A Sweet Murder (10 page)

Grace gave him a
small smile and said thank you.

Suzie waved her
hands at the tour. “This is the most exciting part of the tour! We
are going into the Inventing Room! This is where all the magic
happens! We will even get to taste some of the new creations!”
Suzie’s voice became more serious as she said, “Please, no
photography or filming in here. And don’t distract the staff, they
need to concentrate on their marvellous new creations.”

Suzie reverently
pushed open a set of wooden doors. Grace heard her gasp with
delight. Surely she’d been in here before? Or was she as new to the
tour as Grace was?

Grace was at the
end of the tour group. She stepped through the doors. Her first
thought was that she had walked into a laboratory. The tour group
stood on a walkway to the left of the room, a huge glass wall
separated them from the inventing staff. The glass reached the
ceiling and seemed to be soundproof as none of the white-coated
staff behind seemed to notice them.

Suited Man gave
a low whistle. “I imagined bowls and weighing scales, women in
flour covered aprons. This looks like something from a science
movie. Are they really using test tubes to make sweets?”

Grace nodded
politely, she wasn’t really listening. She had spotted someone at
the back of the inventing room, someone she had seen in a vision.
It was Della. Her black hair was pulled back, goggles covered half
her face but Grace still recognised her. Della was holding up a
small black sweet and examining it, just like she had done in the
vision. Were they liquorice twists? Were they inventing a new kind?
There was nothing wrong with the original ones.

In a hushed
voice Suzie said, “Please help yourself to some of the new
inventions, there are five to choose from. We would greatly
appreciate your feedback. Please, remember to be quiet.”

Suited Man
wasted no time in helping himself. Grace moved closer to the bowls
that were on a table in front of the glass wall. What was Della up
to? She was talking to a colleague now and shaking her head. Grace
could see her angry expression even from this distance. Without
looking where her hand was going Grace reached into the nearest
bowl and put a round sweet in her mouth. She vaguely registered a
toffee flavour mixed with lemon. Della was marching towards the
front of the room now, towards the glass wall.

Grace took
another sweet, she moved her shoulders around, her blouse was
feeling really uncomfortable now. She heard the low hum of other
members of the tour group as they discussed the new sweets in
hushed tones.

Grace winced and
looked down at her blouse. Crikey, what had happened to it? It
didn’t look that tight when she put it on this morning. It looked
like it was going to ...

In horrific slow
motion Grace watched the buttons on her blouse give up their
struggle. Four black buttons shot off her blouse as if being fired
from a gun. Her heartbeat thudded in her ears as she watched the
buttons shoot towards the glass wall.

Chapter 21

The quiet was
shattered as the buttons pinged against the glass wall. Who knew
buttons could be so loud? There were screams on both sides of the
glass. The screams on the other side were not heard but they could
be seen. Grace watched hopelessly as the white-coated people
dropped test tubes and glass bottles all around the room. As one,
the people behind the glass turned to look at whoever had caused
the noise. Grace hung her head in shame and gave herself away. She
clutched her open blouse together and raised her head. The wild
fury on Della’s face caused Grace’s heart to miss a
beat.

No one on
Grace’s side on the glass wall spoke although Grace could feel
their eyes boring into her. She looked at the floor again and
muttered, “Sorry, so sorry.” With her head bowed she retraced her
steps out of the room. She would have run but she was afraid the
last two buttons on her blouse would give up the ghost
too.

Once through the
doors Grace felt the sting of tears. She blinked. It was an
accident, that’s all. Accidents happened all the time.

Fear came
rushing towards Grace. What if those white-coated people were in
the middle of an important invention? What if they were working on
a sweet that would bring millions to the company? What if they sued
her?

Grace wiped her
tears away. No time for self-pity, she had to get out of there. She
strode forward. She heard a noise behind her. They were coming for
her. Leaving her blouse to fend for itself Grace ran down the
corridor as fast as she could. There was a smaller corridor leading
to the left, they hadn’t come up that way in the tour. Grace ducked
down into it and opened the first door that she came to. There was
a name on the door but she didn’t have time to read it.

Grace closed the
door behind her and leaned against it. It didn’t take her long to
realise she’d barged into someone’s office.

And it didn’t
take her long to recognise the man who was standing at the window.
Luckily, Vincent Flamingo had his back to her, he was engrossed in
his telephone conversation. One hand held the phone to his ear, the
other rubbed the back of his neck.

Grace didn’t
move. Could she sneak back out before Vincent noticed she was
there? She cocked her head, she could hear voices outside in the
corridor, they sounded angry. She’d give them a few seconds to move
on and then sneak out.

She couldn’t
help but overhear Vincent’s conversation. “Mirabelle, sweetheart,
we’ve been over this a thousand times. You know I can’t get my
hands on the money just yet... Yes, I have spoken to the
accountant... Yes, I’ll speak to him again. I know you have to pay
the deposit on the holiday...” Vincent lowered the phone and let
out a weary sigh. Grace could hear a woman’s tinny voice.
Mirabelle, wasn’t that his wife? Vincent continued with his
conversation, still looking out of the window. “Yes, I’m still
here. I have to go, it’ll be a late night again ...Yes, I haven’t
forgotten about the concert, I’ll try to make it. Please
understand, I’m trying my best, I just feel so guilty about
Mum.”

The conversation
abruptly ended without a goodbye at either end. Vincent looked at
the phone, his other hand still rubbed his neck as if to reassure
himself that everything was going to be okay.

Vincent turned
around to replace the phone. He stopped in mid motion and looked
straight at Grace.

Grace cursed
herself for forgetting to escape, she had been too engrossed in
Vincent’s conversation.

