by H. Y. Hanna
“It’s all right—I understand,” I said, reaching up to give him a quick hug. “I just feel bad for you, having to go back to work now. I hope you’re not stuck there too late.”
Devlin sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “I think it’s going to be a long night, whatever happens. I’ll ring you tomorrow morning and let you know.”
He leaned forwards and gave me a brief, hard kiss, then he got into his car and, with a powerful growl of the engine, swung out of the concert hall car park and was gone.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
True to his word, Devlin rang me early the next morning. I had been pottering around aimlessly at home, wondering what to do with myself. With the show on hold again, I didn’t have any catering to provide, but since things could also resume at any time, I was loathe to reopen the tearoom. It was a frustrating limbo state to be in and I pounced on my phone when it rang, eager for some news.
“Hi, sweetheart,” said Devlin in a tired voice.
“Gosh, you sound absolutely knackered. When did you get to bed?”
“I don’t know… sometime in the early hours. It wasn’t actually as bad as I’d expected. I thought I’d be there all night.”
“So what happened? Have you arrested Trish?”
“Well, first I’d need to find something to arrest her for.”
“What do you mean? What about the sabotage attack on Gaz?”
“She was telling the truth about that. Her prints weren’t on the box.”
“But… but I definitely saw her—”
“She admitted to being in the make-up room, yes. She said she was trying on some of the stuff and she was embarrassed when you saw her. But she denies tampering with anything. And Sharon the make-up artist’s testimony bears that out. She came to find me last night before I left the concert hall and told me that the powder she used for Gaz wasn’t from any of the dressing tables. It came from the bag of stuff she carries around with her for last-minute touch-ups.”
“Oh.” I felt a stab of guilt for accusing Trish when she’d had nothing to do with the tampered box. Then I gave a despondent sigh. “If the bag was out in the Waiting Area, anyone backstage could have had access to it. And with how busy things are, it would have been easy to tamper with the box without anybody noticing. You’re back to too many possible suspects! By the way, what was in the powder?”
“Forensics haven’t isolated all the ingredients yet, but it looks like some kind of itching powder—the kind that you can easily buy to play pranks on people.”
“Ugh. I can’t believe people would play pranks using this stuff! I mean, Gaz looked like he was really suffering. How is he, by the way?”
“He’s fine. No permanent damage done. From what I hear, most itching powder is fairly harmless in the long run, although it’s not pleasant during the attack, of course.”
“So I suppose you’ve let Trish go?”
“Well, she was never under arrest anyway. And there’s no reason to detain her further. She denies having had anything to do with this powder incident and the evidence seems to back her up.”
I sighed. “It would have made so much sense if it had been her though…”
“What do you mean?”
“Because it’s the kind of thing I can see her doing. She’s really competitive—I mean, seriously, she’s the type that just has to win, at any cost. And she’s already got aggressive with a fellow competitor once.” Quickly, I recounted the conversation I’d overheard in the queue for the ladies’ toilets.
“Hmm…” Devlin was silent for a moment. “Well, that does sound suggestive, but the fact remains that unless I have concrete proof tying Trish to the murder or even to this attempted sabotage, she is no stronger a suspect than any of the others.”
“But we’ve ruled out most of the others now, haven’t we?” I asked. “I mean, who else is left?”
“I wouldn’t say that we’ve ruled them out. Nicole still hasn’t got an alibi for the time of the murder, and she has a strong motive. Cheryl also hasn’t got an alibi, although—to be fair—she doesn’t seem to have a motive either. The Old Biddies are obviously out of the question and their friend, June Driscoll—well, she was with them, so I suppose they could vouch for her. That leaves only Gaz. And after last night, I’m more inclined to think of him as a victim.”
“Maybe that’s what he wants everyone to think,” I said suddenly. “Maybe he set up the whole thing to divert suspicion away from himself.”
