Burned At The Bake

by Ashley Cain

  Miguel and Rachel had arrived as she had been being questioned by the fireman, who obviously believed that she had got up in the early hours of the morning and taken a light to her beloved café in some insurance scam. She had sent them back home. They had wanted to stay, to help in any way they could, but there was nothing she or they could do as the building was unsafe and nobody was allowed in. Least of all her who they possibly suspected would tamper with whatever evidence had been left lying around. The police had arrived and thick plastic sheeting had been wrapped around what had been the original wooden café, and police tape had been fastened across both the front door and the back doors of what was left of the structure.

  She had called her mother, who was shocked and horrified, but not strongly enough to come and see how she was. To be honest, April would have told her not to bother anyway as there was nothing she could do, but it would have been nice if she had offered. She had promised to speak to her builder husband Trevor though, and ask him to pop around in the next few days once access could be given to see what could be salvaged and what would need to be rebuilt. That was something at least and if she was honest with herself had been the purpose of her call to her mother anyway. She had long ago given up on the idea of asking her mother for emotional comfort or support.

  All that would have to wait though, until access to the café was granted and the police and insurance company had finished their respective investigations. All she could do now was sit on her terrace and try to avoid looking at what was left of the Bluewater café. April picked up her glass of wine, it was not yet lunchtime but what the hell, she needed a drink. She laid her head against the back of the chair and stared vacantly at the sky. She really hoped her grandmother wasn’t looking down at her at this moment in time. She didn’t know what she would have been least impressed by, that her granddaughter had destroyed her life’s work, or that she had a lush for a granddaughter who was drinking before the sun had got halfway across the sky.

  She didn’t know how long she had been sitting there, but the click of the gate brought her out of her reverie. It was Sergeant Tozier, this time with a colleague in tow. They looked business-like but sympathetic, and she directed them to the chairs at the other side of the table when he said they needed to ask her some questions.

  “We need to do a full investigation” he started, looking at the wine and then at her before surreptitiously looking at his watch. “I can confirm though that it was definitely arson. The fire did not start accidently”.

  “It was deliberate then?” April closed her eyes. Who had she upset so badly that they wanted to destroy her business? First someone had broken in and trashed the place and now they had tried, and almost succeeded, in burning the café down.

  “How did it start?”, she asked eventually.

  “We are not one hundred percent sure until we have completed the investigation, but we believe someone pushed oil-soaked rags through the letterbox and then threw lit matches in”

  April was confused. “But I haven’t got a letterbox, well I mean I have but it is a box attached to the wall by the main door” It was the old part of the café that was burned, not the new part that used to be the cottage so what the police officer was telling her did not make sense.

  “There is a very old letterbox on the side of the café that your grandmother used to use. Hardly noticeable really, just a flap of wood on a small hinge. You probably didn’t even notice it was there when you did the renovations”.

  “I didn’t really touch the outside of that part of the building, only the inside” she answered. “There was no point really. I just asked my stepdad to strip the wood back and give it a varnish”

  “That makes sense, and probably why you didn’t notice it. In your grandmother’s day it would have had the word letterbox written on it in small white letters and your stepdad probably removed that, but didn’t bother nailing it up”.

  “And you’re telling us you didn’t know about it?” Sergeant Tozier’s companion looked at her, suspicion all over her face as though somebody had written it in felt tip pen. “Did you not visit your grandmother when she had the cafe?”

  “I did, I lived with her on and off for most of my life, but we lived in the cottage which has been converted in to the new part of the café. I didn’t go in to the café very often, there was no need to and I wouldn’t have thought to go hunting for post in there. Post was delivered to the cottage”. She didn’t like to say that she tended to avoid the cafe because she was ashamed of the rough wooden hut that her grandmother presided over unchanged and unloved for so long. It sounded churlish and unfair to her grandmother’s memory.

  “Your grandma did a nice bacon sandwich back in the day”, Sergeant Tozier said licking his lips. “I used to often come in when I was down here”. He coughed nervously, aware that he had never been in for breakfast since April had had the café. “That was before I got my own place and could make my own bacon sandwiches without my mum making me feel guilty about raiding the fridge and eating her out of house and home. It narrows down the suspects doesn’t it, not many people would have known that letterbox was there”.

  Very true thought April. Her immediate thought had been that it must have been Connor, but he was a newcomer to Gull Bay and wouldn’t have known about the old letterbox, unless of course like Sergeant Tozier he had been in the café in her grandmother’s day. The other potential suspects were Jerome and Sylvain, who she hadn’t heard from since she had phoned them to say she was having to close the café for a couple of days, but they again probably didn’t know about the letterbox. Anyway, she hardly thought being half accused of stealing a cake was sufficient grounds to torch a café. But then again, she didn’t think anyone had any grounds to try and ruin her business and yet clearly someone was.

  “This is obviously personal”. Sergeant Tozier’s companion, who hadn’t introduced herself, spoke. “It can’t be a coincidence that your café is broken in to, and then subject to an arson attack within the space of three days. Can you think of anyone who may have a grudge against you?”

