Murder on the Menu

by Fiona Leitch

  Debbie entered the kitchen in a rush.

  ‘Jodie, come quick!’ she said, already turning round again to leave.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I said, shutting the fridge.

  ‘It’s Tony, he’s going mad…’

  We ran out of the kitchen, along the corridor, and out into the foyer, but long before we got there I could hear crashing and shouting, and Callum’s voice pleading for him to calm down. The receptionist was on the phone and she looked up at me as I skidded on the marble floor.

  ‘Don’t call the police!’ I said. ‘I’ll sort this out.’ I hoped I would. But she didn’t need to call the police because through the big glass doors into the car park I could see two police cars already parked outside. Of course, they obviously weren’t finished with the crime scene yet.

  ‘He’s in the dining room,’ said Debbie, completely unnecessarily, because it was quite clear where all the noise was coming from.

  Tony stood by the top table where yesterday he should have been toasting his new wife and being embarrassed by his best man’s speech. Instead, he was holding the middle tier of the beautifully iced wedding cake. I didn’t need to ask where the top tiers were; they were on the floor, dropped and then trampled on, absolutely destroyed. His face was flushed with anger as he raised the cake above his head.

  ‘Tony!’ I cried. He stopped for a moment and looked at me, but it was as if he didn’t recognise me. ‘Tony, calm down. Don’t take it out on the cake! Or the hotel carpet.’ It was a right bugger getting fondant icing and marzipan out of a deep-pile carpet; I’d learnt that the hard way after one of Daisy’s early birthday parties. Half a mermaid had ended up ground into the Axminster when a game of Pass the Parcel had turned bad.

  ‘What’s the point?’ he said. He shifted the cake – which was a big, hefty fruitcake, going by what was on the carpet – and looked at the delicate purple sugar-paste flowers that decorated it. ‘Do you know how much this cake cost? Two grand. Two grand on a bloody cake.’ He lifted it over his head and threw it as hard as he could across the room, where it hit a sideboard covered in glasses. I heard something smash.

  ‘Tony, mate…’ Callum held his hands out in a placatory gesture, but Tony just glared at him.

  ‘Callum, mate, did you know? I bet everybody knew.’ He reached out and pulled a chunk of cake off the next layer and I couldn’t help but look at it, rich with mixed fruit, and think, Damn, that looks like a good cake.

  ‘Know what?’ Callum genuinely didn’t seem to know what Tony was talking about.

  ‘I bet everyone knew but me,’ said Tony, smearing the cake between his fingers and then studying them. He was losing the plot. ‘I bet even Nosey knew about it.’

  ‘Tony—’ I started, watching as he began to pick up lumps of cake and throw them at the glasses stacked up on the sideboard, like a petulant child at a coconut shy.

  ‘You knew she was a wrong un, didn’t you?’ He threw a lump, but his aim was off. ‘You didn’t like her. No one liked her except me.’ He threw another, hard. It hit a glass, knocking it on the floor where it shattered into tiny pieces. He did a mini fist pump and picked up another piece of cake.

  Bloom trotted into the room and stopped, aghast at the devastation before him.

  ‘Mr Penhaligon!’ he spluttered, as Tony turned to him holding the baked projectile. I stood in front of him, my arms spread out wide to protect the hotel manager.

  ‘Tony, stop it now!’ I said.

  ‘Or what? You’ll arrest me?’ he said sarcastically.

  ‘She won’t, but I will,’ said a voice behind me. DCI Withers. Damn.

  Tony shrugged and lobbed the fruitcake in his direction but I darted forward and caught it, staggering slightly under the force behind it. Two uniformed officers appeared from behind Withers and ran at Tony before he had a chance to reload with cake so he just picked up what remained of the tier and smashed it onto the carpet before they grabbed his arms and pinned him down on the table. I ran over to them, closely followed by Withers, who reached out to pull me out of the way.

  ‘Oh, come on, there’s no need for that,’ I said, as one of them began to cuff him. Tony struggled and swore and somehow managed to wriggle one hand free before the cuff went on, flinging his arm out and accidentally smacking Withers in his perfectly formed nose. Despite the fact that the situation was rapidly going pear-shaped, I felt dangerous laughter rising. The whole scene must look so ludicrous, and Withers getting slapped was the icing – I nearly choked – on the cake.

