Shilpa pulled out another banana loaf from the oven and wiped her brow with the back of her hand. She placed it on the wire rack to cool and checked her list. She had just about finished Leoni’s order, but she still had a mountain of cakes to make for the stall. She wasn’t sure where to start. Tanvi and Brijesh were out, and she found she missed them. Thoughts of Craig and his bloated body found in Fish Cove came back to her. Elaine seemed to think John and Graham had been close with Craig and her uncle. She was also under the impression that they had spent the day with her uncle the day he died. But Graham had told her otherwise. It was easy to mix up your days when you were stuck at home all day, but somehow Elaine didn’t seem the sort of woman to muddle days.
‘Professional baker?’ Tanvi asked, walking through the front door and down the steps into the lounge. ‘You’re covered in flour!’
‘Ha, ha, ha,’ Shilpa said. ‘Take your jokes elsewhere. You two can help. Hi Brij,’ she said as he followed Tanvi into the sitting room. ‘Tanvi, you can ice the mango-and-lime cupcakes. I’ve made up the frosting in the glass bowl over there.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Tanvi said, saluting her friend. She walked over to the sink, washed her hands and then took the tray of cooled cakes and the icing to the dining table. ‘Are you not going to ask Brij how the job interview went?’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. Of course,’ Shilpa said. ‘Did it go okay?’
‘Better than okay,’ he said. ‘I got it.’
‘Amazing,’ Shilpa said, pouring her cake mix from the mixer into a round tin.
‘The interview was sooo long,’ Tanvi said. Shilpa watched her friend ice the first cupcake and, pleased with the result, she looked away.
‘But it was worth it,’ Brijesh said.
‘What will you be doing?’
‘Back-office stuff for the phone company on the High Street.’
Shilpa looked at Brijesh. ‘Great,’ she said, although she wondered how that place stayed open. It always looked so empty. ‘So, from pharmaceuticals to phone repairs?’
‘Something like that,’ he said. ‘And the good news is that I also found a rental in town. I’ll be out of your way soon.’
‘It’s nice having you and Tanvi here,’ Shilpa said, although it would be nice having her space back too. ‘What do you know about cars?’ she asked.
‘A little,’ Brijesh said. ‘My friend back home was a mechanic. I picked up a few bits from him.’
‘My car won’t start again. I’ve used it since Graham got it going and brought it back from the Connollys’ for me, but I tried it earlier, and it just won’t start. I need to take these cakes down to Leoni’s before she closes at five. I don’t suppose you could take a look at it? I don’t fancy walking in this heat.’ A day’s baking in the summer was tiresome and often left her irritable, with no energy to make small talk with her customers. It was on days like this that she missed the cool air conditioning of her London office. She complained at the time that it was far too cold in the office and joked that her work wardrobe was the same in summer as it was in winter because of the temperatures. But she appreciated it on those hot, sticky days, when taking the Tube was like walking into a sauna with a million other people. Just the thought of having to do that again made her shudder.
She’d take baking cakes on a warm summer day in Devon any day over having to take the Tube again, and as a bonus, she had the beautiful view of the estuary too. The water was in, and the boats tied to their moorings bobbed up and down, the sun glimmered on the water, and the view instantly calmed her.
‘The car’s open, Brijesh, but take the keys. They’re there.’ She pointed to the steps where her keys were, and Brijesh disappeared with them.
He reappeared half an hour later. ‘All done,’ he said.
‘What?’ Shilpa asked incredulously.
‘The ignition fuse was missing. Did you take it out when trying to get it to start?’
‘I have no idea what an ignition fuse even looks like. I didn’t even know cars had fuses,’ Shilpa said.
‘Anyway, I’ve fixed it. I walked down to the garage and bought one. It was a pretty easy fix. I’m going to take a shower now,’ Brijesh said. ‘It’s pretty muggy out there. It needs to rain or something.’
‘Thanks,’ Shilpa called after him. She turned to Tanvi. ‘Don’t you think that’s odd? A fuse that isn’t working is one thing, but one that’s missing is something else.’
‘Unless Graham took it and forgot to replace it,’ Tanvi said, concentrating on icing the last of the cupcakes.
‘But I’ve used it since Graham dropped it back. I usually leave my car open though. It’s easier when I have to put boxes of cakes in the boot so often.’ Shilpa put her finger to her lips. ‘When I met Alison at the Old Cinema, she said that I didn’t know much, that I didn’t even know what my neighbours were doing.’
‘Who does?’ asked Tanvi. ‘I don’t know the names of my neighbours.’
‘But that’s London,’ Shilpa reasoned. ‘Anyway, I know this side is just rentals’ – she pointed behind her – ‘so she couldn’t have been referring to them, and I went to see the old lady who lives over there yesterday.’ As she rolled out some pastry Shilpa motioned with her eyes to the house visible through the long gable window in her lounge.
‘So, after nearly being killed by some crazy loon, you decide to go into your neighbour’s house? I’m beginning to wonder about your sanity.’
‘Elaine’s an old woman. She could barely make a cup of tea, let alone stab me.’
‘Those are the ones you need to watch; the quiet sorts. I’m just saying, if Alison warned you–’ Tanvi started, but Shilpa cut her off.
‘What if she was referring to another neighbour?’
‘Like? The ones opposite?’
‘Exactly,’ Shilpa said.
