A Sweet Murder

by Gillian Larkin

  “Of course. Let’s get going. I wonder if the factory has changed.”

  Connie whooshed through the door and towards the factory. She never got a chance to see if the factory had changed.

  “I’m sorry but Mr Vincent isn’t in today, he’s working from home,” the receptionist informed them.

  “Are you sure,” Grace asked slowly, giving Connie a chance to whip around to the other side of the desk. Grace tried to look casual as Connie floated through the receptionist’s body and peered at the book in front of her. Connie looked over at Grace and said, “He’s definitely at home. Let’s go.”

  Grace declined to leave a message. It was lovely having Connie with her but she moved at a fast pace, was this how she had been in business?

  Following instructions from Connie they arrived at Vincent’s home twenty minutes later. Grace stopped the van and stared at the house in front of her. In her stunned state all she could manage to mutter was, “Are you kidding?”

  Chapter 26

  “It’s quite impressive, isn’t it? Alfred had it built when the business took off,” Connie said.

  Grace looked from left to right. “It’s like a mansion! I wasn’t expecting this.” A brass plaque on the wall caught her eye. “Is it really called ‘Flamingo Hall’?”

  “It is,” Connie said proudly. “Are you going to drive in?”

  Grace looked at the driveway, it was made of actual gravel, not tarmac or block paving. She said, “I don’t want to mess it up. What if I leave flakes of rust on it?”

  Connie waved a hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about that, someone will clean it up. Drive up to the door. It looks like Vincent’s at home, and Mirabelle too.”

  Grace drove cautiously along the gravel drive. She stopped a respectful distance from two expensive cars. As she switched off the engine she was beginning to regret her Christmas trousers. But what else could she wear? She didn’t own any evening dresses.

  As if reading her mind Connie said, “You look fine as you are. Come on, hurry up. I can’t wait to see Vincent and Mirabelle. I wonder what she’s wearing today, she always looks so glamorous. Vincent did well marrying her, probably married above himself but I shouldn’t really say that.”

  Grace walked up the stone steps to the huge front doors. She felt like she was in an episode of Downton Abbey. The feeling increased as a butler answered the door, a polite and professional smile on his face.

  Grace blinked a few times. Was she imagining him? No, he was still there, in his butler’s uniform. She realised he was waiting for her to speak.

  “I wanted to speak to Vincent, erm, Mr Vincent Flamingo,” Grace managed to say. She almost felt like curtseying.

  The butler nodded and said, “And whom shall I say is calling?”

  “Grace, Miss Grace Abrahams. Thank you.”

  “Please come in, I’ll see if Mr Vincent can see you.”

  The door was held open, Grace stepped inside. She pressed her lips together to stop her mouth hanging open in awe. She waited until the butler had walked down to the hall and into a room and then she had a good stare around.

  She hissed to Connie, “You could have warned me, I would have worn better shoes!” She looked down at her feet. “Should I take my shoes off? Is that what people do?”

  Connie had a proud smile on her face. “Mirabelle has done an excellent job on this place, she has such good taste.”

  The butler returned, a polite smile still on his face. Grace wondered if he practised in the mirror. He said, “Mr Vincent would be delighted to see you. If you’d like to follow me? Can I take your ...?”

  The butler paused and looked Grace up and down. Oh, how she wished she had a pair of elegant leather gloves to give him. He looked so expectant that Grace gave him what was dangling from her hand.

  “Thank you, these are the keys to your vehicle I presume? And this figure on the keyring, I believe it’s Homer Simpson, is that right?”

  Grace’s cheeks felt warm. “They belong to my brother.”

  “He obviously has good taste,” the butler said, a twinkle in his eye. “This way, please.”

  Connie was still looking around the entrance hall. Grace noticed that the strawberries on her dress seemed even redder.

  The butler turned slightly to his left, towards a door. The door suddenly sprung open and a vision in gold swept out, almost knocking the butler off his feet.

  “Mirabelle,” Connie sighed.

