Murder On The Menu: A Romantic Comedy Culinary Cozy Mystery (A Celebrity Mystery)

by Mackenzie, Zanna

  “Yeah, but not at Marla’s place.”

  “OK. Well, the flat is at the far end of the village, near the phone box. I looked up her parents’ address in the phone book. They live in the first of the terrace houses as you approach the village store.” We sit in silence for a few moments, and then I remember where Jack has been today. “Emma told me you’d dashed off to London. Was it something to do with the agency? Do they want you back?”

  “No, it didn’t have anything to do with them.” He stares straight ahead, concentrating on his driving. “I went to pay a visit to Billy Brunsworth.”

  “Armand’s agent and manager? Wow! Did you find out anything interesting?” I glance over, eager for news. At the same time, relief floods through me. Jack hasn’t been summoned back to work. He isn’t leaving me on my own to try and figure out who murdered Armand.

  He changes gear, slowing the car as we approach the edge of the village. “Yeah, there was no love lost between the two of them. I flashed the fake ID again and said I was investigating his death. Made up a little fib about one of Armand’s friends pointing the finger at Billy. Claiming they’d been arguing a lot and were about to split, professionally speaking.”

  “And? Could you pull over for a minute and tell me what he said? Please?”

  He does just that, switching off the noisy engine, unclipping his seat belt and turning to face me. The temperature in the car ratchets up a few degrees as we stare at each other. Feeling a bit hot and bothered, I’m the first one to look away. “So, what did this Billy have to say for himself then?”

  “He went on about how he’d been the one to discover Armand at some food show and exhibition. Apparently, Armand had been demonstrating a wok for some company and Billy had approached him and arranged a meeting. Billy reckons he’s the one who put Armand on the road to fame and fortune and that Armand was an ungrateful so and so.”

  “He sounds remarkably forthcoming, bearing in mind what he’s told you could land him on the suspects list.”

  “I know, that’s what I thought too, but the fact he stank of alcohol probably explains his loose tongue. Oh, he was the guy who put together that flyer you spotted in the kitchen at the Veggies too. He was trying to convince Armand how valuable he was to his career.”

  I risk another look across at Jack. He’s still facing me and he still looks handsome and strong and … tempting. “Do you really think he might be angry enough, or drunk enough, to have killed Armand?” I ask, forcing my mind back onto the case.

  “Anything’s possible but he’d be reducing his own client list and income by doing so, which doesn’t make sense.” He rubs a hand across the light stubble on his cheeks. “There is the possibility Armand was planning on leaving Billy and getting himself a new agent and manager. Billy, naturally, being the one who had discovered Armand, wouldn’t be happy about that prospect.”

  “So, Armand threatens to leave Billy, dissolve their contract or whatever, and Billy, in a fit of temper, decides another agent isn’t going to benefit from Armand’s fees, which he thinks should rightfully be his, and so he stabs him!”

  “Except I asked him where he was on the night Armand was stabbed…”

  I sigh, hopes of finding our killer rapidly fading. “He has an alibi, doesn’t he?”

  Jack nods. “Afraid so. He was at a posh dinner in a hotel where two of his clients were guest speakers. I checked it all out and he was shown arriving on the CCTV.”

  “If Billy isn’t the killer, then who is?” I smack a fist against the seat in frustration.

  Jack reaches out and takes my hand in his. “Hey, there’s no way the local police are going to arrest you for this murder. I won’t let it happen. I promise.”

  I force an apologetic smile. “Sorry. I just get a bit, you know, panicky about it all. I’m really scared, Jack.”

  “Perfectly understandable,” he says quietly, gently stroking a thumb back and forth across my palm. “But you don’t need to be. I’ll sort this all out.”

  My mind runs through our diminishing suspects list. The sensible part of me says I should pull my hand from his but the other side of me wins out and I stay right where I am. “I can’t believe you raced off down to London for me and this investigation I’m not even paying you for. That’s so kind. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Like I said, I won’t let anything happen to you.” He abruptly pulls his hand away and turns to start the Land Rover up again. “Let’s go and have a chat with Katya, shall we?”

