The Final Crumpet, page 10
part #2 of A Royal Tunbridge Wells Mystery Series
“Very difficult, indeed,” Nigel agreed.
“Still, I applaud you for choosing a proactive approach. Attempting to control one’s situation makes far more sense than allowing oneself to be buffeted by a windstorm of uncertainty.”
“Proactive. Yes, indeed,” Nigel said. “We try our best to be proactive at all times. And prudent. We achieve both proactivity and prudence with knowledge, because knowledge is never a bad thing. Especially knowledge about Etienne Makepeace. That’s why we are investigating him. To gather every bit we can.”
Blimey. I’m blithering again. And Olivia Hart is making more notes.
He stopped talking.
Olivia clicked her pen shut and stood up. Nigel bounded to his feet.
“I feel certain,” she said, “that Sir James will want to meet with you before the loan closes to hear the results of your investigation. Tentatively, shall we say ten days from today? I will call to confirm the time.”
Nigel felt his knees go weak. What kind of “comprehensive investigation” could they accomplish in a mere ten days? He gulped back his panic and found the strength to mumble, “I look forward to meeting with Sir James.”
His words earned yet another smile from Olivia—this one even warmer than its predecessors. “I am confident that he will enjoy meeting with you.”
An idea popped into his mind. Why not exploit Olivia’s unexpected cordiality? “Shall I accompany you downstairs? I will be able to describe several of our more impressive holdings as we travel through the museum.”
“That would be lovely.”
Nigel ushered Olivia toward the door. He turned and winked at Flick—a silent thank you for saving our bacon.
Flick didn’t respond in kind. At first, she merely looked at him quizzically, but then her eyes began to narrow into an irate glare.
Nigel quickly pulled the door shut.
What have I done wrong now?
The man must be clueless!
Flick heard the oaken door close with a heavy thump and wondered if Nigel could really be as dense as he had just behaved. How could he expect her to wink back at him after he had fawned like a puppy in front of Olivia Hart?
She reached for the thermal tea carafe on the teacart.
It held a superb oolong, fruity tasting and golden in color, a luscious brew that had the power to lift one’s spirits. She refilled her cup and chose another of Alain Rousseau’s divine shortbread squares. Flick sipped and nibbled and slowly changed her perspective. She could hardly blame Nigel for becoming discombobulated when a strikingly beautiful woman brazenly threw herself at his feet.
You would think that Nigel would be used to getting hit on by now.
She had watched local women flirt with Nigel more times than she could count. Each new occasion added to her conviction that Kentish females viewed Nigel Owen considerably differently than she did.
She saw Nigel as comfortably handsome in a particularly British way—good-looking, certainly, but not the sort of man a red-blooded American woman would label a “hunk.” He was slender rather than brawny, with a ruddy complexion that looked like he had just scrubbed his face, and (let’s be honest) rather large ears. Hardly the features one might observe on a movie star or a male model.
English women, on the other hand, apparently considered Nigel to be a paragon of masculinity—a man worthy of their deepest sighs, dreamiest gazes, and most candid flirtations. Curiously, it didn’t seem to make any difference that he was “taken”—women who knew about Nigel and Flick’s relationship would flirt with him in front of her.
Olivia Hart, for example.
Flick sipped her tea and considered the comments Olivia made. Her use of the word “dossier” was a dead giveaway. Wescott Bank had obviously filled a file with facts about the two people at the helm of the Royal Tunbridge Wells Tea Museum. Every museum employee knew that Flick and Nigel were “good friends,” to use Stuart Battlebridge’s label. They had not worked hard at being discreet inside or outside the building. The bank probably had a candid photograph of them holding hands in the Pantiles.
Flick helped herself to a second shortbread square and immediately regretted her lack of willpower. No wonder her clothing had begun to feel tight around the middle. She had fallen into the habit of enjoying one of Alain’s treats—scones, biscuits, fairy cakes, whatever—with tea every afternoon. His shortbread was a particular favorite, a figure-destroying blend of butter, flour, vanilla, and confectioner’s sugar, baked a delectable golden brown.
