A Scone To Die For (Oxford Tearoom Mysteries ~ Book 1) (19 page)

Besides, what was the worst that could happen? The old village smithy was a bit far from the centre of the village but it wasn’t completely isolated. It was a local historic site, kept for the tourists really, and there were a couple of stone benches outside the building, which were popular with locals and visitors as a place to have their lunch whilst enjoying the view of the surrounding Cotswolds countryside. If anything happened, surely I could scream for help and somebody from the village would hear me?

I looked back down at the half-composed text, then deliberately deleted it. I would go meet Justine and see what she had to say.

I started walking down the village high street, heading towards the old smithy. The days were getting shorter now and darkness was already closing in, despite it being barely past four in the afternoon. The temperature was falling rapidly too—winter was really in the air—and there were few people out braving the chill weather. A couple of old ladies walked past me on the other side of the street, warmly wrapped up in coats and scarves. They made me think of the Old Biddies. Perhaps I could ask them to accompany me? I cringed slightly at the thought. No. Whatever Justine said to me would be broadcast across the whole of Oxfordshire if they came along. Besides which, I didn’t think she would talk to me if they were there.

A man came towards me on my side of the street—a thickset young man with a short crew cut and a pugnacious expression. I realised belatedly that it was Mike Bailey.

“What are you staring at?” he snarled as he came near.

“N-nothing,” I stammered quickly, giving him a wide berth.

He grunted, then continued down the street. I hurried on, throwing a couple of glances backwards a few times to make sure he wasn’t coming back after me or anything.
Shame I’m not friendly with Mike
, I thought wryly. A big, belligerent man would have been the perfect escort for my meeting with Justine.

Then I thought of Fletcher. OK, so he was anything but belligerent, but he
was
big—and his house was on the way. I could ask him. If Justine had some nefarious plan for me, she would think twice if I was accompanied by a man—of course, Fletcher was more the type to run away than fight, but she didn’t have to know that.

Quickly, I made my way across the village to the little row of terraced houses. Fletcher’s was at the very end and I was pleased to see smoke coming from his chimney. I knocked and he opened the door after a moment, holding a tea towel in one hand.

“Hello, Gemma.” He looked surprised to see me.

“Fletcher—are you busy? Can you do me a favour and come with me to see someone?”

“Who?” he said curiously.

“It’s a… a lady I know. Don’t worry, you don’t have to speak to her or anything. In fact, you could just wait for me nearby while I have a quick chat with her. Would you mind?”

He nodded. “Okay. But I just boiled the kettle. To make a cup of tea.”

I could hear the sounds of an old-fashioned kettle whistling in the background.

“Oh… well, can you have that tea when we get back? I’ll have one with you.”

He nodded amiably and opened the door wider to allow me in. “I will take the kettle off the stove,” he said, leading the way through the front hall.

I paused as I walked into his cosy, neat living room. “Actually, Fletcher—can I use your loo before we leave?”

He pointed to a doorway on the other side of the living room, leading to a rear hallway. “It’s the second door.”

I found the toilet—practically no bigger than a broom cupboard—and noted appreciatively that Fletcher’s compulsive neatness had extended here too. In fact, I marvelled at how he had managed to fit all the usual toilet knick-knacks so tidily in such a small space, including a cat litter tray in the corner. I was about to undo my jeans when I noticed that the toilet roll was empty. Annoyed, I searched around for a replacement. It seemed that even Fletcher was a typical bachelor. Why couldn’t men remember to replace the toilet paper?

There was a cupboard underneath the sink and I crouched down to open it. Then my eyes caught sight of something on the floor. It was wedged between the waste bin and the side of the cupboard—obviously someone had meant to throw it in the bin and had missed, and it had fallen unnoticed into that corner. It looked like a small, flat, cardboard box—the kind that you get from the pharmacy, containing a packet of pills. I picked it up. It was empty but there was a prescription label stuck on the side of the box. I stared at it in puzzlement.

G. Hughes (14/08/1973) – Chlorphenamine

One 4mg tab by mouth every 4 ~ 6 hours with food.

A prescription medication of some kind… for… Professor Hughes? I remembered suddenly about Hughes’s pet allergy and his need for special anti-histamines. But why was this here?

My phone beeped suddenly, startling me. I pulled it out of my pocket. It was a message from my mother:

Sorry to bother you, darling, but what’s my Apple ID password again? I can’t seem to get into my iPad. I was sure it was gemmarose but I’ve tried that 3 times now and it won’t work. Is it gemmarose29 maybe?

Aaargh! How many times did I have to tell her that the Apple ID password required a capital first letter? Honestly, I hoped I didn’t become this forgetful when I got older because—

I froze.

