A Slice of Murder, page 2
Alison closed her eyes. She recalled walking up the drive to the Drew house. She had picked a quiet moment. All the other guests – the invited guests – had arrived. She stepped behind the large topiary to the side of the house when she heard voices, and then she waited. Waited for what seemed like forever, but she had watched him long enough. She was certain Mason would go to his bolthole. And when he did, she would speak to him, reason with him.
Eventually she saw him leave through the front door, telling his overprotective mother that he just needed some fresh air. He stepped out with a taller man.
‘Evan,’ he said. ‘The best man won.’ Mason slapped his friend on his back.
Evan smiled. But it looked more like a sneer to Alison. She took a step closer and peered through the hornbeam hedging. Evan’s hands were balled into fists in his pockets; she could tell by the way he flexed the muscles in his forearms. He was a foot taller than Mason and stronger by the looks of it. They didn’t like each other.
‘Glad you could come though,’ Mason said, adjusting his thick-framed black glasses and touching the side of his nose. ‘Good to see you here.’ He didn’t mean it. Alison could tell by the way the tone of his voice changed, the way he narrowed his eyes ever so slightly. Evan nodded and walked back into the house.
She had waited for a further five minutes after Mason started walking towards the garage. She was patient, even her mother had said so. Her mother’s comments had often been laced with sarcasm, but Alison knew that good things came to those who waited. Another five minutes wouldn’t kill her. She had looked around, listened for distant voices and then as quietly as she could she made her way to the front of the annex.
Chapter Four
‘So, you were there? At the party?’ Leoni asked, wiping her hands on her apron and handing Shilpa her fourth coffee of the morning. She leaned in, expecting the gossip. She wanted to know first-hand what had happened; whose body had been found at the Drews’.
Shilpa gave her a half nod. She wasn’t going to be the one to tell Mrs Blabbermouth. She should never have told her about her big event in the first place. She had to learn to be more discreet. Although she was slowly coming to realise being inconspicuous in a small town like Otter’s Reach wasn’t an option. It didn’t matter if you told people your business or not; they found out anyway.
Another customer attracted the barista’s attention, and Shilpa slid away to a seat at the back of the coffee shop. She usually sat by the window people-watching, but today she wanted to just blend into the background.
It was only eleven o’clock, but she had sold out of baked goods already. It was only the fifth market she had attended since moving to sleepy Otter’s Reach and already she was gaining a reputation. The money she made from the stall wasn’t great, but then she wasn’t maximising her potential, as her father would scold. She could bake more and charge more. The stall hadn’t been something she had wanted to do. It was her uncle who had had a stall selling jams and chutneys and Shilpa had sort of inherited it from him along with the house.
‘Once a month in the low season and weekly in the summer,’ Kelly, who ran the market, had said in a squeaky voice. She had a desolate look about her, and Shilpa had wondered whether it was because Kelly was having difficulty finding another stallholder or if that was just her look. ‘It’ll give you a name around here, and you could display pictures of your occasion cakes. You know what they say – the best way to get business is through word of mouth.’
Shilpa had smiled and agreed, more because she didn’t want to let Kelly down than anything else. Kelly had beamed at her for just a second before her gloomy look returned. She didn’t feel the need to tell her she had been a brand executive in London and knew exactly what marketing tricks to employ to sell her cakes. Instead she had offered the kind lady some tea and a slice of her flourless orange-and-saffron cake, which Kelly still mentioned every market day.
She checked the news application on her phone. A local news station had set up camp outside the Drews’. They didn’t have any further information, just that a body had been found. They didn’t say whether there were any suspicious circumstances surrounding the death; nor did they say that the body was that of Mason Connolly. She was desperate to know if the knife had been found. It must have, but had it been washed up and put away or discarded before the police arrived? She had failed to speak up last night, but now that there was a body, she had to say something to someone.
She stood up decisively, but then doubt crept in. If they had found the knife, it was likely her prints would be on it.
She sat back down and chewed a fingernail. She checked the news application again. Nothing. It was no good just sitting around, waiting for information. There had to be a way for her to find out more.
Hadn’t Mr Drew asked her to pop around with some baked goods? Could she legitimately do that now? The family would be grieving; there would be police. From the pictures on the news this morning, it looked like the place was swarming with forensics in those white coveralls. They would all be hungry, she reasoned. She could take them cake; cake always made people feel better. It was one of the reasons she liked baking. She would tell them about the knife too, because the longer she kept that to herself, the more guilt she felt.
It was only just past eleven. Enough time to go home, have a shower and bake. Bake what? What cakes were appropriate for a family in mourning and a hungry police force?
Shilpa parked up outside the large stone villa with its arched windows and ornate lights. It was one of the few houses on the exclusive Honeywell Drive at the top of Otter’s Reach. It dominated the vista if you looked back towards the town from the estuary. From where she was parked, the house should have been hidden by its large hedge, but the mouth of the gravel driveway was wide, and despite the gates there was a clear view of the house and granny annex above the garages. As she pulled the key out of the ignition, she noticed that her hands were shaking. She wasn’t quite sure if it was from her coffee binge this morning or if it was just nerves. She certainly felt anxious as she got out of the car and opened the boot to retrieve her freshly baked goods. She had decided on a batch of scones and a tray of crumble cake, which she had neatly sliced into handheld pieces.
