A Slice of Murder, page 15
It was clear to Shilpa now. If Alison hadn’t killed Mason, she had a good idea of who had. Theo had said that Alison’s front door had been open but that there had been no sign of a forced entry. Alison knew her attacker; she must have let them in. Her body had been found in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor, stabbed several times and once fatally in the lung. Not too dissimilar from how Mason had been found, she imagined. Was that final jab of the knife luck or judgement? Alison wasn’t all there, from what Shilpa could tell, but even she knew that so many stab wounds wasn’t an act of self-defence. Alison’s attacker intended to kill. He or she was angry about something and wanted Alison to suffer.
The attack wasn’t random; that much was clear from what Theo said. The way Alison’s apartment had been left didn’t look like a burglary gone wrong, because as far as the police could tell, nothing had been disturbed, and it wasn’t obvious that anything was missing, just her mobile telephone. Alison must have called the killer. She must have invited them into her home, ready to expose them, tell them what she knew.
What did she know? The photo she had been so keen to show Shilpa had proved nothing. She must have known who was wearing the black dress. Maybe she had a photo of the killer wearing it. It was likely, given the number of photos Theo said they had found. Theo said only her mobile was missing, but maybe an incriminating photo had been taken too. Surely the police could see that. Shilpa reassured herself that they would. Theo couldn’t tell her everything.
Theo had told her that forensics had been all over Alison’s apartment, dusting for prints and searching for clues in her well-ordered home. Blood-soaked felt leopards lay next to her body. According to Theo, there were heaps of these little felted creatures all over her flat.
Shilpa parked on her drive and got out of her car. Could she have inadvertently got Alison killed by mentioning the black dress? Could Alison have suspected Harriet and called her over to confront her? Had the black widow aptly dressed in black to murder her fiancé; a colour so dark it would disguise the blood? She had been notably absent from her own engagement party to start with. Her own mother had commented that Harriet was taking an age to get ready. Harriet conveniently appeared at the last moment after Mason had already been missing for some time.
The timing was certainly convenient, and she easily could have met her fiancé at the annex prior to midday in order to murder him. Had the spoiled Harriet been bored with her beau? If she had killed before – and here Shilpa was thinking of poor Finley – then perhaps she just had an evil streak. The engagement party was at Harriet’s home. She easily could have changed into black, arranged to meet him at the apartment, telling him there was something she wanted to share with him away from everyone else, something private, something that couldn’t wait. After the deed was done and the bloodstained knife put back in the knife block – why it had been put back like that was still a mystery to Shilpa – she could have slipped back to her room and changed. It was definitely a possibility.
But supposing the black dress was just a red herring. What did Alison mean by repeating the words ‘the bag’ over and over again? And what about Harriet’s dad, Steven Drew?
Where had Steven been the day Mason had been murdered? He was definitely returning from somewhere as she had been leaving that evening. Why would you leave your daughter’s engagement party? Had Steven killed Mason and then, covered in blood, realised he couldn’t return to the party? He was sure to have a change of clothes at one of his offices in town. It would explain why he’d left in the first place. And didn’t Graham say that it was Steven who had found the body? That was very convenient indeed. He could have been in on it with his daughter and his wife, for all Shilpa knew, because Harriet’s mother was hiding something too. She had blatantly lied to the police about being in her husband’s study. What was in the old bureau that she had wanted? And hadn’t a guest commented on Margery’s outfit as she stood talking to her in the kitchen? Margery too had changed her clothes under the pretence of her previous choice being unsuitable for the hot weather. The Drews were a peculiar family.
Shilpa let herself in. She thought about Dipesh and the part of his life he had kept hidden. The Solankis had their fair share of secrets too. But then most families were not connected to two suspicious deaths. Finley’s death was officially recorded as an accident, but was it? And now there was Mason. Shilpa walked down the steps to the lounge. Her eyes were drawn to the sofa. When she saw what was there, she froze.
