Kill Joy (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #0.5) — Chapter no 3

“First order of business, then,” Jamie said, settling into the chair at the head of the table, “is to work out when Reginald was last seen alive and by whom.”

“Oh, I believe that was me. Me, Ralph,” Zach said, nodding at his booklet and then glancing up, running his finger over the relevant paragraph. “Lizzie, Celia, and I”—he glanced in turn at Lauren and Pip—“were taking tea in the library with my father. The cook”—a nod to Cara—“brought us some scones and cake to have with it. The women left first, and when we were done, I walked my father to the grand staircase. He told me he was going to his study to get some things in order before the birthday meal. That was at around five- fifteen p.m.”

“Did anyone see Reginald Remy after that time?” Jamie asked the room, tipping his police hat.

There were a few murmurs of “no,” shaking heads, and shifting glances.

“All right, fifteen minutes past five,” Jamie announced, and Pip copied the time down. “And then Pip—sorry”—Jamie squinted at her name badge—“Celia found the body at approximately six-thirty p.m.

In game time, not real time,” he said, noticing Pip’s creased brow.

“Great, we have our time window in which the murder was committed: between five-fifteen and six-thirty. So”—he paused, staring at each of them in turn—“where were all of you in that crucial one hour and fifteen minutes?”

Connor was the first to respond, as Humphrey Todd, the butler.

“Well, I was in here, setting up the dining room for the meal. The master always liked the silverware to be polished for special occasions.”

“Have you got any proof?” Ant asked with all the pomposity of his part, Bobby Remy.

“My proof is the very table you are sitting at, young sir,” Connor said, looking affronted. “When else do you think I would have had time to prepare this room?”

“And where were you, Bobby?” Zach asked his in-game brother.

“You didn’t take tea with us in the library like you were supposed to.

In fact, you’ve been missing all afternoon.”

“All right, you narc,” Ant said. “If you must know, I went on a walk for a bit of soul-searching. By the cliffs. I’m sure, Ralph”—he returned the brotherly glare to Zach—“you understand why.”

“But I went for a walk of the grounds too,” Zach said. “After I said goodbye to Father, I went for a stroll around the south side of the island, to burn off the scones and work up my appetite for dinner.”

“Oh really?” Cara said as Dora Key, the cook, settling her elbows on the table. “That’s interesting, because I was there too, and I didn’t see you, Ralph. I can’t be sure exactly where I was at the time, Inspector”—she glanced at Jamie—“as the clock in the kitchen has been broken for some time. But I’m pretty sure it was then that I walked to the vegetable patch on the south side of the grounds. And I don’t remember seeing anyone else.”

“Our paths must not have crossed,” Zach said to her across the table.

“Clearly,” Cara said. “And what about you, Pip—crap—Celia.

Were you also taking a stroll on the grounds?”

Pip cleared her throat. “No, I wish. In fact, my allergies have been playing up since I arrived on the island, and I wanted to be on good form for tonight. So after tea in the library, I actually put myself

to bed to get some rest before dinner.”

“Where?” Ant asked.

“In my bedroom, of course,” she replied hastily, surprising herself. Was she feeling defensive? Celia wasn’t even a real person —why was she defending her? Too much attention was being paid to her; she should deflect. “You’re being very quiet, Lizzie—where were you?”

“Oh,” Lauren smiled sweetly. “Well, at tea I somehow managed to get jam all over me, so I decided to have a bath to spruce up before dinner. So that’s where I was, in the tub in my room. Have you heard of bathing, Celia dear?”

“For an hour and fifteen minutes?” Pip countered.

“I take long baths.”

“Hmm, that’s interesting, though.” Pip pulled a face. “The pipes to upstairs run right by my room, and I can always hear when someone lets out their bathwater; makes a right racket.” She paused for effect, looked at the others. “The pipes were silent this evening.”

Cara performed a dramatic gasp.

“I thought you said you were asleep.” Lauren looked flustered.

“How could you have heard anything anyway?”

Pip didn’t have an answer for that.

“OK, that’s very interesting,” Jamie said now, scratching his chin.

“It seems that each of you was alone at the time of the murder.

Which, in fact, means that none of you, not one of you, has an alibi.”

Cara supplied another gasp, but she put far too much into it and started to cough. Pip patted her on the back.

