Murder in the Cake: Cozy Murder Mystery (Harley Hill Mysteries Book 4) (4 page)

“I… I shouldn’t have come. I can’t pay you for your help. I’m sorry. I… I lied.”

Cordi waved her hand. “Piff. We’re doing really well right now, and anyway, it’s in the sacred charter of finders that we must do at least one pro bono case a year. Isn’t that right, Harley?” She turned to me, a twinkle in her eye.

“Er, yes, chapter twelve, subsection fifteen, I believe.”

Chloe’s smile lit up the night.

“Well then,” said Cordi. “About that tea.”

Cordi put her arm round Chloe’s shoulder and ushered her inside. Just before I went in, my phone rang. It was my boyfriend, Cole.

We’d been dating seriously for a few months, but we’d known each other for years. Just seeing his caller ID on my phone gave me a buzz of excitement.
 

“Hey, you,” I said.

“Hey you back. How are you? Michael called; he told me you bailed on the trip, that you were concerned about some little street kid. Is everything alright, love?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. Better than fine, actually; well, now it is. It was pretty crap, but then it got better… It’s a long story.”

He laughed. “Er, yeah, sounds like it,” he said. “I take it you found her, then?”

“Like just now!” I said. “We drove all over London, and when we got back, she was outside the house and then I went over and I said—” I was so excited and relieved, words tumbled out of my mouth like marbles.

“Okay, okay. I’m glad you found her. But, hey, listen.” He lowered his voice. “I can’t talk now. We’ve got a lead on this painting thing. Me and the team are going on an op. I just wanted to let you know that if everything goes well, I’ll be back tomorrow and that I’m happy you’re okay and that…” His words drifted off; he sounded strained.

“Cole?” I prompted. “What’s up, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, hun, nothing. We just need to talk,” he said. In the background, I heard someone call Cole’s name.
 

“Listen, babe, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you again tomorrow.”

“Love you!” I said, but the line had already gone dead.
 

I went inside, wondering what kind of decisions he meant. Whatever it was, I didn’t like how he sounded. A hundred dark thoughts leapt to mind. Most prominent of all was, had he met someone else?
 

I put the phone back in my pocket, straightened my hair in the hallway mirror, and put a smile on my face. I’d have to shelve my worries for now and focus on the task at hand: helping young Chloe find her dad.

Chapter Four

After a big dose of tea and cake and sympathy, we discussed how we’d go about looking for Chloe’s dad and generally reassured her that it wasn’t a bother and that we were very happy to help.
 

She looked totally done in, so Michael and Cordi made her a bed up on the sofa in the living room and she turned in. She was soon joined by the dynamite duo of Max and Monty, who after their respective nightly walk and prowl were ready for another twelve hours hard sleeping.
 

I was tired and left Cordi and Michael sitting in the kitchen with a bottle of wine, talking about TV in the ’80s and their favourite band. I half expected him to make her a mix tape before long. It was cute, in a middle-aged kind of way.
 

After a shower I hit the sack. I was shattered, but the deep and dreamless sleep I’d expected didn’t come. My night was instead filled with stressy dreams of going shopping without any clothes on and Cole and my parents sitting down to dinner, only my parents didn’t have faces and… Yeah, weird city. After tossing and turning for what felt like hours, I got up. I could smell that someone was cooking something, but couldn’t quite place what it was. I staggered downstairs and into the kitchen like a coffee zombie.

“Morning, Harley!” said Chloe, pan in hand. She had flour on her face, but she looked all freshly scrubbed and was wearing some of Cordi’s old clothes.
 

Unlike me, she had gone for something less goth and more hippie. She was wearing a pair of multicoloured baggy trousers and a wide-sleeved floral top. Her hair was damp and curling around her cute little face. “I made pancakes, and there’s a pot of fresh coffee on.”

“You’ve made something,” I said as I staggered over to the coffee maker and poured me a cup of black gold. Man, it tasted good. The pancakes, however… They were not what one would call round, and quite a lot of them were decorating the cooker. I imagined that several had already ended up on the floor, which was why Max and Monty were sitting beside the cooker with their eyes glued on Chloe, or the bringer of undercooked dough-based product as she is known in their language.