  ‘Anthony Penhaligon, I’m arresting you for breach of the peace, resisting arrest, and assaulting a police officer,’ began Withers, although what with him holding onto his wounded nose it sounded more like ‘Andony Pendalion’. If the situation hadn’t been so serious, I really would have laughed.

  ‘Come on. It was an accident!’ I said, getting in Withers’s face, ‘caused by you sending the boys in when we could’ve talked him down.’

  ‘Get out of my way, Ms Parker, before I arrest you as well for obstruction.’ Withers did not look like a happy bunny; I think he felt a bit daft clutching his nose, which had just started bleeding.

  Tony had finally calmed down, only now of course it was too late.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, looking like he was going to cry again, ‘I didn’t mean to. I just don’t know what’s going on…’ He looked lost and I felt my heart break for him. ‘Jodie, I’m sorry, don’t let them—’

  But I couldn’t stop them. With one last glare at me, Withers and his two officers marched Tony out of the room, out of the hotel, and into a waiting police car.

  Chapter Eleven

  My first instinct – and Callum’s – was to jump in the Gimpmobile and hotfoot it to the police station in pursuit. But I knew that it would take some time for them to process Tony, and that they would probably leave him to stew in the holding cells for a while until he properly calmed down. I also had the sneaking suspicion that the breach of the peace charge had been a bit of a pretext. Withers had been very quick to arrest him, when in normal circumstances most of the coppers I’d worked with would have tried much harder to smooth things over and get a mate to take him home. It made for less paperwork. I thought maybe Withers wanted him at the station so he could ask him a few more questions about Mel’s murder.

  So instead of flying into the car park, Callum, Debbie, and I got some cleaning things from the kitchen and began to clear up the mess Tony had made in the dining room. Even the two children, Matilda and George, who had been quickly sent to play outside in the grounds when Uncle Tony began to have a meltdown, came in and helped. George picked up a big lump of cake from the floor and put it in his mouth when he thought no one was looking, and once or twice I caught Callum looking like he wanted to do the same. I will neither confirm nor deny that the thought crossed my mind once or twice too. It was a damn good cake. I was just glad I hadn’t been the one who’d made it. All that work wasted…

  I was hoping to get Bloom to drop any potential charges and I thought if we showed willing, scrubbed the carpet, and offered to pay for the damages, he might come around. Debbie had been threatening to wade in and ‘persuade’ the hotel manager to cut Tony some slack, but Callum – who I was beginning to see was something of a gentle giant – got there first and he proved successful. I could imagine only too well how ‘persuasive’ his wife would have been, as, much as I liked her, there was definitely a touch of the Ena Sharples about her.

  We got as much sugary icing out of the carpet as we could and, after offering to pay for a carpet cleaner, headed into the kitchen with the last tier of the cake, which had managed to avoid contact with the floor. I made some tea and looked longingly at it; it had been a stressful morning and stress makes me eat more. As does contentment. And depression. And joy. I just like cake, all right? Don’t judge me.

  ‘Shame to waste it,’ I said, and Callum laughed.

  ‘I was hoping someone would say that,’ he said.

  So we all
had a slice of wedding cake – we didn’t think Tony would mind at this point – and discussed our plan of action.

  ‘If we go down there, will the police let us talk to him?’ asked Callum. I shook my head.

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought so. Although…’ I thought for a moment. ‘I wonder if anyone from my dad’s time still works there?’

  ‘Your dad was a copper?’ asked Debbie.

  ‘Chief Inspector Eddie Parker,’ I said.

  ‘Bit of a legend round these parts,’ said Callum. ‘But it’s been a while since he…’ His voice trailed off. Died, I thought. It’s okay, you can say it. ‘Anyway, I wouldn’t know. Debs and me live in Manchester these days; we only came back for the wedding.’

  I absentmindedly reached out for another chunk of wedding cake and chewed it, looking for inspiration in its rich fruitiness (any excuse). And then it hit me. I smiled.

