The Fete of Death Page 3

  Molly cupped her hands over her ears. "What's that? Surely that's not someone singing?"

  "That's Adam Pinder. He calls himself a singer, but no one else calls him that," shouted a grey haired woman in a pastel pink coloured trouser suit.

  "Who hired him?" asked Tara, beginning to believe she'd leave the fete, deaf.

  "Someone who’s tone deaf! It’ll be the local Council - aka Samantha Inkler," the woman said as she pursed her lips.

  "Have you got a cake entered in the contest?" asked Tara, mouthing her words carefully so the woman would be able to lip read her question.

  "No, the pie contest. A Blackcurrant pie," she smirked.

  "Mine’s a blackberry pie. May the best pie win," said Tara, holding her hand out. "Tara Trott."

  "Mavis Poole - and I'm sure mine will," she said as she shook hands with Tara.

  Tara frowned, but this was Tarndale. She didn’t expect to get friendly comments off any of the villagers. It just wasn’t that kind of place.

  She made her excuses and left the tent in search of some coffee. The music stopped abruptly because, thankfully, someone had pulled the plug. Tara's ears were ringing as she saw the cause of all the noise, Adam Pinder, and his guitar.

  The singer had been bundled off the stage by none other than the burly Simon Salter. Tara hid behind another onlooker so he couldn’t see her. She didn't want him to vent his anger on her again.

  Adam Pinder, threw a haphazard punch at Simon Salter, but he blocked it easily.

  "If you dare to sing on that stage again, I'll put you out of your misery once and for all. Our horses are going crazy over there with the noise from your lungs. I’ll have to get the Vet out if you carry on. My old mare’s showing signs of colic thanks to your tonsils!”

  "I'm a professional singer," he argued, running a hand through his thick brown curls. "And I'm not keen on horses either. They're just like their owners – always demanding, and they like to trample all over folk." He pulled his black vest top back into place and walked over to a caravan in his tight black leather trousers and cowboy boots.

  Simon Salter glared after him, breathing heavily.

  Tara wondered if Simon Salter had managed to get her car out of the mire yet but she didn't dare ask. She thought it best to leave him to calm down for a good hour or two before she approached him about it. She spotted a catering van and hurried over to buy herself two cups of coffee. She was in desperate need of a double dose of caffeine. One cup wasn’t going to hit the spot, especially after the morning she’d had. She'd left the twins deep in conversation with a strange looking woman inside the cake tent discussing herbs. The woman looked drunk to Tara so she hoped she’d be gone by the time she got back with her coffees.

  On her way back to the tent, clutching two lukewarm cups of dubious looking coffee, she saw the same woman she’d left the twins talking to, rowing with Adam Pinder outside his caravan. Tara hurried past them as best she could without spilling any coffee, hoping not to attract any attention to herself. She didn’t get involved in domestics.

  "It's over, I promise you. She meant nothing." she heard Adam Pinder say.

  The woman's reply was a slap across the face.

  It's a bit of an over-excitable village this is, thought Tara. They're either glaring at people, mulling around in sullen silence or they’re rowing and hitting each other. Tara was starting to take the tea reading Melanie Grinter had done a lot more seriously now. If this was the 'Secrets' she’d seen there was only 'death' left to tick off the list now for a full house. She’d been nervous about death being mentioned anyway, but people didn’t usually die at fetes. The tension on the field all around her didn’t help matters - it felt as taunt as a high wire, and just as dangerous.

  Tara found the twins huddled in the far corner of the cake tent.

  "Ooh! Thanks very much," they said, each taking a cup of coffee off her.

  "Don't mention it," Tara mumbled.

  "That woman's barmy!" said Molly.

  "What woman?"

  "That Susan Smythe, the one you left us with when you went for a coffee. We were talking about herbs one minute and then she suddenly started waffling on about poisonous plants," said Sally, shivering.

  "Well? Some plants are poisonous," said Tara, not happy that she'd have to go back to the catering van and get some more coffee.

  "Yes, but it's not the kind of thing you talk about in a cake tent is it, poison?"

