by Nancy Warren
In fact, my grandmother was hopefully sleeping peacefully, and if not, I’d put another spell on the trap door to keep her away from me. At least during store hours.
I couldn’t wait to share the whole story of Gerald Pettigrew and Florence. My grandmother was an excellent judge of character. I was very curious to see what she had made of him.
I had reached the door, when a man called my name. I turned to see Ian Chisholm walking towards me. Miss Watt had also turned to look and he said, “I’m very glad to see both of you. Miss Watt, I’ve a few more questions I’d like to ask you.”
Whatever relaxation her visit with me had achieved, was gone in an instant. Her face resumed the tight, anxious look. But she said, “Of course. Would you like to come in?”
“I would. I also have a few more questions for your waitress, Katie. Any idea where I might find her? I tried round their flat but neither she nor Jim were at home.”
I said, “Katie is right behind us in the shop. She’s working as my assistant.”
If he was surprised at the news he hid it well. “I see.” He glanced at his watch. “Miss Watt, if you’ve got some time now, perhaps we can talk? And then I’ll come round to you, Lucy, when you close at five.”
I went back into the shop and then was sorry that I hadn’t asked him if it was all right to tell Katie of the treat in store for her. I thought I’d wait until nearly closing time. There was no point worrying her unnecessarily.
As the afternoon wore on I was heartily glad I had an assistant. The amount of extra business that the murder in the tea shop had caused was amazing. We both became quite adept at tossing out platitudes about oh yes, it was a terrible shock. And no, I don’t believe the police have caught the perpetrator yet. And then deftly turning the subject to knitting.
At about four forty-five, I found myself momentarily alone with Katie. The shop had emptied and I doubted we’d have any more customers before five. I said, “I bumped into Detective Inspector Chisholm earlier. He’s coming here as soon as we close to ask you a few more questions. It was nice that he didn’t come in during our opening hours to conduct police business.”
“Too right,” she said. And she rubbed her arms as though she were either very cold, or very itchy, though I suspected she was just very nervous. “Any idea what he wants?”
I shook my head. “He said he had a few more questions, that’s all.”
“But I’ve told him everything I know. God, I wish I’d never come to this terrible country. It’s freezing cold for a start. And everybody has a stick up their arse.” In spite of the way she was insulting the very people who were paying both our salaries, her voice wavered as though she were near tears so I forgave her rudeness.
“I’m sure it’s just routine,” I said as soothingly as I could.
She looked at me, her eyes wide with appeal. “You won’t leave me alone with him?”
I was surprised. “I was planning to go upstairs and let you have some privacy. Or, you could take him upstairs, and I can stay down the shop.”
She shook her head and said no at the same time. A double negative if ever there was one. “I want you to stay with me. Promise?”
“If the inspector allows me to, then, of course.”
Ian arrived just after five with a brisk rap on the front door. I let him in and noticed he wasn’t alone. He had a young constable with him. A woman about my own age. He greeted both of us and said, “Katie, I won’t take up much of your time, but I’ve got a few more questions for you.”
She said, “I don’t know what I haven’t told you already. And I want Lucy with me.”
“Yes, that’s fine.”
I took them all upstairs and we settled ourselves in the living room. I quickly texted Rafe to tell him not to let my grandmother come wandering up here, which she sometimes did when the store was closed. She’d refused repeated offers for her own phone. She said she hadn’t needed one in life and she certainly wasn’t going to succumb to a mobile phone in death. “There are very few advantages to being undead, Lucy, but not being forced to use modern technology must count as one of them.”
So, I had to rely on Rafe to get my messages to her.
The young constable drew out a notebook and Ian said, “We have the results of the post mortem.”
Katie looked puzzled. “But wasn’t he poisoned?”
“There was always the possibility that he died of natural causes but, as it happens, you’re right. The colonel was poisoned. However, there are many substances that can poison a person and depending on the poison in the dose, we’re able to accurately pinpoint when it was administered. In this case, the poison was Cyanide. It was found in his tea. From the time he drank the tea until death would’ve been approximately twenty minutes.”
I made the obvious inference. “So, he was definitely poisoned in the tea shop.”
“He was. So, Katie, either you put the poison into the tea or you must have seen who did.”
I had never seen him sound so cold and implacable before. I could feel my own heart beating harder and I wasn’t the one being accused of anything. Katie went bright red and then deathly pale. She leaned forward and clasped her hands together. “I didn’t kill him. Why would I? I didn’t even know him. He was bloody rude, but I wouldn’t kill him for that. Anyway, where would I get poison?”
“That’s an excellent question. Where would you?”
“I don’t know. And I didn’t. That’s the point.”
“And yet, the tea you served the colonel is what killed him. So why don’t you walk me through the exact process.”
She shrank back against the sofa cushions now, and her face took on the surly look I’d become accustomed to when she worked in the tea shop. She’d been so sunny and efficient working for me that I had forgotten her much less likable side. “I already told you. I didn’t make the tea that day. It was too busy. I just brought it in on the tray.”
“Who prepared that tea?”
She saw the trap he was laying for her and refused to step into it. “All I know is, I didn’t make the tea.”
