“It’ll be nice,” he said wistfully, “when I’ll be going home to Jayne every night.”

  “You were here alone. Anyone see you leave?”

  “Yes, and I told Louise. Kyle Jackman, the chef at the fish market on the other side of the pier, was passing. We said hi, exchanged a few words. He made a joke about me soon to be a married man. Then we went our separate ways.”

  “Did Estrada call him?”

  “I don’t know. She said she was going to.”

  “Do you have his number?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “The fish market should be open this morning. I’ll pop over and talk to him. His place has been in West London forever. He’ll make a reliable alibi.” I put my empty bowl on the counter. “See, all sorted.”

  “Thanks, Gemma. Would you like to take a container with you for lunch?”

  “Absolutely.”

  * * *

  The fish market serves not only as a place to buy the freshest of fish but also as a restaurant to have it prepared for you. The restaurant wasn’t open yet, but the shop was. I asked the young clerk if Kyle was in yet.

  “He’s popular today,” she said. “The police were here earlier.”

  “And?”

  “And I said no. He’s not in and not expected to be. He’s taking some vacation time. I told the cops that.”

  “Do you have his number?”

  “Yes.”

  I smiled at her.

  “I’m not giving it to you.”

  “Did you give it to the police?”

  “I could hardly say no, now could I?”

  “Good enough,” I said.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Still carrying my takeout container, I popped into the tearoom kitchen to tell Jayne Andy had a reliable alibi for the time of Robbie’s death. She squealed with delight and wrapped me in a hug. Fiona joined in.

  Our joy didn’t last for long. A short while later, Andy called Jayne, and an upset Jayne ran into the Emporium to tell me the bad news. Estrada was not able to contact his alibi.

  Kyle Jackman was not answering his cell phone. They called the landline at his house to be told he didn’t live there anymore. He’d recently separated from his wife and moved out of their home, and she had no idea where he would have gone. And, she informed the police, she didn’t care. He’d booked a week’s vacation from the fish market, but he hadn’t shared his plans with anyone. Staff told the police he was having trouble dealing with the breakup of his marriage.

  “Andy wants to postpone the wedding,” a tearful Jayne said.

  “Gale!” I yelled. “Mind the store.”

  I hustled Jayne upstairs to my office. I sat her in the visitor’s chair, ran to the staff loo for a box of tissues, shoved it into her hands, and let her have a good, long cry. When she finally sobbed to a halt, she looked at me with wet red eyes and blew her nose. “Poor Robbie’s dead and all I can think of is my wedding.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “You’re worried about Andy.”

  “What were you doing at Robbie’s last night anyway, Gemma?”

  Earlier, I’d decided not to tell her about my misgivings regarding Robbie’s intentions or that I intended to warn him away. No point now. Instead, I said, “Did you know he knew Tina Armstrong in New York?”

  She blew her nose again. “Is that true? He never mentioned it. I’d almost forgotten about Tina. You don’t think her and Robbie’s deaths are related, do you?”

  “I don’t see how they cannot be,” I said. “But I have not the slightest idea how.”

  “Andy didn’t kill Tina. And he certainly didn’t kill Robbie.”

  “I know that. It would appear it’s time I started seriously thinking about who might have done it.”

  * * *

  I encouraged Jayne to take the rest of the day off to be with Andy. “Go for a nice lunch. Take a drive up the coast and stop for a drink at a hugely overpriced place with a spectacular view.”

  “I don’t know about that,” she said. “But we’re pretty well set in the tearoom for the rest of the day, so—”

  “Good. Off you go now.”

  Before I could shoo her through the sliding door, Donald and the man he’d met at Jayne’s party were coming in.

  “Uncle Keith,” Jayne said, “hi.”

  “Hello, dear. Nice to see you.” He gave her a peck on the cheek. He was nicely dressed in a knee-length camel coat with a jaunty yellow scarf and leather boots. Leather gloves peeked out of his pockets. He smelled strongly of tobacco. I added him to my mental list of smokers who’d been at Jayne’s party.