  We ring the bell and knock on the door of her flat but there’s no answer. Back in the car I click in my seatbelt. “I have an idea where she might be. Can you drive over to the kitchen garden? I know it’s dark but…” I shrug. “It’s just a feeling.”

  Climbing over the gate, Jack shines a torch along the track as we make our way towards the sheds skulking at the back of the kitchen garden.

  “Sorry, it doesn’t look like she’s here,” I say.

  “Katya? Is that you?”

  My breath catches as I spin round, trying to figure out where the male voice is coming from in the darkness behind us. Jack lifts a finger to my lips to silence me before I can even open my mouth. Slipping a hand into mine, he leads me behind the sheds, switching off the torch and plunging us into darkness.

  “Katya? I can’t see. Where are you? I’ve been waiting days for you to show up.” I can hear feet crunching on the gravel path. “Katya, why did you dump the flowers on the compost heap?”

  The man’s words trail off to nothing as Jack calmly steps from the shadows in front of him. I stay out of sight, pressed against the damp wood of the shed, the unpleasant musty smell assailing my nostrils.

  “Who….who are you?” the voice asks, stammering slightly. From my hiding position, I can’t see the other person. “Where’s Katya?”

  “She’s not here,” Jack replies. “Why are you wandering around the kitchen garden in the dark looking for her? Why is she avoiding you?”

  “I…” the voice falters. “I haven’t seen her in a while. She used to come here all the time. For hours and hours, every day. I’d sit up in my bedroom and watch her. Eventually, I plucked up the courage to come down and talk to her. She’d let me help her out with the vegetables and also with lifting heavy things.” There’s a beat of silence and then, again, “Who are you?”

  “My name is Jack,” he replies, and I notice his voice has softened. “I was looking for Katya, too. What’s your name?”

  “Harry.”

  “So, you live next door to the kitchen garden, huh? You look too old for school but I’m thinking you’re not working either?”

  “I’m sixteen. Left school this summer. My friends have got jobs or moved away for college or gone back to school, you know, to do sixth form and A levels and stuff, but I’m stuck here with nothing to do.”

  Katya has got a sixteen-year-old admirer? A school boy who is bored and sits watching her every day from his room or coming down to the garden to help her out. I leave my hiding place and move to stand next to Jack. Harry looks nervous and takes a step back at the sight of someone else emerging from the shadows. “Who are you? Wait! I recognise you! You work at the Veggies. You’re a waitress. My mum is a cleaner at the Veggies, I’ve spotted you when I’ve called to see her.”

  Of course. Harry. This is Carole’s son. “That’s right. I’m Lizzie.”

  “I wasn’t doing anything wrong,” he says, looking worried. “Honest. I liked helping out in the garden. Made the day go a bit faster. But then Katya stopped coming down here so much.”

  “Do you know why she stopped coming down here?” Jacks quizzes. “The garden looks pretty neglected.”

  Harry shrugs.

  I edge towards him. “Was she upset when you gave her the flowers, Harry?”

  For a moment he looks puzzled. “I didn’t give her the flowers.”

  “Did you see who did?” Jack asks.

  “Yeah.” He nods, his eyes growing wide with concern. “T
hat guy from the Veggies.”

  “Which guy?” Jack encourages. “Can you describe him?”

  “The chef. The one with longish hair.” He looks from Jack to me and then frowns as though he’s trying to remember something. “Armand, right?”

  “Thanks, Harry, you’ve been a real help to us.” Jack beams him a smile. “Did you see Armand with Katya very often? Did he call at the kitchen garden?”

  “Yeah, lately he was here most days. Then Katya stopped being here all the time. I saw them arguing a few times as well. I don’t think she liked him very much.” His eyes drift towards the compost bin. “I’m not surprised she ditched his flowers.”

  Jack pats Harry on the shoulders. “Why don’t you head off home now, huh, Harry? You really have helped us out. If we need to ask you anything else, can we call by your house?”

  Harry looks pleased at the idea and nods enthusiastically. “I live right next door. I’m home all the time. There’s not much else to do around here.”

