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

by Mackenzie, Zanna

  We pass a sweeping staircase with another real fir Christmas tree sitting at the bottom like a glamorous full stop at the bottom of an elegant question mark. This tree must be over fifteen feet high and is dressed beautifully in apricot and purple baubles with strings of gold beads draped perfectly over its branches. It’s breath-taking. I just manage to spot the pretty gold fairy crowning this festive masterpiece before Roy turns down another corridor and the tree sadly disappears from sight. The doors on either side of us now each have brass plaques on them and it looks as though they’re all function and meeting rooms. There’s no sound of raucous Christmas Eve office parties emanating from behind said doors, though. The Roseby’s gatherings are far more sophisticated affairs, I’m sure. We traipse up another stately-home-worthy staircase, and Roy stops outside a room with a Florence Suite plague beside the door. He knocks lightly and a tall older man opens it.

  “Thank you, Roy. I’ll take things from here,” he says.

  The man beckons us into a luxurious bedroom with a separate lounge area, a dressing area and a bathroom. Wow. This is extremely impressive. I wonder how much one of these rooms cost per night. A frightening amount, no doubt about that, but somebody like Arabella Saunders can easily afford such luxury. Widely regarded as a national treasure, she’s been in every episode of all four series of the TV period drama Compton Abbey. She’s an amazing actress.

  The tall man with a harassed look about him introduces himself as Gerald Dickenson, the manager of the Roseby, and then turns to the woman sitting on the room’s red velvet sofa. “May I introduce Arabella Saunders?”

  Oh wow. It’s her! It’s really her!

  “Mr Mathis.” A hand flutters to her mouth and anxiety flickers in her eyes as she gets to her feet. “I’m so grateful you were able to rush over here, especially as it’s Christmas Eve and I’m sure I’ve dragged you away from far more pleasurable things.” Her eyes flicker to me, then back to Jack. “You were highly recommended by Gerald when I said I wanted somebody discreet and efficient to deal with this…incident.”

  “Please, call me Jack,” he replies and turns to introduce me. “And this is my fiancée Lizzie. She’ll be helping me out on this case.”

  My fiancée. I’m his fiancée. I forgot – it’s all still so new. Glancing at the stylish silver clock above the sofa, I figure it’s less than three hours ago that he proposed to me on a snowy hilltop and we celebrated with champagne and my first-ever edible baked goods – a frosted carrot cake.

  Arabella clasps my hand and beams a smile. I think I’m about to dissolve into a puddle of goo on the floor. I’m having a delirious fangirl moment. “Lizzie, I’m so sorry to be interrupting your festivities like this but the necklace, well, it means the world to me. I hope you can forgive me for the intrusion.”

  “Of course.” I can’t believe I’m standing in the same room as her. She’s even prettier in real life - raven-coloured hair hanging loose around her shoulder, English rose complexion and deep blue eyes - and there’s a genuine warmth about her.

  “You’d have thought you’d have been more careful with it then, wouldn’t you?” A woman appears from the bathroom, a fierce scowl spoiling her beautiful features. She looks just like an older version of Arabella.

  Looking even more angst-ridden now, Arabella forces a weak smile and says through gritted teeth, “And this is my mother, Barbara.”

  “I’m hoping you find my necklace promptly and efficiently,” Barbara says to Jack, ignoring me completely.

  “Sorry, I thought the missing necklace belonged to your daughter Arabella,” Jack checks.

  “It used to belong to my grandmother, not my mother,” Arabella clarifies. “But now it belongs to me.”

  “It did until you went and lost it!” snaps her mother.

  Arabella spins round and glares at Barbara. “I didn’t lose it, Mum! It was stolen from my room.” She looks close to tears and keeps clenching and unclenching her hands. I want to give her a reassuring hug.

  “And you should have been more careful!” Barbara retorts.

  I can’t help wondering if tensions are running so high between them because of the missing jewellery or if they’re always at each other’s throats like this.

  Jack opens his notebook and prepares to start firing questions. “When did you notice the necklace had disappeared?”