Devlin laughed. “Gemma, two minutes ago you were convinced that Trish was guilty, and you felt sorry for Gaz… and now you’re saying he could have done it to himself? He’d have to be a bloody masochist, if he did. That was a pretty unpleasant experience to go through—”
“You said yourself that itching powder has no long-term side effects.”
“No, but that’s like saying yanking your nose hairs out, one by one, has no long-term side effects. You still wouldn’t find many people who would voluntarily do it! Besides, what would his motive be? He has the least connection with Lara.”
“That’s what you think. Actually he and Lara got to know each other pretty well… in the Biblical sense of the word.”
“What? Where did you hear that?”
“The Old Biddies.”
“How would they—”
“Backstage gossip. They got chatting to a girl who overheard Lara boasting on the phone about the night of passion she’d spent with Gaz.”
Devlin whistled. “My boys never dug this up.”
I laughed. “Your boys need to come and take lessons from the Old Biddies.”
“So Gaz and Lara were an item?”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far. From what the Old Biddies said, it sounds like they had a one-night stand.”
“How do you know their information is reliable?”
“We asked Gaz himself.”
“You what?”
“He happened to walk into the pub the night I went out for drinks with Cassie and then the Old Biddies arrived straight after him—they were tailing him, you see—”
“They were what? Never mind…” Devlin sighed. “I don’t think I want to know.”
I grinned. “Well, they came over to join us and they told us what they’d found out. Then Mabel and Cassie got into an argument about whether you could trick someone into lowering their guard and blurting out the truth, just by chatting to them… and Cassie decided to try it with Gaz. Oh my God, Devlin—she was brilliant! Seriously, I wish you could have seen her. Mata Hari herself couldn’t have done better. In less than five minutes, she’d got him to admit to the whole thing.”
“She just asked him outright and he told her, just like that?” asked Devlin incredulously.
“No, well… she sort of softened him up a bit first. She got all flirty and stroked his ego… and you know Cassie’s so gorgeous, with that perfect hourglass figure and her hair, all long and sexy… what man could resist?”
“Well, personally, I prefer a slim, athletic figure with a cute short bob, myself.”
I blushed and laughed. “Thanks… although I don’t know how much longer I’m going to have that slim, athletic figure if I keep running a tearoom.”
“So Gaz told you all about him and Lara?” said Devlin, returning to the subject.
“Yes, although he insisted that it was just the one night and that he had no reason to kill Lara.”
“Well, he could hardly say anything else,” said Devlin dryly. “What else did he say? Anything about the other suspects?”
I hesitated. I knew I should tell Devlin what Gaz had said about Cheryl’s past career and the chance that Lara might have been blackmailing her, but I found my tongue strangely paralysed.
“Gemma?”
“Um… yeah, I’m here… er… I was just thinking…” I took a deep breath. “No, he didn’t say anything else.”
For a moment, I thought Devlin was going to challenge me. He had an uncanny ability to guess my deepest thoughts and if we had been talk
ing face to face, he would probably have known that I was lying. But luckily for me, the phone must have provided some buffer, and to my relief, he didn’t pursue the subject. Instead, he said:
“By the way, Gemma, do you remember if you were serving scones on the day of the murder?”
“Scones?” I was a bit thrown by the seemingly random question. “Yes… why?”
“Oh, nothing… Forensics found some crumbs on Lara’s clothing, which they were uncertain about the identification of. From the texture, they didn’t think it was bread or cake—and I suggested it might be pieces broken off from a scone. I thought—since you found her body—the crumbs might have dropped off your clothes when you bent over her.”
“Probably,” I said. “To be honest with you, that whole day is still a bit of a haze in my memory. But yes, I would have brought some scones in—Monty Gibbs really likes them so I always include them in the catering order every day. He often checks the deliveries in person and helps himself to a daily stash, which he keeps with him and eats throughout the day… By the way—I don’t suppose Monty Gibbs is likely to be a suspect?”
“Gibbs? Why do you ask that?” Devlin sounded surprised.
“It’s just… he seems very—” I broke off. “Oh, it’s probably a silly idea.”