Chapter Thirty-One
Tanvi and Brijesh looked sheepishly at Shilpa. They were both sitting on the sofa in their dressing gowns. Tanvi had her legs draped over Brijesh and was playing with his glasses. Even more shocking was that Tanvi was wearing Shilpa’s new White Company grey towelling robe that she hadn’t yet worn.
‘What happened?’ Shilpa asked. She put her hand out to stop Tanvi from answering. She couldn’t do that to Brijesh. He looked mortified. ‘I know what happened,’ she said. The tightening in her chest took her by surprise. She had no feelings for Brijesh, yet it seemed like another rejection.
‘You won’t tell my mum, will you?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘What about Jason?’ she asked, turning towards Tanvi. ‘I thought you’d kissed and made up.’
‘I don’t think I love Jason,’ Tanvi said, removing her legs from Brijesh’s lap and straightening. She adjusted the gown around her and tightened the belt.
‘You don’t think,’ Brijesh said, meekly looking down at his bare feet. Never in a million years would Shilpa have put Tanvi with Brijesh. ‘I think I’ll take a shower,’ he said. He stood up and crept out of the room. Tanvi suppressed a giggle. They heard the bathroom door close.
‘What were you thinking?’ Shilpa asked. She headed to the kitchen with the idea of baking a rose-and-pistachio cake. She was tired of thinking about death and murder. At least she could relax a little now that Alison was not going to come after her with a knife. She would try and forget about Alison and Mason for a couple of hours and bake her neighbour a cake. It was time she paid Mrs Alden a visit.
She looked at Tanvi. The feeling of rejection had been fleeting. And at least Tanvi and Brijesh were providing some light-hearted distraction. She selected the ingredients she needed – the butter, eggs, sugar, flour, rose syrup and the chopped pistachios. Tanvi was quiet. She looked back at her friend, her ingredients now neatly assembled on the countertop. ‘You like him,’ she said.
‘I don’t know.’ Tanvi padded over to the coffee machine, slipped a capsule in and pressed the flashing button. Taking her mug of coffee, she perched on a bar stool at the island while Shilpa started to sift flour.
‘Don’t mess Brijesh around. He’s so innocent. And what about Jason?’
‘He’s going back to London today,’ Tanvi said, her hands around her coffee cup.
‘Does he know that you two are over, or is he going back filled with hope?’
‘Probably the latter,’ Tanvi mumbled.
‘Oh Tan, you’re going to have to tell him.’
‘I’m not sure I can trust him. I was excited to see him when he came here, but when we met, the spark seemed to have just disappeared. I don’t know. Our make-up seemed forced, and I was glad Brij was there to lighten the mood. We really hit it off.’ Tanvi stared into her coffee. ‘Which is surprising. He’s not my type at all.’
‘I’ve told you where I was,’ he said. ‘What more do you want?’ Steven Drew looked at his wife. She hadn’t been herself since Mason died. At first, she had been strong – the stoic woman she had always prided herself on being – but slowly the façade had fallen. Had she known what Mason was doing? She couldn’t have. But in the last week she had turned on Harriet for carrying on with Evan so soon after her fiancé’s death. She couldn’t understand how Harriet could move on so quickly.
Didn’t she know their daughter at all? He had no doubt that Margery would have done the same herself had she been in the same position thirty years ago. So why the change of heart now? Was it because it looked bad? His wife was sniffling into her handkerchief. She was a constant blubbering mess these days, and he couldn’t stand the sight of it.
‘Just pull yourself together,’ he snapped.
Margery looked towards the photo of Mason and Harriet hanging on the wall. ‘I suppose that should come down,’ she said, her hands shaking. ‘I can’t bear to look at it anymore. Plus, Harriet has some other plan, which I’m sure you know about.’
Evan was a breath of fresh air as far as Steven was concerned. He walked over to his study and was about to slam the door behind him when he saw Margery following him. He went over to his Chesterfield and sat down.
