The Windmill Café

In a strange twist of fate, Matt had happened on one of the interests she had hoped to pursue in happier times before her childhood had imploded. Whilst she had loved her mother dearly, she had always been a Daddy’s Girl. She had not only shared her father’s passion for gardening, but also his obsession with detective novels, their favourites being the stories written by that grand dame of murder mysteries, Agatha Christie. She had read every one of her books before the age of fourteen and had loved discussing the twists and turns with him, especially enjoying their competitions to be the first to identify the culprit.

In fact, her interest in solving puzzles had fuelled her early ambitions to follow in her father’s footsteps into the legal profession, albeit not into commercial law like him, but criminal defence. She had moved on from Agatha Christie to become fascinated with courtroom dramas, discovering John Grisham whose stories had sealed her dream to qualify as a lawyer. Sadly, she had been forced to shelve her best-laid plans in the face of overwhelming upheaval which had a detrimental effect on her exam results. Reading Law at university was no longer an option and she had been guided by a sympathetic personal tutor to her second passion, food, or more precisely, baking. In any case, passion or not, it was a talent she’d had no alternative but to hone if what was left of her devastated family were to eat.

Now she couldn’t wait to take her place right there next to Matt, eager to ask questions, to weigh up the answers against the facts and discover the reasons why Suki became so ill so quickly. The irony was, at the moment, she seemed to be the suspect and not the protagonist sleuth! She would have given her precious Gaggia coffee machine to know what her beloved father would have said about that!

A sharp knock on the door of the café made her jump. She secured her hair with a gem-encrusted comb, squared her shoulders and trotted down the stairs, with the precise whereabouts of the kitchen knives and rolling pin running through her mind. She rolled her eyes at her foolishness.

‘Hi, Matt. Come in.’

‘Actually, I thought you might want to take a walk over to Suki’s lodge. I’ve just seen Dr Bairstow’s Range Rover arrive in the car park. I think he’s got the results of her blood tests.’

Rosie’s spirits took a nosedive and her stomach felt as though she had plunged from the top of a rollercoaster down to the bottom. Nevertheless, the sooner she knew what had caused Suki’s illness the better, even if she was to blame. She nodded and went to snatch her jacket from the coat stand, careful to lock the door behind her. As they made their way across the field to the lodges, apprehension clouded her thoughts and she struggled to make conversation but she knew Matt understood the reason for her silence.

Matt’s rap on the door was answered by a white-faced William. Every eye in the room turned to see who had arrived, but no one objected to their presence. With tremendous effort, Rosie forced herself to ignore the nerves tingling at her fingertips and to concentrate on what the doctor was saying to Suki and Felix. If she was going to be leaving Willerby, then she needed to understand the reasons why.

‘So, the test results are conclusive – Suki was poisoned. However, it is extremely unlikely that the cause was linked to any of the food or drink served at the Windmill Café summer garden party.’

It took a few moments for what Dr Bairstow had said to sink in. When it did, Rosie experienced such a surge of relief that she grabbed hold of Matt’s hand to prevent herself from collapsing in a heap on the floor – she didn’t want to give the doctor more work than he had bargained for. Inevitably, the conclusion raised a disturbing question.

‘Do you mean… are you saying… that someone actually targeted me? That they put poison in my food or my drink at the party?’ gasped Suki, her eyes widening in shock.

‘I’m sorry to say that it looks like that’s the case,’ said Dr Bairstow.

The terror written across Suki’s expression turned Rosie’s stomach and for a brief moment she actually wanted the results of the test to have confirmed food poisoning. Whilst that conclusion would have been devastating for her, and for the future of the Windmill Café, these things happened in the catering industry. Yes, she would have lost her job, and Graham would have lost a great deal of money, but in all likelihood the business would probably have recovered from the ashes of its devastation. But now it looked like Matt’s suspicions had come to fruition. Someone had wanted to hurt Suki – or worse – and a slither of fear meandered down her spine causing the hackles at her hairline to rise.

