Murder On The Menu: A Romantic Comedy Culinary Cozy Mystery (A Celebrity Mystery) (20 page)

As he pulls the Land Rover into the yard at Eskdale he glances over. “They said that?”

“Yes. Peter, the assistant manager, phoned me earlier. Told me not to go in for my shift today. Armand’s murder and finding myself on the suspects list…” I throw both hands up in the air in frustration. “And now, losing money.”

Jack switches off the engine then rests a hand on my thigh. “It’s all going to be OK. I have never failed to find the murderer on a case yet and I’m not about to start now. Tomorrow I’ll speak to Silvers and I’ll keep you informed every step of the way.”

I chew on my bottom lip and nod. “Thanks, Jack, I really appreciate this. I don’t know what I’d do without you looking into all of this stuff for me.”

Jack leans over and, for a second, I think he’s going to kiss me again.

He does, but it isn’t like before.

This time he plants a chaste kiss on my cheek and then settles back in the driving seat. I get out, slam the door shut and lift a hand to wave goodbye.

He does another one of his nifty three-point turns and heads the Land Rover back towards Frazer’s farm. I can’t help feeling a little disappointed. But then it was me who thought it best to keep things on a platonic level, wasn’t it?

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

I can’t focus on what I’m supposed to be doing. I keep imagining I can hear a car bumping its way down the track towards Eskdale and am convinced it’s the police, here to lock me up and throw away the key this time. I waved Stella and David off back to London after breakfast. Stella had hugged me tight, made me promise to keep her up to date with the whole dreadful Armand business, and said she really liked Jack and that it was time I moved on in relationship terms to somebody far better than Adam – i.e. specifically Jack. She didn’t mention again about me calling Adam. I know I don’t want to. Speaking to him isn’t going to change what happened.

Now, I’ve completed my jobs on the farm for the morning and feel a bit cabin feverish and in need of an escape. I know Jack suggested I stay away from the Veggies but he didn’t say I needed to be cooped up here all day. I could just go for a drive. At least it would distract me for a while. I seem to be desperate for distractions lately. I even attempted to bake again this morning. Following my Aunt Molly’s recipe to the letter, I arranged all of the ingredients on the table and got myself composed and organised. Well, attempted to. There’s something about baking which makes me feel flustered. It’s supposed to be relaxing and therapeutic but so far it’s probably adding to my stress levels rather than reducing them. Still, baking is a distraction and while I’m fretting about whether or not my creations will be edible, it’s taking my mind off the case and Armand. This time I kept one eye on the clock, determined not to burn the chocolate sponge. Unfortunately, when I took it out of the oven, it looked perfect on the top but wasn’t cooked enough inside. Ahhhh….Maybe one day I’ll get it right.

After a quick shower and change, I start Daisy up and we head towards the village. Somehow, fifteen minutes later, I find myself in the car park at the Royal Oak. I know I shouldn’t go inside but the clock is ticking and with every passing day I live in greater fear of being hauled in and charged with Armand’s murder. Jack has been amazing taking on this investigation for me but I think it’s time I stepped up and started to help myself instead of relying on others. I used to be believe in myself and my abilities but what happened in London took much of that away from me. Now, I need to put my fears behind me, stop being a coward and start fighting my own battles again
.
Heading into the hotel’s foyer, I stifle a voice in my head warning me this is a bad idea. I’m doing this. We need answers, and I don’t think my nerves can stand another sleepless night fretting about who killed Armand and why. Not to mention the deeply worrying thought that the killer could still be somewhere in the area. And after me…

“Hello, madam. Welcome to the Royal Oaks. How can I help you?” a perky receptionist asks.

“I’m here to see Bryony Seville,” I say, pasting a polite smile on my face though inside I’m wracked with nerves. “We, er, we’re meeting for lunch,” I quickly add.

“I’m sorry but Ms Seville left about thirty minutes ago,” the receptionist, whose name badge reads, ‘Becky’, says, looking awkward. “Perhaps she forgot? She’s obviously upset at the moment with this terrible situation with her husband.”

I nod and my fingers toy nervously with a pile of leaflets on the reception desk. “Yes, of course, that’s probably it. She didn’t, by any chance, mention where she was going?”

