She ran to the door, hands covered in cream, but he wasn’t there.
Angela stood on the doorstep. ‘I don’t want to bother you if you’re busy.’
Libby hid her disappointment and waved her friend into the kitchen.
‘I dropped into the shop, and Mandy told me you’d come home to work. So I thought, why don’t I come over and beg for a taste of whatever it is you’re making?’
Angela, Libby’s best friend, had been transformed since meeting Owen, and she was tireless in planning for their new venture, the café. Always elegant, she wore her grey hair in a variety of neat styles, including a chignon, whose ability to stay in place all day astonished Libby. But recently her cheeks had been pinker, her eyes brighter, and her features more animated as her brain dealt nimbly with every problem arising from the imminent opening of the café.
Libby was certain she hadn’t come to aimlessly eat chocolate.
Taking a seat at the table in the corner of the kitchen, safely distant from Libby’s worktop, Angela unloaded a pile of neat files from a briefcase, cunningly disguised as a tote bag, but containing rigid dividers, spaces for phones and pens, and locking compartments for sensitive documents.
Libby was seized with envy. She carried her shabby notebook around in a battered brown leather shoulder bag. ‘Are we going to make plans?’ She was as excited about the café as her friend.
‘If you don’t mind?’
‘I can talk and work at the same time. Have a chocolate.’
‘I thought you’d never ask.’ Angela took one from the plate of misshapes Libby always kept to hand. ‘Good grief, whatever’s this?
‘Oops. Should have warned you. That’s chilli, but I overdid it.’
‘I should think you did.’ Angela staggered to the sink and filled a glass with water, her eyes watering. ‘Do people actually like this flavour?’
‘Apparently. They buy them, anyway, which suits me just fine. Did you know, the Aztecs drank chocolate flavoured with chilli?’
‘No wonder they died out.’ Angela wiped her eyes and sat down again. ‘I’ll stick with coffee creams in future. Anyway, shall we talk about the café? It seems safer.’
‘Go on.’ Libby added a drop of lemon essence to her mix.
‘We’re putting the final touches to the interior decoration. We’re going for a typically English seaside feel, to work with your “Baking at the Beach” cakes and, of course, the West Country scones.’
Libby put in, ‘Mandy’s been working on those. Her scones are light as air these days.’
‘She’s had a good teacher in you. Now, we want a “beach café” feel for the décor, even though we’ll be in the High Street, not on the beach. It’s only a four-minute walk away; I timed it. I’m ordering a driftwood sculpture for one corner of the room. Do you think a palm tree in the opposite corner would be too much?’
‘Sounds great to me.’ With Angela’s enthusiastic management skills, the café was practically guaranteed to be a success.
‘There’s one huge problem,’ Angela said.
‘Oh? It sounds to me as though you’ve got it all covered.’
Angela chuckled; a musical sound that Libby envied. ‘We don’t have a name yet. We keep calling it the café, or the Exham on Sea café, but I think we can do better than that. We need ideas.’
‘Hm.’ Libby stopped mixing, and thought. She drew a blank. ‘Why don’t we have a competition? People send in their suggestions, you set up a shortlist to avoid ending up with Cakey McCake Face or anything daft like that. Then you could have a draw for the winning entry. The prize can be a basket of goodies.’
Angela’s grin almost split her face in two. ‘You’re a genius, Libby. Max is a lucky man.’
‘Hm.’ The knot in Libby’s stomach tightened.
‘Do I sense trouble?’ Angela was immediately sympathetic.
Libby, suddenly relieved to talk to a friend, explained that Max’s ex-wife had been in touch, and he’d rushed off to see her without telling Libby.
‘And that’s a problem because…?’
Libby frowned. ‘Why didn’t he tell me?’
Angela raised her eyes to the heavens. ‘Because he didn’t want to upset you.’
‘That’s ridiculous. I wouldn’t have been upset.’
‘And yet, you are…’
‘A bit. It’s the secrecy I can’t stand. I want to share things with him, but he doesn’t seem to feel the same way. He doesn’t tell me things. Why does he have to keep secrets?’
