The Semi-Sweet Hereafter

by Colette London

  Well, not until recently, at least.

  “Oh, yum!” she exclaimed, mouth full. Her eyes rolled back in her head with pleasure. She gave a happy wiggle. “I never thought I’d be back here, but this is a good reason to come.”

  I’d joined her in Primrose’s upstairs seating area—a small loft overlooking the neighborhood and its green trees. The only seating was a single café table and chair, one armchair, and a love seat–size settee, which we both squeezed onto. I’d set my tray of goodies on the loft’s coffee table. Below us, the chocolaterie-pâtisserie was not quite as busy as I’d have liked.

  I still hadn’t made sufficient inroads training the staff. They were progressing, though. Hugh, in particular, had emerged as a leader of the group. Faintly, from the warm kitchens, I heard his distinctly accented voice shouting a command to Poppy. I felt gratified by this development. He’d gotten comfortable. Given more time, he’d master a skill he could be proud of.

  In the meantime, everyone downstairs had swiftly learned to make chocolate caramel popcorn, chocolate bark, and pistachio truffles today. We’d had only a few mishaps along the way.

  “Did you used to come here often?” I asked Nicola.

  “Sometimes.” Jeremy’s former assistant bit into a truffle. She groaned with enjoyment, then waggled it toward me. “These are really nice. So’s the popcorn. And the chocolate bark.”

  “Thanks, that’s kind of you. It’s all in a day’s work, though. I had plenty of help.” I indicated the kitchen downstairs, watching as Nicola swigged some fizzy, house-made lemon soda. “I appreciate your taste-testing for me. I can use the feedback. My taste isn’t everyone’s taste. But if you like those, please feel free to tell everyone you know,” I kidded. There was nothing more valuable than authentic word of mouth. “Maybe a few strangers, too. We need more business around here.”

  “So I noticed.” Nodding, Nicola swept her curly auburn hair from her eyes. She seemed open and eager to help. “This place used to be packed all the time. Poor Phoebe. It must be breaking her heart to see Primrose struggling after all these years.”

  “I think it would be, under other circumstances.” When she’d hired me, she hadn’t known calamity would strike. “She’s managing as best she can, though. It’s difficult for her.”

  Nicola looked skeptical. “Difficult not celebrating.”

  I was surprised she was being so cruel. I guess it showed.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Nicola went on. She nibbled some chocolate bark. “I like Phoebe. We were friendly when I worked for Jeremy. But he was a tyrant. And not just to me, either.”

  She was hinting at supposed marital troubles between Jeremy and Phoebe again. But I’d found no sign of disharmony anywhere.

  “Jeremy must have had his good qualities,” I argued, inhaling the buttery scents of shortbread and chocolate layer cakes that permeated Primrose. I hadn’t run into Nicola while I’d been chocolate whispering at Primrose. For all I knew, Nicola had been an abysmal assistant, and Jeremy had rightly sacked her for her inadequacies. “What about his charity?”

  “Jeremy’s Jump Start Foundation will be getting very little mention in my book. You’ve got to stick with a theme, yeah?”

  “Jeremy’s giving back to the community doesn’t fit?”

  “Absolutely not. Jeremy was a selfish, vain control freak, and that’s the story I’m sticking to.” Nicola nibbled on a cluster of caramelized, chocolate-drizzled popcorn. “Even if he hadn’t been, nobody wants to hear he was just a regular bloke who happened to be discovered while knocking up burgers for his friends. That’s rubbish! Just between us, it’s much better to say he was a gold-digging egomaniac who clawed his way to the top. Plus, now that he’s gotten killed for his misdeeds?” With sham amazement, Nicola shook her head. “That’s utter genius. I couldn’t have made up a better plot twist if I’d tried.”

  Killed for his misdeeds. Was that how she’d justified bashing him in the head with that metlapil? I couldn’t exactly ask Nicola that. Instead, I found another, less gritty observation. “‘Gold-digging’ isn’t usually applied to men.”