“I like your silly ideas,” said Devlin. “Go on, tell me.”
“Well… I just wondered how far Monty Gibbs would be willing to go to… to boost the viewing figures for From Pleb to Celeb.”
Devlin drew a breath. “You think he’d resort to murder to create publicity for the show?”
“He just seems so… so cold-blooded and calculating about it all! He’s got this roving camera crew that goes around filming contestants—you know, like a reality-TV programme—and they only seem to care about getting good footage, at any cost. They never stepped in, you know, when Lara and Nicole were fighting, and they were even getting excited about filming in the ambulance if one of them got badly hurt! And the producer girl wasn’t even repentant when I called her out,” I added indignantly. “She just started lecturing me about ‘good TV’. In fact, Monty Gibbs himself gave me a long spiel about why they were justified in massaging the truth to create good entertainment. He was trying to set up this sob story about Albert’s deprived childhood and when I objected, he got all superior about it. He seems to think it’s perfectly acceptable to manipulate the audience through faked drama—”
“Gemma, that is, sadly, what a lot of TV is nowadays. It’s all about selective shooting and editing, to present a certain story or angle that the producers want the audience to believe.”
“Well, I’m not having my baking used in some sordid soap opera drama!” I said hotly. “And if Monty Gibbs is willing to do all this to promote the show, what else is he willing to do?”
“Murder is a bit different to creative editing,” said Devlin. “In any case, Monty Gibbs was sitting at the judges’ table, in full view of the audience the entire time. So he has a rock-solid alibi.”
“Well, maybe he didn’t do the murder himself…” I muttered.
Devlin laughed. “Gemma, now you’re getting into the realms of make-believe! If it wasn’t for the fact that he has an alibi, I would agree with you that Monty Gibbs could be a viable suspect. But I think it’s pushing things too far to suggest that there’s some kind of mass conspiracy backstage, where Gibbs has got his entire crew ready to do murder for him.”
“Oh, all right… I suppose that’s a bit far-fetched,” I said grudgingly. “Still, if anyone is likely to have my scone crumbs on him, it’s Monty Gibbs!”
***
After I hung up, I sat on the sofa for a long time, lost in thought. Devlin had told me that the police had reopened the concert hall and the crew had been allowed back to continue preparing and filming as normal—although I knew that nothing much would happen until the votes had been counted and the two finalists decided. The phone lines had been open until midnight last night and I was sure that Monty Gibbs would follow the original plan of announcing the results in a special show tomorrow evening. In fact, I wondered cynically if the diminutive business mogul would put on an extra-long show, with lots of filler performances, just to drag it out as long as possible before he announced the finalists. It would be one way to keep people hooked as they waited for the results, and keep his viewing figures up.
On the sofa next to me, Muesli stretched luxuriously in her sleep, then opened one green eye to look at me drowsily.
“Meorrw?”
“It’s about time you got up, sleepyhead,” I said, reaching out to give her a chin rub. “You’ve been napping ever since this morning!”
With the coming of the chilly winter weather, Muesli had taken to getting up for breakfast and then retreating straight back to her cosy nest of blankets on the sofa, where she slept away most of the day. This was fine, except that come evening, she was usually full of beans and driving me crazy, zooming around the house, bristling with energy. When I had been able to take her into work with me, it wasn’t too bad as she was kept awake and distracted by the busy atmosphere of the tearoom. But with the Little Stables being shut the last few days, Muesli had been left mostly to her own devices at home. After several disturbed nights listening to my little cat galloping up and down the stairs at 2 a.m. while she let off steam, I had vowed to try and keep her awake during the day so that she would be tired at night.