My mind whirled as something that had been bothering me fell into place. Being forgetful… forgetful old ladies… Ethel Webb… being late for yoga class… saying she had been late for things all week because she had forgotten to change the clocks… the clocks had changed last weekend…

And Ethel had been the one to confirm Fletcher’s alibi.

She said she had seen him leaving his house at 8:45 a.m.,
after
the murder had been committed and I had met him arriving at the tearoom myself, just before 9 a.m. He had been breathless and flustered, I remembered, as if he had been running and he said he had overslept.

But if Ethel had forgotten to change her clocks, then she hadn’t actually seen Fletcher leave his house at 8:45 a.m. Her clock would have been telling the wrong time because she had forgotten to move it an hour back.

So, in fact, she had actually seen Fletcher leave his house at 7:45 a.m.—one hour earlier.

So where had Fletcher been for that one hour? Why had he let everyone believe that he had overslept and only left his house very late that morning? What had he been doing that had made him so agitated?

I felt slightly sick. My mind recoiled violently from the idea that was forming inside my head. No, no, it couldn’t be. There was no connection between Fletcher and the American… or was there? I thought back to last Friday—when Fletcher had first come out of the kitchen and seen Washington. He had been shocked. I could still remember the look of horror on his face as he stared at Washington. At the time, I’d assumed it was because the American had kicked Muesli. But what if it wasn’t because of that? What if it was because Fletcher had
recognised
Washington? They were about the same age. Could it be…?

On a sudden hunch, I flipped to the photo gallery on my phone and brought up the picture of the Matriculation photo again. I zoomed in and stared at the faces of the students sitting next to Washington. There was Hughes on his right… then my eyes widened as I suddenly recognised the tall, lanky student on Washington’s left. He was a lot thinner and had a lot more hair then. He was also squinting at the camera, screwing his face up slightly, which was probably why I hadn’t recognised him immediately. But now that I was looking, I could see it without doubt.

It was Fletcher.

Fletcher had been a student at Oxford University—in fact, he had matriculated the same year that Washington and Hughes had joined Gloucester College.
Why hadn’t he ever told me?

I flipped to the next image in my gallery—the one of the back of the Matriculation photo with all the student names. I moved along the row until I came to the name next to Washington’s: “N.F. Wilson”.

Oh my God
. I scrabbled to open my email account on my phone and brought up that article from the Oxford City Library archives again. I stared at the list of student names: “M. Smith, B. Washington, G.C. Hughes, S. Greer, N.F. Wilson, T. O’Keefe, M. Williams, and D.E. Owens”.

This time, one name from the list jumped out at me: “
N.F. Wilson
”.

Fletcher Wilson.

I didn’t know if Fletcher went by his middle name but it wouldn’t have surprised me. After all, lots of people used their middle names if they didn’t like their given first names. You didn’t have much say, did you, in what your parents chose for you. I was lucky that I actually liked my name but I suppose if my parents were ’60s hippies and had given me the first name of Rainbow or Leaf, I’d be…

I was rambling, I knew. My mind was just trying to prevaricate, to wriggle away, to evade and deny—anything rather than face the sudden, horrible truth that was staring at me:

Fletcher was the murderer.

A sudden knocking sounded at the door. “Gemma? Are you okay?”

I jumped at the sound of Fletcher’s voice. The phone slipped from my hands and fell with a resounding
plop!
into the toilet bowel.

“Aaarrggh!” I stared in dismay.

“Gemma?”

“Uh… yeah, I’m fine, Fletcher. I’ll be out in a minute,” I called as I knelt down next to the toilet bowel and reached my arm in. I grimaced as my fingers dipped into the cold water, then they found the edges of the phone and I fished it out. I grabbed a towel from the rail and rubbed it dry, then pressed the power button, praying silently.

The screen remained black. It was dead.

“
Damn!
” I whispered.

Slowly, I stood up again and took a deep breath. Maybe I was wrong, I thought desperately. It could all be coincidence, right? So Fletcher had lied about his alibi for last Saturday morning—so what? Devlin himself had said that “people lie for all sorts of reasons—but not always to do with murder”. And yes, okay, so Fletcher had hidden the fact that he used to be at Oxford. That didn’t make him a criminal. Maybe he didn’t want to talk about it, maybe he was embarrassed…

…
especially if he had been expelled from the University as part of a cheating scandal
, I thought suddenly. The library article hadn’t confirmed it but I was willing to bet that Fletcher was one of the two students who had been sent down following that fiasco.

Now, years later, Washington re-appeared out of the blue and Fate had caused the two of them to meet again in my tearoom. Maybe Fletcher had realised that it was all Washington’s fault… maybe the American had taunted Fletcher about it… or they had argued… something had caused him to totally flip and lose it. And he had killed the American on Saturday morning.

