The Windmill Café. Poppy Blake

      ‘Well, if you’d been here when you promised, you would know what I’m talking about, and, maybe none of this would have happened,’ snapped Nadia. ‘If you cared about Suki, really cared about her, instead of just her fame and potential fortune, you would have been at the garden party with us instead of getting plastered with your friends in Colchester. If you had been here, Suki would never have flounced off with that outward-bounds guy and we could all have been spared this nightmare!’

      ‘What outward-bounds guy? Suki, what’s Nadia wittering on about?’ Felix’s face was a mask of confusion as he swung his eyes to Lucas, then William, and finally bellowed, ‘Will someone just tell me what’s going on?’

      It seemed Lucas was the only one prepared to put him out of his misery. ‘One of the guys from the outward-bound centre in the village was at the garden party – Freddie something. Doesn’t he work with you, Matt? Anyway, Suki took a bit of a shine to him, that’s all.’

      ‘That’s all? That’s all? So why did Nadia think he might have been poisoned if Suki had?’

      Now everyone in the room squirmed. Even Lucas looked uncomfortable.

      ‘Will? Lucas?’

      ‘Sorry, mate…’

      ‘It’s okay,’ interrupted Suki, raising her gaze to meet Felix’s squarely. ‘Felix, you weren’t here. I knew you’d be getting drunk with the lads and I was angry with you. I’d had a couple of bottles of champagne and I decided to whip up the gossip mill. Freddie and I came back here to have a drink and talk music together.’

      ‘You came back to our lodge with some random stranger?’

      ‘Felix, I get to decide who I spend my time with, not you…’

      ‘What’s the matter with you, Suki. If you were poisoned deliberately, the person most likely to be responsible is this Freddie guy. I want him found and I want him arrested. In fact, I’m calling the police. This is turning into something much more serious than an innocent bout of food poisoning.’

      ‘Before you do that, Felix, perhaps you would permit me to finish answering Matt’s question,’ said Dr Bairstow, raising his eyebrows which only served to highlight the crooked bridge of his nose. ‘Whilst the lab found no trace of any toxic substance in the champagne bottle, they did detect traces of a foreign substance capable of causing nausea and vomiting in the bottle containing Suki’s throat spray.’

      A gasp of disbelief reverberated around the room.

      ‘Oh, my God! I knew it,’ cried Felix. ‘You and your bloody throat spray. I knew it would make you sick one day. Why on earth you persist in using it all the time is beyond me. Maybe now you’ll listen to me for once and ditch it. There’s no reason why you can’t just go on stage and sing without relying on contaminated comforters made from dodgy stuff you buy over the internet.’

      ‘The lab has promised to expedite their efforts to identify the precise ingredient that caused your illness, Suki, and as soon as I have that information, I’ll call you. In the meantime, perhaps you should refrain from using it again.’

      ‘I will, Doctor, and thank you for coming over here in person to tell me about the results.’ Suki gave him a weak smile of gratitude before attempting to push herself up from the chair, clearly still feeling the after-effects of her recent stomach-emptying trauma.

      ‘It’s okay, Suki. I can see myself out.’

      Dr Bairstow retrieved his medical bag, smiled at Matt and Rosie and left.

      ‘Felix, I think you need to apologize to Matt,’ said Suki.

      ‘What for?’

      ‘For labelling his friend Freddie a criminal.’

      Felix flashed his eyes at Matt and muttered something that was definitely not an apology under his breath.

      ‘I’m sorry, everyone, but I really would like to have an early night. I’m absolutely exhausted, but tomorrow is another day in sunny Norfolk and I for one am looking forward to getting this holiday back on track. I promise not to sing or to use any throat spray!’

      ‘Are you sure we’re going to be safe?’ asked Jess, jumping up to grab her sister’s arm. ‘What if there’s a murderer around? What if they try again? What if I’m next on their list. You can’t leave me here!’

      Rosie saw that Jess’s face was suffused with genuine panic. All evening she’d had the appearance of a forlorn toddler who had just been informed she had been left off the birthday party guest list and Rosie wouldn’t have been surprised if she had stuck her thumb in her mouth and indulged in a sulk.

      ‘You’ll be fine, Jess darling. There’s no reason to suspect this was anything other than an unfortunate accident. And, anyway, you have Lucas to take care of you.’

      ‘Oh my God! I’m definitely going to die!’

       Chapter 11

      The next morning dawned overcast and it seemed the summer heatwave had broken. Heavy, bulbous clouds sporting bruised underbellies drifted in from the sea and grazed the canopy of trees in whose depths Ultimate Adventures was located, yet the weather reflected Rosie’s mood.

      When she’d got back to her flat the previous night it had been after midnight and, for the first time since arriving at the Windmill Café, she hadn’t felt the insistent pull to give the surfaces one last wipe down with the anti-bacterial spray before she retired to bed – she had just been too exhausted. However, her tiredness was nothing compared to her relief that the café had been exonerated and would live to serve its customers freshly buttered scones for another day. She had drifted off to sleep as soon as her head had hit the pillow.

      Nevertheless, she had woken up at three in the morning with a jolt of alarm. Within minutes her body was covered in a hot sweat of panic as a kaleidoscope of new worries rampaged through her head.

      How could she have forgotten? Hadn’t Suki sourced the contents of her throat spray, well, the Jarrah honey at least, from her own store cupboard in the Windmill Café? Should she tell Matt? Maybe he would be delighted to resume his amateur sleuthing when she confessed that Suki had not acquired a contaminated batch of her spray from the internet.

      Rosie had tossed and turned until her alarm clock told her it was 7 a.m., then padded down the staircase to survey the café kitchen, fingering her mobile phone as she considered whether to call Matt and confess to a new twist in the ongoing saga. She rummaged in the cupboard and found a second jar of the Jarrah honey that her sister had bought her for her birthday. She scrutinized the label and, whilst she was certain that Harrods would never sell contaminated honey, there was only one way to find out. She unscrewed the lid and before she could think too much about what she was doing, she tasted the honey and waited.

      Nothing happened.

      After thirty minutes, she hadn’t rushed to the bathroom or felt any ill-effects whatsoever and she concluded that it must have been one of the other ingredients in Suki’s throat spray that was the culprit. She let out a long, ragged sigh, before being jerked out of her trace by a rap on the door.

      ‘Hello? Is it okay to come in? I know the café doesn’t open until eleven. If I’m disturbing you I can come back later?’

      ‘Oh, hi, Suki. No, no, of course you’re not disturbing me. How are you feeling today?’

      ‘A little woozy still, but otherwise I’m fine. I just need to get away from Felix for a few hours. He’s driving me crazy. I’m afraid he’s still fixated with involving the authorities, and all William wants us to do is leave. I want to stay until Dr Bairstow gets back to me about what kind of “foreign substance” was in my spray, so I’ve told Felix and William that they can do whatever they like but I’m not going anywhere. I know