You have to be skinny to go head-to-head with the likes of Olivia Hart.
Flick heaved a deep sigh. How could Nigel—how could any man—resist Olivia? Besides being gorgeous, she was smart and also wealthy. Those black pearls she wore as everyday earrings were museum quality—and worth countless thousands.
“It’s not fair,” Flick murmured, as she poured herself a fresh cuppa.
Nigel returned twenty minutes later, a sappy grin on his rosy, comfortably handsome face.
“You’re a genius!” he proclaimed, with such fervor that Flick found it impossible not to smile along with him. “You came up with magic words that quelled the savage banker. Your quick thinking—along with your total disregard of my authority as director—saved us no end of headaches. I’m proud of you.” He reached out with both arms and wrapped Flick inside a mighty hug that lasted for most of a minute.
She pushed free from his embrace. “Aren’t we in the middle of a quarrel?”
“A wee lover’s tiff.” He peered at Flick hopefully. “To my mind, it vanished as quickly as it came.”
“You just mentioned your authority…”
“A slip of the tongue. My authority is not worth talking about,” Nigel burbled on happily. “I know when resistance is futile. I hereby grant to you in perpetuity complete curatorial decision-making, including all matters pertaining to Etienne Makepeace. You decide when, where, and if we create an exhibit about him. I will support your decision without question.”
“I’m in charge?”
“Completely.” He put his arms around her again. “Furthermore, I owe you an apology.”
“You do?”
“I behaved badly when you came into my office. I didn’t give you a chance to explain why you changed your mind about the Makepeace exhibit.”
“Ah.”
“I also overreacted and said things I regret saying.”
“Me, too.” Flick gave Nigel a squeeze. “I’m sorry for not checking with you before I announced the exhibit to the BBC.”
“Is all forgiven between us?”
“The whole nine yards.”
“We can both speak freely?”
“Uh…sure.”
Nigel’s expression became serious. “Good. Then let me share the two itty-bitty anxieties I have.”
Flick felt a jolt of foreboding. Was Nigel about to explain that he had just fallen out of love with her?
“Olivia Hart made a point of telling me that Sir James Boyer will cancel our loan deal if he is dissatisfied with the results of the multifaceted investigation you described to her.” Nigel managed a nervous smile. “We are conducting such an investigation—right? We’ll have results to present within ten days?”
Flick laughed. “The investigation is underway as we speak. Everything I told Olivia is absolutely true.”
Nigel exhaled slowly. “Thank goodness! I can breathe again.” He released Flick from his arms. “It also means we don’t have to call an emergency meeting of the trustees.”
“Yikes! I clean forgot about them.”
“I didn’t. Archibald Meicklejohn will be touring New Zealand for two more weeks. I didn’t relish asking him to cut his vacation short.”
“What do we tell the trustees who haven’t left the country?”
“Nothing—yet,” Nigel said. “We seem to have the situation well in hand.”
“Now you sound like Olivia Hart.”
Nigel shuddered. “What a horrendous woman! A modern-day dragon lady.”
“I don’t know her well enough to pass judgment.” Flick hoped that her voice wouldn’t betray her true feelings. In fact, she’d begun to dislike Olivia the moment the banker began to flirt with Nigel. Flick changed the subject. “You said you have two anxieties.”
Nigel hesitated a moment, inhaled deeply, and spoke a flood of words: “The time has come, Flick, for me to understand what’s bothering you about our relationship. I know that something is bothering you, but I can’t figure out what that something is. If it’s something I did or something I didn’t do, please tell me. If it’s something else, I need to know what else. I may sound corny, like you Americans like to say, but I’ve never felt this way before about anyone else. I want to tell you how I feel, but I fear that what I say may cause you even greater bother so I am reluctant to say anything, which actually may be the root cause of the problem. Do you see what I mean?”
“Oh my.”
“Does that mean yes or no?”
