by Holly Bell
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1 The Missing Piece
Chapter 2 Amanda’s Secret
Chapter 3 Dennis and The Vision
Chapter 4 The Grange
Chapter 5 Pamela, and Perran’s Advice
Chapter 6 Doubt
Chapter 7 A Man Has Written A Book?
Chapter 8 A Mother Knows
Chapter 9 Pasco Flamgoyne
Chapter 10 Pamela Spills the Beans
Chapter 11 Perran, and Gumption
Chapter 12 Dinner, and Party Planning
Chapter 13 High Adventure, and a Play
Chapter 14 The Book Launch
Chapter 15 Inspector Trelawney Takes the Helm
Chapter 16 Tea and Fire
Chapter 17 Trelawney Interviews
Chapter 18 More Suspects, and Back to the Towers
Chapter 19 Mr Frumbling
Chapter 20 Samantha’s Aunt
Chapter 21 The Queen Bee Flies In
Chapter 22 Consultation
Chapter 23 Dishing the Dirt
Chapter 24 Jonathan’s Dream
Chapter 25 Confidential Informant
Chapter 26 Jonathan’s Library, and Mr Gibbs Lands
Chapter 27 Hotting Up
Chapter 28 Intelligence HQ
Chapter 29 Boiling Point
Chapter 30 Preparing Amanda
Chapter 31 Persuasion
Chapter 32 Wardrobe Mistresses
Chapter 33 Beginners, Places Please
Chapter 34 In the Hall of the Oracle
Chapter 35 The Clue
Chapter 36 The Latin Connection
Chapter 37 The Writer, and Amanda’s Shortcut
Chapter 38 Under the Covers
Chapter 39 Shop Talk
Chapter 40 Race
Chapter 41 The Truth Will Out
Chapter 42 Debrief
Chapter 43 In Black
Chapter 44 Getting Closer
Chapter 45 Coming Clean
Chapter 46 The Glass Speaks
Chapter 47 Closing the Case, Beginning the Aftermath
Chapter 48 The Job Offer
Chapter 49 Concerns and Trust
Chapter 50 Summoned
Chapter 51 Parhayle
Chapter 52 The Return of the Native
Chapter 53 Total Recall
Chapter 54 Amanda and Kyt
Chapter 55 Popping The Question
Chapter 56 The Ball
Chapter 57 Miss Cadabra Gives Her Answer
Chapter 58 At The Elms, and Samantha’s Good Deed
Chapter 59 Serious Witchcraft, A Gift from Below, and New Questions
Author’s Note
About the Author
Acknowledgements
About the Language Used in the Story
Questions for Reading Clubs
Glossary
A Note About Accents and Wicc’yeth
Other books by Holly Bell
Amanda Cadabra and The Hidey-Hole Truth (The Amanda Cadabra Cozy Paranormal Mysteries Book 1)
Amanda Cadabra and The Cellar of Secrets (The Amanda Cadabra Cozy Paranormal Mysteries Book 2)
Amanda Cadabra and The Flawless Plan (The Amanda Cadabra Cozy Paranormal Mysteries Book 3)
Amanda Cadabra and The Rise of Sunken Madley (The Amanda Cadabra Cozy Paranormal Mysteries Book 4)
Other books published by Heypressto
50 Feel-better Films
50 Feel-better Songs: from Film and TV
25 Feel-better Free Downloads
Copyright © Holly Bell (2020). All rights reserved.
http://www.amandacadabra.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, people or places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, places or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
www.heypressto.com
Cover art by Daniel Becerril Ureña
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Twitter: @holly_b_author
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To Flora and Katherine
To discover the depth, leave the surface
and to discover the surface, leave the depth!
You shall meet wisdom,
only when you know both the surface
and the depth!.
– Mehmet Murat Ildan
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Missing Piece
Chapter 2: Amanda’s Secret
Chapter 3: Dennis and The Vision
Chapter 4: The Grange
Chapter 5: Pamela, and Perran’s Advice
Chapter 6: Doubt
Chapter 7: A Man Has Written A Book?
