‘Police?’ Fergus slurred, attempting to sit up straighter. ‘Why, what’s happened?’
‘Toots was nearly a hundred years old!’ Aunt Clem said wide-eyed, ‘It could have been a sudden heart attack. Do we really need the police here?’
Jeannie whirled on them. ‘Now why would you say that?’ she snarled.
‘Yo-you’re the one always warning us to never get the police involved!’ Clem protested.
‘Just calm down, all of you,’ I said, surprising even myself with the force of my voice. ‘We don’t know what happened. It could have been natural causes. Toots was… well, as Clem said, she wasn’t young, and shedidhave a bad heart. I’ll call them. Just everyone please think of the children.’ I almost laughed at the cliché that had just come out of my mouth, and at how mad this all was, but I didn’t think it would do me any favours.
I bustled from the room to make the call, wondering whether Clem really did have it in her to put poison in that pudding.
* * *
I explained to Miles what the emergency switchboard operator had said, that no one could get to the house until someone could come with a digger to clear away the snow around the surrounding country lanes. He looked as horrified at that prospect as I felt. How long were we going to have to leave Toots’s body in the house?
I knew one thing, I wasn’t going to sit there staring at the old bag’s filthy face while the others paced, pulling their hair out and yakking about what we were going to do. I instructed Miles and Callum to lift her up, and place her in the pantry, the coolest place I could think of in the house. Mrs Harlow fetched a crisp white sheet from the airing cupboard, and once they had carefully placed her on the floor, she gently covered her.
We stood in the pantry, staring at the sheeted form of Toots looking like she was waiting to be carved up for Christmas. A heavy silence fell over us. The reality of the situation was starting to sink in.
‘What do we do now?’ Martha whispered from behind me.
Miles ran a hand through his hair, looking more dishevelled than I’d ever seen him. ‘We wait, I suppose. And try to keep everyone calm.’
‘Fat chance of that,’ Callum muttered, glancing back towards the living room, where we could hear raised voices.
Everyone retired early to their rooms that evening, leaving Mrs Harlow’s dinner untouched.
12
SEASON OF MISGIVINGS
18thDecember 2025
Rule 101 of murder mysteries. Don’t tell a room full of potential murderers you’re on to them. When I saw the mixing bowl, I knew it was a missing a key ingredient. I just so happened to be taking a stroll that morning when I remembered the greenhouse contained some particularly useful things, most notably the castor-oil plant.
Hope Toots enjoyed her figgy pudding with a dash of ricin. Silly old bitch.
The next morning, I came downstairs to the smell of ginger and caramelised sugar filling the house. Entering the kitchen, I dared a glance over at the pantry. The door was firmly shut. Perhaps it had all been a dream.
Jeannie was wearing her apron and oven gloves, peering into the double oven. A timer went off and she began opening the doors, one after the other. The blast from the heat and the whirring fans ruffled her silvery hair and I couldn’t help but wonder whether I was Gretel entering the witch’s kitchen, minus the breadcrumbs and with a healthy dose of passive aggression.
‘Everything okay, Jeannie?’ I asked.
She swapped around a couple of the trays and banged the doors closed.
‘Oh yes. Keeping busy.’
‘What are you doing?’ I asked.
She turned to look at me, nose scrunched. ‘Playing tennis. What does it look like I’m doing? I’m baking.’
‘Yes, but…’ I was going to askwhyshe would be baking gingerbread at a time like this, but I think I already knew the answer.
‘We’re decorating gingerbread houses for the in-house competition. Surely you haven’t forgotten already?’
Yup. That’s exactly what I feared she might say. ‘I just– do you think that’s such a good idea, after what happened yesterday? I’m not sure everyone is?—’
Another timer went off somewhere, and Jeannie walked over to the AGA and pulled it open. Honestly, it was like King Henry VIII’s kitchen in here with the number of ovens. She plucked out a tray of caramel-brown gingerbread and carried it over to the sideboard. Taking off her gloves she grabbed a skewer to test the middle.
