Death at a Country Mansion Page 19

  Daisy hid her surprise. Liz seldom indulged. “Of course; you know me. I’ve always got a bottle of something in the back.” She turned to Penny, who was sweeping up the hair from her last client. “Could you pour Liz a glass of the sav blanc?”

  Liz picked up the latest edition of Vogue magazine and flicked through it without looking at any of the pages. “Thanks for fitting me in this late. I hope I’m not putting you out.”

  Daisy picked up her comb. The table containing the tint, foil wraps, and various utensils had been prepared in advance. Liz was having her usual mixture of highlights and lowlights. “We close at nine on Saturday, so you’re our last customer of the day.” It wasn’t like she had anything better to do anyway, and the weather was so dire that the sofa, a takeaway pizza, and a boxed set was calling her name.

  Penny returned with a glass of wine and handed it to Liz.

  “Thank you, dear.”

  Daisy noticed her hand was shaking. “Are you all right, Liz?”

  The formidable face showed just a hint of vulnerability. “Yes, of course, dear. It’s just that the speaker for this Thursday’s meeting canceled at the last minute, leaving us in the lurch. She’s pregnant.” She rolled her eyes at Daisy. “Pregnant women are always so unreliable.”

  Liz Roberts wasn’t known for her tact.

  “What was she going to talk about?” Daisy asked.

  “We were going to make Christmas wreaths.” Her mouth turned down at the corners. “I have no idea what to do now. I suppose I’ll have to ask Mrs. Radisson to give us her rosemary turkey stuffing demonstration again.”

  Daisy parted Liz’s hair into segments and began to apply the tint. “I have a friend who makes her own Christmas cards. They’re really lovely, with sparkles and little bows on them. If you want, I could ask her if she’d be prepared to do a workshop for you.”

  Liz’s face lit up. “Oh, Daisy, would you? That would be fantastic. I really am at loose ends.”

  Daisy nodded. “No problem. I’ll call her tonight.”

  Penny reappeared from the back wearing her coat and scarf. “Right. I’m off, Daisy. Thanks for letting me go early. I’ll lock up next Saturday, I promise.”

  “That’s okay. Have fun tonight at the hen party.”

  Penny glanced at her wristwatch. “I won’t get there much before nine because I’m going home to change first. I’m meeting Niall later.” Her eyes sparkled. Niall was Penny’s new beau, and while Daisy didn’t altogether approve of the match, she had to admit Penny seemed happy. Unfortunately, knowing Niall, the relationship was unlikely to last. Still, stranger things had happened.

  “I’m sure the party will be going on for a while,” said Daisy. “Those girls were gearing up for a big night.” All three of Penny’s model friends had been in earlier to get their hair done for tonight’s celebrations. They’d bought a bottle of bubbly with them and were giggling merrily by the time they left.

  Penny grinned. “Yes, they were. I’ll see you on Monday. ’Bye.”

  After she left, Liz glanced up at Daisy. “That man is twice her age. He ought to be ashamed of himself.”

  Daisy shrugged. Niall was a notorious womanizer and an ex-husband of the late Dame Serena Levanté, the infamous opera diva who’d been murdered last year in her country mansion. It was Daisy who’d helped crack the case. “He is very handsome,” she allowed.

  Liz frowned. “If one goes in for that sort of thing. I’m more inclined to think it’s his money she’s after.”

  Daisy shook her head. “No, not Penny, she’s not a gold digger.” She wrapped a strip of foil around the highlight and squeezed it closed. “You have to admit, Niall does have something of the Heathcliff about him. I can picture him riding bareback through the moors on one of his prized racehorses, can’t you?”

  Liz gave her a sharp look. “Don’t tell me you’re smitten too?”

  Daisy laughed. “You know me better than that, Liz. All I’m saying is that I can see the appeal.”

  Liz grunted.

  Once the foils were done, Daisy placed Liz under the dryer and took the messy utensils and dishes into the kitchenette to wash up. BBC Radio 3 was playing La Calisto, Cavalli’s opera of pursuit and transformation, and the dramatic music filled the salon. With a contented sigh, Daisy washed up and then poured herself a much-needed glass of wine. The back door was banging in the wind, so she wedged a piece of paper towel in the crack. Exactly ten minutes later she switched off the dryer.

  “Come over to the basin,” she told Liz, and proceeded to wash and condition her newly dyed hair.

