate and I got out of the car to help her. Then, on the day of the party, I realised that one of my cufflinks was missing. It was a special pair from Cartier, engraved with my initials, and I was missing the cufflink on the right side. The last time I’d worn them was on the day I had the drink with Sarah. I checked everywhere else but I couldn’t find it and I was suddenly worried that it might have fallen off by the Walthams’ side gate, when I was fiddling with the latch. I thought—in case the police searched the place and somebody found the cufflink, especially with my initials engraved…” Jon grimaced. “Well, I thought it would be better if I went back to find it. Normally I wouldn’t have any good reason to go near the Walthams’ property without incurring suspicion, but since everyone thought I was still in Italy and Danni could drive me there…”

  “And can she confirm your whereabouts for the rest of the time yesterday?”

  “Yeah, she was with me the whole time. She picked me up from the airport and then we stopped off at a… um… a hotel on the way.” He darted a look at Cassie.

  I looked at my friend as well. Her face was like stone.

  “It doesn’t mean anything,” said Jon pleadingly. “I mean, it’s just sex. You know, it’s more exciting when you… when you think someone might catch you. You’ve got to sneak around and hide and tell lies and it’s all a bit of a thrill…”

  I remembered suddenly that BBC documentary about people who enjoyed “dangerous sex” and the thrill of cheating.

  “It was you and Danni talking in the garden of the gallery on the night of the party!” I said in sudden realisation. “I overheard you! I thought maybe you were talking about planning a murder—”

  “Bloody hell, no!” said Jon. “It’s just part of the fun to sneak around like that and talk about when we’re next going to… er… you know, ‘do it’.” He flushed and added, with a sort of awkward smugness, “Danni gets really turned on by stuff like that—”

  “YOU BASTARD!”

  We all turned to look at Cassie. She was glaring at Jon, her body trembling and her dark eyes furious. Suddenly, she crossed the room, raised a hand, and slapped him across the face. He yelped and stumbled backwards, clutching his face and staring at her in horror.

  “I should have listened to Gemma when she told me what a tosser you were,” said Cassie, her chest heaving. “I can’t believe that I defended you! I even refused to speak to her for your sake… What a fool I was!” Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears. “GET OUT!”

  Jon took one look at her face, then turned and ran out of the room. The door slammed after him. There was a strained silence in the room. I hesitated, then went to Cassie and put a hand gently on her shoulder. She sniffed and wiped the back of one hand fiercely across her face. I could see that she was struggling not to cry in front of Devlin. The only worse blow to her pride now was to let us see her breaking down because of Jon Kelsey.

  I turned discreetly away to give her a moment to control herself and said to Devlin, “So you’re not going to arrest him?”

  Devlin shook his head. “We’ll check out his story, of course, but much as I hate to admit it, it doesn’t look like Kelsey’s our man.”

  “He could have bought another bottle—in Sweet Almond—with cash,” I suggested hopefully.

  Devlin shook his head. “No, Kelsey’s a coward. He’s the kind of man who gets his kicks from small-time lies and deception, but he hasn’t got the guts for murder.”

  “So… we’ve got no suspects then?” I said in dismay. “Back to Square One?”

  Devlin gave me a wry smile. “Welcome to the world of real-life detective work. It’s not the glamorous stuff you see on TV. And we do still have suspects. I’m going to go back and check Fiona’s story again—and there’s also Nell Hicks. And something else I’ve been thinking about, with regards to Mr Waltham and his first wife… I’ve been concentrating so much on Kelsey that I haven’t had time to follow up those leads. In the meantime…” He looked at Cassie and his eyes softened. “Why don’t you two girls have a quiet night in, get a bottle of wine and some takeaway, watch some silly movies… Maybe make that two bottles of wine.”

  He smiled, then he was gone.

  Left in the room together, Cassie and I looked at each other uneasily. Then we both spoke at once:

  “Cassie, I—”

  “Oh Gemma—”

  We both laughed awkwardly.

  “I give you every right to say ‘I told you so’,” said Cassie in a quavering voice.

  “You know I don’t want to do that,” I said, putting an arm around her shoulders.

  Cassie gave a stifled sob. “Oh, Gemma—I’m so sorry about all the things I said to you yesterday! I don’t know what I was thinking; I wasn’t really myself—in fact, I haven’t been myself since I met bloody Jon Kelsey! I didn’t mean any of those things! You know you’re my best friend!”

  “Hey, what are best friends for but to take some insults sometimes?” I said with a grin. “I knew you didn’t mean them. I hope.”

  Cassie gave me a watery smile. “You twit,” she said affectionately.

  And then we were in each other’s arms, hugging and laughing and talking and crying all at the same time. Somehow we ended up on the sofa with a bottle of red wine open between us and a box of pizza on the floor. We spent the rest of the evening alternating between thinking of offensive names to call Jon Kelsey and plotting new ways to humiliate him.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I had so much fun in ages.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Something was rubbing against my chin—something rough and raspy. I groaned and rolled over in bed. A moment later, the rough rubbing started again, this time on my forehead. I made a supreme effort and opened one eye, then another. I squinted in the bright light that was seeping in through the edges of the curtains. There was a grey huddle on the bed next to me and I heard a noise like a rumbling engine.

  “Ow… Muesli, stop that…” I mumbled, trying to push her away.

  She ignored me and renewed her licking with new vigour. I sighed. If I don’t want half my forehead sandpapered away, I’d better get up. Slowly, I lifted my head off the pillow and peered blearily at the clock on my bedside table. I blinked. Surely that couldn’t be right? I looked again, then sat upright quickly.

  Ten-thirty!

  How could I have slept so late? Why hadn’t my mother woken me?

  I groaned again and put a hand to my head, feeling the room sway around me as I tried to stand up. My mouth was dry and I had a hell of a hangover. After a couple of bottles of wine, several slices of pizza, and
two tubs of ice-cream, I had finally called a taxi in the early hours of the morning and left Cassie’s flat to come home. I could vaguely remember creeping into the house and staggering up to my room. I didn’t normally drink much and now, as my head throbbed, I was reminded why.

  There was a note pushed under my door. I picked it up and read it:

  Darling,

  I thought I’d let you sleep in as you came home so late last night. But don’t worry—everything is in hand! Mabel and the others will help me at the tearoom. Take your time and come in whenever you’re ready.

  Love,

  Your Mother

  “Meorrw… Meorrw… Meorrw… Meorrw?” said Muesli plaintively, winding herself around my legs.

  I stretched stiffly, wincing. “All right, Muesli, all right… Give me a minute.”

  I staggered into the bathroom, brushed my teeth and splashed some cold water on my face, then went back to my room and dug out Muesli’s harness from the pile of clothes on my chair. I fumbled with it, trying to get it on her squirming body, then let her lead the way downstairs. I could barely keep up as she trotted out the back door and into our rear garden. Yawning, I leaned against a tree while Muesli sniffed around behind a bush.

  I didn’t know how I was going to keep my eyes open at work today. And it was Friday—one of our busiest days of the week. I yawned again and gave the harness a little tug.

  “Come on, Muesli, let’s keep moving. If I stand here, I’m going to fall asleep again leaning against this tree.”

  To my surprise, there was no resistance on the leash, and when I gave it a bigger tug, I realised why. The entire harness flew back to land in a tangle of straps and buckles at my feet. I stared blankly at the empty harness for a moment, then I realised what had happened. In my daze, I probably hadn’t closed the clasps properly and Muesli had slipped out of the harness.

  “Bugger!” I muttered, looking around to see if I could spot her.