Amanda Cadabra and The Cellar of Secrets

by Holly Bell

  ‘A pot of Earl Grey, please.’

  ‘And two cups?’ asked Alexander, looking over the counter to the left, at the inspector.

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Quite.’ He caught sight of Amanda’s cat. ‘Oo, I can see what his lordship wants!’

  Tempest had seated himself before one of the wooden pet tables, the surface raised a few inches off the ground, with two shining bowls set into circular holes.

  ‘Tuna is it, Sir Tempest?’

  Tempest blinked once for ‘yes’.

  ‘What about something for you two to eat, lovie? Got fresh pasties, pork pies and cheese and bacon flan. All with salad, natch.’

  Trelawney looked at Amanda for guidance.

  ‘All of their flans are delicious,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll have that then,’ he replied, amiably.

  ‘Two flans and salad, please, Alexander.’ I can’t believe it, Amanda said to herself, I’ve just ordered the same savoury as him. I must be channelling Granny!

  ‘Coming up, lovie. Want to order pud now for after? We’ve just made some trifle. Fancy some trifle? Coconut milk custard.’

  Jules presented her with a large dish full.

  ‘Oh, it looks rather a lot for one person,’ said Amanda. What am I doing? she asked herself in alarm. Am I programmed or something?

  ‘Two spoons and you can share …?’ suggested Alexander.

  ‘Er, Inspector. Do you like trifle?’ Amanda asked.

  ‘I do,’ he confirmed, with interest.

  ‘Would you like to share one? They’re rather large.’

  ‘Of course,’ he answered, thinking he’d rather like a whole one but could always order another. His mother tended to make more adventurous puddings like goji berry soufflé, and mango and pomegranate compote in a sugar-spun basket. Thomas hadn’t the heart to keep reminding her that he preferred traditional desserts like bread and butter pudding and spotted dick.

  ‘You go and sit down, lovie, and enjoy your chat with the inspector. We ’ad a nice chinwag before you came in, didn’t we, Inspector?’

  ‘We did,’ Trelawney agreed, with a friendly smile.

  Amanda sat down at the table in a chair near Trelawney. Like him, she preferred sitting in corners.

  ‘Do you mind if I take my jacket off?’ he asked courteously. ‘It’s rather close.’

  ‘Please, go ahead. Yes, I noticed that. It’s been so nice lately, but it’s definitely getting a bit muggy.’

  ‘So … it’s all been happening here, I gather,’ he said for openers, removing his outer layer and hanging it on the back of his chair.

  ‘Yes, indeed it has,’ Amanda answered with feeling. ‘What a thing to take place in our sleepy village! Although it wasn’t exactly in Sunken Madley.’

  ‘It must have been quite a shock for you, finding the body,’ he commented sympathetically.

  ‘Yes, it was rather. Actually, everything has happened very quickly, and I’m trying to understand it all.’

  ‘That’s where I come in?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Amanda, glad he understood.

  ‘Well … how about if I explain what the various measures are that need to be taken in the case of an untimely death?’ Trelawney offered.

  ‘Untimely death? When it’s unexpected or violent?’

  ‘Precisely. Because this happened to a doctor in a laboratory, it comes under the heading of industrial. Would you say that it had the appearance of an industrial accident?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, did appear that way.’

  ‘You don’t sound convinced,’ he observed.

  ‘It’s just that …. It’s too neat … too coincidental.’

  ‘Have you expressed your misgivings to the police who interviewed you?’

  ‘Sort of, but it’s all so … it’s not concrete … it’s hearsay, conjecture, feelings ... I could tell they didn’t take it seriously.’

  ‘Maybe you need to put it to them in terms that they can use to help them. Why don’t you tell me from the beginning? When did you first start to feel … uneasy?’

  ‘It was actually when I heard they were going to build on Lost Madley. It’s not a place with a … happy reputation.’

  Julian came to the table bearing a tea tray.

  ‘Here you are, my lovelies.’

  He arranged the teapot, the hot water pot, two cups, milk jug and sugar bowl in front of Amanda, saying, ‘You can be mother,’ and took away the tray.

  They thanked Julian, and Amanda continued.

