Till Death Do Us Tart (Oxford Tearoom Mysteries ~ Book 4)

by H. Y. Hanna

  “Well, aside from Aunt Audrey and me, only Gemma, her mother, and Mrs Cooke and her friends,” said Mary.

  “That’s a lot of fingerprints already.” Devlin laid the envelope aside and leaned forwards slightly. “Mary, there’s evidence that your mother was poisoned and we believe it was via the cake she was eating, just before the judging began. A Victoria sponge cake, I believe?”

  Mary frowned. “Yes, but I baked the cake myself. Besides, we all had some and we were all fine!”

  Devlin held up a hand. “Yes, I know—which is why I think the poison might have only been in the slice of cake that your mother had on her plate. Someone must have tampered with it. Did you notice anyone hovering around your table, especially near your mother’s plate?”

  Mary looked bewildered. “I… I don’t know. I mean, I wasn’t really watching the plate. We were so busy getting Camilla ready for the judge… and there were so many people around us…” She trailed off.

  “Did you see anyone else at the show that you knew?” said Devlin, changing tack.

  “Well, I suppose we knew a lot of the competitors there vaguely—”

  “No, I meant someone you knew well, like a close friend, perhaps?”

  Mary shook her head. “No, not really. As I said, I wasn’t paying that much attention but I don’t remember seeing anyone. I suppose we knew Theresa Bell fairly well—she was the lady with the Siamese cats at the table next to us—we’d seen her quite a few times at other shows, but I wouldn’t say she was a friend.” She gave an embarrassed laugh.

  Devlin persisted. “Did you not see Edwin Perkins at the show?”

  “Edwin?” Mary looked surprised. “Yes, I saw him as Gemma and I were leaving—”

  “No, I meant before that. During the actual cat show—in the pavilion. Did you see him there?”

  “Oh no, I definitely didn’t see him in the pavilion.”

  Devlin nodded. I looked at him curiously but he didn’t elaborate. Instead, he said, “What was in the cake?”

  “Just what is usually in the recipe: flour, eggs, and butter for the sponge bases, strawberry jam and fresh whipped cream for the filling. Oh, and some fresh strawberries as a garnish, and some icing sugar on top of everything.”

  “The icing sugar,” I said suddenly. “It would be really easy to mix something into that and dust it on top of the cake. You wouldn’t even notice and the sweetness of the sugar would probably mask any bitter taste.”

  Devlin nodded grimly. “Yes, I was thinking the same thing. Someone could have had the poison ground up in powdered form and mixed it in with icing sugar, then carried in a small container—like a small bottle of talcum powder. Then if they slipped unnoticed into the show, and managed to get to the side of the Ecclestons’ table when no one was looking, they could have easily sprinkled some poisoned icing sugar over the piece of cake.”

  “But I didn’t see anyone do that!” said Mary.

  Devlin didn’t reply but I knew he was thinking: Because you could have done it yourself. And he was right. In fact, Mary was the person with the most opportunity to tamper with the piece of cake; she had been the one who was cutting up the pieces and serving them around.

  As if echoing my thoughts, Devin said, his voice changing, “Mary, I believe you and your mother had an argument the night before the show?”

  Mary flushed. “Wh-what do you mean?” she stammered.

  “You were overheard,” said Devlin baldly. “Apparently you shouted at your mother that you were sick and tired of being her slave and that you wished she was dead?”

  “B-but I didn’t mean it…” Mary cried. “It’s just something you s-say when you’re cross…” She gasped. “Do you think I killed Mummy? I would never want Mummy to die!” She burst into tears.

  Devlin looked slightly taken aback. I put an arm around Mary and gave him a reproachful look over the top of her head. Although she was twenty-five, in many ways, Mary still had the emotional vulnerability of a ten-year-old child.

  “I’m sure the Inspector didn’t mean anything like that,” I said soothingly, patting Mary’s arm. She sniffled and gulped as I grabbed a tissue from the box on the table and handed it to her. We waited while she blew her nose and regained control of herself.

  “I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice at last. “I don’t think I want to answer any more questions now.”

