by Ashley Cain
“I know you probably don’t want to talk about this April” he started, “but we need to try and work out who is doing this. You’re not safe until this is sorted”.
“She is safe with me”, Hope interrupted. “Nobody is going to try anything with me around”. Miguel looked unconvinced but wisely stayed quiet, it was not a good idea to contradict Hope.
“We need to go back to when the problems first started. That has to be the key”. Rachel peered contemplatively over the rim of her coffee cup. “The break in at the café was the first problem that happened. If we can work out who did that and why, we can probably identify who the culprit is for everything else”.
There was something in what Rachel said. April thought. The break in had to have been the start of it.
“Ok” she said determinedly, putting down her own coffee cup. Some of her natural instinct to get things done had returned to her. It was amazing what a good meal and the company of friends did to restore the spirits. “If I had my phone, I would be able to tell you exactly when that was but I can’t because I left it at the cabin last night”. Her face clouded over. Miguel saw it and jumped in.
“I can tell you exactly when it was” he said, scrolling quickly through his phone. “It was the day after I text Ivan Fletcher to tell him I was going to accept the job at the Domar. Do you remember? It was the day after you had sacked Connor. 3rd October” he said proudly holding up his phone. “I text Ivan Fletcher on the evening of the 2nd. It was definitely the day after”.
“We need to work out what happened before the 3rdth October then, and who you may have upset” Hope said “Did anything out of the ordinary happen?”
There was silence as they all thought back. Eventually April spoke. “There are only two things that I can think of, but neither seem important enough for someone to try and kill me. I sacked Connor Monroe the day before, and I spoke to Jerome and Sylvain about the stolen cake a few weeks before. That was it”.
“So, it comes back to Connor”. Rachel said. “Jerome and Sylvain left the island before the cabin was burnt down”.
“We are assuming that the events are linked” April protested. “What if the attacks on the café, and the cabin burning down have nothing to do with each other” She put the coffee cup down angrily. “We don’t even know that the cabin burning down last night was deliberate. It might be a coincidence”.
There was momentary silence whilst they all thought about it. Hope shook her head. “Sorry April, but I don’t believe in those sorts of coincidences. In the space of two months, you have had your café burgled, burnt down and your own home burnt down. Nobody can be that unlucky. Believe me. I’ve had a hard life and even I haven’t been that unlucky”.
“Hope is right”. Miguel got up and went to the cabinet behind him from where he pulled out a bottle of brandy. He poured them each a generous slug although Hope shook her head and pointedly took a sip of water. “The events are linked and are getting worse. Whoever it is was trying to ruin your business and when that didn’t work”, he slammed his palm down on the table making them all jump “they tried to kill you”. As he said it a glimmer of a thought came to the back of April’s head but stayed there. She tried to concentrate to bring it forward but it stayed stuck, almost but just out of reach. “Sorry, what did you say?” she answered as she became aware that Miguel had been asking her a question.
“Who would benefit from you closing your business, April?”
“Anyone who serves food in Gull Bay. But we have all cohabited quite happily since I opened 4 years ago, so that doesn’t seem to help. The only difference is that Connor bought the Peabody Tearoom”.
“We are back to Connor again”. Miguel said. “All roads lead to Connor”.
“But Connor had an alibi for the burglary and the first fire” Rachel reminded him.
Hope snorted. “You can’t really trust his alibis. Women who claim he was with them all night. And one of them, Imelda Van Leeuwen, old enough to be his mother. Disgusting”.
“Hold on”. Rachel put down her coffee cup. “I have another idea. It all started when you decided to expand the bakery part of the business. When you offered me the job to help me continue to work over the winter”. She looked crestfallen. “Maybe I have brought all these problems on you”.
“No”. April reached out her hand and clasped Rachel’s in her own. “I did wonder that myself but the reality is that there is no other bakery doing cakes on this side of the island. That is why we are doing so well with it. And we are not big enough to be a threat to the bigger bakers in town. No, I don’t think it’s that”
“So, it’s got to be Connor, there is no-one else” Miguel threw his hands in the air dramatically. “It has to be. Find Connor, find the cause of the problem. The little…”. He looked at Hope and thought better of what he was going to day. A tinkle distracted them; it was coming from Hope’s handbag behind her on the chair.
Fumbling in her bag, she pulled out her mobile phone. Answering it she listened and then held the phone out to April. April took it and the others waited whilst she punctuated the conversation at the other end with a few grunts, an “I see” and finally a “well that doesn’t make sense”. Giving the phone back to Hope she stared at the wall in front of her.
“Well,” said Hope eventually. “What did he want?”
“It was Sergeant Tozier” she said thoughtfully.
“I know it was Sergeant Tozier”. Hope said in exasperation. “I answered the phone to him. What did he say?”