“I…uh…I…”
“What?”
“I think I’m blithering.”
“Indeed you are. I speak from considerable experience as a fellow blitherer.”
Flick felt numb. For a brief moment, she considered telling Nigel about her past experiences with men, but then changed her mind.
Don’t do it. Don’t burden him with your silly insecurities. He’ll never understand the way you feel.
She took his hand. “I’ve been moody because I’m trying to shed some old emotional baggage that I’m not ready to talk about. At least, not yet.”
“Perhaps I can help you clean house?”
“It will soon be spotless. I need a few more days to work everything out.”
“Are you sure?”
“Completely.” She tugged Nigel’s head down and kissed his cheek. “You know what they say—the course of true love never did run smooth.”
“We’ll see about that.” Nigel gave her a proper kiss. “Wow!” she said.
“By the way, was it Keats or Browning who came up with those unhappy words about true love?”
“Neither. Willy Shakespeare wrote them for A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
“Crikey! I’m an Englishman who’s forgotten my classics.
See what you’ve done to me?” Nigel’s smile faded. “A few days? You’re sure?”
“A few days. I promise.”
He gave a thoughtful nod. “Well, I suppose we had better make use of those days for our investigation.”
“Follow me!” Flick tugged Nigel to the door. “We’ll see if my associate investigator has learned anything interesting about Etienne Makepeace.”
She led him out of the office, past a row of cubicles that served as offices for the curators, and into the Conservation Laboratory. As usual, Hannah Kerrigan was hunched over her computer. As usual, the two blue cats were keeping her company.
Flick approached from the front of Hannah’s workstation to avoid startling the Web wizard. She rapped gently on the metal frame. Hannah looked up. Her signature grin brightened considerably when she saw Nigel standing behind Flick.
“How goes it?” Flick asked.
“Better than I’d hoped for.” She began counting on her fingers as she had earlier. “First, programming the hotline was a snap. It will be up and running tomorrow morning. Second, the Internet search took me less than an hour. I never did figure out how to access official records of the Probate Registry, but I retrieved the information you wanted from an assortment of magazine archives and a newspaper database.”
Hannah looked at notes she had scribbled on several loose pieces of paper. “Makepeace went missing sometime late in September 1966. One of his sisters finally notified the police on September 29—which is now considered the official date of his disappearance. The search continued through October and November, then petered out over the next four or five months. Makepeace was declared dead by a court in London in November 1975—roughly nine years later. His three sisters were his only next of kin.”
“I think one of them is still alive,” Nigel said. He was, Flick decided, doing his best to honor his agreement and get involved in the investigation.
“The newspapers have been writing about the third sister since the body turned up,” Hannah said. “She’s in her nineties, is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, and is—to use medical jargon—’noncommunicative.’ Anything she knew about Etienne Makepeace is long gone from her memory.”
“Sounds like you hit a dead end.” Flick said.
“Merely a momentary lay-by. I located several articles written in 1975 that mentioned a solicitor named Clive Wyatt. I did a bit of searching and discovered that he’s retired now and living in a cottage in Billingshurst, West Sussex.”
“Three cheers for the Internet.”
Hannah nodded happily. “Naturally, I telephoned him immediately. It turns out that Wyatt visited the museum on several occasions and is eager to meet our chief curator. In fact, I think he’s put off that no one from the media called him, because he seems a man who loves to talk. I had to tell him a fib to end the phone call. He thinks I have a dicey bladder.”
She unfolded two more fingers. “Third and fourth, I’ll do the cats tomorrow morning. And fifth, I’m constructing the Etienne Makepeace Web page right now. Would you like to see how much progress I’ve made?”
Flick didn’t get a chance to answer the question. Hannah spun around in her swivel chair, pressed several keys, and moved back from the computer monitor.
Uh-oh. I forgot to tell Nigel about the Web page. How will he react to another surprise?