Angela doodled on the top of her sheaf of papers. ‘I think each of you is about to discover you carry baggage from your past histories. You’re no spring chickens and you’ve had separate experiences that made you the people you are now. Max’s life events are part of him and they include an ex-wife, the shocking, painful loss of a daughter, and a divorce. Give him time. He’s crazy about you. If you’re worried he’s going to cheat on you, I can tell you, you’re making a big mistake. Trust him.’
Libby bit her lip. ‘You’re right. That makes perfect sense, but it’s difficult.’ She watched Angela tidy her papers into a pile and centre them on the table. ‘I’m going to have to work at this marriage thing.’ She waved a wooden spoon at Angela. ‘Now, what about you and Owen? Will you be taking the great leap into the unknown of a second marriage?’
Angela tucked her papers away in the stylish briefcase/tote. ‘Too soon for that. We’re happy at the moment…’ Her phone trilled. ‘Sorry, I need to answer. It’s the shop fitter. He’s called three times already, today, and he never takes any notice of anything I say, so I don’t know why he bothers. He always refers back to Owen. The brotherhood of men, I suppose.’
As Angela sorted out the latest issue with progress on the café, Libby sent Max another text.
Can’t wait to see you later.
The knot in her stomach had untied itself. This time, for good measure, she added a string of xs and a champagne emoji.
10
Cake and biscuits
Max’s spirits had plummeted as Libby left the house that morning. Just as he feared, she’d been furious to discover he was seeing Stella. He’d handled it like an idiot, and made matters worse by taking her at her word when she said she didn’t mind him seeing Stella. Of course, she did.
‘Bear, I don’t understand women,’ he lamented. ‘She said she wasn’t coming over this morning, so I went out to catch DCI Morrison before he went into some meeting, and now she’s mad with me for that. She even blames me because she made herself late for work.’
Bear gazed back at him with solemn brown eyes. ‘Yes, you know what I mean, don’t you? And there’s Stella. I feel responsible for her, but I know almost nothing about the way she lives now, and I don’t want to get involved in it.’ Bear grunted, sympathetic to his mood. ‘Maybe she could get her latest man, this Ivor person, to pay for some protection. That’s what celebrities do. He’s meant to be rich, after all.’
He sent a text to Stella, suggesting that, and she pinged him back with a thumbs-up sign. She wasn’t too scared, then. Max could leave her to Ivor while he worked on the emails she’d received.
He sat on the floor and rubbed Bear’s stomach. Shipley, never wanting to miss out on attention, galloped across and wriggled his wiry body in between Max and Bear. ‘But as for you, Shipley, what are we going to do with you? You’re beautifully behaved – well, most of the time – but the trainer reckons you’re still too excitable to go into police work.’ He rubbed the dog’s droopy, furry ears. ‘Never mind, we still love you.’
How calming it was to talk to dogs.
Bear scrambled to his feet, awkward, his back legs stiff.
‘You’re getting on, old chap,’ Max said. ‘Libby wants you to visit the vet, see if you have a touch of rheumatism. I could do that tomorrow – get back in her good books, maybe. Good idea?’
Neither dog seemed to have an answer, but Max rang Tanya, the local vet, and made an appointment for the next day.
While they were out, a text arrived from Libby. She’d cancelled their lunch, but she often had to do that, if the bakery was busy. She sounded cheerful enough. They could straighten things out over dinner.
Max ate a solitary meal of a dried-up ham sandwich at home, ruminating on his early-morning conversation with DCI Morrison about Carys Evans. The police officer had been as lugubrious as ever, his moustache seeming to droop with sorrow as they talked.
‘No cause of death, yet, beyond that blow on the head. No obvious weapon, but plenty of branches around. My colleague in Bristol’s handling the investigation at the moment, but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t look around a bit, use your local knowledge, and Libby’s as well. Your usual rates?’ Forest and Ramshore received a minimal payment for their services with the police.
