An Invitation to Murder: An amateur sleuth murder mystery (A Mary Blake Mystery Book 1) Read online

  An Invitation to Murder

  A Mary Blake Mystery

  A.G. Barnett

  Copyright © 2019 by A.G. Barnett

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Mailing list

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Mailing list

  More from A.G. Barnett

  A Death at Dinner

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  Chapter One

  The insistent buzzing of the intercom finally forced Mary Blake from the sofa. She had been prepared to ignore it, assuming it was either someone selling something or, more likely, the press. But the insistence of whoever was at the door made that impossible.

  She moved across the room to the small video panel that was set in the wall by the front door to her apartment. On it she saw the short, stocky figure of Dot Tanner. She was standing on the front step of the building, her arms folded impatiently, peering at the camera in an accusatory manner. Mary sighed and pressed the buzzer to release the door. There was no use in hoping Dot would give up—she didn’t know the meaning of the phrase. She unlocked her front door and headed back to the soft leather sofa where she took a large swig of her gin and tonic.

  “Bloody hell, Mary!” Dot said as she burst in the door. “What the hell’s the matter with you?!”

  Without waiting for a reply, Dot moved to the tall windows set into three corners of the large living room and began opening the curtains.

  The apartment was just one of the many things Mary knew she was going to have to give up now. She had barely been able to cover the mortgage as it was, particularly given the regular contributions she had to make to the family home, and she certainly couldn’t afford it now.

  “Hey Dot, how’re things?” Mary said airily, waving her gin glass.

  “How’re things?!” Dot said in her best “annoyed parent” voice. “Oh things are just great, bearing in mind my best friend sacked me and now refuses to return my calls.”

  “Oh, you’re not sacked,” Mary said with another wave of her hand.

  “Oh, aren’t I?” Dot said, pausing with the final curtain only half opened. She turned to Mary with her hands on her hips, one eyebrow raised.

  Dot Tanner was a stocky, middle-aged woman with mousy brown hair and delicate features set above a square jaw. She was in fact an almost complete counterpoint to Mary who was taller with a heart-shaped face, framed by her shoulder-length dark hair.

  “Come on, Dot, things said in the heat of the moment and all that.”

  “Well, it doesn’t really matter if I’m sacked or not because there’s no bloody work to do with you sitting on your rear end all day,” Dot grumbled as she opened the final curtain.

  “What else do you want me to do? I’m unemployed!”

  “You’re only unemployed because you won’t answer your bloody phone. Terry’s been trying to get hold of you.”

  “All Terry wants is to get me into commercials for old people,” Mary said bitterly. “Bloody stair lifts and incontinence pants!”

  Her agent, Terry Hope, like most of the TV world, had decided that her career was over, which meant pitching her for adverts for increasingly embarrassing products and no real work to speak of.

  “Nothing wrong with doing an advert or two to tide you over,” Dot said as she began clearing the various chocolate bar wrappers from the coffee table in front of Mary. “It keeps your name out there and in people’s minds. Anyway, it’s got to be better than sitting in this pit, drinking gin and eating chocolate.”

  Mary ignored the reference to her rather expensive, and soon to be lost, London apartment as a “pit,” and instead decided to focus on the more obvious mistake.

  “To be honest, I can’t think of anything better than lying around drinking gin and eating chocolate.”

  “Daytime drinking, though!” Dot shook her head.

  “When would you prefer me to drink? When I’m asleep?”

  Dot tutted and turned towards the kitchen, but stopped as her eye caught the TV screen.

  “You’re watching The Morning Show?” she said flatly.

  “Yes,” Mary said, hoping she didn’t sound as guilty as she suddenly felt.

  “So you’ve recorded it from this morning?”

  “So what if I did?” Mary said defensively.

  Dot gave her a look but said nothing. “What do you make of her then?” she said, turning back to the screen.

  “She hasn’t been on yet,” Mary answered, gaze fixed on the TV. She didn’t want to meet Dot’s eye right now.

  She heard her friend move off into the kitchen and felt a pang of sadness in her chest. She knew she was behaving like a child, but she was hurting and she had no idea what she was going to do next. For twenty years she had played the role of Susan Law in the hit TV detective show, Her Law, and now it was over. She had been let go and replaced in the lead role by a young, upcoming actress named Melanie Shaw.

  Apparently, they had wanted to “freshen things up,” but everyone knew what that meant. At fifty, she had reached the top of the hill and was now firmly heading down the other side. Apparently, women of a certain age weren’t fit to be seen on prime-time television taking down bad guys anymore. Maybe they were worried it would put people off their dinner, she thought bitterly.

