Birthdays Can Be Murder (5 page)

‘Regretting your own retirement, Dad?’ Justin asked, almost on a sneer. ‘You have seen this year’s figures, I take it?’

‘I’m well aware that profits are up.’

‘I’ve made our competition look feeble,’ Justin openly boasted. ‘And our blanket-making division is more than holding its own.’

‘I’m well aware of that.’

‘And I did it all without Tom Banks.’

‘I’m also aware of that.’

‘Well, then, I think …’

‘Tom Banks was a loyal employee and a friend. He still is, I hope. And he’s coming to your party.’ There was a finality in the elder Greer’s voice that nobody could mistake, and Justin flushed. He would not, Jenny was sure, be magnanimous in defeat. And she was quickly proved right.

‘Oh, have it your way,’ he said savagely. ‘You always do.’

Jenny watched him stomp out, and sighed deeply. Did the Greers actually intend to invite any
friends
to this party of theirs?

The atmosphere in the kitchen as Martha, Jenny, Chase and the almost monosyllabic Mrs Williams dined on Martha’s delicious steak and kidney pie was hardly conducive to good digestion.

‘Wonderful pie, Martha,’ Chase said and helped himself to some more mashed potato.

‘Thank you,’ Martha said smugly, and gave Jenny a telling look. A discreet electronic buzzer sounded, puzzling Jenny for a moment, before Martha jumped up and retrieved a piping-hot jam roly-poly from the oven, and she realized that it indicated a summons from the dining room.

‘I do so like your flower arrangements, Mrs Williams,’ Jenny said, deciding that if you couldn’t beat ’em, you might just as well join ’em. ‘It’s becoming rare nowadays to find somebody who knows how to handle flowers.’

Daphne Williams gave her a dead-eyed look, and forced a smile. It managed to make Jenny feel both sad and scared at the same time.

‘I daresay you’ll be busy soon, Chase, with all the weekend visitors arriving?’ Jenny ploughed on, and rose a questioning eyebrow in the butler’s direction.

‘Indeed,’ Chase said flatly, and reached for an extra pat of butter. Martha returned, and when everyone was finished, retrieved a second roly-poly pudding from the oven and cut out pieces – Jenny, to nobody’s surprise, receiving the last and smallest piece.

‘I daresay you were discussing the menu earlier then?’ Martha said at last, her own cook’s curiosity demanding satisfaction.

‘Yes,’ Jenny said, and spread out her pudding to allow the jam to cool off. Both Chase and Martha glowered at her silence. Two, after all, could play at that game. Jenny smiled sweetly, and began to eat her pudding.

‘Well, I don’t think we should be having a party at all,’ Martha sniffed, now in a right old hump. ‘This thing about poor Jimmy has right upset me, it really has. The police are all over the place. It’s like being in an episode of
Crimewatch
. And they’ve been on to poor Justin, just because he told Jimmy off that time. And it wasn’t as if he didn’t deserve it.’ Martha was in full spate now. ‘I heard Justin found him poking about in his room one time. I know that mother of his always said he was going to be a newspaper man, but if you asked me, he just liked knowing other people’s business!’

Chase coughed discreetly and directed a telling look in Jenny’s direction. Martha flushed guiltily.

‘I understand Miss Greer has hired an army of waiters and waitresses for Saturday night,’ Mrs Williams said, obligingly changing the subject and at the same time uttering the longest sentence Jenny had ever heard her say. She glanced at the older woman, surprised that she had even been taking notice. She’d seemed so distracted before.

Now, however, two spots of colour had miraculously appeared in her cheeks and her eyes were glittering. But Jenny could have sworn that it was anger that animated her.

‘Hmm. They’ll be needed, I expect,’ Martha said crisply. ‘All this fuss.’ She gathered the empty plates together and then stacked them in the sink before running the hot-water tap and squeezing in a dash of soapy detergent. She plunged her arms in without a second thought. Evidently, she didn’t believe in dishwashers, or else the Greers would have coughed up for one long ago, Jenny surmised. And the absent Vera was obviously a morning-only helper.

When Jenny appeared at her side, washing-up cloth in hand, Martha almost gaped at her. Jenny took a plate from her unresisting fingers and began to rub, vigorously. Unclean crockery was an anathema to her, as it was to all good cooks.

Martha sniffed but began to frown uneasily, and Jenny sympathized. It was disconcerting, when you’d got a good hate going, to have your foundations for dislike given a hearty wallop.

The clearing away done, Jenny left, intending to go to her room and get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day. The meat should arrive early, but it had to marinate for at least eight hours. And that would only be the beginning of her preparations.

