by Ashley Cain
April could see the tension go from Martha’s shoulders. She felt sorry for her. It must be difficult to be so desperate for money that you have to fight for every last penny. “Yes, I haven’t seen them for years, they are back for a visit”.
“Where do they live?” April asked.
“Somewhere in Africa, South Africa, I think. They moved out there to be with their daughter. Bit of a scandal actually I think at the time. She had got herself pregnant with a married man and he had refused to leave his wife. Rugby player he was who had come over here to Jersey for a year. Anyway, she followed him out to Africa and he would have nothing to do with her, and so her parents went out soon after to help her with the child. A long time ago now, must be twenty-five years ago at least. I thought Ivan might go as well, but he stayed here. All his money was tied up here, I guess”.
“Did he make his money, or is it family money?” April had often wondered how Ivan Fletcher had become so rich, but hadn’t found the opportunity to ask before. His house on the cliffside looking out over the sea was impressively grand, and he was always very well dressed. Even by the standards of Jersey where many people lived well, he seemed to live exceptionally well.
“There is not much family money, they weren’t poor but Ivan’s dad worked for the states” Martha laughed. The states were the Jersey government. “They used to live on the same street as me growing up. I was quite good friends with his sister actually, she was in the same year as me at school although we drifted apart as teenagers. They moved house when I was about fourteen. Bought a bigger house near the coast, but nowhere near the size of Ivan’s house now”.
“How did Ivan become so rich”? April felt nosey for asking, but she was genuinely interested.
“He made a fortune in computers when he was in his twenties. Got out just before the dot.com bubble burst and bought that hotel on the coast just outside St Helier. Owns a few now across the UK, I think. Has turned most of them in to very exclusive hotel and spas. He let me stay for a weekend at his one in St Helier when I turned 40 a few years back”.
“Did he now?” Miguel joined the conversation having retrieved his jacket and Rachel’s coat from the cupboard. They were all ready to go home now at the end of a long day.
“It was nothing like that” Martha grinned. “He felt sorry for me as I had just got divorced and was on my own with the boys. I stayed on my own. He took me out to dinner a few times to cheer me up, and I can promise you nothing happened. Although I wouldn’t have minded if it had, he’s a good-looking guy, always has been”.
“Has he ever been married?” Rachel asked. “I thought he was a bit of a playboy actually, with a different woman on his arm every time he comes in here”. April felt relieved that she wasn’t the only one asking the questions. It was clear that Martha knew Ivan quite well and she didn’t want her telling him that April had been asking lots of questions about him. It was mild curiosity on April’s part, nothing more. It was good to know a little bit about your neighbours.
“I’m not saying he’s a saint, far from it, but I don’t honestly think he is as bad as you think he is”. Martha got her car keys out of her bag and turned to go. “There was a wife when he was much younger and then he was with Stacey Carpenter, the woman who owns the nail salon down by the harbour. He was with her for a few years actually. I think he probably set her up in business, certainly would have bought her that enormous great Range Rover she drives around in. I think they split up about five years ago, just before my 40th. I don’t think there has been anyone serious since then”.
“I’m sure that there are plenty of women who would like more than a candlelight supper at the Bluewater Café with Ivan Fletcher” Miguel said with a smile. “You should certainly consider keeping those going once a month April through the winter as well as the cookery school. You don’t want Ivan Fletcher finding somewhere else to take his women, or your profits will be seriously down. If James doesn’t want to do them, I’m more than happy to do them on my own”.
They were heading through the door and Martha stopped in her tracks. “Miguel are you still going on about that blasted cookery school?” She asked, turning around. “I’ve already said that I think it is a stupid idea”.
“Yes, well it is not down to you” Miguel turned to April. “Promise me you will give it some more thought” he said beseechingly, and April could see in the faint light from the streetlamp how desperately he wanted to move forward with the idea. She thought though that it probably had less to do with the actual cookery school and more to do with keeping Rachel in a job. She hoped that was the case because she had different ideas of her own how to do that. She was not ready though to voice them, not until she had had chance to think some more.
“I’ll think about it” April gave a yawn. “I’ve had another idea though that may be even better and would mean I might need to increase hours not take them away”. She looked at Martha whose eyes opened with interest. “I’m off tomorrow Martha, so you will be with Sylvain and Jerome. I can give the idea some more thought then”.
“Can you give us at least a clue?” Miguel looked at her with interest.
“Not yet” April’s voice was firm. “Rachel if you want to drop some cakes off tomorrow evening at the cabin, we can talk about the idea then. Don’t worry” she said looking at Martha and Miguel who both looked slightly put out. “You won’t be left out; the idea just involves Rachel more than you two”.
“Well as long as I don’t have to reduce my hours, and it doesn’t include this half-baked scheme of Miguel’s, then I am not bothered”. Martha covered her mouth with the back of her hand to stifle a yawn. “Good night all”. She waved as she headed across the road to a small white hatchback that looked like it should have been condemned to the scrapyard years ago. If her friend had lent her that then April wondered what sort of friends she had.
