Bombing in Belgravia (A Cozy Mystery) (Cassie Coburn Mysteries Book 2) Read online

  “Yes, you have good knowledge of guns,” Violet complimented. At least, I thought it was a compliment.

  “Well, I am American,” I muttered. “Why does she have an Uzi? Isn’t that illegal here?”

  “Oh yes, but trust me, if the police ever raided that woman’s home they would never find it. And there are a number of things in that home that are far more illegal than a simple machine gun.”

  My mouth was running dry. My new life in London was insane. “Why does she have an Uzi?”

  “Mrs. Michaels is very protective of me. She would have noticed the SUVs as well, and been on the alert.”

  “So your bodyguard is an eighty-year-old widow?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well that makes me feel safe,” I deadpanned, and Violet turned to look at me.

  “You make the mistake of underestimating her due to her age. I promise you, if there was a single person in this whole country that I wanted to watch over my property, it is Mrs. Michaels.”

  “That gun must certainly help,” I said as Violet drew the blinds closed. “So I guess now our meeting at the morgue is off?” I couldn’t deny that despite Brianne telling me I had to be an adult about this, I was a bit glad we were being forced off the case.

  “No, of course not. Why would it be off?”

  “Well, the guy from the intelligence service just told you you’re no longer allowed to investigate this murder or he’ll throw you in jail.”

  Violet waved off the threat. “Ah, do not worry. That does not mean that we must stop investigating. It simply means we must begin investigating more secretly.”

  Of course being threatened with prison was a threat Violet would just completely ignore.

  “What was the comment at the end there, about his wife?”

  Violet smiled slightly. “She is not happy with him, Tompkins’ wife. His shirt has not been pressed, and she did not care to let him know before he left in the morning that he had a small bit of dried shaving cream behind his ear. However, she did see him before he left; there is a tiny bit of lipstick on his face, but it is on his cheek. She is not happy enough to kiss him on the mouth. He would do well to listen to my advice. Now, we go to see the good docteur?”

  I sighed as I got ready to head down to the Coroner’s Court in Westminster. It wasn’t enough that we were hunting a murderer. Now we were hunting a murderer and had to stay away from the authorities while doing it.

  And worse than all of that, I no longer had any more excuses to avoid Jake.

  Chapter 6

  Twenty minutes later Violet and I were standing in front of the quintessentially British looking, red-brick building that housed the Coroner’s Court. Violet was in a bad mood; she had told me that since MI5 had taken over the case sooner than expected, the bodies would be gone, but she still wanted to pump Jake for any information he might have gotten before having the bodies requisitioned and taken back to MI5.

  “Do you know if Jake is going to be in there?” I asked quietly as we stood outside the front doors of the building.

  “I do not know. I assume so, as he is the best pathologist here. They would likely have made him come into work to look at these bodies.”

  I paused before the door when Violet answered. I could see her wanting to roll her eyes, but to her credit, she simply stopped and put her hands on her hips.

  “Why are you so afraid of seeing him?”

  “I’m not afraid!” I protested.

  “Then why are you standing in front of the door, refusing to move, like a frightened puppy?”

  I had to admit, I had no good answer to that.

  “I’m not, I’m just, uh, taking a minute to admire the building,” I finally said. The lie sounded lame even to me.

  “Well then, you continue to stare at bricks, I will go inside and help solve a murder.”

  Cursing silently to myself, I followed Violet as we entered the building and made our way to the elevators to take us down to the basement level that housed the morgue. We stepped out of the elevator and onto the clinical grey tiled floor. A minute later, Jake popped out of one of the offices along the side.

  I couldn’t deny that my stomach began to flutter with butterflies as soon as I set eyes on Jake Edmonds. A little bit over six feet tall, with tousled blonde hair and a broad chest, Jake looked like he belonged on the cover of a magazine, or maybe on a beach in Australia, holding a surfboard, rather than hunkered down in a morgue, cutting up bodies. When he smiled, dimples formed in his cheeks, and I swallowed hard, smiling at him, not trusting myself to talk.