  "I think she's drunk. I just saw her take a swing at her boyfriend."

  "What was that?" asked Mavis Poole, sliding over in their direction. She reminded Tara of a snake. She moved like one, had the stare of one and Tara could sense she had the venom of one too.

  "I'm the local librarian, in case you don’t know. Susan Smythe took a pile of books out last week on poisonous plants and herbalism. Strange reading matter for an alcoholic, don’t you think?"

  "Did she now? No wonder she wanted to vent her new found knowledge then," said Tara, not wanting to get into an in-depth gossip session with Mavis Poole, which she suspected was what she was trying to initiate. "Excuse me ladies, I need to buy a coffee - or two."

  She weaved her way through the other cake competitors in the tent and headed back to the catering van. There were plenty of people wandering aimlessly around at the fete, but no one seemed particularly happy to be there. No one was laughing or looking remotely like they were enjoying themselves. It seemed more like a funeral than a fete. Tara’s sense of foreboding was growing by the minute.

  Adam Pinder, sat on the edge of the stage looking drunk, swigging from a beer can. Tara hurriedly walked past him, making sure she didn’t make eye contact with him. Mavis Poole, was someone else she he wasn’t keen on the sneaky Mavis Poole and she was grateful that she didn’t live in Nithercott.

  Tara bought two more cups of coffee and headed back to the cake tent hoping that this time she might actually get to drink both cups herself. The man at the catering van had handed the coffees over in silence. She doubted he’d spoken a word all morning to anyone, other than state the price to their surprisingly few customers. They certainly weren’t run off their feet. In fact, Tara mused, the odds and ends stall seemed to have more in the way of potential customers hanging around than the catering van. It was the only catering van on the field, so she expected it to enjoy a brisk trade in dishing out greasy breakfasts and lukewarm drinks, but its customers were few and far between. Tara was their best customer, it seemed.

  A brownie handed Adam Pinder a note. Tara saw him read it as though he was struggling to see the words. She assumed the note was off Susan Smythe, apologising for their earlier row. Although, most people would send an apology after a bust up of that magnitude by text or phone call. A note was too distant and not only that, anyone could read it – including the brownie. Tara knew if she’d have been the brownie, she’d have read it.

  She was so busy thinking about what the note could have said she didn't see the tall brunette woman walk backwards out of the cake tent, straight into her and her precious cargo of coffee – till she was wearing the coffee.

  "Watch it!" The woman snarled, her bright red lips smeared with expensive looking shiny lipstick. Her lips receded over her very white, artificial looking teeth in a sneer aimed directly at Tara. Her badge, pinned carefully onto her expensive looking tailored, tweed jacket, said 'Samantha Inkler, Judge'.

  Tara looked down in dismay at the now almost empty cups and the rapidly spreading stain meandering down her shirt, which was giving off steam in the cold air. Tara knew it would cool quickly and there was nothing worse than cold, wet clothes, especially if you were wearing them.

  "You were the one walking backwards!" snapped Tara. “It’s you that needs to watch where you’re going,” Tara looked down at the almost empty cups. With any luck, she could pour what was left of the coffee into one of the cups and salvage half a cupful at least. Any coffee was better than none at all.

  "I'm a judge and I'm also a member of th
e local Council you should give way to people like me, filthy urchin," she said, wrinkling her nose at Tara's muddy legs and stained clothes.

  "I'll just bet you're one of those pony owners who keep harassing me over the demise of this grotty field, aren't you?"

  "No, I most certainly am not! I don’t even live in this bloody awful village of yours! I’m just here for the day and believe me, even that seems far too long. I won’t be coming back here any time soon," said Tara, gripping the polystyrene cups in temper.

  Tara looked at Samantha Inkler's stylish heeled wellies in envy and made a mental note to buy herself a pair just like them, but in black, not cherry-red like Samantha Inkler’s, when she next went to Foxdale.

  Samantha Inkler stared down at Tara in disgust. (She was the height and build of a supermodel, so it wasn't hard to do with Tara only being 5 ft 5”) then she looked up. Something or someone, had caught her eye. Tara glanced over in the same direction.