She carried her containers up towards the gates of the house, grateful she had put on a pair of French Sole flats before leaving the house, and not a pair of heels. She stood a foot shorter than the policeman at the entrance.
‘You can’t enter, miss,’ he said. ‘There’s a police investigation going on at present. You’ll have to come back another time.’
‘Why?’ she asked, feigning ignorance. ‘What’s happened?’
The policeman ignored her.
‘Is it a crime scene?’ she ventured. She peered through the gates towards the pillared porch that framed the front door. The large house looked serene in the afternoon sun. It certainly didn’t look like a crime had been committed there. She couldn’t see a single soul. The buzz of activity from the morning television report must have died down. She turned towards the road; the news van was still positioned outside. She wondered if they would be interested in her presence. She hoped not and quickly looked back at the policeman again.
‘I know the family,’ she said. It was a half-truth.
‘But you’re not family,’ he responded.
She agreed that she wasn’t. She wanted to say she had cake. That seemed to work with most people when she wanted something. People could never say no to freshly baked cake. But she had never tried it with the police before. She opened her mouth, but the words wouldn’t come. It was a childish and insolent assumption, and she was neither of those things. Perhaps it was better to lead with the truth.
‘I was here yesterday,’ she said.
The policeman looked at her, waiting for her to say something else. She didn’t want to. The silence was awkward. Shilpa hated awkward silences. She always took responsibility for them.
‘I might have some information relating to the body that was found,’ she said, whispering the last part. The policeman looked away from her, spoke into his radio and waited. She heard the white noise of the device, a crackle, and then someone spoke. The officer looked down at her and her Tupperware, then he opened the gate.
‘Follow me,’ he said.
Chapter Five
Shilpa looked around the gardenia-painted interview room in Glass Bay Police Station. There was an alarm strip at waist height along each wall and a fluorescent tube light which had a large crack in its casing. The room contained nothing more than a desk and two chairs.
The window opposite her looked out onto the rear of the police station. Police cars in white, yellow and blue littered the car park. How had she got herself into this situation? It was a mess, and she knew exactly who to blame. It was her uncle. Her dead uncle.
On his recommendation, her parents had been persuaded to move from Delhi to Goa and finally to Tooting Broadway in search of a better life. Shilpa’s mother had been pregnant with her when they put roots down in England. When her uncle decided to move to Devon, her mother refused to move again. Her mother had always likened her brother to Shilpa because they were both single. Shilpa didn’t mind ending up like Dipesh. It seemed to her that he had a good life, living in a quaint town in a house overlooking Otter’s Reach Estuary. He had run a small fishing store and spent most of his time doing what he loved best: making jam. But it still came as a surprise when he left her his house. It was a nice surprise though, because her inheritance came at a time when she needed it the most.
She had a great career, one her friends envied, but what else did she have? And with each passing year it dawned on her that her life was going nowhere, even though she was repeatedly told she had it all. At thirty-five, she took a closer look. She lived in central London, but she rented a shoebox. She had a great job, but you were only as good as your last advertising campaign. The grind was continual, the hours long. The directors remembered your mistakes, never your successes. But it wasn’t all doom and gloom. She loved the life London gave her – the nights out, the healthy pay cheque each month. She had Instagram-worthy holidays and a cupboard full of Louboutins.
But she was still single. Despite her protests about an arranged marriage, her mother had set up several suitors. ‘He comes from a good family,’ her mother would say. ‘This one is a surgeon. What can you find wrong with a surgeon?’ ‘This one’s family is wealthy.’
None were a match. Shilpa turned down a dozen. The rest had rejected her. The rejections stung even though she had no desire to date any of them. It was especially painful when she had already labelled them as no-hopers. She didn’t dwell too much on what they must have thought of her; she couldn’t. It hurt too much.
‘They’re threatened by your job,’ her mother would say. ‘You should quit.’
So much for feminism. ‘Why work when you can be a homemaker?’ her mother would say. Shilpa rarely dignified her questions with a response. Her mother would never change.
When Shilpa turned thirty-five, it was as if an invisible line had been crossed and there was no going back. Her married friends were having children. Her single friends were settling down. When Tanvi, their group’s equivalent to Samantha from Sex and the City, announced her engagement just a week after her uncle died, Shilpa knew something had to change.
‘How long?’ she asked.
‘Three months,’ Tanvi had replied.
‘Three months? I’ve owned shoes for longer than that which I’m not committed to. Why didn’t you tell me?’ she asked, taking on a more serious tone.
‘You were busy,’ Tanvi said. That was true. Her uncle’s death had brought with it a plane full of overbearing relatives from India, and her mother had ordered her to be a good host. The late evenings and early mornings helping her mother in the kitchen, frying pakoras and making large vats of daal, enough to feed a small nation, meant she had ended up commuting from Tooting to work every day. She had been busy.
