I’d anticipated that question. “I don’t have an agent in the U.S. As far as ‘why here’ goes, I expect to be in London for quite a while yet. My parents live in Mayfair. I’m planning to spend some time with them while writing the book.” At least part of that was true. I did want to see them while I was abroad. I smiled. “Besides, I like it here.” That was true too.
Claire gave a narrow-eyed nod, clearly not convinced. “If your book is as scandalous as you claim, no one in the chocolate industry will ever trust you again. You’ll be forced to quit.”
“I’m ready for that.” I wasn’t at all ready for that.
It was a good thing this was just a ploy, designed to gather intel from Jeremy’s agent. I would have preferred being honest, but I suspect you of murdering your client to increase the marketability of Nicola’s book wouldn’t endear me to her.
Plus, it was possible that Nicola had murdered Jeremy to increase the marketability of her book. She was certainly better off financially now than she’d ever been as his downtrodden assistant. I gathered that I must have glimpsed her going into that Covent Garden jeweler because she’d been buying herself a bauble to celebrate her forthcoming tell-all of Jeremy.
While I pondered the cold-bloodedness of that, Claire scanned the room. I sensed she was feeling antsy. Judging by the smell of stale cigarettes emanating from her clothes, Claire was a smoker. If I wanted to keep her interest, I needed to be more engaging. Otherwise, she’d skip afternoon tea altogether and hop onto Piccadilly Street to satisfy her nicotine craving instead.
“This is sensitive information.” I didn’t want to namecheck Nicola Mitchell, but she was the instant-book sensation of the moment. The legitimate and tabloid press had been breathless with the news of her “million pound” book deal. “I heard you were the person to come to with material of this sort.”
Claire perked up. “You’ve heard about Nicola’s book?”
“Of course. Everyone has.” I adopted a sad mien. It wasn’t difficult. I truly felt sorry about the situation. “I’ve met Jeremy Wright. His death was tragic. I still don’t know how it could have happened, but it’s made me doubly aware of how tenuous life can be. I might not have years and years ahead of me. Unless I act now, I might never get to write my . . . memoirs.”
I gave that final word deliberate emphasis, making sure that Claire realized my (hypothetical) written reminiscences promised to be scandalous. I wanted to hook her quickly.
“What companies, exactly, are we discussing?” she asked.
I had her. Having already considered this, I cited some of the world’s top chocolate concerns, from boutique brands to global conglomerates. “I can’t disclose everything now, of course,” I demurred before I got carried away. “Not without a deal in place. But I can say that what goes on is . . . surprising.”
Claire leaned closer. “Are we talking about CEOs skimming profits? Managers sleeping with their secretaries? Workers sneezing on the production line? What do you have to spill?”
I hesitated. “I don’t have a book outline per se. I don’t want to reveal any specifics yet. I’m still planning to meet with a few other interested parties. But that doesn’t mean—”
Jeremy’s agent tut-tutted. “There’s no need for that!”
She signaled a server who’d been lingering attentively nearby, dressed dapperly in a suit and tie. In a flash, several of his colleagues appeared, bearing the accoutrements of a cream tea—so named because it includes Britain’s famed clotted cream.
At this point, I should probably clarify that, as fancy as it sounds, a “high tea” is actually much less formal than a cream tea or a full afternoon tea. A “high tea” is what working-class families have when they tuck into a late-day steak and kidney pie. An “afternoon tea” is what the Queen of England has.
Today, it was what I was having with Claire, too.
In the center of the table, another server placed a three-tiered silver cake stand. Its lower level contained savories—neat rectangular sandwiches such as cucumber, cress, chutney, and egg mayo, each with its crusts trimmed off. Its middle tier held those items that were neither savory nor especially sweet, such as miniature cream buns, scones, and crumpets. Its top (and most interesting to me) tier showcased bite-size petit fours, shortbread biscuits (“cookies,” to you and me), and pastel-colored macarons.
You’re supposed to nibble at those foodstuffs in order, from the bottom to the top. With fingers only, please—as useful as it might be, cutlery is verboten at a proper tea service.
I couldn’t help thinking that some of it should have been chocolate. Someone was leaving an opportunity unclaimed here.
