Murder At The Bake Off (Celebrity Mysteries 3) by Zanna Mackenzie Read Free Book Online Page B

condolences to her family.”
    “Were you in London yesterday? Working here at The Pear?” Jack settles back in his seat, resting his right foot on his left knee.
    I stare at Terry, looking for any signs he’s fabricating a lie. I can’t spot anything obvious, but I am still learning about all this stuff. “No.”
    “Oh, where were you then?” I butt in.
    He looks at me and then at Jack. “I took the day off. Personal matters to attend to.”
    “What kind of personal matters?” Oops, there goes my mouth and my nosy nature again!
    “One that was personal.”
    Jack tuts and shakes his head. “Sorry, Terry, mate, we need to know where you were yesterday afternoon. We can’t cross you off the suspects list if you don’t have an alibi.”
    Terry gets to his feet and flicks an imaginary speck of fluff off his chef’s apron. Well, if there was a speck, I certainly couldn’t see it. “Then don’t cross me off your list,” he says simply and walks away, back through the door to the staff kitchen, making a call to somebody on his phone at the same time as he jabs in the security key code for the door to the kitchen.
    “Well, that was rude,” I exclaim.
    Jack simply shrugs and stands up. I know what’s coming next. Sure enough, Jack strides across the store and catches the staff only door before it clicks shut on its security lock. I race across to join him. If Terry Peters thought he could fob us off like that, then he’s a lousy judge of character. Jack doesn’t give up when he’s working a case and as for me, I’m basically too nosey to give up. Not to mention we have the added motivation this time around of ensuring Jack’s not at the top of the list of suspects for this crime.
    “You can’t come in here,” a woman says as soon as she spots us entering the kitchen. “Sorry, it’s staff only.”
    Jack flashes her his most charming smile. “And I’m sorry to have barged in here, but we hadn’t finished our friendly chat with Terry, so here we are.”
    I can’t see Terry anywhere. Has he done a runner? Is he, at this moment, sprinting down an alleyway at the back of The Pear, eager to escape more questions about what he was up to yesterday?
    The woman looks towards a door at the back of the room, and Jack and I both spot her anxious glance. “He’s outside,” she says quietly. “Probably gone for a smoke. He’s been doing that a lot lately.”
    “More than usual?” Jack asks. “Is he under a lot of stress, then?”
    She flicks another glance towards the door and lowers her voice. “Mary said you were investigating Cherry Bakewell’s death. You’re with some CIA agency, she told me. I said, don’t be daft, the CIA is American.”
    “Close, it’s the CCIA, stands for Celebrity Crimes Investigation Agency,” I explain. Well, that clears up which card Jack gave to Mary earlier, then.
    “I’m going outside,” Jack says, clearly eager to see where Terry has gone to. “You OK here for a minute?”
    I nod.
    “You don’t think Terry’s involved with what happened to Cherry Bakewell, do you?” the woman asks me, followed by more nervous looks in the direction of the door Jack has just stepped through.
    “Do you think he is?” I counter.
    She starts biting on her thumbnail, and I force myself to wait patiently for an answer. “Terry’s involved in lots of stuff.”
    “Such as?”
    “Fiddling the food supply orders here, for starters. I’ve seen him talking to some unsavoury-looking men out the back here, round by the dumpsters. I was in the staff room upstairs and saw them out of one of the windows. Money exchanged hands.” She stops talking and returns to gnawing away at her nail.
    “And you think this was about taking backhanders or something like that in connection with the food deliveries?”
    She stops the nail biting just long enough to reply, “Maybe.”
    I wonder where Jack is. Has he found Terry and is trying to get more answers out of him?
    A woman with a stern face