Murder in the Cake: Cozy Murder Mystery (Harley Hill Mysteries Book 4) (20 page)

I sneaked over to it and took a peek. “This is worse than I thought,” I said. Cordi joined me.
 

She gasped when she saw what was going on. “Oh my.”

We were looking into a room filled with creepy puppets, but they weren’t the worst things there. Sitting in the middle of the room, gagged and tied to a chair, was Farquar. Scarlet Grainger was pacing in front of him, dressed in her glittering crimson gown and clutching a huge knife.

Farquar’s bulging eyes shone with tears.
 

Grainger slowly circled his chair, watched by an audience of eerily lifelike puppets hanging from the walls.
 

Farquar whimpered and struggled against the ropes.
 

Grainger laughed and ran her gloved hand over the flat of the knife blade. “Don’t cry, Rex. It’s a waste of tears. Save them for when the fun really starts.”
 

Unsurprisingly, he whimpered even more.

Grainger advanced towards him, like a cat stalking a mouse. I’d seen enough. I tried the door, but it was locked and I didn’t have time to pick it.

“Michael, break this down, quick!”

“Righto, Harley.”
 

Michael took a run-up and shoulder-charged the door. It burst open in a shower of splinters, and Michael crashed to the office floor in front of Grainger.

“What the… who the devil are you?” she snarled at Michael, now lying dazed at her feet. “Well, whoever you are, you just made a big mistake.” And with that, she lunged at him.
 

Cordi screamed.

“Oh no you don’t,” I said and leapt to intercept her. “Nobody stabs my brother.”

I grabbed her arms and shoved her back, away from Michael.
 

As we wrestled, we fell against the wall of puppets.
 

Grainger kicked me, which I wasn’t expecting. I loosened my grip on her wrist, and she was able to pull away and swing at me.
 

Seeing the danger, I jumped back. The blade sliced the air an inch from my face.

“I might have known little Miss Nosey Parker would be involved.” Grainger hissed and swung again. I back-pedalled and then disaster struck. I tripped over Michael, who was still rolling around on the floor, and I stumbled to my knees.

Grainger laughed and raised the knife above her head as I tried to untangle myself from my brother. All I could do was watch as she came at me, and then, right on time, Alex barrelled into the office.

“Police, nobody move!” he shouted, waving his badge and, more importantly, pointing his gun at the crazy woman with the knife. “You,” he said to her. “Drop the knife and put your hands up.”
 

She just stood there, unmoving, hatred blazing in her eyes, the knife poised.

“I said drop it, now!” Alex roared, making everyone jump.
 

Grainger dropped the knife and put her hands up.
 

Alex cuffed her even as she continued to protest.

“How dare you! I haven’t done anything wrong,” she said over her shoulder.

I got to my feet. “So why is Farquar tied to a chair?”
 

Cordi ran to help Michael.

“We were rehearsing a new show,” Grainger said smoothly.

Farquar was struggling like crazy to free himself and rocked the chair so much that it toppled sideways with him still tied to it.
 

Michael sat up. He was pale and sweating. “I think I’ve broken my arm,” he said.

“Oh, my poor darling!” Cordi exclaimed and helped him to his feet. “You horrid woman. You murdered Henry Renholm.”

“No, she didn’t,” I said.
 

Everybody looked at me.
 

Nobody spoke, nobody moved. Even Farquar stopped struggling. I walked over to Grainger. She arched her perfect brow and glared at me, a slight smile playing on her ruby lips. “Scarlet Grainger didn’t kill Henry Renholm,” I said.

“So it was Farquar?” Cordi asked as she helped Michael to a chair.

“Nope,” I said.

“Okay, now you’ve confused me,” Alex said over Grainger’s shoulder.

“I like to keep you on your toes,” I said, and then pulled Grainger’s bright red wig off. “Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to Miss Emilie Grey, murderess.”

Cordi gasped. “I don’t believe it, but yes, it’s her, I can see it now.”

Alex shook his head. “Well, I’ll be.”

I went over and untied poor old Farquar, who was turning as red as a tomato.

He grabbed me. “Thank you, thank you. She was going to kill me.”
 

“Yeah, I kind of got that impression. Something to do with the dirty great knife and the evil cackling.”
 

