Read Murder in the Cake: Cozy Murder Mystery (Harley Hill Mysteries Book 4) for Free Online

just why I thought she was the greatest, nicest gal I’d ever met.
    Speaking of the devil, while I was waiting for a website to load, Cordi came in with a tray of coffees and a plate of biscuits.
    “Here you go, girls,” she said, and put the tray on the desk. Monty had a sniff but decided it wasn’t for him.
    “Oh, thanks, C,” I said and snagged a cookie. They were chocolate chip, my favourite. “This is just what I needed.”  
    “I’ll bet. I could hear you thinking from downstairs. What are you looking up?”
    I pushed my chair back; Monty leapt on my lap. Max didn’t move; he just continued to snore and drool on my socks.
    “I’m looking for records of Chloe’s dad, but we don’t have much to go on.” I took a bite of cookie. “It’s better if the person you’re trying to trace has an unusual name.”
    “Isn’t Henry Renholm unusual?” Chloe asked.
    “It’s not as common as John Smith, but London is a big city. There are dozens, possibly hundreds of Henry Renholms .”
    Cordi leaned over me and squinted at the screen. Her big curls hung over her shoulders. “You said he was a chef, right?”
    “Yes,” Chloe said. “Well, he was when he left, but he might have changed jobs.” Chloe sighed. “I’m sorry, guys. You’ve been so nice to me. This is too much to ask.” She looked sadly out of the window.  
    Meanwhile, Monty began to playfully slap the keyboard, flipping the screen to a local newspaper column I’d been reading earlier. It was about a new cheese shop that had opened on the high street, and it gave me an idea.
    “Nice one, Monty,” I said and scratched his ears. He looked up at me and gave me a slow blink of approval before curling up on the laptop. “Okay, you can stay there, for now , but I’ll want it back later.”
    “Drink up, ladies,” I said. “We’re going out.”  
    “Where are we going?” Cordi asked. “Is it anywhere nice, should I change?” She tamped her big, bouncy curls. She was wearing a pearl necklace and earrings, and a teal cashmere cardigan over a figure-hugging cream dress with matching cream heels. She already looked better dressed in her casual daywear than I’d ever looked in my life.
    “We’re going to the records office.”
    “Oh,” she said. “I recall the basement is full of cobwebs. I’ll get a scarf.”
    “You can borrow my beanie,” Chloe offered.
    Cordi smiled weakly. “No, thank you, dear. Red, purple, brown, and green stripes just wouldn’t go with this outfit, but thanks for the offer.”

    As Cordi had quite rightly remembered, the records office was in the basement of the town hall.  
    Now, you might think the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea—where Notting Hill was situated—would have a pretty flash town hall. In which case you would be totes wrongu, as the bright young things might say. It was an ugly, redbrick, 1970s carbuncle of a building.
    Luckily, you didn’t need a prior appointment to delve into the records. They’d passed some bill or other that gave punters access to certain records.  
    We were looking for pretty superficial stuff, like if a Henry Renholm paid tax in the borough, not how much. We’d have to make a formal request to the Inland Revenue for that and would probably be turned down.  
    I was looking for general ephemera, random stuff. It was like throwing a handful of darts at a dartboard whilst wearing a blindfold, but usually, something stuck.
    Once we had signed in and crossed our hearts and hope to die promised that we were not going to compromise Queen and Country, they let us in.  
    Well, okay, it didn’t go down quite like that. We just had to fill in a handful of long, tedious forms, in triplicate, but it felt like it.
    After that we were escorted to the archives deep underground, where angels probably would fear to tread, especially if they weren’t fond of the smell of mildew. The lift wasn’t working, the lights were dim and flickering, and I am sure I heard the sound