  Samantha Inkler had seen Adam Pinder, staggering over to his caravan and she ran after him forgetting all about Tara Trott. She was shouting about getting the environmental health out to prosecute him and that he could expect a letter off the Council over it all first thing Monday morning.

  Tara ran inside the cake tent to escape the madness. The last thing she needed was to get involved in yet another row, especially with her not yet managing to have any coffee. She’d poured what was left of her two cups into one cup, but it had a dead fly floating on the top so she couldn’t bring herself to drink it. The twins were talking to two teenage cake competitors. They both looked to be about 18/19 years old. They had the glowing make-up free faces that plenty of fresh air and exercise seemed to give you. Tara decided long ago that she was allergic to exercise. Every time she’d tried some form of it, she’d ended up injured, so she avoided it whenever she could. The only way she’d kept her slim figure was because Nancy ate all of the cakes she baked.

  "Tara! This is Cheryl Trellan, she keeps a horse in this field and this is her friend, Annabel Thompson. She’s got two horses in this field. Horsey girls, just like we were when we were young girls," said Molly, her face lighting up at her childhood memories.

  Tara thought that both girls looked like horsey girls, with their riding hats hooked over their arms like handbags and matching chunky jumpers, black jodphurs and riding boots. They certainly smelled horsey. They’d obviously spent a busy morning cleaning the stables out. Annabel Thompson had blonde curly hair, scraped into a pony tail and ice blue eyes and Cheryl Trellan had a pony tail taming her long black hair.

  "At last, some friendly faces. I just literally, bumped into Samantha Inkler, one of the judges, and she didn't like it one bit but I was the one who got coffee all down me."

  "She's a nasty piece of work! It was her idea to have a fete on this field. No one else was at all keen after what happened the last time with the jam, but when she sets her mind on something, nothing stops her. The Mayor, Peter Laymon, eventually gave in to her and said she could have the fete as long as she organised everything. We tried to tell her it would churn up the field for our horses but she wouldn't listen," said Annabel Thompson, her eyes looking red and puffy.

  "Even Simon Salter couldn't get her to listen. He went round to her office a few times but she just rang the police and had him thrown out," said Cheryl Trellan. “If you ask me, I think she planned all of this so it would ruin the field for our horses. They’ll get mud rash for sure now.”

  "She'll get her just deserts, that madam will," said Mavis Poole, glancing sideways at Cheryl Trellan.

  "That kind of woman always seems to get away with murder," said Annabel Thompson. “People either get out of her way, or she runs right over them.”

  The conversation was getting a bit too gossipy in the cake tent for Tara’s liking. She didn't want to stand around slating the judge whom she'd never met before that day and she certainly wasn't interested in her personal life either. What she did want to do was comment on the other competitors' cakes and pies on display. There were some real shockers entered.

  Susan Smythe's entry was a car crash as far as cakes are concerned. It looked pretty much inedible. It was meant to be a Victoria sandwich, but it looked more like a stone than a sponge. There was no evidence of any air bubbles at all, the buttercream had lumps in it and she'd smothered the abomination with lurid green icing. There was no jam either. Tara was surprised she'd even entered the competition, as she didn't look much like a baker. She looked as though she'd have been more at home in a pub, propping up a bar than whisking cake batter in a kitchen.

  Some of the other entries unbelievably, were much worse though. The second the knife sliced through, (or at least tried to in some cases) the texture and quality of the bake had no hiding place. Some disintegrated into pellets of over-baked crumbs and some melted into a congealed uncooked puddle. With some of the cakes, it was impossible to tell what kind of a cake they were actually meant to be. The standard of baking in the Tarndale kitchens left a lot to be desired and Tara was quite hopeful of her chances of walking away with a prize.

  The twin’s muffins were another story. They were pungent, but they assured her it was the herbs that would floor the judges and they also promised that their muffins would put a smile even on the sour face of Samantha Inkler.

