The heat in the office of St Cuthbert’s church hall was almost tropical, forcing Cathy to strip off her coat as soon as she walked in. The central heating was on – or at least the radiator Cathy had walked past felt as if it was pumping out a fair amount of heat – but Iris had an electric fire going in the corner anyway.
‘I don’t understand it,’ she said. ‘I’ve looked everywhere and when I came off the phone to you I looked again.’
‘It can’t be far away,’ Cathy said. She draped her coat over a chair back and placed her handbag next to it. Iris had locked the front doors again after she’d come in so there was no worry that anyone could get in to take it. So Cathy followed Iris out of the office and in the direction of the kitchen, glad to be away from the overbearing heat. ‘Could you have taken it somewhere strange and left it there?’ she continued.
Iris turned to her looking confused.
‘I mean, like been preoccupied thinking about something else and have it in your hand as you went into another room? I do it all the time, walk around the house with something, not thinking what I’m doing and end up putting it down in a really random place without realising I’ve left it there. Once I found the tea caddy in the bathroom and I had no idea how it had got there, but as there was only me in the house I must have taken it there without remembering it at all.’
‘I don’t do things like that,’ Iris said firmly, and Cathy realised that, knowing what she did about Iris so far, that was probably true.
‘Right. It was just a suggestion. If you didn’t do that, is it possible that someone else did?’
‘Like you?’ Iris said.
‘Or Dora, as we were the three people cleaning up after we last used the kitchen.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Iris said. ‘You’d have thought someone would have come across it by now. We have a cleaner in three times a week and she hasn’t said she’s found anything.’ She paused for a moment, key in the lock of the kitchen door, before she twisted to open it. ‘I ought to have a word with her anyway, just to be certain she hasn’t found it and not said.’
‘How much did it cost?’ Cathy asked as Iris flicked the lights on to illuminate what was becoming one of Cathy’s favourite places. The sight of all those gleaming chrome worktops and beautiful ovens made her want to roll her sleeves up and get started on something so she could fill that space with warm, sugary aromas. ‘You can get them fairly cheap, can’t you?’
‘It wasn’t expensive but that’s beside the point. It’s the principle of the matter. I won’t be able to rest knowing it’s lying around somewhere going to waste. Or…’ Iris said, her tone darkening now, ‘that we have a thief in our midst.’
Cathy paused, her hand almost unconsciously caressing a wooden spoon in a drawer she’d just opened to check.
‘Thief?’ Cathy stared at Iris. ‘Who do you think would do that? Nobody in our cookery club as far as I can see. I mean, why would they? For a start, they’d be taking the one bit of equipment they’d be needing when they came here. Even if they wanted it for themselves, that would be a bit daft.’
‘Who knows what motives drive people to crime,’ Iris said grimly, and Cathy had to wonder vaguely whether she’d just accidentally wandered onto the set of Silent Witness. They were talking about what was probably no more than twenty pounds’ worth of hand blender, not the Brink’s-Mat gold.
‘Look, it’ll turn up,’ Cathy said. ‘We just need to keep looking. And if it doesn’t, I’ll go and buy one today and that will be case closed.’
They searched the kitchen for half an hour in relative silence, one of them uttering only a few words to announce that there was no sign of it in the place they’d just looked or to ask how the other was getting on.
‘I’m beginning to doubt my own sanity,’ Cathy said eventually, slamming a cupboard door shut with a sigh of frustration. ‘I wonder if I’ve taken the bloody thing home with me without realising.’
‘I’m beginning to think the same,’ Iris said. ‘I ought to check with Dora again.’
‘Do you think she might have it?’
‘Probably not but I just don’t know what else to do.’
‘Iris, let’s just forget it. I’ll go and buy another one, because this is just not worth the stress.’
Iris opened her mouth to reply, but a voice from the kitchen doorway made them both spin round.
‘Hello, ladies.’
