Murder at Honeychurch Hall: A Mystery

by Hannah Dennison

  “Yes, old beetle-brows,” Mum said. “I half expect them to crawl off his face.”

  “Mum!”

  “You know what they say—beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Mum paused for thought. “Take you, for example. I don’t know what you see in Dylan. Is it his money? His power?”

  I retorted with a barb of my own. “And I wonder what you see in staying in this dump? Is it for the remote chance of meeting royalty?” Mum winced and I felt horrible. “Sorry, that was unkind. But honestly—even the nanny said you should move back to London.”

  “How nice of you to discuss me with a stranger,” Mum said coldly. “And a foreigner at that. Your father never trusted the Russians.”

  “Actually, Gayla was very complimentary about you. But she said you were in great danger.”

  “I am. From beetle-brows,” said Mum.

  “She said—and I quote, ‘Rupert is a wicked man and should be stopped.’”

  “Are we going to bicker all evening?” Mum grumbled. “I’m game if you are.”

  “No,” I said wearily. “Let’s call a truce.”

  “Good—because Walk of Shame! starts in five minutes,” said Mum. “Do watch it. It’s hilarious.”

  “No, thank you.” I sniffed. “I don’t want to see people get humiliated by Trudy Wynne, thank you very much.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic. It’s all scripted.”

  “It’s not all scripted,” I exclaimed. “Trudy goes out of her way to dig up the dirt.”

  “I hope you didn’t quit Fakes & Treasures because of her.”

  “Of course not,” I said hotly, hating Mum for touching a nerve. Had I?

  “Your father would be so disappointed if he knew you packed it in because you’d let Trudy get to you.”

  “I’m not packing it in because of Trudy Wynne,” I cried. “And I don’t want to talk about her. I’ve always wanted my own antique shop. At least look at some of the property brochures I’ve brought with me, Mum.”

  “You are wasting your breath,” said Mum. “I’m not moving anywhere.”

  “Let’s not argue,” I said.

  “Who’s arguing?”

  I made a monumental effort to keep my temper, picked up my tote bag, and pulled out Gypsy Temptress. “Here,” I said. “A peace offering.”

  “Oh!” Mum brightened. “What did you think? Did you enjoy it?”

  “You know I don’t read that rubbish. It’s for you.”

  Mum opened her mouth but before she could say thank you, the puke-green phone mounted on the wall let out a series of chirrups. “Who on earth is calling so late?” Mum snatched up the receiver. “Yes?” she snapped. “Oh, yes, this is Iris Stanford speaking.” Mum’s expression changed from annoyance to disbelief. “Could you repeat that please?” She listened again and then put the phone down, eyes wide with excitement.

  “Did you win the lottery?” I asked.

  “That was Cropper from the Hall,” Mum gushed. “We’re expected for coffee tomorrow morning at ten-thirty with the Earl of Grenville—that’s Lord Honeychurch, they have all kinds of titles. Well I never! I am surprised. Fancy the gentry asking us for coffee!” Mum’s face was pink. “But what should I wear? Oh dear, I can’t go looking like this!”

  “What exactly did Cropper say?” I asked.

  “Something about not using the tradesman’s entrance.” Mum beamed. “You see! We’re even told to use the main drive!”

  “I am sorry to dampen your excitement,” I said. “The reason we are going to the Hall is to discuss the tradesman’s entrance—and a few other things.”

  “Why do we have to discuss the tradesman’s entrance?” said Mum.

  “I met Lady Lavinia this afternoon and told her that old beetle-brows had closed all access—meaning you couldn’t drive through his field.”

  “Oh.” Mum’s face fell. “Really Kat, I do wish you wouldn’t interfere. I don’t want to cause a fuss.”

  “I thought you’d be pleased.”

  “Well, I’m not. I’m embarrassed. They are the aristocracy and now I’ll look common. You’re just like your father. Always putting a wet blanket on everything.”

  “That’s not true, Mum. I’m worried for you, that’s all.” I waved Gypsy Temptress at her. “I do try, Mum. See?”

