A Sweet Murder (13 page)

Grace’s hand
shook as she held the book out. Vincent studied her. He sighed and
the hardness fell from his face. He said, “Sorry about that, that
was rude of me. I have, what is referred to nowadays, as trust
issues. I thought you were wanting something from me, most people
are.”

Grace gave him
an understanding smile. “I wanted to give it back, that’s
all.”

Vincent returned
her smile and took the old recipe book. He carefully slid it out of
the plastic wallet and looked through the pages. “I never knew this
existed, it’s amazing. I wonder if Mum knew about it.”

Grace shrugged.
So Vincent didn’t know about the book, or so he says.

Vincent frowned.
“Did you say you found it in a locker? Was it in that storage unit
a few miles west of here?”

“
It
was, there were all sorts of shop fittings in there, they looked
old. Did they belong to you?”

Vincent put the
book on his lap. “They belong to the family, it’s from the first
shop that Alfred Flamingo set up. Have the contents been
sold?”

“
They have.” This was the perfect time to question Vincent
about renting the unit.

Vincent rubbed a
hand against his forehead. “I don’t understand. I rented that
locker a while ago. How can they sell it without me
knowing?”

Grace wasn’t
expecting that. She said, “Some people forget to pay, or change
banks or something.”

Vincent sagged,
he looked down at the carpet. “I think I know what’s happened. The
accountant was supposed to deal with all the accounts, I handed
everything over to him.” He looked back up. “I rented the unit to
store everything from the shop. I was going to build a museum,
behind the main factory. Then I was going to reconstruct the shop
just as it was built originally using the original fittings. I took
everything out of the shop so that they wouldn’t get damaged any
further by customers, although the main counter had been scratched
many times but I liked that. It was going to be a big surprise for
Mum, I hadn’t even told Mirabelle about it. I still
haven’t.”

Grace saw the
tears come to Vincent’s eyes. Connie, who had been silent up to
that point said, “A museum? What a wonderful idea, I would have
loved that.”

Grace said, “You
mentioned an accountant?”

“
Yes, after Mum died I couldn’t deal with all the usual
paperwork so I passed it over to the accountant. He’s fairly new to
us but I told him to deal with everything and to ask me if he had
any queries. I wonder why the storage fees haven’t been paid. Is it
possible he just ignored them? Oh! It’s one thing after
another!”

Grace moved over
to Vincent and put a hand on his arm. He looked close to a
breakdown. She said, “I’ve got the chair, you can have that. The
auction was only on Sunday. My brother might be able to track down
the man who bought your things. He could even try to buy them
back.”

“
Really? Do you think that is possible? I would pay of course,
I’d pay whatever the man who bought the unit wanted.”

Grace thought
about the horrible man who had bought the unit. She’d speak to
Frankie and make sure they didn’t pay a penny more than they needed
to. She said, “I’ll speak to Frankie later about it. I can’t
promise anything but I’ll try.”

Vincent patted
her hand. “Thank you, you are a kind person.”

“
It
might make up for nearly destroying your inventing room yesterday,”
Grace said with a smile.

Vincent laughed.
“It certainly would. Here’s the cake and tea. Thank you,
James.”

Grace looked up,
James, the butler had sneaked up soundlessly on them. He placed tea
things in front of them along with a cake covered in black icing.
James cut Grace a generous size and offered it to her. “Would you
like me to make it smaller?” he asked.

Grace shook her
head. “I don’t want to put you to any trouble.” She might as well
make use of her Christmas trousers.

The cake was
delicious, a soft tang of liquorice flavoured the moist sponge and
the icing stuck to her teeth in a pleasing manner.

Vincent
inspected the recipe book again. He put it back in the plastic
wallet and handed it to Grace. He said, “I can’t take this, it must
be worth a fortune.”

“
I
want you to have it,” Grace said, then she realised her mistake.
Connie was attached to the book, if she left it here then Connie
would stay with it.

Vincent shook
his head. “I’ll happily pay you for it, I’ll make some enquiries
about its worth. Please, take it.” He gave a laugh, it sounded
forced. “If Mirabelle sees this she’ll have it on eBay in a split
second. Please keep it safe for me, I’d appreciate it.”

Grace wiped her
sticky fingers on a cotton serviette and put the book back in her
bag.

Grace felt a
cold touch on her shoulder. It was Connie, she said softly, “Please
can you ask him about the museum? I’d love to know
more.”

Grace did so.
Vincent’s face lit up. “I’ll show you the plans.” He stood up and
walked over to an old chest of drawers.

Grace let out a
small sigh. She still hadn’t questioned him about Connie’s death.
How was she supposed to raise that topic?

Chapter 28

Vincent opened a
drawer and took out a roll of paper. He unrolled it and laid it out
on the desktop. He invited Grace over to have a look.

He pointed to
various parts on the proposed plans unaware that Connie was looking
over his shoulder. “This is where the entrance is, and here is a
ride that takes you all around the museum. This is going to be the
fun part right here.” He tapped the plans. “Make your own sweets.
There will be lots of ingredients to choose from, we’ll even have a
competition for the best new invention. And, of course, there will
be a gift shop. I couldn’t get away with not having one, Mum would
never forgive me. She probably would have disagreed with the
entrance fee that I’m charging!”

Connie made a
clicking noise with her tongue as she spotted the proposed price.
“He needs to double that price! Doesn’t he know he’s trying to run
a business? He always was too soft.”

Grace said, “It
looks wonderful. Are you still going ahead with it?”

Vincent began to
roll the plans back up. As he did so a scrap of paper fluttered to
the floor. Grace picked it up and unwittingly looked at the numbers
written on it. Her eyes felt like they were going to pop out of her
head. “Wow! It costs a lot to build a factory. Sorry, I’m being
nosy.” She handed the paper to Vincent.

