Читать книгу The Windmill Café - Poppy Blake - Страница 18

Rosie noticed that Suki’s face was devoid of its usual colour again, and that she was fiddling with her hair like her sister Jess did, wrapping a coil around her thumb and index finger in agitation. It was obvious that what Dr Bairstow was telling Suki wasn’t good news and her stomach lurched like a penny down a well as she wondered what new horror he had delivered. She didn’t have to wait too long for the hammer to fall.

‘Oh my God, Oh my God! Oh my God!’

Suki dropped down on one of the café’s overstuffed sofas and burst into tears.

‘What’s happened? Who was that on the phone?’ asked Jess as she rushed over to curl her arm around her sister’s shoulders.

‘It was Dr Bairstow. The lab has identified the “foreign substance” that was found in my throat spray. It was something called aconitine. Apparently, I’ve been lucky! In larger doses it can affect the cardiovascular system and cause multiple organ failure but because I only ingested a small amount and I was sick almost straight away, there were no long-lasting effects. Oh my God, what if…’

Rosie stared mutely at Suki, her jaw loose, her brain sending out synapses like fireworks as she tried to comprehend what Dr Bairstow’s findings meant. What on earth was aconitine and how had it got into Suki’s throat spray? Far from matters at the Windmill Café improving, they were getting worse, much worse, and Suki was clearly scared at hearing of this turn of events.

‘What the hell is aconitine?’ demanded Felix, reappearing at the French doors along with a cloud of cigarette smoke, and taking a seat on the other side of Suki. He reached into his pocket and handed her a bunch of tissues to dry her tears, the tremble in his hands belying his concern.

‘Dr Bairstow hadn’t heard of it either, so he did some digging on the internet. He found this case a couple of years ago – a gardener found dead in his garden and doctors couldn’t find out why. It was eventually discovered to be aconitine poisoning from a plant called devil’s helmet or monkshood – apparently one of the deadliest flowers in the plant kingdom. He’s promised to email me the case and photographs of the plant, although I’m not sure I want him to.’

‘But, Suki, how could you have come into contact with monkshood?’ asked Rosie, her brain starting to clear as she wrestled with the implications of this new turn of events.

‘I have no idea, but Dr Bairstow’s had to inform the authorities and they’re sending over a team of inspectors to investigate sometime tomorrow. Rosie, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to close the café until they’ve given the place the all-clear and we’ve been asked to stay until it’s over in case they want to ask us any questions.’

‘Gosh, Suki, it should be me apologizing to you. This is the last thing you deserve when all you wanted was a relaxing break. I’ll do whatever the authorities want; close the café, the holiday site, anything. I want to get to the bottom of this as much as anyone.’

‘But if it was in Suki’s throat spray, it’s unlikely anyone else came into contact with that, don’t you think?’ said Mia, speaking for the first time since Suki’s phone call.

Suki’s eyes widened as if realizing something for the first time. Her tears returned with a vengeance and her voice rose up an octave to squeak level.

‘Oh my God, you’re right! How did the aconitine poison get in my throat spray bottle? Do you think someone put it there? Do you think someone wanted to hurt me… to kill me?’ Suki crumbled into huge wracking sobs and she rocked backwards and forwards in Jess and Felix’s arms as Nadia looked on in mute desperation and horror.

A roll of nausea swept through Rosie as she tried to comprehend what Suki had just said. If Suki’s suspicions turned out to be right, who could have done such a terrible thing? And more to the point, why? Had they wanted to damage Suki’s voice so she couldn’t sing for them that evening or was it something darker altogether? And why use such an unusual method? If Suki had been poisoned with bleach, then that would have been a different story, but whatever Felix thought of her café, she was one hundred percent certain that there was no monkshood stored in her kitchen cupboards!

Then an agonizing bolt of electricity shot through her heart – could it have been in the honey? The jar had been sealed when she’d handed it over to Suki, she’d checked, so how had it got there? It was no good, Rosie couldn’t hang onto her emotions any longer and tears trickled down her cheeks. She had to say something.

‘Suki, do you think… do you think it could have been the honey I gave you? Remember, you came to the café to ask if I had any honey because you’d run out? Did you use it to make your spray?’