  Devlin stood up. “I’m sorry I upset you, Miss Eccleston, but it’s important for me to ask these questions if we are to find your mother’s killer.”

  She nodded but didn’t reply.

  Devlin handed her his card. “If you think of anything else that might help, please don’t hesitate to get in touch or…” His eyes strayed to me. “Maybe you’d prefer to speak to Gemma instead? That would be fine too.”

  Mary nodded again and took the card, then saw us to the door. I gave her a quick hug and followed Devlin out of the house. We walked slowly down the drive, our shoes crunching on the gravel.

  “I need to head back to the station; I’m afraid I’m going to be pretty late again tonight. There are quite a few things I need to tie up on other cases,” said Devlin regretfully as we paused by his Jaguar parked outside the gates to the property. “But I can give you a lift back to the house—”

  “No, it’s okay—I’ll cycle. The exercise will be good for me. By the way, why did you ask Mary that question about Edwin Perkins and whether she’d seen him at the cat show?”

  “Because that was his pretext for being in the pavilion. I questioned him earlier this afternoon and he said he went into the cat show pavilion to say hello to the Ecclestons—but when he got there, they were obviously so preoccupied with getting the cat ready for judging that he decided it was a bad time and that he would go back later.” He gave me a dry smile. “A perfectly plausible explanation.”

  “Except that Mary said she never saw him,” I said quickly.

  Devlin inclined his head. “Yes, and I’m sure when I speak to Edwin again tomorrow and challenge him about that, he’ll say something like he didn’t approach them because he didn’t want to disturb them, so they never saw him.”

  “How convenient,” I said sarcastically. “What about his conversation with Dr Foster about Dame Eccleston’s medication?”

  “He repeated exactly what he told the doctor—that he was a concerned family friend and wanted to make sure Dame Eccleston was taking her medication safely.”

  I rolled my eyes. “He’s got a ready answer for everything.”

  “Well, you have to consider the possibility that his answers are the truth.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Devlin gave me a sideways look. “There are other people who could have tampered with Dame Eccleston’s piece of cake much more easily… such as her daughter.”

  “I just can’t believe Mary did it!” I glanced back towards Eccleston House. “She seems so genuinely upset.”

  “Appearances can be deceiving,” said Devlin.

  I sighed. “That’s what my mother said. She said people can be really good actors and that just because we like them, it doesn’t mean they can’t be a murderer.”

  “Well, for once, I have to agree with your mother,” said Devlin dryly. “Especially with regards to how skilful people can be at putting on an act. I’ve interviewed people who you would never believe were cold, ruthless criminals. They’re able to cry at will, look vulnerable, and generally pull at your heartstrings. They are actually master manipulators and know how to push your emotional buttons. So no, you can’t just go on your own feelings anymore. Evil people can be nice and likeable too.”

  I looked at him thoughtfully. “You’ve become a real cynic, Devlin O’Connor.”

  He shrugged and gave a crooked smile. “Occupational hazard.”

  I felt a pang of sadness. Maybe my mother was right after all about spending too much time with the darker side of humanity. It did rub off on you. Oh, not in the way she thought—someone with Devlin’s integrity would
never go over to the “dark side”—but still, it could steal a piece of your soul.

  ***

  I cycled slowly back to Devlin’s place in the gathering twilight, enjoying the balmy spring evening and the sound of birds settling down for the night. To be honest, I was also enjoying the thought of an evening alone. Maybe I was a sad loner but I was actually looking forward to some solitude. Oh, it would have been nice to spend an evening with Devlin, of course, but somehow, the thought of having the house to myself gave me a sense of guilty pleasure. It would be so nice to have some “space”, some “me-time”.

  Of course, “me-time” included Muesli-time. I got back to Devlin’s house to find the little tabby cat waiting impatiently for me.

  “Meeeeorrw! Meeeeorrw!” she said plaintively as she twined herself around my legs as soon as I walked in the door.