Chapter 8: A Mother Knows
Chapter 9: Pasco Flamgoyne
Chapter 10: Pamela Spills the Beans
Chapter 11: Perran, and Gumption
Chapter 12: Dinner, and Party Planning
Chapter 13: High Adventure, and a Play
Chapter 14: The Book Launch
Chapter 15: Inspector Trelawney Takes the Helm
Chapter 16: Tea and Fire
Chapter 17: Trelawney Interviews
Chapter 18: More Suspects, and Back to the Towers
Chapter 19: Mr Frumbling
Chapter 20: Samantha’s Aunt
Chapter 21: The Queen Bee Flies In
Chapter 22: Consultation
Chapter 23: Dishing the Dirt
Chapter 24: Jonathan’s Dream
Chapter 25: Confidential Informant
Chapter 26: Jonathan’s Library, and Mr Gibbs Lands
Chapter 27: Hotting Up
Chapter 28: Intelligence HQ
Chapter 29: Boiling Point
Chapter 30: Preparing Amanda
Chapter 31: Persuasion
Chapter 32: Wardrobe Mistresses
Chapter 33: Beginners, Places Please
Chapter 34: In the Hall of the Oracle
Chapter 35: The Clue
Chapter 36: The Latin Connection
Chapter 37: The Writer, and Amanda’s Shortcut
Chapter 38: Under the Covers
Chapter 39: Shop Talk
Chapter 40: Race
Chapter 41: The Truth Will Out
Chapter 42: Debrief
Chapter 43: In Black
Chapter 44: Getting Closer
Chapter 45: Coming Clean
Chapter 46: The Glass Speaks
Chapter 47: Closing the Case, Beginning the Aftermath
Chapter 48: The Job Offer
Chapter 49: Concerns and Trust
Chapter 50: Summoned
Chapter 51: Parhayle
Chapter 52: The Return of the Native
Chapter 53: Total Recall
Chapter 54: Amanda and Kyt
Chapter 55: Popping The Question
Chapter 56: The Ball
Chapter 57: Miss Cadabra Gives Her Answer
Chapter 58: At The Elms, and Samantha’s Good Deed
Chapter 59: Serious Witchcraft, A Gift from Below, and New Questions
Author’s Note
About the Author
Acknowledgements
About the Language
Questions for Reading Clubs
Glossary of British English
Accents and Wicc’yeth
Introduction
Please note that to enhance the reader’s experience of Amanda's world, this British-set story, by a British author, uses British English
spelling, vocabulary, grammar and usage, and includes local and foreign accents, dialects and a magical language that vary from different versions of English as it is written and spoken in other parts of our wonderful, diverse world.
For your reading pleasure, there is a glossary of British English usage and vocabulary at the end of the book, followed by a note about accents and the magical language, Wicc’yeth.
Chapter 1
The Missing Piece
Had she heard it, felt it or sensed it? Time stopped. She caught Jonathan’s eye, as he stood still with a slight furrow between his brows. And then the moment was whirled away in the bustle of The Event. That was when it must have happened. All Amanda Cadabra could tell Detective Inspector Trelawney, afterwards, was that Jonathan had been there.
***
Inspector Thomas Trelawney, of the Devon and Cornwall police, passed a hand through his light brown hair, and wondered if he would ever get used to interviewing dead people. Especially so, the white-tressed and victory-rolled lady, seated ramrod upright beside him, upon the chintz sofa of number 26 Orchard Way, on this February afternoon.
He reminded himself, as he added two sugar lumps to his tea, that the politically correct term for ‘deceased’ was ‘transitioned’.
‘You’re looking well, Inspector,’ the lady commended him, in cut-glass English tones. ‘No one would put you a day over 40, and I am sure you look quite 10 years younger.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Cadabra.’ He wondered at her affability.
‘Surely the inspector is barely a day over 40, Granny,’ pointed out Amanda, pushing her untidy mouse-brown plait back over her shoulder and handing him his favourite shortbread. ‘I do hope that that was an attempt at a compliment. Anyway, you know why he is here.’
‘Once again, my dear, you confuse the state of what is so indelicately referred to as “death” with omniscience. I believe I have made full disclosure of the events leading up to the incident. At least, my part in them.’
A tall silver-haired man, seated in an armchair on the opposite side of the comfortingly blazing fire, was appearing as solid and unghostlike as his wife. Perran Cadabra was gently splitting a scone with a porcelain-handled knife, and looked up mildly at his wife’s words.
‘But the case isn’t closed, my love,’ he pointed out in his gentle Cornish-flavoured voice. ‘Not until they have the last bit of the picture.’
‘Yes, Granny,’ Amanda put in, in support of her grandfather’s observation. ‘We know what you intended and why. That you planned to send the minibus carrying the whole of our family – loath as I am to own them! – over the cliff that day.’
‘But I was rudely pre-empted,’ said Mrs Senara Cadabra, née Cardiubarn, indignantly. ‘If I had known the letters would be hijacked …’
Perran met the eyes of his granddaughter and the inspector. All three of them shared the unspoken thought. Senara baulked at the notion that she had been bested by a Flamgoyne. The house had been the rival of the Cardiubarns for centuries.
Senara’s own homicidal clan should have perished at her own hands. She had gone to the trouble of setting up a booby trap on that treacherous Cornish bend, had lured her venal relatives into a journey that hinted at great financial reward, and been thwarted.
