Murder Within Tent: A Caffe Milano English Village Mystery (Bridget and Lucy Cosy Crime Mysteries Book 1) by Ruth Ward

Author:Ruth Ward [Ward, Ruth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Paw Press
Published: 2024-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

17

LUCY FINISHED LOOKING at the evidence from the CCTV and announced, ‘That’s a relief.’

Kat looked alarmed at Lucy’s remark, but didn’t say anything, turning to glance at Bridget instead, to see what she thought of it all, and Bridget suddenly felt like a dog who’d wandered past a nest of duck eggs while they hatched, and the oldest duckling had imprinted itself on the first thing it saw. ‘Why is it a relief?’ she asked Lucy.

‘Because now the police have some clear evidence to pursue.’

‘They will do. When we tell them. Until then, we have a chance to ask—’

‘What! Don’t they know? You have to tell them now. This minute.’

Bridget turned to Kat. She had already discovered that Kat had passed her driving test (‘Because, like, everyone learns to drive in the village. You can’t survive without it.’), and she handed her the keys to the van. ‘Go and fetch your mum. And while you do it, you can tell her that you’ve shown the CCTV to DCI Morton’s girlfriend, and she says that the police won’t care where she points her cameras.’

Kat looked at Lucy. ‘Thanks, boss. That’s a weight off my mind.’

‘But …’ began Lucy.

Bridget gently pushed her duckling in the back. ‘Off you go. We need some more bodies through the door, even if we have to go and collect them ourselves.’

Kat headed off, and Lucy was about to have Strong Words with Bridget, but Bridget got in first. ‘What’s the vicar’s story, then? What did you get out of her? And yeah, I was always gonna tell the bizzies. Cough it up, Luce.’

Lucy cast a furtive glance at the vicar, who was blithely finishing her pastry and sipping her coffee, blissfully unaware that she was now a suspect in Millie Easterby’s murder.

Lucy dropped her voice. ‘She’s divorced, she misses her kids and she works two days a week as a teaching assistant in the school because she’s as poor as one of her own church mice. She has a shrine to childhood in a corner of the church and she loved Millie Easterby as a surrogate daughter.’

Bridget nodded slowly. ‘And most murders are committed by family members. Looks like we have our first paying customers, so you serve those old dears who’ve just walked in, and I’ll see to the vicar.’

‘You can’t! It could ruin …’

But Lucy was talking to Bridget’s back, and Bridget had her sights firmly fixed on the comfy corner. She grabbed a standard chair and took it over, because she wasn’t going to sit on one of those sofas. Lucy thought they were a bargain, but Bridget knew better: she had seen Feargal’s attitude to dirt, and it was very much from the out of sight, out of mind school of cleaning. New sofas were definitely going on the list.

She sat down as Rev Deb was wiping her hands on a napkin. ‘That was delicious, thank you, Bridget. And the coffee is superb. For that alone, I am very grateful, and I wish you all the luck for the future.

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