  “Keith indicated he had an interest in Sherlock Holmes,” Donald said. “Therefore, naturally I suggested we drop in for a visit and later enjoy tea in the tearoom.”

  “We don’t do a proper afternoon tea on weekdays in the winter,” Jayne said.

  Donald’s face drooped in disappointment. Keith’s did not. “Not a tea man myself,” he said.

  “The restaurant’s open for lunch and coffee breaks, though,” I said. “Soups, sandwiches, lovely fresh baking. Lattes, espressos.”

  Keith smiled fondly at Jayne.

  “Although,” I added quickly, “Jayne won’t be able to join you. She’s leaving for the day. Treating herself to a half-day.”

  “We still have plenty of time to catch up,” Keith said. “Okay, Donald. Let’s see what you think’s so important.”

  Donald cleared his throat and straightened his spine. “We will begin with the nonfiction. Come this way.”

  I should consider hiring Donald to be a tour guide. On our last visit to England, he, Jayne, and I had been given a private tour of Garfield Hall, the grand Yorkshire manor house owned by my mother’s cousin, Alistair Denhaugh, the eighth Earl of Ramshaw. Since getting home, my friend showed people around my shop with as much reference, knowledge, and enthusiasm as a volunteer at that Grade Two–listed estate.

  Keith gave Jayne an amused smile, me a shrug, and followed.

  Jayne jerked her head, indicating she wanted to speak to me. We stepped into the tearoom. “Don’t be shy about letting Uncle Keith spend to his heart’s content.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “He’s the black sheep of my mom’s family. Her older brother. He’s retired and living comfortably off his investments, or so he says. My mom says everyone in the family suspects those investments weren’t entirely on the up and up.” She gave me a huge wink, and I was pleased to see she still had some humor in her.

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, no one knows what he does. Or did. Not for sure. He disappeared for a few years, came home and bought his mother and sister new cars, left again, drifted in and out, always with money to throw around. He lives in Chatham now. I haven’t been there, but Mom says his house is something to see. Family rumor always said he was connected to organized crime. Mom was never entirely sure; she just thought he kept his business interests to himself.”

  “Interesting story, anyway. Have fun.”

  “Fun at what?”

  “Your afternoon with Andy.”

  * * *

  Back in the shop, I watched Donald and Keith. Donald was in full lecture mode, pulling out books at random, handing each one to Keith before producing another. Gale hovered behind them. Keith put some of the books back on the shelf, but he handed a few to Gale and her arms were filling up.

  “Sir Arthur wrote a great many works of both fiction and nonfiction apart from the Sherlock Holmes ones for which he is best known. Over here we have …”

  I tuned Donald out.

  Did Keith have a mob connection? I didn’t see that it mattered regarding my current problem. Surely the mob hadn’t put a hit out on Robbie and Tina. Even if they had, I couldn’t see this nicely dressed gentleman who is now comfortably retired to a house that is “something to see” getting the contract.

  Then again, stranger things have happened.

  It most definitely was not Keith who’d been at Robbie’s last night. He wasn’t all that old, likely in his mid-sixties, but too old to be vaulting over walls and sprinting across icy grass. He moved with a slight stiffness in his gait as though his back was giving him some pain but he was too proud to use a cane. I’d noticed that stiffness at the party, so it was not a result of fleeing from an inconveniently arrived Englishwoman after committing a murder.

  “Any interest in Sir Arthur naturally leads one to an exploration of his contemporaries. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, a close friend of Sir Arthur, is generally considered to be …” And another book was added to the pile in Gale’s arms.

  If it started to look as though the mob, whatever that might mean, was becoming active in West London, I’d focus my attention on Keith. As for now, I had better things to do.

  Which at the moment was taking care of my business. Not for the first time, and unlikely to be the last, I envied Sherlock Holmes who could go about solving crimes without worrying about the minor issue of earning a living.