For several interminable minutes, no one spoke and silence rolled into every corner of the lodge. No one wanted to be the one to burst the bubble of calm-before-the-storm, as if by doing so the evil that may be loitering in their midst would be invited in. Suki, Jess, and Nadia sat huddled together on the leather sofa, their hands clutching the mugs of coffee they had been drinking when the doctor arrived to deliver the dreadful news. Felix stood next to the French doors leading to the veranda, his arms folded across his chest, staring out at the bucolic beauty of the Windmill Café’s grounds. He lit a cigarette and it seemed no one had the heart or the energy to challenge him.

Rosie was glad she was holding Matt’s hand as question after question coiled through her brain as if on a ribbon of tickertape. What if they hadn’t found Suki when they did? How had the poison been administered? Who would do such a dreadful thing? And more to the point, why?

‘Dr Bairstow, I noticed you removed a champagne bottle from the lodge,’ said Matt, his voice sounding far too loud in the wood-panelled room. ‘I assume that’s because you believed it was the last thing Suki consumed and intended to check out the contents?’

‘I have had the bottle checked…’

‘Does that mean there was something in the champagne?’ interrupted Lucas, running his fingers through his quiff which, despite all the recent turmoil, remained fixed in place at his forehead. Rosie did notice, however, that his eyes were rimmed with red and his previous boyish energy had melted away.

‘So, does that mean that guy was poisoned too?’ asked Nadia, flicking her eyes at Suki.

‘What guy?’ demanded Felix, drawing in a long drag of nicotine and allowing the smoke to escape from his lips in a mist of grey vapour. ‘What are you talking about, Nadia? Suki? What’s she talking about?’

Felix abandoned his place at the window and strode over to where Suki and Nadia sat, his hands on his hips, glaring down at them. Nadia stared back at him, unwilling to go any further. Suki’s face couldn’t have bleached any whiter.

‘What guy? Tell me!’

‘Well, if you’d been here when you promised, you would know what I’m talking about, and, maybe none of this would have happened,’ snapped Nadia. ‘If you cared about Suki, really cared about her, instead of just her fame and potential fortune, you would have been at the garden party with us instead of getting plastered with your friends in Colchester. If you had been here, Suki would never have flounced off with that outward-bounds guy and we could all have been spared this nightmare!’

‘What outward-bounds guy? Suki, what’s Nadia wittering on about?’ Felix’s face was a mask of confusion as he swung his eyes to Lucas, then William, and finally bellowed, ‘Will someone just tell me what’s going on?’

It seemed Lucas was the only one prepared to put him out of his misery. ‘One of the guys from the outward-bound centre in the village was at the garden party – Freddie something. Doesn’t he work with you, Matt? Anyway, Suki took a bit of a shine to him, that’s all.’

‘That’s all? That’s all? So why did Nadia think he might have been poisoned if Suki had?’

Now everyone in the room squirmed. Even Lucas looked uncomfortable.

‘Will? Lucas?’

‘Sorry, mate…’

‘It’s okay,’ interrupted Suki, raising her gaze to meet Felix’s squarely. ‘Felix, you weren’t here. I knew you’d be getting drunk with the lads and I was angry with you. I’d had a couple of bottles of champagne and I decided to whip up the gossip mill. Freddie and I came back here to have a drink and talk music together.’

‘You came back to our lodge with some random stranger?’

‘Felix, I get to decide who I spend my time with, not you…’

‘What’s the matter with you, Suki. If you were poisoned deliberately, the person most likely to be responsible is this Freddie guy. I want him found and I want him arrested. In fact, I’m calling the police. This is turning into something much more serious than an innocent bout of food poisoning.’

‘Before you do that, Felix, perhaps you would permit me to finish answering Matt’s question,’ said Dr Bairstow, raising his eyebrows which only served to highlight the crooked bridge of his nose. ‘Whilst the lab found no trace of any toxic substance in the champagne bottle, they did detect traces of a foreign substance capable of causing nausea and vomiting in the bottle containing Suki’s throat spray.’

A gasp of disbelief reverberated around the room.

‘Oh, my God! I knew it,’ cried Felix. ‘You and your bloody throat spray. I knew it would make you sick one day. Why on earth you persist in using it all the time is beyond me. Maybe now you’ll listen to me for once and ditch it. There’s no reason why you can’t just go on stage and sing without relying on contaminated comforters made from dodgy stuff you buy over the internet.’

‘The lab has promised to expedite their efforts to identify the precise ingredient that caused your illness, Suki, and as soon as I have that information, I’ll call you. In the meantime, perhaps you should refrain from using it again.’