And Hughes…? Hughes had been involved in the cheating scandal too. Perhaps Fletcher had invited the Pharmacology professor out to Meadowford-on-Smythe…
that envelope the police had found, postmarked from Meadowford on Monday!
Yes, and I remembered now the phone call that Fletcher had taken when we had come back in to his house after searching for Muesli. That had been Tuesday night and had probably been Hughes answering Fletcher’s letter and arranging to come to Meadowford that evening.

So Hughes had come… and the cat hairs everywhere had triggered his allergy again—perhaps he had taken some anti-histamines when he used the toilet—and then… Fletcher had killed him too. And dragged the body into the woods outside his house. Then called the police on Wednesday morning and pretended to have found the body while out searching for Muesli…

There were still several unanswered questions but everything else fit. And besides,
I knew
. In the pit of my stomach, I knew. I understood now what Devlin had meant about having an instinct for something.

I felt nauseous.

What was Fletcher doing now? Did he suspect that I knew? I strained my ears for sounds from the rest of the house. There was the faint creak of floorboards, then the muffled sounds of banging—it sounded like it was coming from the living room.
What was he doing?

I looked desperately around the tiny toilet. I couldn’t stay here forever. Even if I wanted to, the toilet door didn’t have a lock and there was nothing in here that I could wedge against the door to prevent it opening.

I would have to take my chances outside. If I could just act calm and natural, and casually tell Fletcher that I’d changed my mind—that I didn’t need him to accompany me after all—then I could simply say goodbye, open his front door, and walk sedately away from his house…

Taking another deep breath, I turned the doorknob and opened the door, stepping into the hallway. Slowly, I walked back to the living room. Fletcher looked up as I came in. He was standing by the living room windows, which had the drapes drawn back, showing the black darkness of the garden and surrounding woods outside.

I froze, staring at the hammer he held in his hands.

“Uh… um, Fletcher…” I licked dry lips. “I’ve changed my mind, actually. I don’t think I need you to come with me after all.”

“It’s okay,” he said, coming towards me. “I will come with you.”

“Uh… well, there’s really no need,” I stammered, edging away from him. “And… um… it’s such a horrible, cold night… Wouldn’t you rather stay here in the warm, enjoying your nice cup of tea?”

“No, I can have tea afterwards, like you said.” He raised the hammer and I flinched.

“Why… why do you have a hammer, Fletcher?”

He looked at his hand in surprise, as if he had forgotten that he was holding it. “Oh, to fix the window.” He gestured to the living room windows, which were slightly open. One of the handles was hanging loose. A cold draught wafted in, bringing in the chill of the night air outside. I shivered.

“Ah… right…” I said, trying to calm my racing heart.

I stole a glance around the room. Fletcher was standing between me and the doorway to the front hall. I could try to make a run for it but I didn’t think I’d get to the front door before he caught me. My eyes slid past the doorway and continued around the room. Then I spotted it, on the side table just a few feet away from me. An old-fashioned, landline telephone.

If I couldn’t get out, maybe I could call for help. All I had to do was find a way to creep over and dial 999 before Fletcher realised what I was doing. I had to find a way to distract him—send him out of the room somehow…

I looked down at his feet. “Fletcher—why don’t you change your shoes? I think where we’re going might be muddy. Do you have a pair of wellies?”

“Yes,” he said. “Okay, I will change into them.”

He turned around and went through the doorway on the other side of the room, disappearing into the front hall. I heard him fumbling by the front door. I knew I wouldn’t have much time.

I flew across the room to the telephone and dialled rapidly.

“Emergency—which service do you require? Fire, Police, or Ambulance?”

“Police!” I hissed in a whisper. I gave Fletcher’s address and continued breathlessly, “I’m in danger. I’m with Fletcher Wilson. He’s the killer in the recent murders of—”

“Gemma?”

I whirled around, dropping the handset. Fletcher was standing behind me, the hammer still held in his hand, his feet now encased in wellington boots. But it was his face I focused on. His brows were lowered in a frown.

“Why are you calling me a killer?”

I shifted my weight. “Because… because you are, Fletcher. You murdered Brad Washington—”

“NO!” he yelled, his face puckering. “I didn’t mean it! I didn’t mean it! He was saying nasty things, horrible things—I wanted him to stop! He was calling me names! Saying I was
STUPID
! Laughing at me! He said I deserved to be kicked out of Oxford even though I didn’t cheat in my exams, because I was
STUPID
!”

