Chef Maurice and the Bunny-Boiler Bake Off (Chef Maurice Cotswold Mysteries Book 3)

by J. A. Lang

  She appeared to notice Chef Maurice and Patrick for the first time. “Excellent work, gentlemen,” she said, nodding at the long queue. “We really must get you up to the school for a demonstration and career talk, let the girls know what being a chef is all about.”

  “It would be a pleasure, madame,” said Chef Maurice, though he had private doubts as to the sincerity of her request. The parents of Miss Caruthers’ pupils paid hefty sums to send their offspring to the Lady Eleanor School for Girls, and would likely react with horror at the thought of their carefully nurtured daughters taking up the long hours and low pay of a career chef.

  Miss Caruthers dipped a teaspoon (clean, Chef Maurice noted) into the bowl of Le Cochon Rouge’s special mustard sauce. “Exquisite. My sister, Deirdre, took up mustard-making and pickling last year when she retired. I must send her a jar of this sometime. Now, come along, Angela, shouldn’t we all be getting ready for the Bake Off?”

  “I was just saying that I couldn’t find the rest of— Ah, I see Rory over there,” said Angie, waving frantically as she spotted her husband over on the far side of the field, deep in conversation with the M.P. for the Beakley and Endleby area. Karole the Research Rabbit stood nearby, shifting her weight from foot to foot, clearly regretting the choice of four-inch heels in a soft springtime field.

  Eventually, Miss Caruthers and her team managed to corral all the judges into the Bake Off tent—all, that was, apart from Miranda Matthews. Angie and Tricia, the frizzy-haired treasurer of the Beakley Ladies’ Institute, were dispatched to carry out a thorough search of the stalls and tents for the missing celebrity chef.

  Every seat in the Bake Off tent was taken, and there was a sizable crowd milling around the edges. Chef Maurice shuffled his way over to the judges’ table, where Miss Caruthers was surveying the crowd with pursed lips. They were already running three minutes behind schedule, and a few babies were getting fractious in the stuffy confines of the tent.

  “Perhaps, madame, if you require a judge to stand in until Mademoiselle Miranda arrives?”

  You could see the well-polished cogs turning beneath Miss Caruthers’ smart grey curls. The recent surge in the popularity of baking television had led to a bumper crop of Bake Off entries, which were currently jostling for space on the creaking trestle table. It was a warm day, too, and Mayor Gifford in particular was already starting to look a tad overheated in his bunny suit. Perhaps there could be no harm in at least—

  “Police! Someone call the police!” The cry came from the back of the tent, and Tricia stumbled into view, closely followed by Angie, her usual rosy complexion now milk white.

  “What’s happened?” said Miss Caruthers, rising magisterially and hurrying down the aisle.

  “It— It’s Miranda,” spluttered Angie, running to meet her. “We just found her down by the creek. She— She’s been drowned!”

  Chapter 4

  There was uproar in the Bake Off tent. Parents leapt to their feet, clutching their offspring, while the gaggle of local journalists threw aside their coffee cups and sprang into action.

  PC Lucy, with a quick nod at PC Sara to follow her, made her way over to Angie and Tricia, who were both descending into babbling hysteria. A couple of the other constables, who had been standing at the back of the tent with hog roast rolls in their hands, stepped forward to calm the crowd back into their seats.

  “Why? Why would someone do this?” cried Angie, while Tricia collapsed into Miss Caruthers’ arms.

  Near the front of the tent, there were gasps and shouts as a little girl, set off by the panic, ran head first into the long white tablecloth hanging off the Bake Off entries table, pulling the material with her as she went. Cakes, tarts and pastries came sliding over the edge, like a sugar-laden Niagara Falls. PC Lucy watched as her own cake executed a gentle forwards roll, then landed, seemingly unscathed, on the grass.

  Drat, she thought, then shook herself. Now was not the time for worrying about baking. She turned her attention to the task of ushering Angie, Tricia and Miss Caruthers out of the tent.

  “It was horrible,” gulped Tricia, as PC Sara led her out into the open air. “How— How—”

  “You better show us where you found her,” said PC Lucy. “The rest of the team will be on their way. Miss Caruthers, if you’ll let the others know where we’ve gone . . .”

