It was the clotted cream that made all the difference. Somehow, it tasted like heaven.
The owner of the Cracked Spine, Nella Harcourt, had a secret supplier that she refused to share with anyone else. Fay had even tried to shame her into it by offering to share her own recipe for fudge chocolate brownies, which the English never could make as well as Americans. Nella had thanked Fay politely for the recipe but turned conveniently deaf whenever she brought up the subject of clotted cream.
Perhaps today would bring answers.
Fay trotted happily into the coffee shop. She was looking forward to a traditional Cornish cream tea, as well as a browse through Nella’s wonderfully curated collection of books. She bent to stroke Nella’s cat, Isis, who was always around.
When she walked on, she noticed David and Laetitia having tea together.
Fay almost turned and went straight back out again, but David happened to look up and catch her eye. It was bad enough that he had seen her coming to an abrupt halt, like a cartoon character stepping on a rake. She wasn’t going to compound her embarrassment by fleeing too.
Why did she have to keep running into them? They were going to think she was following them around.
“Oh, I don’t believe it.” Laetitia caught sight of Fay. “I told you she was stalking us.”
Fay’s smile was a little fixed as she took her place at the only empty table in the coffee shop, which happened to be right next to theirs.
“Hi there.” She tried to sound relaxed.
Her greeting was met with an icy nod from Laetitia and a smile from David. It was his special smile – the one that banished the severity from his face and lit him with warmth from within.
He was trying to make up for Laeititia’s rudeness, but Fay almost wished he hadn’t bothered. That smile made her go a little wobbly, which made her remember the kiss they had shared in a small boat on a heaving sea, and none of that was appropriate at the moment.
“I had an early lunch, so I thought I’d stop by for one of Nella’s famous cream teas.”
Fay couldn’t resist trying to explain what she was doing there. When neither of them replied, she subsided and started scrolling through her phone to make it clear that she had no intention of intruding on their tea.
“Actually, a cream tea sounds delicious.” David looked at Laetitia. “Shall I order for both of us?”
“Absolutely not. You know I never eat at this hour. I’m surprised that you would want to. Such an unnecessary indulgence.”
“Sometimes unnecessary indulgences are the best kind.”
A waitress handed Fay a menu, but Nella herself came to take the order.
“I’ll have the cream tea, thanks Nella.”
“And which tea would you like with that?”
“Ceylon, please.”
“Coming right up.”
The English mostly drank Indian varieties of tea, but Fay had found that Ceylon tea had a more delicate flavor. A year ago, she had barely even tasted tea. Now she knew the difference between Indian and Ceylon. That made her happy for some reason.
Chapter 16
Nella always looked magnificent, but today she had outdone herself. She was wearing a purple turban of incredible height and complexity. It matched her opera cape, which was decorated with hundreds of pieces of reflective glass sewn onto it so that it glittered as she walked.
She gave David and Laetitia a benign smile. “How is my dear Barty, David? I haven’t seen him in an age.”
“He is very well, Nella. Didn’t he come in here for tea on Saturday morning?”
Her eyes twinkled at him. “Well, it feels like an age. Tell him I miss him.”
“I most certainly will.”
Nella drifted off to the kitchen, her cape sparkling behind her.
“Don’t tell me that dreadful old woman is after your father.” Laetitia watched her retreat. “Why, she must be ten years older than him.”
“You wouldn’t think it was odd if he were ten years older than her,” said David. “And she’s not dreadful – she’s rather lovely. Nella and my father have known each other forever. She was his babysitter back when she was sixteen and he was six. They have a flirty friendship. I think it’s nice.”
Fay pretended to be absorbed in her phone as she eavesdropped on their conversation. The atmosphere between them was not pleasant. They spent more time sniping at each other than talking.
Fay could imagine Laetitia in a relationship with a high-achieving professional like herself. It would have to be someone who didn’t have a strange sentimental attachment to a tiny island off the coast of Cornwall. In Fay’s mind, Laetitia’s ideal partner would choose to live in Boston or New York City. He would share her attitude to food and not try to lure her into scones in the middle of the afternoon. They would work together, work out together, and eat salad for dinner every night.
They would take mini-breaks on the occasional weekend - Paris in the spring, Vermont in the fall. In due course, they might have one, carefully planned child.
Fay was so wrapped up in mapping out Laetitia’s happily-ever-after with her fictional boyfriend that she almost didn’t notice her food arriving.
She spread butter on the warm scone, added a layer of strawberry jam, and topped it off with a spoonful of clotted cream. As she bit into this confection, she closed her eyes and savored the taste sensations. Once again, she was struck by the richness of the texture and the deliciousness of the cream. It was hard to put her finger on the difference, but somehow it beat every other cream she had ever tasted.
Fay looked up and locked eyes with Nella, across the room. Nella shook her head, as though to say, You’ll never figure it out. The secret of my cream will die with me.
This only made Fay more determined to discover the truth.