‘I will, Doctor, and thank you for coming over here in person to tell me about the results.’ Suki gave him a weak smile of gratitude before attempting to push herself up from the chair, clearly still feeling the after-effects of her recent stomach-emptying trauma.

‘It’s okay, Suki. I can see myself out.’

Dr Bairstow retrieved his medical bag, smiled at Matt and Rosie and left.

‘Felix, I think you need to apologize to Matt,’ said Suki.

‘What for?’

‘For labelling his friend Freddie a criminal.’

Felix flashed his eyes at Matt and muttered something that was definitely not an apology under his breath.

‘I’m sorry, everyone, but I really would like to have an early night. I’m absolutely exhausted, but tomorrow is another day in sunny Norfolk and I for one am looking forward to getting this holiday back on track. I promise not to sing or to use any throat spray!’

‘Are you sure we’re going to be safe?’ asked Jess, jumping up to grab her sister’s arm. ‘What if there’s a murderer around? What if they try again? What if I’m next on their list. You can’t leave me here!’

Rosie saw that Jess’s face was suffused with genuine panic. All evening she’d had the appearance of a forlorn toddler who had just been informed she had been left off the birthday party guest list and Rosie wouldn’t have been surprised if she had stuck her thumb in her mouth and indulged in a sulk.

‘You’ll be fine, Jess darling. There’s no reason to suspect this was anything other than an unfortunate accident. And, anyway, you have Lucas to take care of you.’

‘Oh my God! I’m definitely going to die!’

Chapter 11

The next morning dawned overcast and it seemed the summer heatwave had broken. Heavy, bulbous clouds sporting bruised underbellies drifted in from the sea and grazed the canopy of trees in whose depths Ultimate Adventures was located, yet the weather reflected Rosie’s mood.

When she’d got back to her flat the previous night it had been after midnight and, for the first time since arriving at the Windmill Café, she hadn’t felt the insistent pull to give the surfaces one last wipe down with the anti-bacterial spray before she retired to bed – she had just been too exhausted. However, her tiredness was nothing compared to her relief that the café had been exonerated and would live to serve its customers freshly buttered scones for another day. She had drifted off to sleep as soon as her head had hit the pillow.

Nevertheless, she had woken up at three in the morning with a jolt of alarm. Within minutes her body was covered in a hot sweat of panic as a kaleidoscope of new worries rampaged through her head.

How could she have forgotten? Hadn’t Suki sourced the contents of her throat spray, well, the Jarrah honey at least, from her own store cupboard in the Windmill Café? Should she tell Matt? Maybe he would be delighted to resume his amateur sleuthing when she confessed that Suki had not acquired a contaminated batch of her spray from the internet.

Rosie had tossed and turned until her alarm clock told her it was 7 a.m., then padded down the staircase to survey the café kitchen, fingering her mobile phone as she considered whether to call Matt and confess to a new twist in the ongoing saga. She rummaged in the cupboard and found a second jar of the Jarrah honey that her sister had bought her for her birthday. She scrutinized the label and, whilst she was certain that Harrods would never sell contaminated honey, there was only one way to find out. She unscrewed the lid and before she could think too much about what she was doing, she tasted the honey and waited.

Nothing happened.

After thirty minutes, she hadn’t rushed to the bathroom or felt any ill-effects whatsoever and she concluded that it must have been one of the other ingredients in Suki’s throat spray that was the culprit. She let out a long, ragged sigh, before being jerked out of her trace by a rap on the door.

‘Hello? Is it okay to come in? I know the café doesn’t open until eleven. If I’m disturbing you I can come back later?’

‘Oh, hi, Suki. No, no, of course you’re not disturbing me. How are you feeling today?’

‘A little woozy still, but otherwise I’m fine. I just need to get away from Felix for a few hours. He’s driving me crazy. I’m afraid he’s still fixated with involving the authorities, and all William wants us to do is leave. I want to stay until Dr Bairstow gets back to me about what kind of “foreign substance” was in my spray, so I’ve told Felix and William that they can do whatever they like but I’m not going anywhere. I know my illness has nothing to do with the Windmill Café. I love it here, it’s so restful. Actually, Rosie, I wanted to ask you and Mia a favour.’