  “Miss Despuis,” he said to Violet, nodding. “And Cassie,” he said, his smile growing into a grin. “I haven’t seen you in ages,” he said.

  “Y-yeah… sorry,” I stammered. “I’ve uhhh… been busy.”

  “Of course, yeah. I assume you’re here looking for the Lin bodies?”

  “I know, they are gone, are they not?” Violet sighed, and Jake nodded.

  “Sorry, yeah. How do you know though?”

  “MI5 paid her a visit, threatening to throw her in jail if she didn’t stop investigating the murder.”

  Jake burst out laughing. “I bet she took that well.”

  “Well, we’re here now, aren’t we?” I replied, rolling my eyes slightly.

  “If the two of you are finished,” Violet said, “I have some questions about the bodies. I am hoping that Doctor Edmonds can answer them all the same.”

  “Yes, of course,” Jake said, giving me a wink as he grabbed a file off a stainless steel counter. “I made a copy of everything I had when I heard MI5 were coming to pick up the bodies; I figured you would still come by.”

  “Thank you. It is always good when I work with people who are not complete imbéciles,” Violet said, taking the file from Jake and flipping through it.

  “The police at the scene noted your suspicion that Jenny Lin had been killed prior to the blast. It is one hundred percent correct. I can’t tell you for sure what poison was used to poison her—”

  “Arsenic,” Violet interrupted.

  “But it was most likely arsenic, as you say,” Jake finished. “I did a biopsy of the liver and was ready to send it to the lab for a tox screen, but MI5 took it before I was able to send it away, so unfortunately I have no way of testing to be one hundred percent certain, but I am as certain as it’s possible to be without scientific confirmation. There was also vomiting residue around the collar of the victim’s shirt, implying that she had vomited not long before her death.”

  “And Kevin Lin?”

  “It appears that he died in the blast. His organs were ruptured, there were signs of significant, high pressure trauma and he suffered from serious burns all over his body, but there were no other indications of anything else that might have caused his death.”

  Violet began to pace around the room. “So there is nothing at all that you can tell me that is new?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Jake told her. “I just wanted to get the basics out of the way. Actually, I do have one thing that’s a bit strange.”

  “Oh yes?” Violet asked, perking up.

  “I must warn you, it is most likely nothing. In fact, the sample was so small, I briefly began to wonder if it was anything at all.”

  “What is it?” Violet asked, her eyes gleaming.

  “Jenny Lin’s hands were pretty well protected since she was curled up when the explosion happened, so I scraped under her fingernails. There wasn’t much there, but under one of her pinkies was a trace of something. The flame test showed it was lead-based, then my other tests showed it was a carbonate. It was white lead. I have no idea how Jenny Lin could have possibly got trace amounts of white lead under her fingernails. From the way she was dressed and what I know about her, she didn’t strike me as the type to be spending a lot of time in a mechanic’s workshop in Taiwan, as the product has been banned in the UK for quite some time now.”

  “Ahhhh, but you do not have the creative mind!” Violet excla
imed.

  “Hey, I just gave you something good, there’s no need to insult me,” Jake replied.

  “But it is not an insult! You are the scientist. Everything must be reasonable and logical. But this! This changes things! I believe I now know why Jenny Lin was killed. Did you tell MI5 about the white lead?”

  “I did, but that Agent Tompkins didn’t seem very interested.”

  “He would not, of course. That is because he is an imbécile of the highest order. But the lead carbonate, that will be the key to solving this crime. I am certain of that!”

  Violet began to pace around the room even faster now. I could practically hear her brain working at top speed. I looked over at Jake, who locked eyes with me and grinned.

  “Always an adventure with Violet, right?” he asked me.

  “You have no idea. Did I tell you she woke me up at two o’clock this morning to come look at Jenny Lin’s liver and confirm the poisoning for her?”