This morning, however, I’d taken one look at the little tabby, curled up so snugly in her blankets, her face tucked against one white paw, and I hadn’t had the heart to wake her. Besides, she was probably exhausted after her escapades at the Semi-Finals last night, and needed a bit of extra sleep to recover. The memory of Muesli’s adventures last night made me think of Cheryl and I felt a stab of guilt for not telling Devlin what Gaz had said about the nursery teacher. What was I doing, withholding information in a murder investigation? Besides, it was only a matter of time before the police dug up the truth about Cheryl’s past and then Devlin would be furious that I’d hidden information from him. In fact, I was surprised that they hadn’t uncovered it already, but with so many suspects this time, the CID team had probably been spread a bit thin and hadn’t made as much progress as they normally would have.
Well, why don’t I help them out? I sat up at the thought.
Gaz had mentioned a shop on Cowley Road—an adult store, no doubt, where vintage copies of porn magazines were sold. I could pop in there and check first—make sure he was telling the truth—before saying anything to Devlin. That way, I wouldn’t be stirring up a hornet’s nest and possibly humiliating Cheryl for nothing, if Gaz turned out to be lying or even just mistaken.
Getting up from the sofa, I gave Muesli a last pat, then grabbed my bicycle and headed off.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Cowley Road was an area with a reputation as the multicultural, bohemian, and slightly seedy heart of Oxford. It ran southeast out of the city, past Magdalen College, one of the stalwarts of the iconic Oxford skyline, to the industrial suburb of Cowley. Home to a diverse mix of ethnic groups—from Jamaican to Pakistani, Italians to Greeks, Turks to Russians—as well as a large student population, the road was filled with quirky shops and unique restaurants serving eclectic cuisine. It was also the hotbed for Oxford’s music scene and its colourful annual carnival was a big part of the local calendar.
If Oxford had a red-light district, it would probably have been here… and it was here that I found the store Gaz had mentioned. I stood outside For Your Eyes Only, shifting my weight uncomfortably and trying to work up the courage to go in. It sounded silly, I know, but I had never been in a sex shop before, and I was embarrassed. The discreetly covered windows which shielded customers from prying eyes in the street should have reassured me, but they only made me more nervous as they gave me no clue as to what I might encounter inside.
Then I felt a tap on the shoulder and I jumped in surprise. Whirling around, I found myself staring at the Old Biddies.
>
“Hello, dear… how nice to see you here!” said Ethel.
“We were coming down the street and I said, ‘That looks like Gemma,’ and I was right,” said Mabel, nodding with satisfaction.
“You’re looking a bit thin, dear—are you sure you’ve been eating properly?” asked Florence, her plump face creasing in concern.
“Yes, you mustn’t get too stringy, you know—men like to have some flesh to hold on to,” said Glenda.
“Wha-what are you doing here?” I asked faintly.
“We’re following a lead,” said Mabel importantly. “You see, after what happened to Gaz last night it seems that he can’t be the murderer after all. But we remembered what he’d said about Cheryl—”
“It was a clue!” said Florence.
“And I remembered the name of the bookshop he mentioned,” said Ethel proudly.
“So we decided we’d come and find it!” finished Glenda.
Ethel peered up at the shop next to us. “That’s a very strange-looking bookshop, isn’t it? Why are all the windows covered up?”
“Er… it’s not a bookshop exactly,” I said.
Mabel marched up to the discreet sign by the front door, accompanied by the other Old Biddies, and, reluctantly, I followed them.
“Hmm… ‘Adult entertainment store’…” Mabel read out loud.
“Ooh—that means sex shop!” squealed Glenda. “How exciting! I’ve always wanted to see inside one of those.”
“But why would Cheryl be in a book in a sex shop?” asked Ethel, still looking confused.
Florence patted her arm. “That’s because she probably posed for nude photos, dear. You know, the kind that men like to look at when they’re feeling fruity.”
I was a bit taken aback at how matter-of-fact she seemed about it. Perhaps it had been naïve of me, but somehow I’d expected little old ladies to be scandalised at the thought of pornography.
“Yes, that’s what Gaz was implying—that Cheryl used to work as a glamour model and he found out when he recognised her in the pages of a vintage men’s magazine,” I explained to Ethel.