  “It is when they marry the daughter of a peer.” Now Nicola sounded crisp. Knowledgeable. I had the impression she was practicing for her upcoming TV appearances. “Jeremy’s marriage to Phoebe benefited them both. Falling for Jeremy took Phoebe off her pedestal. It made her seem much more human than she otherwise would have, which helped make Primrose popular—at least it did. In return, Phoebe opened doors for Jeremy. He got the legitimacy he’d always wanted. Once he had it, though—”

  On the verge of telling me, Nicola broke off. Her gaze wandered downstairs. From our vantage point, we could see part of the chocolaterie-pâtisserie’s seating area, which contained a few customers. That was all. Not the counter, not the barista’s espresso machine, not the shelves and baskets full of chocolatey baked goods and confections bagged in cellophane for takeaway.

  Then I realized she was looking outside, at the sidewalk. I couldn’t detect what had caught her attention. There were two mums there, holding hands with their children. Plus one dog.

  I eyed that little group—and their companionable spaniel—with a pang of longing. I’m pretty happy globe-trotting. But a part of me does sometimes yearn to put down roots—to find out what it’s like to have a home, a husband, a few kids, a dog . . .

  “—he forgot it was Phoebe who gave it to him,” Nicola continued abruptly, just as though she’d never let her attention wander. “He just took his place among the posh set and never looked back.”

  “It’s hard to be grateful sometimes.” I tore away my gaze from those women and their children. “You get used to what you have. You forget what it was like before you had it.”

  “Not me,” Nicola swore. “I’m not ever doing that.”

  She seemed unusually fixated on class and privilege. “Did you come from a tough background too?” I asked, thinking that might be one explanation. “From a council estate, like Jeremy?”

  “No, I’m solidly middle class.” Nicola narrowed her eyes. For the first time, she ignored the treats. “I didn’t come here to talk about me. I thought you wanted to know about Jeremy.”

  “I wanted to know about Jeremy’s advert,” I specified. That’s what I’d told her over the phone. Really, I wanted to find out what scandalous secrets her book contained. Casually, I bit into a pistachio truffle. It was delicious. “Do you know who I can contact to clear out all that A/V equipment from the Wrights’ guesthouse? I’m staying there, and I’d rather—”

  Not be reminded of murder every time I wander into the kitchen, I’d been about to say. But Nicola interrupted me.

  “You’re staying there? But you weren’t there . . . that day.”

  I blinked, surprised at her alert tone. “No. You were?”

  That was a new development. I’d assumed Jeremy had been alone with his killer. DC Mishra had given me no indications to the contrary. Nor had George, her colleague, when we’d spoken.

  “I was around.” Nicola waved vaguely. “Running errands for Jeremy. Being belittled for doing the wrong thing. The usual.”

  I widened my eyes. “Did you see anything suspicious?”

  Nicola shook her head. “I’m not supposed to say.”

  “Did you talk to the police?” I pressed. “DC Mishra?”

  “I guess you did?” Jeremy’s assistant gave me a mistrustful look. “Must be tough, being a foreigner in a big city like London, suspected of murdering someone as famous as Jeremy.”

  I began to see why Nicola might annoy someone— especially someone like Jeremy, who had a demanding job to do. He needed help, not backtalk. But I tried to play along, all the same.

  “I’m not a suspect.” Not officially. Frankly, I wasn’t sure about that. But I did know that if Nicola had been with Jeremy on the day he died, she probably had some information I needed.

  “I didn’t do anything wrong,” I added firmly. “Really.”

  Unbelievably,
Nicola cracked a smile. “Oh, I know that.”

  Chills ran up my spine. Did she “know” that because she’d murdered Jeremy? Because Nicola was a crazed, taunting killer?

  I choked on my next bite of popcorn. “Really?” I managed.

  “Of course. Hayden, I’m practicing fielding tricky questions! See? I turned that last one straight around on you.” On another loony smile, Nicola nudged me, shoulder to shoulder. “My agent told me I should prepare for tough interviews. I haven’t done any yet, but there’s loads of interest already. I have to be sharp, right? I have to be ready for positively anything. I have to be watchable, too. Hashtag Nicola Mitchell.”

  “Right.” As she made Twitter air quotes with her fingers, I wanted to punch her. Also, tech-savvy Claire, who I knew must have been responsible for that advice. “That’s really smart.”

  “Isn’t it?” Nicola munched more chocolate bark while another customer wandered upstairs. She frowned at him. He left.