‘Vicar!’ Iris exclaimed, looking very flustered. If she’d been a toddler he would be asking her what she’d done with the sweetie jar right about now. ‘We’re just doing an inventory,’ she added, and Cathy didn’t offer any contradiction, understanding immediately that this was something Iris probably didn’t want to bother him with. More to the point, she probably didn’t want him to think that it was something she didn’t have under control.
‘Oh, you carry on,’ he said warmly, and with that Iris relaxed. Perhaps a bit too much, because she swung from guilty to resembling a star-struck teen. Her voice rose at least an octave while she batted her eyelashes and a hand crept up to tease out her grey curls.
‘And are we all present and correct?’ he continued, smiling good-naturedly. If the vicar had noticed the obvious effect he was having on Iris then he was at least discreet enough not to let it show.
‘I think so,’ Iris said. ‘Actually, yes… yes, we are.’
‘Glad to hear it.’ He smiled at Cathy again.
‘Are you still thinking of joining us next week?’ she asked.
‘Oh, not next week, I’m afraid – meeting with the big boss. Not the very big boss, you understand… he’s far too busy for the likes of me. I’ll have to make do with the Archbishop for now.’
His smile widened to a grin that seemed overly pleased with his joke. Maybe it was very funny in church circles. Cathy managed to acknowledge it with a polite smile of her own.
‘But if there is spare cake at the end of the lesson you can be sure if you leave a slice on my desk it would be very much appreciated.’
‘I’ll remember to make a spare one for you next week,’ Iris said fervently.
‘I’ll look forward to it,’ he said. ‘Well, as we’re not currently getting burgled, I’ll leave you two to get on with it.’
‘Oh no,’ Iris said. ‘Is that what you thought? I should have phoned you to tell you what we’d be doing.’
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I had to go to the office to pick something up and I saw the light was on in the kitchens; that’s all. I knew there’d be a perfectly good explanation. After all, if I can’t trust you with the keys, Iris, then who can I trust? You’re the best caretaker I could ask for.’
Iris looked as if she might burst with pride, smiling all over her face. ‘Thank you!’
‘I don’t know what I’d do if you ever retired,’ he said as he raked a hand through his impressively untamed hair. There was an audible gasp from Iris’s direction and Cathy glanced across, filled with a vague alarm that she might have to catch her mid-swoon. But Iris was wearing that same soppy smile that she’d had – more or less – since he’d arrived.
‘I’ll be in later to look over the accounts, Vicar,’ she said.
‘That would be great; thanks, Iris. Oh, and if you could check what we have to spare, we could do with some new Christmas decorations – the ones we’ve been using for the last few years are beginning to look a bit tatty and I thought we might invest in a few new bits and pieces to pep everything up.’
‘I thought so too,’ Iris said. ‘I was looking at what we’ve got with Dora only the other day and I said just that. I’m sure I’ll be able to find something spare in the coffers.’
‘I know I can rely on you,’ he said. ‘If ever there was a woman who could magic funds out of thin air, it’s you.’
With a last smile, he sauntered out again, hands in his pockets.
From the kitchen doorway they could see straight across the hall to where the office was. Iris watched and waited for the vicar to
go in and close the door behind him before turning to Cathy again, her expression completely back to its normal shrewish self.
‘I do hope he doesn’t find out that something we’ve only just paid for has gone missing already.’
‘Relax,’ Cathy said. ‘Like I said, I’ll go and buy a replacement and nobody needs to be any the wiser. Next time, we’ll do a thorough check of the equipment as people are clearing down so that if anything else goes missing we can ask people while they’re here if they know where it is. There could be a very simple explanation for this that we just haven’t considered – there usually is.’
Iris didn’t look convinced but, as they couldn’t locate the missing item and nobody had time to spend hours looking for it, even she had to admit that Cathy’s proposal made the most sense. Judging by how long they’d already spent on the task, it didn’t look as if it would turn up even if they did. The easiest thing was to cut their losses and simply get another and hope something like this didn’t happen again.