  The headmistress nodded and disappeared back into the tent.

  “How could something like this happen?” Angie, still white, clutched at PC Lucy’s arm. “Who would do something like this?”

  PC Lucy opened her mouth to reply that it might just have been a terrible accident, they couldn’t know anything yet, but a dull weight in her gut was telling her otherwise.

  Either that, or she really shouldn’t have ordered that second jumbo hog roll.

  It was a fraught five minutes’ walk along the tangled, overgrown path that led downstream alongside the drifting waters of Warren’s Creek. This section of the woods, bordering on the Fayre-ground field, was marked as private property—though from the sight of the occasional crushed drinks can and chocolate bar wrapper, the moss-covered signs were not always obeyed by the local population.

  There was a low higgledy-piggledy fence lining the edge of the woods, but even Angie, the shortest of the group and wearing a knee-length tweed skirt, was able to climb over without major fuss.

  Following the stream, they eventually emerged into a clearing where a small jetty stood, poking out over the placid waters. It was an idyllic spot, sheltered by tall elms, with the grass spotted with white and purple crocuses, and bright daffodils lining the water’s edge.

  Idyllic, that was, save for the body floating face down in the shallow waters by the jetty.

  Tricia and Angie quickly turned their backs, clinging together on the edge of the clearing.

  “There’s blood on the back of her head,” said PC Sara in low tones. PC Lucy nodded.

  “Did either of you touch or move the body?” she asked.

  Angie shook her head, from behind a lace-edged handkerchief. “I tried to lean over and reach her, in case . . .” Her voice faltered. “But she was too far, and her head . . .”

  “So then we ran all the way back to get someone,” said Tricia.

  “Did you pass anyone on your way, here or back? Anyone in the woods at all?”

  Both women shook their heads.

  Twigs cracked and leaves rustled as Mayor Gifford, looking as severe and authoritative as possible for a man wearing a pink bunny suit, appeared out of the woods, closely followed by Miss Caruthers and PC Alistair. Miss Caruthers’ thin-lipped frown and the pained look on PC Alistair’s freckled face suggested that both had tried, and failed, to prevent the mayor from stomping down into the crime scene.

  Mayor Gifford ran his gaze swiftly around the clearing, then turned on PC Lucy.

  “Why have you dragged my wife down here? She could have just told you where to find the . . . this spot, no need to bring her down here to see it all again.”

  “It was best that Mrs Gifford and Mrs Walters showed us the site themselves. There’s no need for the two of you to stay here now,” she said, turning to Angie and Tricia, “but we’d please ask that you stay around at the Fayre so we can take your witness statements.”

  “Statements? Angie, don’t you go answering any of their questions without me present, you hear?” growled Mayor Gifford.

  “You’re more than welcome to be there as well, Mr Gifford. It will just be some routine questions. Nothing out of the ordinary,” she added, as Mayor Gifford’s furry ears started to vibrate ominously.

  Accompanied by PC Sara, the Giffords made their way back up the path, followed by Tricia and Miss Caruthers, leaving PC Lucy and Alistair to examine the scene before the rest of the team arrived.

  “Could she have slipped and hit her head?” said PC Alistair, crouching down on the edge of the jetty.

  “Possibly. It might have been enough to knock her out. Though it hasn’t rai
ned the whole of this week,” said PC Lucy, running a hand over the dry wood. “And she’s wearing trainers. Pretty hard to fall over in those.” She pointed at Miranda’s incongruously sporty footwear, then frowned.

  Hadn’t she seen Miranda teetering around on stage in some neon-coloured stiletto heels? Trainers, even purple ones with orange laces, didn’t seem like they’d be Miranda’s first choice for footwear, not even for a stroll in the woods.

  She stood back up and stared around the clearing. The woods were dense in these parts, but even so, the perpetrator, whoever he or she was, would have been foolish to stick to the path by the creek—much better to cut through the woods straight up to the main road, where there were plenty of little lay-bys and turn-offs used by visitors who stopped to admire the Cotswold scenery. Easy to leave a car there, and sneak down here through the woods . . .

  But she was getting ahead of herself. For now, the important thing was to have a good look around, before rain or trampling feet obscured any helpful hints of what had happened.

