A Scone To Die For (Oxford Tearoom Mysteries ~ Book 1) (13 page)

“Real life often
is
crude and simple,” said Devlin. “It’s only in books and movies that they make it so romantic and complicated.”

I got to the tearoom early the next morning. Fletcher was already there, making Chelsea buns (the fancy equivalent of cinnamon rolls, if you’re not British). I joined him and we worked together in a companionable silence. Baking was definitely not a natural talent for me but Fletcher was a great teacher—patient, repetitive, his explanations simple—and since I’d started working with him, I found myself growing in confidence (and actually producing something edible) under his guidance. 

Now as I kneaded the sticky dough and then spread it out and sprinkled the cinnamon, raisins, currants, and rich muscovado sugar across the surface before rolling it into a tight coil, I mulled over the mystery. It was partly to occupy my thoughts, otherwise I found them straying constantly to last night and the drink I had had with Devlin in the King’s Arms—recalling each expression on his face, each gesture that he made, each nuance in his voice…

I pushed the memory away and dragged my mind back to the case. Mike Bailey. Justine Washington. Geoffrey Hughes. Each with a motive or an opportunity to kill Washington.

Mike Bailey was the obvious suspect, with his history of violent behaviour and his actual assault on the victim the night before. And he had no alibi for the morning of the murder. And yet, to me, he seemed the least likely candidate for the killer. It seemed too simplistic, too obvious—and it ignored all the other questions, such as Washington’s enigmatic connection to Oxford University. But what if the answer really
was
that simple? I remembered Devlin’s comment about how most crimes are just simple and crude—not the convoluted mysteries featured in books and movies. People killed each other all the time for the most mundane of reasons. Maybe I didn’t want to accept it simply because I preferred the romantic idea of a complex murder mystery full of hidden secrets from the past.

What about Justine Washington? She
had
an alibi—but she also had a very good reason for wanting Washington dead. His demand for a divorce would have killed off the regular support payments and destroyed the cushy lifestyle she had become used to. Instead, she was now a very rich woman, the sole beneficiary of his entire estate. Yes, Washington’s murder had worked out very well in Justine’s favour. Devlin was vehement in his belief that the beautiful American wasn’t guilty, but could his instincts be trusted where Justine was concerned?

And what about Professor Geoffrey Hughes? I had to admit that my personal impression of the man hadn’t been a good one. That tight pursed mouth, those small, cold eyes behind the wire-rimmed spectacles… yes, I could imagine Hughes committing murder. And his connection to the victim’s old college fit the mystery much better. On the face of it, he didn’t seem to have a strong motive for wanting Washington dead, but who knew what the man was still hiding? I was certain that Hughes hadn’t told Devlin everything about that “new venture” which Washington had been trying to get him to invest in. The murder must have been somehow connected with that—and with the University. It was just too much of a coincidence that Washington should come—furtively—to Oxford to speak to Hughes and then be killed by some random drunk he met in a pub…

But Hughes had an alibi, I reminded myself. Devlin said his sergeant had checked it earlier yesterday and a student—what was his name? Oh yes, Tom Rawlings—had confirmed that Hughes was in his college room during the time of the murder. The sergeant had also rung Devlin as we were leaving the King’s Arms last night, confirming that he had verified Hughes’s pet allergy story: the neighbours did indeed take their new Labrador puppy over to show Hughes on Saturday and the pharmacy confirmed that the Pharmacology professor had a standing prescription for a strong anti-histamine. So it looked like, so far, everything Hughes had told the police was the truth.

But still, I just couldn’t trust him. He was hiding something—or lying about something… I paused suddenly in what I was doing. What if his alibi
was
somehow faked? After all, he had lied about meeting Washington on Friday—who was to say he hadn’t lied about his alibi as well? If we removed the assumption that he had a solid alibi for the murder, then all the other facts began to form a suggestive pattern…

I was still pondering this when Cassie arrived a few minutes later and we began preparing to open the tearoom for business. I’d been happily expecting a repeat of yesterday’s flood of customers and was slightly taken aback when ten o’clock crept around and we still had only had two people come in—one just for a cup of takeaway coffee at that.

“Bit slow today, isn’t it?” commented Cassie from where she was perched on a stool behind the counter, drawing something on her sketchpad. I looked at the pile of completed sketches next to her, an indication of how quiet things were.

“That’s the understatement of the year,” I said with a sigh. I frowned and looked out of the tearoom windows. “I don’t understand it. Yesterday we were mobbed, and I would have thought that all that vulgar curiosity would have taken another few days to die down, at least…”

By lunchtime, I was becoming really concerned. I glanced at the clock: 1:15 p.m., usually the peak lunch hour. I looked around the room. Only one table was occupied. We had had our quiet days, of course, since we opened, and I had learned to cope with the ups and downs of a food business. But it had never been this bad. Today, the tearoom was dead.

As I was standing at the counter, staring at the empty room in front of me and trying not to worry, Cassie stormed in the front door, her face flushed and angry. She had popped down to the post office to pick up some stamps and I saw now that she was brandishing a tabloid newspaper in her fist.

“Absolute bloody tossers!” she snarled. “I’m going to kill whoever wrote this!”

“What, Cassie? What is it?” I cried, springing up in alarm.

She slammed the newspaper down on the counter in front of me. “Here! This is why we don’t have any customers today!”

I looked down and recoiled in horror. On the front page of the newspaper was a picture of my tearoom accompanied by the lurid headline:

KILLER SCONES AT COTSWOLDS TEAROOM!

My eyes continued down the page, not wanting to read the words but unable to stop myself.

