by Nancy Warren
“I’m sure once the initial excitement of seeing him again passes, she’ll return to her usual, industrious self.” I had no idea if this was true but I wanted to comfort Mary Watt.
She made a rude noise. “Oh you do, do you? Well, I can tell you, she was just as mad over that man fifty years ago and if I hadn’t…” She shook her head and tucked her hankie away. “Well, it was years ago, I’m sure you’re right. Everything will be fine. I must get back.”
When I returned to the table, Miss Watt was seating a group of four ladies who were telling her that they’d all been at school together, at St. Hilda’s. They all looked to be in their seventies. One was glamorous with stylish blonde hair, trendy glasses and wearing a smart black suit. The other three had given up on style, if they’d ever bothered with it. Their hair was gray, they didn’t appear to be wearing makeup and their clothes were designed for comfort rather than style. Mary smiled, as though she hadn’t a trouble in the world, and said with a twinkle, “Hildabeasts.” The ladies all laughed merrily. “Yes, indeed. Of course, that was in the days when there were only two colleges open to women. We were glad to get places.”
“And you’re here for a reunion?”
They sobered immediately. The blonde smiled sadly and wiped at the corner of her eye with the back of her hand. “A funeral. We’ve reached the age when we only see each other when one of our friends passes away.”
“Oh, I am sorry,” said Miss Watt. “May I start with you with a nice pot of tea?”
The blonde one who seemed to be their unofficial spokesperson said, “Oh, I think a sherry to begin with. Something to brace us up before we have our tea.” She glanced around, “Unless you prefer something else?” They all agreed on sherry.
“Of course.”
Miss Watt went to the back of the room where the drinks were kept, passing Katya, carrying a heavy tray. She headed for the grumpy man who’d complained. “Here’s your Earl Grey tea.”
As she plunked it on his table, he glared at her. “About time too. I imagine it’s cold by now. And I’ve already finished my scone.”
She mumbled something that could have been sorry or could’ve been a Polish curse and then took her wobbling tray to Florence Watt and Gerald Pettigrew. I kept a steady eye on the tray but no magical intervention was needed and she managed to put the three-tiered tray of sandwiches, scones and tiny pastries onto Miss Watt’s table along with the two pots of tea, and two flutes of champagne without further mishap.
Florence Watt removed the lid of her teapot then wrinkled her nose and shook her head. She replaced the lid and exchanged her teapot with Gerald’s. I watched her go through the same routine and nod, then pour her tea.
Mary Watt arrived with the sherry and placed four glasses in front of the four ladies from St. Hilda’s. The four women toasted their departed friend and, as they sipped and chatted, they reminded me of my grandmother and her friends. I still wasn’t used to her being gone-but-not-gone. How much harder must it be for her? Perhaps Rafe was right and we should move somewhere else, so she could go out in public. At least until she got used to her new life.
Rafe broke into my thoughts. “Your grandmother will make the transition, but it takes some time.”
My gaze jerked back to his. “Do you read minds?”
He looked amused. “One doesn’t need to be a mind reader with you, Lucy. Your face is so expressive.”
I felt a little foolish. “I’ve got no poker face, that’s for sure.”
“Also nothing to hide, which is very refreshing. Most of us spend too much time and energy trying to conceal our thoughts.”
He looked melancholy but I didn’t pry. I suspected it was better for me if he did conceal, not only his thoughts, but his past.
The grumpy military looking man called across the room to Miss Watt for his bill. On hearing his voice, the blonde of the four ladies turned toward him. “Why Colonel Montague. How very nice to see you.”
When he saw who was addressing him, his peevish expression relaxed. “Miss Everly. Come back to your old haunts, I see.”
She laughed in a coquettish manner and rose and went over to chat with him and his wife for a minute or two. The wife put on a polite smile but it was the colonel who looked pleased, and his irate manner changed so fast it was like sunshine succeeding a storm.
