Birthday Cake and Bodies (Peridale Cafe Cozy Mystery Book 9)

by Agatha Frost

  “We weren’t to know this would happen,” Julia said, rubbing his back softly. “I just wanted to throw Barker a nice party. I never knew things were so tense, especially since –”

  “The funeral?” Theo jumped in, smiling softly at Julia in the glow of the flickering candle. “A similar thing happened on that day. I swore I’d never look my twin brother in the eyes again, but something compelled me to come.”

  Julia pulled her hand away when she remembered Theo and Dawn’s kiss in the sitting room. Perhaps like Conrad, Theo had followed his heart to the manor?

  “Family can be tricky,” Julia said as she walked over to the oven. “The gas should still be working. How about a nice cup of peppermint and liquorice tea?”

  After filling and boiling a pan, Julia grabbed two teabags from the cupboard. She placed the cups on the edge of the island and pulled the candle towards the stools. She sat down and picked up the tea, the sweet and familiar scent soothing her.

  “Unusual,” Theo said after slurping the hot tea. “I like it.”

  “It’s an acquired taste.”

  “I suppose you want to know why I felt compelled to hit Ethan?” Theo suddenly asked, his tongue running over his moist lips. “I’ve seen you running around the place asking everyone questions. Barker has you well trained.”

  Julia pursed her lips, resenting the idea that she was nothing more than Barker’s lap dog. She wanted to mention the half a dozen times she had outwitted Barker by solving a murder case before him, but she bit her tongue, deciding it would bring nothing to the table other than a sour feeling.

  “It did cross my mind,” she said airily. “It’s not my place to ask personal questions, is it?”

  “He thinks his grief was worse than mine,” Theo said with a cold laugh. “He genuinely believes his son being strangled is worse than what happened to my Bethany.”

  “He said that?”

  “His exact words were ‘you’ll never understand what this feels like’,” Theo said with another cold laugh. “If only he knew what I knew.”

  “Slip of the tongue?”

  “From Ethan?” Theo snapped. “He’s always been calculated and cold. He ruined my life getting into that car with Bethany. He deserves everything he gets.”

  Julia sipped her hot tea, Theo’s sobs in the bathroom echoing around her mind. Had he been crying for the memory of Bethany, rather than his murdered nephew?

  “It’s been a long day,” Julia said. “I’m sure you can talk in the morning. Tempers are running high.”

  “Talk?”

  “You’re still brothers.”

  “We might share a face, Julia, but that man is not my brother,” Theo said as he slid off the stool. “Thanks for the tea.”

  Without another word, Theo headed for the door, his bandaged hand running over his bald head. He disappeared into the dark, leaving Julia alone in the flickering candlelight. Trying to remember she was in a house full of people and not alone, she lifted her comforting tea to her lips, blowing at the steam.

  “Julia?” a voice hissed in the dark.

  Julia dropped the cup, the ceramic shattering on contact with the marble. Hot tea splashed against her blouse, soaking through in seconds. She jumped back with a gasp as she looked up at the doorway. Jessie smiled her apologies from under her hood.

  “It’s fine,” Julia said quickly, pulling the blouse away from her chest as she ripped a paper towel from the roll on the counter. “Has something happened?”

  “Bella knows,” Jessie whispered, glancing over her shoulder as she stepped into the candlelight. “She knows what Conrad was doing with her cousin.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “She just admitted it,” Jessie said, creeping forward before picking up the other cup of peppermint and liquorice tea. “This for me?” Jessie picked up the cup and slurped from the rim before Julia could answer. “When you went to talk to Conrad, I held the door for as long as I could, but she wouldn’t give up trying to get out. She told me she wouldn’t run if I let go, but she did. I threw a shampoo bottle at her, and she fell over. Once I had her in a restraint, we went into the bathroom together, and we started talking. At first, I was trying to understand the point of her online stuff. She’s pretty defensive about it, but she said something like ‘Conrad is making it worth my time’, which I found weird. The way she said it made it sound like the relationship was fake, so I straight out asked what she would do if he cheated on her. Just from the look on her face, I knew that she knew.”

