Murder on the Menu

By Marissa De Luna

It’s an unhappy birthday when murder crashes the party—but luckily, a sleuthing baker is in the mix . . .

Shilpa Solanki has settled into life in Otter’s Reach, and her cakes are selling like . . . well, hotcakes. When tycoon Roy Arden turns eighty, Shilpa caters the event—but the party’s over when it turns out it was Roy’s last birthday.

Roy’s daughter, Caroline, asks Shilpa to investigate, and delving into the Arden family dysfunction provides a surfeit of suspects: the much-younger second wife; the gardener-turned-son-in-law Roy never approved of; the brother he had a strained relationship with. Then Caroline turns up dead, too, and Shilpa has to burn the candle at both ends to find the culprit in this cozy culinary mystery by the author of A Slice of Murder.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jul 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9781504076739

Book preview

Chapter One

Shilpa peered over the cliff. It was a twenty-metre drop into the waves crashing beneath her. She put her hand on the wooden railing to steady herself as she looked past the glimmering sea towards the golden sands of East Portlemouth. She squinted in the sunlight and reached for her sunglasses perched on top of her head, pulling them down over her eyes. To the right of the treacherous rocks was a small, secluded cove that was only accessible via a stainless-steel ladder secured to the cliff face. Shilpa imagined the residents of the luxurious 1920s mansion known as Arden Copse had many a tale to tell about that little stretch of sand, their own private beach.

‘Careful.’ A hand on her shoulder yanked her back. ‘That railing isn’t secure.’

Caroline Arden-Harris pushed a stray strand of her blonde hair behind her ear and showed Shilpa where the wood had rotted close to the rusted bolts which just about held it together.

‘Someone once fell to their death down there,’ Caroline said.

Shilpa instinctively took a step back.

‘It was years ago, now. It’s why we have a railing, but it needs repairing.’

‘A job that the estate manager should have seen to by now, with the party and all.’ A tall woman, much younger than Caroline, with a button nose and sumptuous chestnut curls had joined them on the viewing platform at the top of the cliff, bringing a strained atmosphere with her.

‘He’s been busy,’ Caroline snapped. A man pulling a trolley with two huge planters containing viburnum bushes struggled past them. ‘Over there, behind the bench,’ she directed. Then she took her phone out from her gilet pocket and touched the cracked screen. ‘This blasted phone,’ she said. ‘It’s so temperamental.’

‘I’m sure Roy can get you a new one,’ Annabel said.

Caroline pocketed her phone. ‘I’ll speak to Jack later,’ she said, ignoring Annabel’s comment.

Shilpa didn’t know Caroline well, but she had had several dealings with her. It was Caroline who had sought her out to make a birthday cake for her father’s eightieth tomorrow. They were having a party on the lawns to celebrate. Mrs Arden-Harris had been calm and composed in all their dealings. Even when the purple-and-yellow pineapple guava flowers she had very much wanted to adorn her father’s cake were unavailable, she simply asked for an appropriate alternative and moved on. Shilpa had been surprised and impressed. Rich clients were used to having every whim met and Shilpa had braced herself when she had picked up the phone to Caroline.

‘And anyway,’ Caroline continued. ‘Daddy wants the railing removed. It somewhat obstructs the view. It’s not like there’ll be any children at the party.’ She looked Annabel up and down, but her young stepmother didn’t seem to take offence.

‘It’s just an ugly reminder of what happened,’ Caroline continued. ‘Jack will fit a shorter railing here and it will be in place for tomorrow,’ she said, resuming her usual composure. She adjusted her hair and smiled brightly at Shilpa.

‘If you say so,’ Annabel said. ‘I just came to see how things were going.’

‘Everything is under control,’ Caroline said. One of the electricians who was stringing up the lights caught her attention and she left Shilpa alone with Annabel. There was an awkward silence before Caroline returned.

Annabel cleared her throat. She took her phone out of her jacket pocket and looked at the screen. ‘My manicurist is here. I’ll leave you to it,’ she said.

