‘But she has very high standards when it comes to what she puts in her body,’ I said, diplomatically. Faith laughed.
‘That’s a very good way of putting it. It’s all part of her brand, isn’t it? I don’t go in for social media but I hear she’s all over the Instagram with this ‘clean-eating’ stuff.’
‘I much prefer messy eating,’ I said, and Faith sighed.
‘You have no idea how much I miss fish and chips,’ she said. ‘I do like eating healthily and looking after myself, but sometimes all I want is a big bowl of sticky toffee pudding and custard.’ She sighed again, lying back and closing her eyes as if imagining the calorific but delicious dessert in front of her. ‘But I’m a woman over fifty, and in this industry that means I’m already practically invisible. If I put weight on…’
‘Bugger that,’ I said, with feeling.
‘It’s not fair, is it? Look at Jeremy. He was a bloody good actor, but he smoked and drank, and he ate like a pig. He was allowed to get a paunch on him; he was allowed to age without the roles drying up.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s hard enough as it is to find decent parts as an older woman, let alone if, God forbid, you actually look your age.’
‘You don’t look your age,’ I said, and she smiled.
‘Bless you, that’s very kind. But it’s not fair that I’m not allowed to.’ She looked at me closely. ‘You must be, what, fifteen, twenty years younger than me? But I bet you’ve still been discriminated against over the years, just for being female.’
I nodded, thinking of all the times during my police career – in the early days, anyway – when I’d put up with sexist remarks from senior officers, or been the one sent to the canteen to get the teas in, or been the person expected to take notes during a meeting, like I was the flipping secretary. ‘Of course.’
‘I started in the film business nearly forty years ago,’ she said. ‘It was soul-destroying. It was all ‘stand there and smile and look pretty’. Let the men get all the good lines and all the good plots. Want a part? Then go to dinner with the producer, let him leer at you, make him think he has a chance with you, and if you really want it that bad, well… I had to work twice as hard as the blokes in the room to get half the respect. It was only a few years back, when I was going through the menopause, and it really made me re-evaluate what it means to be a woman; it made me think back to those days and I decided I wasn’t going to take it anymore. I don’t want younger generations having to go through the same thing I did.’
‘But you’re still watching your figure.’
She laughed, with only a small trace of bitterness.
‘I’m only one woman, and I do still want a career. But at least I have some respect now, and a little bit of power.’
‘So what did you eat last night? If we can find something that neither you nor Kimi ate, then I can get DCI Withers to look into it.’
‘I ate everything, I think.’ Faith pursed her lips as she thought. ‘I loved the fried chicken and the tempura. I did have some of the noodle dish but I have to admit I picked out the tofu. I’ve never enjoyed the texture.’ She looked at me. ‘Did you cook all of that? It was really tasty.’
I smiled. ‘Yes, I did. I’m glad you enjoyed it. Anything else? How about the cupcakes, did you have one of them?’
‘No,’ said Faith. ‘They looked lovely, but that’s just one more thing I have to limit my intake of. I allow myself a small bar of chocolate on a Friday; that’s my weekly treat. I wasn’t going to forgo that for a cupcake.’
‘I see…’ I said, trying to keep the excitement, or victory, or whatever it was out of my voice. I was right; I had to be!
It wasn’t Zack and his pufferfish that had killed Jeremy and made the others sick. It was the cupcakes. The cupcakes had been spiked on purpose with the neurotoxin, and whoever had done it had made sure that there was a little bit in all of them so that it looked like food poisoning from the fugu rather than deliberate, targeted murder. All I needed to do now was find out who had sent the cakes. Another thought occurred to me: how had the murderer known that Jeremy would eat the right cake and consume enough toxin to kill him?
Chapter Twenty-One
I rescued Germaine from the hotel’s doggy daycare; someone had taken it upon themselves to give her a good brushing and tie a ribbon around her neck. The ribbon came straight off but I had to admit, she scrubbed up well. I felt guilty that I didn’t brush her as regularly as I probably should, but I was self-aware enough to know that the guilt would soon wear off and wouldn’t make me do it any more often.
It was almost 3 o’clock, so I drove from the hotel straight to Daisy’s school. She walked home with Jade most days, but if I was passing I’d swing by and collect them both. The girls jumped in, still chattering about meeting Zack the day before, and I realised with another guilty pang that I hadn’t seen him at the hotel, despite that being my main reason for going there, and that he was still under the impression that his pufferfish had killed Jeremy. I didn’t have his phone number, but I could ring the hotel and speak to him, or leave a message for him to call me; I didn’t want him to feel