  “No” April shook her head. She was completely bewildered by it all. “The only person that I have upset in the last week is Connor Monroe. It must be him” she suddenly blurted out. “He is the only one. He must have somehow come across the letterbox when he was working here for those two days. He was always lurking about outside”.

  The two police officers looked at each other. “We have already spoken to him” Sergeant Tozier said eventually. “It seemed prudent given the run in you had with him before. He has an alibi for the full night again”.

  “Don’t tell me” April laughed without mirth. “Marcy Brownlow. I saw him heading down the harbour about 8 o clock last night”. She didn’t feel the need to explain that he had called in on her as well. There was no point.

  Sergeant Tozier cleared his throat. “For the early part of the evening, yes” he said. “He left Marcy Brownlow at around 10pm. The rest of the night he spent with an Imelda Van Leeuwen. She has corroborated his story; said she went to his flat at 10.30”.

  “Well, that is half an hour unaccounted for” April said. There was something about the name Imelda that rang a vague bell but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. “He could have tried to burn the café down between 10 and 10.30”.

  “The fire was started by oil-soaked rags that were set on fire” Sergeant Tozier said gently. “April the rags would have caught alight as soon as they were lit. We are looking for someone who cannot account for their whereabouts at 5 o’clock this morning, not 10 o’clock last night”.

  “Then I don’t know”, April said shaking her head in confusion. “I just don’t know who or why” She could feel the tears starting to well behind her eyes but she was determined not to cry in front of the two police officers. It would be too embarrassing for words.

  “Did you see anyone out this morning?” Sergeant Tozier pressed. “Please think, it may not appear important. According to Fire O
fficer Foulard you were on your terrace from about a quarter past five. Was there anyone walking about?”

  April thought. There hadn’t been anyone other than the fishermen that she could hear in the harbour, and they had been too far away, but she strained her memory to think. “No” she said after a minute’s thought. “It was dark and cloudy, very little light. There were a couple of fishermen with a boat down in the harbour, and a couple of boats heading out to sea. And that was it. I didn’t see anyone else”.

  “And can anyone corroborate your story?”. The policewoman spoke again. “Was anyone with you this morning?”

  “No, but surely I’m not a suspect. I tried to put the fire out. Eric had to hold me back or I’d have climbed through the window”.

  “We can’t discount anyone”, the policewoman said officiously. “It seems unlikely given that we have evidence that you did indeed try to put the fire out but we have to admit, if you can’t think of anyone who has a grudge against you, there are very little, if any, leads at this stage”.

  April sighed. “Like I said, I can only think of Connor Monroe. I had a small altercation with two of my staff a couple of weeks ago, but it was nothing and they have been fine since then. I wouldn’t imagine they would do something like this”.

  “Give us their names and we will speak to them”, Sergeant Tozier said. To be honest we will have to speak to all your staff so it won’t look odd”.

  Thank goodness for that April thought. If Jerome and Sylvain had taken offence and sulked for weeks over being asked a question about a missing cake, she dreaded to think how they would react being singled out for questioning over an arson attack.

  “I can’t imagine anyone who works here would have anything to do with it. It’s got to be Connor. Are we sure this Imelda woman checks out, she may be lying”. April knew that she was grasping at straws but if it wasn’t Connor, she didn’t want to think who else may hate her so much. A week ago, she didn’t have an enemy in the world, now it would appear that she had two.

  The policewoman suddenly grinned unexpectedly, a smile that transformed her whole face. “If he has two women prepared to lie for him, then it would be interesting to know how on earth he persuades them”. Unbidden, an image of him naked but for a pair of white Calvin Kleins came to April’s mind and she blushed furiously at the thought that went through her head. “But we can speak to Imelda Van Leeuwen again and confirm that she can absolutely give him an alibi for the time in question. We didn’t go in to a huge amount of detail when we spoke to her before. She just said that she was with him from 10.30 to 9 this morning”.

  “The name Imelda seems familiar. Who is she?” April knew that she had heard the name somewhere recently but couldn’t put her finger on where.

  “Imelda Van Leeuwen is Ivan Fletcher’s sister. She came over from South Africa with her parents for a few weeks to visit him”. Sergeant Tozier replied.

  “Ah” April thought thinking of the glamorous red head with the predatory face that had looked at her with such scorn on the two occasions that she had met her. So that was where she had heard the name before. Connor and Imelda seemed like a match made in hell. Marcy would be disappointed, but they were two of a kind. If Imelda was Connor’s alibi, she would put very little faith in it being trustworthy. She just hoped that the police would not take it at face value because if it wasn’t Connor who had done this, she did not like to think that she had an unknown enemy, or what they may try and do next.

  Chapter 21

  There was not a lot April could do over the next few weeks except wait. Trevor, her stepfather, had visited and together they had worked out a way of rebuilding the part of the café that had burned down with the minimum of disruption to the other area in order that April could at least open in some shape or form. They decided on a temporary wall between where the stone structure of the old cottage ended and the wooden frame of her grandmother’s café had started, but this couldn’t be done until the police and the insurers had finished their investigation. They didn’t work particularly quickly but April didn’t mind, with her thoughts filled with who could be the cause of her current situation she was in no mood to open.