  ‘I just remembered that I have an appointment at the police station today anyway,’ I said. ‘Let’s see if I can get anything out of them while I’m there.’

  It felt weird pulling up outside Penstowan Police station. I’d been there so many times when I was little, meeting my dad from work. And then when he’d become Chief Inspector, he’d divided his time between here and the smaller stations at Wadebridge and Launceston.

  Like the rest of the town, it hadn’t changed much. It was an ugly 1960s pebbledashed monstrosity which stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the quaint stone cottages and the old church that surrounded it. The blue ‘Police’ sign over the door was the only thing that had been updated over the years.

  It felt even weirder going inside. There was a row of plastic seats against one wall, empty save for a miserable-looking woman who kept glancing at her watch and letting out her breath in a big huffing sigh of impatience. I walked up to the enquiry desk, which was now hidden behind a Perspex screen; when I was a child it had been open, and it had loomed above me when I’d gone in to ask for my dad. There was no one there so I rang the buzzer.

  ‘I hope you ain’t in a hurry,’ said the miserable woman. ‘They like to keep us bleedin’ waiting.’

  ‘Now you stop your mithering, June,’ said the desk sergeant, entering the room behind me. ‘I always tells you, it ain’t worth you waiting for him. He’ll be out soon enough.’ He looked over at me and winked. ‘Husband can’t take his ale and we end up giving him a bed for the night. What can I do for you?’

  ‘DCI Withers asked me to come along and give a DNA sample for the Penhaligon case,’ I said. ‘I’m Jodie Parker.’

  The sergeant had turned away and was swiping a pass card to let himself behind the desk but he stopped and turned back.

  ‘Jodie Parker? Not Eddie Parker’s daughter?’ He looked delighted to see me.

  ‘That’s me,’ I said. He rushed over and took my hand, shook it eagerly, then kept hold of it, peering into my face.

  ‘Little Jodie! Well I never! How long’s it been?’

  ‘Twenty years,’ I said, a little overwhelmed by his keen scrutiny. ‘Obviously I’ve been back to visit, but it must be twenty years since I’ve been in here.’ I wrinkled my nose. ‘It smells the same.’

  The miserable woman snorted derisively and mumbled something but we ignored her.

  ‘You won’t remember me; I was PC Adams last time I saw you—’

  A flash of memory came back. ‘No, I remember you! You always had jelly babies.’

  He laughed. ‘That’s me. I’ll let you into a secret; I still do.’ He swiped his card again and went round behind the desk, where he pulled out a drawer, took out a bag of jelly babies, and offered them up. ‘That’s why me teeth are so bad.’

  ‘Well, it’s good to see you,’ I said, selecting a red one, ‘but I’d better get this DNA swab thing done. That Withers strikes me as a bit of a stickler.’

  Sergeant Adams rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, yes, you could say that. He’s a young gun, ain’t he? Only been here five months and knows it all.’ He tapped a number into the phone on the desk and spoke quietly into it. I heard the words ‘Eddie Parker’s daughter’ and smiled; maybe there were a few people here I could mine for information after all, making use of the affection in which my dad had been held.

  Adams put the phone down. ‘Someone’ll come and take you through in a minute, if you want to take a seat.’ He smiled warmly. ‘It’s nice to see you again. I was proper fond of your dad. It’s down to him that I joined the police.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh yeah. I was a right tinker when I were a lad, always getting into some kind of trouble. Nothing malicious, mind you, just bored. Your dad, he was a copper on the beat back then; he stopped me when I was throwing stones at the old bakery on Fore Street – it was empty at the time and I was trying to break a few windows. He gave me such a telling off, it scared the pants off me. Told me what would happen to me if I carried on down that path. Made me join the other side, as it were.’

  ‘And years later, you’re still here.’

  ‘Yep, still here, in uniform.’ He drew himself up proudly. ‘There’s a few of us still here, you know. Eddie Parker’s Recruits.’

  My eyes suddenly got a bit watery. Hay fever, obviously.

  ‘How much longer are you lot going to keep him?’ moaned the miserable woman.