  I was privately impressed by her ability to clear the loft. Could other people detect something menacing about her too? Or was I just overreacting to all the murder in the air?

  “I’m so pleased at the reception my book news is getting so far,” Nicola ambled on in a chatty, completely friendly way. “But I didn’t mean to get you caught up in it, of course. I’m so sorry. I obviously got carried away, accusing you just now.”

  “No problem.” Maybe it was time to call it quits. But I still needed to follow up about the book in question. “So—”

  “I know that you weren’t the one who offed Jeremy, because I know you weren’t there,” Nicola said breezily before I could steer our conversation in that direction. “I was there. Jeremy was there. The crew were there. Andrew Davies too, of course.”

  Him again. “From Hambleton & Hart?”

  Nicola nodded. “Yes. He’s the CEO. He inherited the whole company from his mother’s side of the family. He’s a sweet man.”

  Hmm. I had my doubts about that. “Is he?”

  Another nod, followed by what appeared to be a preoccupied smile. “Andrew took a very hands-on approach to things. He was always there when a new advert was being shot.” Nicola’s grin widened. “I’m definitely namedropping him in my book. Maybe I should play up that angle? Mention how Jeremy basically made a bigshot like Andrew Davies crawl on his hands and knees?”

  “Maybe. What do you mean? What went on?”

  “It was all to do with Jeremy not wanting to promote Hambleton & Hart anymore, despite his agreement with them. Liam had convinced him their products were ‘toxic,’ so . . .” Nicola gave me a “What can you do?” shrug that I completely understood. “Andrew came up with the idea of having Jeremy do the advert without actually using any of the products on camera.”

  I recalled the boxed Hambleton & Hart mixes that I’d glimpsed on the guesthouse’s counter. “They were backdrops?”

  “They were going to be, until Liam showed up to yell at Jeremy about being a ‘bad example,’ especially to children.”

  Liam had been at the advert shoot too. Nicola hadn’t included Jeremy’s personal trainer in her roundup. I wondered who else she might have inadvertently omitted. Maybe she wasn’t the strongest “witness” I could have consulted, but I was stuck with her. For now, Nicola was the best I could manage.

  “That’s when Claire stepped in to save the day,” Nicola told me, looking delighted with the woman I knew she’d taken on as her agent. “She was rearranging things in the background, trying to appease both Jeremy and Liam, when she spotted that huge mortar and pestle setup. She brought it to Andrew Davies.”

  Mortar and pestle setup? Nicola had to be talking about the metlapil that Jeremy had been bludgeoned to death with, and its accompanying metate. It would have looked like a colossal mortar and pestle to someone unfamiliar with such kitchen equipment.

  I leaned forward, riveted by Nicola’s story.

  “Then what happened?” I asked. “Did Andrew take it?”

  Maybe the head of Hambleton & Hart was my likeliest suspect. I didn’t know if there had been fingerprints on that metlapil. My impromptu tête-à-tête with the London Metropolitan Police Service hadn’t reached that stage. It likely never would.

  “Jeremy didn’t take that thing, that’s for sure.” Nicola appeared to be on the verge of laughing. At my rapt interest? Was she playing me? “He wanted no part of it.”

  “Why not?” I asked. “Didn’t he like Claire’s idea?”

  Nicola’s only response was a coy look.

  Frustrated, I sighed. “You know, I’ve been interviewed before. If you chop up your talking points this way, they won’t be understood properly. People will take things out of context. You have to deliver the information succinctly and clearly.”

  That approach would definitely help me, at least.

  “Oh.” Briefly, Nicola wrinkled her forehead. She gave me an astute look. “In that case, the only person I saw touch that thing was Claire. She did it to demonstrate what Jeremy was supposed to do. Not to get ready to kill him, or anything.”

  “I understand.” She wanted to protect her new agent.

  “Honestly!” Evidently, Nicola sensed my reservations. She looked around the chocolaterie-pâtisserie, then leaned nearer on our shared settee. “See, Claire’s idea was all about S.E.X. Jeremy was supposed to take that stone club thing and pretend to make something with it. But not really cook. You know.”

  I didn’t. Not at all. I raised my eyebrows.

  “He was supposed to get, you know, sexy with it. They were going to cut images of him doing this with shots of the food.”