“He was giving me an update on his enquiries with Connor Monroe. Connor hasn’t been seen since last night at the opening of the restaurant, but they have found out something very interesting that leads them to believe that Connor Monroe has more to do with it than the previous evidence suggests”
“I knew it” Miguel thumped the table in triumph. “His alibis are falling apart”.
“No” April shook her head. “Connor Monroe flew out of the island on the 24th September. To London”
“So?” said Miguel. “What has that got to do with anything. When did he come back?”
“He hasn’t” answered April. “He left on a London bound flight on 24th September and hasn’t returned”.
“That doesn’t make sense” said Rachel. “He must have come in another way”.
April shook her head. “There is no record of him coming back at all in the last two months”.
“Then the Connor Monroe who has been here for the last few weeks is not the real Connor Monroe? That means it must definitely be him who has been trying to wreck your business” Rachel was incredulous.
“It looks like it” said April. “But why?”
“It’s obvious”. Miguel took another sip of his brandy. “He’s a charlatan and a psychopath. He took offence at being sacked from his job and has decided to take his revenge”. He stopped talking when April shook her head.
“You’re missing the point Miguel. This all started long before I sacked Connor. Much before. Don’t you see? Why did I offer Connor a job? Because James was knocked off his bike by a hit and run, and I urgently needed a replacement. That was the start. Whoever Connor really is, he came to the café with the intention of causing problems. This has nothing to do with his sacking, this was planned. There is another much deeper reason for all this. And I feel that if I could just have some time to think about it, something someone said recently would come back to me and I might start to work out what all this is about”
She stood up from the table and they all looked at her. “Miguel are you working tomorrow?” she asked. He shook his head. “No, I’ve got the whole weekend off, first one in almost two months”
“Great. I’ll give you both a call in the morning. I just want some time to think”.
“Don’t give us a call. Come for a late lunch”.
“Don’t be daft Miguel. The last thing you should be doing on your day off is cooking”. April smiled
“Nonsense, I love cooking. And
anyway” he whispered “We would feel safer if you were here tomorrow rather than spending all day with Hope. We can keep our eye on you”.
“If you insist”. If she was honest, she was quite relieved to have other company in addition to Hope. We will see you tomorrow then. With that she stood up and kissed them both goodnight. For the first time in months an idea was starting to form in her head.
Chapter 28
April spent the night tossing and turning. She could not get the feeling out of her head that she was missing something important. Something that she had heard that could maybe give an insight in to why this had all started. None of it had made sense up to now, and the fact that Connor apparently wasn’t who he said he was meant it made less sense than it had before, if that was possible.
She sat up in bed as the realisation hit her. Connor Monroe had worked at the Belvedere Spa. Hope’s friend Renee, the housekeeper there, had confirmed this and she had received a reference for him. A good one. So that must mean that the Connor Monroe who had left for London really had worked at the Belvedere Spa. And the fake Connor Monroe knew this and knew that he had left. Otherwise he would not have been able to take over his identity. That meant the person masquerading as Connor must have some connection to the Belvedere Spa.
April got out of bed. It wasn’t yet 5 o clock but the pieces of information that had been swimming around in her head were starting to come together and she knew that she would not be able to get back to sleep now they were joining up. Fake Connor was living in the Rockspur. April had seen the prices and they were well out of reach of most people. She remembered now that Ivan Fletcher had said that Connor’s parents were wealthy which implied that he knew them, but even so he must have done some sort of reference check, or at least asked for identification of some description before letting out the penthouse apartment. Unless he had taken cash, no questions asked, but if that was the case where had the cash come from?
There was also the question of the Bay Harbour Grill. In a seafront location, the former Peabody Tearoom must have sold for close to a million pounds. If Connor had bought that, then it couldn’t have been done with fake identification. There must be a record somewhere of who he was. There was also the suggestion that Ivan Fletcher had invested in it and his sister had certainly done the refit. Ivan Fletcher was not one to spread his money around without doing proper checks.
The more she thought about it, the more she realised that Ivan Fletcher had to know that the man who had started working for her, who was living in his apartment block, and who had bought the restaurant that his sister had done the interior design for wasn’t the Connor Monroe who had been a kitchen assistant at the Belvedere Spa. It was the only thing that made sense. Even if he had not met the real Connor, he was too involved in this new Connor’s life to have not known. This must mean that Ivan Fletcher had lied to her on the night of the grand opening, had for reasons only he knew, let her believe that the man who she was talking to was Connor.