‘That’s fine, unless you need more than background information. If you do, we’ll have to discuss the finances a little more.’
Morrison had sighed, looking even sadder than usual. ‘My poor budget…’ he’d lamented.
Max had a free afternoon. The best thing to do, he told Bear and Shipley, was to sort out Stella’s problems as soon as possible.
He made himself comfortable at his desk. A plateful of Libby’s chocolate cake and a tin of home-made biscuits at his elbow, he began a search through every piece of information about Stella he could find.
There was very little. She seemed to belong to few online groups or forums. She had a Facebook page, but it was sparse. There were a couple of photos of Joe with his wife, Claire.
Max scrolled further and caught his breath. There was Debbie, their daughter. Max carried the same photo in his wallet, and the sight of it never failed to hit him like a punch in the chest. He moved on to a holiday picture of Stella herself, beautifully styled as always, on a cruise. There was no sign of a companion. Presumably he – Max would lay bets it was a ‘he’ on the cruise with Stella – had taken the photograph.
He looked through the ‘friends of’ section of Facebook. There was more to see here. Stella was ‘friends’ with sixty-four people. Max groaned. Not so many by Mandy’s standards, but sifting through them would take forever.
He stopped and ate the cake. Shipley begged, pathetically, but Max remembered Libby’s warnings about chocolate being poisonous for dogs and fed him dog biscuits instead. Anyway, he wanted the cake for himself.
Scrolling through page after page of names and photos, now and then, Max recognised a face. There was the woman who’d lived next door to Max’s family in London, back when the children were young. Wilhelmina, that was her name. A Dutch lady, married to an Englishman, she’d spoken better English than Max himself. Temporarily diverted, he looked through her page, interested to find her two children, now married adults, and a tiny grandchild.
A twinge of envy at this evidence of family life surprised Max. He suddenly missed Libby, with a sharp pain low in his stomach. He’d lost one marriage. Whatever he did, he mustn’t mess up this second chance at happiness.
At that moment, his phone pinged with another message from Libby. He sat back, phone in hand, and read it through, twice. After a long moment’s thought, he sent back a cheerful, emoji-filled text and returned to his task.
Two slices of cake and several cups of coffee later, he’d made a list of ten people both he and Stella had known in the past, alongside a much longer list of the ‘friends’ he’d never heard of.
His stomach ached a little and his legs shook from too much coffee. He closed down the computer. He’d consign Stella’s woes to the back of his mind, take a shower, dress in his best, and concentrate on Libby.
‘Do you think we should bring Fuzzy over here and get her used to living somewhere new?’ Libby asked. That sounded like the offer of an olive branch.
They were at Exham House, ready to leave for the restaurant. She’d kissed Max when she arrived, but they were being unusually polite with each other.
Max didn’t blame her for being annoyed that he’d been emailing and texting Stella in secret. He hadn’t even confessed, yet, that the trip to Bristol had been to visit his ex-wife. He was waiting for the appropriate moment.
‘Don’t cats find it hard to adjust to new places?’ he said.
Libby’s indrawn breath told him he’d said the wrong thing, again. It was getting to be a habit.
‘But I’d love her to move in. You’re here almost all the time, now. I bet Fuzzy misses you,’ he added.
Libby smiled and Max breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Let’s try it. There’s a warm airing cupboard upstairs, so she can retreat there if the dogs become too boisterous. Bring her over, tomorrow.’
He’d confess to meeting Stella once they were in the restaurant.
‘Time to go.’
Backtracking on the original plan to visit a posh restaurant in Bristol or Bath, they’d agreed instead on a meal in a country pub. Max wasn’t sure which of them had suggested it first, but he was relieved. Snooty restaurants reminded him a little too much of life in London with Stella, and that was the last thing he wanted to think about just now.
He wanted to concentrate on Libby.
He was relieved to find Libby seemed to be back to her usual, warm self.
Somerset had plenty of suitable places, and they settled on one in a nearby village, just a fifteen-minute drive away.