  “I was deciding what to wear for dinner and went to the safe in my room to choose some jewellery to try on. After that, I put everything away again and went out for a while. When I got back the safe was open and the necklace gone,” Arabella explains, looking distraught.

  Jack scribbles some notes. “How long ago was this?”

  “About two hours. I had a thorough search around all my luggage and cupboards before I asked Gerald for assistance, just in case it had somehow been mislaid.”

  Barbara gets to her feet and flounces towards Jack, flicking a hand dismissively at his notebook. “There’s no need for you to bother with the questions and spending days and days going over and over everything and wasting all of our valuable time. I can tell you right now who stole this necklace!”

  Jack inclines his head in interest. “You can? Excellent, then please do enlighten me.”

  “Her fiancé took it,” Barbara snorts derisively.

  “MUM!” Arabella gasps and tugs anxiously at a curl of hair.

  “Well, we both know he did it, so what’s the point in pretending otherwise?”

  “Vincent did not steal the necklace,” Arabella replies, her voice quiet but still insistent.

  “He’s a no-good gold digger. I told you that before. I have no idea why on earth you’re marrying him, other than his looks of course!”

  The hotel manager meets my eyes and shifts uncomfortably from one foot to the other. It looks as though he feels every bit as awkward as I do, witnessing their squabbling.

  “Because he loves me, and I love him,” Arabella retorts, her voice betraying her exasperation.

  Barba tuts and shakes her head dismissively. “Foolish girl! He loves your fame and your money, oh, and himself. He does not love you as a person. It’s high time you grew up and accepted the realities of life and someone in your position.”

  “I know what I’m doing. There’s no way Vincent stole that necklace; he was with me at the time it went missing.”

  Barbara sighs as though she doesn’t believe a word her daughter is saying. “Then who did steal it?”

  “That, ladies, is what I’m here to find out,” Jack interjects. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind, can we get some basics in place?”

  Arabella nods, shooting another wary glance at her mother.

  “Is there anybody else staying with you at the Roseby besides your mother? I take it your fiancé is here, too, as you just mentioned him,” Jack asks.

  “Yes.” Arabella nods and pulls at the edge of her chic black cardigan. “And my sister is here, too.”

  “Hannah is not just her sister. She’s also her personal assistant,” Barbara adds.

  “OK.” Jack nods. “Anybody else?”

  Arabella shakes her head.

  “You mentioned how the necklace meant a lot to you emotionally, but was it also worth a lot of money?” I ask.

  I know. I know. Strictly speaking, I’m not a part of Jack’s private investigation and security business, which is none-too-snappily titled Mathis Investigations Safety & Security, nicknamed MISS. But Jack did invite me along, and as people have pointed out on many an occasion, I am far too nosey for my own good. Plus, it’s Christmas Eve and I’d love to get to send tomorrow with my fiancé, so the quicker this case is solved, the happier we’ll all be.

  “It’s insured for a small fortune,” Barbara answers for her daughter. She stops mid-pace and spins on her heels to glare at Arabella. “I can’t believe you’d be so stupid to let it get stolen. You’ve only had it is your possession for seven months. Before you got it the necklace had been perfectly safe in this family for over thirty years.”
>
  Arabella shakes her head in obvious exasperation. “MUM! Please stop.”

  “Perhaps you’d be kind enough to leave us to chat with Arabella?” Jack suggests to Barbara. “Then we’ll come and get your side of things a little later.”

  Barbara huffs indignantly but leaves the room, slamming the door behind her. Gerald, who has looked uncomfortable throughout our questioning, makes his excuses and slips out moments after her.

  “I’m sorry about my mother,” Arabella says, her voice laced with anxiety, her face tense. “Now, please, what do you need from me?”

  The room, with its perfect furnishings, now seems almost overwhelmingly stuffy. I long to open the bay windows and freshen the atmosphere.

  “Let’s start with gathering a list of possible suspects, shall we?” Jack suggests. “People who have had access to your room and people who knew of the necklace and that you had it here with you.”

