Witch Is When Stuff Got Serious (A Witch P.I. Mystery Book 11) (11 page)

Chapter 13

Mr Ivers looked down in the dumps. As a caring neighbour, I should have enquired if he was okay, and asked if there was anything I could do to help.
Alternatively,
I could have hidden behind a tree, and hoped he didn’t see me.

Whoops! Too late. He was headed my way.

“Morning, Mr Ivers.”

“Morning, Jill,” he grunted.

For a moment, I wondered if Alicia still had her claws into him. But his eyes were clear, and he was responding. He did look incredibly sad though.

“Is everything okay?” What was I doing? Why didn’t I just keep walking? I was getting soft in my old age.

“Not really. I’m rather sad.” Never had a truer word been spoken.

“Why’s that, Mr Ivers?” See how I made it sound like I cared. Oscar material.

“You met Tess, didn’t you?”

“Oh yes. I met her.”

“I thought we were getting on really well, but then something seemed to go wrong.”

Poisoning your partner can have that effect.

“Wrong how?”

“I honestly don’t know. It all started when I became ill—I must have caught the flu or something.”

Definitely
or something
.

“I wasn’t myself for a couple of days; I felt completely out of it. But then, I seemed to shake it off. After that, though, Tess wouldn’t come anywhere near me. It was as if she was afraid of catching something.”

“I’m a little like that myself. I stay away from my nephew and niece when they’re ill.” Or too noisy.

“Every time Tess tried to get close to me, it was as if something held her back.”

The ‘wicked witch away’ spell had obviously worked.

“And then, out of the blue, she said we were finished.”

“Did you ask her why?”

“Of course! I asked if I’d done something wrong. I told her I could change, and that I’d do anything to keep us together. She just said it wasn’t me it was her.”

If I had a pound for every time I’d heard that.

“She said she couldn’t be near me anymore.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Mr Ivers. But there are plenty more fish in the sea.”

“Not like Tess. We were made for one another. She was my angel.”

Angel of death, more like.

I knew how I could cheer him up. I would offer to go on a date with him.

What? Of course I wasn’t being serious. But, be honest, I had you fooled there for a minute, didn’t I?

***

Mrs V seemed unusually chipper. She was obviously very pleased with herself about something.

“You look very happy with life, Mrs V. What’s going on?”

“Nothing.” She blushed.

“I don’t believe you. Come on. You can tell me.”

“Well, if you must know, I went out with Armi last night.”

“On a date? You sly, old thing. You never mentioned anything about it to me, yesterday.”

“My love life is my own business. I don’t enquire into yours.”

“Yes you do. All the time.”

“That’s different.”

Obviously.

“So? How did it go? I want all the sordid details.”

“There are no sordid details. Armi was the perfect gentleman.”

“Pretty boring, then?”

“Not in the least. He took me to dinner at his club.”

“Ooh, very fancy!”

“It’s a private members club. Very nice it is, too. Very upmarket. The food was absolutely delicious. Apparently, the chef used to work in one of the top hotels in France.”

“Really? So what did you have? Fish fingers and chips?”

“I had the duck.” She was a past master at ignoring my facetiousness.

“Come on, then. Spill the beans. What’s he like? Hopefully he doesn’t take after his brother.”

“He’s nothing like that horrible Gordon Armitage, thank goodness. It’s hard to believe they’re brothers. We didn’t talk about work, or Gordon, or anything like that. Armi was very good company—very interesting to talk to. A little shy, but he seemed keen to know all about me. He asked about my interests and hobbies and so on. He even offered me free legal advice.”

“That was nice of him.”

“That’s what I thought. Apparently he specialises in Wills.”

Alarm bells started to ring. Was Armi actually the goblin that Daze had told me about?

***

I was hoping to hear back from my CCTV guy, Simon Saize, at any time. If, as I suspected, the person who had stayed behind in the library turned out to be Lily Bell, I’d have enough to take it to Jack Maxwell. She’d been in charge of the invitations, which meant she could have ensured both Anita and Mad were at the fundraiser. And, she’d had the opportunity to take Mad’s knife. Lily Bell certainly had the motive. She was a gold digger if ever there was one, and she obviously hated the idea of Anita taking what she probably perceived as
her
money.

As soon as I got the call, I hurried over to the security company.

Simon Saize fast forwarded the tape to two p.m.

“That’s the woman.” He pointed. “She never came out.”

I was expecting to see the tall, striking figure of Lily Bell. Instead, I saw a short, squat woman, over a foot shorter. The woman had a large bag over her shoulder, and was wearing a hat, which when combined with the sunglasses, obscured her face. It was impossible to identify her.

I now had an image of the murderer, but I was no closer to knowing who she was. The only thing I knew for sure was that it was not Lily Bell.

I was back to square one.

***

I needed a blueberry muffin, and I knew just the place where I would get a staff discount—one hundred per cent discount, if I had anything to do with it.

What? Of course it isn’t theft. It’s a perk of the job.

“It’s not on!” Amber protested.

“It shouldn’t be allowed!” Pearl said.

“Sorry, girls. It’s only the one muffin. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“We’re not talking about you,” Amber said.

“Yeah, we’re used to your thieving ways.” Pearl managed a half-smile.

“What’s wrong, then?”

“What do you think? Miles Best.”