Miss Watt brought over his bill and he continued to chat with Miss Everly. Under the gray afternoon light coming through the window, I thought he grew red in the face. Maybe he was embarrassed, or perhaps felt foolish chatting up another woman in front of his wife.
Miss Everly returned to her table.
Florence and Gerald, meanwhile, had finished their champagne and had barely touched their sandwiches and cakes. They seemed more interested in each other than the food.
Someone began to cough. I barely noted it, thinking about Florence and Gerald, when the coughing grew worse. It was the grumpy man in the window. “Excuse me,” he managed, coughing and coughing, growing increasingly red in the face.
Conversation petered out as the dreadful racking coughing continued.
Miss Everly jumped to her feet and called in a loud, sharp voice, “Water. Bring him some water.”
He waved her away as she went forward but she ignored his protests and thumped him on the back. “Are you choking?” she shouted over the sound of his cough.
He shook his head, and pushed up to his feet.
Florence Watt had jumped up from her tea table at Miss Everly’s command and ran to the back of the room where a jug of water and glasses was kept. Rapidly, she filled a glass and rushed forward.
The colonel grabbed his neck with both his hands. I’ve never actually seen anyone froth at the mouth, but that’s what he was doing.
“Teddy!” his wife cried, leaping to her feet.
“He’s choking,” Miss Everly said. “I shall try the Heimlich manoeuvre.”
I had that helpless feeling of wanting to do something but having no idea what. I began to rise, thinking perhaps I might loosen his collar, when Rafe put his hand over mine. “Leave him be. There’s nothing to be done for him, now.”
Miss Everly got her fisted hands underneath his diaphragm and pulled up with impressive energy. Air was expelled along with bubbles. Then the man sagged to the floor, taking Miss Everly with him.
Bessie Yang said something to her table companion and the woman rose, looking somewhat reluctant. She walked over to where the colonel was gasping and flailing. “If you could all step back. I’m a doctor.” At that moment she looked as though she wished she had passed on medical school so she could have been allowed to drink her tea in peace. The man’s wife cried, “Teddy, what’s wrong?”
The doctor said to Miss Everly, who’d struggled to her knees, “Help me roll him onto his side.” To the wife she said, “Is he epileptic?”
“No, there’s never been anything like that in our family.”
“Heart condition?”
The wife was beginning to cry, wringing her hands. “Quickly, does he have a medical condition I should know about?”
“No. He had a stroke last year, but the doctor said it was mild.”
“Call an ambulance,” the doctor ordered. She was unbuttoning his shirt as she spoke. I couldn’t see what she did, then, but the colonel grew quieter.
His wife, meanwhile, seemed to have trouble comprehending what was happening. “He takes pills, for his blood pressure. Otherwise he’s in excellent health.”
The doctor looked at her with pity. She shielded him from view, but we could see him curled into himself. “I must tell you, your husband is seriously ill.”
Rafe leaned toward me. “In fact, he’s dead.”
WITHIN SEVERAL MINUTES it was clear that Rafe had spoken the truth. The man’s coughing and thrashing stopped. He lay quiet and still. It was unnaturally quiet in the tea room after all the commotion. All eyes were turned his way.
Several customers had risen from their seats but no one seemed t
o know what to do. The doctor turned to the worried looking wife and said, “I’m very sorry but your husband is gone.”
“Gone? But he’s right there.”
“He’s dead. I’m so sorry.”
The woman stared for a moment and her face went bright red and then deathly pale and she began to sob. Miss Everly rose and pulled her seat closer to the sobbing woman. She glanced around, “Mary? Might we have another sherry here?”
“Do you know the doctor?” I asked. Rafe usually knew everyone.
“Only by sight. Dr. Amanda Silvester. She works out of a clinic on Mansfield Street.”
Gerald Pettigrew stood up, leaving most of the afternoon tea intact. “Well, what a tragic event. I think the best thing to do is to leave this poor man in peace.” Florence seemed uncertain as to whether she should go with him or stand by her sister. Dr. Silvester shook her head at him. “No one must leave this place. Not until the police have arrived.”