Death struck a quaint Cotswolds village last weekend when an American tourist was found murdered at the Little Stables Tearoom. But even more shocking was the discovery that the victim had choked on the very scones offered on the tearoom menu.

“I’ve eaten there several times—I had no idea that their scones were so dangerous,” says one patron.

“The owner is new to the village and I heard that she’s come back from overseas. Full of fancy foreign ideas and such. One wonders what she’s putting into the food,” says another village resident, who claims to have had a “dodgy tummy” after eating at the tearoom.

Other sources reported witnessing an altercation between the victim and one of the waitresses.

“I heard her threaten him,” says a customer. “She was really angry and said she would choke him, in front of the whole tearoom!”

There is an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty in Meadowford-on-Smythe today and many are afraid to return to the tearoom.

“I don’t want to be the next victim,” declares a local resident. “That place is too dangerous! Why, they could add poison to your food if they decide that they don’t like the look of you!”

Police are continuing with the investigation and appealing to anyone who might have information about the victim, an American tourist named Brad Washington (photo inset).

“They’ve just made up a load of rubbish!” Cassie fumed. “What are they going on about? I never threatened to choke anybody!”

I remembered something and looked at her with dismay. “Cass… I think it was when you said you hoped he’d choke on his scones. The whole tearoom heard you—remember?”

“Huh?” Cassie looked confused for a moment, then understanding dawned. “But they took my words totally out of context! I mean, it’s just something you say when you’re frustrated—and I had a good reason for feeling that way, after that creep copped a feel of my arse!”

“I know, I know…” I said. “But these papers specialise in taking things out of context. Otherwise, they’d have nothing to publish.” I shut my eyes and rubbed my temples. “I saw a bunch of people being interviewed outside the front yesterday and I did wonder what they were saying…”

“Oh God, Gemma, I’m sorry,” Cassie groaned. “I never thought my words would be misinterpreted like that—”

“It’s not your fault,” I said quickly. “If it hadn’t been that, they would have dug up something else.”

“Yeah, what’s all this about poison?” said Cassie, looking back down at the article in disgust. “Now
that
is totally made up! It’s no wonder people are afraid to come here! You should sue the paper for libel!”

I sighed. “The problem is, I’m sure they’re used to avoiding legal action with the kind of articles they write. Look at all these phrases: ‘sources report that…’ and ‘a patron claims…’—I’m sure you’d never be able to get them for anything if it came to court.”

“Poxy liars,” Cassie muttered, tossing the paper into the bin.

“Well, maybe it’ll blow over,” I said with false cheerfulness. “Maybe people will realise it’s just a load of tabloid gossip and sensationalist rubbish.”

I didn’t want to show her how worried I really was. My little tearoom was only just getting on its feet. It wasn’t established enough to weather this kind of bad press, nor did I have the kind of capital to sustain continuous losses. A week of no customers like today would be enough for the business to fold. My heart lurched uncomfortably in my chest as I thought of all my savings that had been poured into this place, not to mention all my hopes and dreams…

They needed to find the real murderer, I thought. That would put an end to all the speculation about my tearoom and the safety of its offerings. It would have helped if the police actually released more press statements about the case, to give the tabloids something else to latch on to, but Devlin was playing his cards very close to his chest. So far, the official position from Oxfordshire CID was that the investigation was “ongoing”.

Fat lot of good that’s doing me
, I thought gloomily as I eyed the empty dining room again. They needed to make some progress on this case, solve the mystery behind Washington’s death, and find the real person responsible.

I paused. No, wait.

Not
they
needed to make progress on this case and solve the mystery.

I did
.

I
needed to find the murderer. I couldn’t just rely on waiting for the police—for Devlin and his smarmy sergeant—to make the connections and solve the case. My business could have been ruined by then.

No, I had to do something myself. I’d never been the kind of person to just sit back and wait for others to solve my problems. And this time, I knew I could make a difference. Like Mabel Cooke said, I was on the ground, I was local, I had a foot in the world of Oxford University, and I could find out things the police couldn’t access… My visit to High Table at Gloucester College, for example, had provided valuable intel which the police would never have known…

My phone rang suddenly, startling me out of my thoughts. I groped in my pocket and glanced at the screen before I answered. It was my mother.

“Darling!” she trilled. “I’m just at Debenhams with Helen Green and we’re trying to remember the name of the actress who played the ex-wife in the film
His Girl Friday
…”

“And…?” I said, bewildered. “I don’t understand—what does that have to do with Debenhams?”
Or me?

“Oh, we’re in the kitchenware department and I thought the lady who’s serving us looks just like her. But I can’t remember her name.”

I took the phone from my ear and stared at it to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. I still didn’t understand why she was calling me. I put the phone back to my ear.

“I’m sorry, Mother. I don’t know who it is either. Um… do you have your iPad with you? Why don’t you look it up online? I’m sure if you just search the internet for the details of the film, you’ll find it.”

“Oh, but that’s exactly why I was ringing you, darling! You don’t happen to remember my Apple ID password, do you? I thought it was ‘gemmarose’ but it’s not working.”

“
Mother
,” I said, trying not to raise my voice. “I’ve told you a million times already.
You need to capitalise the first letter of the password
. Did you do that? If you didn’t type a capital ‘G’, that’s why it won’t work.”

“Oh…” There was the sound of rustling and my mother whispering bossily,
“Don’t tap it like that, Helen! You have to keep your fingers upright”
—then she came back on the line. “Oh, it’s worked, darling! How marvellous! Right, must dash. They’re just bringing out the new Breville mixer and I must get to the front of the queue. Bye!”

I lowered the phone and stared at it again, feeling like I just had an out-of-body experience. Cassie was grinning next to me. Well, at least my mother’s phone call had improved her mood.