Deadly Clementine

“He has gone into the village to help with the arrangements for the fair. He should be back later.”

“It is still going ahead then?”

Clementine nodded.

Once inside the kitchen, she turned to face him. The gravity now on his face was concerning.

“Are you quite well?”

“Why would you ask that?” Despite his best attempts not to, Moss scoured the kitchen for any sign of fruit cake.

“You look a little pale,” Clementine murmured gently. “And tired.”

“That’s because I am,” Moss sighed, running a weary hand through his hair. “Take a seat. We have something to discuss.”

“Would you like a drink or something to eat?”

“God no,” Moss huffed around a laugh. “I don’t suppose you have any fruit cake, do you?”

Feeling slightly sick, Moss waited for her to answer. Every part of him was suspended in time, waiting for that inevitable moment when she would destroy his future hopes and aspirations. He puffed out his cheeks with a huge sigh of relief when Clementine looked at him in confusion and shook her head.

“Fruit cake? No, I am afraid neither father nor I eat it,” Clementine replied warily. “I have some plain cake, if you are hungry?”

“Do you make it for other people?” Moss growled. “Fruit cake, that is?”

“Other people?” Clementine frowned at him, wondering where on earth this was all going. “I don’t make it. Father hates to the stuff, and I don’t like it either. Why?”

Moss sighed. He felt awful for suspecting her of being the killer but then kissing the living daylights out of her. Even he was confused by it, but it was too late to go back and change what had happened now. When he looked at her, Moss’s gaze slipped down to the lusciously curvaceous temptation of her lips only to find that this time there was a somewhat pinched look about them. She wasn’t happy about something.

Her next words confirmed it.

“Look, just what is going on?” Clementine slipped into a chair at the table and folded her hands together on the table. She tried hard not to clench her fingers too tightly but had to do something because she was shaking so badly.

Moss looked her square in the eye. “Has anybody ever gifted you a fruit cake?”

“No,” Clementine replied, her voice crisp. “Look, what is all this about fruit cake?”

“Have you ever gifted anybody fruit cake?” Moss persisted.

“I have just said that neither father nor I eat the stuff, so why would I bake one or give anybody one?”

“What would you do with any if someone sent you some?”

“Throw it into the fire and pretend we had eaten it,” Clementine snorted. “We couldn’t give it away in this village. Someone would tell someone else and word would get around, and we would risk offending our gift-giver. You know what villages are like.”

“Please make sure that if someone does deliver you fruit cake that you don’t eat it.”

“Why?” Clementine looked almost frightened. “What’s happened?”

Moss told her.

“Someone sent you fruit cake that made you ill?”

“It nearly killed me,” Moss confirmed. “Or would have done had I eaten any more.”

“Who?”

Moss looked at his hands.