by AG Barnett
“Oh, I’m sure they’ll be all right. After all, Anna’s the star attraction, isn’t she? And the hotel needs it if we’re going to turn this place around.”
“You really care for this place, don’t you?” Mary smiled.
“I love it,” Daisy said warmly. “I basically grew up in the hotel when Dad worked here—it’s always felt like home.”
“What about James?” Mary asked, hoping that just saying the barman's name might provoke some kind of reaction.
“James?” Daisy answered, her cheeks colouring. “I don't know what you mean,” she said with a small shake of her head.
Mary scrambled for something to say and suddenly remembered James’s hand reaching out for Daisy’s at breakfast before the young woman had pulled it away.
“I thought there might be something between you two?”
Daisy’s brow furrowed and her lips thinned. “No, there's nothing between us.”
There was something angry behind this statement, but before she could push it further, a movement to her right made Mary look up and she saw Ruth Faulkner exiting from a room and heading towards the stairs.
“I’ll see you later,” Mary said quickly and turned to jog after Ruth. Her previous conversation with the young cook had not revealed much, but that had been in front of Anna, her boss. Maybe a one-on-one conversation would be more enlightening.
Away from Anna Crosby, Ruth Faulkner seemed to have regained her sprightly nature.
“Oh! Hello, Mary. Sorry about all that before, I think Anna is just a bit shocked, of course, we all are!”
“Yes, of course,” Mary said, following her through the door at the end of the corridor and down the stairs. “I was wondering if you could just tell me more about Thomas?”
“What do you want to know?” Ruth asked in a light tone.
“Well, what was he like? Who were his friends?”
“He knocked around with some lads from school.” She shrugged. “He was pretty focused on his work though, so he wasn’t much of a socialite.”
“He cared about his work then?”
She gave a light laugh. “You could say that! Thomas was obsessed with cooking, it was his whole life. He had so many plans.” She shook her head sadly as she stopped in the middle of the empty lobby and stared at the floor. “I guess all we can do is try and carry on as he would have wanted,” she said, snapping out of it and looking up with a bright smile. “The restaurant, I mean. Anyway, I’d better go. I said I’d help make some calls about cancelling things tonight.”
Mary watched her head off towards the restaurant and folded her arms. Why did she get the feeling that everyone here was not being honest with her?
She pulled her coat on, wrapped her scarf around her and headed out of the main doors of the hotel. She turned right, walking towards the centre of Parchester where she had earlier agreed to meet Dot and Pea. As she reached the corner, she glanced right into the side street that the restaurant faced out onto and saw a middle-aged couple staring through the glass front. Something about their manner made her pause. They were so still, so quiet, that she somehow knew instinctively who they were.
They turned towards her as she approached them.
“Hi, are you Thomas’s parents?”
“That’s right.” The man nodded. “I’m Geoff and this is Karen.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Mary said quietly.
He nodded as tears rolled down his wife’s cheeks.
“I’ve just been hearing what a fantastic cook he was.”
Geoff gave a small chuckle as Karen smiled. “Oh yes!” Geoff laughed. “He was very ambitious was Thomas. He was going to go right to the top, you know, this place was just a starting point.”
“He planned to leave?”
“Oh yes, he’d already had an offer from a restaurant in London.”
“Very prestigious place,” Karen chimed in.
“Yes, very prestigious,” Geoff confirmed. The two of them looked back at the restaurant, and the moment of joy at remembering their son had turned to sadness at his loss again.
“I really am sorry,” she said again, but they didn’t seem to hear her. They stared into the restaurant holding hands, tears falling silently onto the street at their feet.
Chapter Thirteen
“He was going to leave?” Pea said in surprise.
“It sounds like it,” Mary answered, biting into her panini with gusto.
She had found Pea and Dot back in the small café on the High Street that they had been to yesterday. The smell of melted cheese had assaulted her senses upon entering and reminded her that she had not eaten at breakfast. Before she had even said hello to them she had ordered a ham and cheese panini, a large latté and a chocolate brownie, and was now attacking the melted masterpiece with enthusiasm. She was glad that Sandra, the chatterbox from yesterday, was nowhere to be seen.
“I don’t see how that would make someone decide to murder him though,” Dot said. “If they were annoyed about Thomas leaving the restaurant, killing him isn’t going to get the veg chopped, is it?”
“It wouldn’t be good timing for the restaurant though, would it?” Pea countered. “They got a Michelin star a couple of months ago and there’s only three of them. If he’s using the success to bail on them and get a better job, I can see them being annoyed.”
Mary dabbed at her mouth in a manner that was far more ladylike than the way she had just demolished the panini. “I can see someone maybe experiencing a flash of anger when they found out he was leaving,” she said, “but not poisoning. That’s got to be planned, surely? I mean, the kitchen is full of knives—a stabbing would make more sense for a flash of anger.”
“Maybe they had something poisonous lying around and just decided to use it on the spur of the moment?” Pea shrugged.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Mary said, cursing herself for not performing a more thorough search of the kitchen.
“The police looked at everything though,” Dot said, “and after you had whispered sweet nothings into Inspector Corrigan’s ear, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d gone around and tasted everything himself.”
