The Body in Belair Park

by Alice Castle

  The house had stood here, impassively beautiful, through over two hundred years of constant change – wars, revolutions, referendums, riots. It had seen worse than the murder of a little old man and a botched attempt on a woman’s life. But that didn’t mean the events of the past weeks weren’t important. They had been crimes, deadly ones. And Beth was determined that they would be the last to be seen here, for another century at least. She screwed up her courage and went in.

  She had the feeling that she’d already glimpsed the truth. Coming here today, she was really just seeking to confirm a gut feeling. And that couldn’t be so dangerous, could it?

  Dicing with a murderer was never the best idea, though. And this time, it was personal. Beth could almost feel a malign spirit in the air as she grasped the handrail and followed the graceful sweep of the staircase, up, up to the waiting ballroom.

  Soon, in a dreamlike state, she found herself taking her seat opposite Wendy again, the now-familiar green baize cloth stretching between them. Behind her back, the other five or so tables were spread out for the rest of the Bridge Club. They were gradually filling up. As usual, her position as North meant she was actually in the worst spot for scrutinising the other club members, as she had her back to them. But she’d do the best she could. She listened as people filed in, greeted each other, discussed the weather, and took their seats. Could she hear the voice she was dreading, yet eagerly awaiting?

  Despite her nerves and her sense that she was on the brink of a deadly discovery, Beth found her mind fleeing to the moment last week, when she’d fanned out her thirteen cards and so many of them had been gloriously crowned heads. It had been a thrill; she couldn’t deny it. Then she’d got so many tricks. She’d loved that.

  Could she be a bridge whizz? She doubted it. But maybe, just maybe, she had a bit of potential. It was ages since she’d taken up anything new and done well at it. She hadn’t had time, what with Ben, and poverty, and all the rest of it. And she knew that luck alone was responsible for the amazing fistful of points she’d got last time. But seeing whether she could do as well with another hand… it was tempting, she had to admit.

  This time, she was a lot more au fait with some of the peculiar rituals. The bidding, the playing, even Wendy’s wincing, all passed off more smoothly. But, sadly, as the games edged by, she found she was making as many mistakes as she had last week.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said one of their opponents – a nice gentle lady with a golden hairdo, similar to but softer than that which had danced in and out of Beth’s subconscious all week. ‘I’ve been playing bridge for forty years now, and every week I make a different mistake,’ she tittered.

  Her partner, sitting opposite, seemed to find her comment a little less hilarious, but gamely chimed in. ‘Yes, just never play with your husband. All the jokes about people shooting each other after trumping aces are true, you know.’

  As a slice of humour, it fell as heavily onto the table as one of Beth’s homemade pancakes. Wendy definitely wasn’t ready to josh about the lethal aspects of the card game yet, and in her heightened state of nerves, nor was Beth.

  Wendy gave the woman a reproachful stare, still very conscious of her special status as a recent poisoning victim, but Beth managed a small polite smile. Then, before the lengthening silence could get too embarrassing, the pair got to their feet, said their goodbyes, and moved round to meet their next set of opponents.

  They were replaced by the Crofts – the next duo to play against Wendy and Beth, and one of the rare bridge couples who hadn’t apparently yet shot each other (or hid the scars well) in many years of playing together. Both wore zip-up fleeces and cheery smiles, and had the habit of finishing each other’s sentences. Beth remembered them from last week’s game and had enjoyed their gentle take on the game and their indulgence of her newbie mistakes. Mind you, they didn’t bear the brunt of them, and in fact benefitted from her erratic bidding and narcoleptic card play.

  All of a sudden there was a tinkling from Deidre MacBride’s little golden bell, and Beth craned round to see what was going on. The stocky woman was standing in front of the magnificent marble mantelpiece, her salt-and-pepper hair reflected in the enormous mirror. Her hands were pushed deep into the pockets of her tweedy jacket.

  ‘Thanks for your attention, everybody,’ she said in quelling tones. Over in the corner, where there had been a muttered conversation continuing, silence fell reluctantly.