  Tara once more set off for the catering van. They didn't even need to ask her what she wanted. They silently handed her a coffee with two sugars and milk in it. The villagers might be a bit hot-headed she thought, but they've got good customer service. Shame the coffee's only the cheap instant stuff, and I seem to be their only repeat customer. At least I didn't have to queue up, she thought. She was hugely relieved to finally have a full cup of hot coffee in her hands. She planned on drinking that cup then going back for a second, that way, the twins wouldn’t think she’d bought drinks for them again. No one was going to take or knock this one out of her hands.

  Susan Smythe ran out of Adam Pinder's caravan screaming, just as Tara walked past, almost knocking her and her prized coffee flying.

  "He's dead! Someone's killed Adam!" she screeched.

  Tara dropped the cup of coffee in shock.

  Chapter Four

  Tara quickly regained her composure and ran into the caravan. She heard Susan Smythe sobbing and wailing outside as she quickly took in details of the crime scene.

  Adam Pinder had been strangled with the electric cable off his own microphone and the murderer had also shoved the microphone into his mouth for good measure. He was sprawled out on the bed and it looked like he'd been asleep at the time. His cowboy boots were on the floor. As far as motives went, his terrible singing looked like it had certainly played its part in his death.

  The wind had started to pick up outside and the clouds had turned a foreboding ink-grey. A storm was brewing. The gathering breeze batted something around the caravan which caught Tara’s sharp eye. She reached down and picked it up. It was a scrunched up hand-written note. It had been squashed into a shape resembling the number three and it was likely to be the same note she'd seen the brownie hand to him earlier when he had been sat on the stage, drinking a can of beer. It read -

  'You can have your cake and eat it. Meet me in your caravan in 20 minutes; we've got a lot to talk about. X’

  She popped the note into her jeans pocket and confronted the ashen-faced crowd gathered around the distraught Susan Smythe. No one tried to console her; they were only standing there to find out what was going on. Susan Smythe sobbed alone.

  "He's been murdered," she told them, bluntly.

  The crowd didn't even flinch. They just mumbled under their breath to each other before calmly walking off. It was the most bizarre reaction to a murder Tara ever expected to see.

  Susan Smythe sobbed even louder. The twins, who had left the cake tent to find out what all the commotion was about, stood on either side of her and led her slowly over to the catering van to get her 'a nice cup of tea' which Tara had grave doubts about because altho
ugh she hadn't actually managed to taste the coffee yet, it didn't look at all ‘nice’. Mind you, the twins had drunk it, or had they? She was sure they never drank coffee. She'd only ever seen them drink tea. Who knew why they decided to take her coffees off her - unless they had done it on purpose to deny Tara her much needed caffeine?

  Susan Smythe wriggled free of the twins and lurched across the field, sobbing.

  "Someone had best phone the police," said Tara, not wanting the job herself. The person who called it in would have to endure hours of questioning and she didn't fancy that one bit.

  "Police? We don't want the police, not till after the fete's finished, anyway. Someone get the St John's ambulance people over here, sharpish! Stretcher him off someplace till later," said Samantha Inkler, drawing horrified gasps from the crowd. They showed more reaction to her suggesting they put a dead body inside a St John's ambulance than they had when they had just been told that someone had been murdered in front of them.

  "It's a crime scene!" shouted Tara, feeling her blood bubble violently in her veins. Samantha Inkler might run the show at the Council, but she didn't have the authority to move a body out of the way till after the fete was over, just because a murder was inconvenient to her plans.

  "It's a scene! I'm not having anyone ruin my day. Adam Pinder tried his best to ruin it with his awful ‘singing’, and when that didn't work, he went and got himself killed. He was probably murdered because of him murdering those songs earlier. Poetic justice if you ask me," Samantha Inkler said, her red varnished nails resting on her slender hips.

  “You must have hired him! It's your fete," said Tara.

  "I didn't! Linda Phelps was in charge of the entertainment. I'll be having words with her over it later on, believe me."

  Simon Salter charged out of the cake tent like a raging bull.

  "You only care about money and yourself!" he spat.

  "Not you again. You're a very tiresome man! Go and ride your ponies - whilst you still can," she smirked.

  "I’ve rented this field off the Council for the past 21 years! You can't just throw me off it just because you want to make some money building more houses!"