  Arabella nods. “Of course. Well, that’s simple enough: my fiancé Vincent Turner, my sister Hannah, and my mother. That’s it for people who know about the necklace. As for people who have had access to my room, well, it’s just room service and the chambermaid, but Vincent or I would have been here when room service delivered things. The chambermaid would have been alone in the room, though.”

  “We’ll start interviewing everyone straight away so we can track your necklace down as quickly as possible,” Jack assures her. “So, you said you last saw the necklace about two hours ago. That would have been around one o’clock this afternoon. You went out and when you got back, it had gone, correct?”

  “Vincent and I went for a boat trip on the lake. When I returned, the room’s safe was open and the necklace was gone.”

  “Just the necklace?” I check.

  She nods. “It was the only thing in there of any real value. The only other jewellery I own which is worth anything is my engagement ring, and I was wearing that.”

  Jack scribbles some more in his notebook. “So, we don’t know if it was somebody just trying their luck with the room’s safe or whether it was specifically the necklace they were after. Somebody must have been watching and waiting until they saw you leave for your boat trip though, and they knew your room would be empty. Where is your fiancé now by the way?”

  “He’s in the bar.” Arabella rolls her eyes. “He can’t stand my mother, and as you’ve no doubt noticed, the feeling is mutual. He thought it best to stay out of the way for a little while.”

  “Do you have a photo of the necklace?” I ask. “So we know what we’re looking for.”

  “Yes, I do, for insurance purposes. I have a copy of it on my phone.” Arabella scrolls through her mobile and shows us the image of herself at some awards ceremony. She’s dressed in a beautiful burgundy gown, the garnet and diamond necklace sparkling at her slim neck.

  “Could you forward me a copy of that?” Jack asks.

  She taps away for a second and then nods. “Done.”

  “Right, if you’ve no further information regarding possible suspects,” Jack says, “then we’ll crack on with those interviews.”

  Arabella shrugs in frustration. “I can’t think of anybody else. I haven’t got a stalker or anything if that’s what you’re wondering. I haven’t received any strange messages or noticed people following me. Nothing unusual at all.”

  “Can I ask why you brought the necklace with you?” I ask tentatively. “With something so valuable, I know I’d be paranoid about taking it anywhere with me.”

  “Of course you can ask.” She smiles at me, and for just a second I imagine I’m on the set of Compton Abbey and am part of an episode where the beautiful duchess has discovered a family heirloom has gone missing. “Ask me anything at all,” she continues. “I just want the necklace back. I bought it with me because it’s all I have left of my grandmother, and wearing the necklace makes me feel close to her again.” She pauses before adding, “You see, this will be the first Christmas since she passed away. I miss her so much. Please, you have to find the necklace.”

  On the way down the stairs towards the bar, I glance across at Jack who is deep in thought. “So, what do you think? If someone stole the necklace from the safe, then that means they knew the combinations or knew how to crack a safe.”

  “Yeah, there’s also a third option too, though. That the safe wasn’t locked properly by Arabella, maybe someone or something distracted her at the time. It could have been a phone call or even her fiancé talking to her or rushing her out of the room for this boat trip they had planned.”

  “True,” I reply, my eyes drinking in the amazing pieces of art arranged down the walls of the staircase. “Easily done I suppose.” I recall how snappy Barbara was with Arabella and hope that she remembered to secure the necklace properly in the safe before she left the room for her boat trip. Her mother will forever hound her about it if we discover the necklace went missing simply because Arabella was careless.

  CHAPTER THREE

  In the smart surroundings of the bar, I’m dazzled by the strings of white fairy lights, gold bells and exquisite bows on the beautifully draped garlands of greenery. They follow the edge of the wooden bar and perfectly frame two stained glass windows. Wow. It must have taken ages to dress this place for the holidays. The room is surprisingly quiet, and we soon spot a movie-star-handsome man sitting alone at a table, staring out across the hotel’s floodlit lawns.

  “Mr Turner?” Jack asks.

  The man looks Jack up and down. “Yes. You must be the guy Arabella’s hired.”

  “You sound as though you don’t approve of her decision,” Jack says, taking a seat uninvited.