  Beth pushed her chair back so that she didn’t get a crick in her neck. At this angle, ninety degrees to the rest of the room, she could see everyone for once. Her eyes roved over the tables, smiling as she caught the artist Miriam’s eye, nodding to her partner Jules, then suddenly doing a double-take as she spotted the back of one of those smooth, shiny helmets of blonde hair.

  Why did this particular iteration of a simple hairstyle – though actually, this spun-sugar creation, whipped up and then nailed down with setting spray, was anything but simple – have this effect on her pulse? It was now racing so hard she could scarcely hear Deirdre MacBride chuntering on about the far-off Bridge Club Christmas buffet lunch and the contribution of £5 expected from each member if they expected to have a spread as lavish as last year.

  ‘Now, as you know, it’s also our usual tea break time round about now,’ said Deirdre when she’d finished her spiel about the festive shindig. ‘But we’re running late. So, I suggest that in order to get in our usual number of hands, we have our tea while playing. Who agrees?’

  There was a landslide of approval. ‘If I could have a few volunteers to bring trays? Some of the more able-bodied?’ Deidre now had to raise her voice again above the din.

  Beth thought for a moment, laziness warring with her public-spirited side, then she got to her feet. To her surprise, she’d missed the boat. Several volunteers were already up and on their way out to get the cups. Beth just caught that elusive glint of gold again before Wendy crossly claimed her attention.

  ‘Beth, if you could just concentrate for a second, we might get on a bit better.’

  Beth’s cheeks were pink as she obediently fished her cards out of the red container and fanned them out, wishing she could fan her cheeks at the same time. But that would no doubt be frowned upon. She was concentrating so hard on tallying her points that she barely noticed the cup being placed at her elbow, though she muttered an automatic ‘thank you’.

  It wasn’t until she’d organised the suits and totted up her total – a measly eight points, nothing much she could do with that – that she risked breaking off to take a tiny sip. Ugh! The tea was sweet. She pushed it aside, disappointed. There seemed distressingly few occasions in life when she was presented with a cup of tea out of the blue, so it seemed a terrible waste that it should be undrinkable. But she loathed sugar in tea. Opposite her, Wendy had raised her cup and was also making a face, but as usual for a different reason. Not sweet enough. It was a wonder she had any teeth left, thought Beth. She, too, pushed the cup away. Beth suddenly relaxed. Without quite knowing it, she’d been holding her breath. But why?

  Then Mrs Croft to her right picked up Wendy’s cup by mistake and took a hearty swig. She saw Beth watching her and misunderstood, smiling at her over the rim. But, as Beth looked on, the woman’s mouth suddenly faltered, became strangely rigid, and then contorted. She looked confused for a moment, opened her eyes wide and, to Beth’s horror, clutched her chest. The cup fell from her hand and bounced once, twice, three times on the table, spilling liquid everywhere, across the green baize, onto the red boards and the bidding boxes, and over the edge of the table to drip steadily onto the parquet.

  Her husband stood up, bracing himself too heavily on the flimsy card table, which promptly collapsed under his weight. Cards were suddenly falling everywhere and joining the puddle of tea, and at neighbouring tables, people were standing up and starting to shout.

  Beth was to remember the pandemonium for years to come, and to blame herself for the scenes of chaos. Why hadn’t sh
e thought for one second how dangerous it really was to keep on serving refreshments in a group where one person had died from poisoning, and another had been hospitalised? Why had it not occurred to her that desperation might lead to another attempt?

  In her ridiculous career as a sleuth, she had sometimes risked her life to resolve a case. This time, unknowingly, she had been responsible for offering up the entire Bridge Club. She’d never forgive herself.

  ***

  Beth and Wendy were both toting large bunches of flowers when they met up a few days afterwards. The late September wind was biting, and Beth felt it whip right through her black jacket. As usual, Wendy was eyeing Beth’s outfit askance.

  ‘Do get that hair out of your eyes, darling. And I’m not sure that colour is very respectful, is it?’

  Beth looked down at the offending scarf. It was pale blue – not exactly disco-bright. But maybe it wasn’t suitable? She wrinkled her brow. It was true that she was never at her best with the language of clothes.

