I turned around. Karmen hadn’t been very nice and had presumably sent me a box containing poison, but still I didn’t want to just leave her here. I said to Rafe, “We should call the police.”
Sylvia made a rude noise. “Well, I won’t be here. Anyway, it’s quite obvious. Her employee must have done it. She’s the only other one here.”
I turned to stare at her. “Why would Tilda murder her boss? She just did herself out of a job. Anyway, if she was behind this, would she really have stayed behind in the pub making cold cream?”
Sylvia shrugged her elegant shoulders. “Daywalkers never cease to surprise me with their stupidity.” Then she crooked a finger at Alfred. “Come along. These two can do whatever they like, but I suggest you and I get on the road back to Oxford.”
Alfred seemed perfectly happy to comply, only pausing long enough to say, “Will you two be all right?”
“We will,” Rafe said.
After Alfred and Sylvia left, Rafe stood and took a quick look around the living room. He said, “I rarely agree with Sylvia, but she might be right, you know. Perhaps we should leave.”
I shook my head. “Even if we wanted to, Tilda knows we were here.” The last thing I needed was to get involved with the police again. It was one thing to report a crime, quite another to have the police chase you up because you’d been on the scene where a murder was committed and then left. However, I knew that Rafe liked to keep a low profile in Oxfordshire for obvious reasons. I said, “Why don’t you go. I can call it in.” Listen to me, sounding like a bad cop show.
He looked at me as though he were disappointed. “You know I’m not going to leave you.” Of course I did.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I was, too. I hated dragging him into danger or even just awkward social situations. Between the wedding and me being a witch and not a vampire, I seemed to be forever dragging him into a limelight he would have preferred to avoid.
Still, he didn’t have to marry me, did he? It was his idea.
I rubbed my thumb along the top of my engagement ring, as I tended to do when I needed reassurance. Or a reminder that we were really getting married. “I’ll call them now.”
I made the call and agreed that I would stay where I was until the authorities arrived.
“There’s no point standing here with a dead witch. I’d better go and tell poor Tilda.”
He looked at me with a frown between his eyes. “Sylvia isn’t always tactful, but she might be right. Be very careful around Tilda. And you’re not going to talk to her alone.”
I shook my head. I stuck to my opinion that a woman who’d killed her boss would hardly hang around, still working. Still, I knew he was right and I should be careful.
It was a relief to go back outside and leave the heavy darkness, not only of death but of the negative witch energy that Karmen had put out. My shoes crunched across the gravel as I headed to the former pub. Rafe shut the door softly and was only a step behind me.
I walked in and found the scene very much as it had been when we arrived. Tilda was still at work at a pot on the stove. Harp music still played. It was very peaceful and smelled of herbs and flowers. I hated to intrude on her with such terrible news, but I thought it was better coming from me than the police. Between the music and the bubbling mixture, she didn’t hear the door, so I called out, “Tilda?”
She jumped a little bit, as I’d obviously surprised her, and then she turned around. “Oh, it’s you, Lucy. I forgot to lock the door. Did you find Karmen?” She looked at me, all innocent. Oh, I hated to be the one to tell her.
I said, “Why don’t you come out of the kitchen for a minute and sit down. I need to talk to you.”
She glanced at her mixture and then turned off the burner. Good plan.
She wiped her hands on her apron and came out looking puzzled. “What’s the matter?”
I said, “Please, sit down.” I sat down too at the scarred table that they used for packaging things.
“Tilda, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but Karmen’s dead.”
Chapter 11
Her eyes opened slowly wider and wider, and then she blinked once. “Karmen’s dead?” she asked as though she couldn’t believe it.
I reached for her hand. It was warm and slightly damp from where she’d been stirring the mixture. “I am so sorry. I found her in her house. She’d collapsed.”
Tilda put her other hand to her heart as though to check that she was still alive. “But I just saw her earlier. She seemed—” And then her face creased in a worried frown. “She was complaining of a headache and chest pains. I thought she’d been overdoing it. That’s why she left me here to finish up this batch.”
And yet she hadn’t said that to us when we’d arrived. She’d only said that she didn’t know where her boss was.
“How long had she been complaining of headaches and chest pain?” I asked. I’d been involved in enough suspicious deaths that it had become second nature to me to ask probing questions. Not that the police ever appreciated my interference.
Tilda looked as though she was having trouble taking in what I was saying. “I can’t believe it. You’re certain? She doesn’t need a doctor?”
I shook my head again. “She’s beyond a doctor. I’m so sorry. I’ve called the police. They’ll be here soon.”
Beneath my hands, hers jerked. “Police. Oh dear, oh dear. Poor Karmen.”
No doubt they’d be asking Tilda to identify her boss, so I felt I