“I’m not so sure I did a good job with these,” said Chloe, eyeing up the sloppy mess in the pan and on the cooker and the table. “Mum wasn’t much of a cook, and I never really got the hang of it, never had much in to cook with, truth be told.” She looked downcast. “I just wanted to make you breakfast, to say thanks.”

“Where are Cordi and Mike?” I asked. I was starting to feel vaguely human.

“They went to the shops to get a newspaper and some more milk.”

I nodded. Go for a sneaky walk through the park more like. The thought made me smile. I downed the first coffee and swiftly followed it up with a second, or the ‘heart starter’, as I like to think of it. “Hey, I’ve got an idea,” I said now that I felt able to string a sentence together. “Why don’t we go out for breakfast? My treat.” I smiled.

“But what about these?” she said, pointing to the mangled pancakes.
 

“You know, I think I fancy a big fat blueberry muffin for breakfast.” I took the pan from her and turned off the cooker. “But I do know a couple of characters who would simply love some pancake… stuff.”

We both laughed and then fed Max and Monty the pancake ‘stuff’. They loved it.

As soon as we were dressed, primped and preened, we headed into town and down Pembridge Road, which was bustling and alive, delivery vans shoulder to shoulder with red buses, bike couriers, and million-pound pimped-up Lamborghinis, one of which went past us that was encrusted with millions of black crystals.

“Look at that!” Chloe gasped. The driver, a tanned muscular blond guy, grinned at her as he slowly drove down the road, which made us both giggle.
 

We peeled off the main road and down a side street. I loved the back streets of London, some of which had remained unchanged since Elizabethan times and were often crammed with really cool shops and boutiques, and of course, purveyors of fine cake for the weary shopper.
 

We turned onto Hillgate Street, where I knew there were several cafés.
 

The first one we came to, a nice little place called ‘H’, was closed. Undeterred, we carried on down the road until we came to one I’d been in a few times. It was called the Reluctant Snail, which was a bit pretentious, but this was Notting Hill.

We snugged ourselves in a seat by the window, and a gorgeous Russian waiter came over and took our orders. I went for a mocha with extra cream, because I just wasn’t buzzing enough yet. To cut the caffeine, I also chose a blueberry muffin. Chloe went for a hot chocolate and a slice of chocolate fudge cake, which was pricey, but the slice she got was as big as her head with a side of fresh cream.

“Breakfast of champions,” I said, and we both laughed as we tucked in. It was then that I looked up, as you do, with a mouthful of gorgeous muffin, and I noticed people were staring at me. I chewed quickly and swallowed my cake. “Do I have a thing?” I asked Chloe while pointing at my face.

She gave me the once-over, but shook her head. “No, you’re good. How about me?”

“You’re fine.”

“Oh, good. It’s just that—”

“People are staring at us.”

She nodded, whispering, “Actually, I think they’re staring at you.”

She was right. I looked round the busy café. People were staring and whispering. One even had her phone out and was taking my picture. Which was just awful because as she did, I managed to miss my mouth with my drink and spill mocha down my tee. Thank goodness I wear a lot of black.

“What is her problem?” Chloe whispered.

“I have no idea. Anyway, let’s ignore them. Tell me what you know about your father.”

She stirred her drink thoughtfully. “Not much, I’m afraid. My mum didn’t mention him much. Said he left when I was two. Said he was a jerk, which was rich coming from her.”

“Did he ever get in touch with you?”

“No, not that I know of, but then we moved around so much—Mum got into a lot of debt—that even if he did try, he would never have found us. I used to pretend that he was looking for me when I was little, but…” She stopped stirring the drink and dropped those big sad eyes on me. “He never came.”

I reached across the table and grabbed her hand. “It’s okay.” I scoffed a bit more muffin, enjoying the sensation of berries popping all sharp and tangy and soaking into the sugary dough.
 

What I didn’t like was yet another phone pic being snapped, this time with flash. I was starting to get a tad annoyed. “So, why did you set out looking for him?”

“Mum died. Heart attack. She smoked and drank, so it wasn’t a big surprise, but I realised I was alone. She didn’t get on with any of her family and I had no idea about his. I thought I’d try to find him, so I asked around our town and someone told me that he’d come to London and was last known to live here. So, here I am.”

I nodded. So much of her story resonated with me. “I totally—” Just then a young guy in skinny jeans so tight that they looked sprayed on came over and thrust a napkin under my nose.