  The fact that Melanie Shaw would be taking over the role had felt like an additional blow. In her early twenties, with blonde hair, blue eyes and a smile that could turn anyone to butter, she seemed to signify everything that Mary suddenly felt she wasn’t. Young, vibrant, drop-dead gorgeous and trendy, whatever that was these days.

  Right now, Mary felt like a has-been, and that wasn’t like her. She had always been so confident, so assured of who she was and what she was doing. She was the sassy TV detective that the men wanted to marry and the women wanted to be.

  Now, though? Now she wasn’t sure what she was.

  She had found herself hating Melanie Shaw in the few short weeks since she had been told that she was being replaced. Oh, she knew it wasn’t Melanie’s fault—anyone would have jumped at the chance and she didn’t even know the woman—but every time she thought of that face of flawless skin she wanted to punch it.

  “Looking back, do you know when I should have realised it was the end of the road for me?” Mary asked as Dot reappeared with a cup of tea.

  Dot sighed. “Go on then, if it helps you to go over it all again.”

  “It was when the papers started to refer to me as ‘glamorous,’” Mary said as she swung her legs off of the sofa to face her friend sitting opposite her.


  “Not sexy, beautiful, powerful, commanding. Just, glamorous.”

  “So? What’s that got to do with anything?” Dot said, sipping at her tea and taking one of the biscuits she had laid out on a plate on the table between them. “Glamorous is a compliment, isn’t it?”

  Mary shook her head at her friend. Dot was her best friend, but she really was useless when it came to understanding people. She was neat, orderly, and probably the best PA the world had ever seen. Which was lucky because Mary was about as organised as a bag of cats. What Dot Tanner was not, though, was a people person. That was firmly Mary’s territory.

  “Because, Dot,” she said in an exasperated tone. “Glamorous is code for ‘old.’ It’s the word they use for someone who’s gone soggy around the edges.”

  “Oh, don’t talk rubbish,” Dot said dismissively. “You’ll find a new role. And be back on your feet in no time. And if you’re soggy around the edges then I must have been dunked a good few times in a hot tea.”

  “Oh, come on,” Mary said, ignoring the self-deprecating compliment. “You’re one of the few people on earth who knows my dirty secret, Dot. I can’t bloody act! I could play Susan Law because she was basically me but with someone else’s words. I got lucky. If I took another role, everyone would see through me.”

  “Or maybe you’d surprise yourself,” Dot said, sipping at her tea with one eyebrow raised.

  “Dot, you know I can’t act! You were there when I tried to do that play, surely you can remember how bloody awful I was?”

  “You just needed a bit more time, you’re just a bit rusty after playing the same role for so long.”

  Mary noticed how her friend’s eyes had darted away as she was saying this. She didn’t believe a word of it any more than Mary did, but she was being a good friend.

  “Anyway,” Mary said, “you’re not an over-dunked biscuit, you just need to make more of your natural assets, dress a bit sexier.”

  Dot peered at her as though she had just suggested she grow wings.

  Mary fell back on the sofa again. “Playing Susan Law was the only thing I’ve ever done with my life that was any good, Dot.”

  “Oh, don’t be so melodramatic,” Dot chided.

  “I’m serious, Dot. The life I knew is over, now I’m just some layabout sucking up oxygen that some useful person could be enjoying”

  “What’s this?” Dot asked, ignoring her. She leaned forward and picked up an envelope from the coffee table.

  “Oh,” Mary said, rolling her eyes. “An invitation from Pea to go to some idiotic party he’s throwing.”

  Mary’s brother was a kind-hearted soul. Generous to a fault and undoubtedly fun, he somehow always managed to throw terrible parties. She’d lost count of how often they had ended either in disaster, such as the time he accidentally set the curtains on fire with some candles he was using for mood lighting, or the time people had made their excuses and left early when the ancient plumbing on the old family home had thrown raw sewage up into the kitchen, causing the whole house to reek.

  It had been a while since Percy had thrown any parties though—he couldn’t afford to these days. The family estate, or what was left of it, had been a money pit ever since their father had left the place saddled with debts. They had realised too late that his mind had already been in the grip of the dementia which now had him in a care home.

  Mary knew well enough the financial problems at her old family home, as she had sent Percy enough of her money over the years. That hadn’t seemed an issue before; Mary always had money. The problem was, she spent it as though it was burning a hole in her bank account. She was now only too aware that saving was not her forte. Without the money from Her Law, things were going to have to be very different.

  In short, the invitation from her brother to a party had surprised her. She had even wondered fleetingly if the party was partly for her benefit, to cheer her up. Percy, or Pea, as she had called him since their youth, was like that. Always the one trying to hold the family together. He had been the one to step up when their father’s memory had begun fading, and now he was the one who visited him in the nursing home regularly. For all his puppy-dog enthusiasm and often questionable judgement, he was, at heart a hard worker who took responsibility when needed.