  ‘Then it went ahead so quickly. I got curious about the part of the village that one wing of the Centre was going to be built over. I got friendly with one of the builders and asked him to find out, and he got warned off. But I know something’s down there. There are places where you can peep through the rubble.

  ‘I know that Toby — Dr Sidiqi — was just as curious as I was. The evening before ... it happened, he told me he was going to poke around in the ruins. I told him about the two places where he might be able to get a torch and see into. I told him to be careful. I told him what the builder had said, I warned him.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘And there’s more, Inspector,’ she continued now in flow, picking up the teapot and pouring the dark bronze liquid into the white china cups, sitting in their saucers. ‘When I first went to the Centre for my first appointment, the doctor I saw was rubbish.’ Amanda added milk to the cups and a sugar lump to Trelawney’s. ‘She wasn’t really interested, and she seemed to feel totally out of place in the … holistic environment, and she travelled for miles every day to get there, from Dover! That day …’

  There was a rumble at the door as Mrs Patel junior wrestled her two-year-old son’s pushchair over the threshold.

  Chapter 33

  Trelawney Assesses the Evidence

  ‘Hello, Priya,’ Julian and Amanda greeted her.

  ‘Hey, everyone,’ she called back. Amir’s eyes lit up at the sight of Amanda for whom he had a special fondness.

  ‘Hello, Amir,’ she greeted her little friend with delight.

  ‘Ammeeee!’

  He wriggled in the restraining straps of his buggy. ’All right, give me a moment, you’ll soon be out,’ said his mother, undoing the harness. Once liberated, he staggered over to Amanda and opted for a seat on her lap.

  ‘You sit down, Priya, and I’ll get your cappuccino,’ called Alexander. ‘Mini carrot cake for the little ‘un, is it?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘I’ll just warm it up, how ’e likes it.’

  Amanda performed the introductions. ‘This is Amir Patel, Inspector. His mother, Priya.’

  ‘Hi,’ she said, with a smile, then took out her phone to use a rare moment’s peace to check her emails.

  ‘Amir is also grandson to my GP. Dr Patel was the one who told me about the Centre and gave me a referral.’

  Amir stared at Trelawney.

  ‘Amir, this is Detective Inspector Trelawney.’

  ‘Hello, Amir.’

  The toddler, unimpressed, indicated that he wanted to be free to roam once more, and Amanda placed him again on his feet. As she bent, the angle of her skirt altered, and her IKEA pencil wand slipped from her shallow pocket. It rattled onto the floor under the table.

  Amanda’s face blanched and she gave a quick intake of breath. But the cavalry was at hand. Tempest who had settled beneath her chair, planted his body over the short wooden stalk, and Amir was already crawling in to retrieve it.

  ‘Kitty!’ he said with pleasure. Amir reached under the cat and passed the pencil up to Amanda. He put a finger to his lips with wide eyes. Amanda took it, nodding. Amir liked pretending they had secrets.

  By the time Amada straightened up in her seat, she had recovered her complexion and her composure, and said,

  ‘Thank you, Amir. That’s very kind of you.’

  ‘Amir!’ called Priya. ‘Be gentle with the kitty now!’

&
nbsp; Amir toddled off.

  ‘You’re an IKEA fan, then, I see,’ remarked Trelawney.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Amanda responded readily.

  ‘Surprising, given that you’re a furniture restorer.’

  ‘Yes, you’d think the cottage would be stuffed full of Sheratons and Chippendales. It does have a lot of old stuff that my grandparents accumulated over the years, but my room is wall-to-wall IKEA, I assure you. And their little pencils are so handy for the workshop.’

  ‘So handy that you carry one with you at all times,’ he observed lightly, as though teasing her.

  ‘You never know when you might need to write things down,’ she countered.

  ‘Many people make notes on their phone,’ Trelawney suggested.

  ‘Yes, this being the 21st century and all! I suppose I’m just old school. You have your police notebook, don’t you?’ Amanda pointed out.

  ‘True, I suppose I’m just old school too,’ he agreed pleasantly. ‘But we digress. You were telling me about your first day at the Centre.’

