Feted to Die: An Inspector Constable Murder Mystery

by Roger Keevil

  “Yes?” she said a touch crossly, pushing a strand of hair off her face with the back of a wrist. “What is it you want?”

  “We’re very sorry to have to interrupt you when you’re obviously busy, madam,” replied Andy Constable in his most soothing tones, “but I’m afraid it’s official business. I’m Detective Inspector Constable – this is Sergeant Copper.”

  “Well, you should have said, shouldn’t you?” Amelia took a deep breath and seemed to calm down a little. “I do apologise, Inspector. I’m sorry I’m a bit flustered, but I’m all at sixes and sevens at the moment, and I had to break off just now in the middle of some cream horns because Lady Lawdown wanted some sandwiches if you please, and you know what it’s like if your rough puff goes flabby.”

  “I can imagine,” smiled Constable. “But I’m afraid it’s all rather more serious than that, of course. We do need to ask you some questions about the death of Horace Cope.”

  “Horace Cope? Horrid man! I didn’t like him a bit.”

  Constable was taken aback at the sudden vehemence. “That’s a very strong statement to make, madam. Do you mind telling us why?”

  Amelia subsided on to one of the kitchen chairs surrounding the table, and after a moment, the two policemen did likewise. Discreetly, Dave Copper produced his notebook and opened it expectantly.

  “Oh, no particular reason, I suppose,” replied Amelia. “It’s not as if he ever did anything to me. But I never could like the way he treated my friends – he seemed to have a knack of upsetting them. He was always making remarks in a meaningful tone, as if he was getting at people for some reason. He was just … I don’t know … well, rather slimy in his manner. Of course, that’s just my private opinion. I can’t abide gossip, so you’ll get nothing of that sort from me.”

  “Ah, but it’s always helpful to hear what people really think of a murder victim, madam,” remarked Constable. “We so rarely get to hear people’s candid opinions.”

  Amelia sniffed dismissively. “Well, of course, one isn’t supposed to speak ill of the dead, is one, inspector? That’s what they say. Especially with Horace Cope.” She gave a little giggle. “You never know – being a psychic, he might come back and haunt me! Oh, what a dreadful thing to say! I really shouldn’t joke at a time like this. Whatever will you think of me?” She resumed her serious manner. “So, how can I help you?”

  “Copper?” Constable handed over to his colleague.

  “I’m just making a note of who was where and when today, madam,” said the sergeant. “If you can just help us to build up the picture…”

  “I’m not sure I know anything at all, really,” replied Amelia. “I’ve been here at the Hall all morning, but I’ve hardly set foot outside the kitchen. As for Mr. Cope, I haven’t even clapped eyes on him, which is no wonder, considering everything I’ve had to do, and now look, it’s really all been such a waste, which I honestly can’t afford, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to get on, because I want to be away from here and get back to the village, and Laura said I wasn’t to leave until I’d spoken to you, so I thought, well, at least I can use the time to take advantage of this lovely big kitchen, because really, my kitchen at the Copper Kettle is just a cubby-hole compared to this, but for all that, I’d much rather be there than here…”

  “Just one second, madam.” Copper managed to interrupt the flow. “We seem to be getting rather ahead of ourselves. Can we just go back to the start, please? Can you tell us how you came to be here at the Hall today in the first place? Do you work for Lady Lawdown?”

  Before Amelia could reply, Andy Constable spoke. “I think if you check your notes, sergeant, you’ll find that Miss Biding has already mentioned that Her Ladyship had engaged Miss Cook to do some catering for the fete. Isn’t that right, madam?”

  “That’s right, inspector. I usually do it for Sandra, because although I say it as shouldn’t, my little establishment has quite a reputation in the area, and I’m sure that some of the visitors come just for my cakes, but of course one doesn’t like to presume, so I was quite pleased when Sandra asked me to do it again this year … that must have been, ooh, about six weeks ago. Because, of course, I have to plan ahead, because the fete is always on a Saturday, and Saturday is usually quite a busy day for me for teas, so I have to close up, but I always make sure that I put notices up and do some leaflets telling my clientele that I’m going to be up here at the Hall on that day, because I hate to disappoint people.”

