Wild mushroom soup is delicious, but everyone knows you have to be careful about what you use.
The weekend Charity Murphy died, half a dozen people got sick after eating mushroom soup - but not everyone...
‘Is that why you don’t want to help us?' Clara asked her brother. 'Because you were glad she died, too?’
‘No, it’s because –’ Henry glanced over his shoulder at the closed door of his boss’s office. ‘It’s because I was told not to look into it.’
‘D.I. Jones told you not to investigate?’ asked Clara, leaning her elbows on the reception desk.
‘Why?’
‘No clue. I just assumed it was because he got sick too and didn’t want the hassle, but he told
me there was nothing to look into, and it was my wild imagination.’
‘What was your imagination?’ prompted Tommy.
Henry licked his lips and glanced at D.I. Jones’s door again.
‘He’s in?’ asked Lucas, dropping his voice.
Henry shook his head. ‘On his rounds, but he has a habit of showing up at the most inopportune times. Puts me on edge. The thing is,’ he continued, running a hand through his hair. ‘I should’ve got sick that weekend too, but I didn’t. Jones thought it’d be a nice treat for
me to have some of the food from the meal, seeing as I’d stayed behind to work. He knows mushroom soup is my favourite, so brought me a bowl.'
‘The mushroom soup that apparently made everyone ill?’ queried Clara. ‘But *you* didn’t get ill, did you?’
‘No, and when I pointed this out, Jones just said I must’ve got it wrong, or not has as much as everyone else, or I was all right because I was younger.’
‘I don’t think that’s how food poisoning works,’ said Tommy. ‘You think your boss is up to his neck in whatever happened?’
‘I don’t like to think it of him, but what other explanation is there? He must be either involved, or covering for someone.’
Hmm, that all sounds very suspicious.
Is Jones involved?
Was Henry mistaken?
Or is the mushroom soup is simply filled with red herrings and lies?
Find out in The Phantom Murder, available to preorder now ahead of launch on 7th July 2023
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