Please let her have mentioned where she was going.

“Yes, she said she was going to Amswick,” Becky replies, looking relieved to be helpful.

Two minutes later Daisy and I are on the road again and heading back to Amswick. As soon as we enter the village I’m on the lookout for Bryony. There aren’t that many places she can be. The village store? I pull up outside and glance through the windows but there are no customers inside. All I can see is Brenda stacking some tins of soup on a shelf. Could Bryony know about Katya being involved with her husband and have gone to tackle her about it? I drive to the kitchen garden but it’s deserted. I doubt she’s called into a local hostelry, so the only other place she could be is the Veggies.

I park Daisy down the road, pull up the hood on my jacket as the best disguise I can manage at short notice, and walk towards the building. The front doors are flung wide open and I can hear the chatter of customers coming from the bar area. Slipping inside, I’m glad of the muddle of people as it makes it easy for me to scoot past them unnoticed and dive into the corridor where the toilets are. It’s also where the door is located for the staff area and to Armand’s flat upstairs. I enter my key code to the staff corridor, thankfully still unchanged, and tuck myself inside a half-open cupboard as I debate what to do next. Marla scuttles past on her way to the Ladies’ looking upset and I can hear shouting coming from the direction of the kitchen. Does that mean Carl Silvers is now in residence and hard at work shouting at all the Veggie staff? There’s a brief lull in the yelling and I think I can hear footsteps from upstairs. Somebody is in Armand’s flat. But who?

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

Common sense tells me to sneak out of my cupboard hiding place and run full tilt for the door to the car park and safety. But listening to common sense won’t help to clear my name. My heart is beating so fast I feel as though I’m about to have a major panic attack. More footsteps echo along the corridor and I duck further inside the dark sanctuary, leaving just a centimetre or so between the door and its frame so I can still see out. The footsteps grow nearer and I can make out Marla heading back in the direction of the kitchen. She pauses near the door and I hold my breath, not daring to move even a fraction. Humming to herself, clearly happier now, she leans against the door and pushes it closed, plunging me into complete darkness.

The panic attack rises up again but I force myself to breathe, thinking calming thoughts. As it’s the middle of the day I didn’t think to bring a torch with me, so I can’t pull one from my pocket to help me see how to get out of here. I rest my head back against the wall and mentally try to visualise this cupboard and its contents. I’ve only fetched things from it a couple of times when I was working here. There’s a row of wooden shelves which house everything from printer cartridges to cleaning supplies. Is there an internal light? No. I don’t think there is. I can’t recall seeing one. As my eyes grow accustomed to the dark, I can make out slivers of light around the edge of the door. OK. I can use them to help me guestimate where the handle should be. Running my hands along the surface in front of me, I feel for a doorknob but find nothing. There has to be a way of opening the cupboard from the inside. The alternative - banging my fists loudly to attract attention and be rescued - would be too mortifying for words. I can hear more footsteps outside and a tiny part of me debates calling for help but my pride won’t let me. Plus, it’s going to look extremely suspicious being found hiding in a cupboard. It’s certainly not going to help my case any. Once the footsteps have retreated I resume my door handle search. It’s only after what seems like an age that I recall the external handle on this door is much higher up than you’d expect. Running my fingers upwards they eventually close around the metal handle. Hallelujah! I press down on the handle with one hand and outwards on the door with the other. It opens. Phew.

The corridor is empty again now – yay, more good news! I tiptoe across to and up the stairs. At the top I press myself against the landing wall and peer through the half open door. Bryony is sitting on the sofa. There are photos in her hands and scattered across the coffee table in front of her. I can’t see what the images are but they’re clearly upsetting her. Trying to edge forward, I stumble on the carpet and grab the door in an attempt to keep myself upright. Startled by the noise, Bryony looks round, sees me and leaps to her feet.

“What are you doing here? I thought you no longer worked here. I asked Peter to ensure you stayed away.”

“I had to collect some things, you know, from my locker,” I hastily lie. As I speak I step forwards, hoping I might be able to catch a glimpse of one or two of the photographs. Is she taking a trip down memory lane via the array of images? Did Bryony still have feelings for her husband? Was there still some love lurking amongst the animosity? 