Suki’s eyes, red-rimmed and bloodshot met Rosie’s, but as usual before she could utter a word, Felix had leapt from his seat and was straight in there.

‘I told you this place is a death trap! It’s just as well the doctor’s informed the authorities and the café is going to be shut down! I’m going back to the lodge to make sure no one touches that honey before the inspectors arrive and I’ll insist that they test it right away.’

Felix stormed out of the café, shoving a recently arrived William roughly out of his way, and the others followed him.

‘Hey, guys, what’s going on? Suki?’

Rosie saw something more than concern for Suki’s wellbeing in William’s eyes, and had her world not been crumbling down around her she would have dissected its meaning further. However, she had much more pressing things on her mind.

‘Mia, can you help me to make a “Closed” sign for the front gate?’

‘Sure.’

When they had finished hanging the hand-made sign on the car park fence, Rosie gathered together a basket of things to take upstairs to her flat. She didn’t want to interrupt the investigation once it started, and she certainly had no intention of watching whilst they tore her beloved little café apart. A cauldron of dread churned in her stomach, but she knew that was nothing compared to how Suki must be feeling. The poor girl could have died and there was the added possibility that someone had targeted her! Oh God, she thought, what if the assailant was still lurking around in the holiday site? She dropped her basket and ran to the bathroom.

‘Rosie? Are you okay?’ called Mia, her voice tight with anxiety.

‘Erm…’

‘Look, I want you to come and stay with me. That way the inspectors can do what they want without you having to be there. Why don’t you go upstairs, pack a bag and we’ll leave them to it? No arguments.’

Rosie peered round the door at her friend and the sympathy on her face nearly sent her into another deluge of tears, but she managed to hang on.

‘Mia, I would love to do that, but with Graham out of the country, the café’s my responsibility. I need to stay here.’

‘Well, nothing will be happening until tomorrow, so let’s get away for a few hours.’

‘Okay.’

Rosie gave Mia a weak smile of gratitude, slung a few random items into her handbag and locked the café before joining Mia next to her little cream Fiat 500 in the car park. She couldn’t wait to escape. If she stayed, all she would be able to think about would be the inspectors combing through her kitchen, moving everything from its allocated space, testing every nook and cranny – no matter how certain she was that they wouldn’t find a speck of dirt or molecule of germs anywhere, she was still terrified of their impending visit.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ mused Mia as she steered round the narrow roads towards the converted barn she shared with her parents. ‘It could be nothing, but…’

‘What?’

‘Well, no, nothing…’

‘Mia?’

‘It’s just Suki told me that she and Nadia went for a walk through the woodland on Sunday morning before the party. Could she have accidentally touched or brushed against the petals of one of these monkshood flowers?’

‘It’s not touching that causes illness. It’s ingesting.’

‘Well, I know exactly who we should ask about poisonous plants.’

‘Who?’

‘Freddie.’

‘Why Freddie?’

‘Don’t you remember he told you at the garden party that whilst you might be the go-to girl for bridal flowers, he was the man when it came to wild flowers? Why don’t we take a detour over to the outward-bound centre and ask him what he knows? We can talk to Matt about the inspection too. He’ll know how to handle it until Graham gets back. I can’t wait to see Matt’s face when we tell him that his super-sleuthing skills are back in demand. Unlike you, I’m confident the inspectors won’t find anything wrong with that honey you gave Suki – it came from Harrods for God’s sake! No, if you want my opinion, Suki was spot on. Someone put something in her spray. What we need to find out is who.’

‘I think you’re right – and it has to be someone who knows Suki uses her spray before every concert not just to help her voice but because it calms her stage nerves. I could be wrong but I reckon that poison was put in her bottle and the poisoner didn’t expect her to use it here in Willerby but when she got back home to Ibiza. And if I’m right, the only people on my list who could have done that are the people in her party, the people she calls her friends. If we want to save the café, then it’s up to us, and Matt, to find out who.’

‘And why!’

‘Yes, and why.’

A surge of optimism sliced through Rosie’s veins. Instead of her previous go-to reaction of running away from the misfortunes life threw at her, she was choosing to take a more positive stance and it felt good to be doing something to salvage the café’s reputation, as well as her own. She was absolutely determined to do everything she could to preserve the reputation of her beloved café by finding out what was going on – and there would be the added benefit of making her father proud.