Birthdays Can Be Murder by Joyce Cato Read Free Book Online Page B

for a mother. Not that that was what he had in mind, of course, as well she knew. But she merely smiled and said artfully, ‘I’m sure I couldn’t say.’
    ‘These are impressive references. I’m sure they’ll check out.’
    Jenny smiled, knowing he was barking up the wrong tree there. ‘I’m sure they will too,’ she said mildly but firmly.
    ‘Where exactly did you do your training, Miss Starling, if I might ask? France?’
    ‘Monsieur Gerard’s School of Cuisine,’ Jenny said sweetly. And didn’t add that Monsieur Gerard was also known as plain Gerry Starling, one-time junior chef at The Ritz, and that the School of Cuisine had been sited in the Starling household kitchen. She didn’t think to add, either, that she had been the only student, having been an only child.
    A few months after her sixteenth birthday however, her father had finally taken himself off to France, minus wife and daughter, and set up in business for himself. Books, a regular television show, and numerous extremely lucrative moneymaking ventures had quickly followed. And while she was now a better cook than her famous father, he was the one known far and wide as ‘Gerard, superchef’.
    But that was life for you.
    ‘I can’t say as I know that school,’ Molineaux said thoughtfully, and Jenny smiled sweetly and mentally wished him luck in trying to find it in the telephone book.
    ‘Could you tell me how you travelled this morning, Miss Starling?’ He changed the subject so casually, and asked the question so reasonably, that once again she had to fight the urge to applaud.
    Patiently she filled in the details of her van and route and was duly allowed to leave. As she did so, however, she glanced back once more and found those blue eyes fixed firmly on her.
    ‘Thank you for your co-operation, Miss Starling,’ Inspector Mollineaux said quietly. ‘And don’t worry. I’ll remember where I’ve seen you before.’
    I bet you will too, Jenny thought glumly, and gave him a cheerful smile.
     
    Jenny hurried into the kitchen like a supplicant seeking sanctuary in a cathedral. Vera ducked her head over the vegetables she was scraping, and Martha began to pound the steak she was preparing with more force than a stevedore. From somewhere out of sight, the cat hissed at her, threatening reprisals.
    It was bliss.
    ‘Mr Greer wants a walnut and coffee cake for his birthday, Martha. Do you have the right ingredients?’
    ‘Of course,’ Martha shot back, immediately on the defensive, but quickly changed to attack. ‘And you can’t have a cake like that! Everybody’ll be expecting a proper cake. With currants and raisins and hard icing.’
    ‘Then it will be a nice surprise, won’t it?’ Jenny said pleasantly. ‘And coffee does lend itself so nicely to soft icing.’
    She reached into the pantry for flour and sugar, and hunted through the drawers for knives, spatulas and whisks. ‘Perhaps you could tell me where the walnuts are, Vera?’ she asked the daily gently, having come to suspect that Vera was a very timid soul indeed.
    She opened an eye-level cupboard and spotted the coffee, which was, thank goodness, of a good quality, and reached for it. The next instant she very smartly withdrew her hand before the cat, hidden behind a biscuit tin, could lacerate her with a swipe of his claws. Calmly extracting a wooden spoon from the table, she held the fearsome moggy at bay and quickly snitched the coffee box from under his yowling nose. Then she neatly shut the door behind her.
    As she began to cream butter and sugar together, she noticed Martha staring at her, and raised an eyebrow. The cook quickly turned away, but not before Jenny had noticed that her own hands were marred with red scratches.
    Obviously the cat’s owner wasn’t quite as quick on the draw as Jenny Starling.
    ‘I’ll be glad when this job is over,’ Jenny muttered, more to herself than to anyone else. She could no longer deny that she felt nervous, like some