  I slide into a seat between the two of them as Jack introduces me. Vincent Turner is blond with a Germanic face. His eyes are such a vivid blue that they can’t be real; he must be wearing coloured contacts. He’s also a charmer. Leaning forward, he reaches for my hand, lifts it to his lips and plants a chaste kiss on my skin. I daren’t even risk a glance at Jack. I know he’ll either be rolling his eyes at Vincent’s gesture or scowling.

  “I don’t know why she didn’t just call the local police,” he replies once he’s released my hand. Next, he reaches for the glass on the table in front of him, swirling whatever alcohol is inside it around twice before downing it in one gulp and placing the empty glass on the table. “That’s what they’re there for. They’re the experts.”

  Jack gives a good-natured shrug. “I’m sure she had her reasons. Despite your reservations about me being here, I assume you’re willing to do anything you can to help us track down the necklace.”

  Vincent nods and spreads his hands wide in a gesture of cooperation. “Of course, anything at all.”

  “Where were you when the necklace went missing?” Jack asks him.

  Ah. He’s checking their stories match up. Arabella said they were on the lake.

  “With Arabella,” the man replies without hesitation. He tidies the cuffs of what I suspect is a designer label shirt, even though they’re already immaculate. “We hired a boat and a skipper and went out on the lake. The man and the boat were from a place in the local town, Dela-something?”

  “Delamere,” I chip in.

  Vincent flashes me an electrifying smile. “Yes, that’s the place, pretty lady, Delamere.”

  I don’t need to look; I can feel Jack’s eyes glaring at Vincent’s flirting from here.

  “We didn’t want to have to traipse all the way over there to get the boat. Arabella loves her fans, but there’s only so much adoration you can take, right? We simply wanted some quality quiet time together at Christmas, so we rang the boatyard and asked if they’d send the boat over to pick us up at the dock at the Roseby. They were only too delighted.” He tinkles with laughter, adding, “Of course, we paid them generously for doing so.”

  “Unusual time of year for a trip on the water,” Jack says tersely. “It’s bitterly cold out there today. There was even some snow earlier.”

  Vincent shrugs. “Arabell
a and I have a lot of shared interests, and being on the water is one of them. Whenever we get the opportunity, which believe me, is not often, we seize the opportunity to head onto the water and escape for a little while.”

  “How did you two meet?” I ask.

  He turns those mesmerising blue eyes on me again. “On the set of Compton Abbey. You’re familiar with the TV show, right?”

  I nod. Oh, you know, I’ve watched the odd episode or two. Well, all of them. Twice. It’s only one of my favourite shows. I’m not about to admit as much to him, though.

  “You work behind the scenes?” Jack asks while making notes.

  Vincent laughs. “I am with the production company. I’m a backer, not a cameraman.”

  Jack looks up from his scribbling. “You fund the show?”

  “Not just me. There are a number of people involved in the company. We’re called Turn It Around. We invest in all sorts of projects, but I’m one of the key people that pushed for supporting this particular project. I love a good period drama. There just isn’t enough culture in the world these days, don’t you think?”

  I wouldn’t have a clue. Culture is not something which plays a big role in my life, farming in the backwaters of rural Cumbria. I fidget in my seat, feeling like a country hick. I used to have a high-flying corporate life in London. I used to go to concerts and the theatre, but my old life went pear-shaped and I moved up here to Cumbria to start a new one. After that, I took a sabbatical and ended up running my uncle’s old farm Eskdale Top. And now I much prefer my new life. “How long have you and Arabella been together?” I ask, wanting to steer the conversation back to the investigation.

  “Six months.”

  “That’s a pretty quick engagement then,” Jack says, tapping his pen repeatedly against the arm of the chair.

  “When you meet the right woman, you just know,” Vincent replies silkily.

  Jack shoots me a quick look, and I go all warm and fuzzy. Yay! He thinks I’m the right woman for him. And I know Jack the Spy is definitely the right man for me. Jack the Spy is my little nickname for him. His nickname for me is Catwoman – it’s a long story as to how that one came about!