He puffed up his chest as though about to argue, when Florence Watt cried, “Police?”
The doctor rose to her feet. “I’m afraid so. We’ll have to do a post mortem of course, but I believe this man was poisoned.”
The two Miss Watts turned to stare at each other and then instinctively closed ranks until they were standing side-by-side. Mary Watt said, “Poisoned? But we have an excellent hygiene rating and our baking is fresh every day. I’m sure you must be mistaken. His wife said he takes pills for his heart.”
The doctor looked at her with sympathy but clearly had no intention of getting into an argument with the tea shop owner about how this man had died. She simply repeated that she wouldn’t know for certain until a post mortem had been conducted.
It was absolutely awful after that. There was a dead man lying in the middle of the tea shop like the proverbial elephant in the middle of the room. I’d have given anything to have an actual elephant standing there not a man who had died violently in front of my eyes. I looked at Rafe. “Do you think he was poisoned?”
He nodded.
I couldn’t get my head around it. “You mean on purpose?”
“That would be my guess.”
“That would mean he was—”
“Murdered. Yes, I believe he was.”
I felt hot and cold chills running up and down my skin. People began to talk amongst themselves in low voices and over all of it could be heard the painful sound of a new widow’s sobs.
CHAPTER 4
I t was a relief when the police arrived. Detective Inspector Ian Chisholm caught my eye first. I had never seen him look so serious. With him was an older, heavyset man who was obviously in charge. They both paused at the tea shop entrance and I thought each took a mental photograph of the crime scene.
As Ian’s eyes swept over the crowd he saw me. His eyes lightened for a moment, crinkling at the corners and he gave an infinitesimal nod. I felt better immediately knowing he was here. The older man said in a commanding tone, “I’m Detective Chief Inspector Roderick Blake and this is Detective Inspector Ian Chisholm. We’ll need statements from each of you, as soon as we can find a suitable location, we’ll move you there. In the meantime, please stay where you are.”
The American woman cried, “You can’t leave us here with the dead man.”
A man snapped back, “He can’t hurt you.”
“Only for a few more minutes, madam, if you wouldn’t mind,” said the chief inspector.
At that moment, the police photographer arrived along with a tall, thin man who immediately went up to Dr. Silvester. Rafe said, “He’s Dr. Fred Gilbert, Forensic Medical Examiner, the police surgeon. She was right to call him in.” The two doctors huddled beside the body while the photographer snapped photos not only of the corpse but everything on the table and, after the chief inspector had told us all to resume our seats exactly as we were sitting when the man died, of the rest of us.
The paramedics loaded the body onto a stretcher and covered him with a sheet. I was pleased for the sake of the widow they hadn’t zipped him into a body bag. It would have felt so disrespectful somehow. Though I doubt she’d even have noticed. She was sitting now at the table of the four ladies who’d come here to mourn another friend.
She looked stunned and sat there saying, “I can’t believe it. It can’t be true. Teddy has his golf trip tomorrow. He’s been so looking forward to it.” She folded her arms on the table and put her head down and sobbed. As the stretcher was wheeled past I noticed Miss Everly close her eyes and her lips moved in what I assumed was prayer.
The Irish woman raised her hand as the colonel’s remains rolled by. Instead of making the sign of the cross as I’d expected, she stuck her middle finger in the air.
“Did you see that?” I whispered to Rafe. “She flipped him the bird.”
“I wonder why.” As we continued to watch her, the woman turned her back on the corpse as it continued on its way.
I couldn’t believe it. “First she gave him the one finger salute and then she turned her back on him. Why would anyone do that?”
“It looks like something your people would do. Curse someone and then shun him.”
“My people?” I knew he was referring to witches, not Americans, but I wasn’t easy about being a witch. I certainly didn’t want to be associated with anyone who would disrespect a dead man like that.