I helped him to his feet. “You can relax now, you’re safe,” I said. I actually felt sorry for him. He had just stared death in the face and was shaking like a leaf.
 

Grey’s entire attitude changed in a second. She sagged in Alex’s grasp and began to sob uncontrollably.
 

Grainger, the cold-hearted vixen, the alter ego, had vanished.

“How did you know she was Emilie Grey?” Cordi asked.
 

“It took a while for me to put together all the little pieces of this jigsaw, but it all came together this evening,” I said.

“How so, Sherlock?” Alex smiled, clearly intrigued by my super-sleuthing.

“Well, it was a lot of little things, like this guy here.” I went over and picked up a puppet that Grainger and I had knocked off the wall when we had tussled.
 

It looked exactly like Henry Renholm. “Aside from the creepy fascination for puppets, which is just plain wrong in anyone’s book, there was the fact that I knew I’d seen both Grey and Grainger before, but just couldn’t remember where.”

“So, where had you seen them, I mean her?” Cordi asked as she took off Michael’s jacket and draped it over his uninjured shoulder.
 

“When Chloe and I were in a café, I looked up and saw a woman looking at me, a woman wearing gloves, I remember she smiled shyly. I thought she was looking at me because we’d done that spot on TV, but I realize now that it wasn’t me that she was looking at in the first place, it was Chloe Renholm.”

“Chloe!” Cordi exclaimed. “Why? I don’t understand.”

“When I had a look round Henry’s flat, I found a picture of Chloe. Emilie here had seen it. She recognised her as Renholm’s daughter.”

“Is that true?” Alex asked Grey.

Still sniffling, she nodded. She kept her head down and tried to hide her face behind her mousy hair. “Yes, I knew it was her. She… she has her father’s eyes.”

I put the puppet down. “Then there was a wig I found at Renholm’s place, a bright red wig, not unlike this one.” I held it up. “I guess she forgot it was there because Cleo, Renholm’s cat, had been sleeping on it under the bed.”

Alex frowned. “How did we miss that? I’m going to have to have words with our forensic team.”
 

“Don’t be too hard on them,” I said. “This is a tricky puzzle with a lot of little, seemingly unimportant clues. Like the fact I found pages bookmarked on Farquar’s computer about how to turn cassava into tapioca.”

Michael sat up straight. “Which, if done incorrectly, creates cyanide, and Renholm died from eating poisonous tapioca cake.”

“Correctamundo, big brother.”

He smiled weakly. Poor love still looked in pain, but he was putting a brave face on it. “Glad I’ve got something right today. But surely, as it was on Farquar’s computer, wouldn’t that point to him being the killer?”
 

“It would, if I hadn’t seen Farquar struggle with technology when I first spoke to him in his office. The guy’s a Luddite. His assistant, Emilie Grey, does everything related to technology for him.”

Farquar nodded. “It’s true, I hate the blasted things. I don’t have a clue how to use them.”
 

“And then there are the gloves,” I said. I kept looking at Grey, but she was staring at her feet. “Even though Emilie Grey and Scarlet Grainger have very different personalities, they both wear gloves all of the time. Isn’t that right, Emilie?”

Grey nodded.
 

“It was only when I saw one of Scarlet’s gloves slip down at the Emporium that I realized why she wore them, why they
both
wore them.”

“So you knew then that they were the same person?” Alex asked.

“Not quite, but my gut was telling me that there was something wrong, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it, which is why I broke in to Farquar’s office earlier.” I said it quickly in the hope that Alex wouldn’t notice. What with him being a cop and all. Unfortunately, Farquar noticed.
 

“You broke into my office?” he said indignantly, more like his usual, bossy self.

I put my hands on my hips. “Lucky for you that I did, mister, or you’d be kebab right now.”

He gulped. “Oh, right, yes. I suppose I do owe you that.”

Sirens blared in the distance. “Sounds like your ride’s on its way,” Alex said to Grey. He turned to me. “I called for backup on my way over here.”

I sighed. “Oh, ye of little faith.”

“It’s not my fault!” Grey wailed.

“You’ll get your day in court, Miss Grey,” Alex said. He sounded very professional, although he couldn’t help grinning whenever he looked at me. I guess that was the adrenalin. I know that I was certainly feeling pumped after almost being sliced and diced.