Eighteen
Cathy took the box out from the bag and looked at it. In the end, she’d been able to pick up a comparable blender quite cheaply; though it wasn’t quite the same as the one that had gone missing, she hoped it would be good enough for Iris.
By the time she’d finished at the shops – having got a few bits and pieces for herself and stopped for a quick coffee and a chat at Ingrid’s – dusk had been falling and so Cathy had forgone her plan to walk back home along the canal path. It probably wouldn’t have made any difference anyway. She’d caught sight of herself in the mirror as she’d come through the front door and by now her hair was windswept, her make-up had worn off and she looked tired. It was probably just as well she hadn’t met anyone interesting on her way home.
She shrugged off her coat and left it on the bed to put back in the wardrobe later, and then took off her boots, going back downstairs barefoot. By now, the heating had come on and the house was warm.
It was as she was putting the kettle on for a well-earned brew that her phone began to ring. She smiled to see it was Erica.
‘Hello… how are you?’
‘I’m alright,’ Erica said. ‘I’ll be better when Malc goes to work and he’s out of my hair. He’s on the noon shift and he’s driving me mad. When he’s on the day shift he’s normally out of the house before I get up… God, I wish he was on day shifts all the time!’
‘Poor Malc,’ Cathy said. ‘Did you call for anything in particular or just a chat? Not that I mind a chat, of course, as long as you don’t mind the sound of the kettle boiling and me clanging around. I’ve just got in and I’m parched. Which reminds me, I went into Ingrid’s today. She had a new coffee cake on the menu; you’ll have to try some next time.’
‘Sounds good,’ Erica said, but now her breezy tone seemed to have disappeared. ‘I did actually call for something in particular. It’s going to sound a bit weird but… well, I seem to have taken a blender home from St Cuthbert’s kitchen…’
Cathy frowned. How did someone take something like that home by accident? She’d admit to putting things in weird places before now, but to take something like that home from someone else’s kitchen by accident? And Cathy knew Erica wouldn’t have done it on purpose… It didn’t seem to make any sense.
Unless it wasn’t Erica. Tansy? Would Tansy have done something like that? If so why? And why would Erica feel the need to cover for her? Why not just admit what had happened and have a good laugh about the silliness of it?
‘I’m glad you’ve called me about it,’ Cathy said. ‘Iris was stressing a bit when she couldn’t find it so I went to the shops to get another. Now that it’s turned up I can take this one back for a refund. Thanks for letting me know before I opened it.’
‘I’m really sorry,’ Erica said. ‘I feel like a total idiot.’
‘Why?’ Cathy put Erica on the loudspeaker and sat the phone on the counter while she went to fill the kettle.
‘I just do. It’s a really stupid thing to happen, isn’t it? I have no idea how it got in my bag – it was just there when I looked this morning.’
Cathy frowned again. Something about this didn’t stack up at all. ‘It probably just fell in. It’s funny how these things can happen. Maybe you walked past it on the way out and knocked it into your open bag or something. Or you were having a senior moment and dropped it in. It is a bit strange but it doesn’t matter – at least we’ve found it.’
‘I can get it to you first thing if you like.’
‘There’s no need to make a special trip. I’ll call Iris and let her know we’ve got it and then I’ll take this other one back to the shop. We won’t need it until next cookery club so just keep hold of it and bring it when you come… You are coming to the next one, aren’t you?’
Cathy didn’t know what made her ask that; she could only say there was something in Erica’s tone that didn’t sound happy at all, and it was definitely more than Malcolm driving her mad.
‘I think so,’ Erica said, confirming Cathy’s suspicions, because she didn’t sound very certain.
‘Of course,’ Cathy said, trying to sound casual, ‘I’ll understand if you’re busy. I can’t expect everyone to be free every week…’
‘I’ll come,’ Erica said. ‘I’m not sure about Tansy for next time but count me in.’
Cathy gave a half smile as she dropped a teabag into a mug. She couldn’t say she was particularly gutted at the thought of no Tansy next time and she didn’t think anyone else would be either. ‘I understand. It’s full of people much older than her, isn’t it? I’m quite surprised she’s done the two weeks she has if I’m honest – not sure I would have been up for a club full of old folks at her age.’