‘Surplus to requirements,’ Caroline said under her breath, staring at Annabel’s back as she crossed the narrow road and climbed the steps up onto the front lawn of Arden Copse.

‘So what happened?’ Shilpa asked, attempting to break the spell Annabel had cast on Caroline.

Caroline turned to her. ‘She married my father.’ Caroline touched her fingers to her lips. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘You didn’t mean that, did you? What happened down there on Mermaid Rock?’

Shilpa nodded.

‘It was a long time ago. Fifty-five years. Someone my father knew. A party girl, I suppose you could call her. She had one too many and tripped. Fell over the edge. This was all before I was born. Shall we head back towards the house? Come,’ Caroline said, leading the way. ‘Do you know,’ she added, changing the topic, ‘that to the rear of the house, beyond the pool there is a lawn that leads down to the copse, behind which there is a stream and a pond. Daddy’s estate is just enormous.’ Caroline stopped and looked at the house. ‘One day Jacob and Monty will inherit the lot,’ she said to Shilpa, adding to clarify, ‘My sons. Daddy has no other children or grandchildren so…’ She trailed off.

‘I wasn’t aware of the copse,’ Shilpa said, following her guide to the front of the house.

‘That’s what gives the house its name,’ Caroline said, stopping again to catch her breath.

The 1920s mansion stood on higher ground and towered over its lawns and the viewing deck with the unstable railings that looked over Mermaid Rock. The house was of a time with high arched windows which contrasted with the clean, horizontal, whitewashed walls. Palm trees dotted the beautifully manicured gardens, with a stunning magnolia tree taking centre stage. Blue agapanthus and red camellias were in bloom, primed and ready for the party.

Shilpa too, had inherited a beautiful house on the water, not quite as grand but nevertheless the inheritance had changed her life. She momentarily wondered how Jacob’s and Monty’s lives would change when they took control of Arden Copse. They had been born into wealth, so she doubted that it would have any effect whatsoever.

Shilpa smiled to herself and followed her host. Before she entered the house through the French doors that stretched the length of the left side of the house, she turned back and took one last look towards the sea. She heard the waves crash once more against Mermaid Rock.

Chapter Two

‘H ave you seen the news?’ Brijesh asked. Shilpa’s lodger in his checked pyjama bottoms was sitting cross-legged on her sofa with a mug of tea in his hand.

Shilpa didn’t have to watch the news. She had been there when it happened and had been interviewed by the police. Not that she was able to tell them much.

The living room hadn’t changed much since her arrival last year. Although she had done various bits of renovation over the last twelve months, she had left the sitting room and kitchen as they were. The same old cream sofas sat in the middle of her open-plan sitting room, one facing the cream gloss kitchen and the other facing the bifold doors that looked over the estuary.

The tide was out. Shilpa never tired of the changing landscape of the estuary. In winter it could be wild and unpredictable, in summer the water soothed her as the tide came and went. She rarely consulted a tide table, enjoying the randomness of the effect of the moon on water. Brijesh had threatened to get her a tide clock, but to date one hadn’t appeared.

‘No work today?’ she asked.

Brijesh shook his head. ‘I have an off day.’

‘A day off,’ she said, smiling. She was getting used to Brijesh’s expressions. After Brijesh had moved out last summer, Shilpa had lived alone, but she found that she missed his company. In the two brief weeks that Brijesh had lived with her, they had become friends, and given he was now dating her best friend Tanvi, they were almost family.

‘Typical,’ her mother had said when she told Mrs Solanki that Tanvi and Brijesh were in a committed relationship. ‘I sent him to your house. What happened?’ her mother asked. As if relationships were so black and white.