The page had a bright blue background and was dominated by a large black-and-white photograph of Etienne Makepeace taken during the 1950s. He had been a handsome man in his prime, with well-chiseled features, a strong chin, a thick head of sandy-colored hair, and his famed sculpted moustache. The photographer had captured a boyish smile that immediately caught one’s eye. The bold headline over the picture screamed, Tell Us How This Man Became England’s Tea Sage. A smaller headline below proclaimed, Reward for Information.
“I haven’t written the text yet. It will explain that we’re offering ten pounds for interesting tea-related anecdotes about Makepeace that visitors post on our message board.”
Flick held her breath while Nigel studied the under-construction page. At last, he began to smile. “It’s a grand idea, nicely implemented, but may I offer a small suggestion?”
“But of course,” Flick said.
“Change the headline to “Tell Us All You Can About England’s Tea Sage.” Then we’re likely to get all sorts of information about Makepeace—including details of his relationship with the museum.”
Flick nodded at Hannah, who immediately scribbled the new words on one of her scraps of paper.
“Does anyone know where Billingshurst is?” Flick asked. Hannah started to answer, but surprisingly Nigel spoke first: “About thirty miles southwest of Tunbridge Wells.”
“That’s near enough to pay him a visit,” Flick said. “Are you free tomorrow?”
Nigel started to grimace but apparently thought better of it. He settled for an uncertain shrug. “I have to check my calendar.”
“Check away, but please remember that you and I will be doers, not observers, as the investigation proceeds during the next—she paused for emphasis—ten days.
Nigel made a small groan, which seemed to encourage Hannah. “Billingshurst is absolutely precious!” she gushed. “It’s a brilliant little village—one of my favorite places. My great-aunt lived there. There’s a small restaurant on the high street that has romantic corner tables and does a smashing Dover sole.”
Flick noted a wistful look in Hannah’s eyes. The young woman was no doubt imagining Nigel sitting opposite her at one of those amorous corner tables, delicately shoveling a forkful of Dover sale into her mouth.
Forget about it, honey. That man is mine!
Six
Nigel sat in his car on the Pantiles’ Lower Walk, across from the building that housed Flick’s apartment, and felt exceedingly sorry for himself—even though he had miraculously found a parking spot. He didn’t see the value of driving to Billingshurst, in West Sussex, to visit a retired solicitor. Nor was he sure that spending the next several hours with Flick was a wise thing to do. Most of all, he was suffering the aftereffects of a sleepless night, including a throbbing headache. He had tossed and turned until four in the morning and was now experiencing a powerful urge to recline his seat and doze off, an impulse made even stronger by the rhythmic ticking of the BMW’s engine and the soothing splooshing of the windshield wipers in the lashing rain.
Hannah Kerrigan’s mention of Billingshurst the afternoon before had shaken Nigel. He’d almost begun to blither again but had stopped himself by uttering an inane groan. Fortunately, Flick thought he was shirking work rather than trying to suppress a painful memory.
Funny—but the name “Billingshurst” had been the essential clue that made the pieces fall into place. He finally figured Flick out. Or, more to the point, he abruptly understood that Flick had accidentally figured him out.
Possibly another example of women’s intuition.
Her hesitancy to declare how she felt about their relationship…her reluctance to discuss her “emotional baggage”…her growing unease when they talked about their future…the hostile looks she cast at Olivia Hart—he now realized that all of these things pointed toward one straightforward question: Can Nigel Owen be trusted over the long run?
An interesting topic, that.
“On balance,” Nigel murmured, “the answer is a resounding no.”
The windshield began to steam up; he switched on the defogger and wondered how much Billingshurst had changed. He’d last been there some ten years earlier, a few months before his divorce from Sheila. She had grown up in Coneyhurst, a tiny village a few miles east of Billingshurst. Their trip today would take them past Sheila’s family home. When he had told Flick about his divorce two months earlier—it was hardly a secret, after all—he hadn’t shared many details about Sheila or their five-year marriage. There had seemed no reason at all to mention that Sheila hailed from Coneyhurst.
