Closing the heavy black door, Alice leant back against it and blew out a pent-up breath. Tea, she needed tea. Hopefully she’d feel better once she’d familiarised herself with the kitchen.
She was strangely jittery as she walked along the corridor, and not just from all the subterfuge, but because it was only now that it was dawning on her what a huge responsibility this job was. She would stay until Laura went back to school and then Jinx and Helly simply had to find someone else to take over.
Unlike the impersonal industrial kitchen in the basement, the family kitchen was cheerily sociable, with a large marble island housing an induction hob and high stools around one end. Against one wall stood a double-sized fridge, which was almost empty except for a Tupperware box full of cheese and a few lonely vegetables in the chiller. Next to it was a packed Swisscave wine fridge. She thought of Jinx and how much she’d relish the expensive bottles inside.
Having had a good rummage through the cupboards and a look in the freezer, where she was pleased to find some bags of frozen herbs, Alice could see the basics of several hearty meals, despite Therese’s declaration that there was no food. Besides, she was a great believer in the art of ‘using up’, something the great Mrs Beeton had promoted too. The need for economy was greater then, perhaps, but no less relevant today, even in a wealthy household like this.
Alice took out the rice and the remains of a packet of orzo from the slide-out larder, remembering that marvellous Turkish restaurant in Brighton that she and Jinx used to go to on their weekends away. And having gathered together as many ingredients as she could, she was pleased to see there was sufficient for her store cupboard pilaf.
Satisfied that supper was in hand, Alice went upstairs and knocked on the door of the room she thought was Laura’s, although she could hardly remember, her tour had been that fast.
‘Supper will be ready in ten minutes,’ she said when she got no answer.
‘You can just bring it up,’ Laura shouted back from inside.
‘Oh no. That’s not possible.’ Alice turned away. ‘And do bring Agatha down when you come. She’ll be hungry too.’
Back in the kitchen, she laid the countertop with placemats, glasses, and the correct cutlery, and was just lighting some candles she’d found when Laura came in wearing a slouchy tracksuit, which was cropped to show off her tiny midriff. She let go of Agatha who shook herself out — a sure sign she’d been overcuddled – and trotted happily over to the bowl of water Alice had put down for her.
‘What’s this?’ Laura asked, gazing in confusion at the place settings.
‘Supper. What does it look like?’ Alice said. ‘Please take a seat.’
Laura’s eyebrows shot up, but she nonetheless sat down at the counter and Alice smiled, spooning the pilaf into a bowl that she’d warmed in the oven.
‘Surely your last housekeeper ate with you?’ Alice asked.
‘I suppose. Sometimes.’ Laura pursed her lips. ‘You didn’t hear? About what happened to her?’
‘Only the bare details.’ It stood to reason that anyone taking on this position here would have been told something about it. Alice reached for the bowl of marinated tomatoes she’d prepared with the lovely bottle of Greek olive oil she’d found, keen to leave Laura space to say more. ‘I’m so sorry. It must have been dreadful?’
‘Maman and Papa, they don’t talk about it,’ Laura said.
There was a crack in her voice and Alice suddenly felt her heart go out to this young woman who was clearly trying to be as diplomatic as she could. She thought of Jacques and how he’d said on the night of Enya’s murder that Laura had thought the world of her. She couldn’t imagine the trauma of getting to know someone and them then being killed. In your own home. It certainly wasn’t something any teenager should have to experience. Alice found it worrying that her parents had left Laura in the care of a stranger – at such a traumatic time. Even if that stranger was herself.
‘What was she like?’ Alice asked.
At first, Laura said nothing, just took a spoonful of her food. ‘This is good,’ she said, then after a few thoughtful bites, ‘Enya was always nice … particularly to me …’
‘But?’ Alice prompted. She’d worked with too many staff members discussing too many thorny clients over the years not to sense when one was in the air.
‘But there was something … I don’t know, funny about her …’
‘Funny how? As in haha, or strange?’ Another one of Mrs Doulton’s sayings and one that now made Laura smile.
‘A bit of both, maybe.’
‘Was it her language or accent?’ Alice asked.
‘No. Her English was perfect.’ Laura looked surprised.
‘What sort of strange then?’ Alice asked, heaping another spoonful of pilaf into Laura’s bowl.
‘I don’t know … just sometimes she didn’t seem to know how to make things or do things. Like the Pacojet ice cream maker,’ she said, nodding at the sleek stainless-steel machine in the corner of the kitchen. ‘Everyone who’s ever worked here knew how to use that, but not her …’
‘How odd,’ Alice said, hoping to God that Laura didn’t ask her to whip her up anything using the notoriously tricky machine now.
Laura shrugged. ‘I guess I just had a feeling, you know? That there was more to her than she was letting on.’
Alice nodded. ‘Agatha’s like that,’ she said. ‘She can always tell when someone’s not being completely up front with her.’ Hmm, like I’m not being honest with you now, Alice thought, hoping that Laura wasn’t quite as good a mind reader as her little dog.
‘She’s lovely,’ Laura said. ‘My parents would never let me have a puppy. They don’t let me do anything I want to.’
Alice picked up on the note of anger in her voice.