  Miguel had started his new job, there was no reason to keep him to his notice period as there was no work for him to do anyway, and she didn’t want him to lose the opportunity because of any loyalty to her. At this stage she really did not know whether she would need a cook in the future or not. Rachel was spending her days in the kitchen, which situated at the far end of the café hadn’t been touched by the fire, baking cake and biscuits which they were selling to a number of local shops and tea rooms. It was ironic April thought, that she was helping other café’s build their reputation for cakes which meant that when she did eventually open there would be no real reason for her customers to return to the Bluewater Café. She was seriously considering re-opening as a bakery which sold tea and coffee as opposed to a café, but that was a decision for another day.

  Martha had deserted her; she could not blame her really as she had no idea when she would be able to reopen again, and she knew that Martha needed the money. She had offered to pay her a retainer to keep her on, but could not afford to pay her for all the hours that Martha needed to work. She had thought Martha would end up working in town close to where she lived, but she had been offered a job working for Connor in his new restaurant that was soon to open, and had been lured by a large signing on bonus to ensure she didn’t look elsewhere.

  She had no idea what had happened to Jerome and Sylvain who seemed to have disappeared in to thin air. She had tried to call them several times but they didn’t answer their phones, nor did they respond to her messages. In the final message that she had left, she had explained that she had transferred two weeks money in to their respective bank accounts and was happy to provide a good reference should any new prospective employer want to call her. She had not received an acknowledgment, and no-one had given her a call. Martha had told her that she believed that they had both gone to France to work in the ski chalets for the winter season. April had just shrugged, and wondered if it was an opportunity that had come their way suddenly and they had not had chance to let her know, or if there was another reason why they would leave the island without warning. She still couldn’t bring herself to believe that they would have started the fire or ransacked her café just because they thought that she had accused them of stealing a cake.

  As the weeks passed and October turned in to November her days fell in to a new normal. She woke at six and after a light breakfast and a cup of black coffee she collected the cakes and pastries that Rachel had made the day before from the store cupboard. The first couple of hours were spent criss crossing the island, the backseat and boot of her small hatchback loaded with boxes and bags as she made her deliveries. The rest of the morning she would spend helping Rachel who, with ever increasing orders, had taken to needing the kitchen in April’s cabin as a prep area and additional oven. Late afternoon when it was dark and the baking was done, she would share a glass of wine with Rachel in the living room of the cabin before Rachel would hurry home up the hill to the apartment she now shared with Miguel. April would drink another glass or two of wine whilst staring out over Gull Bay and the harbour which had somehow lost its magic over the last couple of months. She ate if she was hungry which meant that she went to bed most nights having eaten very little since breakfast. She was losing weight and energy but couldn’t rid herself of the melancholy that like a rain cloud had settled over her head and refused to budge.

  Hope occasionally visited her, either in a morning when she had returned from her daily walk and saw that April’s car was parked outside, or late evening after Rachel had gone, when she would look disapprovingly at the glass of wine that April was drinking, shake her head when offered one and opt for a mug of hot chocolate instead. Hope never asked her what her plans were going forward and when April had offered to pay her a couple of weeks’ notice she had shaken her head vehementl
y. “I don’t need the money love” she had said, the first time she had ever used a term of endearment to her, and which had caused surprised tears to spring suddenly to April’s eyes. It had been a long time since anyone had called her love.

  She looked forward to the old woman’s visits, mainly because no matter how unhappy she herself felt, Hope’s tales of woes always managed to make her own life feel more cheerful. Hope’s complaints were manyfold, from the noise the fishermen made early in a morning, the poor quality of the piece of beef that the local farmer had provided her with for her Sunday lunch, the inconsiderate dog walkers who let their dogs bark on the beach, the poor decision making of the government, the selfish uncaring attitude of her two sons and the comings and goings in Marcy Brownlow’s flat. April let the conversation wash over her until Hope ran out of steam, finished her hot chocolate and decided it was time to go home.

  Every time she visited, Hope would also give an update on the café that Connor was about to open. A new sign outside, blue with white writing very similar in style to the Bluewater café, announced that the Bay Harbour Grill would be opening at the end of November. In what had formerly been the Peabody Tearoom, a smallish café that had served a mainly tourist crowd, Connor was apparently installing intimate booths down each side and a row of tables for four down the centre. He had also, according to Hope, installed a high-tech chrome bar at the back and turned the small courtyard in to an outside drinking area. This caused Hope quite a bit of consternation as it was only three doors away from her house and she hoped that she would not be kept awake every night with what she described as louts and drunks. He was apparently going very much for an upmarket lunch and dinner crowd, and those tourists or locals who preferred to while away the afternoon with a glass of wine rather than cake and coffee. Rumour had it that one of the “real housewives of Jersey” was going to open it and Hope wondered which one Connor may have persuaded.