“But Henry made me kill him!” Grey screamed. “He was so shallow. He fell for Scarlet Grainger, beautiful, funny, sexy Scarlet, but
she
isn’t me.
She
isn’t real. She’s a hussy. I’m… I’m a good girl.”

“Scarlet isn’t that beautiful and she certainly isn’t funny,” Farquar said huffily. I shushed him.

“Go on, Emilie,” I said very gently. “Tell us what happened.” I needed her to talk for Chloe’s sake. The poor kid needed closure.
 

“Henry and Scarlet met at the club,” she started shyly. “I knew he was a player, but I thought that when he met the real me, he’d… see the light and change, become a good man.”
 

“But he didn’t, did he?”

She shook her head. “No. When I took off my wig at his flat, he was shocked. He laughed at me, said that I should always be Scarlet.”
 

She broke down again. The sound of police car sirens got louder. “So that was it. I, that is we, Scarlet and I decided to… teach him a lesson. We cooked him a cake, a just dessert, you might say.”

“Well, you might, if you were a card-carrying crazy lady,” I said under my breath.

The sound of screeching brakes and car doors banging broke up our little confession session.
 

Uniformed cops burst in and Alex filled them in on what had happened.

Pretty soon the industrial estate was full of squad cars, ambulances and, unfortunately, the press and television crews.
 

Cordi went to hospital with Michael, who had a suspected fractured collarbone. Alex handed Grey over to the uniformed cops, who took her to the station.

The paramedics insisted on checking me out, even though I told them I was fine.

As it turned out, it wasn’t so bad. They gave me a coffee and a nice warm blanket. I sat in the back of an ambulance, having my blood pressure taken while I watched the lights of half a dozen cop cars flash across the warehouse like we were at a rave party.

“You’ve had quite the night, Miss Hill,” the paramedic said with a smile as he made a few notes.

“You could say that. Er, what’s your name?”

“Ayodele, but my mates call me Del. Now look straight ahead,” he said.
 

I did as he asked and he shone a light in my eyes. “That’s fine, Miss Hill.”

“
My
mates call me Harley,” I said.

“You’re fine, Harley. Could you sign this, please?” He held out a clipboard and pen.

“What’s this, a release form?”
 

“No, it’s an autograph, for my daughter, Kara. She saw you on TV and thinks you’re great, like a modern-day Sherlock Holmes,” he said, smiling sheepishly.

I felt myself blush, but I signed it.
 

Just then a guy with a camera appeared and started snapping my picture, half blinding me with the flash.
 

“Oi!” said Del. “Get that thing out of here. This is an ambulance.”

The paparazzi ignored him and kept clicking away. I was about to tell them where to go when a black-leather-clad arm snaked around the side of the ambulance and tipped a polystyrene cup of steaming, hot coffee down the camera man’s back. He dropped his camera and started hopping around.

The arm belonged to Alex.
 

He came round the side of the ambulance and stood in front of the door. “Sorry, mate, didn’t see you there,” he said before jumping up into the ambulance and closing the door on the angry photographer.

“Thanks, Alex,” Del said. “Bloody paps are always taking liberties.”
 

“You guys know each other?”

“It’s a small town,” Alex said. “Could you give us a minute, Del?”

“Sure. I’ll go see if that pap needs a burn plaster or something.” He got out of the ambulance. The paparazzi was still hopping around and swearing. Alex closed the door.

“Don’t suppose you fancy playing doctors and nurses?” he said.

“You are such a creep sometimes, you know that, don’t you?”

He winked. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

We both laughed and then gradually fell into an awkward silence. I broke first.

“So, I guess I owe you again.”
 

He shook his head. “Nah. I’m sure you would have sorted her out. You’re more than a match for a schizophrenic murderess. Heck, you live with my ex-wife.”

“Don’t start.”
 

He sat down beside me. “I can’t help it, kid. You bring out the worst in me, or the best, depending on your point of view.”
 

He was so close that I could see the fine flecks of grey amongst his dark curls and smell his cool, clean aftershave.

We were just inches apart. I could feel the energy building between us, like a storm about to break. I leaned towards him, closed my eyes…