Lauren gasped as the others piled in behind. ‘That’s disgusting,’ she said. ‘And you said we were home alone, Connor.’
‘Golly,’ cried Connor. ‘It seems that Reginald Remy has been murdered!’
‘Yeah, we got that part. Thanks, Connor,’ said Cara.
‘That’s Humphrey to you,’ he retorted.
There was a moment of silence as they looked expectantly at Connor. And then the dead body cleared his throat.
‘What?’ Connor turned to his brother.
‘Your line, Con,’ said the corpse, moving as little as possible.
‘Oh right. Everyone back to the dining room now,’ Connor announced. ‘I will call Scotland Yard at once … Oh, and also order the pizza.’
They were sitting back in their assigned places, Pip resisting the urge to peek at her booklet. A few minutes passed before Jamie strolled into the room. Except he wasn’t the murdered Reginald Remy any more. He had changed out of the bloody shirt into a clean black one. And on his head was a plastic police helmet. He and Connor were very similar, even for brothers: freckled and blonde. Though Connor was skinnier and more angular, and Jamie’s hair a touch closer to brown. Jamie had offered to host the murder mystery, so Connor could play along too.
‘’Ello, ’ello, ’ello,’ Jamie said, standing at the head of the table, scrutinizing them all, a thicker Kill Joy Games booklet clutched in his hands. ‘My name is Inspector Howard Whey, with the Scotland Yard police force. I understand that there has been a murder.’
‘Sal Singh did it!’ Ant shouted suddenly, looking around, expecting a laugh.
The table went quiet.
Of course, there had been a murder – a real murder – in their town, Little Kilton, just over five years ago. Andie Bell, who had been the same age Pip was now, was murdered by her boyfriend, Sal Singh, who killed himself days later. An open-and-shut case of murder-suicide as far as the police were concerned. And everywhere in Little Kilton was a reminder of what happened: their school that Andie and Sal had both attended, the woods outside Pip’s house where Sal was found, the bench dedication to Andie on the town common, the sightings of the Bells and the Singhs who still lived here.
It was almost like the town itself was defined by the murder of Andie Bell, both usually uttered in the same breath, inextricable from the other. Pip sometimes forgot how un-normal it was to have such a terrible thing so close to their lives, some closer than others. Cara’s older sister, Naomi, had been best friends with Sal. That’s how Pip had known him, and he’d always been so kind to her. She didn’t want to believe it. But, as they said, open and shut. He did it. So he must have.
Pip looked up at Jamie and saw a flash of shock in his eyes. Jamie had been in that same school year, took the same classes as Andie.
‘Shut up, Ant,’ Cara said seriously, no trace of the cook Dora Key.
‘Yes,’ Jamie said, recovering. ‘Typical Bobby Remy, always interrupting and attention-seeking. As I was saying –’ he breezed past the awkwardness – ‘there has been a murder. Reginald Remy is dead, and because you are the only people on the secluded private island of Joy, and there is only one boat a day, one of you must be the murderer!’
Their eyes shifted suspiciously to one another, and Pip noticed Cara avoiding Ant’s gaze.
‘But together we can solve this mystery and bring the killer to justice,’ Jamie continued, reading a line from his booklet. ‘Here,’ he said, holding up a Tesco bag, ‘I’m going to give you each a little notebook and a pen so you can keep a record of clues and theories.’ Jamie asked Connor to hand them around and – as Humphrey Todd the butler – he dutifully accepted.
Pip wasted no time writing her name on the first page of her notebook and started taking notes. Not that she cared – it was just a game – but she hated the sight of an under-used notebook.
‘To begin, how about we go round the table and introduce ourselves?’ Jamie said. ‘I’m sure you are all well acquainted, but I would like to know a little more about our suspects. Let’s start with you, Bobby,’ he said, nodding to Ant.
‘Yep, OK.’ Ant stood up. ‘Hi, everyone, my name is Robert “Bobby” Remy. I’m thirty-nine years old and I am the oldest, and favourite –’ he said with a teasing glance at Zach – ‘son of Reginald Remy. I used to work for the Remy Hotels and Casinos empire and was due to inherit the company from my father, but a few years ago I realized that hard work isn’t really my thing and since then I’ve just been taking it easy in London. Thank god my father still pays me an allowance. Paid, I mean. Oh, my poor father, who could have done this?’ He clutched his chest in an over-the-top manner.