‘Of course, ask away.’

‘Would you be up for giving me, Jess and Nadia a lesson in how to make a batch of those delicious Stilton and grape scones we had at the garden party? And, if we have time, maybe we could also bake some of your pineapple and coconut cookies?’

Rosie stared at Suki, totally surprised at her request. Surely the last thing she would want to do after what had happened to her was indulge in a full-blown bake-a-thon.

‘Are you sure?’

‘What Rosie actually means is that she and Mia would be delighted to showcase a few of the Windmill Café’s signature bakes,’ laughed Matt appearing on the doorstep of the café, waving a handful of white confectionery bags in the air. ‘I thought you’d appreciate breakfast, why don’t you stick the kettle on while I give Mia a call to see if she can start her shift a little earlier?’

‘Oh, erm, yes, thank you, Matt. Sorry, Suki, I’d love to do that for you, but we’d better get started right away because there’s only two hours until the café opens to the public.’

‘Great! I’ll pay you for your time and all the extra ingredients.’

‘Oh, no, that won’t be…’

‘I want to. I’m thinking, with your permission of course, of having a cake sale in the car park for the local children’s music and drama school that Carole told me about at the garden party on Sunday. What do you think?’

‘I think it’s a lovely idea,’ smiled Rosie, leading Suki into the kitchen, her spirits soaring as they invariably did whenever she was about to treat herself to a morning of unbridled culinary fun. Scones and cookies were amongst the simplest of recipes to create and she knew the kitchen was cleaner than it had ever been. What could go wrong?

‘I’ll leave these croissants here and catch up with you later, Rosie. Have fun!’

Matt leaned forward to deposit a farewell kiss on Rosie’s cheek. His gesture was so unexpected she drew back in surprise and stumbled into the work bench. He laughed, shook his head, and strode from the terrace as her face flooded with heat once again.

‘He’s gorgeous. You are a very lucky girl!’ smiled Suki, standing next to Rosie with her hands on her slender hips as she surveyed Matt’s retreating figure.

‘Oh, no, we’re not… I mean, Matt and I are just friends.’

‘Didn’t look like it from where I was standing!’ giggled Jess who had joined them with Lucas in tow. ‘If I didn’t have my incredibly handsome Lucas to keep me warm at night, you’d have to fight me off with your spatula, Rosie!’

Rosie was shocked to discover how flustered she was at their teasing. She was surprised that others had noticed the chemistry between her and Matt. Although she had denied it, she had to admit they were right – there was a definite buzz of electricity in the air whenever Matt Wilson was in the vicinity. She had no idea what it meant, nor did she understand it.

Hadn’t she declared herself finished with all romantic relationships? Didn’t they all end in disaster one way or another? Even though she had moved on, she could still recall the sharpness of the pain she had endured when she had broken up with Harry, especially after the way she’d discovered his infidelity, and there was no way she was going there again.

‘Okay. Everyone help themselves to one of our Windmill Café aprons and we’ll get started on the scones.’

‘At last, Nadia! Where have you been?’

‘Don’t nag. Anyway, aren’t we supposed to be on holiday? Why should we be forced to get up at the crack of dawn?’

‘Oooh, someone didn’t get any act…shun in the bedroom department last night!’

Lucas grinned with mischief at Nadia’s reaction as he sprinkled flour through a sieve into a silver bowl from a great height. A good handful fell onto the floor and Rosie almost had a coronary. It took all her willpower not to crouch down and wipe it up straight away. She wasn’t sure she was cut out to be a cookery teacher and she kept checking her watch, hoping that Mia would arrive before she attacked Lucas with the meat cleaver for leaving snail-trails of desiccated coconut on her precious units. Never mind a poisoning for Matt to solve, there would be a murder!

‘When you make scones, it’s essential to make sure all the ingredients are cold and that you don’t overwork the mixture,’ said Rosie, tossing in a generous portion of crumbled Stilton.

‘Hey, Jess, do you think I could persuade my boss Marcus to offer a selection of fruit and savoury scones to his customers?’

‘I don’t think San Antonio is ready for scones, Lucas darling, but maybe these cookies could work,’ Suki laughed.

‘I don’t know why you still work in that flea-pit of a place,’ said Nadia.