‘Oh, it’s not that. I think she’s enjoying the baking – she actually loves cooking. She used to say, when she was little, that she wanted to be a chef. It’s just… well, I think she’s a bit busy, that’s all.’
Cathy recalled now the look of intense concentration on Tansy’s face when they finally got down to baking, and she could see what Erica meant because it had looked as if her niece had been deadly serious about the cookery aspect of the session, even if she appeared to hate everything about the socialising. But hadn’t Erica said once before that Tansy had very few friends? Still, it didn’t seem the time to point that out.
‘College or something, I suppose?’ she said instead, gifting Erica an excuse.
‘Something like that, yes.’
‘It’ll be a shame to lose her from the numbers but it’s OK. Maybe she’ll give it another go when she’s less busy?’
‘Maybe,’ Erica said, though she sounded unconvinced.
‘OK. So I’ll see you there if I don’t see you before?’
‘It’ll probably be there; I’ve got quite a lot on this week – family stuff, you know…’
‘Oh. Well, that’s OK. I hope you get whatever it is sorted.’
‘Thanks. And I’m sorry again about the blender.’
‘Don’t give it another thought,’ Cathy said, now thoroughly convinced that Erica hadn’t taken the blender at all and that it was most likely Tansy. But if that was the case, it was a puzzle Cathy was sure she’d end up giving a lot of thought to.
Nineteen
It was nearing the end of November, and with Christmas now feeling closer, Fleur had bought bundles of sturdy mistletoe sprigs, dotted with pearly berries, to sell on the stall. Cathy thought them gorgeous, though she couldn’t help but feel a little sad about the fact that she had no reason to have a sprig up in her house. As Fleur unpacked them to display, she bound up the odds and ends that had come free and gave them to Cathy.
‘What am I supposed to do with them?’ Cathy asked, laughing. ‘Who am I going to be kissing?’
‘They’re not just for kissing under, you know,’ Fleur replied. ‘That’s some nonsense that Charles Dickens came up with.’
‘I wouldn’t tell your customers that if you want to sell it,’ Cathy replied with a sm
ile.
‘I’d rather have it for the original use anyway,’ Fleur said. ‘Far more valuable.’
‘Which is?’
‘To protect against evil spirits and bring luck.’
‘God, give me that whole delivery then!’
Fleur chuckled. ‘So you can hang it in your house and not worry about that kissing rubbish.’
‘Hmm, kissing is overrated – at least, that’s what I keep telling myself so I’ll feel better about not getting any.’
‘You and me both, my love,’ Fleur said. ‘Not that I’m bothered right now. Best thing I did was kick that no-good loser out of my house.’
‘You mean Gavin?’ Cathy asked.
‘Don’t!’ Fleur held up a hand. ‘Don’t utter that name in my presence!’
‘Sorry,’ Cathy said, though she could see that while Fleur meant it, she wasn’t angry at Cathy. She was angry at her ex, of course, who’d moved in all charm and good looks and, once he’d got his feet under Fleur’s table, had systematically gone about trying to take her for every penny she had. In subtle ways at first, so that nobody had realised it was happening – least of all Fleur. But Fleur was no gullible fool and it hadn’t taken her long to realise she was being taken for a mug. She’d booted him out, no fuss, no tears, though Cathy also knew that was a front. She’d been hurt, no doubt about that, and she’d felt stupid too, but she wasn’t going to let anyone see that.
‘Sometimes I think there’s not a one of them worth having,’ Fleur continued. ‘Here’s me, single at forty-eight, still not able to find a good man worth my effort.’
‘I’m sure it’s not like that,’ Cathy said.
Fleur looked unconvinced. And the conversation had turned Cathy’s thoughts to another man, one who she had thought she’d known well but was turning out to be someone else entirely.
Cathy's Christmas Kitchen: A heart-warming feel-good romantic comedy Page 13