Fiona Leitch - A Nosey Parker Cozy Mystery

I hope you are happy here spending an absolute fortune on this cramped house with its tiny garden, noisy neighbours, and busy road outside while I’ll be paying considerably less for somewhere bigger with a lovely view of the sea and neighbours who are more likely to wake me up at 6am with their loud baaing than at 3am with their drunken return from a club.

Hmm. Maybe I was overthinking it. I opened the card and wrote inside it.

Good luck.

It was definitely time to go home.

Funny how things turn out. I only went in to buy a sofa.

Penhaligon’s was one of those old-fashioned family-run department stores – the type that once upon a time every town had but which were now disappearing (and with good reason, to be honest; most of the stock looked like it had been procured in the 1950s and came at such an exorbitant price you were forced to step outside and double-check you hadn’t inadvertently wandered into Harrods by mistake). But Penhaligon’s had persisted, remaining open through world wars, recessions, and the rise of internet shopping. The zombie apocalypse could hit Cornwall ( I know, I know, would anyone even notice? ) and Penhaligon’s would still be there, clinging stubbornly to its prime spot on Fore Street, serving the needs of both locals and the undead brain-hungry horde (or ‘holidaymakers’, as they were otherwise known).

I wouldn’t normally have bothered with Penhaligon’s, but we’d been at our new house for four days now and Daisy and I were sick of sitting on my mum’s old garden chairs – they were literally a pain in the backside – so as I was passing I ventured inside.

It hadn’t changed much since the last time I’d been there. It had barely changed since the first time I’d been there forty years ago. But I was pleasantly surprised to see that someone had given the furniture department a bit of a makeover and there were a few lounge suites that looked like they’d actually been designed sometime after the fall of the Berlin Wall (as opposed to before the building of it).

I sank gratefully into a big, squashy sofa, stroking the fabric appreciatively and reaching for the price tag. The figures made me suck in my breath in mild horror (along with an unfortunate fly who was just passing), but the words ‘Next day delivery!’ had an immediate soothing effect.

I stood up to get a better look at it and jumped as a voice boomed across the shop floor at me.

‘Oh my God, Nosey Parker! Is that really you?’

I turned round, already knowing who it was. Tony Penhaligon, great-grandson of the original Mr Penhaligon, old classmate and sometime boyfriend (we went out for two weeks in 1994, held hands a bit, kissed but didn’t – ewww – use tongues), stood in front of me, a big smile on his face. Like his family’s shop, he also hadn’t changed all that much over the last forty years and every time I looked at him I could still see a hint of the annoying little boy with the runny nose who had sat next to me on my first day in Mrs Hobson’s primary class. But he had a good heart and it was nice to see a friendly face.

I did a double-take as I took him in properly. Hang on a minute; he actually had changed. The last time I’d seen him, on one of my trips back to see my mum, he’d been sporting a dad bod, a paunch brought on by too many pasties and pints. But that was gone and he was looking rather trim. Also gone was the unflattering store uniform of white polo shirt and black chinos, replaced by a sharp, well-tailored, and expensive-looking suit. A little voice in the back of my mind went, I’d blooming well let him use tongues now , before I shut it up with a contemptuous internal glare.

‘It’s been a while, Tone. I haven’t seen you since—’

‘New Year’s Eve, three years ago.’

I laughed. ‘You’ve got a good memory.’

‘Last time anything exciting happened here. Did you stick to your resolution?’

‘That was the first Christmas after I broke up with Richard,’ I said. ‘I think I probably made a lot of drunken resolutions that year.’

Tony grinned. ‘Yeah, there were one or two. Tell me you’ve stuck to the main one though? “Avoid idiot men”?’

‘Oh, that one I live my life by these days. What was yours?’

He shook his head. ‘I never announce my resolutions. That way nobody knows whether I followed it up or not.’

‘And did you?’

‘Nope. But it doesn’t matter now anyway. So what’re you doing here? Visiting your mum? I heard she’d been ill.’

‘Buying a sofa,’ I said.

‘You do know we don’t deliver to London,’ he said.

‘That’s just as well because I don’t live there anymore.’

He looked surprised. ‘Since when? Are you back, then?’

‘Yeah.’

I could see that he was dying to ask me more but the thought of pushing it too far and losing out on his commission was too much for him. Plus, he knew that if I was sticking around he’d get it out of me eventually.

‘So what do you think of the sofa?’

I sat back down. ‘Honestly? It feels like my backside has died and gone to heaven where it’s being caressed by the wings of an angel.’

He laughed loudly. ‘Do you want a job in our marketing department? I always said you should be a poet, not a copper.’

‘I’m not either anymore,’ I said, fishing in my bag and handing him one of my new business cards.

“‘Banquets and Bakes”,’ he read. ‘What’s this?’

‘My new business,’ I said. ‘I’ve just started up—’

‘Wait, are you a chef now? Do you do weddings?’ Tony looked at me hopefully.

‘Weddings, christenings, bar mitzvahs, you name it. If people want to eat there, I can cater for it.’ I hoped I could anyway; I hadn’t actually had any clients yet, but in theory…

‘This is brilliant!’ cried Tony. ‘It’s … what’s that word? Serentipidy?’ I thought about correcting his pronunciation but decided against it; it would only make both of us feel bad. And anyway, he was waving across the shop floor to a woman who was stalking proprietorially around a display of crystal glass vases. ‘Cheryl! Come over here! I’ve found a caterer!’

He held out my business card as Cheryl approached. She read it, then looked me up and down, clearly not overly impressed with what she saw. Which was fair enough as I had really only popped out to get some teabags in between coats of paint and was looking more like the Michelin Man than a Michelin chef.

‘We’re getting married,’ said Tony proudly, and I could understand why. Although the expression currently occupying Cheryl’s face was reminiscent of a bulldog sucking a lemon, she was (probably, in the right light) quite attractive, and she had to be ten years younger than him, even if she did dress a bit like Dynasty-era Joan Collins. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen shoulder pads that size outside of the Super Bowl. It also explained the dapper suit that Tony was currently sporting, as well as his newly svelte figure.

‘Congratulations,’ I said. He deserved happiness. Tony’s first wife had left him for her driving instructor, the betrayal made all the worse by the fact that Tony had paid for the lessons and she hadn’t had the decency to leave him until she’d passed her test (after three attempts), done a motorway safety course and a defensive driving course, and was halfway through getting her HGV licence. The driving instructor hadn’t lasted long and, according to my mum, who knew her mum, she now drove tankers up and down the country with just her dog – a Pomeranian called Germaine – for company.

I hoped he was going to ask me to do their catering – I needed the money – but at the same time I wasn’t sure I wanted to risk cocking up his nuptials. Oh, well, I would just plan everything really, really carefully.