‘It just sounds a little odd, you leaving the engagement party like that and where you said you went. It doesn’t make sense,’ Margery said, facing away from Steven and looking intently at the bureau.
‘Are you calling me a liar?’
‘Why would you leave your daughter’s party, where there is plenty of expensive food, to go to a fast-food place for something to eat?’
Steven looked away. ‘There were so many people here enjoying our hospitality, and most of them are just leeches and social climbers. I wanted to get some space, and I like fried chicken.’
‘And you managed to get grease stains on your shirt, which is why you needed to change. You lied to the police. You said you were here the whole time.’
‘Because Margery, dear, it was irrelevant.’
‘I didn’t mention to the police that you had changed, but someone else may have.’
‘Nobody saw me,’ Steven said. ‘You changed too. I remember you wearing something completely different when I left compared to when I returned. You don’t see me questioning you about it.’
Margery seemed to have not heard his last remark. ‘And you’re sure that no one saw you because you were looking around to make sure that no one was following you? So you were deliberately being careful?’
Steven ignored her. He wasn’t going to get into this again.
His wife wrung her shaking hands. ‘You shouldn’t have bothered changing… All that blood. It wasn’t worth it,’ Margery said.
Steven stared at her, but she didn’t turn to look at him. ‘What?’ he asked.
‘You were the one to find Mason. You were covered in blood after changing. So really there was no need to change.’ Margery turned and stared at her hand which, Steven noticed, was firmly placed on the bureau.
‘If there’s something you want to say, dear, just say it.’
His wife’s moment of determination suddenly faded, and a tear rolled down her cheek. Steven didn’t know which was worse – her playing the emotionally unstable wife or the scheming one. He had seen both sides in their long history together. She had exhibited this same behaviour with the whole Finley debacle too. Perhaps she should have been an actress. He didn’t dare mention it. It was possibly another dream she had harboured until she married him and found herself a kept woman. She would have some resentment towards him, holding him responsible in some way or another. Looking at her hand pressed firmly on his bureau, he wondered just how much she knew. Perhaps she was keeping the information to use at a later date, or maybe she was just scared of what would happen if the truth was exposed. The latter suited him better.
Steven stood up and walked towards her, his arms outstretched.
‘We should have a dinner,’ Margery said, holding back the tears. ‘With Harriet too. There is much to discuss, and I’m fed up with all the lies. There are so many.’
Steven put his arms around his wife, and she buried her head in his chest. ‘Is that what you want?’ he asked. ‘For everything to be laid on the table, expose everything?’ His tone had softened, and he stroked her hair. He felt Margery sigh in between sobs. ‘Do you really think that would be wise?’
‘No,’ he heard his wife whisper. ‘No.’
‘What’s going on?’ Steven heard his daughter’s voice from the doorway.
‘Oh, Harriet,’ he said, pulling away from his wife and standing in front of her. ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’
‘Is everything okay?’ Harriet asked.
‘Fine,’ Margery said, stepping out from behind him. ‘Everything’s fine.’ Her eyes were red and filled with tears. There was no getting away from the fact that she had been crying, but Harriet wouldn’t ask why. ‘I was just saying to your father that it would be nice to have dinner together tomorrow tonight. Can you join us?’
Harriet nodded. ‘I was going to see Evan, but I can meet him after. Anyway, there are things that we need to discuss,’ she said.
‘That’s settled then,’ Margery said, walking past her husband and daughter towards the kitchen.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Shilpa had lunch with Theo in Glass Bay after giving her statement about what happened with Alison. Something was going on in the Connolly case that Theo couldn’t tell her about. He hinted that they were going to make an arrest soon but didn’t give anything else away.
‘A man or a woman?’ she had tried, but he remained tight-lipped. He wouldn’t say, not after she had screwed up so royally last time. Theo promised to fill her in as soon as he could, but for now he had to keep his intelligence to himself.
