"Good evening, Marcus," the woman said as she sat down at the desk. "Have you any conflicts of interest you need to declare this time?"
"That's for the chairman to know," Marcus said with a wink as he headed over to the serving hatch at the side of the room.
Suzie could see that there was a man in the kitchenette, bringing cups and saucers to the counter of the hatch. He was wearing blue polyethylene catering gloves as he put down a wooden caddy of teabags, and she found herself thinking that it really was health and safety gone mad that catering staff had to wear protective gloves to serve tea.
"Cup of tea, Debbie?" Marcus asked the woman as he took a cup and saucer over to a metal samovar that was sitting on the counter in the hatch by a Nespresso coffee machine.
"No, thank you," Debbie replied.
"Suit yourself."
Marcus returned to the table with his cup of tea.
The main door opened again and a man entered, although he stopped when he saw Suzie blocking his way.
"Well hello," he said with a nasal voice that managed to be amused, patronizing, and superior all at once. Looking at him, Suzie saw that he had thinning hair that he combed over his otherwise balding pate, and a long, pallid face that made Suzie think of a soap-on-a-rope that was nearing the end of its life. The man had about the same amount of charisma as well, she thought.
"Do you want to get past?" she asked.
"Don't mind if I do," the man said, believing himself to be quite the wit, and then he pushed past Suzie and headed down the steps to the main chamber.
"Hail fellow, well met," he said by way of greeting to Marcus. "Debbie," he added, and Suzie once again noted the superior tone to the man's voice.
"Tea, Jeremy?" Marcus asked.
"None for me, thank you," Jeremy said as he sat at the table. "Not unless and until the council supply us with the biscuits they promised at the last main committee council meeting. In their absence, I won't be taking any caffeinated libations," he added, and then reached for a copy of the briefing notes.
Suzie saw the man in the catering gloves turn away from the hatch and head toward a fire door at the back of the kitchenette. As Jeremy called from the main chamber, "Unless there are some biscuits this time?" the man opened the door and left, letting the fire door close behind him with a heavy clunk.
Suzie smiled to herself. It almost certainly wasn't a coincidence that the man had left just as Jeremy had started making demands.
"Oh," Jeremy said as he realized there was no longer anyone in the kitchen to serve him.
"Well, if it isn't Suzie Harris!" a mellifluous voice announced from the doorway as Geoffrey Lushington, the mayor of Marlow, entered the chamber. He was about seventy years old and he was quite short and plump, with a thick shock of unkempt white hair that surrounded a perfectly circular bald patch on the very top of his head. Suzie always thought he looked a bit like a gnome. A jolly gnome with an impish sense of humor. Everyone in the town liked him.
After the first time Suzie and her friends Judith and Becks had helped the police solve a series of murders in the town, Geoffrey had insisted on throwing a drinks reception in honor of the women. He'd said at the time that all local success should be championed, and no one had been more successful than Suzie, Judith, and Becks. Suzie had liked him instantly.
"So what's your interest in the planning committee tonight?" he asked as he passed Suzie and trotted down the stairs.
"Oh, nothing much, Geoffrey," Suzie said, realizing she had to modify her cover story since her calamity with Marcus.
"Is that so?" Geoffrey said, heading over to the window to the kitchenette, picking up a little coffee capsule, and slipping it into the Nespresso machine.
"Just exercising my democratic right to witness the committee in action," Suzie said, playing what she hoped was an ace card.
"Quite so, quite so," Geoffrey agreed, as the machine poured coffee into a cup he'd put under the spout. "Although you've not attended a council meeting before."
"Haven't wanted to before now."
"Fair enough," he said, taking his coffee over to the table.
