Murder At The Bake Off (Celebrity Mysteries 3) Read online

  “Come on, Lizzie,” Jack says, pulling me close and nuzzling my neck. I sink happily into the warmth of him and the deliciously familiar smell of his aftershave. “I’ll owe you big time and will do anything you want me to when we get back home. You name it, I’ll do it.”

  Hmm. Now that is a tempting offer. “OK,” I say, making my tone of voice sound far more reluctant than I actually feel at the prospect of this expert baking opportunity and my fiancé’s delicious promise. “I’ll do it.”

  Jack steps back and rubs his hands together delightedly. “Brilliant. Time’s getting on, so you’d best go enrol.”

  I hurry across the road, back towards Bakewells, and am horrified to see that the woman who was behind the counter earlier is now closing window blinds, and, by the look of things, is about to lock the front door.

  In fact, by the time I get there she has locked the door. Wonderful. I knock and wave, and she mouths back, “Sorry, we’re closed.”

  “It’s urgent!” I yell through the door. “Please. It will just take one moment. Honestly.”

  She sighs but walks over to unlock. Yay!

  “Yes?” she asks crisply.

  “I want to book onto the workshop tomorrow please,” I reply.

  “You’re lucky—there’s one space left.” She beckons me inside and locks the door again behind me. “I’ve cashed up for the night, so money and card payments will be a complete pain. I don’t suppose you can pay by cheque? I can put that through the till for tomorrow.”

  By cheque? Seriously? Hardly anybody pays by cheque these days. I scramble around in my bag, and miracle of miracles find my unused new cheque book lurking at the bottom. I wave it excitedly in the air. “How much is the workshop?”

  “Ninety five pounds,” she replies. “Make it payable to Maggie Bakewell.”

  Ninety five pounds? Wow. Baking workshops are pricey.

  “How many other people will be on the course?” I ask as I lean on the counter to scribble out the cheque.

  “Five others, so with you that will be six in total. The workshops are held upstairs. Be here by eight sharp in the morning. The course finishes at three in the afternoon,” she explains, grabbing the cheque and ushering me back towards the door. “Lunch is included. You’ll all eat whatever you’ve made in the morning. Thanks, ‘bye!”

  And with that she shuts and firmly locks and bolts the bakery door with me standing out in the cold again. I wonder what we’ll be making. Whatever it is, I will probably be the one going hungry, because whatever I create will most likely be raw or burnt, as usual. I hop back into the car.

  Jack is waiting with an expectant look on his face. “Did you get on? Was there still space?”

  “Yes, I got on,” I reply, clipping in my seatbelt. “Oh, and you owe me one hundred and twenty pounds.”

  Jack frowns as he pulls the car out onto the high street. “I thought the sign said the workshop was ninety five pounds.”

  “I’ve added on a fee for my services,” I say in a mock-haughty voice.

  Jack leans over and, one eye on the road, plants a kiss on my cheek. “Fair enough. Well worth it, I reckon.”

  “Did you organise things back home for me?” I check as we leave the village en route to Cherry’s house in the country.

  “Yep, all sorted. Emma and Frazer will keep things ticking over at Eskdale Top and Brenda will cover your shift at the store, no problem.”

  I settle into my seat. “OK. Thanks. So, where are we staying tonight?”

  “When you were in the bakery, I nipped into the fancy hotel on the high street. They’ve got a room for us tonight if you’d like to stay there, or we can take Xanthe up on the offer to stay at Cherry’s house in the country.”

  “I don’t know. Wouldn’t it feel a bit uncomfortable being in her home like that? But, then again, as this was only supposed to be a daytrip, I don’t have a change of clothes or anything else with me, so a hotel might be awkward.”

  “It’s too late to go shopping, as everywhere will be closed around here. The hotel probably has a laundry service, so we could use that,” he replies, turning onto a dark and narrow country lane. “Or, if we stay at the house, we could speak very nicely to the housekeeper and get her to do laundry for us.”

