Death at the Cafe Read online

  “Sorry, ladies,” a nearby officer said, “would you mind moving just a little further down the road? We’re going to have to tape the whole area. Thank you.”

  “Officer,” Annabelle called, before he could turn away, “this woman saw the death.”

  The bobby turned back and cast his eyes toward Mary, who managed a mild nod from behind her scrunched-up tissue.

  “Detective!” he bawled, with a voice well-practiced in commanding attention. He pointed at Mary. “Someone here you need to speak to.”

  Seconds later, the two women found themselves joined by a short, bulky man with a face screwed-up into a perpetual expression of suspicion and frustration.

  “Detective Inspector Cutcliffe,” he said, as if even pronouns were too indirect and time-wasting for him.

  Everything about DI Cutcliffe was rough. Everything from the heavy jacket he wore through all seasons to his angular, uncompromising jawline. There was a pool in his police branch for whomever could make him laugh. It had run into hundreds of pounds, and there still wasn’t a winner despite lowering the goal from “laughter” to “smile.” Officers joked that he had come out of the womb clenching his teeth, only to immediately question the doctor’s credentials. Colleagues said that he asked more questions than a TV game show host, and that he hadn’t dropped a case since 1982.

  They joked but never to his face. DI Cutcliffe was the kind of detective who could do damage with a look. He was the butt of many private jokes but the public recipient of none. He also happened to be one of the most respected detectives in London. He may have been a little harsher than he was fair, but he was fair nonetheless.

  “Name?” he growled, his notebook and pen materializing from nowhere into his hand.

  “Sister Mary Willis.”

  “And I’m Reverend Annabelle Dixon.”

  DI Cutcliffe’s eyes darted between the two women beneath his perpetually quizzical eyebrows.

  “Anglican?” he said, spearing the word toward Annabelle like a bayonet.

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re Catholic?” he said, pointing his pen toward Mary.

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know each other?”

  “We’ve been friends since… Well, forever,” Annabelle said, looking at Mary who confirmed her statement with a vehement nod.

  DI Cutcliffe shrugged away the line of enquiry before starting the next one.

  “So you saw what happened?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mind describing exactly how it went?”

  “Yes. I mean, no, of course not. I mean, yes, I’ll describe it,” Mary stammered, finding the detective’s flint-like tone much less inviting than Annabelle’s. “I was waiting to meet someone. Here. At the café.”

  “The Reverend here?”

  “Yes, but before her. Someone else. Someone I’d never met before.”

  The detective’s intense look made it known he needed more.

  “A… business colleague. Someone who was interested in funding my hospital in Africa.”

  “The dead woman?”

  “I don’t think so. I’d only ever spoken to my contact on the phone. I’m fairly certain it wasn’t the woman…over there.” She nodded toward the body on the ground. “The person I was supposed to meet was much older.”

  The detective nodded, accepting the answer for now.

  “I noticed the woman, the dead one,” Mary continued, “walking toward me. She was extremely close, barely a foot away from me. She seemed fine. Then suddenly she just dropped down, as if her legs had gone. Then…”

  Mary began sobbing again, losing her composure as she relived the memory.

  “Sorry,” she said, to the expectant detective. “Then she just collapsed, fully. Flat on the ground.”

  DI Cutcliffe clenched his teeth as he mused over the description. “So she was looking at you. But you don’t think she was the person you were going to meet?”

  “No,” said Mary. “I don’t think so.”

  “But she was looking at you.”

  “Yes. No. Oh, I can’t be sure, but I think so. Maybe I’m wrong. It was all so… fast. I thought maybe she had mistaken me for somebody else, or that she was a waitress, or wanted to ask for directions, or maybe an old friend… I don’t know, Detective, I’m sorry. ”

  “I see,” the detective said, scribbling something down so furiously Annabelle was sure he would rip the paper of his notebook. “So she walked up to you and then collapsed. Then what happened?”

  “I screamed and jumped out of my chair. The waiter came over and checked on her. Then… a doctor came.”