‘OK, next,’ Jamie said, pointing to Zach.
‘Hi all,’ he said, standing, with an awkward nod round the table. ‘I’m Ralph Remy, Reginald’s younger son, age thirty-six. I work for Remy Hotels and Casinos and for the last few years my father had been training me to take over the company. He’d been retired some time, but still made the most executive decisions. We worked well as a team. Um … oh,’ he said, pointing to Lauren, sitting two places over. ‘This is my lovely wife, Lizzie. We’ve been married four years and are very happy together.’ He went to pat Lauren awkwardly on the shoulder and then retook his seat.
‘Me?’ Lauren went next, getting to her feet. ‘I’m Lizzie Remy née Tasker, thirty-two years old. I’m Reginald’s daughter-in-law, married to Ralph. Yes, very happy, dear,’ she smiled down at Zach. ‘I also work at the family company and have been working as a manager at the flagship London casino. Some of you might not think I belong in this family, but I’ve earned my place here, and that’s all I have to say.’
‘OK,’ Pip said, rearranging her feather boa as she stood. She felt slightly ridiculous, but she was here, she might as well try to enjoy it. And maybe she’d forget about the project proposal waiting for her at home. Damn, now she’d thought about it again. ‘I’m Celia Bourne, age twenty-nine. Reginald Remy was my uncle. My parents both died tragically when I was younger, so the Remys are the only family I have. Though they probably need reminding of that,’ she said with a sharp look at Ant and Zach’s side of the table. ‘How nice that you all work at the family company; I’ve never been offered such a thing. I’m currently working as a governess in London, teaching the children of a very welcoming family.’
‘Ooh, my detective skills are picking up on some tension here,’ Jamie said, tapping his police helmet. ‘And the household staff?’ He turned to Cara and Connor.
‘Yes, I’m Humphrey Todd,’ Connor announced, rising from his chair. ‘Sixty-two years young. I’ve been working as the butler here at Remy Manor for the last twenty years. It hasn’t always been easy living somewhere so remote. I have a daughter, you see, who I don’t often get to visit. But Mr Remy has always paid me fairly and I have always had the utmost respect for my master. In that time, seeing each other every day, I believe we had come to be good friends.’
Ant snorted. ‘No one makes friends with the staff,’ he said.
‘Bobby –’ Zach turned to him, shocked – ‘don’t be cruel.’
‘Very good, sir,’ Connor said, a bow of contrition in Ant’s direction as he sat back down.
‘Last but not least,’ Cara said about herself, the accent making a comeback as she stood. ‘I’m Dora Key. And I’m only fifty-six, even though I’ve heard some of you gossiping that I look eighty-six.’ A meaningful look down at Pip. ‘I’m the household cook. I haven’t actually been at Remy Manor very long; I was hired about six months ago. There used to be more staff here apparently, but after the master’s wife died he started letting people go, but I guess he realized he couldn’t survive without a cook. Me and old Hump here, we keep the place running, even if it is hard work.’
‘Excellent,’ Jamie said. ‘Now that we’ve got the introductions out of the way, let me tell you the details of the case so far from my initial inspection.’ He started reading aloud. ‘All of the guests arrived yesterday, Friday, on the same boat from the mainl
and, to stay for the weekend. This evening, on his birthday, Reginald Remy, aged seventy-four, was killed in his study from a fatal stab wound straight to the heart. He would have died instantly. There are no defensive wounds on the body, which meant that Reginald knew and trusted his killer, and they were able to get close to him without raising suspicion.’
Pip scribbled away, already on her second page.
‘Our next task, then, is to establish the time of death and your alibis. So, if you would all like to turn to the first page in your booklets. No further.’
Pip picked hers up and spread it open on her plate. She read the first page quickly, and then again, checking that Connor and Cara weren’t looking her way, rearranging her face to guard Celia’s secrets.
Three
‘First order of business, then,’ Jamie said, settling into the chair at the head of the table, ‘is to work out when Reginald was last seen alive and by whom.’