  “Yes, of course, madam,” Constable managed to squeeze in.

  Amelia was not to be stopped. “And now look what’s happened! This horrible business with Horace, and please don’t think I’m being unfeeling, because that’s not like me at all, but the only thing I want to do now is to get back to the Copper Kettle and open up and see if I can stop all my lovely food going to waste. It won’t keep for ever, you know, especially not the sponges. But if I know my customers, there’s nothing they enjoy more than a good gossip over a piece of cake and a cup of tea, and I’m usually open until seven on a Saturday. So if that’s everything …?” She made to rise.

  Andy Constable decided to take control. “Actually, no, Miss Cook. We really must talk about Mr. Cope. So the sooner we can do that, the sooner we can let you go. So if you wouldn’t mind …”

  “Oh. Very well, inspector.” Amelia subsided on to her chair once more. “Ask away.”

  “I think you said that you hadn’t seen Mr. Cope at all today, is that right?”

  “That is correct, inspector. I arrived here long before anyone else this morning, and I don’t think the others got here until about mid-day, from what I’ve heard.”

  “So when would be the last time you actually did see Mr. Cope?”

  “Ooh, let me think – when was it? I think it must have been last week some time. Yes, that’s right, because he came into the Copper Kettle with Helen Highwater one morning for coffee and cake. I remember, because that day I’d done one of my special rich fruit cakes.” She turned to Sergeant Copper. “Have you tried my special rich fruit cake, sergeant? No? Now, you really must. You look to me like a boy who likes his cakes. I’ll cut you a piece in a second when we’ve finished.”

  “I’m sure Sergeant Copper would like that very much,” put in Andy Constable, “but I think we’re straying from the point again. You were saying …?”

  “Was I? Oh yes, Horace and Helen. Yes, I was quite surprised to see them together, because they’re not normally what you’d think of as chums, but I saw them outside just before they came in, and I got the impression that Horace had button-holed her so that he could speak to her about something.”

  Sergeant Copper’s pencil poised itself over his notebook. “Would you by any chance have an idea of what it was, madam?”

  Amelia drew herself up slightly. “I do hope you’re not implying that I would eavesdrop on my customers’ conversations, sergeant.”

  “Not at all, madam,” replied Copper calmly. “But sometimes it’s impossible not to hear what people are saying, especially if you’re close to them.”

  “That’s true, sergeant,” said Amelia, mollified. “Of course, I was to and fro to the table, and serving other customers, so I didn’t hear a great deal of what went on, but I do know that it was about her books – you know, the Carrie Otter series.”

  “Yes,” sighed Andy Constable. “We’ve already had a couple of conversations about young Miss Otter’s adventures – haven’t we, sergeant?”

  “Oh, are you a Carrie Otter fan as well, sergeant?” beamed Amelia. “I certainly am. I’ve read them all – they’re very good, aren’t they? Well, I think so, but then, of course, I’m no intellectual – not like Horace. Or so he thought, with his book reviews in the Sunday paper. I’m not at all sure Horace would have agreed with me – not after what he said in his column about the last one.” She sniffed.

  “And can you remember what he did say, Miss Cook?” enquired the inspector.

 
“I can, inspector, because I remember reading the write-up in the paper and getting quite hot under the collar. He had the cheek to call it ‘Carrie Otter and the Half-Baked Plot’, he said that anyone with half a brain would enjoy the story because they wouldn’t need the other half, and he described the whole book as … now, what did he call it? Oh yes – ‘A load of old warlocks’!” Sergeant Copper suddenly seemed highly engrossed in the contents of his notebook, and emitted a swiftly-suppressed choking sound.