  DI Cutcliffe’s eyebrows raised themselves ever so slightly. On a face more expressive, it would have barely been noticeable, on his, it seemed positively exuberant.

  “You mean the paramedics?”

  “No. A man who said he was a doctor. After I had screamed, people on the street turned to see what was going on. He came from the other side of the road and pushed through the crowd. That’s when he said he was a doctor. He knelt over the woman and checked her pulse, then… I’m so sorry. I don’t know. I was so shaken.”

  “Where is this doctor now?”

  Mary looked around for a full five seconds. “I don’t know. I believe he left. When I saw him tending to the young woman, I looked away, and when I looked back, he was gone.”

  “Could you describe him for me?”

  Mary looked off into space for a while, squinting as if it would help her see further into her own memory. “It’s difficult. I believe he was dark-skinned.”

  “Black?”

  “No. Maybe. I didn’t really see his face. He was dressed very strikingly though. He wore a dark suit. Tweed, perhaps. It looked very expensive. A waistcoat too. Brown leather shoes.”

  DI Cutcliffe let out a barely perceptible sigh.

  “If I get a sketch artist, do you think you could describe him?”

  Mary winced as she tried to extract further details from her memory. “I could try, but I’m sorry, I really doubt it. It’s as if the more I try to remember him, the more I struggle.”

  “Just try to relax. It will come to you,” the Inspector said.

  “It’s the strangest thing. At the time I thought I had seen him clearly, but I can’t for the life of me recall…”

  “You say you heard him say he was a doctor. Was there any kind of accent? What did he sound like?”

  Mary bit her lip and looked away again as she delved into her memory. “Maybe… African? South American, perhaps? Actually I didn’t notice any real accent. He sounded… like a typical Londoner, I suppose. If there is such a thing.”

  The detective stared at Sister Mary with eyes that seemed to excavate her mind, sizing up whether the small woman was hiding something. After a few seconds of this intense glare, he flipped to a blank page in his notebook, handed it to Mary along with a pen, and said: “Please write down your telephone number and contact details.”

  Mary willingly obliged.

  “Inspector,” Annabelle said, seizing the moment, “does this mean we can go now? Sister Mary seems incredibly shaken, and I’d like to take her somewhere she can gather herself.”

  The detective’s small, dark eyes shifted to Annabelle’s wide, bright ones. They darted quickly to her collar. He nodded as if allowing a great privilege. “You can go, but don’t leave the city. I may need more information about this person you were meeting, as well as our non-descript ‘doctor,’ in the very near future.”

  Mary handed back the Inspector’s notebook, and he handed the two women his card in exchange.

  “If you remember anything, and I mean anything, then call me,” he turned his penetrating gaze toward Annabelle. “I’m always willing to give the benefit of the doubt to Holy men – or women. Even though it’s been known to backfire in the past on occasion.”

  Annabelle and Mary exchanged frightened glances as the Inspector turned on his heel and marched back to the scene of the crime.
He was already barking out instructions to his officers. Annabelle found herself almost as shaken as her friend upon hearing the Inspector’s last comment.

  “Whatever could that be about?” she said, careful to remain out of earshot of any of the police personnel at the scene. “Come on, we’ll go somewhere quiet and have a nice cup of tea and a slice of cake.”

  Mary nodded agreeably, allowing Annabelle to take her by the arm and guide her down the street.

  “Annabelle,” she said, in her soft voice, “could I trouble you for another tissue?”

  “Of course,” Annabelle replied, fishing around for the packet and handing it to her entirely. “Take the whole lot. You need them more than I do.”

  “Thank you,” Mary said, pulling a tissue out and putting the packet into a pocket. “Oh!” she cried suddenly, as if a mouse had been waiting there to bite her on the finger.

  Annabelle spun around to face Mary, and watched as she pulled out a small slip of paper.

  “I completely forgot!” Mary exclaimed, in response to Annabelle’s curious expression. “The woman who died. Before she collapsed – I mean, before she fell completely to the floor – she handed me this.”