As she crossed the hall, the family emerged from the dining room, and at the same instant the front doorbell rang. Chase, moving with much more speed than anyone probably suspected him capable of, opened the door just as Jenny was halfway up the stairs and therefore in the best position of all to witness the scene that was about to unfold.

Had she known what was coming, of course, she’d have galloped up the stairs like a Grand National winner, but alas, she was not blessed with foresight, a disadvantage that very often caused her grave inconvenience indeed.

‘Darling!’ From the first happy and ear-piercing cry, Jenny felt her heart sink.

Chase, mortally offended at not being given a name, and therefore unable to announce the visitor, watched her sweep past him with a comically dismayed look on his face. Not that the human hurricane in designer gear seemed to notice.

The impression of force, Jenny saw at once, was largely projected, for the woman herself was tiny – standing in high-heeled shoes at not more than five feet tall. Her hair was the colour of rich corn, yellow and probably natural. Under the coat, a very curvaceous figure was hugged tightly by a blue silk dress, and tall stiletto heels made a staccato tapping on the tiles as she all but flung herself into Justin’s arms.

Justin, perforce, had to catch her, or who knows where she might have landed. ‘Babs?’ he said, and obviously couldn’t have been more surprised if Father Christmas had just rushed in, ho-ho-ho-ing, six months early.

‘Pet, I’ve missed you so much. I simply couldn’t stay away another day.’

Alicia, Jenny noticed, was having a great deal of trouble keeping her face straight. The elder Greers, however, were looking, in contrast, distinctly nervous at this latest development. From her aerial view, Jenny watched as the young woman bussed Justin’s cheek, leaving a fine smear of powder on his face. Her lips, painted a deep, luscious red, brushed his ear and she saw her teeth give him a nifty nip.

Jenny’s eyebrow rose.

‘Babs, what on earth are you doing here? I thought you were coming tomorrow night.’ He sounded anything but pleased and welcoming.

‘Oh, petal, don’t be so banal,’ she accused. ‘Oh, yes, before I forget, I have some cases outside,’ she said, noticing the butler for the first time. ‘Could you be a dear and bring them in for me?’

Chase went white, then red. Jenny wondered if anyone had ever before dared to even
think
of Chase as ‘a dear’ and doubted it. Doubted it considerably. ‘Certainly, er, madam,’ he said, the hesitation between the two words making it as near to an insult as Chase would ever come, but both the elder Greers noted it at once, of course, and their anxiety visibly deepened.

It was obviously a bad sign, Jenny realized, when Chase became antsy.

‘A suitcase?’ Justin said sharply. ‘I thought I told you I’d booked a room for you at The Bell?’

The woman laughed. ‘Oh, you and your jokes!’ Her eyes were a rather surprisingly deep pansy brown that looked almost black, and they met his with an expression in them that would have made a rock think twice about claiming to be hard. ‘Justin, are you going to introduce me to the parents or what? After all, they do need to get to know their future daughter-in-law.’

Alicia, at this, guffawed out loud, then, at her brother’s furious look, clapped a hand firmly across her mouth. Sherri Greer swayed in shock, and Chase, who had just returned, dropped the cases on the floor. He stared at them for a second incomprehensibly then quickly retrieved them, hoping nobody had noticed such an unforgivable error.

‘Timbuktu,’ Jenny whispered under her breath. ‘I could just do with a nice trip to Timbuktu about now.’ She’d welcome a journey anywhere, in fact, that got her away from this madhouse.

‘You must be Mark,’ the blonde hurricane said, instantly zeroing in on the elder Greer. A wise choice, of course, for Mark Greer would always be polite to any lady. Of course, older men could also be very silly about pretty little blondes, as the blonde hurricane and, unfortunately, Mrs Sherri Greer, also knew. As a consequence, the irresistible force of Babs found herself facing the unmovable object of Justin’s mother, who stepped very neatly into her path.

‘I’m Sherri Greer. How do you do, Miss … er…?’

‘Walker, Barbara Walker. I’m sure Justin’s told you all about me?’

‘That name sounds familiar,’ Mark said thoughtfully.

Again Alicia laughed, but since she still had her hand clasped to her mouth, it came out in a series of choked snickers. Once more her brother shot her a killing look, and Alicia nearly bent double. Evidently, there was a good joke going on, but nobody else besides the twins seemed to know the punchline.

‘Chase, take Miss Walker’s case up to the green room,’ Justin said, evidently in an attempt to regain the upper hand. ‘Then perhaps you could serve brandy in the lounge.’