She loved Brijesh as a friend, definitely not a lover. Tanvi, on the other hand, who had had her fair share of men in the past, seemed to be besotted with this unlikely candidate. They had been dating for the past year. Tanvi was still working in London, unable to commit to the slower pace of life in Devon, although Shilpa knew the move was inevitable. Brijesh said London was far too busy for him after having lived most of his life in the small Indian state of Goa, and so with his girlfriend in London and Shilpa still single, they seemed to spend much of their free time together. When Brijesh’s landlady decided to double his rent, Shilpa offered him her spare room at a fraction of the cost and in a much better location.

‘Tanvi?’ she asked.

‘Conference she couldn’t get out of,’ Brijesh said. ‘Come see this,’ he added, looking back at the television screen.

‘I don’t need to watch it play out on television. I was there, remember?’ Shilpa clasped her hands together to stop them from trembling.

‘Do you know that Roy Arden owned most of the land in Otter’s Reach and Mermaid Point? He sold it off piece by piece in the eighties and nineties, getting richer with every transaction. He made a killing.’

‘Have you been reading that local history book again?’ she asked. Brijesh leaned over to the side table and picked up the dog-eared book. Shilpa adjusted her cardigan. She was wrapped in anxiety. She had got home in the small hours of the morning and had only just surfaced. Every time she thought about the party and what had happened, she felt a fresh wave of nausea.

Brijesh picked up the remote and muted the television. He turned to face her. ‘So tell,’ he said, like an excited teen who had missed the party of the year.

Shilpa pressed the green flashing light on her coffee machine. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath as she waited. Caroline had asked her to stay on after she dropped the cake off and Shilpa obliged, keen to see how the other half lived. It had been an incredible party, she had to admit. It just didn’t end very well.

She picked up her cup and glanced at her watch. She didn’t have to be anywhere, and neither did Brijesh by the looks of it.

‘It was pretty amazing,’ she said, and then stopped. It felt wrong to speak about yesterday, and yet she wanted to share what she had seen. Brijesh would appreciate the fine detail and the trouble that the Ardens had gone to.

‘And?’ he asked, impatiently.

Shilpa sat down on the sofa, leaning back into the soft cushions with her cup of coffee. ‘No expense spared. White orchids everywhere; sparkling lights in the liquidambar trees that border the property; free-flowing Bollinger and a wonderful string quartet.’ Shilpa allowed herself to think back to Roy Arden’s eightieth birthday gathering. Opulent was the only word she could use to describe it. ‘There must have been at least 150 guests dressed in the best designers. Lots of flowing silks in bright colours, men in chinos.’

‘Would you expect anything less from a first-class tax evader?’ Brijesh asked.

Shilpa looked at her friend blankly.

‘He was mentioned in that tax avoidance scandal that broke a few years ago.’

‘How do you know that?’ Shilpa asked. She could imagine someone like Roy Arden having a team of accountants to help him avoid paying his dues.

‘The internet.’ Brijesh waved his phone at her. ‘He wasn’t all that bad though. It says here that he gave people jobs in the last recession and regenerated this area. It’s only natural that he’d have wanted to celebrate with all his friends and acquaintances.’

‘And enemies,’ Shilpa said, the uneasy feeling returning. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes again.

‘Online it said he fell to his death just after midnight,’ Brijesh said.

‘Did it?’ Shilpa asked.

‘You’re not convinced?’

Shilpa was silent. She shifted on the sofa as she tried to figure out what it was that was making her so uncomfortable. Was it the exchange she had witnessed between Caroline and Annabel the day before yesterday when she had been given a tour of the house and gardens? The way Caroline had stared at her stepmother suggested a deep-seated hatred. Had she known then that Annabel was pregnant, carrying the heir to the Arden estate, the estate that Caroline wanted her sons Jacob and Monty to inherit?

Caroline may well have discussed her new half-sibling and his legacy with her father out on the viewing deck. Did things get heated when the sun had set and the party was still in full swing, the string quartet replaced by a swing band, the white orchids exchanged for birds of paradise? Dozens of staff had been working behind the scenes to ensure the crystal was polished, the table linens changed and the guests’ glasses were topped up. Someone would have seen something, surely.