  Mum regarded my gift with what seemed like disgust. She turned on her heel, wrenched open the kitchen door, and vanished.

  I just couldn’t win.

  Chapter Five

  I washed up the dishes and gave the work surfaces a thorough cleaning. Under the stone sink was a very smelly pedal bin in dire need of emptying. Obviously, William hadn’t been put on bin duty.

  A sudden burst of birdsong erupted from a round clock hanging above the pantry door. According to the chaffinch, it was ten o’ clock. I’d bought that clock for Mum decades ago and Dad had never liked it so it stayed in the box. I wondered if my parents had really been happy all those years and yet I knew my father had idolized Mum.

  Dad never exactly forbade her to do things, but rather suggested it wasn’t a good idea as in, “Iris, it’s lovely but where would you put it?” When she saw a dress she liked and wanted to buy it—Mum had no money of her own—Dad would say, “Of course you can have it but would you wear it? You know you hate going out.”

  Perhaps I needed to change tactics and adopt some of Dad’s persuasion techniques.

  A shaft of moonlight shone through a crack in the net curtains. I pulled a panel aside and looked out onto the cobbled yard. Mum’s MINI was parked in front of the barn. A figure entered the courtyard from the direction of the woods and stood in the shadows.

  I was certain it was William and felt a twinge of alarm. Was he going to turn out to be a peeping Tom? Switching off the kitchen light, I returned to the window and watched. He stood there for several minutes before creeping over to the dustbins.

  Tying up the bag of rubbish from the pedal bin, I walked to the front door and out into the courtyard. Taking a circular route, I crept around the corner of the barn determined to confront him.

  To my annoyance, William was busily scouring the contents of the dustbins with the help of a flashlight and a walking stick. Balls of yellow paper and food wrappers were scattered on the ground and there was an overwhelming stench of rotting garbage.

  I’d had to deal with “fans” rifling through my dustbins before hoping to find some gem to sell to Trudy Wynne and was furious.

  “Looking for something?” I said and then stepped back in surprise. “Eric? Is that you? What are you doing?”

  Eric slammed down the lid and spun around. Shielding my eyes from the glare I snapped, “Turn that thing off.”

  “Yes, what are you doing, Eric?” Vera materialized from thin air. “Or should I say, what are you both doing?” Her voice was slurred and I suspected she’d been drinking.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, woman. Can’t a man use a dustbin?” Eric said, exasperated. “I was on my way to my office.”

  “At this time of night?” Vera’s voice was heavy with accusation.

  “Yes,” said Eric. “And don’t start nagging.”

  “You don’t waste time, do you? That Russian tart only left this afternoon,” Vera shouted. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “I know what’s wrong with you,” Eric shouted back. “You’re bloody drunk, woman.”

  Vera stepped toward me. Her breath reeked of alcohol. “And you should keep your hands off other people’s husbands,” she cried. “You’re on Fakes & Treasures! You’re Rapunzel. I knew you were lying … Jazzbo.”

  “Excuse me,” I said coldly. “I’d like to throw this lot out.”

  Wordlessly, Eric took the rubbish bag from me, gallantly lifted the dustbin lid, and threw it in.

  “Thank you,” I said. “And please clear up this mess.”

  “Keep away from my Eric,” said Vera. “I’m warning you.”

  “I’ll try to restrain myself,” I muttered, as I squeezed past Vera and
hurried back to the house thoroughly irritated. What an awful woman.

  Picking up my overnight case from the hall, I headed upstairs, promptly tripped on a loose floorboard at the top of the stairs, and went flying headlong on the landing. Despite the crash and my cry of pain, Mum did not come out to investigate. She must have taken her headache straight to bed.

  There were no prizes for guessing that the first door I opened was mine. Apart from the gaping hole in the floor behind the door exposing the hall below, Mum had recreated my 1980’s teenage lair complete with my Laura Ashley curtains. She could easily have made this a guest room. I was touched.

  My white-painted furniture was set out exactly as it used to be. The mattress on my single bed was thirty years old and always gave me a chronic backache, but as Dad had said, what was the point of buying a new once since they never had guests and I only slept over for family birthdays, Christmas, and Easter.