  “You’re basing this on a look?”

  “She confessed everything,” Jessie said, a grin spreading behind the cup. “I asked if Luke had a girlfriend, and she quickly said that he was gay. I asked how she knew, and she stumbled and stuttered. Started singing like a canary. Apparently, she’s known since the first day Luke and Conrad met. One of her friends saw them kissing in some bar.”

  “But that was months ago,” Julia muttered, frowning into her tea. “Why not just leave him?”

  “She figured out he was using her,” Jessie said, her grin growing. “But she was using him from the beginning too. She called it ‘social climbing’. She’s using his hundred thousand followers to grow her own profile, so she can make money, and then hop onto another guy with a bigger following.”

  “So, she was just biding her time?” Julia sipped her tea, her head spinning with the new information. “And she doesn’t love Conrad?”

  “Not even an ounce, by the sounds of it, but she did seem pretty upset that Luke had been lying to her. She said they used to be friends, even after what happened with Bethany.”

  “Upset enough to kill him?”

  “Who knows?” Jessie said with a shrug. “Stranger things have happened.”

  “They have,” Julia said, her finger tapping rhythmically against her chin. “I still need to speak to Casper and Heather.”

  “I saw Casper walking down the stairs. I had to overtake because he was too slow. He was mumbling to himself about the buffet.”

  After Jessie went off to find Dot, Julia headed to the sitting room with a candlestick in her hand. She walked through the shadowy entrance hall, the crystal chandelier glittering above in the blackness. She passed the basement door, which was slightly open. She almost called down to see if her father was okay, but she heard him curse and drop what sounded like a screwdriver, so she left him to it.

  She walked into the sitting room, pleased to see that Katie had dotted candles around the room. She placed hers on a side table and turned to the buffet table, almost missing Casper entirely.

  “Casper?” Julia called out, startling the man as he stuffed sausage rolls in his mouth, completely bent over the buffet table. “Hungry?”

  The silver foil rustled as Casper spun around, flaky pastry stuck in his moustache. He dropped his cane in the confusion, wobbling on the spot like a ball on a seesaw. Julia hurried over to steady him before he toppled over entirely.

  “I think you might have just witnessed me losing my last shred of dignity,” he confessed as he dusted the flakes from his moustache. “Sausage roll?”

  Casper hobbled over to the cushioned window ledge. He collapsed into the corner with a pained sigh, his eyes closed as the pressure lifted off his leg. Julia pulled off the foil before joining him with the plate.

  “Heather wouldn’t let me come down,” he said. “She’s holding me hostage in the bedroom. Thinks you’re going to start trying to pin things on us.”

  “I don’t pin things on innocent people,” Julia said as Casper plucked a mini sausage roll from the plate. “I’m just trying to figure out the truth.”

  “Well, at least you know we’re innocent,” Casper mumbled through the mouthful. “That’s a weight lifted.”

  “I never said that,” she replied with a polite smile. “I know that you visited Luke’s bedroom sometime before he died.”

  “W-What?” Casper paused to cough on the sausage roll lodged in his throat. “How-”

  �
��I know about the money too,” Julia said before plucking out a sausage roll. “Three hundred thousand pounds is a lot to lend to your nephew.”

  Julia tossed the sausage roll into her mouth, chewing slowly as she watched Casper’s cheeks turn a painful shade of burgundy.

  “How do you know about that?” Casper said, his nostrils flaring. “I never told anyone, apart from Heather.”

  “Know about what?” Julia said. “The bedroom visit, or the money?”

  “Both.”

  Julia licked the flakes off her lips before pulling her phone out of her pocket. She brought up the picture, zoomed in on the single white footprints on the dark carpet, and turned it to Casper. He took the phone from her, his eyes crinkling as he squinted at the grainy image.

  “I didn’t realise they were single footprints at first,” Julia admitted. “It’s not something that crossed my mind, but my gran’s mind works very differently to the rest of us.” Julia picked up another sausage roll as she watched Casper’s plump, red face drain to blend in with the white wall behind him. “You did tell me you were rather good at using your crutch when you didn’t want to wear your prosthetic.”