Chase, relieved to have orders to follow, gave a dignified nod. Jenny smartly made way for him on the stairs and, as the butler passed her, glanced down. For an instant the tableau froze.

Sherri and Mark Greer were staring at the petite blonde, with varying expressions of dismay on their faces. Alicia was propped against the doorjamb to the dining room, evidently awash with mirth. The blonde in designer-everything was looking around the house with avid, hungry eyes, and Justin, in turn, stared at the interloper, a look of raw desire on his face mixed with a combination of exasperation, anger and amusement.

Jenny shook her head and sighed deeply. Here was yet more tension and strife coming into a house that was already awash with it. She really didn’t like the way things were shaping up.

She didn’t like it one little bit.

‘W
HERE DO YOU
want these crates of bubbly stacked then, missus?’

Jenny, up to her armpits in potatoes, turned her head and sighed wearily at a somewhat scruffy-looking delivery man. ‘Don’t ask me, I’m only the cook. It’s the party co-ordinator you need.’

The party co-ordinator had descended on The Beeches that morning and had made it very clear, very quickly, that she was going to vigorously defend what she regarded as her turf.

‘Where can I find him then?’ the delivery man wondered aloud.

‘You’ll find her somewhere in the house, organizing something or other. She’ll tell you where to put it, believe me!’ Jenny said, with feeling.

It was 10.30 in the morning, the meats were marinating, and she, Vera and even Martha were beginning to make a sizeable dent in the huge mountains of vegetables that needed preparing. Nevertheless, Jenny’s timetable was tight, and she didn’t need any distractions.

‘A blonde lady told me the crates were to go in the kitchen,’ the delivery man insisted stubbornly.

‘There’s no room in here,’ Jenny pointed out reasonably, feeling her patience beginning to wear thin. ‘We’ll be tripping over them all day. Martha, is there a wine cellar in the house?’

‘Of course there is,’ Martha said flatly and returned to her carrots, her glee evident. She was enjoying the spectacle of the unflappable fancy cook beginning to show signs of strain, just like the rest of the mere mortals.

The party co-ordinator couldn’t have chosen a better moment to put in an appearance. She was whippet-lean, dark and business-suited, a forty-something only recently divorced.

‘The catering staff will be arriving shortly, and they’ll help with the decorations and so forth,’ she announced, to no-one in particular. ‘Ah, the champagne has arrived, I see.’

‘It needs to be stored in the wine cellar. I have to keep the kitchen as uncluttered as possible,’ Jenny said firmly.

‘Alicia wants the wine stored in here, I’m afraid.’ The co-ordinator shrugged one padded shoulder. ‘She’s worried that the catering staff might start dispatching Mr Greer’s best wines and ports by mistake if the party wines are also allowed into the cellar.’

‘Oh, for …’ Jenny began ominously, but was interrupted before she could get in full flow.

‘That’s all right.’ Daphne Williams, entering the kitchen at that moment, quickly proved her worth. ‘I cleared a space in the back pantry for it last night. It’s cold enough in there, and the catering staff will be bringing wine coolers for the bulk of it anyway. Follow me, please.’ She turned to the delivery man, who obeyed instantly.

The co-ordinator went off to co-ordinate something and Jenny promptly forgot their existence. She had to ice the cakes. Alicia had opted for a traditional fruitcake with white icing for her own cake, and it was always best to do that five hours before eating.

Justin and Alicia, apparently, had an arrangement. On their birthdays they shared a party, but each got their own toast, each got an individual cake and so on, and took it in turns to open their presents. Originally designed, no doubt, to save childish arguments and tantrums.

Jenny began to think about which sauces needed to be made first, especially those that needed to chill.

‘Hello, Mr Chase,’ Vera piped up timidly and tearfully from behind a mound of onions.

‘Vera,’ Chase responded with a brief smile as he headed straight for Martha. ‘You heard about that woman’s unexpected arrival last night?’ he asked, his voice lowered to a whisper but carrying clearly across the quiet room.

‘From Daphne, yes. She had to take in fresh towels this morning. Apparently she was in bed in the nude!’ Martha’s voice lowered to a scandalized hiss. ‘I think that’s so
common
, don’t you!’

Chase sniffed. ‘I’m not surprised. I do hope Justin doesn’t, well, that he isn’t at all
serious
about the, er, lady.’

‘I don’t think he is,’ Martha said judiciously, moving closer as Chase leaned eagerly forward. ‘I was up early this morning – well, I had to be, didn’t I? Couldn’t expect that one’ – Jenny didn’t look up, but knew in which direction they were now looking – ‘to do any of the real work herself, could I? And I had the family breakfasts to think of. Anyway, I was passing Mr Greer’s study, as you do, like, when I heard him and Justin arguing something rotten.’