  Annabelle’s hands smacked into her cheeks in an almost childlike expression of surprise. She moved her lips silently for a few moments, as if unable to think of what to say. “Are you sure?” was the only thing that came to mind.

  “Yes! I completely forgot in all the fuss. She had it in her hand and reached out to me. I took it, and she fell. It was almost automatic of me, I was so focused on her eyes. The life was visibly leaving them….”

  “Well, what does it say?!” Annabelle said, as quickly as she could.

  “I don’t know,” Mary shrugged, her friend’s excitement confusing her.

  “Well, open it!” Annabelle nearly screamed, her hands rolling over themselves in a gesture of hurried anticipation.

  Mary stared at the small slip of lined notepaper that she held in her hand as if it were an incredibly fragile explosive. Carefully, she reached a finger into the crease and unfolded it. Annabelle watched wide-eyed and open-mouthed, her heart thumping.

  Mary studied the contents for half a second, then gasped suddenly, her hand instinctively going to her mouth, causing her to drop the slip of paper itself.

  Annabelle reached down to pick it up with cat-like reflexes, stood back up, and read it aloud.

  “‘Teresa is in danger’. And then there’s a number.”

  Annabelle looked back at Mary, who was still clutching her hand to her mouth.

  “Teresa is the woman I was supposed to meet!” Mary exclaimed. “What could it mean?”

  Annabelle looked back at the note, as if the answer may have appeared upon it.

  “Quick, let’s go back and tell the Inspector,” Annabelle said.

  Mary nodded enthusiastically, and the two women ran back the way they had come. The café came back into view just as the Inspector was pulling away from the curb in his unmarked car, a police officer controlling traffic to allow Cutcliffe a route through the blocked lanes. She watched his car weave through the static vehicles and speed off down an empty side street.

  “Fiddlesticks!” Annabelle cried out.

  “What should we do now?” Mary said, her sobs and cries long gone with all the running and excitement.

  Annabelle scanned the road, then marched toward a phone booth.

  “Are you going to call him?” Mary said, as she struggled to keep up.

  “No,” Annabelle replied, a note of determination and purpose in her voice, “I’m going to call the number on the note.”

  Mary’s voice raised itself a full octave. “But Annabelle! We don’t know what is going on here! We should call the police.”

  “You’re right, and there will be plenty of time for that. But first, we’re not sure that this note actually means anything. We don’t want to waste police time for something we could easily check up on ourselves – plus she handed the note to you. There would be no need for that if this ‘danger’ were something only the police could handle.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Mary admitted.

  “We’ll just check, and then if we need the police, we’ll hand this to DI Cutcliffe immediately. Besides, if someone is in danger, as this note implies,” she said, picking up the receiver, “the closest person is sometimes more useful than the correct one.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ANNABELLE SHIFTED HER weight anxiously from one foot to the other as she listened intently to the phone ringing. Mary stood a few feet away from her, glancing from side to side up the busy street as if she were a lookout. It felt much like one of the many adventures they had enjoyed together as children. Perhaps it was the fact that they had not spoken for such a long time, Mary having spent much time in Africa, and Annabelle busy with her new position at St. Clement’s Church. Suddenly, they were reprising the well-worn roles established in their youth; Annabelle taking the initiative, and Mary providing a willing, inventive counterfoil. The stakes, however, felt a lot more dangerous than a week’s grounding this time around.

  The rings abruptly ended, and Annabelle waved her hand gleefully at Mary.

  “Hello?” came a scratchy but warm voice on the other end of the line.

  “Oh, ah… hello! Ah… Is this Teresa?”

  “Yes, I am Teresa,” came the cautious reply. “Who is this?”

  “Ah, this is Reverend Annabelle Dixon. I have with me Sister Mary Willis. I believe you know her.”

  “Yes. Indeed I do,” the woman replied, a strange note of tension in her voice.

