Apple Pie and Follies An Abi Button Cozy Mystery Romance #6

By Lizzie Lewis

Alice and Rupert Forrester have just moved into the house Abi used to call Creepy Castle. The basement apartment will soon be ready for newlywed Bethany and Harry with baby Freddie. Alice finds an old map of the area in the college library, which leads to some exciting discoveries.
Some items donated to the local cat charity cause serious problems for Abi and Danny, with Danny locked in a police cell and suspended from work at lawyers Branks, Davis & Waters, and Abi taken in for questioning. Meanwhile, life at Button Up coffee shop proceeds in the usual way ‒ a way that is often far from normal.
This is the sixth and final Abi Button cozy mystery romance, taking place in a small English town.

• Language: English
• Publisher: White Tree Publishing
• Release date: Oct 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9781912529766

Book preview

About the Book

Alice and Rupert Forrester have just moved into the house Abi used to call Creepy Castle. The basement apartment will soon be ready for newlywed Bethany and Harry with baby Freddie. Alice finds an old map of the area in the college library, which leads to some exciting discoveries.

Some items donated to the local cat charity cause serious problems for Abi and Danny, with Danny locked in a police cell and suspended from work at lawyers Branks, Davis & Waters, and Abi taken in for questioning. Meanwhile, life at Button Up coffee shop proceeds in the usual way ‒ a way that is often far from normal.

This is the sixth and final Abi Button cozy mystery romance, taking place in a small English town.

Apple Pie and Follies

An Abi Button Cozy Mystery Romance #6

by

Lizzie Lewis ©2020

This eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-76-6

Also available as a paperback

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-912529-77-3

Published by

White Tree Publishing

Bristol

UNITED KINGDOM

[e-mail]

Full list of books and updates on

https://whitetreepublishing.com/

Apple Pie and Follies is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of this abridged edition.

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Book

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Epilogue

What a Friend We Have in Jesus ‒ Hymn

More Abi Button Books

About White Tree Publishing

Chapter 1

It wasn’t that I was feeling lonely, because obviously Danny was sharing the house and bed. What felt wrong was how strangely empty the house was without Alice and Rupert to chat to and help with the cooking. I expect Julie and Paul Watkins were having much the same experience now that Bethany was married. Not sharing the bed with Bethany of course, but no longer having Bethany and baby Freddie in the house.

Yes, Alice and Rupert’s house was finished at last, and we were experiencing an unexpectedly hot month of June. We saw very little of Bethany and little Freddie now that she was married to Harry and living on the other side of town. But that was about to change.

Brian Warmley, Alice and Rupert’s builder, was just finishing the basement of Creepy Castle. No, I mustn’t call it that now. Brian Warmley and his team have transformed the whole creepy house, getting rid of the smell Old Man Newton left behind. Alice, with input from her husband Rupert ‒ and occasional interference from me ‒ had furnished it throughout with flatpack furniture and cozy carpets.

The iron bars had already been removed from the basement windows, central heating installed, and only a few small jobs here and there needed to be completed to turn it into a completely self-contained apartment, with its own entrance from the back garden for the newlyweds. Then we would be seeing Bethany once again, providing Julie and Paul didn’t monopolise her time completely.

So all was going really well, until Danny was suspended from his job as a junior solicitor with Branks, Davis & Waters, and placed in a cell in the local police station. But more of that later.

Alice and Rupert had invited us round to share some interesting news and join them for a meal. If it had been called exciting news, rather than just interesting, I might have wondered if we’d be hearing the patter of tiny feet before long, so I ruled that one out. And it wasn’t a housewarming party, because it was just the two of us who were going.

It’s only a short walk between our two houses. There is an area of woodland in between, and on the other side of the road a long terrace of brick houses. All these houses were built for workers in the cotton mill that was flattened many years ago and replaced by small industrial and commercial units.

Alice and Rupert’s house is larger than mine, and has stone steps up to the front door. That’s because it has a basement. The house was built for the manager of the cotton mill. Mine was built for a mill foreman, presumably a senior mill foreman, whose place in the employment pecking order didn’t merit a basement. Not even a cellar. But it’s detached, like Alice and Rupert‘s house.

Rupert opened the door to us, and the smell of cooking wafted out. It certainly made a pleasant change from the stink old Isaac Newton had left behind. He had bequeathed the house in his will to his brother’s four children who had lost their parents a few years earlier. When he died, they were in their twenties and early thirties, and scrounging off their uncle.

According to the will, the house was to be sold and the money shared four ways. However, Isaac Newton – obviously not the Isaac Newton – had set cryptic crosswords in his younger days. As well as leaving the house in his will, he left two cryptic clues to a source of great wealth. It was clever Alice who managed to crack both clues. The wealth turned out to be useful, rather than great.

Although not enough to retire on, Alice used the money to buy her siblings’ share of the house, and employ a local builder to sort the whole place out. The old man had become a recluse after the death of his mother, and the state of the inside of the building defies description. In fact, I don’t even want to think about it ‒ especially the bathroom. Enough said.

The money also enabled Alice to get engaged to her significant other, Rupert Forrester, and they moved to my town last year and got married. Alice is a librarian, and quickly found a job in the local college library. Rupert, who’s a car mechanic, got employment in a local independent garage.

Because their house wasn’t fit for habitation, Danny and I invited Alice and Rupert to live with us. We had also just got married. In fact, we had a joint wedding, which turned out to be an extremely stressful event. But our honeymoons were extremely romantic.