‘Needs must, Nad. We haven’t all got a private income to rely on,’ Lucas said, glancing across at Suki from beneath his eyelashes.

Even in the humidity of the café kitchen, with the oven on full-blast as their scones produced the most delicious smell of melting cheese, Lucas’s blond quiff stayed rigidly in place. He had pushed the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows to reveal a scattering of fair hairs across his forearms. Rosie couldn’t help but smile when she realized that, in the right light, Lucas really could be mistaken for his hero, Jamie Oliver.

‘Hi everyone. I hope I haven’t missed out on all the fun?’

‘Hi, Mia.’ Rosie gave her friend a hug of welcome before whispering in her ear. ‘Am I glad you’re here. I just need you to channel some of your mum’s fabulous cookery presentation skills and I think we’ll be fine.’

‘No problem, you can definitely count on me.’

Mia grabbed one of her signature aprons from a drawer, this one made from the same fabric as the green wide-legged culottes she was wearing, and fastened the strings around her waist. She looked like an advertisement for an over-decorated Christmas tree.

‘Okay, everyone, Mia is going to talk you through the recipe for the pineapple and coconut cookies whilst I make a start on the tidying up.’

Rosie surveyed the kitchen and cringed. Goose bumps rippled around her body as she struggled with an almost overwhelming urge to shove every one of the guests out of the room so she could get on with washing down all the surfaces with soapy water. She knew she was being unreasonable. She knew it was something she should consider getting professional help with – but what was the point when she also knew exactly where her problem stemmed from and why it had raised its ugly head recently?

‘Mmm, this chocolate is delicious!’ declared Jess, shoving a handful of white chocolate buttons into her cheeks and pulling a comical face at her sister like an over-stuffed hamster.

‘You’re not supposed to eat the ingredients before the cookies are even baked!’

‘You talking to me?’ Jess said in a gangster-type voice before bursting into hysterical laughter and sending splinters of chocolate everywhere.

Rosie turned her back and busied herself with filling a bucket with scalding hot water and adding her best friend – a generous slug of disinfectant. Her chest felt as though it was going to burst as she tried to keep a lid on her churning emotions. Why, oh why, had she agreed to give Suki and her messy friends a cookery lesson?

‘Wow, these scones look amazing! Is it okay if we sample our masterpieces, Rosie?’

‘Of course. There’s butter in the fridge for the scones.’

The kitchen filled with the most delicious fragrance of warm caramel as the cookies were removed from the oven and transferred to a wire rack to cool. Rosie made a cafetière of coffee and everyone moved to the terrace to indulge in the products of their labour, laughing and chatting about their life in Ibiza and how different things would be when Suki started touring to promote her album. Rosie relaxed, relieved that the tutorial was over and she had her precious kitchen back under her control.

‘Ah, so this is where you’ve all disappeared to?’ said Felix, snatching up a cookie and taking a bite.

‘I see you’re happy to eat at the Windmill Café, then?’ observed Suki, watching Felix’s expression closely.

Clearly Felix hadn’t thought his actions through properly because he stopped in his tracks, his mouth full of warm cookie, his eyes widened with surprise. Rosie suspected that he was in the process of considering the etiquette of spitting out the offending biscuit and reluctantly thinking better of it. He swallowed and paused as everyone waited for his verdict. It was apparent from the look on Felix’s face that he was expecting to keel over in agony.

‘Well?’ demanded Jess.

‘Before you answer my sister’s question, you might like to know that I made these cookies with my own fair hands!’ cried Suki.

‘They’re very… erm, well, nice.’

‘Nice? Is that the best you can do? I’ve spent the last two hours slaving in a hot kitchen and all you can say is “they’re nice”?’

‘Delicious, amazing, magnificent! What do you want me to say, Suke?’

‘As my boyfriend I expect you to show an interest in what I’m doing. It wouldn’t have killed you to have joined us this morning. I booked this break so we could spend time together but so far you’ve chosen to spend all your time either drinking with your friends or asleep.’

‘I wasn’t asleep. I was busy on the phone making enquiries!’

‘Enquiries? What sort of enquiries?’

‘I’ve managed to speak to the environmental health guys responsible for this area and they’ve promised to come over as soon as the lab tells us what kind of poison they found in your spray.’