  ‘Yes,’ Amanda continued, from where she’d left off. ‘I met most of the therapists. They were there on contract for one month only. Well, over time, I noticed more than one suddenly vanished and was replaced. Toby Sidiqi said it didn’t make sense, because the Centre was charging really low rates for the therapists to rent the therapy rooms. And why would any of them just leave, and without telling any of their colleagues?’

  ‘Well, maybe they were only interested in the one-month contract. Perhaps they moved on to other posts that were more reliable than freelancing,’ theorised Trelawney.

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘And some people do make long commutes, although it is strange that a doctor would take up such a job that she felt ill-suited to. Perhaps she hoped to adjust to it over time, especially if it was well-paid.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘I could dismantle all of these items one by one, Miss Cadabra, as a defence counsel would do, by the way. But taken all together, they may amount to something, especially as you are a local, with some familiarity with the site and its development.’

  ‘Yes, I am, and I expect you won’t be comfortable with this ….’

  ‘Go ahead,’ Trelawney encouraged her.

  ‘That place, Lost Madley, dog walkers don’t go there, the trees don’t grow leaves, and the birds don’t sing. Something happened there.’

  ‘Well, I couldn’t comment on that. I’m not sure it’s admissible evidence.’

  ‘The point is, that Dr Sidiqi said he was going to look at the ruins, and the next morning, he was ... deceased,’ said Amanda.

  ‘So you think that there is something in the ruins that someone didn’t want him to find?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Do you know whom he told that he was going to dig around?’ Trelawney asked.

  ‘Well … he wasn’t discreet. Honestly, he was like a little boy who’d discovered a new playground, and wanted to tell all his friends about it. And anyone could have overheard us at the Snout and Trough, but to answer your question … only me as far as I know …’

  ‘Hmm. That could be rather incriminating. Where were you on Tuesday evening, Miss Cadabra?’

  ‘I was at home.’

  ‘Do you have any witnesses?’

  ‘Just my cat … I met Dr Sidiqi at the Snout and Trough for lunch, and that’s when he said he was going to do some investigating that evening, and I went home. I went back to the workshop then just did the usual things in the evening. I don’t have an alibi, do I?’ she said with uneasy realisation. ‘Then again … I don’t know how to make a centrifuge explode.’

  ‘Has that been established as the cause of death?’

  ‘I don’t know. No one will tell me anything. But it certainly looked that way. It all flew apart, and a chunk of metal hit him on the head.’

  ‘Have you ever visited the ruins, Miss Cadabra?’ Trelawney enquired.

  ‘No, not before the pegging out, when I went there with some of the other villagers. Anyway, how could I have got in and out without being seen by Bill?’

  ‘Bill?’

  ‘Bill MacNair, he’s security, sits at the desk at night between making his rounds,’ Amanda explained.

  ‘Anyone entering the lab would have had to have come past him?’

  ‘Yes, the lab’s at the end of the north wing of the Centre. There is a fire door but it’s alarmed, and anyway, someone would have left tracks in the mud if they’d left that way.’

  ‘And Mr MacNair says no one came in after Dr Sidiqi?’

  Amanda shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’

  Jules was passing with some used dishes from a table near the window.

  ‘Excuse me for overhearin’ but that I can answer. Bill was in here that day. Ever so upset he was, wasn’t he, Sandy?’

  ‘Oh, ever so,’ agreed his partner. ‘White as a sheet, he was. Said he’d lose his job for sure this time.’

  ‘This time?’ queried Amanda.

  ‘Oo, yes,’ said Jules, ‘soon after he started there, someone said there’d been complaints about his conduct. What a cruel thing to say. He’s such a gentleman, isn’t he, Sandy?’

  ‘Oh yes, he comes in ’ere, lovely manners.’

  ‘Someone had said he didn’t have no references, and he says “I’ve never needed references”. Mr Gibbs give ‘im ‘is first job when he come out of the army and knows ‘im for an honourable man and a good worker. Then, after what happened … well, it was on his watch, he says, even though he swears he never saw a soul go by the lab after the doctor had gone in there.’