  While Gale followed Donald and Keith around the Emporium, staggering under the weight of the ever-growing stack of books in her arms, I served other customers. I half listened to Donald’s lecture and learned some things even I didn’t know about the Great Detective and his creator.

  Finally, Gale dropped the stack on the sales counter with a sigh of relief, and Keith pulled out his wallet. I doubted he’d ever get around to reading all these books, and he hadn’t seemed particularly interested in Donald’s chatter. Maybe he was merely being polite to a new friend, and nothing’s wrong with that.

  “And,” Donald announced, “as a gift from me, something to use while enjoying your initial exposure to the wonders of the Canon.” He proudly put an I-am-Sherlocked mug on the counter. “Now, it’s a mite early for teatime, but I think we can make an exception for a nice cuppa and one of Jayne’s delicious scones. Do you know, Gemma, in the entire Canon there is not one mention of Holmes and Watson enjoying afternoon tea?”

  “I do know that, yes. It was more a woman’s thing at the time. A chance to get out of the house, away from supervision by men, to enjoy the company of female friends. You can leave your bags here while you’re in the tearoom, if you’d like.”

  And off they went.

  “Is that a record for one sale, Gemma?” Gale asked me.

  “It might well be. Are you okay on your own for a while? I have some work to do on the computer. I’ll be in my office if anything comes up.”

  “Sure.”

  I went upstairs, took my curry out of the small fridge where I’d left it, and popped it into the microwave. When it was fragrant and bubbling, I took it to my desk and prepared to get to work.

  Robbie and Tina. It was time I did a deep dive into the both of them. If they did have criminal connections, those connections might well be what brought about their deaths. Whether said deaths were related or not.

  Robbie first. This time, I did go places on the internet where I am not supposed to venture.

  Robbie’s art career in New York had been as dismal a failure as I’d first surmised. It didn’t look as though he sold a thing. He’d lived in a run-down area of the city and picked up random work with caterers and restaurants to get by. He had no additional sources of income. No wealthy, and patient, patrons of the arts. No family money or trust funds. No organized crime connections.

  All terribly boring. And then—bingo. I read quickly, read again, and sat back with a sigh. Robbie’d managed to get himself into trouble with the police a few times. Bar brawls, unpaid traffic fines, an altercation with a panhandler that turned ugly. Regular low-level stuff. But what caught my attention: a charge of attempted blackmail.

  About a year ago, Robbie had been working for the caterers at a big charity function. The rich and famous. Glamorous people, all the major celebrity and political names. A few days after the party, a woman by the name of Christina VanDoosen went to the police. She told them Robbie had taken compromising pictures of her at the party and threatened to put them on the internet.

  I looked up Christina VanDoosen. Young, pretty, elegant. She had a few minor roles in major theatrical productions and major roles in minor theatrical productions. According to her official bio, as well as general Broadway gossip, she was on the way up.

  Back to the police report. Christina found herself in a compromising situation at the party (the nature of the compromising situation wasn’t in the report I had in front of me, but I could guess), and a waiter—one Robert Ellis—had photographed her. He called her the next day, threatening to release the photo unless she paid him a substantial amount of money. Instead, she went to the cops. Wisely, in my opinion.

  From what I could tell, the case went no further. Charges were never formally laid, and it never came to court. I assumed Christina refused to pay Robbie off, and instead told him she was reporting him. She didn’t press charges or take the matter further, and the case was tucked away.

  She had more nerve than Robbie. If these pictures were that compromising, she would have not wanted them to be shown in court, taking the chance they’d be leaked to the gutter press. But she stood her ground, and Robbie backed down.

  Had that failure marked the end of his career as a blackmailer? Perhaps not. Maybe he decided he should have carried through with his threat and tried again when the next opportunity presented itself. I found no more reports of blackmail charges, but I wouldn’t, would I? Not if he’d been more successful the next time.