‘No!’

‘Yes! Mark was asking him what on earth did he think he was doing, bringing a girl like that into the house, and Justin said he had a right to invite her to his party if he wanted to.’

They broke off as Mrs Williams walked the delivery man back through the cavernous kitchen and out into the hall.

‘So, Mark says, yes, that’s all right, but why invite her for the whole weekend? Well, that’s when Justin gets really angry, see? He says of course he didn’t invite her to the house, did his father think he was stupid? He was going to put her up in the pub. Then Mark says, well, that’s all very well, but couldn’t he see that she was the kind of girl who wasn’t going to take no for an answer? And what was all this daughter-in-law business about? Were they engaged or what? Well, Mark put it better – you know how nice he talks.’ Martha broke off, more to take a much-needed breath, Jenny suspected, than through any real desire to praise her employer.

Chase nodded encouragingly.

‘Anyway, Justin, he’s getting really hot under the collar now, and says that no, of course they aren’t engaged. His father says that she obviously thinks differently, and then Justin laughs, and says that’s her problem, since he never promised her nothing.’

‘Ah,’ Chase said, beginning to relax. ‘I must say, I always credited Justin with greater taste than seemed evident last night.’

‘I know. But young men and women like her can get themselves into all sorts of trouble.’

‘Well, at least it looks as if we’re over the worst of it,’ Chase said with some relief.

From her growing pile of mixed veggies, Jenny sighed deeply. Over the worst, my eye, she thought inelegantly. From what she had seen of Babs Walker last night, she was only just beginning to fight, and Justin was obviously in the grip of a powerful lust for her. And when a strong-minded woman was desired to that extent, she could do an awful lot of damage. Babs Walker was obviously angling to live the good life, that much had been obvious, and she wasn’t likely to settle for anything less. Not if Jenny was any judge of character.

No, she rather thought that marriage to Justin would suit Babs very well indeed, as Justin was no doubt going to find out when he tried to dump her.

Just then Daphne, who had returned to the room unseen, coughed discreetly and Chase flushed guiltily.

‘Anyway, mustn’t gossip,’ Martha said lamely, and worsened her gaffe by clumsily changing the subject. ‘I’m glad those police have finally gone, anyway. All those blue uniforms about – it was enough to give you the shivers all over.’

‘They’ve not all gone,’ Daphne corrected her quietly. ‘The plain clothes detectives are still here.’

‘Oh. Those two,’ Martha said glumly. ‘I don’t know what they keep hanging around for. It was obviously an accident, wasn’t it? They should talk more with Jimmy’s mother, if you ask me. That Jean Speight.’

Chase gave a very loud cough, overdoing it somewhat and sounding as if he was coming down with a severe case of laryngitis. It made even Martha stop in mid-flow.

‘I’d better go and see to the flowers,’ Daphne said, her face once more white and tight. Jenny watched her go and frowned. She was riding an emotional seesaw, that one, Jenny mused uneasily, and wondered what it was that was making her so miserable.

‘You’ll have to be careful what you say around Daphne, Martha,’ Chase prompted once the door had closed behind the housekeeper. ‘You know what good friends she is with Jean Speight.’

Martha sniffed. ‘Yes, I know. I can’t understand it myself. I’d never have thought that a woman like Daphne would have much to do with the likes of Jean Speight. Her husband’s only a dustbin man, after all.’

And with that parting shot, she turned back to her sink.

‘Would you like to inspect the dining room, Miss Starling?’ Daphne Williams asked about an hour later, once more firmly hidden behind her ‘perfect housekeeper-cum-private secretary’ persona. ‘It seems the party co-ordinator knows what she’s doing, after all.’ She smiled gently. She also watched with interest as the Junoesque cook mixed some stuffing that would later be encased by rashers of bacon and cooked with the chops.

‘I’d love to,’ Jenny agreed, pushing aside her qualms about the organizer’s taste in dining rooms. She had to keep reminding herself that she was there to do a job and nothing more. And if the Greers had warring Vikings for offspring, a suffering ghost for their housekeeper and dead gardening boys in their pond, it was nothing to do with her.

‘I’ve just got to finish this stuffing first or it’ll harden too much,’ she carried on. ‘Vera, can you bring me some more sage and tarragon from the herb garden, please?’

With the stuffing finally mixed to her satisfaction, she checked on all the stocks, tasting and adding a little more freshly ground black pepper where needed, and then watched Vera for a moment, just to be sure she was coring the horseradishes properly.