“Come on. You must know who did? There are two possibilities. Jim or Miss Watt. Which of them was it?”
She looked down at the floor. In a barely audible tone she said, “It was Miss Watt. Mary Watt.”
I was startled, as I’d imagined it was Jim he was after. I glanced at Ian’s face but it gave nothing away. I knew him quite well though and I think he already knew who’d prepared that tea. Miss Watt must have told him she’d made it and Katie was only confirming what he already knew.
“And how did you know to take that particular tray to Colonel Montague’s table?”
“Miss Watt told me what table number.”
“You’d already given him the wrong tea once.”
“Yes, I know. You don’t need to keep going on about it. It was confusing and I was new. But I got it right that time.”
“Who, besides you, or Miss Watt or Jim had access to that tea?”
“The tea sits there waiting to be picked up. Anyone could’ve gotten to it. That’s what I told you before.”
“Did you see anyone? It’s very important you try and remember everything.”
She closed her eyes. “The colonel’s wife,” she said. “I forgot to tell you that before. She came up, all red in the face, because he was shouting. She said something like, “For goodness sake hurry up with the colonel’s tea. He’s making a scene.” She looked so embarrassed.”
“Did you really see that? Or are you making it up to take suspicion off you and your boyfriend?”
She was belligerent again. “No. I really did see her.”
I nodded. “I saw the colonel’s wife, too. She walked past our table but I thought she was headed for the bathroom. She could have been on the way to hurry his tea. I didn’t watch her once she’d passed.”
“Who else could have touched the tea?”
“Anyone who went to the toilet. Anyway, why couldn’t someone drop
the poison into the pot once it was already sitting on the table? There was that old lady fussing all over him. And I was busy running back and forth with food and cups of tea, but people were being seated, getting up and leaving, and nearly all of them had to pass by the colonel’s table. Any one of them could’ve poisoned him.”
She glanced at her watch. “Look, I’m late now. I told Jim I’d meet him after his rehearsal. We’re going to see a play.”
Ian said, “All right. The constable here will drive you. If you remember anything else, anything at all, you make sure and let me know.” He looked at her sternly. “Just make sure it’s the truth.”
“Blimey. You’re a charmer aren’t you?” And then she grabbed her bag and said to me, “See you tomorrow?” She put a question mark on the end as Australians so often do, but in this case I really thought perhaps she was wondering if I might have reconsidered the job offer now she’d been questioned a second time by the police.
She seemed exactly as guilty today as she had on the day of the murder. Not more and not less. “Yes. Thank you, Katie. See you tomorrow.”
Katie and the constable left but Ian didn’t. His blue eyes were steady on my face. “I was a bit surprised to find you had hired her. You do realize she’s one of the top suspects?”
Was he worried for my safety? Or did he just think I was a fool to have hired someone who could turn out to be deadly? The latter, I suspected.
“But why would she kill Colonel Montague? Why would Jim, for that matter. Have you found any connection at all between them?”
He shook his head. “No. It’s got me stumped, I don’t mind telling you. Did you really see the Elspeth Montague go back toward the kitchen?”
“Oh yes. I did. I don’t think I’d remembered it until Katie mentioned it. She looked a nervous wreck. He really was a most unpleasant man.”
“That’s what everyone says, but no one had a specific reason to kill him.”
“Did the Irish woman come to see you?”
He nodded. “I think that was your doing. She seemed very anxious to make sure you weren’t in any trouble.”
“I think she’s a decent person, though she certainly had a grudge against Colonel Montague.”
“As did nearly everyone in that tea shop.”
“Did she tell you why she was there?”
He settled back on the sofa and loosened his tie, as though he felt relaxed around me. It was also a subtle gesture that he was off the clock. “She did. It seems she spoke to Elspeth Montague and, although she was shocked, she seems not to have been surprised. She’s promised to do the right thing by his daughter and the woman he abandoned.”
“I’m glad. In all this ugliness, there are people who are acting with kindness.”
His eyes twinkled with amusement. “You do like to believe the best in people, don’t you?”
“What’s wrong with that? I’d rather think people are good than always be suspicious of their motives.”
“Good thing you run a knitting shop then, and aren’t a detective.”
I liked to think I was, in fact, a bit of a detective, but I also liked his assessment of me. I’d rather think the best of people than always assume the worst. But that didn’t solve murders.
I told him the gossip I had heard, that the colonel had planned to divorce his wife and marry Miss Everly. “That’s two December-December romances that were taking place in that tea shop. And at adjoining tables, too.”
“Yes, and that’s the other thing, with Katie mucking up the orders all over the place, we’re not even convinced Colonel Montague was the actual target.”
“The other person who’d ordered Earl Grey tea, that was on the same tray, of course, was Gerald Pettigrew.” I wasn’t about to break confidence with Miss Watt by telling Ian what she had told me today, but I thought a gentle hint might help his complicated investigation. I looked down at my hands. “Have you looked into Gerald Pettigrew at all?”
Ian was many things, but he was not stupid. He looked at me with that sharp blue gaze. “Why?”