He waved the hammer as he spoke, his face red, his eyes wild. I stared at him in horror. I had never seen him like this before. He came towards me, speaking earnestly:

“I went to the tearoom early. It was nice and quiet. Then I saw Brad. He was loud and rude. He said nasty things. He sat outside and laughed at me. He told me that
he
was the one who had cheated many years ago—but he made the college think that it was
me
! He made them kick me out!” Fletcher’s face flushed even redder. “It wasn’t fair!
He
was the one who was wicked, not me! And then… and then he took out a scone from his paper bag and laughed at me. He said I was too
stupid
for Oxford anyway—that I was only good enough to make scones in a tearoom…”

Fletcher’s face twitched spasmodically. “I wanted him to stop—to stop talking! I told him to stop! I begged him to stop! And when he wouldn’t, I pushed the scone into his mouth, to… to shut him up!”

“And you killed him by accident,” I said with sudden realisation. “Because of his dysphagia. He choked.”

Fletcher looked at me, his eyes blank. “I just wanted him to stop calling me
stupid
.”

“Yes,” I said, as soothingly as I could manage. I wondered how long it would take the police to get here. I just had to keep Fletcher talking until then. “I’m sure you didn’t mean it.”

“I wanted a second chance,” said Fletcher brokenly. “Remember, you told me about that book—
Persuasion
? About the girl who gets a second chance—and the man she loves who comes back like a different person. Remember?”

“Yes… yes, I remember,” I said nervously.

“I want to come back like a different person. And you told me that people can have second chances and start again, if they want it badly enough.
I
want it badly enough. I want another chance. I wrote a letter to Gloucester College and asked if I could go back. They said no, because I cheated. EXCEPT I DIDN’T!” he yelled suddenly, smashing the hammer down on the coffee table.

I cringed as the wooden surface splintered. I remembered Devlin telling me that Hughes’s head had been bashed in by a heavy, blunt instrument. My eyes were riveted on the hammer. Was that what Fletcher had used to kill Hughes?

As if reading my mind, Fletcher said, “I thought Geoffrey would help me. Brad told me that Geoffrey had known about the cheating too. So I sent him a letter and asked him to come and see me. I was very polite, you see. I asked very nicely. I asked him to tell the college the truth—that it wasn’t me. That he and Brad did it and blamed it on me. But he wouldn’t!”

“Oh… er… that wasn’t very nice of him,” I said inanely. I couldn’t believe I said that, but I didn’t know how to respond. I didn’t want to get Fletcher riled up any more but I also didn’t want him to think I was being unsympathetic either, in case that angered him too.

Fletcher’s hand clenched convulsively around the hammer and I took another step back.

“He wouldn’t do it for me! And he said I’m not allowed to talk about the cheating ever again. He said if I told anyone about the cheating, then he would tell everybody that I killed Brad!”

He shook his head vehemently. “But I didn’t mean to kill Brad! I just wanted him to stop laughing at me! And then… and then Geoffrey started calling me
STUPID
too! So I made him shut up…” Fletcher raised the hammer menacingly.

“Ah… well, I’m not calling you stupid,” I said hastily. “In fact, I think you’re very clever, Fletcher. An absolute genius!”

He looked at me, tilting his head like a puzzled dog. “I am not a genius. Why do you call me that, Gemma?”

“Oh… er…” I stumbled backwards, feeling my way blindly. The living room windows were behind me and I remembered that they were open. If I could reach them, maybe I could somehow dive through them, out into the garden…

Okay, it was a silly idea but it’s hard to think clearly when you’re facing a maniac wielding a hammer. It was obvious to me now that Fletcher’s hold on reality was very tenuous. I didn’t know what might set him off.

I took another step back, feeling the edge of the windowsill press suddenly against my hip. A wave of relief washed over me. At least I’d got here. Now if I could just—

A black shape erupted out of the darkness outside and landed on the open window. I jumped back and screamed.

Then I saw what was sitting on the windowsill.

“Oh my God, Muesli! You stupid cat, you scared me half to death!” I gasped.

Then I froze as I realised what I had just said.

“DID YOU CALL MUESLI STUPID?” shrieked Fletcher, swinging the hammer above his head. He lunged at me, his eyes bulging.

I screamed and dived to the side. There was a yowl and I saw a blur of tabby fur shoot past me, darting between Fletcher’s legs. He tripped, gave a cry, and pitched forwards, smashing his head against the side of the windowsill as he went down.

Then all was silent.

Slowly, I stood up, my heart still pounding in my chest. In the distance, I could hear the faint wail of sirens. Police—coming to my rescue. But there was no need anymore.

I looked at the man in front of me, out cold on the floor. Then I looked at the nonchalant creature sitting a few feet away, placidly washing her face. I never thought that one day a little tabby cat would save my life.