“Then I suggest you get your things and leave. Don’t the police have you at the top of their suspects list? That’s what they told me yesterday.”

I’m at the
top
of it now? Oh, wonderful. “But I didn’t do it. Why on earth would I?” I protest vehemently. I’m closer now and can see the photos appear to be of Bryony and Armand. They look so happy together. They’re on a beach somewhere hot and sunny. Arms wrapped tightly around each other. So much in love. They look a lot younger, too.

“I don’t know, do I?” she retorts. “But I do know I don’t want to see your face around here.”

I edge closer still. I know I’m really pushing my luck but this will be my only chance to figure out the contents of these photos and whether they hold any clues hidden away in them. Then I see another photo. An older Armand and Bryony this time. It looks like they’re at a party. Their stance is somehow too staged, posing for the camera, their body language uncomfortable. The contrast between the two sets of photos is so marked that they don’t even look like the same couple. What happened between the earlier one on the beach and the later one at a party?

Bryony scoops a handful of the photos off the table and into a bag. “If you’ve quite finished nosing, these are personal. Treasured memories. Now, get out of here and leave me alone while I try to sort through my husband’s belongings.”

I turn on my heels and head for the stairs. Unfortunately, as luck would have it, that’s where I bump right into Jack.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

Jack looks at me questioningly. Without words he manages to convey several questions. Foremost of which I interpret as being,
what on earth were you doing in Armand’s flat?
Bryony slams the door shut behind me and Jack immediately hooks a hand through my arm and tugs me down the stairs after him. “I thought we’d agreed you were staying away from here. Visiting Armand’s flat is not staying away!”

“I had to do something,” I hiss as he steers me towards the door to the bar.

“
I’m
doing the something,” he retorts.

“Well, I couldn’t just stay up at the farm and fret about things.”

Once we’re outside the Veggies he asks, “Where’s Daisy?” A flicker of warmth runs through me. He didn’t ask where my car is; he asked where Daisy is. Sweet. I point up the road and we both scurry towards her.

“Bryony was in Armand’s flat.” The words burst out of me. “She was going through some old photos but something didn’t seem right.”

Jack stops in the middle of the pavement and frowns at me. “Like what?”

“There was a photo taken on a beach somewhere of Bryony and Armand. They looked so happy together. The chemistry was positively zinging between them. Obviously so in love. Then there was another photo of the two of them but they looked completely different. They looked strained, uncomfortable and unhappy.”

“Maybe they’d had a row,” Jack suggests.

“It seemed like more than that,” I persist, searching for the right words to describe the sharp contrast in the images. “Almost as though it was different people, but it was definitely them. Armand looked younger in the happy photo, but it was still definitely him.”

“And definitely Bryony too?” he checks.

I stop, close my eyes and think.

“What are you doing?” Jack asks and I can hear the frustration simmering in his voice. “We’re in the middle of the pavement!”

I shush at him with my hands. “I’m trying to conjure up the pictures again in my mind. I think there was something different about Bryony.”

“Yeah, you said she was happy in the first and…”

I hold up a hand to silence him. “No, more than that. Something physical. There was a scar on her left cheek. I’m sure of it.” I look up and Jack is narrowing his eyes at me. I can almost hear his mind whirring, thinking around what I’ve just told him and the possible implications. “She doesn’t have a scar now, does she? No sign of one. Her skin is perfect.”

“She could have had plastic surgery,” he reasons. “Maybe, once the money started pouring in, she booked herself in to get it sorted.”

“She’s the businesswoman, the one with the investments and the money. She didn’t need to wait for Armand to be famous, bringing in the money,” I reply.

He nods. “True. Come on, we need to get out of here and get on the Internet. I want to check a few things.”

Back at Eskdale, Jack is soon busy on his phone and he has me hard at work on my computer, trawling through one of those ancestry genealogy websites. “What am I looking for?” I ask when he pauses for a second from doing whatever he’s doing on his phone.

“Bryony’s family history. According to the stuff I have on her, her maiden name was Turnball. Bryony May Turnball. Born in London. If I was working this case officially, I could request her full family history from agency HQ and it would be with us,” he pauses, snapping his fingers, “like that, but, as I’m not, it might be faster to try and sort this one ourselves.”