  I felt a twinge of guilt. At least when I was living with my parents, Muesli had often had company during the day. But now with both me and Devlin working such long hours, she was spending the entire day alone. And while I knew that she usually spent most of it happily snoozing on Devlin’s sofa, it still made me feel a bit bad. Sometimes I wished that there was a way I could take Muesli in to work with me. She used to come to the tearoom daily before I adopted her and had kept everyone busy with her naughty antics. Perhaps I ought to check into that again, I thought, and see if there is a way I could have Muesli with me at the Little Stables…

  In the meantime, as a bit of a sop, I decided to spend half an hour playing with her. Like a typical cat, Muesli had completely ignored all the expensive cat toys I had bought her and instead preferred to chase a bit of scrunched up newspaper tied to a piece of string. I picked up her favourite toy now and flicked it around in front of her.

  “Meorrw!” Muesli cried happily, darting after the end of the string. She grabbed the newspaper and somersaulted, clutching it in her front paws.

  I laughed, jerking the string along the floor, pulling the newspaper end out of her claws and twitching it up in the air. I always tried to be quicker than Muesli but I could never quite match her reflexes. She dashed after the string and pounced, rolling over and kicking excitedly with her back legs, as if disembowelling imaginary prey.

  She looked so funny that I burst out laughing again. Then I grabbed my phone and tried to take a picture of her rolling on her back.

  “Meorrw…” Muesli flipped over to her other side and tilted her head, looking up at me upside down.

  “You little minx! Are you posing?” I said with a chuckle as I snapped a few more shots. Like most cat owners, I already had dozens of pictures of Muesli on my phone—Muesli in similarly playful poses, Muesli curled up sleeping, Muesli looking pensively out of the window, Muesli sitting by the door, asking to be let out… it was embarrassing how many pictures I had of my cat. Six months ago, I would have made fun of pet owners with pictures of their animals everywhere and now here I was with my cat as my phone screensaver. I gave a self-deprecating laugh. And I never even used to think I was a “cat person”. Talk about ironic.

  Finally, I stopped and sat up, flicking to my photo gallery to look through the pictures I had just taken. I scrolled through them, smiling to myself. Then I paused.

  Hang on… this picture was of Muesli and me together… I hadn’t taken it. Where was it from?

  Then I remembered. Of course, it was the picture Cassie’s brother, Liam, had taken at the fête. She had sent it to me on my phone. I had meant to print it out and put it in a frame, then I totally forgot about it. I tilted my phone, looking at the photo admiringly. Liam was a great photographer. The image was crisp and sharp with even the background showing pretty good detail. It had been taken in the cat show pavilion and had perfectly captured the chaotic atmosphere as everyone rushed to do the final grooming and get their cats ready for the judging. I could see the Ecclestons’ table in the background behind me and Muesli, with Dame Eccleston half in the picture and a bit of Mary too. They had their backs to the camera and you could just catch a glimpse of the snowy white fur of Camilla, their Persian cat, on their table next to them.

  Then my gaze sharpened on another section of the photo. I zoomed in. Wait a minute… wasn’t that…? Yes!

  In the background, at the other end of the Ecclestons’ table, was a plate with a fork covered in jam and fresh whipped cream propped alongside the last few mouthfuls of Victoria sponge. Dame Eccleston’s half-finished plate of cake, I realised.

  But what had caught my attention was the hand that was just visible, reaching down towards it. Doing what? Adding poison?

  The owner of the hand was obscured by the angle the photo had been taken; in fact, I was blocking the person from view. I sighed in frustration. What bad luck!

  Still, at least I knew it didn’t belong to Dame Eccleston or Mary—they were plainly visible on the other side of the table. So who did the hand belong to? Those thin, bony fingers and the nails an unattractive shade of lavender.…

  Lavender nail polish!

  Suddenly, I knew who it was. My mind flashed back to the day at the show… me standing by the Siamese cat cage while Theresa Bell accused me of trying to poison her cats… she had wagged her finger at me and I had remembered noticing her nail polish then and thinking how hideous the colour was, especially against her sallow skin…

  I looked back down at the photo on my phone screen. There was no doubt about it. That was Theresa Bell’s hand. So the question was—what had she been doing to Dame Eccleston’s cake?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  I could barely wait for Devlin to get home and pounced on him as soon as he came through the door.

