Jamgate [Narrated]

A Maggie B. Casefile

Magda Beckos—Magda when she’s feeling fancy, Maggie B. when she wants to fly under the radar—hadn’t meant to uncover the Great Raspberry Scandal of Lower Tissington. She only went for the Victoria sponge.

Technically, she wasn’t even a member of the Women’s Institute. Her application had been “misfiled” three times. Audrey Crenshaw, the Chairwoman, once muttered something about “aesthetic standards” while staring directly at Magda’s boots.

But exile never stopped her before. She was a woman with nothing left to prove and no one left to impress—unless you counted the dog-walking dentist who once nodded at her in Aldi.

She spotted it immediately. Third jar from the left. Too smooth. Too glossy. Too maroon.

The label said Rosemary-Infused Raspberry Rapture, but the scent? Plum. Definitely plum. And Magda knew plum.

She slipped a spoon from the teacake table. A small taste. Cassis. Pear. The faintest hint of vanilla.

“Cheating cow,” she muttered, loud enough to startle the vicar.

Three hours later—after two warm sherries and a brief standoff with Audrey over the “misuse of cutlery”—Magda had her proof: a photo of Mabel Witherspoon outside Waitrose holding a bag clearly marked Luxury Plum Compote – 3 for £5.

She didn’t gloat. Not really. But when they handed Mabel the Best in Show rosette, Magda stood, cleared her throat, and slid a manila envelope onto the table.

“This jam,” she said, “was born in aisle seven. Not your garden.”

Audrey hissed something about decorum. Mabel cried. Someone muttered “Communist.”
Magda didn’t blink.

They didn’t clap. No one ever claps. But someone passed her a slice of sponge and whispered, “You were right.”

She walked home with it balanced on one palm, just as she had with other verdicts—like the dog poop bags always dropped three feet from the proper bin, as if left out of spite, or the tulip switcheroo in April—sweet, bitter, or otherwise. Sugar flaked off like confession.

In her kitchen, she opened the notebook—hardcover, grey, a little warped where she’d once knocked it into the toaster.
Case #12: Jamgate. Outcome: bittersweet. Like the sponge.

The house was quiet, except for the low hum of the fridge and the distant bark of someone else’s dog.

She stood for a moment, fingers sticky, pen uncapped.
She could’ve let it go. She often did now.
But this one? This one felt too much like something she’d once ignored.
Before she was Magda. Before the jam.

She set the sponge on a chipped plate, tore a corner, and ate it slowly, thumb grazing a smear left behind.
Plum, still. But sweet enough.
Not justice. But better than nothing.
She’d file it. Move on. Until the next thing came along—off key, out of place, or just too bloody neat to trust.