  “I didn’t kill him.”

  “I never said you did.”

  “But you’re implying it,” Casper yelled, his face reddening again. “Heather was right about you!”

  Julia paused to think about the impression she had given to Heather, and what she could have been right about.

  “Casper, I just want to know what you were doing in your nephew’s bedroom, and why you didn’t tell anyone.”

  “You think I did it!” Casper cried, tossing the phone back to Julia. “I just went to talk to him. I knew I had to wait until he was alone. I heard him come upstairs.”

  “How did you know it was Luke?”

  “He switched rooms with Ethan and Dawn,” Casper explained. “The housekeeper gave Luke a bigger bed, so Dawn made him switch.” Casper picked up another sausage roll and placed it into his mouth before continuing. “That’s not important. What’s important is I only went to talk to him about the money. He hadn’t been answering my calls. I even tried emailing him, and I don’t even use computers. I don’t trust them. Heather had to help, not that the brat replied. I know you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but that boy was rotten to the core. I should never have trusted him!”

  “Where did you get three hundred thousand pounds from?” Julia asked, her voice softening. “That’s a lot of money.”

  Casper’s eyes darted down. He turned to look through the window and into the pitch black. Julia turned too, noticing his sad expression in the dark reflection.

  “We re-mortgaged,” he whispered, the words catching in his throat. “We’d almost paid it off, but he pitched his idea so well. He sold us the dream. We thought we’d be able to finally move abroad with the extra money.”

  “What did he promise you?” Julia asked, resting her hand on Casper’s good knee.

  “He said he’d turn our investment into a million pounds in six months,” Casper said with a disbelieving laugh. “We were the fools who believed him. He told us he’d landed on an idea for a game. He said failure was ‘impossible’ and that our money was ‘guaranteed’. Heather was against it, but I was the chump who went along with it. The bank would only give us a ten-year mortgage, so we re-mortgaged for two hundred thousand, and I took the rest from my army pension and life savings. There was enough to pay the repayments for a couple of months, but it ran out quicker than we expected. The camper van needed a new engine, and Heather had to spend a month in Spain when her sister broke her hip. Eventually, the money ran out, and I had – I had to -”

  Casper broke off as tears began to collect along his lashes.

  “I had to sell my medals,” he said, swallowing back the tears. “I didn’t even get a decent price for them, but I was desperate. When I saw Luke here acting like nothing had happened, I felt sick. I wanted to throttle him, believe me, but I didn’t actually do it.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I confronted him,” Casper continued. “He was already in bed. I asked him when I’d see my money again, and he told me he’d lost it, like he was talking about some spare change. He said that was ‘just business’ and investments are never ‘one hundred percent secure’. I signed something when I handed over the money, which he told me was for my protection, but he revealed that the fine print said I was donating the money and I would only receive a return on my investment if the project worked. My own nephew ruined my life, and now that he’s dead, I have no chance of ever seeing that money again.”

  “Surely that’s not legal?” Julia responded, her heart pounding on Casper’s behalf. “His company will still exist even though he’s gone. There must be someone you can talk to.”

  “I can’t afford a lawyer,” he said, tears trickling down his cheeks and into his moustache. “I don’t even know where I’m going to get the next month’s money from. The bank is going to take our home from under us, and we’ll be out on the street. We’ve lived there for thirty years!” Casper paused to wipe away his tears with a shaky hand. “You’ve got to believe me, I didn’t kill him. I threatened him, and he jumped out of bed, bold as brass and stark naked. That was the type of person he was. He was so sure of himself that he didn’t even care. I stumbled back and fell into the chest of drawers. My stump was killing me, so I had gone in without my fake leg. The bottle of moisturiser fell off, and I must have stepped in it. I hurried back to him on my crutch and loomed over him, and all he could do was smirk at me. It knocked me sick. I turned around and left. That was the last I saw of him. Katie screamed over an hour later.”

  “So, you went in before Conrad?” Julia asked, almost to herself. “That rules you out of the frame entirely.”