I tap away at the keys trying to find the right Bryony Turnball. “Did you speak to Carl Silvers today?” I ask Jack, who is busy finding information via his phone.

“Yeah, briefly,” he answers distractedly. “Not much use though. He was helpful enough but was in the middle of working in the kitchens so it was pretty chaotic. On the night of the stabbing he was doing that cook with a celebrity class at the hotel in Cumbria, remember? His alibi checked out.”

Disappoint floods through me. There’s the terrifying possibility that the killer could be somebody we don’t have on our investigation radar yet but I don’t even want to think about that prospect. We don’t have the time to go back to square one with this case. In the meantime, I could be landed in jail. Then I remember about the woman who Bryony had mentioned, the one who was a finalist on the TV cookery show with Carl and Armand. “What about that Francesca woman?”

Jack doesn’t even look up as he replies. “That was a dead end as well I’m afraid. She’s out of the country, working in a restaurant in France. She has been for months.”

Great. Another name crossed off the list of potential suspects.

“What are you looking for?” I ask minutes later, after rejecting yet another Bryony Turnball in the births, deaths and marriages records. Who knew there would be so many people with that name – I mean, it’s not exactly common, is it?

“Old news stories involving a woman named Turnball,” he replies.

“There must be millions! We don’t even have a date or a year to search for to try to narrow things down.” If I’m struggling with too many results on this search, then I dread to think how many news stories Jack must be having to trawl through. “Why news stories anyway?”

“I’m hoping that what you find and what I find will fit together and complete the puzzle.”

We both continue our searches in silence. The clock ticks loudly, and my nerves edge ever closer to breaking point. Then, finally, it looks as though I may have found my piece of the puzzle. “Jack!”

He’s at my side in a second and reading the screen over my shoulder. “I knew it!”

“Bryony has an identical twin sister called Bethany. So, Bethany is the one with the scar, isn’t she?” I clarify. “Those photos I saw, they mean Armand was originally involved with Bethany, but then he got involved with Bryony. The earlier, happy photos were of him and Bethany, the later ones, without the chemistry, were him and Bryony. But why?”

Jack stands up and resumes tapping away on his phone. “Can you search on there for a death? Use the name Bethany Turnball and try, say, from about six years ago up to three years ago. See if anything comes up.”

Using the date and information from Bryony and Bethany’s birth certificates, I start trawling through death records. “Here!” I say, pointing frantically at the screen. “Bethany June Turnball died four years ago in Australia. It doesn’t say how she died on here though. We’d have to apply for a copy of the death certificate to find that out and that will take days.”

“We don’t need to, I know what happened,” Jack says, leaning down and showing me the screen of his phone. I read the news headline
Girl Dies in Australian Crash,
and my stomach flips. The story explains how Bethany was travelling in a vehicle with three female friends in a town outside Sydney. The car skidded off the road and slammed into a wall. Bethany, sitting in the front passenger seat, and the driver, named as Annalisa McInerney, were both pronounced dead at the scene of the crash. My mouth goes dry as I force myself to finish reading the rest of the story. “The date! The crash happened four years ago
to the day
Armand was stabbed! His death has something to do with Bethany’s? But he wasn’t there… It doesn’t make sense.”

“Somebody is obviously blaming him for her death, though the question is who. My money is on Bryony, attempting to avenge her sister’s death,” Jack says, taking over the computer now and accessing some official looking website and logging in.

“Should you even be on this site?” I ask nervously as Jack gains entry to the system and starts a search on Michael Seville – Armand’s real name. “With your suspension, they’ll know you’ve been on here and you’ll get in even more trouble, won’t you?”

“I’ll worry about that later. For now we need to access Seville’s travel data to see where he was at the time of the accident.”

“You think he was in Australia, too?” I conjure up a mental image of the photo I’d spotted earlier. The beach, the backdrop. Then I recall the holiday mementoes I’d found in that box days ago when Jack and I had first searched Armand’s flat. “The picture of Bethany and Armand I saw could have been them in Australia. I’ve never been so I don’t know for sure, and I can’t recall any significant landmarks in the background which might help us pin down the location.”