  After another furtive look, Nicola demonstrated a salacious gesture. It was the sort of thing a man might do with his, uh, not-kitchen-related “equipment” as a means to seduce a partner.

  “All while he talked about making food,” Nicola added. “With the intimation that Jeremy was sexy, cooking was sexy, and Hambleton & Hart were sexy too. Sex was Claire’s go-to tactic.”

  No kidding. “In that case, we’re lucky she suggested Jeremy use a prop,” I joked, having finally understood the situation. “Otherwise, who knows how risqué she’d have gotten?”

  We both laughed. European advertising tends to be liberal, compared with what we might see in the U.S. Nudity is fine, for instance, usually in context to sell soap or something similar. Claire’s suggestion, though, sounded practically pornographic.

  Nicola sobered quickly. “Andrew Davies was mad for the idea. I’ve never seen him so excited about anything—not even Hambleton & Hart’s range of banana-flavored custard cups, and those are cracking good, believe me. But Jeremy wouldn’t do it.”

  I didn’t blame him. “What happened?”

  Nicola shrugged. “They argued. Jeremy stomped away. I went to soothe him. He shouted at me. I cried. He was so mean!”

  “That sounds very unfair to you,” I consoled her, wishing her recollections of the event weren’t quite so self-centered.

  “It was!” Nicola sounded outraged even now. “Very unfair.”

  “Is that when you made up your mind to write your book?”

  I asked that question softly, carefully, concerned about spooking her before I learned what I wanted to know—when she’d written her book and when Claire had struck a deal for it.

  But Nicola wasn’t bothered. She was on a roll.

  “No. I was well into it by then,” she told me. “You don’t think I stuck with that dreadful assistant job just for the dismal money, did you? I planned on writing my book about Jeremy all along, from the moment he hired me. I was just biding my time, watching him, waiting to gather sufficient material.”

  “Oh. Isn’t that clever of you?”

  Or, you know, appalling. No wonder everyone had had the impression that Nicola was mousy. She’d been staying in the background on purpose, the better to eavesdrop on Jeremy.

  Confident now, she puffed up her chest. “I’m only sorry Jeremy and Phoebe hadn’t had any children yet.
Can you imagine the stories I would have had to tell? Talk about scandal!”

  Aha. That must have been why Nicola had been watching those mums and children outside Primrose. She’d been brainstorming.

  “Maybe you can get a job as a nanny next,” I deadpanned.

  This was so much more awful than I’d expected. Nicola seemed virtually conscienceless. I’d thought she was bitter about being sacked, sure. But that didn’t explain how she’d schemed, all along, to intentionally betray someone who’d trusted her. Jeremy had deserved better than that.

  “I won’t need a nanny job,” Nicola assured me with a telling smirk. “Not now that Jeremy’s conveniently kicked it.”

  I felt queasy. I actually regretted every bite of chocolate I’d just eaten. That was a genuine rarity in my line of work.

  Nicola noticed. Her brow creased with concern. “Too soon?”

  I gave her a bewildered look. “Too soon for what?”

  “Too soon to joke about Jeremy’s death. I thought I’d try a lighter tone. On telly? I do want to be entertaining. Honestly, no one wants to buy a book written by a drudge, do they?”

  I couldn’t believe she was being so blasé about this.

  “I’d go for a more subdued tone,” I advised dryly. I couldn’t tell if Nicola was overexcited by her own publicity or inherently tactless. “At least until after Jeremy’s funeral.”

  It was scheduled for tomorrow, Phoebe had told me during our most recent lesson. She’d done her best to arrange a service that would be both warm and respectful—not an easy feat, given the public mourners who were anticipated to crowd the event.

  Partly motivated by that fact, I was visiting Jeremy’s foundation with Liam later this afternoon. I hoped he wouldn’t be able to smell chocolate on my breath. Maybe I’d buy gum.

  “All right.” Nicola gave me a thoughtful nod. “Thanks, Hayden. You’ve been very helpful. Oh, and please don’t tell anyone what I’ve told you today. I’m planning to include some of this in my book. Maybe you’ll even make a walk-on appearance!”

  I gathered that I was supposed to feel honored by that. But I didn’t. “Honestly, I’d rather stay out of it. You understand.”