  ‘That’s hardly the most important thing at the moment, is it?’ If Wendy got started properly on her daughter’s sartorial shortcomings, they could be there for hours. And Beth, for one, had no desire to freeze to death.

  ‘You’re right,’ said Wendy, and Beth chose sensibly to ignore the unflattering note of surprise in Wendy’s voice. ‘There are much more important things to think about. This is such a shame.’

  ‘It’s really sad,’ Beth agreed, glad for once that they were in accord on something.

  ‘A terrible, terrible waste,’ Wendy added, shaking her head. ‘But she couldn’t go on like that. It’s a very, very sad loss.’

  Wendy stood, looking mournfully down at her tiny black shoes, while Beth tried to look anywhere but at her own bashed-up pixie boots. She certainly didn’t want to draw her mother’s attention to them. They were in even worse condition than Ben’s school shoes, and that was really saying something.

  ‘Well, let’s not stand here all day, anyway,’ said Wendy, shaking herself a little, and stepping forward. The automatic doors of the hospital opened with a swish and they made their way inside. ‘I really don’t see why Harry had to be quite so officious. Surely there was no need for an arrest?’

  Beth, pretty sure now that Wendy was going to keep up her litany of complaints all the way up to the ward where Mrs Croft was thankfully recovering well from her encounter with atropine, said tersely, ‘Mum, I don’t think Harry could allow a poisoner to remain on the loose, even if they were one of the leading lights of your beloved Bridge Club.’

  Wendy tutted, and suddenly Beth felt she’d been pushed too far. ‘For God’s sake, Mum, you nearly died. Mrs Croft has been really ill, too. How many more people had to be affected before you’d think it was fine to make an arrest?’

  ‘I hear what you’re saying, dear. But the Bridge Club is really suffering. First, we lost Alfie, and now all this. People might stop coming, which would just be awful.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said Beth, but thankfully was spared more arguments as they were now approaching Mrs Croft’s bedside.

  She was sitting up, looking pretty cheery, and playing something that looked suspiciously like bridge on an iPad. ‘My grandson set me up with this and it’s making the time fly,’ she smiled. ‘You should give it a try, Wendy.’

  As her mother bent her head over the screen and allowed her friend to demonstrate the game, Beth let her thoughts wander. She could see where Wendy was coming from. It would be sad for her, and no doubt many of the members, if the Bridge Club died out. But Beth hoped she’d always keep a demarcation in her own mind between the convenience of keeping her mother’s hobby in play and the incarceration of a murderer.

  She also felt a stab of annoyance at her mother’s dismissal of Harry’s heroic part in events. Beth herself had been thrilled to see him so soon after Mrs Croft’s collapse, and his actions had been decisive, effective, and extremely efficient. The ballroom had been surrounded by officers in uniform, the park had been shut down, the tea things had been sealed into evidence bags and, most importantly of all, the miscreant had been taken away in handcuffs. Beth was still in a tiny bit of a swoon at the thought of it all, which was helping their relationship along no end.

  The fact that, for once, he’d been fairly nearby when her call came – thanks to her emailed list of suspects – had helped immeasurably. But still, he’d saved the day, blue-lighting Mrs Croft to the hospital and overseeing the questioning of all the players. She did love him when he was striding around sorting things out.

  Wait a minute. Had she used the L-word? Beth’s cheeks grew pinker and pinker, which in itself was ridiculous. No-one else was privy to her train of thought. But had she actually just made a confession to herself? She’d never thought that anyone but her late, lamented James would be able to tease that word, that emotion, out of her. It just showed how wrong you could be. She loved Ben, Magpie and Colin, Katie, her mother, and Josh, too, of course. But that was different.