But why? That Ivan Fletcher could be involved in some way seemed fantastic, ridiculous. She thought back to all the times he had been in the café over the previous four years. He was a regular, he visited several times a week for a coffee and a sandwich, and was a big supporter of the candlelight suppers that she had run over the last few months. He had always been polite, courteous, never friendly to her particularly, but had got on well with Martha and Miguel. It was clear that he didn’t really like Hope and always tried to avoid being served by her, but then very few people did like being served by Hope. There had never been any warmth in his smile or his words when he spoke to her, but no malice either.
And yet. April thought back to all the times that they had met. Recently there had been something different, a strained atmosphere. It had started when his parents and his sister arrived, just before the trouble started. She thought back to the evening when he and his parents had been in for a meal. Something had been said, she was sure of it, that had caused Ivan’s manner to change. She had brushed it off at the time, but had that started the chain of events that had led her to where she was now? It had been just a couple of days later that James had had his motorcycle accident, and a few weeks after that when fake Connor had made his appearance, like an angel of death and destruction masquerading as a knight in shining armour.
She heard a door open and footsteps padding down the stairs. Hope was an early riser, was getting up to start the day. Putting on the old towelling dressing gown that Hope had let her borrow, she wrapped it around herself and made her own way downstairs. A cup of tea and the chance to talk through her thoughts was just what she needed.
“It doesn’t seem likely” Hope said eventually, after April had laid all her ideas out in front of her. “but there are ways in which we can find out. I’ll give my friend Renee a ring now, she is always an early riser like me. Not like youngsters these days who seem to think there is no such thing as a morning. You could give Martha a call and see if she can remember anything about why Ivan Fletcher’s parents went to South Africa. I never knew the family, they always lived south of the island, but I seem to remember your grandma mentioning them from time to time. I think your grandfather knew Ivan’s father; they would have been about the same age. I don’t suppose they are still here?”
“I haven’t seen them since they came in for the evening meal. If I remember rightly, they said they were here for a brief visit so I imagine they went a while ago”.
“Shame” Hope shook her head. “I could have gone and visited them. Made up some story about something your grandmother had said before she died that I thought they should know”.
“If the Fletchers are mixed up in this, I wouldn’t want you to go anywhere near Ivan Fletchers house” April said sternly. “If we find any evidence of their involvement at all I am giving it straight to the police”.
“It is getting the evidence that is the problem” Hope said. “Sometimes you have to give the tree a bit of a shake to see what drops out”. She paused to think “Miguel could visit James, see if James remembers anything at all about the accident and the vehicle that hit him”.
“Good idea” April answered. I am going to give Miguel a call this morning so I will ask him if he can see James this morning. If you could call your friend again and find out more about Connor Monroe, the real one and why he left and also, very importantly, what he looked like and I will give Martha a call and see what she knows about why the Fletchers left Jersey. Then we can all meet for a late lunch as agreed”. She looked at Hope who was looking at her thoughtfully. “What have I missed, why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because there is nothing to do now until breakfast and you are looking a bit pasty. Get dressed and I’ll lend you a coat. A good brisk walk over the cliffs is what you need”
April sighed inwardly. What she needed was to go back to bed and sleep for a couple of hours now that they had made plans but that didn’t look like it was going to be an option. “I’ll get dressed then” was all she said.
Chapter 29
Miguel had cooked a late lunch of sea bass, which he had picked up from one of the local fishermen who landed his catch in the harbour, potatoes with minted butter, and greens. Rachel looked up from laying the table as April and Hope walked in and took off their coats.
“I hope you two have got news” Rachel said frowning, “because Miguel has pretty much drawn a blank”.
“Some” April admitted, sitting down at one of the chairs, “but I don’t think it gets us much further”.
“I’m not so sure about that” Hope said, sitting down in the chair opposite. “Maybe if we talk through what we have, we may start to get some answers”. Miguel put the bowl of steaming potatoes in the middle of the table and indicated that they should dig in. They smelt delicious but April wasn’t that hungry. She took a couple to be polite and a small spoonful of greens.
Nobody spoke until they had served themselves lunch. The only sound was the clinking of cutlery on plates an
d bowls.
“Now then” said Miguel eventually through a mouthful of potato “What have we found out?”
“I talked to Martha” April said. “She was strangely reluctant to talk about the Fletchers, said it didn’t feel right gossiping when she didn’t really know what had gone on all those years ago and it was just unsubstantiated rumours that she had heard. She must have said about four times that they were a nice family and had always treated her well when she was younger”.
“She’s sweet on Ivan, that’s the trouble” said Miguel, “Would probably want to hide it if she knew something”.
“I don’t think so Miguel”. Rachel looked at him. “I know that she likes Ivan, and that she knew the family when they were growing up, but she also likes April and she wouldn’t keep a secret knowingly if she thought April’s life was in danger”.
“Maybe”. Miguel didn’t sound convinced.