As she stepped out of the kitchen, Jenny took several deep breaths then checked her hugely expensive watch. She noticed Daphne start then stare at it, her blue eyes widening appreciatively. It was nearly noon. A long way to go yet, but so far, everything was coming along nicely.

‘Hello, Miss Starling, have you seen’ – Alicia came upon them, then hesitated for a moment as she too caught sight of the gold and diamond watch – ‘er, Mummy?’ she finished.

At her lilting voice, Jenny jumped around guiltily. Whenever she was caught out of the kitchen on zero day, she always felt absurdly traitorous. ‘I’m afraid not, Alicia.’ She used the woman’s first name deliberately.

Daphne Williams discreetly excused herself.

‘But now that I’ve run across you, could you come to the kitchen and check the birthday cakes for me?’ Jenny pounced. ‘I need to know the exact wording of what you want on yours, and what style you’d like. Italics are always nice, but I can best show you by demonstrating on a cold marble board.’

Alicia laughed. ‘Oh, Miss Starling – I mean
Jenny
– that won’t be necessary.’ She took a backward step, as if afraid the cook would force her inside. ‘I trust you completely. Just put the usual kind of thing. I’m sure it will look just perfect.’

Jenny watched her go, feeling vaguely annoyed, then shrugged and made her way to the dining room. There she paused, looking around with pleasure. Long, dark green velvet curtains hung at French windows, and a deep peach carpet lent the huge dark mahogany table a complementary splendour. Paler peach walls, with apple-green alcoves, gave the impression of walking into a blossom-laden arbour. When Daphne had placed the flower arrangements at strategic points in the gaps evident on the table, it would look magnificent.

She walked to the table itself and checked the settings. It was, as she’d half-suspected, immaculate. A dainty, circular lace tablemat was set at every place, along with a crisply folded snowy-white napkin. The lines of knives, forks and spoons were laid out correctly, and crystal wine goblets, dusted and buffed, stood in perfect formation. The tablecloth was of a deep bottle green, which was not only a perfect foil for the room’s colouring but would also make a perfect backdrop for good food, red wine, and flowers.

She toured the table from one end to the other, checking the line with her eye, and was coming up to the far end when she noticed something white on the floor. As she bent down to retrieve it, she saw that it was a napkin. A good job she’d checked after all, though whether any guest would have noticed it was debatable.

She had just taken it between her fingers when she heard the door open, and voices, in mid-conversation, echoed across the empty room. ‘… and I really do think you should see our point of view,’ Sherri Greer said, her voice chiding. ‘Oh, doesn’t it look lovely.’

Jenny was just starting to straighten up when a spasm of cramp crossed her back, making her wince.

‘What? Why?’ Alicia said airily. ‘I really don’t see why I should see your point of view at all, Mummy dearest. I told you, Keith and I are going to get married. And since we’ve been sleeping together for ages anyway, I don’t see why finally making it legal should worry you all so much.’

Jenny dropped back to her haunches and almost groaned aloud. The cramp was killing her! Unfortunately, she was prone to attacks of it now and then.

Obviously exasperated by the look on her mother’s face, Alicia laughed grimly. ‘Don’t tell me that you and Dad didn’t do it before you got married,’ she challenged scornfully.

‘We were far more careful then,’ Sherri admonished. ‘Besides, Keith’s a married man, Alicia! With children too. And if, well, anything should happen, he wouldn’t be free to marry you.’

Jenny’s left leg started to twinge warningly and, wincing and gritting her teeth, she very carefully, and very slowly, began to stretch out flat on the floor. It was agony.

‘You mean if I get pregnant?’ Alicia said bluntly, then laughed. ‘Oh, Mum, don’t be daft! There’s the morning-after pill nowadays, as well as every contraceptive under the sun. They’ve even invented flavoured condoms!’

Under the table, Jenny felt her muscles slowly beginning to relax. It was utter bliss.

‘Alicia!’ Sherri said again, as if repeating her daughter’s name in a pained whisper was all that she could manage.

‘Well, it’s true,’ Alicia said defiantly. ‘And what’s more, where Keith and I go, to this nice little hotel in West London, there’s this huge new chemists that has huge stocks of everything you could imagine. So you see, you needn’t worry about being made an accidental grandmother.’

Sherri groaned out loud and Jenny felt like doing the same. The only good thing about pain that Jenny had ever discovered was when it stopped. Finally, with the pain receding, Jenny began to relax, and then concentrate on the important things once more. She needed to clarify some butter, and if she didn’t get out of here soon, she might forget.