  Boxes were stacked neatly in one corner labeled CHINA HORSES, BOOKS, RIDING STUFF, and PHOTOS—1980–90’S. A vintage iron steamer trunk filled with my dressing-up clothes stood under the window along with the blue suitcase full of old bears and soft toys. A part of me wondered why I still kept these things if I never had children to give them to.

  Pushing that awful thought to the back of my mind, I went off in search of the linen cupboard.

  The upstairs landing was a narrow L-shaped corridor with three more doors leading off—two on my right, and one on my left. Lit by one naked bulb, the décor looked a hundred times worse than downstairs. With no wallpaper to speak of, the lath and plaster were exposed and there were alarming clumps of fleshy mushroom-type growths that did not bode well.

  I opened the next door. Flipping on the light I stared in confusion. It was my mother’s bedroom but she was not asleep in her bed.

  Again, the furniture was arranged exactly as it had been in Tooting. In the corner, an upholstered low stool stood before a kidney-shaped dressing table draped with lace. Mum’s silver brushes were neatly laid out on the glass top along with perfume bottles and a box of Kleenex tissues.

  Familiar photographs in silver frames—Mum and Dad on their wedding day, me at age five on a pony, and one of the three of us taken on holiday in Scotland—were on the mantelpiece above the Victorian fireplace that now housed a hideous 1940’s gas fire. But there was a new addition to the collection—a photograph I had never seen before.

  Guessing it must have been taken in the early fifties, I recognized Mum—grinning from ear to ear, aged around nine or ten, standing between two boys in front of a boxing booth at a fairground. The boys were dressed in boxing attire and were hamming it up for the camera. I guessed they must be Alfred and Billy—part of Mum’s past that I knew nothing about until today.

  A sudden wave of grief welled up as I looked at the matching night tables. The left had the clock, a glass of water, and a romance novel by Joan Johnston. The right table was bare. Dad had always slept on the right-hand side of the bed and now he was gone.

  Forty-nine years was a long time to be married. Even if David and I married right this second it was unlikely we would live long enough to make it to thirty-five. I just couldn’t imagine how Mum must feel and resolved to be nicer, more patient, and compassionate.

  I went to find her and knocked on the next door, that turned out to be the bathroom. Mum wasn’t there, either.

  The bathroom was basic to say the least with hideous blue-and-pink-checked linoleum. An ancient three-bar electric wall heater was fixed askew above a long, deep china bath. Of course there was no shower so washing my hair would be a nightmare.

  The sound of voices carrying on the night breeze drew me to the open window where a full moon and a gazillion stars—a sight I never saw in London—illuminated Eric and the man with the English setter standing outside a beaten-up old caravan in the field.

  Gayla’s name was spoken several times before the man with the dog patted Eric’s shoulder and said, “I won’t forget this, I owe you,” before striding off out of view.

  Vera emerged from inside the caravan—I guessed this was Eric’s so-called office—and shouted, “What did his lordship say? Why does he owe you?”

  I couldn’t hear Eric’s answer but whatever he said made her cry. Vera grabbed the sleeve of his jacket. “Please don’t go, please.”

  I quickly shut the bathroom window. The last thing I wanted was to listen to their marital squabbles and turned my attention to hunting for some bed linen.

  I heard murmurings coming from the far end of the corridor where a fourth—and last—door stood closed. I’d assumed it was a cupboard.

  “Mum?” I tried the handle. It was locked. “Are you in there?” Abruptly, the murmuring stopped. I tapped again. “Mum. Are you okay?”

  There was the click of a key and Mum opened the door a crack. “What is it? What do you want?”

  I tried to sound casual but I was actually worried. “I thought you’d gone to bed.”

  “Well, I haven’t.” She sounded annoyed. “Did you find the sheets?”

  “Not yet. What are you doing in the cupboard?” I said, trying to look over her shoulder.

  “It’s not a cupboard.”

  I was struck by a ghastly thought. “Is William in there?”

  Mum’s expression of horror was so comical that I laughed.

  “Give me some credit, dear.”