Shilpa returned home to find her rose-and-pistachio cake where she had left it. She had warned Tanvi to leave it alone as she left for the police station, but she could never tell with her best friend. Tanvi was going to walk Brijesh into town to prep for his interview with a telecommunications company. Somewhat different to his pharmaceutical background, but he seemed to know what he was doing. Working in the back office of a phone store was certainly something different. But Shilpa could hardly judge. She had gone from a healthy city salary to a meagre wage so that she could fulfil her dreams of making cakes for a living.
Sometimes you just needed a change. A change of job could mean a change in another part of your life, like love, for instance, which was what Shilpa now realised this whole change in lifestyle came down to. She had wanted something different. She was tired of the same old dates with self-centred bankers. A change of job and location had certainly come up trumps with Theo.
She quickly iced the cake, garnishing it with freeze-dried rose petals and chopped pistachios and placed it in a newly branded Sweet Treats cake box; over a thousand boxes in various sizes had been delivered this morning. She looked at her market stall to-do list. She needed to get baking to have a decent spread for the next stall. She wondered how long her house guests would be staying. Tanvi would be heading back to London in a week’s time, because she had only taken two weeks off, but Brijesh was an unknown quantity.
Her mother had called her as she made her way back from the police station.
‘How’s the boy?’ her mother had enquired. For a moment Shilpa thought her mother was referring to Theo, but then she realised it was impossible. It was Brijesh she wanted to know about.
Shilpa filled her in on the issues with his job.
‘What a shame,’ her mother said. ‘Who would have ever imagined something like that happening. I hope you’ve been a comfort to him. You don’t know anyone working in pharmaceuticals who can give him a job?’
‘No, Mother,’ she heard herself say.
‘You are getting on well?’
Shilpa didn’t destroy her mother’s hope by telling her about Tanvi or give her a reason to point out her numerous failings as a grown woman, so she agreed they were getting on well. She did not mention Theo, because she definitely did not want to go down that road. Instead she had asked her about Dipesh’s love life.
‘I didn’t know,’ her mother protested. Shilpa was silent, and eventually her mother confessed that she had her suspicions. ‘But I didn’t like to ask, and he didn’t tell, so there was nothing more to it. I couldn’t just tell everyone something he hadn’t yet admitted to me.’
Shilpa was silent, unsure whether or not to be angry at her mother. She decided against it. Her parents were old and stuck in their ways, but they were not bigots. Maybe they had, for once in their lives, chosen to respect someone else’s privacy.
Mrs Alden looked frailer in person than she did standing on her balcony. Shilpa greeted the old woman with a smile as she explained she was just being neighbourly.
‘Oh, how lovely,’ Mrs Alden said. ‘Please come in, and do call me Elaine.’ She stepped to one side, allowing Shilpa into the large lounge that had the same view as she did over the estuary. The sitting room was painted a pale blue and was filled with trinkets and exotic ornaments that told of a well-travelled life. Shilpa could see by the neat order of the house that Elaine was once a house-proud woman, but now her ornaments collected dust on the countless shelves. Shilpa felt her heart give a little.
‘I’ve been here in this house for over three decades,’ Elaine said. ‘And you’re the first neighbour I’ve had come and introduce herself.’ Elaine touched her grey hair that was combed back neatly and held in place with a coral Alice band. ‘I used to know everyone in this town, and they all knew me. My husband was quite a prominent member of the town council, but he passed away seven years ago.’ Elaine put the kettle on and took two cups out of the cupboard.
‘Let me,’ Shilpa said, and Elaine smiled. She pointed out where the teabags were kept and then, turning the volume down on the television, seated herself in a well-used chair that faced the estuary. She looked lost in thought for a moment, but then she looked up at Shilpa as the kettle came to the boil and said, ‘Now people probably think I’m some eerie old lady that lives in the house at the top of the hill on Estuary Road, who sits by her window to watch the tide turn.’
Shilpa smiled. ‘I haven’t heard that. I don’t think people talk as much as they used to. People are so busy with their lives and their phones.’