  Mirabelle turned back towards the room she had stormed out of and pointed a finger towards it. Fury flashed from her beautiful eyes as she cried out, “That’s it! No more! You get this sorted and you get it sorted soon! If you think I’m losing everything because of your stupid sisters you can think again!”

  Mirabelle turned on her gold high heels and flounced past Grace, her gold dress seemed to flutter in outrage behind her. Mirabelle’s nose was so high in the air that she didn’t notice Grace. She headed towards the double staircase and clipped up the stairs. Grace’s nose wrinkled. Mirabelle wore expensive perfume. A warm memory washed over Grace. Her and Mum had visited Harrods in London a few years ago and everywhere they went in the store the same expensive perfume lingered in the air. Grace offered to buy Mum some but she’d laughed and said she preferred her usual, the one that she got from Ivy in Leeds Market.

  The butler gave an embarrassed cough. “Sorry about that. Mr Vincent is in here.”

  Vincent was sitting on the edge of the sofa, his head in his hands. Grace felt a rush of sympathy for him. But then she remembered he was a possible murder suspect so she reigned her sympathy in.

  “Miss Grace Abrahams,” the butler announced.

  Vincent looked up. He immediately smiled and stood up, his hand outstretched. “How lovely to see you again. You wouldn’t believe how furious Della was yesterday over the chaos you caused, it made my day!”

  Grace took his warm hand and shook it. “So sorry again about that, I hope it wasn’t too much of a mess.”

  “Don’t think anything of it. Please, sit down. Would you like tea and cake? Do you like liquorice cake? We love liquorice in our family, especially Della.”

  Grace sat down on the opposite sofa. “I’ve never had liquorice cake before, I’d love to try it.”

  Vincent gave a nod to the butler who immediately slid out of the room as if he were on wheels.

  Vincent sat down and said, “To what do I owe the honour? I hope you haven’t brought that T-shirt back, it was a gift.”

  “No, thank you for that yesterday. It’s a bit of a delicate matter.” Grace decided to get straight to the point. “I’ve got something that belongs to your family.” She pulled the recipe book out of her handbag and handed it over.

  Vincent didn’t take it, he just stared at it. When he finally spoke his voice was cold, “Where did you get that from, and what do you want from me?”

  Chapter 27

  Grace didn’t know what to think. “I found it, inside a chair. I told you yesterday that my brother and I go to storage auctions.”

  Vincent nodded curtly.

  Grace carried on, “We saw some shop furniture in one of the lockers. My brother saw a chair and said it reminded him of something.” She paused. She could see that Vincent wasn’t in the mood for long explanations. “Anyway, I discovered the chair used to belong to your family, there are pictures of it in your factory. I found this inside the chair. It looks important and I want you to have it back. Please.”

  Grace’s hand shook as she held the book out. Vincent studied her. He sighed and the hardness fell from his face. He said, “Sorry about that, that was rude of me. I have, what is referred to nowadays, as trust issues. I thought you were wanting something from me, most people are.”

  Grace gave him an understanding smile. “I wanted to give it back, that’s all.”

  Vincent returned her smile and took the old recipe book. He carefully slid it out of the plastic wallet and looked through the pages. “I never knew this existed, it’s
amazing. I wonder if Mum knew about it.”

  Grace shrugged. So Vincent didn’t know about the book, or so he says.

  Vincent frowned. “Did you say you found it in a locker? Was it in that storage unit a few miles west of here?”

  “It was, there were all sorts of shop fittings in there, they looked old. Did they belong to you?”

  Vincent put the book on his lap. “They belong to the family, it’s from the first shop that Alfred Flamingo set up. Have the contents been sold?”

  “They have.” This was the perfect time to question Vincent about renting the unit.

  Vincent rubbed a hand against his forehead. “I don’t understand. I rented that locker a while ago. How can they sell it without me knowing?”

  Grace wasn’t expecting that. She said, “Some people forget to pay, or change banks or something.”