Tanvi looked up through the little window towards the road. ‘Honestly, all the properties around here look like they’re rented over the summer. I’m sure I saw a family with two little girls in summer dresses clutching buckets and spades getting into their car this morning as I waited outside for Brij.’
‘Brij, yes. I see you two are still friendly. You still planning to go back at the end of the week?’
‘I have a job that I can’t just walk out of. Not all of us are as lucky as you.’
‘So, you’d move down to this backwater if you had inherited a house here?’
‘I didn’t say backwater,’ Tanvi said, making a face.
‘You’d rent the place out like the rest of the second home brigade and make a killing, spending your summer in Paris instead, more likely.’
‘Perhaps,’ Tanvi said with a smile. ‘Although I’m glad I came to see you.’
‘Because you found another poor soul to dig your teeth into.’
‘It’s not like that. I told you. I don’t think this is going to be a summer fling. I think there might be more to it. Anyway, look at what I’ve done.’
Shilpa put the circular cookie cutter down and walked over to the dining table. ‘Well done,’ she said, admiring the perfectly iced cupcakes. ‘If I had one, I’d give you a gold star.’ She looked through the picture window towards Graham and John’s boat. They were going to set sail today or tomorrow, from what Graham had said.
‘Ah, I see,’ said Tanvi. ‘Those are the neighbours you’re referring to. The ones that fix your car and provide a shoulder for you to lean on.’
‘They may live on water, but that’s where they live. What if Alison was referring to them?’ She quickly filled Tanvi in about Craig and her uncle, about what Graham had said to her about not spending time with Dipesh the day he died and Elaine Alden contradicting his story. Brijesh had walked in halfway through their conversation and had busied himself with a magazine on the sofa.
‘So, those two,’ Tanvi said, looking at their boat, ‘could have had something to do with Craig’s death.’
‘Or maybe your uncle’s,’ Brijesh said, looking up from his magazine.
Shilpa and Tanvi looked away from the catamaran towards him.
‘You mentioned a heart condition, right?’ he said.
Shilpa nodded.
‘Anything inconsistent in the autopsy report or the coroner’s findings?’
‘No idea,’ Shilpa said. ‘I didn’t look at it, and even if I had done, I wouldn’t have any idea what to compare it with. Is looking at autopsy results a regular hobby of yours?’
Brijesh shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I was just wondering if there were any elevated levels of sodium chloride–’
Tanvi interrupted him. ‘That’s salt,’ she said, smugly. ‘Sodium chloride is salt.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Shilpa said. ‘My mother did mention something about raised salt levels and assumed it was his diet.’
‘A young bachelor not having a nice young wife to take care of him, na?’ Tanvi said in an Indian accent. Brijesh laughed, but Shilpa wasn’t smiling.
‘Elevated salt levels in his bloodstream could suggest something sinister. If someone knew your uncle had a heart condition and wanted him dead, they could induce a heart attack.’
‘What?’ Shilpa said.
‘Say he was injected with potassium chloride; it would pretty much be untraceable apart from some elevated levels of salt in his bloodstream. In the body, potassium chloride breaks down into potassium and chlorine. The chlorine binds with naturally occurring sodium in the body to create sodium chloride, which is salt, as Tanvi pointed out. If your uncle had a heart condition and a bad diet and the coroner found no other evidence to suggest foul play…’
‘Foul play such as a puncture wound from an injection or something?’
‘Possibly, unless he didn’t look properly because it was pretty much an open-and-shut case–’
‘What do you mean open-and-shut?’
‘Say a report came back from your uncle’s doctor saying that Dipesh was told that if he didn’t change his diet soon, a heart attack was likely, and say his arteries were clogged, then a lax coroner may not go hunting for a puncture wound from an injection. I mean, why would he? And the body is a big mass, with freckles and age spots, nooks and crannies. Perfect hiding places for a wound as small as an injection needle to go unnoticed, especially if it isn’t being looked for.’
‘Wow,’ Tanvi said. ‘You know a lot for a phone technician.’
‘I am a pharmacist, just not practising. And there was a time in my life when I had a morbid fascination with death.’ He looked at Tanvi. ‘Don’t worry, I think I’ve outgrown it now.’
Tanvi walked up to Shilpa and put her arm around her. Her friend looked visibly shaken. ‘He’s just talking in what-ifs, Shilpa. Don’t worry. I mean, where would you even get the right amount of potassium chloride to kill someone? How would you know what to use if you weren’t a doctor or a pharmacist?’
‘The dark web,’ Brijesh said.
‘The what?’ Shilpa asked.
‘A part of the internet that you don’t stumble upon. It’s easy to get information and whatnot if you know where to look,’ Brijesh said.
Tanvi turned to Brijesh and gave him a hard stare. Then she turned back to her friend. ‘Why would anyone want your uncle dead? This whole case with Mason Connolly, Alison and now Craig whatshisname, it’s making you see murderers everywhere. You need some time out. Dating a detective sergeant doesn’t help either. Come back to London with me for a few days.’
Shilpa shrugged off Tanvi’s arm and headed back to the kitchen. ‘I’ve got a stall to prepare for,’ she said. ‘Anyway, you’re right, it’s all what-ifs, and there’s no reason why anyone would have wanted my uncle dead. Graham didn’t even know about Dipesh’s heart condition. He was quite genuine when he told me, and this was before the thought of murder had even crossed my mind.’
Tanvi threw a cushion from the armchair at Brijesh. ‘Perhaps you should stick to phone repairs.’