‘And I was busy,’ Tanvi said. ‘Work, Jason. You know.’
Jason – what kind of eighties name was that? Shilpa had thought, ignoring the fact that she had been born in the same decade. Shilpa, who usually told Tanvi exactly how she felt, kept her thoughts on her fiancé’s name to herself. Her strong opinions were another reason her mother had cited for her numerous matrimonial rejections. Things between her and Tanvi were already changing, and her friend hadn’t even said ‘I do’.
That night Shilpa went to sleep with a strange feeling. Tanvi was always free for an impromptu city break; Tanvi was always up for a night out. But now she was alone. Truly alone. She found she couldn’t sleep. Something in her life wasn’t quite right. Somewhere along the line she had taken a wrong turn, or perhaps she had been so focused on having a great career and wearing the latest shoes that she had completely missed a turn somewhere.
At thirty-five, she was single, without enough money to buy her own place. All she had to show for her high-flying career was a wardrobe of shoes to sit down in. Unlike her idol Carrie Bradshaw, she had no Mr Big to rescue her. She had no one.
No sooner had Tanvi publicised her engagement than Shilpa discovered that her uncle had left her his house in Devon.
‘I’m keeping Uncle Dipesh’s house,’ she announced two weeks after she discovered her inheritance. She had visited Otter’s Reach only once, but that was enough to know that she wanted to give the small town a go. As she drove along Estuary Road towards the house on the top of the cliff, she passed a small flea market bustling with people. The tide was coming in, and boats and small craft bobbed along with the incoming water; the gulls were squawking overhead, and the Easter tourists were milling about eating fish and chips from paper packets along the quayside. The air smelled clean, fresh and wholesome, something she couldn’t say about London. Lush trees and shrubs lined the road, giving privacy to the large houses on either side. New contemporary houses with their expanses of glass sat in harmony with the older properties – a mix of Victorian mansions and seventies’ apartment blocks. Every few metres, benches and flower beds exploding with purples, pinks, oranges and yellows had been installed. Shilpa hadn’t yet stepped out of her car but she could see that the town exuded a community spirit.
‘Whaaaat?’ her mother asked, her mouth full of omelette. She wiped the greasy residue from her face with the edge of her dupatta.
‘I’ve made up my mind and you can’t change it.’
‘Good, good. I can help with the inheritance tax,’ her father said. ‘Rent it out.’
Shilpa shook her head. ‘I’m going to live there,’ she said. For the first time in her life, her mother was shocked into silence. Her brother laughed.
Now, at the police station in Glass Bay, she reflected that had it not been for her uncle’s decision to move the family to England, she wouldn’t be here, perspiring in the airless room and waiting to be questioned about the death of a man she believed to be Mason Connolly. Blaming her uncle was a stretch, but she wanted to blame someone.
Chapter Six
Detective Inspector Scott Drayton walked into the interview room and put a powder-blue folder on the table. He sat down and looked at Shilpa. She smiled and examined her hands. Her fingerprints and a DNA swab had been taken from her as she was checked in at the station. It was voluntary, they said, but seeing as she had nothing to hide, she complied. She had assumed they would make her press her fingers into black ink to take her prints, but she had been mistaken. Things had moved on from her days of watching reruns of The Bill. It had all been done electronically and there was no black residue on her fingers to remind her of her ordeal.
‘I have your statement here,’ DI Drayton said, pulling a sheet of paper from the folder. He was tall and skinny, with icy blue eyes and a kink in his nose. She wondered if someone had punched him in the face in the line of duty or if that was just the shape of his nose. She tilted her head and looked at him as he glanced over her statement. Maybe a jilted lover had caused the misshapenness, she decided.
He passed the paper over to her. ‘Read it, make sure you’re happy with what it says, then sign and date it,’ he instructed.
No small talk then. She nodded. She had hoped for a jovial detective. One she could joke with about how naïve she had been in picking up the knife and then not mentioning it. Drayton, with his dark-grey suit and frosty gaze, just made her feel like an ignorant child. He didn’t have a sense of humour, so she could hardly tell him that her first thought when she had seen the knife was that it had been used to cut a bloody bit of beef. A sign from her gods, no doubt prayed for by her mother, that she should not be indulging in the flesh of a sacred animal. Beef, and in particular steak, was one of her favourite meals, and she had enjoyed a steak dinner the night before the party.
Shilpa read through her statement. It was devoid of emotion. She would have peppered it with a few more adjectives. She looked up at Drayton and decided not to share her useless comment with him.
‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘It gives you all the facts.’
‘If this gets to court, we may rely on this statement, and you may need to testify to it.’
She nodded. ‘So, what happens now?’
Drayton looked towards the door. ‘You’re free to go. But stick around, yeah.’
She stood up, her chair scraping the floor as she pushed it back. The noise setting her teeth on edge. No ‘thank you’ then. She wondered why she had bothered. Oh yes, because her fingerprints were all over the murder weapon. Well, that was if the knife was the murder weapon. Drayton wouldn’t give anything away in that regard. As she stepped out of the station, the fresh air hit her. In any event, she had done the right thing, and it felt good.