  Jake laughed, and the sound made me feel more comfortable around him. He wasn’t acting like there was anything wrong. Maybe Brianne was right. Maybe I was the weird one.

  “Hey, do you want to grab a coffee or something when you get some time?” Jake said. “Maybe after all this is over,” he continued, motioning at Violet, who was now furiously typing away on her phone.

  “Yeah, that sounds good,” I said with a small smile.

  “Cassie! Cassie come, we are going,” Violet suddenly ordered, without taking her eyes off her phone.

  “Well, I think that’s my cue,” I said. “We’ll get coffee. It’s a date,” I even managed to stammer out before practically running to the elevator. My face was beet red and I couldn’t help but start scolding myself. After all, I’d just had a normal, adult conversation with a guy. Ok, so that guy was hot as hell and way out of my league, but still! There was no reason for me to run away as soon as I said the word “date”. What was I, twelve years old?

  But I still couldn’t help the little flutter of happiness in my belly. After all, nothing bad had happened. I didn’t embarrass myself in front of Jake—not too badly, anyway. He didn’t hate me, he didn’t ignore me, and best of all he actually asked me on another date!

  I was so happy about that, I forgot to ask Violet about what the lead carbonate meant until we were almost home in the taxi. When I finally asked she told me she had to do some more research, and she would be in touch, but that there likely wouldn’t be anything more to do until the morning.

  I got home, knowing I had to walk Biscuit straight away or I’d probably collapse from exhaustion.

  Chapter 7

  As soon as I walked into the door and grabbed the harness, Biscuit was a ball of energy. Luckily, he had been well enough trained to stand still for the harness, and as soon as it was on and we were out the door he was straining on the end of it like an overly enthusiastic puppy.

  I laughed as I let myself be pulled along. When I’d first gotten Biscuit I was incredibly self-conscious about walking him in public. I felt like a crazy person. After all, who walks a cat? But Biscuit loved his walks, and slowly but surely I began to get used to it.

  We turned left onto Victoria Road and ten minutes later—we had to take a couple of breaks to chase some stray leaves blowing in the wind—we were at the entrance to Kensington Gardens.

  That I lived so close to these incredible Royal gardens still seemed incredible to me; here in the center of London, amongst the millions of people who lived and worked here every day, was this enormous park. It was filled with a combination of tourists and locals, and since I took Biscuit here almost every day, I was beginning to get to know a few of them.

  I waved at Ivana, a girl from Slovenia who worked as a nanny and liked to speak to me to practice her English, even though her English was already pretty much perfect. She hurriedly waved back before trying to keep the toddler she was watching from tripping over a tree root as he ran after a dog chasing a Frisbee.

  I took Biscuit along the broad walk, which was, as the name implied, one of the larger paths though the park. Biscuit happily trotted around in the grass next to the path, stopping occasionally to climb up one of the many tall, leafy trees that lined the park.

  Every time I brought Biscuit here people wanted to pet him; after all, dogs in the park were no novelty, but it was rare to see a cat on a leash. Biscuit, luckily, was one hundred percent a people cat. He loved the attention, and the more pets he got, the happier he was. He even squirmed along the ground on his back, inviting people to rub his belly. Sometimes I thought my cat was a dog in a feline body. Then other times he’d throw up a hairball into my shoe and I knew that he was one hundred percent cat.

  I waited as a five-year-old girl carefully pet Biscuit on the head; she giggled happily when he meowed contentedly, then as I looked up I saw a woman a few years older than me who had a nice little Yorkshire Terrier named Kiki. Kiki and Biscuit got along pretty well, we assumed it was because they were the same size, so I made my way over toward the bench she was sitting on.

  “Hey, Linda,” I said to her as I sat down, and she greeted me with a warm smile.

  “Hi, Cassie,” she told me in her super posh English accent. Linda was an executive at an advertising agency, and she was always impeccably dressed. It also helped that she was about five foot nine and looked like a model.

  “How are things going?” Linda asked me as Biscuit went up to Kiki and they began to sniff each other.