Back to the smell of food wafting out through the front door. It wasn’t only Rupert who appeared. With an excited yapping noise, a small brown dog jumped up and down excitedly, taking no notice of Rupert’s strict instructions of, "Down, Beano. Down!"

I’m not really a dog person, and had never considered getting one, but this little terrier – or should I say terror – melted my heart immediately. I was glad I hadn’t dressed up for the occasion, because he was wiping his little paws up and down my jeans.

He’s gorgeous, I said, rubbing his wiry head. His hair reminded me of Alice’s. Completely unruly. Is this the surprise?

His name is Beano, Rupert said. Some sort of terrier, but no one is quite sure what. He seems to be mostly Norfolk Terrier. And he’s only the first surprise.

"You have two dogs? I asked in amazement. Wherever did you get them?"

Rupert bent down and patted Beano’s head. Just the one. And you’re quite enough, aren’t you, Beano? Then he looked up at us. Beano is only a year old. One of the students at the college was selling it for his mother. She lives in a flat and couldn’t get out enough to give him any exercise. She quickly discovered that Beano has far too much energy to be a house dog.

Beano looked up at Rupert as though he understood every word. Rupert patted him again. Anyway, don’t stand there. We’re nearly ready to eat.

So what’s the other surprise? I asked.

Rupert just tapped his nose, and we made our way through the hallway.

Alice was in the large kitchen at the back of the house where she and Rupert had been preparing what turned out to be lamb casserole with root and green vegetables. I took a look out of the back window, just to see how much progress Brian Warmley, their builder, had made in clearing the garden. The old summerhouse that had been used more recently as a shed for storage had gone, and brand-new high wooden fencing surrounded the garden. But generally the area was still a mess.

What are you doing with the old patio? I asked.

Alice removed the large casserole dish from the oven and placed it on the kitchen table with a thump. Okay, so this wasn’t a posh meal. Alice had chosen to keep the large dining table and chairs that the old man had left, but reserved them for special occasions. Not that I object to eating in the kitchen. Danny and I have all our meals in the kitchen, unless we want to watch something on television. In that case, we use lap trays and sit together on the sofa in the living room.

I hope you don’t mind eating in the kitchen, Alice said. Did she really think we would mind? There’s a surprise waiting in the dining room, she explained. Well, she didn’t actually explain anything, because she didn’t tell us what the surprise was.

I was tempted to pop into the hall and take a peek, but of course I didn’t. What, am I nosy?

I could see Alice was excited to share some news, apparently the excuse for the meal, and by the time we’d finished the casserole and cleared the plates, she looked ready to make the big announcement.

I made an amazing discovery at work, she said.

Okay, so we definitely weren’t about to get baby news. Not that I’d been expecting it. I know we’d been married for nine months, but I hadn’t seriously expected to find a baby lying in a cot in the dining room. And? I said.

We can either go to the dining room now, or have dessert first.

Much as I love desserts, especially if it’s Alice’s home-made apple pie, curiosity got the better of me. The dining room, I said, without hesitating.

Danny didn’t look so convinced.

I pushed my chair back and stood up quickly, grabbing hold of Danny’s arm. The dining room, I repeated.

Chapter 2

Not only had we been all over the house many times, we’d even helped decorate it and assemble the flat pack furniture. So the actual dining room wouldn’t normally have held any surprises. The bookshelves that had lined the walls in the old man’s time had long gone, but I have to admire Alice and Rupert’s decision to keep the old dining table. It is probably early Victorian, or maybe even Georgian. It has weathered from generations of use, but that only adds to its appeal.

The top of the table now had a large sheet of paper on it. It looked like some sort of old map. I went forward to look closely. Yes, more of a plan than a map, and it was clearly hand-drawn in black ink. It definitely looked old. Perhaps as old as the table.

Alice found this in the college library, Rupert explained proudly.

I didn’t know if this was some sort of double act, where they would take it in turns explaining what we were looking at. It didn’t matter. All I wanted was to know what all the excitement was about. I mean, how exciting can an old map be?

Danny, using the intellect and perception of a trained solicitor, caught on quickly. It’s a map of this area, he said. "Wow, this is fascinating."

I moved closer, putting an arm around Danny’s shoulder. Even after nine months of marriage I still found his body exciting. A lot more exciting than an old map, I have to say.

Is there a date on the map? Danny asked. I’ve often wondered how old these houses are.

That’s easy, I said. They’re early Victorian. Everyone knows that.

The date is in the corner, Alice told us, putting a finger delicately on the map. That’s librarians for you, treating printed paper with great care and diligence. It says August 1801.

I shook my head. That’s impossible. Victoria didn’t come onto the throne until the eighteen forties ... I think. Something like that, anyway. This must be a forgery.

Danny smiled. It wasn’t a supercilious smile, just a gentle one. Abi, no one is going to go to the trouble of forging a map. What makes you think our houses were built in Victorian times?

I just thought ... no, that’s what my dad told me. He was convinced they were early Victorian.

Had my father really misled me all through my formative years? Did that mean everything he had told me was based on a lie? I laughed to myself. He was the greatest father anyone could have. He and Mum retired early and emigrated permanently to Spain six years ago, after putting the deeds of the house in my name. Lucky me!

Are you sure? I asked. Absolutely sure?

Alice also smiled. Abi, we have a lot of old documents in the college library. I’m not an expert on them, but I can assure you that this is a genuine map of the area, drawn in 1801.

Rupert was ready to back her up. "It’s not just the map that shows how