“Haha,” Mary said, her eyes shooting daggers. She noticed a man in a blue pinstripe suit looking at her over Dot’s shoulder. He was sitting at a table on the other side of the room, a newspaper in his hand and a coffee mug paused halfway to his lips. He was staring at Mary as though she had sprouted a new head, but she was used to it. Decades on prime-time TV meant that your privacy was rarely your own. She ignored him and turned back to the others.
“There must be something about the timing,” Pea said.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, why then?” he continued. “I mean if you were going to poison someone, does it make sense that you’d do it when there was a room full of people there?”
“Bloody hell Pea, you’re a genius! You’ve got it!” Mary said, punching him on the arm in excitement and causing him to swear as he rubbed it. “That’s exactly why they did it then!”
“You’re going to have to explain that a bit,” Dot said before sipping her tea, unmoved by Mary’s excitement.
“Well,” Mary began, but stopped as the light from the window which faced out onto the street was blocked by a figure. She turned to see the man who had been staring at her looking down with a nervous smile.
“Excuse me, but I couldn’t help noticing you and…”
“No problem,” Mary said wearily. “Do you want a picture or an autograph?”
“Oh!” the man exclaimed, taking a step backwards as though he had been stung. “No, no, I wouldn’t dream of bothering you on such a trivial manner when you are with friends!” He flashed the same nervous smile at Dot and Pea.
“Oh,” Mary said, “then how can I help you…?”
He looked around the small café, before pulling out the spare chair at the table and landing in it heavily, then leaning forward and talking in a low voice.
�
��Is it true that you were at the Rudolph Hotel last night?”
Mary’s eyes flickered to Dot and Pea, who were both looking just as bemused and surprised as she was.
“Yes,” she answered slowly.
“I don’t suppose you could tell me what happened exactly, could you?” the man asked, his voice awash with nervous excitement.
“Are you a reporter?”
“Oh! No! Nothing like that! I just have… a business interest.”
“Look, tell us exactly who you are and why you want to know or I’m calling the police right now,” Mary said, leaning back in her chair and folding her arms as she fixed him with her hardest stare.
He was a plain and simple-looking man with a face that was born to blend into a crowd. Mary was fairly sure that if she closed her eyes and he went and sat at another table, she would struggle to pick him out. He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly and nodded.
“Very well, I am Mr Sanker and I represent a group interested in the purchase of the Rudolph Hotel.”
“You’re the one who’s been talking to Roderick Sutton?”
“That’s right.” He nodded encouragingly. “Everything seemed to be moving along swimmingly, but I’m afraid we’ve met some resistance from Mr Sutton’s partner.”
“Spencer Harley, he doesn’t want to sell,” Mary added.
“Quite so.” The little man nodded.
“I’m still not entirely sure what this has to do with what happened last night?”
“Well,” the man said, shifting awkwardly on his seat. “A sudden death like that, well…,” he shrugged, “it can give a place a bit of a reputation.”
“You mean you thought you could maybe get the place cheaper if there was some juicy story in the papers about a death to put tourists off?” Dot said.
Mr Sanker gave a nervous laugh. “I realise that does sound a little crass, but you’re quite right. I saw that Miss Blake here was going to be at the event tonight and guessed you had been there. When I saw you here today, I thought it would be a good chance to find out what happened and see if we could use it as leverage somehow.”
“Then I tell you what,” Mary said, “I’ll tell you exactly what happened last night if you tell me everything about this deal to buy the hotel.”
He frowned at her with a smile on his lips and then nodded.
“Very well. There isn’t much to tell, though. My firm wishes to purchase the property and turn it into a number of flats. We had agreed on a fee with Mr Sutton and believed everything to be going well until there was a delay in getting the final signed paperwork back.”
“Because Spencer Harley wouldn’t sign it?”
“Correct. Mr Sutton had led us to believe that his partner was fully on board with the sale, but when we pressed him on getting the papers signed he confessed that Mr Harley was actually quite reluctant. I then visited Mr Harley and he told me he would only sell over his dead body.”
“And yet you’re still here trying to persuade him?”
“We have already put a substantial amount of money into the project. Architectural plans, lawyers, meeting with the town council…” He trailed off, shaking his head.
“I assume this offer is a decent one?” Mary said with one eyebrow raised.
“Oh! Very decent! The hotel really doesn’t make any money and is in need of a great deal of repair. We feel the offer is in line with market value, but the truth is, on the open market they’re very unlikely to find a buyer.” He paused and smiled at Mary expectantly. “Now, if anything that occurred last night were to help things along, I would be very grateful.”
Mary smiled sweetly at him as she stood up from the table. “I’m sorry, but Spencer Harley is a friend so I couldn’t possibly betray his confidence.”
“But… but you said!” the man blustered, rising to his feet to face her.
“I’m an actress,” Mary replied with a shrug, “I’ve been lying for a living for almost thirty years.” She turned and strode out from the café, hoping that Pea and Dot were following her and that Mr Sanker wasn’t.