  Beth dragged her mind back to much safer territory – murder. Her wrinkled forehead and her worried frown cleared a little as she mulled over events at Belair House. But, though an arrest had been made and there was, to Wendy’s chagrin, another empty seat at bridge, there was a part of Beth that suspected things were not quite over yet. There were loose ends aplenty, or perhaps this time around, she should say that there were cards that had yet to be played. She suspected that someone, somewhere in Dulwich, rather thought they held all the trumps. It was still up to Beth to make sure that wasn’t so.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Beth was glad, the next day, to be back in the reassuringly normal, slightly messy surroundings of her beloved Archives office. Despite her best efforts, there were always a few straggling play programmes collecting on her desk or in a stack on a shelf, reminding her that even the most OCD people had to keep on top of filing or it would certainly get on top of them. Colin was asleep in the conference corner, lying on the blanket which had won an even larger place in his heart after Janice had sanctified it with her nap. As Beth watched, his back legs quivered as he chased a rabbit over the Rye in his sleep. Not that there were any left on Peckham Rye these days; Beth rather thought they’d all sold their burrows to hipsters for a fortune and retired to Whitstable. And Beth hadn’t been anywhere near the Rye for ages. She shuddered at the thought.

  She didn’t know whether it was because she was watching him, but all of a sudden, Colin shot to his feet. He didn’t even take forever about it, as he usually did; bracing arthritic limbs and shaking the stiffness out of his tail. No. This time, he was lying prone one minute, then upright the next. Even more astonishingly still, he was growling deep in his doggy throat.

  The hackles on the back of Beth’s neck rose in unison with the dog’s – she’d never heard him make this noise before, and it was utterly terrifying. A kind, sweet creature like Colin might well drown you in slobber, yes, but he wouldn’t ever dream of harming anyone, so this was completely extraordinary. He was glaring fixedly at the entrance to the office. Then he barked sharply, once, twice, and moved from paw to paw, like Roger Federer about to return a demon serve.

  Beth just about had time to push herself back from her desk and scrabble to her own feet, when the door was being bashed in. The crash was huge in the still, calm office, as the thick fire door whacked into the wall and chunks of plaster fell to the floor. But for once Beth wasn’t worrying about the mess. Her eyes were riveted on the panting, red-faced man who now dominated the doorway, cutting off her only exit route, his meaty hands clasping the frame and his horrible mouth wide in triumph.

  It was Tom Seasons, the Bursar of Wyatt’s. So much for his sabbatical. He seemed to be back with a vengeance, like the villain that refused to die in some superhero movie. Beth had rather hoped that he might have left for good, moved to another school, even left the area. But quite clearly, that had been wishful thinking. He must have been hanging around, biding his time. Dulwich was a ver
y small place, as she’d always known. And now her office, too, was shrinking by the second, as the man, six-feet-something of steaming anger, advanced towards her. She backed away but came up against the edge of her chair and sat down involuntarily, in an undignified heap. Great. Now she was even shorter, compared to this beefy giant bearing down on her. Where was Harry when she really needed him?

  Just then, a familiar head popped round the door. Thank the Lord, it was Janice. Beth took a deep breath – the first she was conscious of drawing since Seasons had darkened her doorway.

  ‘Janice!’ she piped, her voice so much higher than normal that it was like the squeak of a strangled bat. Colin in the corner suspended his growling for a moment to wince.

  On the one hand, Beth was so pleased to see the school secretary that she felt like dancing a little jig. On the other, she was now terrified that Seasons would attack Janice, too. She immediately started fumbling for her phone, which was on the desk. Seasons’ eyes tracked her movement, and for a horrible second she thought he was going to wrench it right out of her hand.

  But she needn’t have panicked. Janice’s appearance, and even Beth’s own movement, seemed to have woken Seasons out of his rage-filled trance. He marched into the room and steadied himself on the chair in front of Beth’s desk, and immediately he was just a rather tired, rather heavy, very red-faced, middle-aged man, not the rampaging hulk who’d just confronted her. Even Colin started to relax, the growl fading away, and he slowly lay down again, although with one suspicious brown eye fixed on the big man as if to warn him not to make any false moves.

  ‘Come in, Janice, please. And Tom, erm, what’s all this about?’ asked Beth, relieved that her voice now seemed to have sunk several octaves to its normal pitch.

  Seasons, though, seemed to be having trouble getting out any words at all. His face was still the colour of a traffic light stuck on stop, while sweat patches were gathering with all the ominous darkness of storm clouds under the arms of his shirt.