“Night Miguel, night Rachel”. She turned and hurried back around the corner of the café to take the steps up to her cabin. She did not want to hang around and feel pressurised by Miguel in to voicing her idea before she had had more chance to think about it. It all really hinged on what Rachel thought about it if the truth be told. She hoped that Rachel would agree to her plan and Miguel wasn’t too unhappy that it didn’t include him. Although as she watched them stop by the car and gaze out to sea together, she had a feeling that anything that involved Rachel would include Miguel too.
Chapter 7
The next day April got up much later than she had planned. Walking from the bedroom in to the large open space that served as her living room and kitchen, she discovered that the sun streaming through the picture windows had already risen over the cliff face at the east side of the bay and was making good progress across the bay itself. She had needed the sleep if she was honest with herself. During the summer months she rarely took a day off and the long hours took their toll.
Opening the fridge door, she rummaged around to see what she could make herself for a late brunch. It was tempting to walk the few steps down to the café and let James cook her scrambled eggs on an English muffin, or maybe indulge in one of his large bowls of granola on which he heaped local goats milk yoghurt and summer fruits, but she knew that if she did that, she would get roped in to helping out, or end up chatting to the customers. Far better to make do with what she could rustle up out of the fridge, and sit in her pyjamas eating it on the deck away from her customers and staff.
Whilst the coffee machine bubbled away, April made herself an omelette with eggs, bacon, some hard French cheese that she had found right at the back of the shelf and a red onion. She had no bread to eat it with, which was probably fortunate as a summer spent tasting Rachel’s cake creations had left her carrying a few more pounds than she would have liked. Sliding the omelette from the pan on to a plate, she picked it up along with the mug of strong steaming black coffee that she had brewed, and took both out to the terrace. She had just sat down in the chair when a cry from below stopped her putting the
forkful of omelette to her mouth.
“April, I thought you were never going to get up”.
Peering over the deck’s railings, April looked down to see Hope clambering up the steps to the cabin. Despite the fact that Hope was around the same age as her grandmother would have been, which put her somewhere in her eighties, she was hurrying up the steps very nimbly. Dressed in a green coloured mac and stout walking shoes, a brightly patterned headscarf around her head, she was carrying a wooden walking stick with some kind of cloth bag on the end. Her outfit and appearance made her look rather like a gnome that had wandered out of someone’ s front garden, and despite her irritation at being disturbed April couldn’t help but smile.
Walking through the gate on to the terrace, Hope deposited the cloth bag on the table next to April, narrowly missing the mug of coffee which April managed to move out of the way just in time. “What time do you call this to get up?”
It was amazing April thought, how Hope had drifted so naturally in to the role that her grandmother had taken. Her grandmother would have asked exactly the same question if she had been alive. Biting back the response that it was none of Hope’s business what time she got up, she decided to take a less confrontational approach.
“I have done a lot of long days Hope, so decided to sleep-in in this morning. Do you want a cup of coffee?”
“No, I had one in the café earlier” she replied pulling a face. “If you can call it coffee. I don’t know what Jerome does to it, burns it, I think. Even asked me to pay for it. I ask you April, the cheek of that man. I told him my friend Ruby would be turning in her grave if she thought her granddaughter couldn’t give me a coffee every so often”.
April nodded wearily. It was a common complaint of Hope’s that she could not get away with a free coffee more often than she did. April was sure that if Hope had her way, she would never make a drink or a sandwich for herself ever again. She was more than happy for her staff to have a drink or a snack when they were working, but the expectation was that if they came in when they weren’t working, then they paid for what they ate and drank. That expectation was lost on Hope though, who regularly brought herself and occasionally a friend in for afternoon coffee and cake and always expected it for free. April had long ago given up trying to argue with the old lady, but some of the others, Jerome and Sylvain in particular, didn’t like the woman and so always tried to ensure that she paid in order to discourage her from visiting when they were there. It normally succeeded as Hope rarely went in to the café if she knew April wasn’t there. This morning though was an exception, and the fact that she had been hanging around the café waiting for April to wake up clearly meant that there was a reason for her visit which was more than just to get a free cup of coffee.
“What can I do for you Hope?” April asked, pushing her half-eaten omelette to one side.
“I found this in the bin” Hope said, pointing at the grubby cloth bag that lay on the table between them. “The bin by the harbour, the one which people put the dog mess in when their dogs foul the beach”.
April instinctively pushed her chair back away from the offending bag. It was blue and white and badly stained. “What on earth were you doing rummaging around in the bin?” She knew it was just a few yards away from Hope’s front door which opened on to the harbour, but it still didn’t make sense why Hope would be foraging in it.
“The bag wasn’t in the bin; it is what is inside the bag that was in the bin”. Hope looked at her with piercing blue eyes, alert despite her age. “One of your cakes”.