She had almost finished her scone when Nella came over for a chat. She pulled out a chair from one of the other tables and positioned herself between Fay and David, making it clear that she was including both tables in the conversation.
“I hear you’ve been asking questions at Sunset Acres,” she said to Fay.
Fay poured herself another cup of tea. “That’s right. The Binnie family aren’t happy with the explanation they were given for their mother’s death. They asked me to look into it.”
“It’s Mrs. Binnie who has the brother and sister kittens of our two, isn’t it?” asked David. “Maggie’s mum?”
Fay smiled. “Correct. Freddy and Cinnamon. They decided to keep the names I had given them. I saw them recently and they’re doing very well. Growing fast, just like yours. Mrs. Binnie told me they are the only sources of joy in their house at the moment.”
“It must be hard to accept a death that was so totally unexpected,” said Nella. “I knew Sophy quite well. It was a terrible shock.”
“Do you have any friends at Sunset Acres, Nella?” asked Fay.
“Quite a few, actually. I took a tour of the facilities last year. When you get to be my age, you have to start thinking about things like that. None of us knows how much longer we’ll be able to keep living independently.”
“What were your impressions of it?”
Nella looked thoughtful. “On the surface, everything seems lovely. And I know several people who are very happy there. But you can’t get away from the fact that Sunset Acres is being run for profit by a private company. That means that all their decisions are made according to what is best for their bottom line. Making money is their primary goal.”
“Well, I don’t see anything wrong with that,” said Laetitia. “You can’t expect them to run a place like that as a charity.”
Nella’s eyes rested on Laetitia for a moment. “Quite true. And I can’t argue with that. But I can choose whether to invest all my life savings in a place that could be shut down tomorrow if the owners decided it wasn’t profitable enough.”
“Have you heard anything about it being shut down?” asked Fay.
“Not at all. I was just using that
as an example.”
“What about the standard of health care in the frail-care unit?”
“Ah, now that’s interesting,” said Nella. “There actually was a whisper of a scandal recently. It didn’t reach everyone’s ears, and I’m only telling you now because I would very much like to see the truth come out about Sophy’s death - not to mention Iona Busby’s.”
“So, what happened?” asked Laetitia, keen to get to the point.
“Well … the rumor is that money has gone missing from the frail-care unit. The owners of Sunset Acres are investigating.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that,” said Fay. “Argyle Holdings confirmed it. They’ve put a moratorium on any extra spending in the unit. They suspect that the thief is someone senior - someone with access to the finances.”
Nella’s turban wobbled as she nodded. “As a matter of fact, they suspect Matron Sale. Because of her bingo habit, you know.
“Bingo?” Fay associated bingo with elderly ladies winning toaster ovens on weekday afternoons. “What has bingo got to do with it?”
“Not regular bingo,” said Nella. “These are more like slot machines. You feed your money in and pull the handle and see how many matches you get on the electronic bingo card. There’s a bingo slot machine venue in Truro. That’s where Mrs. Sale spends her off days.”
Fay glanced at David, noticing a certain rigidity in his posture. He was staring straight ahead as though he wanted to disappear from the conversation. It wasn’t hard to figure out why. He was the local doctor. It was very possible that Matron Sale had confided her gambling problem to him, but doctor-patient confidentiality made it impossible for him to talk about it.
Fay would have loved some independent confirmation of what Nella was saying, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask David about it. The fact that he took patient confidentiality seriously made her like him more, not less. Besides, his obvious unease was confirmation enough.
“People who get into gambling only have themselves to thank when everything goes wrong,” said Laetitia. “They should just stop it. How hard can it be not to get on a ferry and throw away your monthly income in Truro? I have no patience with people like that.”
“It’s a compulsion,” said David. “If all compulsions and addictions were that easy to stop, we would live in a very different world.
As Fay walked home, she was flagged down by Doc Dyer who was taking the air outside the surgery in the company of Tigger and Zorro. He puffed on his corncob pipe, which told her he had finished consulting for the night. It had just gone five o’clock.
“Afternoon, Fay love. You’re looking pleased with yourself.”
“I had a cream tea at the Cracked Spine, so I’m feeling pretty content.”
“I’m not surprised. Did you see David and Laetitia? They were also going there for tea.”
Fay bent to stroke Zorro who had hopped off the pillar to wind herself around her ankles.
“I did see them,” she said. “I seem to be following them around the village lately. It’s getting embarrassing.”
Doc smiled and said nothing, but his eyes were full of kindness and understanding.
“How do they strike you since they got back from America?” he asked. “In terms of their relationship, I mean.”
Fay could only be honest. “There’s some tension there. They seem to be irritating each other at the moment. I guess all relationships go through bad patches.”
“I guess they do. I wish I knew whether it was just a grumpy phase or a serious incompatibility that’s making them bicker like this. I hope they give themselves time to figure out which it is before David does something stupid like propose to her.”
Fay had been expecting this, but it was hard to hear.
“Propose to her? Are they really at that stage?”