  “Oh, all right,” I replied. “Violet is getting me to help her with that bombing in Belgravia. Although I’m not sure how much I’m helping anymore, there doesn’t seem to be much more medical advice I can give other than “yes, that is a dead person” and I’m pretty sure she can figure that part out on her own.”

  Linda laughed. “Well, you never know. One day your medical knowledge might end up being the whole key to solving one of her cases. And as long as you’re enjoying the work, then that’s the important thing.”

  “I do. I have to admit, I find that following Violet around and watching her work is the most fun I’ve had since I’ve moved to London. It sounds macabre to admit, though. How about you, what have you been up to?”

  “I met a man,” Linda told me, giving me a sly look.

  “Oooh, tell me!” I asked, leaning forward for the gossip. I had known Linda was single, but she also didn’t seem especially interested in men.

  “The story is such a stereotype. He’s a client of the accounting firm the floor below us at the office, and so we ended up taking the lift together a few times. Apparently he’s being audited, so he’s having to see his accountant more than usual. Anyway, he asked me out last week and we had a casual lunch yesterday.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Aaron. He looks like Channing Tatum.”

  “Stop right there. I don’t need to know anything else. He’s perfect,” I said, and while Linda laughed, I noticed it sounded a little bit hollow.

  “Wait, something is wrong,” I said. I could definitely tell, Linda was keeping something about this story from me.

  “It’s nothing. At least, I think it’s nothing. I’m just being paranoid.”

  “What is it?”

  “Well, that’s the thing. I don’t actually have any solid proof of anything. I think I’m probably just being paranoid, since I haven’t actually had a boyfriend in ages and I’m so scared that something’s going to go belly-up.” I waited patiently for Linda to continue, which she did a minute later. “But the other day when we were having coffee, we were talking about our families. Obviously we’re both single, and I believed him when he said he had never been married. But then I was telling him about my sister, and how close we were growing up. He told me he didn’t have any siblings, and I don’t know, I just got the feeling he was lying to me, you know? But who lies about that? There’s no reason to. So I was thinking maybe I was paranoid, and now I’m rambling, and I know I sound like a crazy person.”

  “No, no, not at all,”
I lied. She did sound a little bit insane. But at the same time, I understood where she was coming from. “So you think he was lying to you about having siblings?”

  “I’m really not sure anymore. The more I think about it, the more I’ve been convincing myself that perhaps I’ve just got a bit of an overactive imagination,” Linda said slowly. “But it seems no matter how hard I try, I can’t shake the feeling that he was lying to me. But the thing is, I don’t understand why he would.”

  “But you’re afraid that if he’s lying to you this early on in the relationship, that it’s not going to work out?” I tried. I didn’t know Linda very well, but I knew she was one of those women who did everything at one hundred percent. She was so busy with her high-powered job; she wasn’t going to waste time with any guy that didn’t have the potential to be the one.

  “Exactly,” she nodded. “I do feel a bit foolish, complaining about something so trivial.”

  “No, no, not at all,” I appeased. I could actually see where she was coming from. If he was lying to her about something so trivial, why wouldn’t he lie about other, more important things in the future?

  “So anyway, I’m excited about the new relationship, but I can’t get that sinking feeling out of my gut either.”

  “Do you want me to ask Violet to look into the guy for you?” I asked. I imagined for her this would be a thirty second job.

  “Oh, no no, definitely not,” Linda replied. “Thank you, but no. It’s just my personal life, being as much of a mess as always. I’ll sort it out myself in the end, don’t worry.”

  “Ok, for sure. What did you say his name was?” I asked on a whim.

  “Aaron. Aaron Stone. I hope it’s just me being insane. He really is a nice guy.”

  “I hope it’s just you being insane too,” I laughed. “I’m sure it’ll be fine, though.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe I’m just destined to be alone forever.” And with that hopeful comment, Linda got up. “Thanks for being a good shoulder to whine on. I’m seeing him again tonight and I’m just hoping I don’t mess it up too badly.”