“One of my cakes?” April asked incredulously as Hope took out of the bag a very crushed looking caramel coloured sponge cake in a brown box. “I think it is one of Rachel’s toffee crunch cakes by the looks of it, or was before it was squashed in to the bin” Hope answered.
“What on earth was one of my cakes doing in the bin?” April asked. It was a whole cake, not just a slice that someone had bought and maybe hadn’t liked or hadn’t had time to eat. April didn’t sell whole cakes, or didn’t yet anyway.
“I have no idea, but it got in there after you had paid for it. Look in the box, there is a receipt”.
April opened the box gingerly. Sure enough, there was a receipt dated a few days ago for six cakes. April remembered paying Rachel for them. Two Toffee Crunch Cakes, a Carrot Cake, a Lemon Drizzle cake and two Death by Chocolates.
“It’s a mystery” April said closing the box. “I have no idea how it ended up there, but I will try and find out. I can’t have cakes going missing after I have paid for them. Was it easy to see?”
“No, it was squashed in the bin. I wouldn’t have seen it if it hadn’t been for those blasted tourists who had just thrown their bag of dog mess on the road next to the bin. I was just coming home after a walk along the headland and they were putting two ruddy Great Danes in to the back of some fancy four by four. As I drew level with them, they just put the bag of dog mess on the floor next to the bin”.
Despite April’s puzzlement as to how one of her cakes had happened to be in the bin, she suppressed a smile. She could imagine what had happened next.
“I was livid April I can tell you. I told them to put their litter in the bin, and you know what the young man said to me? The bin is full dear, so if you can put it in there you are better than me. And then he just got in the car and drove off before I could answer. I was going to report him when I got home, but I then got distracted by the cake and have forgotten his licence plate. I’ll tell you what though April, if I ever seen him down here again, I’ll smear that dog mess all over his windscreen”.
April sincerely hoped, for the man’s sake, that his visit to Gull Bay was a one off as she was in no doubt at all that Hope would carry out her threat. She realised Hope was still talking and so refocused her attention on what the old lady was saying. “So how did you see the cake?” she asked.
“I’ve just told you” Hope tutted in annoyance. “After they had driven off, I decided to squash the bag in to the bin. I mean I couldn’t leave a great big bag of dog excrement lying on the harbour wall, could I? But the bin was full which didn’t make sense as Bob had only emptied it the day before. And that is when I saw the cake box. Recognised it as one of the ones you store the cakes in so pulled it out” Hope sat back in her chair with satisfaction.
“I’m glad you did because I need to get to the bottom of this. Rachel is coming around with more cakes this evening and so I will ask her if she knows anything about it. Not that I think she had anything to do with it, but I will see if she can shed some light on the mystery as I surely can’t”.
“I’m going to talk to the others downstairs now. See what they know”. Hope pushed the chair back and stood up. “I told Ruby on her death bed that I would look after you and I will. I can’t have you paying for more cakes than you need to because someone is stealing them from you and throwing them away”.
“There could be a perfectly innocent explanation” April really didn’t want Hope questioning the other staff members in the café. “Please don’t go upsetting people Hope, I’m sure there will be a logical answer”.
“You try and see the best in everyone April” Hope answered, patting her gently on the shoulder. “Always have. It is why your grandmother wanted me to keep an eye on you. You leave this to me; I will find the culprit and when I do, they will be sorry”.
April sincerely hoped that it was not going to be herself who was sorry if Hope upset everyone and they all left. She was disturbed by the mystery of the cake, but it wasn’t something that she was too concerned about. There was probably a perfectly logical explanation for it which would reveal itself in time. Shaking her head, she took her half-eaten breakfast in to the cabin and put the plate in the sink. The mystery would have to remain just that for the time being, today she was going to relax and enjoy the sun until Rachel came around and they could discuss her idea for the bakery.
Chapter 8
April had just finished putting together the sa
lad which she was going to serve for Rachel, and had placed it in the fridge, when she heard a car pulling up on the small ramp that served as her driveway. The prawns that she had bought fresh were peeled and in a bowl of iced water on the counter ready to be fried in garlic butter. Looking out of the door she saw the small old ford hatchback that Miguel drove parked outside. Miguel and Rachel were struggling up the drive under the weight of four large cardboard boxes each.
“Oh my goodness, how many cakes have you baked?” April asked. “I only expected a couple of Victoria sponges and a Toffee Crunch cake today, it was supposed to be your day off”
“I know”. Rachel huffed and puffed as she deposited her stack of four boxes on the table. “But I checked your stock before I left last night and realised you were also low on a few others, so I took the liberty of making more. Miguel is taking me out tomorrow so I am not going to have chance to bake any more until later in the week”.
April smiled to herself as she turned to move the boxes that Rachel had placed on the table to the counter. She needed the table free for them to eat. If Rachel was going out with Miguel tomorrow it suggested that their relationship was turning in to more than just a friendship between colleagues. She was pleased for them, they were a good-looking pair, with happy and positive natures. They worked well together in more ways than one.