  “So you reckon it might not have been an accident?” asked PC Alistair, now inspecting the construction of the little jetty.

  PC Lucy, using a long branch to push away the foliage surrounding the path, stopped as something metallic caught her eye.

  “Unfortunately,” she said, “that scenario is looking less and less likely. Have a look at this.”

  PC Alistair scrambled up and hurried over. At their feet, half-hidden by the twisted brown leaves, was a short length of thick cast-iron pipe, the type used for old-fashioned plumbing. It was about the length of PC Lucy’s forearm, and across one end was a shimmer of dark blood.

  “So it was murder,” breathed PC Alistair, who rather revelled in the stating of the obvious.

  PC Lucy nodded. Someone out there, it seemed, had decided it was time for Miranda Matthews to hang up her apron.

  For good.

  Chapter 5

  The cookery demonstration tent had been turned into an impromptu tea room for the distressed and detained. Arthur stood at the hobs, keeping an eye on two simmering pans of water, while Chef Maurice had managed to requisition a box of loose Darjeeling from the Gourmet Tea Leaf stand, as well as a stack of white mugs, as yet undefaced, from the Paint-Your-Mug stall.

  Arthur had suspicions that his friend’s sudden tea-providing tendencies had less to do with altruism, and more to do with achieving a suitable eavesdropping proximity to the key crime scene witnesses, who were currently sat on folding chairs in a little semicircle around PC Lucy.

  “So tell me what happened when you first went looking for Miranda,” she was saying, notebook held at the ready.

  Tricia hiccupped into a tissue. “First, we had a quick look around the stalls and in all the tents. We thought she’d just forgotten the time. We also tried her dressing room—”

  “She had a dressing room? Where was this?”

  “It’s just a little tent, round the back of here,” said Angie. “She wanted somewhere to get ready, keep a change of outfit, that kind of thing.”

  “Okay. And then?”

  “Well, she wasn’t there, so then we thought she might have gone for a walk. It’s ever so pretty around here this time of year,” said Tricia. “We went down to the bit of the creek at the end of the field, where all the kiddies were playing, but she wasn’t there.”

  “So then we just followed the path,” said Angie, “down to where we . . . well, you know . . .” She broke off with a shiver.

  “What made you think Miranda would have followed the path into private land? It’s not exactly the most obvious place to go walking,” said PC Lucy.

  Mayor Gifford, sitting beside his wife with one furry paw across her shoulder, looked up sharply, clearly unhappy at the tone of conversation.

  Angie looked startled. “Oh! I didn’t even think about that. You see”—she looked over at Miss Caruthers—“that bit of the woods belongs to the school. In fact, the creek runs all the way through our land. The girls go walking up and down there all the time in the summer—”

  She stopped with a look of horror on her face.

  “Not to worry, Mrs Gifford,” said PC Lucy. “My colleagues will have roped off the area already. I’ll make sure someone telephones the school to let them know, of course. But I still don’t see—”

  “Miranda Matthews was a pupil at Lady Eleanor, some twenty years ago now,” explained Miss Caruthers. “The same year as Angela, if I recall correctly.”

  Angie nodded.

  “So you’re saying she would have known this area well? Including the path along the creek?”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me if she remembered,” said Miss Caruthers. “It’s a lovely stretch of woodland, even if our groundskeeper doesn’t tend to the path quite as much as he did in earlier years.”

  There was a pause in proceedings as Arthur and Chef Maurice approached with trays to distribute steaming mugs of tea—and to get within better earshot of the questioning.

  PC Lucy waved away the proffered mug. “So when was the last time you all saw Miranda? Alive, I mean.”

  “The last time I saw her was at the end of her cookery demonstration,” said Miss Caruthers.

  “Me too,” said Tricia.

  PC Lucy consulted a flyer. “And that finished at twelve thirty, correct?”

  The Spring Fayre Committee ladies all nodded.

  “I last saw her in her dressing tent, right afterwards,” said Angie. “I popped my head in to see if she wanted anything to eat, but she said she wasn’t hungry.”

  “Can you recall what type of shoes Miranda was wearing when you saw her?”