“Don’t mention that man to me!” I said.

The twins seemed taken aback by my reaction.

“What’s he done to
you
?” Pearl asked.

“I’ll tell you in a minute. First, what’s he done to upset the two of you, this time?”

“It’s just not fair,” Amber said. “He comes out smelling of roses every time.”

“How do you mean?”

“Look over there.” She pointed across the road. Best Cakes was full of customers; in stark contrast to Cuppy C.

“It’s all the publicity from the clown infestation.” Pearl sighed. “It worked wonders for his business, so now they have a different circus theme every day.”

“Oh dear. Your revenge kind of backfired, didn’t it?”

“No need to rub it in,” Amber said. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“What theme is it today? I can’t see from here.”

“I sneaked over there earlier,” Pearl said. “It’s tightrope walker day. There are two of them. One in the cake shop, and one in the tea room. It seems to be very popular; the place is buzzing.”

“How are you going to compete with that?” I asked.

“Don’t worry, Jill.” Pearl smiled. “We have a cunning plan.”

Oh dear.

“We’re going to host a different craft exhibition each day.”

Underwhelmed didn’t cover it.

“That’s not quite as exciting as circus acts though, is it?”

“Of course it is.” Amber insisted. “We’ve got the first one lined up already: pottery.”

“Pottery? He’s got clowns, fire eaters and tightrope walkers—and you’ve got
pottery
?”

“It’ll be great,” Pearl said.

“Yeah, can’t wait.” Yawn.

“So, what has Miles done to upset
you
, Jill?” Amber said.

“He’s only gone and set up in competition with me, as a private investigator.”

“In Washbridge?”

“Yeah, he’s calling himself Best P.I. Services. First, he targets you with Best Cakes, then he targets Grandma with Best Wool, and now he has the audacity to target me with Best P.I. Services! You should see the ads he’s running. He had a full-page advert in The Bugle. And he had people standing outside my office, handing out fliers.”

“The cheek of the man!” Pearl shook her head.

“You haven’t heard the best, yet. He’s also running adverts on Radio Washbridge. All of his ads say the same thing:
‘Don’t settle for Gooder, get the Best’
.”

“That is funny.” Pearl laughed.

“No, it isn’t!”

“Sorry, you’re right. It isn’t. Not at all.”

“What are you going to do about it?” Amber asked.

“I went to see him. He has a really posh office in the centre of town. I don’t know how long he’ll be able to pay for that. And, he’ll get no change out of Jack Maxwell. Jack can’t stand private investigators. When he first came here, he made it very difficult for me, but now he and I have an understanding.”

“Hmm, so I heard.” Amber grinned.

“Not
that
kind of understanding. Jack respects me as a professional. He knows that I want to work
with
him. Miles Best would have to work very hard to earn that kind of respect. I can’t see him doing that. I give him three months at the most.”

“Well?” Grandma came bursting through the doors—she was waving something in her hand. “Let’s hear it?”

I glanced around, wondering who she was talking to. Somehow the twins had disappeared; they were probably hiding behind the counter.

“Are you talking to me, Grandma?”

“Of course I’m talking to you!” She was holding a newspaper, which she spread out on the nearest table. “Notice anything missing?”

It took me a few moments to realise what she was referring to, but then I spotted the photograph.

Oh bum!

“I’m so sorry, Grandma. I forgot all about it.”

“How many times did I remind you about the Compass team photograph?”

“I—err.”

“Ten, that’s how many.”

That was an outright lie, but now wasn’t the time to correct her.

“I’m sorry. I was so busy, I totally forgot.”

“You made me look a fool.” Her wart was already at DefCon two.

“I’m really, really sorry.”

“I don’t know why I bother!” She turned and stormed out.

“Forget something, Jill?” Amber poked her head above the counter.

“Say cheese.” Pearl giggled.

I threw what was left of my muffin at them.

***

I don’t know why I allowed myself to get involved; I should have kept my nose out. Call me a big softy, but I couldn’t bear to think of Bella cheating on Winky. Now, it’s true that Winky had his shortcomings—if you have a couple of days free sometime, I’ll list them all—but I’d take him any day of the week over his brother, Socks. What a despicable character he’d turned out to be.

I had thought that my little
chat
with Socks had warned him off, but it was obvious that he’d taken no notice whatsoever. Enough was enough. I had to put an end to this, but I was going to need proof because Winky thought the sun shone out of Socks’—you get my drift. Winky wasn’t simply going to take my word for it that his brother was seeing Bella. He’d think I was crazy or that I was making it up just to get rid of Socks. I needed photographic evidence of the two of them together.

I couldn’t let Winky know what I was up to, so every now and then, I would walk nonchalantly over to the window, and pretend to look out at the street below.

“What’s up with you, today?” he said.

“Nothing, why?”

“That’s the tenth time you’ve been to that window in the last two hours.”

I shrugged.

“You’re up to something. You never look out the window.”

“I just realised that I don’t appreciate this view enough.”

“What view? There is no view. You’re cracking up, if you ask me.”

I ignored his remark, and continued to make regular checks to see if Bella was in her window, and more specifically, if Socks was with her.

Eventually, I struck lucky. The two of them were sidling up to one another in the window opposite. Luckily, Winky hadn’t seen them; he was fast asleep. This was my opportunity.