Chef Maurice and the Bunny-Boiler Bake Off (Chef Maurice Cotswold Mysteries Book 3) by J.A. Lang Read Free Book Online

said, “that scenario is looking less and less likely. Have a look at this.”
    PC Alistair scrambled up and hurried over. At their feet, half-hidden by the twisted brown leaves, was a short length of thick cast-iron pipe, the type used for old-fashioned plumbing. It was about the length of PC Lucy’s forearm, and across one end was a shimmer of dark blood.
    “So it was murder,” breathed PC Alistair, who rather revelled in the stating of the obvious.
    PC Lucy nodded. Someone out there, it seemed, had decided it was time for Miranda Matthews to hang up her apron.
    For good.

Chapter 5

    The cookery demonstration tent had been turned into an impromptu tea room for the distressed and detained. Arthur stood at the hobs, keeping an eye on two simmering pans of water, while Chef Maurice had managed to requisition a box of loose Darjeeling from the Gourmet Tea Leaf stand, as well as a stack of white mugs, as yet undefaced, from the Paint-Your-Mug stall.
    Arthur had suspicions that his friend’s sudden tea-providing tendencies had less to do with altruism, and more to do with achieving a suitable eavesdropping proximity to the key crime scene witnesses, who were currently sat on folding chairs in a little semicircle around PC Lucy.
    “So tell me what happened when you first went looking for Miranda,” she was saying, notebook held at the ready.
    Tricia hiccupped into a tissue. “First, we had a quick look around the stalls and in all the tents. We thought she’d just forgotten the time. We also tried her dressing room—”
    “She had a dressing room? Where was this?”
    “It’s just a little tent, round the back of here,” said Angie. “She wanted somewhere to get ready, keep a change of outfit, that kind of thing.”
    “Okay. And then?”
    “Well, she wasn’t there, so then we thought she might have gone for a walk. It’s ever so pretty around here this time of year,” said Tricia. “We went down to the bit of the creek at the end of the field, where all the kiddies were playing, but she wasn’t there.”
    “So then we just followed the path,” said Angie, “down to where we . . . well, you know . . .” She broke off with a shiver.
    “What made you think Miranda would have followed the path into private land? It’s not exactly the most obvious place to go walking,” said PC Lucy.
    Mayor Gifford, sitting beside his wife with one furry paw across her shoulder, looked up sharply, clearly unhappy at the tone of conversation.
    Angie looked startled. “Oh! I didn’t even think about that. You see”—she looked over at Miss Caruthers—“that bit of the woods belongs to the school. In fact, the creek runs all the way through our land. The girls go walking up and down there all the time in the summer—”
    She stopped with a look of horror on her face.
    “Not to worry, Mrs Gifford,” said PC Lucy. “My colleagues will have roped off the area already. I’ll make sure someone telephones the school to let them know, of course. But I still don’t see—”
    “Miranda Matthews was a pupil at Lady Eleanor, some twenty years ago now,” explained Miss Caruthers. “The same year as Angela, if I recall correctly.”
    Angie nodded.
    “So you’re saying she would have known this area well? Including the path along the creek?”
    “It wouldn’t surprise me if she remembered,” said Miss Caruthers. “It’s a lovely stretch of woodland, even if our groundskeeper doesn’t tend to the path quite as much as he did in earlier years.”
    There was a pause in proceedings as Arthur and Chef Maurice approached with trays to distribute steaming mugs of tea—and to get within better earshot of the questioning.
    PC Lucy waved away the proffered mug. “So when was the last time you all saw Miranda? Alive, I mean.”
    “The last time I saw her was at the end of her cookery demonstration,” said Miss Caruthers.
    “Me too,” said Tricia.
    PC Lucy consulted a flyer. “And that finished at twelve thirty,