  “You said you helped Katya out around the garden. Did you enjoy that kind of work?” he asks and I realise what he’s thinking. He’s wondering if he can get some work on Frazer’s farm for the boy.

  Harry nods but looks wary. “Yeah, I did. I only ever did what Katya told me to, though. I wouldn’t have wanted to damage anything.” He shines his torch around him. “I wanted to come down and try and look after the plants, whether Katya was here or not, but I daren’t. Thought I might get into trouble. The plants are all keeling over now though. It’s too late.”

  I look at Jack and we both nod, as if thinking the same thing. “I think you’d really be helping Katya out if you wanted to come down and do some weeding and sorting over the next week or so. How does that sound?” I suggest.

  “Yeah,” he says enthusiastically. “Sounds good.”

  “Make a good job of it and I might be able to get you more work. Paid this time. Farm stuff. Just a few hours a week to start off,” Jack says.

  “Yeah! I’ll do a good job. Promise.” He turns away but then turns back. “Katya is OK, isn’t she? I’ve been worried about her. I tried to get to see her but…”

  Suddenly my mind flashes back to the night Armand was murdered. The shadowy figure I saw in the car park at the Veggies. “You haven’t been hanging around the Veggies, have you? Hoping to see Katya?”

  Harry shuffles his feet and stares at the ground.

  “Harry?” Jack prompts.

  “Yeah. Sorry. I was worried, that’s all. I thought she might be there late with the chef guy.”

  “Were you there on the night he was murdered?” I check.

  He nods solemnly. “Yeah, but I didn’t see nothing, honest. Can I go home now?” he asks anxiously.

  That explains who was lurking at the back of the car park that night, then.

  Harry heads off home and Jack and I make our way back to the Land Rover.

  “You think you can get him some work on Frazer’s farm?”

  “Got to be worth a shot, I reckon. Harry’s obviously bored. I’ll have a word with Frazer. See if he can afford to give him a bit of work around the place. He’ll need the help. Emma’s going to be out of action for a while with the baby, and I’m going to have to head off soon…”

  I look away. He’s leaving. Well, that’ll put a stop to any more silly ideas about contemplating having a relationship with him.

  As Jack starts the car up we watch Harry saunter up the driveway of the house next to the kitchen garden. When he reaches the front door he stops, turns and offers a shy wave.

  “So, it’s looking like Armand was the reason Katya was neglecting her gardening duties down here. He was harassing her and she took to not turning up, just to stay out of his way.”

  “You said Armand was volatile and a perfectionist. If he came down here to see Katya and she wasn’t around, he’d have spotted the state of the place. Wouldn’t he then have bawled her out for not doing her job?”

  “You’d have thought so but, for some reason, he couldn’t have done, otherwise Katya would have stepped up and got the kitchen garden back in shape. Do you think maybe there’s more to what was going on between them?”

  “Could well be. It’s getting on, but we’ll drive by Katya’s parents and see if there are any lights on. Maybe we’ll be able to have a chat with them.”

  Lights are blazing in every room of the house, so Jack pulls up outside.

  The door is answered straight away.

  But it isn’t Biscuit Woman or Katya’s father standing in the hallway.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  Katya, dark circles under her eyes, hair pulled into a messy ponytail, stares at us but doesn’t say a word. She seems even thinner than the other day.

  “Katya! How are you? I’ve been worried about you.”

  A woman yells down the hallway. “Who’s at the door at this time of night?” Ah. That must be Biscuit Woman.

  “It’s all right, Mum, I’ve got it,” Katya yells behind her.

  I take a step closer. “Can you spare five minutes for a chat?”

  Her eyes flick to Jack. “Who’s he?”

  Pushing him forward I say, “This is Jack. Frazer Mathis’ brother. He was helping me look for you. After you called at Eskdale this morning I thought something must be seriously amiss if you were out buying produce from elsewhere so, well, I wanted to see if you were OK. We called at your flat and at the kitchen garden looking for you.”

  “I told you,” she says defensively. “There’s a fungal problem at the kitchen garden, that’s all.”