‘Agatha can have her moments, believe me. It’s not that easy looking after a dog. Oh, I forgot the yoghurt.’
Alice retrieved the bowl of harissa yoghurt she’d mixed earlier from the fridge.
‘This is nice too,’ Laura said, tucking in.
‘Good,’ Alice said, genuinely pleased.
‘I’m not used to home-cooked stuff. I mostly get Deliveroo – something else Enya was very happy for me to do too – so long as Thérèse isn’t eating with us, because she’s so allergic …’
Right, Alice thought, because she probably only knew about five recipes – if the rest of her housekeeping credentials were anything to go by.
‘And my parents eat out all the time,’ Laura continued. ‘Papa goes to the same few restaurants again and again. Because they have good hygiene and always cook his food and present it just so.’
Just so. That same phrase Thérèse had used about him.
‘It’s some kind of OCD, only we’re not allowed to mention it,’ Laura said.
Ah, well, that made sense, Alice thought. About the house too. How clean it had to be all of the time.
‘And Maman … Maman would have a fit if she could see me having carbs in the evening.’
‘Really?’
Alice shook her head. If she knew one thing about teens, it was that they needed feeding. She longed to tell Laura about Mrs Doulton and about her common-sense advice about eating three square meals a day and a little bit of everything in moderation, but she sensed she would have to get to know her a little better before she started dispensing such nuggets of wisdom.
‘She’s not here, and whilst I am, I intend to give you a balanced diet,’ Alice said with a friendly smile.
Laura paused, as if someone actually caring about what she ate was a joke.
Spreading her napkin out over her lap again, Alice tried hard not to glance too obviously at Laura’s terrible table manners. The poor girl couldn’t shovel it in fast enough.
‘Do you cook?’ she asked Laura, but Laura pulled a face as if the suggestion was absurd. At her age, Alice had regularly made supper. But then she’d had Mrs Doulton to show her how.
‘Never. But I met a chef recently. He was kind of cool.’
Was she talking about Jacques? She must be.
‘He was working here on the night that …’ Laura’s voice trailed off.
‘Oh,’ Alice said, ‘I see …’ She meant the night Enya had been murdered, of course.
‘And what was Enya doing that night? Was she busy helping with the party?’
‘Yes.’
‘Only I think … yes, I’m sure, Miss Beeton at the agency … she mentioned to me this morning that Enya was up in your father’s study when she died …’
‘Yes,’ Laura said, ‘but before that she had been helping … at the beginning when we were welcoming the guests …’
‘Only then she went down to talk to your chef friend. Just a bit before your mother’s speech,’ Alice said.
Laura looked her over curiously for a moment, leaving Alice worried she’d started pushing this all a bit too hard.
‘Just something else Miss Beeton mentioned,’ she lied. ‘Because I think the chef was one of hers. On her books.’
‘Ah, yes. OK, I see,’ Laura said, accepting the logic of this. ‘Yes, she was there.’
‘Right, because you went down there too, didn’t you?’ Alice smiled innocently, already knowing from Detective Rigby that this was true. ‘Just something else Miss Beeton said,’ she lied again – in fact, was it a lie, because she was saying it right now?
‘Yes.’ Laura blushed.
‘Did you talk to Enya?’
‘No, well, not down there … when I last saw her, she was already on the stairs going back up …’
Ah, a further sighting of Enya. This was news. ‘Back up to the party?’ Alice asked.
‘No, further up. I think – yes, now I remember – she said she was popping to the upstairs bathroom … the staff toilet downstairs, it was occupied.’ Laura’s eyes glistened. ‘Something as silly as that. That really was the last thing she said to me.’
Alice’s mind raced. Laura must be referring to the guest bathroom on the half-landing near Monsieur Messent’s study that Alice had seen on her tour. But what then? Had Enya heard something in the study that had lured her to her doom? Meaning she’d had a perfectly good – and innocent – reason for being up there after all?
‘You know you ask a lot of questions,’ Laura said.
‘Ah, yes.’ Alice managed to smile. ‘I suppose I do have something of an inquisitive mind.’
Laura’s phone tinged. Rapidly. Three times in a row.
‘Goodness. Who are all those messages from?’ Alice said, grateful for the distraction, worried Laura might have already come too close to working out that Alice wasn’t quite what she seemed.
‘Friends. Just talking about going back to school,’ Laura said, relaxing. ‘But I’ve been looking at the trains. It doesn’t look like they’re running. There’s a strike.’
‘Isn’t your father taking you? Is he away too?’ Thérèse still hadn’t replied to any of the queries Alice had messaged her.
Laura pulled a face, as if Alice were crazy. ‘Oh no, he’s in town. But he’s, like, way, way too busy.’
‘I can get someone to give you a lift, if you like?’ Alice said, thinking of Massoud.
‘No, it’s OK,’ Laura said.
She remembered what Jinx had been like at that age and how she’d always wanted to bunk off school. She didn’t trust Laura to actually get there, if left to her own devices.
‘Oh, I insist. I promised I’d get you back to school so that’s what I’ll do,’ Alice said with one of her firm smiles just to let Laura know that the subject was closed.