  Angie looked puzzled. “I don’t remember. The same ones she was wearing earlier, I would have thought. Pink high heels.”

  “And did Miranda mention anything about going for a walk? Or meeting someone during lunchtime?”

  “She didn’t say anything to me.” Angie paused. “I mean, now that I think about it, she was a bit, well, distracted. And she was a bit short, like maybe she wanted to be left alone. But she gets like that sometimes, especially after a big event. It’s never anything personal,” she added generously.

  “What about you, Mr Gifford?” asked PC Lucy. “When did you last see Miranda Matthews?”

  “Eh? Can’t say I paid her much attention, cooking’s not really my thing, you know. Saw her signing some autographs earlier in the morning. Long before lunchtime, though. Can’t help you there, I’m afraid.”

  “Arthur? Maurice?” said PC Lucy, looking over at her two spectators, who had settled themselves into folding chairs not far away.

  Arthur shook his head. “I stayed for her demo, but didn’t see her after that.”

  “I left before, when Mademoiselle Miranda started her cake covered in the Smarties. C’est un sacrilège, to claim that such a cake is a—”

  “Yes, yes, thank you both for your input,” said PC Lucy quickly. She looked down at her notes. “So Miranda was last seen by Mrs Gifford, who spoke to her in her tent after the demo. We’ll put out a call for information, see if anyone saw her leaving her tent, or passed her walking down to the creek.”

  “You’ll be keeping my wife’s name out of this, I assume?” said Mayor Gifford, with a cross look at Angie.

  “We will. But I have to warn you, I’d be surprised if the local press don’t try contacting Mrs Gifford and Mrs Walters in the meantime. They were all in the Bake Off tent when . . . the incident was reported. Of course, there’s no obligation on your part to speak to them,” she added, looking towards Angie and Tricia.

  “I should bloody well think not!” snapped Mayor Gifford, while Angie nodded meekly.

  Questioning over, Miss Caruthers left to drive Tricia home, while the mayor led PC Lucy over to a corner of the tent for an angry discourse on the abuse of police power and the so-called freedoms of the press, which PC Lucy listened to with an expression of blank official politeness.

  Angie collected up the finished tea mugs and broug
ht them over to the sink area.

  “You can put them down there,” said Arthur, pointing one pink-rubber-gloved elbow at the counter nearby. “Apparently”—he shot a look at Chef Maurice—“I’m the designated pot wash for the day.”

  “As the English say, if the glove fits . . .” Chef Maurice sipped happily at his own mug, held in one XL-sized fist.

  Angie twisted the end of her chiffon scarf around her fingers and threw a nervous look back at her husband, who was still busy berating the stone-faced PC Lucy.

  “I was wondering, Mr Maurice . . .”

  “Oui, madame?”

  “Well, I remember hearing about—”

  She got no further, though, as the sound of her own name was bellowed across the room. “I— Never mind, I better go. Rory’s calling for me. Thank you for the tea.”

  She hurried off.

  “I wonder what that was all about,” said Arthur.

  “Do not worry, mon ami. I am sure that we will discover more as we make an inspection of the matter.”

  “The matter? What matter?”

  Chef Maurice threw his hands in the air. “There has been the murder of a chef, and you ask me what matter? This is a most serious happening!”

  “So Miranda Matthews is now a chef?”

  “Bah, the public, they do not make a difference between myself”—he thumped his chest—“and the type of Miranda Matthews. To them, she is a chef. So we must ask if other chefs, too, are in danger from this murderer.”

  Arthur gave this statement its due consideration. As an entirely spurious reason for Chef Maurice to indulge in his penchant for dabbling in crime investigation, he could, Arthur supposed, have done a lot worse.

  “You might be on to something there, old chap,” said Arthur, as they wandered out through the now-deserted Fayre-ground stalls. “For all we know, there might be some serial killer on the loose with a predilection for bumping off famous chefs.”

  “Ah, so you agree that this case is one requiring of our attention?”

  Arthur wasn’t too sure about this part, but he conceded that it couldn’t hurt to make a few enquiries of their own. Thankfully, he pointed out, if the serial-killer-famous-chef theory was correct, it meant that Chef Maurice would be well clear of any danger.