  These days, most of Pea’s time was spent managing the family estate, or what was left of it. Between the endless emergency maintenance that Blancham Hall seemed to require just to stay standing and her father’s nursing home fees, the family fund was vanishing faster than a gin and tonic did around Mary at the moment.

  “Well, I think a party is just what you need,” Dot said, pulling the invitation from the envelope.

  “Bloody hell, Dot, there is such a thing as privacy, you know.”

  “It says here,” Dot continued obliviously, “that it’s a murder mystery party,”

  “And?”

  “Well, you’ve got to go to that, I mean, they’ll have all the parts set out and assigned. They probably won’t be able to do it if you don’t come.” She paused and squinted at the card in her hand.

  “Hold on a minute, it says you can bring a guest here!”

  “So what?”

  “Well, bearing in mind you fired me the other day, I’d say you owe me one, don’t you? Anyway, I’ve always wanted to see your family home.”

  Dot had asked her many times if she could see Blancham Hall, but Mary had always managed to find some excuse or other to cancel any visit. The truth was, Mary herself avoided it when she could these days. She found the nostalgia was always tinged with sadness now, despite her happy times there as a child. Seeing her dad’s once sharp and funny mind deteriorate there had given the place a different feel.

  Mary looked up into Dot’s fierce blue eyes and knew that she was never going to get out of this.

  “Oh, bloody hell,” she moaned, flopping her head back onto the sofa. “I guarantee I will hate every moment.”

  “Oh you always say that, and then within half an hour you’re swinging from a chandelier and singing some filthy song.”

  “I have never swung from a chandelier in my life, Dot Tanner, and you know it.”

  “Only because you can’t reach the things. Now phone Terry and see what he wants.”

  Mary groaned again and took her phone from the coffee table and dialled her agent. “It’s no wonder I fired you, who on earth would want to pay someone to be their mother twenty-four-seven,” she said to Dot as the line rang.

  “I’ll go and make you a coffee,” Dot said, standing up and heading towards the kitchen. She took Mary’s glass, which still had half a gin and tonic in it.

  Mary was about to protest when Terry Hope answered.

  “Mary! Where have you been!”

  “Mostly I’ve been at home not answering your calls. What do you want, Terry?”

  “What do I want? I want to speak to my best client, that’s what I want!”

  “And what do you want to speak to me about?” Mary asked, getting annoyed.

  “How to make you filthy rich of course, isn’t that what we’re all in it for?”

  “In case it’s escaped your attention, Terry, I’m not ‘in’ anything anymore. I’m a has-been. An ex-actor.”

  “Nonsense! We just need to pivot your career and get you into a new area. Why don’t we meet up tomorrow and we can go through some options?”

  Mary had no idea what this meant, but she was sure she didn’t want to find out. When Terry started using words like “pivot,” it normally meant he was about to try and sign you up to smiling sweetly as you descended in a stair lift. She leaned forward and saw the invite on the table in front of her.

  “I’m sorry, Terry, but I’m away this weekend. Can you call me next week? You just keep everything bubbling along and I’ll speak to you then.” She hung up before he could say anything and turned her phone onto silent.

  “So did he have good news?” Dot said, returning with two coffees.

  “He just told u
s to have a great time this weekend.”

  “Oh, how nice of him,” Dot said, eyeing Mary as though she didn’t believe a word.

  Mary’s eye flicked to the TV where the young, vibrant figure of Melanie Shaw had just bounced onto the sofa next to the guests.

  Dot took the remote and turned it off. “And it’s not going to do you any good watching her talk about how great her new job is,” she said, ever the teacher in the room.

  “In that case,” Mary sighed, “can I interest you in a gin and tonic?”

  Chapter Two

  “It is not possible to need this many clothes for a single weekend,” Dot said as she loaded the last of Mary’s bags into the back of her car. Mary, of course, had said she couldn’t possibly lift them herself as she had only just painted her nails and they needed to dry. Dot had then pointed out that she could very well have painted her nails earlier, thus giving them time to dry, which Mary had resolutely ignored.

  “I was going to pack light, but I couldn’t decide what I would want to wear when I was there, so I thought I’d better just pack a lot of options so that I didn’t make us late.”

  “How thoughtful of you,” Dot said, slamming the boot shut with rather more force than was necessary.

  They climbed in and Dot pulled the car out into the mid-morning London traffic.

  “So, who do you think will be there?” Dot asked.

  “Oh, the usual crowd that hangs around with Pea, I’d imagine.”

  “Why do you call him that by the way? Is it just short for Percy?” Dot said.

  “No, it’s not ‘P,’ it’s ‘Pea.’ As in the vegetable. Silly sod got one stuck up his nose when he was a kid.” Mary laughed.