Shilpa had noticed that Roy Arden, full of life for his eighty years, had developed a limp as the evening went on. ‘A late-night party isn’t out of the ordinary for him,’ she had heard one guest comment. ‘He’s still so charming and charismatic.’

‘And virile,’ another woman had responded with a chuckle. The announcement of his new heir had taken most of the party guests by surprise, especially given the way Annabel had been knocking back the champagne. After the announcement, she had immediately swapped her bubbles for something soft, as if no one would have remembered her earlier behaviour.

It was clear that Roy Arden’s leg was troubling him, but Shilpa could tell from Roy’s keenness to talk to anyone who came his way that her host wasn’t one to retire from a party early. Instead, he had seated himself on the bench on the viewing deck at the top of the cliff in front of the large viburnum bushes that Shilpa had seen wheeled over the day before the party.

A member of staff had put out grey-and-white cashmere blankets to keep guests warm. The clifftop viewing deck was dimly lit and separated from the front lawn by the road, but despite the distance, it still seemed very much part of the landscape of the house. Most of the guests stayed on the front lawns enjoying their host’s generosity, but every now and again one or two guests would venture towards the bench to look at the water below. There was something magical about the moon’s reflection on the water and people were understandably drawn to it.

On the wooden bench, Roy had prime position looking out over the still, dark water as guests came and went. The view was now unbroken by the old railing because it had been replaced by a short wooden knee rail as Caroline had promised. As night had descended and Roy had taken his seat on the viewing deck, Shilpa had been on the lawns, standing by the magnolia tree. It was a pleasant September evening despite the cloudless sky. She had wanted to see the house from across the road on the viewing deck, knowing it would look spectacular lit up, but word was out that she had made the white chocolate cake with amaretto and raspberry ganache, and so she had a steady stream of people to talk to. Thankfully she had also accepted two further commissions.

She occasionally glanced over at Roy Arden. The guest she had overheard had been right. Despite the man’s health issues, he was charismatic and charming. He stood up to talk to each guest, looking directly at them as they spoke, addressing his guests by their names; in the still summer air, their voices carried up to the lawns where Shilpa was, and she could hear them when the music faded. Roy Arden was doing his best to make everyone feel welcome. He had even greeted Shilpa in the same manner, feigning interest in what she did and how she started her business.

‘I’m always interested in little start-ups,’ he had said earlier in the evening. ‘How one gets their ideas and then executes their plans.’ His voice lowered to a whisper. ‘Some don’t have any plans,’ he had said conspiratorially. ‘Ninety per cent fail in their first year. All ideas and no business sense. I take a gamble on one or two now and again.’ He looked at her then, and she felt a little unnerved because of course she had had no plan when she had started, despite her degree in business studies, and she was sure he knew it. Yet despite his last comment, she had felt welcome in his home.

‘Enjoy,’ he had said as he left her and headed towards a grey-haired lady who looked to be in her seventies. It was someone he clearly had great affection for by the way he touched the woman’s elbow and tilted his head to one side as she spoke to him, a warm smile spreading across his face. An old family friend, perhaps, or an ex-lover, Shilpa had wondered.

‘You spoke to him?’ Brijesh said. ‘Mr Arden himself.’

‘Yes,’ Shilpa said, taking a sip of her now somewhat cool coffee. ‘And he was charming, although on reflection I wonder if he was belittling me.’

‘So do you think she did it?’ Brijesh asked.

‘Who?’ Shilpa asked.

‘His daughter. Did she push him off the cliff?’

‘Caroline?’ Shilpa shook her head. ‘She may have been angry with him, but if she was annoyed with their announcement, it would have been better to throw his wife off the viewing deck, don’t you think?’

‘Because this new heir prevented her sons from getting the big house?’

Shilpa nodded. ‘Something like that. But to kill her own father, I’m not sure.’ Any one of Roy’s guests could have pushed Roy to his death; a man with a port wine stain on his forehead whose eyes kept shifting around; several glamorous women who Shilpa had caught looking at their host like he owed them something, their husbands manoeuvring them away.