He gave her a
rueful grin. “The number at the bottom is the cost of the building.
The huge number above is part of a proposed business deal. I know,
it’s exceedingly high. I must admit, I haven’t dared tell Mirabelle
about this yet, I don’t think even she could cope with this amount
of money. The money should come through soon, there’s been a few
hiccups in our accounts. The new accountant that we have is very
thorough, he told me about some discrepancies with the income from
the vending machines that we have. I told him I’d sort that out, it
was a communication error within the family.” Vincent paused and
looked down at the paper roll. “I wonder what Mum would have
thought about this museum. Apart from not charging
enough.”

Grace looked
over at Connie and was glad to see the proud look on her face as
she gazed at Vincent. Grace said, “I’m sure she would have been
very proud of you.”

Vincent briskly
completed the rolling up of the plans. “She might be proud of the
museum but I’m not sure how she’d feel about the proposed business
deal I’ve set up.”

“
What’s he done?” Connie asked, her eyes narrowing.

“
What kind of business deal? Are you expanding?” Grace asked,
hoping that Vincent didn’t think she was being terribly
nosy.

He didn’t seem
to think so. “Before Mum died we talked about going into
partnership with other companies, companies abroad. We spoke to
some people in Germany and France and got some possible deals
together.”

Connie nodded.
“I remember that. They gave us a good offer, not as high as I
wanted, but good enough.”

Vincent returned
the plans to the drawer and indicated for Grace to sit back down on
the sofa. He sat opposite her and said, “I didn’t think the offers
reflected the quality of our products so I kept making enquiries. A
huge company in America showed considerable interest, at a
considerable price, the price that was written on that bit of
paper. You should have seen Mirabelle’s face when I told her the
name of the company that wanted to do business with us! We were
planning to speak to Mum about it, I knew she might have taken some
convincing, she always said she didn’t trust big companies. But, as
Mirabelle said, Mum’s motto was ‘It’s business, it’s not
personal’.”

“
Did
you get chance to speak to Connie about it?”

“
Not
straight away. Being the idiot I am I gave the Americans a
provisional yes and before I knew it the contracts were on the way.
I was worried that Mum was going to find out from someone before I
could speak to her. I didn’t want her to think I was going behind
her back.”

Grace thought
about what Vincent had said in her vision, was that the deal that
he’d been worried about?

Vincent rubbed
his hand over his chin, his eyes were downcast. When he raised them
to Grace her heart softened at the pain in them. He said, “Have you
ever done something that you bitterly regret?”

Grace’s softened
heart missed a beat. Was Vincent going to confess to Connie’s
murder? Should she really be in this room alone with
him?

Vincent didn’t
notice her look of panic. He carried on, “Shortly before Mum died I
met up with my sisters, Lucinda and Della. We met at the shop that
Alfred Flamingo first set up, I was trying to sort out the removal
of the shop fittings. I can’t remember how the subject came up but,
please keep an open mind if you can, we talked ... we talked about
how to kill Mum.”

“
I
see,” Grace said, not knowing what else to say.

“
I’m
so ashamed to admit it now, I was ashamed within minutes of talking
about it. I won’t go into details but we all had reasons for not
wanting Mum to know what we’d been up to. For me, it was the
American deal. And just for a minute or two getting rid of Mum
seemed an option. Isn’t that dreadful? So heartless. We said if Mum
had to die we’d want it to be quick, painless and to look like an
accident.”

Grace nodded.
She knew exactly how the conversation had gone. Lucinda and Vincent
had been the ones who wanted it to be quick and painless, Della had
been the one with a scheming look in her eyes as she said that
Connie’s death had to look like an accident.

Vincent gave a
mirthless laugh. “I did speak to Mum about the American deal and,
as I suspected, her first reaction was to say no. Mum died soon
after that, in an accident at home. It was bad enough having that
horrific conversation but when I heard about Mum’s death my first
thought was that one of my sisters had gone ahead and murdered
Mum.”

“
Do
you still think that?” Grace asked.

Vincent looked
towards the old desk for a moment. Then he looked back at Grace and
gave her a bright smile. “Of course not. Mum died in an unfortunate
accident.” He stood up. “I don’t mean to sound rude but I really
have to get on, I’ve got some important calls to make.”

Grace stood up
and shook Vincent’s outstretched hand. James appeared and escorted
her all the way to the van.

As they drove
away Connie voiced what Grace was thinking, “He knows something,
what’s he hiding?”

It seemed to
Grace that all of Connie’s children were hiding
something.

Chapter 29

Grace had been
driving for ten minutes when her phone rang. She pulled over to
answer it. It was Lucinda.

After a short
conversation they agreed to meet at a nearby cafe. Lucinda was
intrigued about Grace’s comment regarding family
business.

Connie didn’t
speak as they drove to the cafe.

Lucinda was
already sitting at a table inside. Jamie was at her side, holding
her hand. Connie hissed when she saw them. “What’s he doing here?
She knows I don’t like him. And why are they holding hands? What’s
going on?”

Grace ignored
the venom in Connie’s voice and put a smile on her face. Lucinda
looked much happier than when she’d last seen her at the storage
unit office.

Lucinda
introduced Jamie and Grace sat down opposite the couple. She
explained to Lucinda about the family chair she had come across.
Connie hovered behind Jamie, glaring down at him.

Lucinda nodded.
“I know the chair you mean but I don’t understand why you would
have it. I haven’t been to the original shop since ... for a while,
I had no idea everything had been taken out.”

Grace didn’t
want to tell Lucinda about Vincent’s plans for the museum, she
presumed it was still a secret. She said, “I can’t tell you why the
items were in the unit but I discovered something inside the chair.
Look.”