  “I suppose,” I say, still feeling a bit awkward about staying anywhere with no luggage. I also feel guilty about abandoning Eskdale overnight and letting Brenda down about my shift at the store. Not to mention losing my money from that shift, especially after I’ve just forked out nearly one hundred pounds for a baking workshop I’m probably going to be the laughing stock of.

  “So, what’ll it be?” Jack asks, pulling into an elegant long driveway flanked by stone lions on pedestals. “Hotel, or stay here at the Willows?”

  As Jack stops the car, I notice the name of the house on the huge wooden gates blocking our way. He presses a buzzer and speaks into the intercom system to announce our arrival.

  We pass some landscaped and floodlit lawns, huge shrubs and a veritable forest of trees before we finally park in front of the house. It’s a single-story sprawling barn, built with the same honey-coloured stone every establishment along the high street was made from back in Hamberley On The Water. A man and woman are standing outside, ready to greet us. She shakes our hands warmly, introducing herself as Tessa and the man beside her as her husband Chris, caretaker and handyman at the Willows. They’re both much younger than I’d expected. There’s something about the titles of housekeeper and caretaker which is a bit ageist, I suppose.

  Tessa understandably is upset about Cherry, and Chris suggests that we all head inside for a chat. The kitchen is huge, but still dominated by a bright red Aga. It’s blissfully warm. The large oak table in the centre of the room is already adorned with a plate of scones, a jar of what looks to be homemade jam and all sorts of other goodies.

  “Please, take a seat,” Tessa says. “Xanthe explained who you are and how you’re helping the police with the investigation into what happened to…” Her words fade away as she’s unable to finish the sentence, too upset to continue. I notice Chris placing a comforting arm around her shoulders.

  “Whatever you need from us, just say,” Chris says, taking over from his wife to speak. “You’ll be needing to look the place over. I’ll show you her office and her bedroom. That’s where she kept most things of importance.”

  “Thanks,” Jack replies. “We won’t be in quite such a rush to sort things though, as there’s been a slight change of plan and we’ll be staying in the area tonight now.”

  “Oh, you must stay here. No question about it,” Tessa insists, starting to pour tea from a heavy-looking teapot dressed in a red knitted cosy—complete with a fabric signature Cherry Bakewell cake on its top.

  “Er, there’s a slight problem,” I venture. “Because it’s a last minute thing, we don’t have any luggage or, well, anything at all, really.”

  “No worries,” Chris says. “There’s an outlet shopping village about five miles away. They stay open until late every night. You’ll be able to get anything you need there.”

  Looks like we’re staying at the Willows then.

  We eat the scones (yum) and drink the tea, then head to the outlet village to get some essentials. Back at Cherry’s country home, we begin to carry out our searches. In the study, there are numerous folders chock full of items relating to Cherry’s illustrious career. It makes for fascinating reading, but after spending ages trawling through, we both agree we haven’t turned up anything to help the case. Next, it’s Cherry’s bedroom, and I hate every single second we are in there, looking through cupboards and opening drawers. It feels disrespectful, and I have to keep reminding myself that we’re here to track down clues as to who might have wanted the Queen of Baking murdered. Yet again, we find nothing to help with the case. Tossing and turning in my brand new pyjamas, I lie awake, going over and over everything in my mind and hoping that the baking workshop tomorrow is going to provide us with some answ
ers on this investigation. We certainly need them—and sooner rather than later.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Jack drops me off at Bakewells on the dot of eight the following morning. Thinking I’d have to find some side entrance and stairs up to the workshop, I’m surprised to see the bakery is already open. The same woman who I accosted last night, begging her to let me in, is back behind the counter, tucking a strand of chestnut brown hair into her uniform cap. I wave and say hello, and she only nods and points towards a doorway at the back of the café area.

  Feeling like it’s the first day of school, I nervously scoot over, through the door and up some steep wooden stairs. At the top there’s a landing, and off to one side sits a wall of glass with a doorway into a very fancy-looking room with several workbenches and ovens inside. Everyone else seems to already be here, meaning the only wooden mini-kitchen workstation that’s free is the one right at the front, next to the “teacher’s desk” where Maggie will lead the workshop from.