‘So maybe Annabel did it, or maybe the good-looking old woman he was chatting to,’ Brijesh said unhelpfully.

‘Did I say she was good-looking?’ Shilpa asked, glancing at Brijesh, although Brijesh had been correct in his assumptions. Shilpa thought back to last night. She had been sidetracked from watching her host talking with the old woman, as Brijesh had put it, by an eccentric gentleman wearing a cobalt-blue suit and sporting an impressive goatee.

‘We’ve only just moved here,’ the man had said with what Shilpa thought was an Australian accent as he motioned towards the woman talking with Roy Arden. ‘I say just, but it’s been over a year.’

‘Same,’ Shilpa had said, explaining to her audience of one that she had moved from London to Devon a year ago after inheriting her uncle’s house on the Otter’s Reach estuary a few miles from Mermaid Point. She explained how she had set up a business making occasion cakes and supplying local businesses with various bakes and that she ran a market stall.

‘We’ve come a little farther than that,’ the man had said, introducing himself as Geoffrey Burton, the husband of Patricia, who was deep in conversation with Roy Arden. ‘Wellington, New Zealand,’ Geoffrey said. ‘We were by the water there and we’re by the water here,’ he explained. ‘It’s lovely, just lovely. We’ve had a blessed life, the wife and I.’

A few hours later, after Shilpa had sampled some of the late-night offerings of cold cuts and cheeses, she had found herself on the front lawns talking to the man in the blue suit again. Shilpa had enquired as to the reason Geoffrey and his wife had moved to South Devon and he had laughed. ‘When the wife wants something…’ he started. ‘We came here to see family and ended up staying. We’ve let our house back home so we can go back anytime. Patty has her contacts here and our daughter lives in Dartmouth so…’ Geoffrey held one hand up and shrugged, taking a sip of the strawberry daiquiri in his other hand. ‘…here we are.’

‘So your wife knows Roy?’ Shilpa had asked.

‘Sorry?’

‘Your wife knows Roy?’ Shilpa had repeated. ‘You said she had contacts here. I just assumed–’

‘Strange, isn’t it?’ Geoffrey had said.

‘What’s strange?’ Shilpa had asked, thinking the man in front of her was a little strange.

‘It’s Roy’s eightieth, and Martin hasn’t been mentioned.’

‘Martin?’ Shilpa had asked.

Geoffrey gave her a curious look, but didn’t say any more.

‘Who’s Martin?’ she asked.

‘You don’t know Roy then?’ Geoffrey had said.

‘No. I just made the cake.’

‘The cake lady?’ Geoffrey had glanced at the remnants of the cake, which was partially visible through the open French doors. ‘Oh, you made that scrummy masterpiece in there?’

Shilpa had nodded, and Geoffrey’s face had lit up. ‘Now, you must tell me why my cakes always sink in the middle. Speak of the devil,’ he said, turning towards the viewing deck. ‘That’s Martin over there with Roy now.’

Shilpa was about to follow her companion’s gaze when Geoffrey turned to her and pressed her for the reason as to why his cakes were not turning out right.

‘Possibly too much baking powder,’ she had said. ‘Do you open the oven door when your cakes are cooking?’

Geoffrey’s eyes had widened. ‘Of course,’ he had said.

Shilpa had been about to say something, but the lights suddenly tripped and they were cloaked in darkness.

When the lights came back on, she started telling Geoffrey what he was doing wrong with his cakes, but she had quickly been silenced by a scream. A scream so loud that, for a moment, it was as if time stood still.

Chapter Three

‘T his is getting to be a bit of a habit,’ Leoni said from behind the counter.

Shilpa looked down at her grey chinos, Breton T-shirt and velvet Hefner slippers. Today she had chosen a pair with silver and blue birdcages embroidered on the toes. She had bought the expensive footwear about a year ago when she was in London and suffering from a broken heart. She had hoped the shoes would alleviate some