“Hey, could I get your autograph? It’s not for me, it’s for my girlfriend.” He waved the napkin in the direction of a blonde girl sitting at a table at the far end of the room who was giggling behind a menu. “Well? Only we have to go now.”

“Gosh, sorry, I’d hate to hold you up. Do you have a pen?”

He frowned. “Er… no. Don’t you?”
 

“Er, no. Sorry.”

I looked around the café, vaguely embarrassed. People were watching the exchange. I caught the eye of the woman sitting at the next table. She smiled and gave me a little nod. The guy in the skinny jeans slunk back to his table, where he and his girlfriend proceeded to have a whispered argument.

“Guess they must have seen the interview too,” said Chloe.

I felt deeply embarrassed. I wasn’t a celebrity, I was just an ordinary girl. I didn’t like this kind of attention, especially not with cake crumbs in my hair and mocha down my front. I paid the bill, left a nice tip for the cute Russki, and fled as fast as my little booted feet could carry me, dragging poor Chloe behind me.

Chapter Five

Full of cake, we waddled back home, taking time to do a bit of window-shopping on the way. Chloe was beginning to relax the more we hung out, which was great. When you’re living on the streets, you have to keep your guard up, put a hard face to the world. There are some really scary people out there, and you have to get tough or get gone.
 

What was nice was that underneath it all Chloe was a sweet teenage girl, into shoes and cake and cute pooches being walked on designer halters, those that did walk.
 

Lots of the pampered little darlings we saw on our way home were being carried in Chanel doggy carriers by immaculately coiffured ladies wearing killer heels and enough diamonds to sink a battleship.

“How the other half live, eh?” Chloe said as a woman in a white fur coat breezed past us to go into a jewellery shop with her tiny little Chihuahua in its tiny little carrier.

“How the other one percent live, I think you mean. The other forty-nine percent that ain’t us can’t afford rocks like that. Did you see that ice?”

Chloe closed her eyes and staggered around a little. “I don’t know. Her rings blinded me.”
 

We laughed and, arm in arm, sauntered back to the house.

It was great to be home. It had turned a little cold out, and Michael, bless him, had lit a roaring fire in the living room, the heat from which wrapped the house in a big old bear hug. It even reached the first-floor office, where I was doing some work with Max lying across my feet and Monty trying to sit on the keyboard of the laptop.

Chloe was mooching around the office, checking out the photographs of Cordi and me on the shelves. Cordi had only recently put them up, ‘to make the place feel like it’s ours and not just mine’ she’d said, reinforcing just why I thought she was the greatest, nicest gal I’d ever met.

Speaking of the devil, while I was waiting for a website to load, Cordi came in with a tray of coffees and a plate of biscuits.

“Here you go, girls,” she said, and put the tray on the desk. Monty had a sniff but decided it wasn’t for him.

“Oh, thanks, C,” I said and snagged a cookie. They were chocolate chip, my favourite. “This is just what I needed.”
 

“I’ll bet. I could hear you thinking from downstairs. What are you looking up?”

I pushed my chair back; Monty leapt on my lap. Max didn’t move; he just continued to snore and drool on my socks.

“I’m looking for records of Chloe’s dad, but we don’t have much to go on.” I took a bite of cookie. “It’s better if the person you’re trying to trace has an unusual name.”

“Isn’t Henry Renholm unusual?” Chloe asked.

“It’s not as common as John Smith, but London is a big city. There are dozens, possibly hundreds of
Henry Renholms
.”

Cordi leaned over me and squinted at the screen. Her big curls hung over her shoulders. “You said he was a chef, right?”

“Yes,” Chloe said. “Well, he was when he left, but he might have changed jobs.” Chloe sighed. “I’m sorry, guys. You’ve been so nice to me. This is too much to ask.” She looked sadly out of the window.
 

Meanwhile, Monty began to playfully slap the keyboard, flipping the screen to a local newspaper column I’d been reading earlier. It was about a new cheese shop that had opened on the high street, and it gave me an idea.

“Nice one, Monty,” I said and scratched his ears. He looked up at me and gave me a slow blink of approval before curling up on the laptop. “Okay, you can stay there,
for now
, but I’ll want it back later.”