  ‘Oh, quit your bitching, June,’ I muttered, and sat down at the other end of the row.

  A young female officer came and took me into the station proper. She left me seated in a corridor while she went to get the DNA kit.

  ‘Why is it that every time I turn around, you’re there?’

  I grinned to myself. I hadn’t necessarily expected to see Withers while I was at the station – I didn’t hold out much hope of getting any answers from him – but any opportunity to wind him up was too good to miss.

  ‘Why, DCI Withers, fancy seeing you here!’ I said brightly. He smiled thinly.

  ‘I work here. What’s your excuse? Come for a job in the canteen?’

  ‘DNA, remember?’ I said. ‘I need to give you a sample.’

  ‘And there’s me thinking you’d come to berate me for arresting your friend.’

  I smiled. ‘I’m a woman. I can multi-task.’

  The officer came back with the DNA sampling kit.

  ‘Would you like to do this in an interview room?’she said. I smiled at her.

  ‘It’s fine; it’ll only take a second, won’t it? And then I can get back to my nice chat with DCI Withers.’ She looked surprised but then took out the cotton bud and wiped it around the inside of my cheek. She placed it in a plastic sample tube, then repeated the process on the other cheek. Withers watched. I wasn’t sure why, but he seemed reluctant to leave.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said to the officer, who smiled and left us.

  ‘You really didn’t need to stay on my behalf,’ I said to him.

  He gave me another one of his thin-lipped smiles. ‘On the contrary, I thought I should wait and make sure you didn’t accidentally go blundering into any crime scenes again.’

  ‘I left my dog at home today. So that was Cheryl’s earring, wasn’t it? Did you have any luck with the scrap of material left on the fence?’

  He shook his head. ‘Ms Parker—’

  ‘Jodie,’ I said, and immediately wondered why I had.

  ‘Jodie,’ he said. He looked slightly uncomfortable using my first name. ‘You know I can’t give you any information about an ongoing investigation, especially when you’re in a close relationship with the chief suspect.’

  I felt my cheeks reddening. ‘A close relationship? With who, Tony? We’re just friends…’ And then my brain caught up with what he’d just said. ‘Chief suspect? You can’t suspect Tony?’

  ‘Ms Pa— Jodie, think about it; his ex-wife turned up and ruined his wedding.’

  ‘She didn’t turn up at the wedding; it was the night before.’

  ‘You know what I mean. She turned up and caused trouble. The next thing we know, the bride’s disappeared, her e
arring’s found in a bush, and the ex-wife is dead. It doesn’t look good, does it?’

  ‘Yeah, but I know Tony. He wouldn’t hurt a fly,’ I said, but as I spoke I remembered the angry look on his face when I suggested that Cheryl could be the killer, and the rage he’d taken out on the poor defenceless wedding cake. The Tony I knew wouldn’t hurt a fly, but did he still exist?

  Withers looked at me. ‘Come on. You’re ex-force. You know how this works, and you know as well as I do that the most obvious explanation is usually the truth. You know that most murder victims are killed by someone they know. And most female victims are killed by their husbands or partners.’

  ‘But not Tony…’ But he was right. If I didn’t know him, I would probably have pegged Tony as the murderer as well.

  ‘You know how this works. We have to do things properly, for Melissa Penhaligon, and for Cheryl Laity.’ I opened my mouth to ask him if she’d been found, but he anticipated my question because he quickly added, ‘Wherever she is. Leave us alone to do our job. You’re not a cop anymore. It’s not your place to find the answers.’

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘Guv?’ A plain-clothes officer, about fifty years old, arrived behind Withers. He saw me and stopped. ‘Sorry, I didn’t realise you were busy. Phone call.’

  ‘Ms Parker and I have just finished,’ said DCI Withers. ‘Can you show her out?’

  The newcomer looked surprised. ‘Parker? Not Eddie Parker’s daughter?’ Withers turned to me sharply.

  ‘Your dad was Chief Inspector Parker? I’ve heard a lot about him since I came to Penstowan. Big shoes to fill.’ He looked at me, and it was probably just my imagination but I knew he was thinking, Too big to fill; no wonder she quit.