  Perfect. I would much rather lurk at the back of the room to hide my dodgy baking abilities and burnt offerings. Jack, however, will no doubt be pleased I got this spot, so I’m near to Maggie and might have more chance to pick up some useful information from her.

  “Hurry up. We’re ready to start,” a woman I assume is Maggie says to me. She beckons me into the room, checking my name against her list of paid and approved attendees and accepting the little pink workshop voucher the woman in the bakery had given me yesterday when I’d booked my slot. I hurry over to the workstation, trying not to hyperventilate at the sight of the various baking equipment laid out all ready for me. I’m not sure what most of it is even for.

  I hang my coat on the back of my chair, and the woman on the next workstation over comes across and picks it up. “Coats and bags go in the cloakroom area over there.” She points to the corner of the room where some chairs are arranged around a coffee table. “I’ll do this for you if you like. You finish getting yourself set up.”

  “Oh, that’s kind, thanks. I’m Lizzie.”

  She smiles. “I’m Gabby.”

  “Have you done this kind of thing before?” I ask when she returns from her self-imposed cloakroom duties.

  “Oh yes, loads of times,” she nods enthusiastically. “I’ve done workshops and courses all over, but the ones here are my favourite. Maggie’s a great teacher.”

  “Do you know her well?”

  So far, Maggie isn’t what I’d expected at all. She’s tall and curvy, with sandy blonde hair in a high ponytail. I suppose after what Xanthe had been saying about her, I was expecting Maggie to be more of a Wicked Witch of the West than an approachable baker.

  “Yes, I’ve done loads of stuff here, like I said, but our kids are also at the same school. Her boy Maxwell is a year older than my Faye, but we see each other at lots of PTA meetings and sports days and the like.” With a worried look in Maggie’s direction she adds, “It’s so dreadful what happened to her mum. You do know she’s the baking legend Cherry Bakewell’s daughter, right?”

  Do I pull a sneaky one here or not? I opt for a teeny little white lie. “Really? I had no idea. I’m in the area on holiday and saw the course advertised yesterday afternoon. Lucky for me there was a space still available. It was all very last minute.”

  “Do you have much baking experience?” she asks me, annoyingly going off-topic.

  “No, not really. I found an old recipe book of my aunt’s a little while back and started attempting to make the recipes, and that kind of triggered things.”

  Gabby opens a drawer on my workstation and pulls out a folded up cream cotton apron with Bakewells embroidered on it in red. Wow, she really does know the lay of the land around here.

  She hands me the apron. “You’ll need to pop this on.”

  I slide the apron over my head and loop the strings around me to tie in a bow. At the front of the class, Maggie is now flicking through an A4 ring binder of what I assume are her notes for the workshop. I need to see if I can get any more info out of Gabby before the lesson starts.

  “So, you were saying, she’s Cherry Bakewell’s daughter. Wasn’t she poisoned recently at some baking festival?”

  Gabby nods solemnly. “Horrible, horrible, horrible. Who would do such a thing?” Her hands flutter to her ample chest where she clasps them anxiously. “Makes you wonder what the world is coming to. It’s all so terribly frightening.”

  “I’m surprised this course wasn’t cancelled, you know, in the circumstances,” I say, nonchalantly fiddling with some of the cutlery on the stainless steel worktop in front of me.

  “I know, you’re not the only one. I even rang up to check, but they assured me it was business as usual. I don’t think Maggie got on that well with her mum from what I’ve heard, but even so, you know, she’s still her mum.”

  “Quite.”

  Maggie claps her hands together, and all eyes swivel in her direction. “To your workstations if you please, ladies.”

  I lightly place a hand on Gabby’s arm as she turns to go. “Maybe we can chat more later, when we’re on break or at lunch?” I suggest hopefully.

  “Oh, of course. We all usually get together to compare notes—our baking triumphs and disasters—anyway.”

  Hmm. I know which one of those my creation will turn out to be. I still don’t know what the theme or cake is for today. If it’s carrot cake, I might just stand a chance with one of those. Carrot cake is the only decent cake I have ever made, and even that was a one-off, a hard-won success seemingly never to be repeated.