“So,” Jamie continued, “you all…Wait, Connor, you ordered the pizza, right?”

“Yes, yes,” Connor said.

“Good, just checking,” he said, before slipping into the ultra- serious Inspector Howard Whey again. “So every single one of you had means and opportunity to commit this murder. I wonder who among you also had a motive.”

His gaze landed on Pip for a moment, and she shifted awkwardly beneath it. She didn’t know much about Celia at this point; it was possible she actually was the murderer.

“But there is one last thing I found on my initial search of the study: the murder weapon.” Jamie placed his knuckles on the table and leaned into them. “It was left beside the body; no fingerprints, so our killer must have worn gloves or wiped it afterward. It was a knife

—one of the kitchen knives.”

Everyone turned to look at Cara.

“What?!” she said, crossing her arms. “Oh, I see, blame it all on the poor cook, eh? Any one of you could have come into the kitchen and taken one of the knives.”

“Not if you were in there,” Zach said quietly, dropping his eyes.

Confrontation wasn’t really his thing, even when he wasn’t being Zach.

“I wasn’t,” she protested. “I told you, I went to the vegetable patch. Look, come with me.” She stood up. “Come with me, I said. I

have proof.”

She stormed out of the dining room.

“I guess we should follow her,” Jamie said, beckoning to the rest of them.

This must have been part of the game, something written in Cara’s booklet. Pip’s chair scraped the floor as she stood up and hurried out of the room, her notebook and pen in hand, following Cara into the kitchen.

“Aha,” Ant said as he entered, pointing to the Reynoldses’ cylindrical knife rack, the knives color-coded at the base of each

handle. “Even more knives. How many more murders are you planning, Dora?”

“Well, those are far too modern for 1924,” Pip said.

“If you’d all stop chitchatting,” Cara said, “somewhere in here is a note that one of the guests left me. That’s my proof. Help me find it.”

“You mean this?” Connor said, fishing out an envelope from between two plates on the drying rack. Printed on the top side were the words Clue #1.

“Yes, that,” Cara said, a small smile creeping on to her face.

“Read it out loud to everyone.”

Darlene,

For dinner tonight I am requesting a carrot cake to be made for

dessert. It is the birthday boy’s favorite, after all. Make sure it’s

moist.

—RR

Cara shuddered. “Urgh, I hate the word moist.”

“Who’s Darlene?” Connor asked, screwing his eyes up at the note.

“Well, clearly someone can’t be bothered to learn my actual name,” Cara said. “So I had to go to the vegetable patch to get the carrots. I made the bloody carrot cake, by the way. It was moist as fuck.”

“It’s signed off by RR,” Pip thought aloud, turning to Ant and Zach: Robert and Ralph Remy. “One of you must have written it.”

There was a blank expression on Zach’s face, but Ant smiled and held up his hands. “OK, OK,” he said. “I wrote that note. I was actually trying to do something nice for my father.”

“For once,” Zach quipped, getting into it now.

“I admit, my father and I haven’t been as close recently. It was just meant as a nice gesture after we had a slightly fraught conversation this morning. But someone went and killed him before he ever got to see the damn carrot cake.”

“What time did you leave this note, Bobby?” Pip asked, studying his eyes, her pen poised. Well, she didn’t want to miss any important details, did she? OK, it was just a game, but even so, Pip didn’t like to lose.

“It was late morning, I think,” Ant replied, checking the detail in his booklet. “Yep, elevenish. The cook wasn’t in here.”

“See, told you,” Cara said defiantly.

Pip turned to her. “I’m not sure this is an ‘I told you so’ moment.”

Cara’s look of triumph hardened into one of betrayal. “ ’Ow’s that?” she asked, Dora Key’s voice back in full force.

“Bobby left this note for you at eleven,” Pip explained. “You could have gone to the vegetable patch at any time after that. This doesn’t prove that that’s where you were at the exact time of the murder.”

“Are you calling me a liar?” Cara said, giving Pip a playful shove.

“In addition,” Pip carried on, “this shows that at some point during the day you left the kitchen unattended, which means any one of us could have come in to take the knife.” Even me, she thought.

Well, Celia. “We know that Bobby was in here alone when he left the note. This note could even be his cover for having access to the murder weapon and—”

But her spiel was cut short by a loud, tinny noise that screamed

through the house.

Another scream joined it.