  “Conrad?”

  “Bella’s boyfriend,” Julia said. “It doesn’t matter, but it puts you in the clear, as long as you’ve told me the truth.”

  “I swear on my good leg that I have told you everything.” Casper held his hand up. “I stayed in the bedroom with Heather until he was found.”

  Julia was about to tell Casper that she believed him, but a loud thudding distracted her. She jumped up, the sausage rolls falling off her knee. The tray clattered against the floorboards and sent the nibbles rolling across the floor.

  Snatching up the candlestick as she went, Julia hurried back into the entrance hall, her heart stopping when she saw the figure in the white nightie lying at the bottom of the stairs. At that very moment, the lights flickered back on.

  “What was that?” Brian cried as he ran up the stairs from the basement.

  All of the doors at the top of the hallway opened, and Heather, Bella, Conrad, Dawn, Ethan, Theo, and Katie all appeared, each of them looking as astounded as the other when they saw the lifeless body at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Hilary?” Dot cried when she came from the dining room with Jessie. “What happened?”

  “Someone call an ambulance,” Julia said as she crouched by the housekeeper’s side, a small pool of blood forming under her wiry hair. “Tell them to be quick.”

  11

  The paramedics arrived in eight minutes, and four later they were speeding away from Peridale Manor with Hilary strapped to a stretcher, Brian by her side. Five minutes after that, Barker was once again pacing in the sitting room, his family surrounding him.

  “Here we are again,” Barker said through clenched teeth, his nostrils flared. “Because one body wasn’t enough for today.”

  “She’s not dead,” Katie reminded him from the window seat where Julia had been sat with Casper and the sausage rolls. She had her mobile phone clutched in her hand, resting on her bump. “They’ve just arrived at the hospital.”

  “She could have fallen,” Heather suggested quietly, her hand wrapped around Casper’s. “Those stairs are slippery.”

  “She’s lived here for forty years!” Katie shrieked, her face turning pink. “Hilary could find he
r way around this house with her eyes closed in the dark. She’s never so much as tripped on a carpet.”

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Katie is probably right,” Dot said as she fiddled with her brooch. “One of you pushed her.”

  “I was downstairs with Julia,” Casper jumped in, pointing his cane in Julia’s direction, who was leaning against the fireplace behind Barker as the dying fire crackled softly against the backs of her legs. “And Heather didn’t do it. We were together when Luke died.”

  “Why are we assuming this is connected?” Theo said as he rubbed his forehead. “As far as we know, Katie or Brian did it.”

  “I beg your –” Katie jumped up, only stopping when Julia softly shook her head. “Brian was in the basement, and I was with Daddy.”

  “Can he verify that?” Bella asked. “Why haven’t we seen him?”

  “He’s in a wheelchair,” Julia explained, looking around Barker as he paced in front of her. “He can’t talk.”

  “Next you’re going to suggest he did it!” Katie cried, both hands clutching her bump. “I need to get out of this room. It’s not good for me or the baby.”

  Julia refrained from blurting out that she thought it was the wisest thing Katie had ever said. She shuffled out in her bright pink slippers and pink silk nightie.

  “If she’s leaving, then so am I,” Dawn said blankly, pushing herself up from the couch. “Come on, Ethan. We don’t need to listen to this.”

  “Sit down,” Barker demanded. “No one is leaving until we figure this out.”

  “There’s nothing to figure out,” Conrad said. “I didn’t push her.”

  “Neither did I,” Bella added. “Why would I?”

  “Why would anyone?” Ethan cried as he rolled his head around his neck. “Can we not grieve in peace?”

  “Sure,” Barker said. “Will the person who strangled Luke and pushed Hilary please stand up?”

  Barker stopped pacing, crossed his arms, and stared out at his family. None of them could look him in the eyes. Casper and Heather clung to each other, as did Bella and Conrad. Ethan and Dawn twitched on either side of the couch they were sharing, and Theo looked down at the ground from his position near the buffet, the only spot in the room where he did not have to make eye contact with his twin brother.