Delicate china bowls appeared on our table, each containing something delicious. Devonshire clotted cream. Strawberry jam. Lemon curd. White and brown sugar cubes with an accompanying pair of tiny silver tongs. Wafer-thin, almost translucent lemon slices. A tasteful silver pitcher full of fresh Guernsey milk.
The tea service itself arrived next, clad in gleaming silver plate and already warmed, with floral bone china cups and saucers beside it. Loose-leaf teas were brought after that. Oolong, Darjeeling, Lapsang souchong, Ceylon—enough to make my head spin. It was like choosing from chocolate varietals, only I’m not an expert in tea. But the server didn’t know that.
“Miss? Your preference for tea?” he asked, ready to serve.
All at once, I knew exactly what to ask for. “Earl Grey. Hot. No sugar, please.” Travis would have been so pleased.
While the niceties of tea service continued in a parade of ritualized brewing, waiting, pouring, and embellishing, I did my best to guide my conversation with Claire in a new direction.
It wasn’t easy. DC Mishra would have had a smoother time finding out what she wanted to know from her “sources” than I ever did. I wasn’t a detective. I didn’t think I’d get away with acting like one. My best bet was to rely on human nature—and my own ability to create camaraderie with people I meet. I’ve done that for a long time, without even thinking about it. Pilots in São Paulo, jazz musicians in New Orleans, surfers in Queensland, and glassblowers in Samobor . . . they’ve all opened up to me for genuinely interesting and enlightening conversations.
Of course, I hadn’t been trying to investigate a murder linked to any of those people. But Claire might cooperate.
Hoping she would, I gave her a direct look before tasting my tea. No pinkies in the air, either, by the way. It’s just not necessary. It was delicious. I sighed, then put down my cup.
“You must have a challenging job,” I said as a friendly change of subject. “All those clients, so many of them famous . . .” I shook my head in sympathy. “I know what it’s like to cater to the demands of people who are used to getting their own way.”
“You’re not wrong about that!” Claire trilled, watching intently as the servers receded to their watchful places nearby. Surreptitiously, she slipped a flask from her purse and tipped it toward my cup with raised eyebrows. “Shall we indulge?”
I demurred. Claire added a healthy pour to her cup. Maybe she wasn’t so savvy after all. It wasn’t even five o’clock yet.
I’d noticed she hadn’t opted for milk with her tea. No wonder. A shot of whiskey would have curdled the whole lot.
“You’re sure?” She offered her flask again. I noticed it matched the tea service. “We could toast to our impending deal.”
I shook my head. She tucked away her tipple, then took a healthy slurp of her Darjeeling. She sighed contentedly.
“This must have been a difficult week for you,” I said.
A nod. “Indeed. It was such a shock to hear about Jeremy.”
“I love his books and TV shows. Was he fun to work with?”
“Jeremy? Fun?” Claire rolled her eyes. She drank more tea, draining her cup in record time. I guessed the whiskey had cooled off her brew. A server unobtrusively poured her more. Jeremy’s former agent added more whiskey, leaving her flask on the table this time. “He was fun a
t first. Energetic, eager to please, full of ideas and enthusiasm . . . and sex appeal. Whoo!”
Claire fanned herself, oblivious to the other tea takers turning at the sound of her excited exclamation.
“Let me tell you, Hayden. I can take people places,” she assured me, eyes bright. “Before Jeremy, everyone thought no one could be more successful than Gemma Rose. She tapped a market that no one else had. She merged food and sensuality without being tacky. Especially for us Brits, that was titillating.”
“I haven’t heard much from her lately. Did she retire?”
“She might as well have.” Blithely, Claire bit into a miniscule ham and chutney sandwich, thinking about my question while she chewed. “Jeremy eclipsed her almost immediately. Gemma Rose was popular, but Jeremy was stratospheric. Thanks to me. You see, I knew there was an appetite for a sexy male chef. Everyone else underestimated women’s interest in such a thing. But especially after a certain age, women can be just as voracious as men!”
She made pantomime cougar claws and gave me a growl.
