Free Chef Maurice and the Bunny-Boiler Bake Off (Chef Maurice Cotswold Mysteries Book 3) by J.A. Lang Page B

knew around here. The police told me they were coming this morning, so I wanted to pop in and check they hadn’t made a mess of things. And pick up some of the paperwork for the cookery school.” She indicated the brochures on the desk.
    “You knew of these plans of Mademoiselle Miranda?”
    “Of course, it was our project together,” said Angie, oblivious to Chef Maurice’s look of moustache-quivering indignation. She ran a hand across a glossy flyer. “We weren’t going to tell anyone yet, seeing as we hadn’t secured the site. And I didn’t want anyone at Lady Eleanor to know I was thinking of leaving. I’m afraid some of the other teachers are a bit stuck in their ways. They treat it as a huge scandal whenever someone leaves to go to another school, let alone thinks about doing something like this.”
    “Other teachers such as Madame Caruthers, for example?”
    “Oh, yes, I dread to think what she’d have said to me. Not that she’ll even be around next year—she’s retiring this summer, you know—but teaching’s been her whole life. She simply can’t understand anyone wanting to do anything different .”
    “But you’d still be teaching cookery, wouldn’t you?” said Arthur.
    Angie gave a little sigh. “If only Edith would see it like that. But I can just imagine her, complaining that all we’d be doing is catering to pampered housewives. But we had all kinds of plans, running subsidised classes for young parents, setting up a Sunday charity kitchen, that sort of thing. It wasn’t all going to be cupcakes.”
    “You speak, madame , as if your cookery school will no longer take place.”
    Angie stared down at the brochure, open at a picture of herself and Miranda posing in front of an old-fashioned stove. “I don’t see how it can, now. You see, it was Miranda who was going to provide the financing for the first few years, until we turned a profit. I have a small amount of savings of my own, but not nearly enough—and Rory was dead set against putting any of our money into the business. Said it would be a conflict of interest, what with the council having the final say in who gets the site lease.”
    “The idea for the cookery school, this came from you or Mademoiselle Miranda?”
    “Oh, it was all Miranda. At least at the start. She said she wanted to do something more hands-on, that she was getting bored of all the TV shows. But, frankly, I don’t think the project would have got off the ground without me on board.”
    Angie spoke without pride, in simple matter-of-fact tones like she was talking about a recipe for chocolate cake. It struck Arthur that here was a woman who knew her worth, and not an ounce more or less.
    “I really don’t think Miranda realised how much work it takes to make something like this happen,” she continued. “I used to help out with Rory’s furniture business in my spare time, so at least I had some idea of how things should be run. But we were getting there. It was all panning out . . .”
    They stared down at the plans and flyers before them; the remains of a business, stillborn.
    Angie seemed to wake from her reverie. “Did you say the police left the front door unlocked? I suppose I should have words with them, if so. It’s really quite irresponsible of them.”
    “Ah.” Chef Maurice gave a little cough. “I am afraid that we must make a confession to you. It was we—”
    “And by ‘we’, he means him , I might add—”
    “—who ensured the door would be unlocked after the police went away. We are making, you see, an investigation into the murder of Mademoiselle Miranda.”
    “You are? Thank goodness!” Angie clasped her hands together.
    Arthur and Chef Maurice exchanged a puzzled look. This was not how things usually went.
    “I read in the local paper all about how you helped figure out those two horrible murders last winter, and I thought it was all so clever of you.”
    “Ah, you are too kind, madame ,” said Chef Maurice,