  “But that was Horace Cope all over,” continued Amelia. “He fancied himself very much above the Common Man. I call it most unnecessary and most unkind, and I believe Helen was quite upset about it at the time. But obviously she must have forgiven him, because there they were having coffee together. It just goes to show you never can tell, doesn’t it?”

  Andy Constable made a further effort to steer Amelia’s ramblings back to the investigation. “So what did you happen to hear of their conversation last week?”

  “Well, I think Helen was trying to persuade Horace to be a bit nicer about her next book. She was saying how exciting it was all going to be, and she was really being very enthusiastic and talking about how much her fans were looking forward to it. In fact, she asked him if he would like a copy to look at as a special favour, and he just waved the idea away. ‘No need, my dear, no need,’ he said, and Helen sounded a bit taken aback and said ‘Oh. Very well’. I thought Horace sounded very patronising, but I don’t think Helen noticed. I suppose she was trying to talk him around to how most people feel about her books.”

  “And how did Mr. Cope respond to her efforts?”

  “I didn’t quite hear it all, because I was making a cappuccino for someone, and that coffee machine does make such a noise, which is not at all in keeping with the sort of atmosphere I like to cultivate at the Copper Kettle, but of course these days some of the modern customers seem to have developed quite a taste for these coffees with continental names – it’s all these foreign holidays, you see – so I have to be able to do those as well as a nice traditional filter coffee. So … now, where was I?”

  “You were telling us what Mr. Cope said,” answered Constable with a patient smile which was beginning to grow rather fixed.

  “Ah, yes. Well, that’s the annoying thing. I’m sure it must have been something important, because of the way Helen reacted, but I’m not sure I heard him properly because the coffee machine chose that moment to make one of its horrid spluttering sounds. Horace said something about somebody’s mother – no, ‘getting mothered’, that was it.”

  “‘Mothered?’ Who was getting mothered? And who by?”

  “No, wait a minute – that’s not right, but it was something like that.” Amelia gazed at the ceiling and flipped her fingers in frustration. “Oh, it’s so irritating when you can’t remember, isn’t it, inspector?”

  “Quite so, madam,” replied Constable, stifling a sigh.

  Amelia beamed brightly. “Oh, don’t you worry, inspector,” she trilled. “It’ll come to me. These things always do. Usually when I’m in the middle of getting something out of the oven, and I can’t do anything about them.”

  “Well, do let us know if you remember.”

  “I will, inspector, never fear. Anyway, whatever it was, Helen looked quite shocked and asked what on earth he meant.”

  “And what do you think he meant?” asked Copper.

  “I haven’t the faintest idea, sergeant,” replied Amelia with a tone of baffled triumph. “I didn’t hear it properly, did I? But then he went on to say that he had friends in the printing business, and that he was sure that she knew all about publishers’ advances, if she knew what he meant.”

  “And did he … she?” asked Copper, who by this time was becoming hopelessly confused by Amelia’s tangled syntax.

  “Well, obviously she did, because she glared at Horace and said ‘Don’t you dare!’, and then he said ‘It’s all a question of whether it’s worth more to you than it is to me. Your readers or mine?’.”

  “And what was Miss Highwater’s response to that, Miss Cook?” enquired the inspector, taking pity on his colleague, who was scribbling frantically.

  “Nothing, inspector. She just picked up her bag, got to her feet without another word, and left in a great hurry. Never even said goodbye to me, which is most unlike Helen. And, she didn’t even touch her Viennese Fancy, and I’ve never known that to happen before.”

  Inspector Constable exchanged glances with Sergeant Copper. “It sounds, Miss Cook, as if the Copper Kettle is the place to come if one wants to witness a little excitement in Dammett Worthy,” he remarked. “It seems you had quite an eventful morning.”

  Amelia Cook raised an eyebrow at the detective. “Now you’re making fun of me, inspector,” she said, “but as it happens, you haven’t heard the full story.”

  “So there’s more?”

  “Indeed, there is, inspector, if the sergeant has his notebook quite ready.” Amelia settled herself back in her chair, her earlier urgency seemingly forgotten, along with her disinclination to gossip.