  “Do you want a trim?” Daisy asked once Liz was back in the chair in front of the mirror, admiring her new color.

  “Yes, just half an inch off the bottom.”

  Daisy reached into the drawer for her scissors, but they weren’t there. How strange. She always put them back in the top drawer of her workstation; in fact, she was fastidious about it. Her eyes roamed over the countertops, but they weren’t there either. Frowning, she opened Penny’s drawer and used hers. Each stylist had their own scissors to avoid confusion.

  “How are things going with that hunky detective of yours, Daisy?” asked Liz, causing Daisy’s head to pop up.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” said Daisy, avoiding eye contact.

  “I thought you two were a thing.” Liz arched an over-plucked eyebrow.

  Daisy took a gulp of her wine. “Oh, no. We worked together on that case last year, but that was it. There’s nothing going on between us.”

  “If you say so, dear.” Liz winked at her.

  Daisy sighed. She hadn’t seen Paul in months. He was situated in Guildford, which was a good forty-minute drive from Edgemead. He’d taken her out once after the Serena Levanté case, but then Daisy had gone away with her friend, Floria, to the south of France in the summer, and they’d lost touch after that. According to Krish, her senior stylist and an irrepressible gossip, Paul had been working on a high-profile case involving human traffickers and was making quite a name for himself.

  “It’s all thanks to you, Daisy,” Krish had told her. “If you hadn’t helped him crack the Levanté case, he’d still be doing the graveyard shift at the precinct.”

  She trimmed Liz’s hair into a stylish bob, then blow-dried it. When she was done Liz was back to her perfectly coiffed self.

  “Fabulous, thanks, dear,” she said, admiring herself in the mirror. She smoothed a hand over her cheek, as if trying to iron out the wrinkles, and gave a little sigh. “I’m going to call an Uber because I don’t want to ruin it the moment I walk outside. I’m meeting with the mayor tomorrow about the congestion between Esher and Edgemead. Did I tell you?”

  “Yes, I think you did mention it,” said Daisy. “And take your time; there’s no rush.”

  Liz paid the bill, and once she’d gone, Daisy set about straightening up her salon. She liked this time of day, after the last customer had left, because time seemed to slow down. Cleaning while listening to music had become something of an evening ritual. It helped her unwind after the frenetic pace of the day and gave her a chance to recharge her batteries after the constant chatter of her customers; not that she minded talking to them, but after eight solid hours, she needed a break. Krish had told her she was the only person he knew who actually liked cleaning, but she found it therapeutic.

  “There,” she said to herself as she stood back to admire her handiwork. The salon was sparkling. The floors were clean, the mirrors shone and she could see her reflection in the silver utensil trays.

  The only problem was her missing scissors. She still hadn’t found them. If they didn’t turn up tomorrow, she’d have to rummage through the storeroom cupboard for another pair. She had backups, so it wasn’t a train wreck, but they were expensive, and she wanted to find them.

  The vintage-style clock on the wall said it was almost nine o’clock. Time to go home.

  Daisy glanced out of the shop window. It was still pelting down. The sound of th
e rain was drowned out by Cavalli, but she could see by the big, wide splatters that it was torrential.

  “Darn rain,” she muttered. Her car was at home, so it would be a very wet, ten-minute walk back to her cottage, and her umbrella—which had a nasty habit of inverting itself—would offer little protection in this wind.

  She locked the front door from the inside and turned off the lights and the radio before walking through to the kitchenette at the back. Suddenly, the rain seemed inordinately loud. Suppressing a shiver, she pulled on her coat and gloves and grabbed her umbrella.

  I’m going to get drenched, she thought as she opened the back door and sharp daggers of rain pierced her skin. Squinting, she opened her umbrella and stepped out into the deluge.

  Here goes.

  She locked the door behind her and then turned around and nearly fell over someone lying about a meter from the doorway. “What the . . . ?”

  She bent down, immediately recognizing the hair because she’d styled it herself only that morning. It was Melanie Haverstock, one of her customers! And she was lying in the sodden street with Daisy’s missing scissors sticking out of her back.

  About the Author

  Louise R. Innes writes contemporary romance, romantic suspense, and cozy mysteries. She lives in leafy Surrey in the United Kingdom with her family, and when she’s not writing, she can be found traipsing through the countryside or kayaking on the River Thames. Visit her on Facebook or Twitter or at louiseroseinnes.com.