  Which raised the question as to whether or not Robbie brought his blackmail habits with him on his return to West London. I didn’t know if anyone at Jayne’s birthday party was blackmailable, and I couldn’t go through the entire invitation list trying to find out.

  But it was a definite possibility. Robbie was lucky Christina VanDoosen merely reported him to the police. If she had connections, she might have taken other steps.

  Jayne’s Uncle Keith was rumored to have “connections.” I filed that information away to return to later.

  I next turned my attention to Tina. I wasn’t so much interested in whether or not Tina Armstrong had a criminal record as to if she had a connection with Robbie, other than what I initially found.

  Most of the hits I got for her focused on her accident. She was called an “up-and-coming young actress” seriously hurt in a “tragic accident.” As her stay in the hospital dragged on, attention dropped off. By the time she left the hospital and returned to West London, she’d been forgotten. She’d been driving the car with a major star named Julien Best in the passenger seat. Julien Best was so famous, even I’d heard of him. As well as Star Trek, Ryan likes action movies, and I’d suffered through at least one of Best’s performances.

  The actor sustained little more than a few cuts and bruises in the crash. Reading between the lines, some of the commentators said it was better Tina was hurt than the “beloved action hero.” It was also mentioned that his “banged-up” face added character to the actor’s rugged good looks. If Best’s career had been derailed by the accident, he might have been out to get revenge on the person who caused it, but such was not the case. He remained big box office.

  Unless I learned otherwise, I’d consider Tina’s car accident bore no direct relationship to her untimely death.

  Not everything on the internet is freely available even to someone who knows how to look. Not without devoting a considerable amount of time, anyway. But from what I could tell, Tina had never come to the attention of the police in West London, New York, or Los Angeles, other than as a result of the accident. The police report said conditions that night were poor, rain was heavy, the road wet, and Tina swerved to avoid an oncoming car in the wrong lane. The driver of the other car had never been located.

  I did find one interesting item about Tina, and I didn’t even have to do anything illegal. It was right there on her Instagram page from three years ago. Tina had posted a great deal of content in the years she was trying to make it in New York and Hollywood, hoping to get her name and face out there; I was simply lucky when the picture of interest to me floated to the top. She and Robbie Ellis not only knew each other, they’d once been an item.

  The relationship hadn’t lasted long. Not longer than ten photos worth. But it had definitely happened. Selfies showed them together, laughing, kissing, posing with big smiles and arms around each other. The background of one of the shots was almost certainly Central Park. Pictures of her with Robbie abruptly ended around the time she went to L.A., and she made no mention of him again.

  She and Robbie hadn’t exactly had a joyous reunion when they saw each other at the party; rather the opposite, but that might not be significant. It was entirely possible they’d run into each other on an earlier occasion, now they were both back in West London. If their relationship ended on a sour note, they wouldn’t have been all that joyous at any time.

  I leaned back in my chair, steepled my fingers, closed my eyes, and thought.

  Did it matter that Tina and Robbie knew each other? I couldn’t see why. Everyone at the party knew at least someone else, staff or guests. West London in the winter is a small town.

  Was it possible Robbie had been blackmailing Tina and they’d fought and she died? Try as I might, I couldn’t see it. She was studying for her real estate license, not running for political office.

  I refused to believe the two deaths were not related, but I had to consider that “not related” in this case didn’t mean they happened for the same reason.

  Had Robbie seen who killed Tina? Had Robbie threatened to go to the police with the evidence unless the killer paid up?

  I felt my excitement rising. I might be onto something. That scenario was entirely possible. As a waiter in a restaurant Robbie could go anywhere, watch everything, and no one would pay him the slightest amount of notice. He had a history of blackmail, and although the instance I knew about hadn’t gone anywhere, he might have taken the opportunity to try again. He was on the down and out, not a whole lot of promise on the horizon. The Robbie I knew was shiftless and lazy. Blackmail might have seemed like an easy way to make some extra money.