“For someone like David, getting engaged is the next logical step after you’ve been dating for a while. He wants a wife and children. He wants the whole package, like his mother and I had. I’m afraid that his loyalty will lead him to choose someone who’s wrong for him.”
Fay considered sharing with Doc Dyer her fantasy about the kind of man that would make Laetitia happy. She knew he would appreciate it, but something stopped her. This was potentially his future daughter-in-law they were talking about. She wouldn’t encourage him to say something he might regret later.
“How’s Dr. Farlow?” she asked, changing the subject.
“He has made a remarkable recovery. It’s almost as if nothing ever happened. We’ve run as many tests as we can, and we still can’t find what caused his attack.”
“No abnormal results? Nothing out of the ordinary?”
“His adrenalin was a little high, but that’s to be expected when your system has gone into crisis like that. Also, his sugar levels were unstable for twenty-four hours afterwards. But that’s also to be expected. Any kind of health crisis can drive a diabetic’s sugar levels haywire.
“It’s all very strange. You know that four patients in a row at Sunset Acres have died of heart attack symptoms in the last few weeks?”
“Yes, indeed. I’m going there myself this evening for ward rounds. Dr. Farlow is easing back into work, but I thought I would accompany him tonight, just to make sure he’s okay.”
“You’re going to Sunset Acres?” This struck Fay as a very bad idea. “Can’t David go with you?”
“He’s spending the evening with Laetitia. I’m a big boy, Fay. I think I can manage a visit to the local retirement estate on my own.”
Chapter 17
Fay spent the evening catching up on paperwork and clearing her inbox.
She made a note to phone Noah’s Ark Sanctuary in the morning to find out how their new guest was settling in. She checked their Instagram page and saw that they hadn’t announced Leo’s arrival yet. This wasn’t surprising. They had warned her that they would give him some time to settle in before they turned the cameras on him.
Fay just hoped that it was going well. He deserved the chance to settle into a permanent home where he would be well taken care of and stimulated to live as close to a natural life as possible.
At eight o’clock, Fay went down to the kitchen to collect the roast chicken dinner Morwen had set aside for her. She ate it in front of an old episode of Farmer Brown, one of her favorite British mystery series. Then she got ready for bed and slipped under the duvet with The Moving Finger, her latest Miss Marple novel. This was her favorite time of day, when all the work was done, and she could lose herself in a good book. The cats came to join her, which just rounded out her contentment.
But as hard as she tried, Fay couldn’t concentrate on her book. Her mind was too full of the real-life mystery she had been asked to solve.
Facts and possibilities whirled through her mind. Four people had died in similar circumstances within weeks of each other. Two of the deaths had been expected, while the other two had not. The same group of caregivers looked after all of them.
Then there was Matron Sale who was in charge of all the staff at the frail-care unit. She was a nurse herself and sometimes took an active role in caring for the patients. She had supposedly not been there on any of the nights in question because she normally left at five o’clock. But that couldn’t be verified because the guard at the entrance gate only required people to sign in, and not out.
There was a time when Dr. Farlow had been Fay’s number-one suspect. He had been working as a locum on the island for a month, and his arrival coincided exactly with the death of the first patient, Mr. Chandler. Who was better placed to make a death look accidental than a rogue doctor? But then Dr. Farlow himself had fallen victim to an apparent heart attack. He was an elderly diabetic, so it was quite possible that his attack had been brought on by natural causes, but it was just too similar to the four deaths to be coincidental in Fay’s mind.
As for how the attack had been accomplished - apparently at long distance – Fay had her theories about that. She would have loved to see an ana
lysis of the insulin Dr. Farlow had used to inject himself with shortly before the attack began. What if it hadn’t been insulin at all?
She reached for her phone and started to type.
Fay: Sorry to message so late, David. I just had a thought. Could you examine Dr. Farlow’s insulin kit for any signs of tampering or impurity? He injected himself just before his heart attack happened.
As no reply was immediately forthcoming, Fay put down her phone and tried to return to her book. It failed to distract her.
The trouble with Dr. Farlow was that he didn’t seem to have a motive either. He was an outsider – completely unknown on the island until a month ago.
The way Sunset Acres was structured financially, on the other hand, threw up plenty of motives. The residents owned life rights to the cottages, which they paid off in the form of fixed monthly instalments. Those instalments were guaranteed to stay the same throughout the resident’s life.
The only way Argyle Holdings could get a higher rental for a cottage was if the resident in question died and the cottage could be put back on the market. Money talked - and in the current economic climate, it talked louder than ever.
Fay felt calmer now that she had sorted everything out in her mind. She was able to concentrate on her book for a few chapters before her eyes grew heavy and she put it down.
She fell asleep surrounded by cats.
Fay had just taken the last of her morning baking out of the oven when her phone buzzed.
David Dyer: There’s something wrong with my father.
Fay’s oven mitts went flying as she flung them off her hands.
“Can you handle the breakfast service on your own, Mor? Something’s wrong with Doc Dyer. I have to go.”
The Cat That Was Bigger Than You Page 10