  Maggie straightens her folder and rests her hands on the edge of the teaching station. “Ladies, I think we should all honour a moment’s silence for my mother.”

  Instantly the room is quiet. We all stand, heads down. After a minute, I think I hear the muffled sound of somebody trying to hold back tears. I lift my head slightly, eyes darting to Maggie. But it isn’t her who is battling the tears. I bow my head again and wait for Maggie to end the silence and begin the workshop.

  “Thank you, ladies.” Maggie draws a long breath and then lets it out in a weary sigh. “Now, let’s begin. Have any of you ventured into gluten-free baking territory before?”

  I freeze. Gluten-free baking? What?! I haven’t even got to grips with regular baking yet, let along more complex stuff like gluten-free. Oh, this is going to turn out even worse than I’d feared.

  Gabby waves a hand in the air. “Yes, me. I made some vegan and gluten-free mince pies last Christmas.”

  Another voice from the back of the glass calls, “I’ve made a gluten-free brie, olive and tomato tart before. The pastry was all brittle, but it tasted really nice. My sister-in-law is a coeliac. I want to learn more so I can create some tasty dishes for when she comes to stay with us along with my brother Ben.”

  “Right, well, that’s good. Thank you. There are many ways you can make a gluten-free pastry or bread; some far more complex than others,” Maggie continues.

  “You mean all those different types of flours and xanthan gum and the like?” asks the same voice from the back of the class. “I cheated and just purchased an all-purpose gluten-free flour and used that.”

  “That’s fine. It’s not a cheat at all,” Maggie reassures her. “But when you use gluten-free substitute products, you often need to tweak the amount of liquid you would add to the recipe. That might be why your tart pastry turned out a bit on the brittle side.”

  I find myself scribbling down notes, and as my pen flies across the pretty floral notebook provided as part of the course, I’m surprised to find myself eager to learn. I’m actually enjoying taking in all the information and soaking up all of the knowledge and expertise around me, but I need to remember the real reason I’m here.

  “This morning we will make a simple gluten-free rye bread without yeast,” Maggie says to her eager pupils. “You can use our masterclass pantry here to pop some additional items into your loaf, sweet or savoury, to make things more interesting. Now, if y
ou open your course folders, you will see a basic recipe for the loaf. Take a moment or two to just read through it and familiarise yourself with the ingredients and the process, and then step forward and join me at my workstation, where I will demonstrate the making of the bread.”

  I do as instructed. The ingredients consist of rye flour, baking powder, self-rising gluten-free flour and milk, which can apparently be substituted with vegan rice, oat or soya milk, if required. You can really make a loaf from just these ingredients? It doesn’t seem possible. I recall a bread recipe in my Aunt Molly’s old book, and it sounded complicated, with loads of proving and knocking back and yet more proving, the whole thing taking hours and hours. I notice the rest of the class starting to gather around Maggie, so I wander over and wait for the demonstration to begin.

  “First, we weigh out and mix together the two types of flour, and then add in the baking powder.” Maggie’s hands fly between the various jars on her worktop, measuring and adding with precision and confidence. “Now, we add the milk. I’m using a dairy-free soya version to show it makes no difference to the outcome or the taste of the finished product.”

  As soon as she’s poured in the milk, the mixture miraculously starts to come together in a soft ball of dough. Amazing.

  “Now, this is how you prepare the tin,” she says, setting aside the bowl and picking up a baking sheet. “Lightly oil the non-stick baking paper to be on the safe side. Then pop your dough on top in any kind of shape you wish. Cut a deep star across the top of the dough so it isn’t constricted as it bakes and rises. Finally, place an upturned Pyrex dish over the dough to help it in the cooking process.” Maggie looks up. “Any questions?”

  Yes, loads.

  “Can we add any flavour we like?” Gabby checks.

  “Your only limitation is that it must be something from our larder here. OK, ladies, get started. Your ovens are already preheated at the right temperature. Simply slip the loaf inside and bake for about thirty minutes or so.”

  “There’s no proving and kneading required?” another pupil asks, sounding nervous.