“I don’t know, exactly. He appeared out of nowhere, seems to have swept Florence Watt off her feet. But doesn’t he seem a little too good to be true? I thought, when he first came in the shop, as he was on his way next door, that he looked like an actor. The sort who plays the retired colonel, or the aging aristocrat, on television.”
He nodded. “But then, of course, those types tend to be based on real characters. He could be one. Still, we’ve contacted Interpol. He was last living in Australia.”
My eyes widened. “Australia?”
“Yes. And he and Katie and Jim both arrived in this neighborhood within days of each other. Coincidence?”
“Well, there are nearly twenty-five million people in Australia. And the way they travel, at any time there must be thousands of them touring England, working in the shops or pubs.”
He caught my gaze. “It was kind of you to give Katie a job. But you will be careful?”
I felt for the moment that he wasn’t looking at me the way a cop looks at a woman who witnessed a murder. He was looking at me the way a man looks at a woman he’s interested in. I felt warm and a little flustered. “I’ll be careful.”
His gaze was on my face. He said, “I wonder—” His phone rang at that moment. He glanced at the screen and said, “I’d better go outside and take this call. Goodbye, Lucy.”
And wasn’t that an ill-timed phone call? What would the rest of that sentence have been if he’d completed it? ‘I wonder if you’d like to have a drink with me at the pub, Lucy? I wonder if I could interest you in dinner, Lucy? Just the two of us? I wonder if you’d like to marry me and spend the rest of your life hiding the fact that you’re a witch and your grandmother is a vampire, Lucy.”
I wondered why I was bothering to indulge in this pointless mental exercise.
CHAPTER 19
I t’s funny how quickly you find a new normal after a disaster. I would have believed, once, that living and working next to the site of a murder would leave me sleepless and terrified. While I certainly made extra certain that the doors were locked and my phone was near to hand when I went to bed, I slept fine. Customers still came and went and, after the first few days, they were more interested in knitting supplies than in discussing the tragedy.
If anything, the murder was a benefit to me, since I had inherited Katie and she was the best assistant I could imagine. I liked that she was close to my age and, after the first couple of days when she was a little stiff with me, she soon opened up.
She told me about her life back in Australia. It hadn’t been easy. She’d been brought up by her grandmother, not because her parents were busy professionals, as mine were, but because her mother had never left home. She’d done what menial work she could get while her own mother raised Katie. She never mentioned her father and I wondered if she even knew who he was.
It was something she and Jim had in common, she confided in me as we tidied up the shop. His father walked out on them when he was young and his mother never recovered. “From the first time we met, we understood each other. Jim says people with happy childhoods make crap actors.” She shrugged. “I think I’d rather be happy than a great actor.”
“Is he enjoying his play?” I didn’t know what else to say. Maybe I didn’t have the most involved parents, since they were so often away on digs, but I’d always known they loved me, and visiting Gran for long stretches had always been a treat.
“He’s loving it. He’s playing Jack Worthing, you know, Importance of being Earnest? He came home in full makeup yesterday, just for a laugh. He did scare me, seeing this man in fancy dress at the door of the flat. He looked a completely different person. I was frightened for a moment, until I realized it was him.”
Mary Watt, having used up all of the wool scraps in Gran’s basket came in for more to complete a scarf that was surprisingly pretty considering the angst that had gone into its creation. She also bought wool and the pattern
to make a thick, woolly jumper. “Though I don’t know who I’m knitting it for. I find jumpers much too hot.” So I told her about the charity effort we ran through the shop. Anyone could bring in warm sweaters for the homeless, though I had an idea that we might turn out some brand new items for a Christmas drive for the poor.
I couldn’t take credit for that last idea. It was Silence Buggins who’d suggested it at Tuesday’s knitting club. Back in Victorian times, she’d been involved in a similar effort. I think she wanted to offer something useful, as her visit to the doctor who’d treated Colonel Montague had not been a success.
She and Alfred had gone together on the pretext that Silence was working on a book about early female doctors in Oxford. The meeting went well until Silence moved the subject to the recent poisoning and then the doctor had clammed up. Soon after, she’d said she had an appointment and had shown them out of her office.
“So, we don’t know anything,” Silence said, disheartened.
“We know that she’s a feminist,” Alfred had offered.
“Well, that should solve the murder,” said Hester, always one to throw a damper on already dampened spirits.
Then the meeting had moved on to a discussion of Christmas in the store. Gran told me what to order plenty of and reminded me to find a teacher who could give a workshop in knitted and crocheted Christmas ornaments. And Silence had suggested the charity knitting project.
When she heard about it, Mary Watt brightened up. She seemed to be one of those people who had a difficult time indulging herself, but if she could use her talents for others, she wouldn’t feel she was wasting her time knitting.
Florence Watt and Gerald Pettigrew never came into the shop but I often saw them walking past. Usually, they were holding hands and so engrossed in each other that, if I hadn’t been worried about her, I’d have found the relationship charming. But I was worried. Mary Watt did not strike me as a fanciful or particularly jealous woman. If she believed her sister was being taken advantage of, I was inclined to think she might be right.
I didn’t think Gerald had moved in next door. Mary would never put up with that. But he and Florence were clearly inseparable.