  Steel heels clacked on the floor, attracting everyone’s attention to The Big Tease door. Samantha, Prada shorts and top under a transparent Chanel mac, topped off with Dior shades and wafting the scent of RawChemistry, entered.

  Chapter 34

  Miss Gibbs Meets her Match, and Amanda Asks

  With bored irritation, Samantha Gibbs glanced at the counter, and sat down at a table near the window.

  She swept the shop with a disdainful glance, until it encountered Trelawney. Anyone watching could see her brain visibly clocking his pleasant features, fair hair and fit physique, under white shirt and tie. Amanda knew Samantha was recognising her as ‘that girl who’d been at Lords’, sizing Amanda up as no competition. I’ll bet, thought Amanda, that she’s the type with predatory instincts that likes a bit of a fight.

  Samantha slowly took off her sunglasses, crossed her legs, swept her tongue over her glossed mouth and gently brushed her long dark hair away from her face. Trelawney’s lips twitched. He’d had both the guilty perpetrator and the insecure witness pull this stunt.

  ‘Oh no,’ sighed Amanda quietly.

  ‘You know this person?’ he asked, in an undertone.

  ‘It’s Samantha Gibbs, daughter of the Centre CEO. Actually, one day I saw her coming out of the doors leading to the lab. I had no idea Dr Sidiqi knew her. I didn’t really think anything of it.’

  ‘But you and he were beginning to see one another?’

  ‘Nothing serious. He was the most incorrigible flirt.’

  ‘Hmm, not sure Miss Gibbs looks the type to share her men.’

  Miss Gibbs had plainly been planning to get the staff to come and wait on her, but she changed her mind, given that approaching the counter would give her the chance to sashay by Trelawney. It would also be an opportunity to get away from the cat with the toxic yellow eyes, threatening to adorn her designer boots with its grey hairs.

  Trelawney returned his attention to the trifle. He sampled a spoonful. ‘This is excellent,’ he said to Amanda.

  ‘Yes, it’s pretty good here, isn’t it?’ said Samantha, in an unaccustomed attempt at chattiness.

  ‘It is,’ responded Amanda.

  ‘The only decent place in this dismal hole,’ Miss Gibbs drawled. ‘The coffee at the Centre café is unbearable. Like totally.’<
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  ‘Have you been visiting your father there?’ Amanda asked in a friendly tone.

  Samantha’s gaze flickered to Trelawney then back to That Girl.

  ‘Oh hi, we met at Lords, didn’t we?’ she said, unenthusiastically.

  ‘That’s right,’ agreed Amanda.

  The vamp looked at Trelawney. ‘But I don’t think you were there. I’m sure I would have remembered you,’ she purred.

  ‘I was not present on that occasion, no,’ agreed Trelawney, in a formal voice.

  She held out her pointed-nail-art-adorned hand to him. ‘Samantha Gibbs.’

  He stood up and took it. ‘Thomas Trelawney.’

  ‘Detective Inspector, he is,’ called out Alexander, ‘so just you watch yerself, Miss!’ he added jovially.

  ‘Okay, yeah, so … you’re investigating what happened at the Centre,’ deduced Samantha, pulling up a chair and sitting next to the inspector.

  ‘Have you given a statement already, Miss Gibbs?’ he asked, continuing his policeman’s tone.

  ‘Why would I give a statement?’ Samantha challenged him.

  ‘You did know the deceased,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Yah, but … I didn’t kill him!’ she objected, back-footed.

  ‘Where were you on the evening of the 9th October, Miss Gibbs?’

  ‘I dunno. I’d been shopping that afternoon, dropped in to see Tobes in his lab, and then left just before Daddy did. He was working late with Robin. I went home. I did some stuff and then … we had dinner.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Daddy and I.’

  ‘Was your father already home when you arrived?’

  ‘We got home at around the same time, I think. What’s this all about? Am I a suspect or something? How glam!’ she added, in an attempt to recover her fashionable-young-seductress-about-town performance.

  ‘This is a serious matter, Miss Gibbs,’ said Trelawney, turning a steely gaze that Amanda had not previously witnessed upon the young woman.

  Samantha got up impatiently. ‘I don’t have to answer any more of your questions.’