  “It’s more than that, isn’t it?” I move closer still, stepping inside the hallway this time. Thankfully Katya doesn’t try to slam the door in my face. “We’ve seen the state of the place. Harry turned up and explained how you’ve…”

  Grabbing a coat from a hook by the door she yells down the hallway, “Just nipping out for a minute. Won’t be long,” and then ushers me back outside.

  “I don’t want to talk here.” Her eyes zip around and land on the vehicle we arrived in, parked outside the house. “In your car. We’ll talk there.”

  Jack leads the way and I follow behind Katya. I keep glancing all around as though we’re in some kind of cops and robbers TV show. I’m not sure what I’m looking for, but feel so on edge, I do it anyway. Katya settles herself in the backseat of the car and immediately starts chewing on a fingernail.

  “So, what’s going on?” Jack asks her without preamble. “Harry told us about Armand visiting you at the garden, said he’d seen the two of you arguing and that Armand was the one who gave you the flowers which are now dumped on the compost heap.”

  Katya stops chewing on her nails and shoots Jack a defiant look. “I didn’t kill him.”

  “We’re not saying you did.” I turn round and place what I hope is a reassuring hand on her arm. She flinches and pulls away. “Look, I know Armand was a bit too touchy-feely with the females who worked at the Veggies.”

  Katya tuts and shakes her head, which I interpret to mean she thinks that’s a major understatement.

  “He tried it on with me and with Marla and one or two others,” I continue. “You must have been in a more vulnerable spot, working alone out at the garden. You could have told somebody though, reported it.” I rub a hand to my forehead, wishing we’d all got together and filed a complaint about Armand instead of keeping quiet in the hope the problem would go away, there wouldn’t be a big fuss, and we’d all get to keep our jobs.

  “You shouldn’t have put up with it,” Jack chips in.

  Katya suddenly grabs the back of my seat and pushes herself forward so she’s in my face, anger flashing in her eyes. “No! He’s right, I shouldn’t have had to put up with it. Armand shouldn’t have been flirting with all of you and hitting on you. He should have been faithful and loyal.”

  Faithful and loyal? Does she mean…

  “You were willingly in a relationship with your boss?” Jack clarifies, putting my own thoughts into w
ords. “You’re saying you were jealous of his flirting with the other women at the restaurant?”

  Flopping back in her seat she resumes nibbling her nails.

  “Katya?” I venture. “You can tell the truth now. You don’t have to protect Armand. You’re not going to get into any trouble.”

  Pausing from the nail biting, she snaps, “I know that. I’m not protecting him. It is the truth. Armand and I have been together for ages. When he first arrived up here, well, we liked each other straight away. He said he was separated from his wife and so we got involved. We had to keep it quiet though. It might have caused problems in the divorce proceedings he said, if people knew we were involved. I thought it wouldn’t look good to the other employees if they knew, too, so we always met in secret.”

  “At the kitchen garden?” I check and she nods.

  Jack taps his fingers against the steering wheel. “So, what changed?”

  “I got jealous of all his flirting. He assured me that’s all it was. Then I heard two of the women talking in the storeroom about how he’d propositioned them. I tackled him about it the next day and he said he wasn’t interested in anybody but me. He said hitting on the women at the Veggies was all about keeping up appearances. At the start I believed him, but as time went on we argued about it more and more. I started trying to avoid him, not putting in the hours at the kitchen garden so I wasn’t around for him to easily find me.” The words are pouring out of her now. “I tried to coincide working in the garden with times I knew Armand should be in the kitchen at the Veggies but I was still struggling to keep up with everything that needed to be done. One day Armand appeared when I was dropping off some produce and yelled at me. He said he expected the best organic produce from the garden for his kitchen and that the stuff I was bringing in wasn’t good enough. Afterwards he tracked me down at the garden when he should have been working. He must have taken thirty minutes out and left someone else in charge. We had another blazing row. Later that day some flowers were delivered to the kitchen garden, from him, with a note apologising. I ripped it up and dumped the flowers.” She finally pauses for breath.