‘Oh, I believe that was me. Me, Ralph,’ Zach said, nodding at his booklet and then glancing up, running his finger over the relevant paragraph. ‘Lizzie, Celia and I –’ he glanced in turn at Lauren and Pip – ‘were taking tea in the library with my father. The cook –’ a nod to Cara – ‘brought us some scones and cake to have with it. The women left first and, when we were done, I walked my father to the grand staircase. He told me he was going to his study to get some things in order before the birthday meal. That was at around five fifteen p.m.’
‘Did anyone see Reginald Remy after that time?’ Jamie asked the room, tipping his police helmet.
There were a few murmurs of ‘no’, shaking heads and shifting glances.
‘All right, fifteen minutes past five,’ Jamie announced, and Pip copied the time down. ‘And then Pip – sorry –’ Jamie squinted at her name badge – ‘Celia found the body at approximately six thirty p.m. In game time, not real time,’ he said, noticing Pip’s creased brow. ‘Great, we have our time window in which the murder was committed, between five fifteen and six thirty. So –’ he paused, staring at them in turn – ‘where were all of you in that crucial one hour and fifteen minutes?’
Connor was the first to respond, as Humphrey Todd the butler. ‘Well, I was in here, setting up the dining room for the meal. The master always liked the silverware to be polished for special occasions.’
‘Have you got any proof?’ Ant asked with all the pomposity of his part, Bobby Remy.
‘My proof is the very table you are sitting at, young sir,’ Connor said, looking affronted. ‘When else do you think I would have had time to prepare this room?’
‘And where were you, Bobby?’ Zach asked his in-game brother. ‘You didn’t take tea with us in the library like you were supposed to. In fact, you’ve been missing all afternoon.’
‘All right, you narc,’ Ant said. ‘If you must know, I went on a walk for a bit of soul-searching. By the cliffs. I’m sure, Ralph –’ he returned the brotherly glare to Zach – ‘you understand why.’
‘But I went for a walk of the grounds too,’ Zach said. ‘After I said goodbye to Father, I went for a stroll around the south side of the island, to burn off the scones and work up my appetite for dinner.’
‘Oh really?’ Cara said as Dora Key the cook, settling her elbows on the table. ‘That’s interesting, because I was there too and didn’t see you, Ralph. I can’t be sure exactly where I was at the time, Inspector –’ she glanced at Jamie – ‘as the clock in the kitchen has been broken for some time. But I’m pretty sure it was then that I walked to the vegetable patch on the south side of the grounds. And I don’t remember seeing anyone else.’
‘Our paths must not have crossed,’ Zach said to her across the table.
‘Clearly,’ Cara said. ‘And what about you, Pip – crap – Celia. Were you also taking a stroll on the grounds?’
Pip cleared her throat. ‘No, I wish. In fact, my allergies have been playing up since I arrived on the island, and I wanted to be on good form for tonight. So, after tea in the library, I actually put myself to bed to get some rest before dinner.’
‘Where?’ Ant asked.
‘In my bedroom, of course,’ she replied hastily, surprising herself. Was she feeling defensive? Celia wasn’t even a real person – why was she defending her? Too much attention was being paid to her; she should deflect. ‘You’re being very quiet, Lizzie – where were you?’
‘Oh,’ Lauren smiled sweetly. ‘Well, at tea I’d somehow managed to get jam all over me, so I decided to have a bath to spruce up before dinner. So that’s where I was, in the tub in my room. Have you heard of bathing, Celia dear?’
‘For an hour and fifteen minutes?’ Pip countered.
‘I take long baths.’
‘Hmm, that’s interesting, though.’ Pip pulled a face. ‘The pipes to upstairs run right by my room, and I can always hear when someone lets out their bathwater; makes a right racket.’ She paused for effect, looked at the others. ‘The pipes were silent this evening.’
Cara performed a dramatic gasp.
‘I thought you said you were asleep.’ Lauren looked flustered. ‘How could you have heard anything anyway?’
Pip didn’t have an answer for that.
‘OK, that’s very interesting,’ Jamie said now, scratching his chin. ‘So, it seems that each one of you was alone at the time of the murder. Which, in fact, means that none of you, not one of you, has an alibi.’
Cara supplied another gasp, but she put far too much into it and started to cough. Pip patted her on the back.
‘So,’ Jamie continued, ‘you all … Wait, Connor, you ordered the pizza, right?’