  “Well, I had to ask,” I said. “I assume your headache is better now?”

  “I’ll help you find the bed linen,” she said. “Go on ahead. Shoo! I’m right behind you.”

  I turned away but heard another click and, out of the corner of my eye, saw her lock the door using a key attached to a pink ribbon that was hanging around her neck.

  “Are you sure you haven’t got a man stashed in there?” I asked.

  Armed with clean sheets and a duvet, we returned to my bedroom and as I made up my bed Mum said, “I suppose you heard Vera shouting outside.”

  “I couldn’t help it.”

  Mum perched on the edge of my steamer trunk. “I hear them all the time. They’ve already been divorced twice, you know.”

  “From each other?”

  “Oh yes. This is the third time around,” Mum said. “Vera reminds me of Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire—although beetle-brows is no Marlon Brando.”

  “You can say that again.”

  “Poor things,” said Mum. “Passion is all very well but it can be so destructive.”

  I gave a snort of derision. “What do you know about passion?”

  “A lot more than you think,” said Mum. “And don’t snort. It’s so unattractive.”

  “I caught Eric rifling through the dustbins this evening,” I said.

  Mum looked up sharply. “My dustbins?”

  “And Vera called me Rapunzel. She guessed who I am,” I said. “She told me to keep my hands off other people’s husbands.” I was struck by a horrible thought. “Oh God, I hope she’s not a Star Stalkers type.”

  “Such is the price of fame, dear.”

  I gave a heavy sigh. “Oh Mum, will that wretched Trudy Wynne ever leave me alone?”

  “You did steal her husband.”

  “I didn’t. I told you. They were already separated.”

  “But not divorced.”

  “It’s complicated when children are involved.” I knew I was getting defensive.

  “If he really loves you—”

  “Mum, stop please—” Fortunately, my protests were drowned as my mobile phone rang. I recognized the caller ID. “It’s David.”

  “Speak of the devil.” My mother stood up. “I’ll leave you to it.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want any help undressing?” I said as I hit answer.

  “Hello, Dylan,” Mum called out in a voice that David couldn’t help but hear. “Ask him when he’s getting a divorce.”

  I kicked the door closed behind her.

  “Your mother doesn’t like me,” said David with a chuckl
e.

  “She does, really she does,” I lied. “I am so glad to talk to you. This whole situation is a complete nightmare.”

  Quickly, I summarized the events of the day. “She just can’t live here. It’s ridiculous.”

  “Why not?” David said. “It’s her life.”

  I was taken aback. “It’s hugely impractical and this building is falling down. It’s not structurally safe,” I said. “I thought you’d be on my side.”

  “I’m just saying—”

  “Dad specifically asked me to keep an eye on her,” I went on. “How can I do that from London?”

  “Judging by what you said about your father, I’m sure she’s enjoying her newfound freedom,” said David. “Believe me, after twenty years with Trudy I feel like I’ve been let out of prison.”

  “I hate it when you bring that woman up,” I snapped.

  “Sorry, I was making a point,” said David.

  “Well … don’t.”

  “Now that your mother is out of the picture, I assume you’ll drop this ridiculous antique shop idea and—”

  “I am not going back to Fakes & Treasures,” I said. “I want my life back.”

  “You’re making a terrible mistake, Kat,” said David. “You’ll never earn the same kind of money running a shop.”

  “It’s not about the money.”

  “It’s always about the money,” said David. “Trudy is going to cripple me with this divorce. She wants everything. And I’ve got to put the kids through university. We need that income, Kat.”

  “Isn’t the main thing that we’re going to be together?”

  There was a silence on the other end of the line.

  “David?” I said. “Are you still there?”

  “Yes,” he said wearily. “Look, I’ve got to go. There’s a lot going on.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  Another silence.

  “I wasn’t going to tell you but…” David paused. “Trudy’s father is terminally ill.”

  “And what’s that got to do with you?”

  “God, Kat. I thought you of all people would understand,” said David. “I was close to Hugh for heaven’s sake. I’m not divorcing him, I’m divorcing his daughter.”