  “It’s Theresa! It’s Theresa Bell! She had her hand in the cake plate… and she was acting all weird… and she hates Dame Eccleston because she thinks the Dame tried to poison her cats at the last show… and she wouldn’t eat the cake herself… and maybe she faked that whole stolen necklace scene so she could deliberately crash into—”

  “Whoa, whoa, Gemma,” said Devlin, catching hold of my wrists gently and holding me still. “What are you going on about?”

  I took a deep breath and started again. “I think the murderer is Theresa Bell. You know Cassie’s brother was taking pictures at the fête and his camera got stolen? Well, he’d sent one of the photos over earlier—it’s one of me and Muesli—and I just happened to look at it again this evening. In the background, you can see the cake plate that Clare Eccleston was eating from, with a bit of cake left on it… and you can also see a hand reaching towards it. Look!” I thrust my phone under his nose and pointed to the zoomed-in picture.

  Devlin frowned, staring at the image on my phone screen. “How do you know this is Theresa?”

  “I can tell from her nail polish! She had this awful shade of lavender nail polish on her fingers—I noticed it that day at the show—and look, you can see it there clearly in the picture.”

  Devlin scratched his head. “I don’t know… Couldn’t another woman have had purple nail polish too?”

  I gave him an impatient look. “You don’t know women. Most of us wouldn’t use lavender nail polish. It’s not popular, trust me. Especially not that shade. Pale pink, yes, or bright fuchsia or mauve or wine… or even strong purple, I suppose, if you’re a teenage girl—but that pale, plastic-y shade of lavender? Uh-uh.” I shook my head decisively. “In fact, I remember being in a store in Oxford and seeing a bargain bin full of bottles of that colour and the shop girl said to me that she doesn’t understand why the manufacturers make that shade because it never sells, year after year.”

  “Okay, okay, you’ve convinced me,” said Devlin, raising his hands in mock surrender. “So what are you saying—that Theresa was the only person likely to have such unusual taste in nail polish?”

  “I’m just saying that the chances of someone else at the show picking that colour were pretty slim. I mean, it could happen, I guess… but I doubt it. And Theresa was at the table right next to us, she had a hostile connection
with Dame Eccleston… and she refused to eat the cake. It all fits!” I looked at him eagerly. “Have you questioned her yet?”

  Devlin made a rueful face. “I tried. I didn’t get a chance to tell you earlier: I went to see Theresa Bell before visiting Mary this afternoon. But I hardly got a foot in the door before she started screaming police harassment. I tried to explain that she wasn’t being treated as a murder suspect—that she was just helping with enquiries—but I could hardly get a word in edgewise, especially after her Siamese cats joined in the caterwauling as well.”

  I had to suppress a smile at the image. “But surely, you’ve got the law on your side? You could force her to answer your questions.”

  “I can’t force her to do anything. The police can ask you questions but you are not obliged to answer them.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I said in frustration. “You said yourself that someone with a persecution complex is likely to lash out—and we know that there was bad blood between Theresa and Dame Eccleston—and now we’ve placed her at the scene of the crime, actually tampering with the victim’s food… Surely that’s more than enough to arrest her on suspicion of murder?”

  Devlin shook his head impatiently. “Yes, but even if she was under arrest, she has the right to remain silent. In any case, I have to be a bit careful, especially with a suspect as sensitive as Theresa Bell. The last thing I want to do is march in and forcibly drag her to the station, especially if I don’t have conclusive proof that she committed the murder.”

  “What about the photo? Isn’t that evidence?”

  “But what does the photo really show? All we can see is a hand reaching towards the plate—a hand that might belong to Theresa Bell, based on your assumption that no other person at the show would wear the same colour nail polish. That’s not something that would stand up in court. And if it turns out that Theresa Bell wasn’t guilty after all…” Devlin made a grimace. “I’d be accused of police harassment of a poor innocent woman and there would be a lot of unpleasant negative publicity, which is the last thing the CID needs right now. We’re still recovering from the ‘Agri-Crime’ fiasco at the fête—and then having failed to pick up that Dame Eccleston’s death was suspicious… well, all in all, it’s been a very bad week for police PR. The Superintendent has warned us all that we have to watch our step very carefully, particularly when we’re in the public eye.”