Jack leans back in his chair so I can see the computer. “He was in Australia, with her. This database holds information on passport and customs details. It confirms he was there. Bryony, however, wasn’t. Armand and Bethany must have been on holiday together. Maybe they made friends with some other people or they met up with some old friends who were out there too. That must have been the girls Bethany was in the car with.”

I stare at the words on the screen. “But why wasn’t he with her in the car if they were on holiday together?”

“Maybe it was a girls’ night out,” Jack replies with a shrug. “Maybe the guys were elsewhere, on a pub crawl or something. But this all suggests to me that Bryony is laying the blame for her sister’s death firmly at Armand’s feet.”

“But she married the guy!” I shout. “Why would she marry him if she hated him and blamed him for her sister’s death?”

“Classic case of keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” He gets to his feet. “I should call all of this information in to the local police. They need to know this stuff and fast.”

“So, it looks like Armand dated Bethany first, then, after her death, got involved with her twin sister. Wow! What do we do now?” I flop onto the seat Jack has just vacated. “Are we close to finding the real killer? Can the police prove it was Bryony who stabbed her husband?  Didn’t she have an alibi, though? She was visiting her parents in London.” Jack doesn’t answer me; he’s already speaking to the police station and asking to be put through to the Chief Inspector leading the investigation. I sit and listen to him recite all the details, the dates, the places they can find the information for themselves, so they can see it’s all true. Eventually he ends the call and turns to face me. “And?”

“They’re looking into it. He said they’ll send somebody over to speak to Bryony again as well. This is all new information but it still doesn’t prove anything. Not yet anyway.”

My hopes crash and burn once more. So, this horrible nightmare isn’t over yet.

“That’s all?” I jump to my feet, waving my arms in a volatile cocktail of anxiety, frustration and disappointment. “She could have left the country or anything by the time they get around to…”

Jack walks over and gently grips my upper arms. “Calm down, Lizzie. They’ll investigate it all thoroughly.”

I look up at him. “So, you’re saying that’s it? We just step back and leave them to it?”

“No way,” he says with a shake of his head, releasing me and heading for the door with me following hot on his heels.

“Are we going to get Bryony?” I ask nervously.

“I think we should have another little chat with her, don’t you? But first I want to call at the farm and pick up some stuff. I can wire myself up so if we get there first and can get her to say anything useful for the investigation, then we’ve got evidence we can pass on to the police later.”

I wait anxiously in the car as Jack races into the farmhouse and reappears moments later with a handful of tech type stuff. Then we’re on our way again. I glance across at him as we whizz along the country lanes. He’s frowning. “Everything OK?”

“Yeah, hope so. Emma was having a lie down, said she felt a bit off. Can you ring Frazer for me and tell him to get home pronto?”

I do as requested and Frazer says he’ll be home within minutes. I relay the information to Jack, who nods and looks relieved. When we arrive at the Veggies the restaurant has finished serving lunch but the bar is still open. In the car I help Jack rig up the wire. Under different circumstances I would have quite enjoyed putting my hand up his T-shirt but for now I have to focus on following his instructions to connect up the device. I’m aware that some of the places he could easily have reached himself but I’m not going to quibble about it. After a few false starts, we eventually get everything up and running. Jack had mentioned the other day that he wasn’t a techy kind of guy, but, thankfully, he’d been wired loads of times before so could recall how to set it all up. I just hope I’ve got it right!

We stroll in through the front doors as though we’re just here for a quick drink but I use the staff key code once more to gain access to the private area designated for staff and which also leads to Armand’s flat. I follow Jack as he takes the stairs two at a time. The door at the top is closed. Does that mean Bryony has left?

“Now what?” I whisper at him.

He tries the handle and it opens. Lifting his shoulders in a ‘may as well go in then’ shrug, he eases the door open. The living area of the flat is empty and he beckons me inside. Some of the photos Bryony was going through earlier are still lying on the table. Gingerly, I walk over and look at them closely, careful not to touch anything. Jack slips a hand to my waist as he moves to stand right behind me, inspecting the photos, too.

“Looking for something?” a female voice demands.

We spin round. Bryony has silently appeared from the flat’s bedroom.

I jump a foot in the air but beside me Jack stays stock still and focussed, the only sign he’s concerned being the tightening of the grip of his hand on my waist.