‘Yes, yes,’ Connor said.
‘Good, just checking,’ he said, before slipping into the ultra-serious Inspector Howard Whey again. ‘So, every single one of you had means and opportunity to commit this murder. I wonder who among you also had a motive.’
His gaze landed on Pip for a moment and she shifted awkwardly beneath it. She didn’t know much about Celia at this point; it was possible she actually was the murderer.
‘But there is one last thing I found on my initial search of the study. The murder weapon.’ Jamie placed his knuckles on the table and leaned into them. ‘It was left beside the body; no fingerprints, so our killer must have worn gloves or wiped it afterwards. It was a knife – one of the kitchen knives.’
Everyone turned to look at Cara.
‘What?!’ she said, crossing her arms. ‘Oh, I see, blame it all on the poor cook, eh? Any one of you could have come into the kitchen and taken one of the knives.’
‘Not if you were in there,’ Zach said quietly, dropping his eyes. Confrontation wasn’t really his thing, even when he wasn’t being Zach.
‘I wasn’t,’ she protested. ‘I told you, I went to the vegetable patch. Look, come with me.’ She stood up. ‘Come with me, I said. I have proof.’
She stormed out of the dining room.
‘I guess we should follow her,’ Jamie said, beckoning to the rest of them.
This must be part of the game, something written in Cara’s booklet. Pip’s chair scraped the floor as she stood up and hurried out of the room, her notebook and pen in hand, following Cara into the kitchen.
‘Aha,’ Ant said as he entered, pointing to the Reynoldses’ cylindrical knife rack, the knives colour-coded at the base of each handle. ‘Even more knives. How many more murders are you planning, Dora?’
‘Well, those are far too modern for 1924,’ Pip said.
‘If you’d all stop chit-chatting,’ Cara said, ‘somewhere in here is a note that one of the guests left me. That’s my proof. Help me find it.’
‘You mean this?’ Connor said, fishing out an envelope from between two plates on the washing-up rack. Printed on the top side were the words Clue #1.
‘Yes, that,’ Cara said, a small smile creeping on to her face. ‘Read it out loud to everyone.’
Cara shuddered. ‘Urgh, I hate the word moist.’
‘Who’s Darlene?’ Connor as
ked, screwing his eyes up at the note.
‘Well, clearly someone can’t be bothered to learn my actual name,’ Cara said. ‘So, I had to go to the vegetable patch to get the carrots. I made the bloody carrot cake, by the way. It was moist as fuck.’
‘It’s signed off by RR,’ Pip thought aloud, turning to Ant and Zach: Robert and Ralph Remy. ‘One of you must have written it.’
There was a blank expression on Zach’s face, but Ant smiled and held up his hands. ‘OK, OK,’ he said. ‘I wrote that note. I was actually trying to do something nice for my father.’
‘For once,’ Zach quipped, getting into it now.
‘I admit, my father and I haven’t been as close recently. It was just meant as a nice gesture after we had a slightly fraught conversation this morning. But someone went and killed him before he ever got to see the damn carrot cake.’
‘What time did you leave this note, Bobby?’ Pip asked, studying his eyes, her pen poised. Well, she didn’t want to miss any important details, did she? OK, it was just a game, but even so, Pip didn’t like to lose.
‘It was late morning, I think,’ Ant replied, checking the detail in his booklet. ‘Yep, elevenish. The cook wasn’t in here.’
‘See, told you,’ Cara said defiantly.
Pip turned to her. ‘I’m not sure this is an “I told you so” moment.’
Cara’s look of triumph hardened into one of betrayal. ‘How’s that?’ she asked, Dora Key’s voice back in full force.
‘Bobby left this note for you at eleven,’ Pip explained. ‘You could have gone to the vegetable patch at any time since then. This doesn’t prove that that’s where you were at the exact time of the murder.’
‘Are you calling me a liar?’ Cara said, giving Pip a playful shove.
‘And, in addition,’ Pip carried on, ‘this shows that at some point during the day you left the kitchen unattended, which means any one of us could have come in to take the knife.’ Even me, she thought. Well, Celia. ‘We know that Bobby was in here alone when he left the note. This note could even be his cover for having access to the murder weapon and –’
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