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “Equal-opportunity food voyeurism. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”
“Not at all!” Claire emptied her second teacup. It was swiftly and attentively refilled from a freshly brewed pot. “Gemma Rose wrote that book, but Jeremy perfected it. He’d watched Gemma for years. He’d been a big fan.” She gazed at the chandeliers overhead, lost in reminisces. “The day his cookbooks shot past Gemma’s in total millions sold, he was so thrilled.”
“I’d imagine so. That’s a very big deal.”
Gemma Rose had been the doyenne of British cookery for nearly a decade, I knew. She’d turned everyday cooking into irresistible foreplay. There’d never been a spoon she wouldn’t lick, an olive oil bottle she wouldn’t fondle, a food that hadn’t compelled her to moan with pleasure. She’d created her empire based on culinary knowledge and sensuality, and she’d had the best-selling cookbooks, popular television shows, and fans to prove it. I hadn’t thought about Gemma’s slump in popularity as a direct result of Jeremy’s ascendancy, but Claire did.
“It was because of me,” Claire assured me. “I masterminded the whole thing. Jeremy’s rise, his expansion to restaurants, his sold-out live tours—both here and abroad. All my ideas.” She winked as she sipped from her cup. “I can do the same for you.”
She was still trying to persuade me to sign with her. I appreciated her interest in me and my phantom book, but I had another agenda, stoked by what Phoebe had said about Jeremy’s agent.
She was afraid of losing his income. But why? Had things gone wrong between Jeremy and Claire? Murderously wrong?
“Gemma Rose should have had you for an agent,” I joked.
Claire blinked. “Oh, she did have me. I dropped her.”
I sat up straighter. If Claire had dropped Gemma Rose as a client in favor of building Jeremy, that could have definitely stoked some ill will in the (onetime) domestic doyenne. Although it probably would have led Gemma to want to murder Claire, not Jeremy. On the other hand, Jeremy had taken Gemma’s place in the upper echelons of food celebrity. That had to bother her.
“Or maybe not.” Claire frowned tipsily. “I can’t quite remember. It’s possible Gemma is still on my roster. I’m not sure anymore. She’s been in so little demand for anything substantial, ever since Hambleton & Hart switched their sponsorship to Jeremy.”
Hambleton & Hart? Now I felt really alert. Also, convinced that Claire had drunk far too much whiskey in her Darjeeling. Just as I thought it, Jeremy’s former agent took out her phone, snapped a selfie, then fiddled with an app for a few minutes.
Eventually, she noticed me noticing. She gave a careless wave, then set down her phone with a satisfied flourish.
“Just because I’m older doesn’t mean I can’t use technology, does it? In my business, you’ve got to keep up.”
Her phone dinged. Her gaze swerved interestedly toward it.
She picked up, obviously compelled. “To Londoners, this tearoom is instantly recognizable. Even if it wasn’t, the geotagging on my selfie would let everyone know where I am.”
Claire seemed satisfied to have sent out an agent Bat-Signal. Obviously, she enjoyed the attention, but I felt happier than ever that my (usually secret) job doesn’t require a social-media presence. I didn’t need to Tweet, Instagram, or Snapchat about my services to get clients. I just needed Travis. And me.
I didn’t want to leave a consultation one day only to find myself amid paparazzi and reporters, discussing my findings.
“Hambleton & Hart worked with both Gemma and Jeremy?”
An absentminded nod. Claire typed on her phone, then focused on me again. “Product placement is a tremendous source of income for my clients. Jeremy once used a certain brand of digestive biscuits to make a crumb crust on his show.” She pushed aside the sugar bowl and leaned nearer, fixing me with an intelligent look—and building suspense. “Those biscuits sold out across the entire U.K. within hours of that program airing.”
That was a big accomplishment for a very modest style of cookie. Digestive biscuits were originally called that because they contain baking soda, which was once considered useful for proper digestion. But now their primary claim to fame was having a pleasant wheaty, malty flavor and a dunkable texture in tea.
I sipped my Earl Grey. “That’s a lot of biscuits.”
“It is!” Claire nodded. “A particular artisanal butter used in a cooking segment, a specific bottle of wine poured to drink with an on-camera meal, a relatively obscure ingredient added to a dish . . . they all represent pounds and pence to someone.”