Before the trap could be sprung, the ordinary letters of invitation that should have gone out had been replaced by magical parchment. Each sheet had released a toxin. That had put an end to them all before ever the minibus hit the sharp crags at the bottom of the sheer drop.
‘What your Granny is saying,’ Perran explained, covering his wife’s discomfiture, ‘is that she wants to know who told the Flamgoynes about her plan, as much you, Ammee love, and the inspector do.’
‘So you will help, won’t you Granny?’ asked Amanda, her blue-brown eyes looking into Mrs Cadabra’s violet orbs in what she hoped was a persuasive manner.
‘I really don’t see what I can contribute,’ Senara replied. ‘But very well, young Thomas Trelawney, ask away.’
His pleasant features broke into a smile at her use of his first name. Trelawney owed her his life, as he had recently become aware, and had hoped his acknowledgement of this connection between them would make her more approachable. However, there was no dimming Senara Cadabra’s love of the cat-and-mouse game she so enjoyed playing with him. She was not about to abandon her entertainment.
‘I expect you want to know what connections I had with your family,’ she continued.
‘I prefer not to think of the Flamgoynes in that light, Mrs Cadabra. They are my maternal grandmother’s. I am a Tre...’
Senara smiled triumphantly. She had already thrown him onto the defensive. He grinned in acknowledgement.
‘Well, yes, nevertheless, I would like to know.’
‘None,’ she pronounced, crisply.
He looked at her in surprise.
‘I have no connections with them whatsoever.’ Senara elucidated, ‘There used to be the occasional cold-war truce party between the Cardiubarns and the Flamgoynes. But you must remember that I had left Cardiubarn Hall in my youth.’
‘When we eloped,’ added Perran Cadabra, with a twinkle.
Senara’s face softened as she glanced at her husband, and they shared a reminiscent moment. She continued:
‘I returned, only at my mother’s request, for Amanda’s birth and, thereafter, to deliver and collect her for their inspection at intervals. Until, at the age of three, they finally gave her over to our care, and we departed for Sunken Madley. By the time of the incident, I had had no association with any of the Flamgoynes for over 20 years.’
Trelawney moved on. ‘Whom did you instruct to send out the letters? Your man of business?’
‘I had absolute confidence that the person I used would have been unwaveringly loyal. Thanks to adequate intimidation and a great deal of money. Unlike your … Flamgoynes, we did not enslave our servants and staff with enchantments. Promises of reward for loyalty, and recompense, of another kind, for the opposite, were always more than enough.’
‘Did your solicitor visit you or did you attend his offices?’ enquired the inspector.
‘The former.’
‘Could anyone have seen him enter or leave or overhear your conversation?’
‘I was circumspect, naturally, but it is possible,’ conceded Mrs Cadabra.
‘May I have his name? And where exactly were his offices?’
‘Does it matter? It’s not like you could conduct an interview or alibi anyone at this late date.’ He gathered, rightly, that Mrs Cadabra was not going to identify her agent, and went on to his next question.
‘It is possible that a Flamgoyne or one of their … staff could have overheard, or listened into, your conversation that day?’
‘Well … the room could have been bugged, I suppose.’
Trelawney tapped a finger on the arm of his chair, as he thought.
‘There is one person who may have information about Flamgoyne presence in the town that day.’
‘You mean?’
‘Pasco … Flamgoyne.’
‘The family retainer?’ Mrs Cadabra looked surprised. ‘Good heavens. Is he still alive?’
‘He’s the estate manager, actually. Yes.’
‘Would he talk to you?’ she asked sceptically.
‘Perhaps. There is one person he would talk to. The person who is now head of the Flamgoyne family since th—’
‘Dear Amanda wiped them out single-handedly,’ Mrs Cadabra interrupted gleefully.
‘I did no such thing, Granny!’ her granddaughter protested. The inspector firmly brought the conversation back on track.
‘Mrs Cadabra, you are right in one respect. As far as we know, all Flamgoyne descendants are deceased, incapacitated or absconded. The person who has inherited from Lady Gronetta is …’
‘Don’t tell me,’ chortled Senara, ‘Oh, that’s rich …’
‘Quite,’ Trelawney agree
d, ill at ease.
Greatly diverted, Senara clasped her hands. ‘It is, isn’t it? Your father!’
Chapter 2
Amanda’s Secret
‘I like to think that that interview went well,’ said the inspector hopefully, pulling the door of the workshop to and enclosing them in Amanda’s professional furniture restoration space. It was a short, if chilly, walk from the house up the garden path between the still-bare fruit trees. In the hedgerow, a pair of chaffinches were arguing about their new nest, while a blue tit was hunting hopefully on the lawn, where only a few snowdrops were carrying the floral flag.