  Vincent sagged, he looked down at the carpet. “I think I know what’s happened. The accountant was supposed to deal with all the accounts, I handed everything over to him.” He looked back up. “I rented the unit to store everything from the shop. I was going to build a museum, behind the main factory. Then I was going to reconstruct the shop just as it was built originally using the original fittings. I took everything out of the shop so that they wouldn’t get damaged any further by customers, although the main counter had been scratched many times but I liked that. It was going to be a big surprise for Mum, I hadn’t even told Mirabelle about it. I still haven’t.”

  Grace saw the tears come to Vincent’s eyes. Connie, who had been silent up to that point said, “A museum? What a wonderful idea, I would have loved that.”

  Grace said, “You mentioned an accountant?”

  “Yes, after Mum died I couldn’t deal with all the usual paperwork so I passed it over to the accountant. He’s fairly new to us but I told him to deal with everything and to ask me if he had any queries. I wonder why the storage fees haven’t been paid. Is it possible he just ignored them? Oh! It’s one thing after another!”

  Grace moved over to Vincent and put a hand on his arm. He looked close to a breakdown. She said, “I’ve got the chair, you can have that. The auction was only on Sunday. My brother might be able to track down the man who bought your things. He could even try to buy them back.”

  “Really? Do you think that is possible? I would pay of course, I’d pay whatever the man who bought the unit wanted.”

  Grace thought about the horrible man who had bought the unit. She’d speak to Frankie and make sure they didn’t pay a penny more than they needed to. She said, “I’ll speak to Frankie later about it. I can’t promise anything but I’ll try.”

  Vincent patted her hand. “Thank you, you are a kind person.”

  “It might make up for nearly destroying your inventing room yesterday,” Grace said with a smile.

  Vincent laughed. “It certainly would. Here’s the cake and tea. Thank you, James.”

  Grace looked up, James, the butler had sneaked up soundlessly on them. He placed tea things in front of them along with a cake covered in black icing. James cut Grace a generous size and offered it to her. “Would you like me to make it smaller?” he asked.

  Grace shook her head. “I don’t want to put you to any trouble.” She might as well make use of her Christmas trousers.

  The cake was delicious, a soft tang of liquorice flavoured the moist sponge and the icing stuck to her teeth in a pleasing manner.

  Vincent inspected the recipe book again. He put it back in the plastic wallet and handed it to Grace. He said, “I can’t take this, it must be worth a fortune.”

  “I want you to have it,” Grace said, then she realised her mistake. Connie was attached to the book, if she left it here then Connie would stay with it.

  Vincent shook his head. “I’ll happily pay you for it, I’ll make some enquiries about its worth. Please, take it.” He gave a laugh, it sounded forced. “If Mirabelle sees this she’ll have it on eBay in a split second. Please keep it safe for me, I’d appreciate it.”

  Grace wiped her sticky fingers on a cotton serviette and put the book back in her bag.

  Grace felt a cold touch on her shoulder. It was Connie, she said softly, “Please can you ask him about the museum? I’d love to know more.”

  Grace did so. Vincent’s face lit up. “I’ll show you the plans.” He stood up and walked over to an old chest of drawers.

  Grace let out a small sigh. She still hadn’t questioned him about Connie’s death. How was she supposed to raise that topic?

  Chapter 28

  Vincent opened a drawer and took out a roll of paper. He unrolled it and laid it out on the desktop. He invited Grace over to have a look.

  He pointed to various parts on the proposed plans unaware that Connie was looking over his shoulder. “This is where the entrance is, and here is a ride that takes you all around the museum. This is going to be the fun part right here.” He tapped the plans. “Make your own sweets. There will be lots of ingredients to choose from, we’ll even have a competition for the best new invention. And, of course, there will be a gift shop. I couldn’t get away with not having one, Mum would never forgive me. She probably would have disagreed with the entrance fee that I’m charging!”

  Connie made a clicking noise with her tongue as she spotted the proposed price. “He needs to double that price! Doesn’t he know he’s trying to run a business? He always was too soft.”

  Grace said, “It looks wonderful. Are you still going ahead with it?”