“Someone like Hambleton & Hart?” I guessed.
“They’re a venerable brand.” Claire broke off a piece of scone, slathered it with cream, then dabbed on some jam. “They’ve been around since the 1860s. They act that way, too.”
She chuckled. I played along and nibbled a crumpet, wishing it was embellished with a smear of chocolate-hazelnut spread.
“They have trouble keeping up with the times?” I asked.
“Absolutely. They stuck with Gemma Rose much longer than they should have—certainly much longer than I advised them to.”
“Well, with your experience,” I began, flattering her.
But Claire Evans didn’t require my praise. “Hambleton & Hart’s core customers are young mums who want to give their children the same treats they once enjoyed. The company deals in nostalgia, low prices, and convenience. They had to be clear about that. Gemma Rose was the wrong spokesperson for them.”
“Gemma was all about savoring the moment,” I mused. “Young mothers probably don’t have time to labor over homemade treats.”
But Claire disagreed, keen to show her expertise. “She was about sex. The wrong sex. Those mums didn’t want to watch Gemma Rose prancing around with her knockers out, making eyes at the camera. They wanted to watch Jeremy. His star was on the rise.”
Claire was really loosening up now. Also, it sounded to me as though Jeremy’s star hadn’t merely been on the rise. It had completely obscured Gemma’s. The domestic diva must have been bitter about that—about falling from public favor so quickly.
I wanted to ask about Gemma Rose personally, to get a sense of her latent violent tendencies—because that’s the way I have to think about people (these days) when murder is afoot—but Claire was already moving on. At least she’d quit talking about “knockers.” Her teatime nip had definitely taken effect.
“Which only made it all the more distressing when Jeremy began being difficult too,” Claire moaned, looking distraught.
That was more like it. “Really? What was wrong?”
“What wasn’t wrong?” his former agent complained loudly, drawing a few more stares from the other tearoom tables. “He demanded more money. He missed deadlines. He balked at including sponsored products in his cookery shows. He’d become intolerable.”
Just as Nicola Mitchell had claimed at the ca
fé, I recalled. “He always seemed like such a friendly guy.”
Claire snorted. “Of course he did. In public! In private, Jeremy was a terror. At the end, he didn’t even want to be on camera. He was obsessed with his weight, his hair, his skin. He thought he was getting wrinkly. He knew he was going bald.”
I remembered Jeremy’s lush hair. Even in death, it had fallen perfectly around his face. He must have used some very special products to ensure manageability—to hide his bald spot.
Poor Jeremy. The more you had, the more you had to lose.
“But that’s life in the public eye,” Claire was saying sanguinely. “The thing is, I don’t think his fans would have cared. Look at Prince William! He’s certainly not possessed of a leonine mane, is he? But no one minds that. Women are very forgiving. They were attracted to Jeremy’s charisma. And his physique, of course. There are Tumblr blogs devoted to his abs.”
I was surprised, again, at her Internet savvy.
“He had his physical trainer to thank for that, though, right?” I suggested, tucking into my own morsel of scone, cream, and jam. It was reminiscent of strawberry shortcake. Delicious, even sans chocolate. “His trainer kept Jeremy in top shape.”
“Liam Taylor?” Claire frowned. “Don’t you dare mention that man to me! I doubt he has any idea of the havoc he caused, but—”
“Havoc?” I thought I knew why. I tried to look clueless, to cajole Claire into sharing more information with me. So far, I had almost everything I wanted to know—and more. I wasn’t sure how to bring us back around to the subject of Nicola’s book, but maybe that would have to wait for another meeting. “How’s that?”
“His diet.” Claire sounded disgusted. “That nonsensical ‘clean eating’ regimen of Liam’s was going to be the death of us both, and I don’t mean because I’d drop a few stone, either.”
A stone was a unit of weight—roughly fourteen pounds. My mom, an avowed Anglophile, had taught me that years ago.
“Jeremy didn’t look as though he needed to lose weight to me.” I moved up a tier to the macarons. Mmm. “He looked fit.”
The Semi-Sweet Hereafter Page 12