Vincent
recovered his composure and placed the phone on the desk. He gave
Grace a polite smile and said, “Good afternoon, are you a stripper?
You must forgive me, I’m not in the best of moods. Did Della
arrange for you to be here? She’s always playing jokes on
me.”

Grace blinked a
few times. Stripper? What was he talking about? Oh! Heat flooded
her cheeks and she pulled her open blouse together. What was that
lie she was going to use? It was hardly going to be convincing
now.

Grace took a
chance and told him a half-truth, starting from when she met
Lucinda yesterday. She told him that she was interested in renting
a vending machine for her shop but got drawn into the factory tour.
As she talked Vincent relaxed and the tension melted away from his
face. He sat down and invited Grace to do the same. Grace left out
the part about seeing ghosts and meeting his departed mother. She
didn’t mention finding the painted chair either. As she got to the
button popping incident Vincent threw his head back and
laughed.

“
That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in months! They’re so
serious in that lab of theirs, they need shaking up. Don’t worry
about any repercussions, it was an accident. Now, we can’t have you
walking about like that. Hang on.” He opened a drawer in the desk
and pulled something out. “This should fit you, it might be on the
large side though. There’s a bathroom through that
door.”

Grace took the
offered Flamingo T-shirt and went into the bathroom. The shirt
wasn’t too big, it was a little bit tight. Grace sent a mental
thank you to Vincent for thinking it would be too large. She
paused. She shouldn’t be having good thoughts about Vincent, he
could be the one who murdered Connie. She needed to ask him some
questions.

Vincent was on
the phone again when she came out. “I know that. It’s going to be a
difficult conversation, do we really need to get the police
involved? She is family.”

Vincent noticed
Grace. He said to the person on the phone, “Just a minute,” and
then addressed Grace. “It’s been lovely to meet you, please keep
the T-shirt. There are some brochures on the front desk about
vending machines, help yourself. Can you see yourself out? Thank
you.”

He waited until
Grace headed towards the door that she had originally barged
through. As soon as she closed it behind her she heard him resuming
his conversation. She put her ear to the door but couldn’t make out
his words.

Vincent was
hiding something, Lucinda was hiding something too. She still
hadn’t got to the bottom of everything. Grace sighed, she wished
Pearl was here to talk to, give her ideas about what to do
next.

Grace picked up
some brochures on the way out. On the bus journey home she rested
her tired head against the window. She really wasn’t cut out for
sleuthing. But what choice did she have? Someone was getting away
with murder and it was up to Grace to stop them.

Chapter 22

At home Grace
made a quick call to Frankie to make sure he was okay. He yawned a
lot but said he was okay. Grace advised him to stay home that night
but, of course, he ignored her suggestion.

Once she’d got
this murder case sorted out she’d deal with Frankie, whether he
wanted her help or not.

Grace settled
down on the sofa with a cup of tea and a notepad. She wrote down
everything she knew about Connie’s murder.

Something
suddenly struck her, how did she know Connie had been murdered?
Connie couldn’t remember how she’d died and there was no mention of
any ‘foul play’ in any reports about her death.

But if she had
died a natural death why had she appeared to Grace? She really
needed to know how Connie died. Hopefully, Pearl would get some
information from her soon.

Grace wrote out
Lucinda’s name and then Jamie’s. They were obviously a couple and
they were covering something up. Was there some sort of
embezzlement going on? Had Lucinda been taking money from the
business over the years to save up enough money to escape from the
family? Was Jamie helping her? Did he set it up in the first place?
Going by Vincent’s telephone conversation it seemed that he had an
idea that something was going on. If he knew about Lucinda what
would he do to protect her? And come to that, what would Lucinda
and Jamie do to protect their escape fund?

Grace then wrote
Vincent’s name down. He was stressed about something, he was
getting angry phone calls from his wife. From the photo that Grace
had seen Mirabelle seemed to like expensive things. Had Vincent
undertaken dubious business dealings in order to make more money to
keep Mirabelle happy? Grace thought that the money from Connie’s
will hadn’t come through yet, although it sounded like it was due
to come in soon. Why had there been a delay? Grace hadn’t forgotten
about the supposed revised will, the one that left Lucinda and
Vincent with nothing.

And, of course,
there was the business of Vincent renting the storage unit a few
months before Connie died. What was going on there?

Grace wrote
Della’s name down. Apart from seeing her in the vision and then in
the inventing room today, Grace hadn’t spoken to her yet. She
didn’t want to, there was something in Della’s eyes that troubled
Grace, a coldness that said she was used to getting her own way, no
matter what. Grace had a feeling that Della was mixed up in
something sordid. She thought about the black sweets that Frankie
had told her about, the ones that people in the nightclub were
eating. The two times that Grace had seen Della she had been
holding a black sweet. Was she putting something in them? And then
selling them to nightclub goers?

Was there anyone
else in the picture that could be a suspect? There was always the
chance that a disgruntled employee had killed Connie for some
reason. Grace couldn’t think of any reasons, perhaps the employees
didn’t get a big enough discount on Flamingo Sweets? Grace smiled
to herself, hardly a reason to kill someone.

She made a ‘To
Do’ list for the next day. She was tempted to phone Frankie again
but resisted. Surely he wouldn’t last another late
night?

Grace slept
better that night. There were no signs of nocturnal feasts anywhere
in her home the following morning.

She arrived at
the shop full of energy and raring to go. She raced up the stairs
to Frankie’s room. If he was still asleep she would jump on his bed
and wake him up! And it would serve him right. Maybe she’d take
Pearl’s suggestion and throw cold water over him.

Grace came to a
halt at Frankie’s open door. His bed was empty. Grace called out
for him on the landing, there was no reply.