  Vincent began to roll the plans back up. As he did so a scrap of paper fluttered to the floor. Grace picked it up and unwittingly looked at the numbers written on it. Her eyes felt like they were going to pop out of her head. “Wow! It costs a lot to build a factory. Sorry, I’m being nosy.” She handed the paper to Vincent.

  He gave her a rueful grin. “The number at the bottom is the cost of the building. The huge number above is part of a proposed business deal. I know, it’s exceedingly high. I must admit, I haven’t dared tell Mirabelle about this yet, I don’t think even she could cope with this amount of money. The money should come through soon, there’s been a few hiccups in our accounts. The new accountant that we have is very thorough, he told me about some discrepancies with the income from the vending machines that we have. I told him I’d sort that out, it was a communication error within the family.” Vincent paused and looked down at the paper roll. “I wonder what Mum would have thought about this museum. Apart from not charging enough.”

  Grace looked over at Connie and was glad to see the proud look on her face as she gazed at Vincent. Grace said, “I’m sure she would have been very proud of you.”

  Vincent briskly completed the rolling up of the plans. “She might be proud of the museum but I’m not sure how she’d feel about the proposed business deal I’ve set up.”

  “What’s he done?” Connie asked, her eyes narrowing.

  “What kind of business deal? Are you expanding?” Grace asked, hoping that Vincent didn’t think she was being terribly nosy.

  He didn’t seem to think so. “Before Mum died we talked about going into partnership with other companies, companies abroad. We spoke to some people in Germany and France and got some possible deals together.”

  Connie nodded. “I remember that. They gave us a good offer, not as high as I wanted, but good enough.”

  Vincent returned the plans to the drawer and indicated for Grace to sit back down on the sofa. He sat opposite her and said, “I didn’t think the offers reflected the quality of our products so I kept making enquiries. A huge company in America showed considerable interest, at a considerable price, the price that was written on that bit of paper. You should have seen Mirabelle’s face when I told her the name of the company that wanted to do business with us! We were planning to speak to Mum about it, I knew she might have taken some convincing, she always said she didn’t trust big companies. But, as Mirabelle said, Mum’s motto was ‘It’s business, it’s not personal’.”


  “Did you get chance to speak to Connie about it?”

  “Not straight away. Being the idiot I am I gave the Americans a provisional yes and before I knew it the contracts were on the way. I was worried that Mum was going to find out from someone before I could speak to her. I didn’t want her to think I was going behind her back.”

  Grace thought about what Vincent had said in her vision, was that the deal that he’d been worried about?

  Vincent rubbed his hand over his chin, his eyes were downcast. When he raised them to Grace her heart softened at the pain in them. He said, “Have you ever done something that you bitterly regret?”

  Grace’s softened heart missed a beat. Was Vincent going to confess to Connie’s murder? Should she really be in this room alone with him?

  Vincent didn’t notice her look of panic. He carried on, “Shortly before Mum died I met up with my sisters, Lucinda and Della. We met at the shop that Alfred Flamingo first set up, I was trying to sort out the removal of the shop fittings. I can’t remember how the subject came up but, please keep an open mind if you can, we talked ... we talked about how to kill Mum.”

  “I see,” Grace said, not knowing what else to say.

  “I’m so ashamed to admit it now, I was ashamed within minutes of talking about it. I won’t go into details but we all had reasons for not wanting Mum to know what we’d been up to. For me, it was the American deal. And just for a minute or two getting rid of Mum seemed an option. Isn’t that dreadful? So heartless. We said if Mum had to die we’d want it to be quick, painless and to look like an accident.”

  Grace nodded. She knew exactly how the conversation had gone. Lucinda and Vincent had been the ones who wanted it to be quick and painless, Della had been the one with a scheming look in her eyes as she said that Connie’s death had to look like an accident.

  Vincent gave a mirthless laugh. “I did speak to Mum about the American deal and, as I suspected, her first reaction was to say no. Mum died soon after that, in an accident at home. It was bad enough having that horrific conversation but when I heard about Mum’s death my first thought was that one of my sisters had gone ahead and murdered Mum.”