  “Go on.”

  Amelia drew a deep breath. “Well, I don’t suppose it could have been more than a minute or two after Helen left, because Horace was still sitting there looking pleased with himself, and Laura Biding came in. So Horace looked up, smiled at her with that oily smile of his when he wanted something, and said ‘Come and sit with me, Laura. Let me treat you to a coffee. I’ve got a little business proposition to put to you.’ There was just something in his tone – I thought to myself, ‘I don’t like the sound of that’.”

  “And … er … did you by any chance …?”

  “Oh sergeant, don’t be silly – of course I listened in. Laura’s a dear girl, and for all that the family has known Horace for years and Laura has always called him ‘Uncle’, I still didn’t like Horace’s tone.”

  “And what did this ‘business proposition’ turn out to be?” asked the inspector.

  “Well, that’s the thing, inspector. I’m still not quite sure. Horace was so … I suppose ‘oblique’ is the word. He said something about Laura coming up to see him in his new flat in London, and she said she didn’t know if she could, and then he said he’d got a wonderful collection of photographs, and they could go through them together and see if she thought any of them were particularly interesting.”

  “Photographs? What sort of photographs?”

  “He didn’t say, inspector. Of course, Laura has done some modelling work for the smart magazines, so I expect it could have been something to do with that. Anyway, he just said that some of the pictures were ‘quite arresting’.” Amelia sounded perplexed. “I thought it seemed a funny thing to say when he said it, but then of course I was off to the kitchen again to toast some teacakes, and then it went clean out of my mind.”

  “You didn’t find any photographs at Mr. Cope’s cottage, did you, Copper?” enquired Constable.

  “Not a thing, sir,” replied Copper. “Mind you, he might have had something on that computer of his – I didn’t get a chance to have a real go at that. And then there was the safe – we might find something in there. If we knew what we were looking for.”

  “Yes, sergeant. Well, we’ll just have to wait until we’ve got the search warrant, won’t we,” said Constable briskly. “So did Mr. Cope not explain about these photographs?”

  “Not that I heard, inspector.”

  “And what about Miss Biding? How did she react to these remarks of Mr. Cope’s?”

  Amelia leaned forward and dropped her voice. “Well, that’s the thing, inspector. She didn’t say anything at all. Of course, I couldn’t see her face, because she was sitting with her back to me facing the window, but I got the impression that she just sort of froze. Anyway, by the time I came back into the tearoom, Horace was saying something about her using his flat for business, and I remember he said ‘it was a good game, but he knew a better one’. He was smiling all over
that horrid shiny face of his as if it was the greatest joke, but I must say that Laura didn’t seem to find it very funny.”

  “No?”

  “Not at all, inspector. Ah, but then she did speak up. She said something about Lady Lawdown having the influence to get him stopped, and Horace just scoffed. He said he knew all about that, and that he had the proof, and it wasn’t as if she was that much of a lady anyway. Honestly, that made my blood boil. When I think of how much Lady Lawdown does for this village and all her work as a magistrate and everything, and of how nice she’s been to Horace over the years, it was just so two-faced of him to say that. I don’t know why Laura didn’t just slap his face. Both of them!”

  “It certainly doesn’t sound like the friendliest of comments,” remarked Constable.

  “It made me quite hot under the collar, inspector,” said Amelia, her feathers obviously thoroughly ruffled at the mere memory. “But of course I couldn’t say anything because they would have known I was listening to a private conversation, and that would never do, would it?”

  “Not at all, madam. So what happened after that?”

  “Well … nothing, I’m afraid.” Amelia seem conscious of a slight anticlimax. “Horace just got up, came up to the counter and paid me in the most patronising way, and slithered out, leaving Laura just sitting there gazing out of the window. I went over to collect the empty cups and she didn’t even seem to notice I was there, and I didn’t like to say anything, and then she left a few minutes afterwards.”