His eyes flickered with humor but he wisely left me to my outrage without commenting further.
The chief inspector told us not to touch or move anything and definitely not to eat or drink what was in front of us. He needn’t have worried. Plates of half eaten food, cups filled with tea, all remained untouched. The American woman, who sounded like a New Yorker, said, “I’m starting to feel sick. Do you think it’s botulism? Remember when that deli got closed down on forty-first?”
“That was salmonella,” her helpful spouse said. “Here, have a mint.”
She eyed the packet suspiciously. “You didn’t buy them here, did you?”
“No. At the airport.” Only then did she take a mint.
ELDERFLOWER BECAME CROWDED as more police arrived and no customers left. One of the ladies sitting with Miss Everly turned out to be the verger at the church around the corner and had the key to the church hall. We were all politely requested to make our way over to the hall where we’d be interviewed and then allowed to go.
The Irish woman came over as we all rose and headed for the door. “Well, isn’t this a terrible thing?” she asked, walking by my side. “To think of the man dropping dead over his tea.”
“Did you know him?” Based on her strange behavior, she’d either held a grudge against the colonel, or was giving the finger to death in general.
She hesitated. “No. I never met the man.” Okay, maybe she held a grudge against death. The longer I lived in Oxford, among witches and vampires, the less things surprised me.
As we filed out of Elderflower and up the street toward the church we must have looked like a funeral procession. The bay windows of Elderflower looked like eyes bugging out and staring as we walked by. My shop was brightly lit and I longed to be inside it, with all the wools I didn’t know how to knit with, patterns I couldn’t understand, and an assistant who held me and my shop in contempt.
Harrington Road ended at New Inn Hall Street, where the Methodist Church of St. John sat, as though at the head of a long table, with its graveyard on the left hand side and the church hall on the right. There were many beautiful buildings in Oxford. St. John’s church hall was not one of them. A low, gray stone building, it seemed dark and unwelcoming even when Bessie Yang turned on the lights. There were long tables in rows and a sign on the wall inviting parishioners to join the choir. It smelled like dust and mildew.
The chief inspector set himself at a table at the front of the room and asked that we all take a seat. We’d be interviewed and were asked to empty our pockets and purses.
He asked the widow to join him first. She seemed unable to move, until the kind and capa
ble Miss Everly put her arm around her and supported her.
Then, either Ian or one of the two uniformed officers would join a party at their table, ask questions, and take notes, before moving onto the next one. Rafe and I sat at the end of one of the long tables, waiting for them to get to us. I leaned in and whispered, “It feels like speed dating.”
“Like what?” Rafe asked me. Right, I doubt they’d had speed dating back in Shakespeare’s time or whenever he’d actually been young.
I might make flippant remarks but I also felt creeped out. “If the colonel was poisoned, his murderer could be in this room.” I looked around but everyone appeared so ordinary. The four ladies who’d come to mourn their friend. The woman who taught yoga and her doctor friend. Tables of tourists looking bewildered, and poor Gerald Pettigrew who sat, alone now, clearly wishing he were somewhere else.
Florence and Mary stood together not far from us. “This is dreadful,” Florence said. “We’ll never live it down.”
But Mary appeared to be rising to the challenge. “Nonsense. It’s an unfortunate incident, but we’ll get through it. We’ve a business to run.”
Right. And so did I. “I’d better call Agatha,” I said to Rafe. She’d probably have to close up. I took my cell phone to the farthest corner of the hall so as not to disturb the investigation. I told my assistant I might be late and tried to think of a plausible excuse, but she showed no curiosity at all about why I might be absent from the shop, merely said she’d lock the door if I wasn’t back by five.
I passed Katya, who was standing near the back of the room. With her was a young man I had never seen before. They were talking together in low voices. I could only assume he was her brother, the chef. He was a muscular, good-looking guy maybe my age or a little older, say late twenties, of average height. Beneath his short-sleeved T-shirt I could see a tattoo of a dragon on his bicep.