  “Ah, well…” Annabelle stumbled over her words, wondering what she should say. The woman made no reference to the proposed meeting. She looked at Mary for a cue, but her open-mouthed look of anticipation provided none. “Well, we received a message that indicated you may be in danger. We’d like to come visit you as soon as possible.”

  “I see.” Teresa said slowly, her voice still filled with a sense of wariness, before continuing after a short pause. “Well, yes. That would probably be for the best. My address is fifty-two Glentworth Street. Head directly north from Baker Street station. My apartment covers the second floor.”

  Annabelle nodded firmly at each sentence, as if the physical gesture would help her better commit the address to memory.

  “Okay. We’ll be there as quickly as possible. But please, be careful in the meantime.”

  “Goodbye,” Teresa said after a second’s hesitation, as if bracing herself for some immense challenge.

  Annabelle slammed the receiver onto the hook and turned to Mary.

  “So? What did she say?” Mary asked, her large, round eyes urging Annabelle for information.

  “This is terribly strange,” Annabelle said, scratching her neatly-bobbed hair. “She didn’t seem fazed in the least, nor did she make any mention of the meeting with you. If the idea weren’t so preposterous, I’d say she was even somewhat suspicious of me. Did she always sound so guarded to you?”

  Mary pursed her lips as she thought. “No, not at all. From our conversations – though they were few – she seemed a very typical older lady. Warm, gentle, caring. Humorous, even.”

  Annabelle pitched her shoulders back and stood fully upright, like she always did before making a final decision.

  “Then we should make haste, because the woman on the other end of that line is obviously afraid of something. Let’s find out what it is.”

  And with that, Annabelle began her stern march once more toward the tube station, Sister Mary fluttering in tow like a ponytailed butterfly.

  * * *

  The two women made their way to the tube station and rolled through the turnstiles along with the mass of other fellow travelers. They reached the platform just as a train barrelled out from the dark tunnel and hopped on it.

  Annabelle slumped into her seat as if it were a comfy couch at the end of the day, while Sister Mary sat down delicately and slowly, as if setting her
self for tea.

  “When I’m in Africa, I do so miss riding the tube,” Mary said, displaying her unbridled positivity in spite of the macabre events of the morning.

  “If it were up to me, I’d happily give the whole transport system away,” Annabelle replied, gently kicking away an empty bottle that had rolled against her foot.

  Mary giggled at Annabelle’s rare grumbling. “However would you travel around London?”

  Annabelle shrugged and smiled. “I’m beginning to think the best thing to do is stay at home anyway!”

  Mary laughed gently, before her smile turned into the pursed lips of concern.

  “I am terribly sorry for all of this fuss, Annabelle. It’s a terrible shame that instead of catching up as we intended, we’re going who-knows-where for what seems like an incredibly worrying purpose.”

  “Oh, tosh,” assured Annabelle. “It’s fine. I’m sure this is all perfectly reasonable and will be clarified as soon as we have a chat and a cup of tea with this Teresa. Perhaps you’ll even get to finalize your funding.”

  “That would be very good,” Mary nodded.

  “Come on, we have to change trains here.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Baker Street.”

  “Home of Sherlock Holmes,” Mary added, joviality returning to her voice.

  “Perhaps he can help us with this confounding turn of events!”

  They exited the train, navigated the tunnels and escalators that led them onto the Metropolitan Line, and waited patiently on the platform.

  “Do you remember the time that we went to a Halloween party,” Mary began, after a moment of thought, “you as Sherlock Holmes and me as Jack the Ripper?”

  “But of course!” Annabelle said, happily looking into the distance as she brought the memory to her mind. “I had rather hoped you would go as Dr. Watson, instead.”

  “That would have been terribly boring,” Mary said. “You took the costume entirely too seriously.”

  “I did not!”

  “You did!” responded Mary. “You spent the entire evening – both the trick-or-treating and the party afterward at your cousin’s – staring suspiciously at people over your plastic bubble-pipe, trying to ‘deduce’ who had committed the crime of taking a bite of your Halloween cupcake.”