Chapter Fourteen
“You shouldn’t wind people up like that, Mary,” Pea said as he and Dot caught up with her brisk walk along the High Street. “That man could be the murderer for all you know!”
“What? Of course, he isn’t!”
“How do you know?! Think about it. He’s desperate for this sale to go through, right? And Spencer had said only over his dead body?”
“Yes,” Dot interrupted, “but there’s a bit of a flaw in that theory, isn’t there? Spencer wasn’t the one who died.”
“Well, no,” Pea admitted, “but maybe he was the target.”
Mary stopped walking and turned to him. “What do you mean?”
“We’ve been thinking that someone meant to kill Thomas, but what if they were trying to kill someone else at dinner?”
“You mean they could have been after Spencer?”
“Or anyone!” he answered, throwing his hands up in the air. “That’s if it was poison at all, of course…”
“It was,” Mary snapped back. “But you make a good point. We should try and find out what was going on with all of them. Maybe Spencer was in the way of the hotel sale, but there could be other things going on.”
“What are you thinking?” Dot asked. She had known Mary long enough to know when an idea was brewing.
“Before we were interrupted in the café, Pea said something that got me thinking.”
“Oh yes!” Pea said with a broad grin. “You said I was a genius if I recall?”
Mary shook her head. “No… that doesn’t sound like something I’d say. Anyway, you were wondering why on earth someone would try and murder someone with all those people there as witnesses, but maybe that was the whole point? Maybe they wanted all those people there so that there were lots of suspects?”
“But why would any of the others be suspects? What reason did any of them have for killing Thomas?” Dot said.
“Well, we know that he was planning on leaving the restaurant—maybe that was something to do with it? And then there’s always the crime of passion,” she smirked.
“Surprise, surprise,” Dot said, rolling her eyes. “Mary thinks sex has got something to do with it.”
“Oh, come on,” Pea grumbled, his face wrinkled in disgust, “that’s my sister.”
“I’m not talking about sex,” Mary snapped, “I’m talking about unrequited love.” She smiled as she watched their faces react with sudden interest. “I noticed at breakfast that James Donovan seems to have a thing for Daisy, but when I asked her about it she seemed angry.”
“Well, if I was James, it wouldn't be Daisy I was after. It would be Ruth.”
“I beg your pardon?” Dot snapped.
“Oh, well it's not big news,” Pea said with a shrug, “I’d imagine half the men in town have a thing for that girl.”
Mary noticed Dot shoot him an angry sideways glance.
“Bloody hell, Pea,” Mary said, mostly because Dot’s reaction seemed to warrant it. “She’s half your age! Anyway, that was pretty much my point. Thomas was a good-looking young man, he and Ruth worked together, maybe there was something there?”
“But what has that got to do with James and Daisy?” Dot asked.
“Who knows? But there could have been some sort of love triangle going on. Maybe Daisy is angry with him because he was after Ruth as well?”
“And so you think the bartender, James, might have bumped Thomas off to clear the field?” Dot chipped in.
“Exactly!” Mary said, her mind racing with possibilities. “And then there’s Anna Crosby.”
“What would she want to murder Thomas for?” Pea asked.
“Well, she doesn’t seem to be the most stable person and I think she likes a drink a bit too much. There was something odd about the way Ruth was protecting her—maybe Thomas had some dirt on her he was going to expose?”
“This is all well and good,” Dot said haug
htily. “But there’s no point in just making up all these things. We need to talk to them and find out what’s really going on.”
“Of course, but at least this gives us a starting point. I suggest we split up, each tackle someone different.”
“You’re beginning to sound like a professional outfit,” a voice said from behind her. She turned to see Inspector Joe Corrigan, his dark brown eyes twinkling mischievously under his mop of brown hair. “That is,” he continued, “apart from discussing a potential murder case in the middle of the street.”
“Maybe if people weren’t eavesdropping into private conversations it wouldn’t be an issue?” Mary said, raising her chin defiantly. “Have you managed to do your job and find out how he was poisoned yet?”
Mary felt Dot and Pea edge away, as though they sensed this was something between Mary and Corrigan and not them.
The inspector’s smile faded, his face turning serious and businesslike.
“He wasn’t poisoned, Mary. I got the lab to test everything he ate, there was no poison in anything.”
“And what about the post-mortem?” Mary asked. “Do they know why he died?”
“It hasn’t been done yet.” He shrugged. “There’s paperwork, lack of resources… Look, Mary, I rushed the tests on the food through because you seemed so certain something was wrong here, but there was nothing. If he was poisoned, it would have had to have been in the food—you all shared from the same wine bottles and coffee pots. I’m sorry, but I think the post-mortem will show that Thomas Mosley died from his underlying heart condition.”
Mary stared back at him, her face like cold marble. Why did she feel that this was so wrong? If Thomas had died from natural causes, then it was a tragic, but unavoidable event. Surely that was preferable to murder? That someone should deliberately try and cut that young life short? So why was she so sure? She pictured his face again, twisted in pain, confusion and anguish. As she did so she felt the now familiar pang deep in her gut that something was terribly, terribly wrong. She might not be able to explain it, but she knew she was right.