The temperature had dropped even further during the day and the wind was from the east, whistling through the bare branches of the trees. The Rising Sun was warm and welcoming, with a roaring fire, horse brasses, and whitewashed walls decorated with watercolours of local scenes, painted by amateur artists. Christmas garlands hung from the ceiling, and, to Max’s relief, the Christmas carol music was turned down low.
Libby and Max ordered mineral water and Diet Coke at the bar. ‘My waistline. I want to fit into my wedding dress,’ Libby explained.
They settled at their favourite table and picked up the menu.
Libby coughed, and fiddled with the cutlery. ‘By the way,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry we’ve had to delay the wedding. I was thoughtless.’
‘I’m fine with it.’ That was true, now. He could wait, if it meant so much to Libby. Anyway, he had far more to confess.
He opened his mouth to tell her, but just then the waiter, a tall, thin youth with a big smile, came to take their orders. Max wondered if Libby could hear his heart thumping. He hadn’t felt so nervous since he’d been interviewed for his first job at the bank. He really couldn’t care less what they ordered.
As the waiter left to organise two plates of lasagne, Max took a deep breath. It was now or never. ‘Look, Libby, when I disappeared off to Bristol, I went to see Stella. She’d asked me to meet her – she thinks she has a stalker.’
‘Has she? That’s scary.’ Libby shivered. ‘Stalkers are notoriously difficult to stop. No wonder she got in touch with you. Did you give her some advice?’
Oddly deflated at the lack of reaction, Max asked, ‘You’re not upset?’
She swirled her Coke around in her glass. ‘Why would I be? You didn’t, I suppose, spend the afternoon alone together in a hotel room?’
‘Well, no. But don’t you mind?’
‘Now, you’re looking disappointed. Max Ramshore, I do believe you want to make me jealous.’
He thought about that for a moment. ‘Maybe. Just a little.’
She turned laughing brown eyes on his face, and his heart filled with affection.
‘I don’t understand. You sounded so unhappy on the phone that I’d been in touch with her, never mind disappearing off to Bristol to see her.’
‘That was because you were leaving me in the dark. I was annoyed when I found the two of you were in touch – but only because you kept
it a secret. I trust you not to cheat on me, especially after all the things you’ve said about Stella, but she was a big part of your life for years and we can’t just airbrush her out of the picture. What upset me is that you shut me out. Why didn’t you tell me where you were going, instead of making up a story?’ She set the glass back on the table. ‘I sometimes feel as though I only know a part of you. There are whole areas of Max Ramshore I never see. That’s what makes me jealous. Not your ex-wife.’
‘Wow.’ Max sat in silence.
‘See, you’re doing it now. Shutting me out. What are you thinking? Are you cross with me, or what?’
‘I’m never cross with you. Well, hardly ever. I’ll try to do better.’
Libby laughed. ‘Well, that’s all right then. Don’t look so worried. I don’t expect you to tell me every thought that pops into your head, heaven forbid, but it’s safe for you to share things that matter – like Stella getting in touch, for example.’
A large boulder seemed to have rolled off Max’s shoulders. He hadn’t even known it was there, but relief made him light-headed. ‘I promise to keep you in the picture in future.’
They toasted each other with their non-alcoholic drinks.
‘Now, down to business. Tell me all about finding the body in the woods – was it Carys Evans? I’m guessing there wasn’t another. Then, I’ll tell you about my day.’
11
Jack and the Beanstalk
Next morning, they both slept late. Libby was first to venture into the kitchen, greeted with hysterical joy by Bear and Shipley. Max, who’d fallen asleep almost as soon as they arrived back at the house, was still snoring gently.
As Libby waited for water to boil, she took the dogs outside, into the garden. The air was clear, with the chill of late November, a hint of frost riming the grass. Bear moved slowly, awkwardly, but Shipley bounced with joy, dashing between his favourite bushes in search of traces of squirrel.
Murder at the Gorge (The Exham-on-Sea Murder Mysteries) Page 6