Murder in Shadow (The Doyle and Acton Murder Series Book 6)

by Anne Cleeland

  “Susceptible.”

  “Thank you—susceptible as everyone else.”

  With all sincerity, he squeezed her hand. “I only do what is best for us, Kathleen. I’m afraid I must ask you to trust me.”

  “A’course I trust you.” The words were said a bit sharply, because Harding’s warnings were utter nonsense. “Although it’s no easy thing, what with the walls about to start collapsin’ down. Fortunately, I’ve had a fine fried sandwich, to help steady my nerves.”

  “Didn’t the kale steady your nerves?” he teased.

  “Horrific stuff; it should be fed to prisoners.”

  He parked the car, but instead of opening the door he sat for a moment, and lifted her hand to kiss the knuckles again. “You should trust me to feed you kale, too.”

  “Never,” she declared with spirit. “Kale is the work of the devil. Give me a humble tin of chickpeas, any day.”

  “Chickpeas,” he repeated, lifting his head with an air of immense satisfaction.

  “Do you like chickpeas?” she asked in surprise.

  “Certainly,” he replied, and it was a lie.

  19

  All was in train, and the situation would be soon resolved in a very satisfactory manner. Perhaps the heir should be born at Trestles; it was only fitting.

  “You can’t blindly trust him. Not this time.”

  Yet again, Doyle was having an obscure conversation with Dr. Harding, and struggling to concentrate, as the wind blew in the stony background. “I can’t not trust him; I wouldn’t know how. On the other hand, I’m not so sure I trust you.” Especially considering Acton had no doubt murdered the man, although it would probably be bad manners to mention it.

  “But you do trust me,” the ghost pointed out reasonably.

  Reluctantly, Doyle conceded this point, and went on to the next. “I’ll admit that there was somethin’—there was somethin’ about Morgan Percy; about how Acton spoke about her. It made me uneasy.”

  Her companion nodded. “Yes. Follow your instinct.”

  Dubiously, she eyed him. “That doesn’t sound like somethin’ a psychiatrist should say.”

  “On the contrary, much of psychiatry is bringing into consciousness those matters which are circulating in the unconscious.”

  “Well, I’ve got a basketful of things circulatin’,” she complained. “I’m pig-sick of all of it.”

  “Unravel it—follow your instinct,” he repeated. “Unmask the Até, before it’s too late.”

  She sighed. “It’s a shame—about Percy, I mean. I rather like her, although I don’t know why I do; I’ve nothin’ in common with her.”

  “On the contrary. She has classic father-abandonment issues; practically a textbook case.”

  Doyle regarded him a bit dubiously. “Oh? I don’t know the fancy names for things; I just know people.” She paused, thinking about it. “For instance, I know that Acton wants to tell me about his father, but he’s afraid to.”

  “Excellent diagnosis,” the psychiatrist proclaimed, with heavy irony.

  Defensively, she explained, “Well, I can’t go bangin’ in like a busker at a weddin’—Acton trusts me, too. He trusts me not to hurt him, and so I’ve got to be careful, bein’ as I’m the only one who can.” She paused, thinking about it. “This feelin’s business is all very complicated, and I’m doin’ my best.”

  This remark, however, seemed to garner the ghost’s immediate attention, and he leaned forward to say with emphasis, “No—it is far better to assert yourself. You’ve forgotten entirely about the other one.”

  She stared at him, not following. “The other one what?”

  “The other shadow murder.”

  “Oh—oh, the pawnbroker.” After a slight pause, she confessed, “There’s actually lots of reasons for a pawnbroker to be gettin’ himself killed. It would be a rare tangle, to try to sort it out.”

  “No, it wouldn’t. It’s ‘that feelings business,’ as you would say.”

  With some surprise, she repeated, “The pawnbroker is dead because of feelin’s?”

  “Yes.”

  Whilst she considered this in confused silence, he repeated, “Unmask the Até.”

  Still at sea, Doyle slowly shook her head. “But I’m not Lady Macbeth, I’m the opposite—whatever that is. I’m not the one who goads him—I’m the one who spikes his guns.”

  Very pleased, Harding nodded. “Exactly.”

  Doyle woke with a start, and instinctively reached for Acton, but once again he’d crept out of bed and was seated at his desk, the dim light from the laptop visible through the bedroom’s open doorway.

  Doyle blew out a soft breath, and rolled out of bed, wrapping her robe around her expanded girth as she padded over toward the kitchen, crossing in front of him in the process.

  “Couldn’t you sleep?” he asked, watching her. “I think there is some ice cream, left.”

  She opened the liquor cabinet, and squinted in the dim light, reviewing the bottles within. “How goes the trap-settin’?”

  Although he was wary, he spoke to her in a level tone. “It is too soon to tell, I’m afraid.”

  A bottle of scotch in hand, she straightened up, and regarded him. “Is the trap for Williams?”

  “No,” he replied immediately, and it was the truth.

  As he watched her with an unreadable expression, she approached to set the bottle on the desk with a small clink. “I’d like to hear about your father. We’ll do it once-through, and then we’ll never have to speak of it again.”

  There was a small pause, whilst he kept his gaze focused on the bottle. “I’ll need a glass.”

  “Ice?”

  “Not necessary.”

  She fetched a glass, and then settled into the corner of the sofa as he poured himself a healthy tot. For a while they sat in the darkness, whilst he drank and she held her tongue, waiting—no small feat, as she was not one who tolerated silences well.

  Into the darkened stillness, he began, “She was a protégé of my father’s. She was a brilliant pianist—first rate.”

  The faint light coming in from the streetlights below illuminated his profile, and he kept his gaze fixed on the glass in his hand. “I was in university at the time, and a callow fellow. I was infatuated with her; she was older, and—” he paused, thinking about it. “She was rather wild, and passionate; everything that I was not.”

  Doyle nodded, knowing all there was to know about his infatuations.

  “I suppose there can be little surprise that she tried to seize the main chance; the heir to the house was clearly besotted, and of age. She need only convince me to elope, and she’d be a baroness.” He paused. “There was also an element of revenge involved. I didn’t realize it at the time, but she was also sleeping with my father, and trying to convince him to leave my mother.”

  Doyle was shocked into remarking, “Holy Mother, Michael; a brasser, through-and-through.”

  At this, he looked up at her with a small smile. “Yes. But a brilliant pianist. I think—I think her wildness was part and parcel of her brilliance.”

  As Doyle—having lived amongst some very wild Irishmen—was more inclined to think that wildness was only self-destruction in disguise, she made no comment.

  He lowered the glass, and cradled it in his hands. “I would—I would tryst with her in the old kennels, since no one ever went there.”

  He’d paused, and so she prompted, “And where are the old kennels? Are they by the stables?” She hadn’t really been paying attention, on her one tour of the place.

  “The building is no longer there. It used to house the hunting pack, in days gone by.”

  She nodded, and noted that his language was reverting to House-of-Lords, which tended to happen when he was drunk, and only served to show you how much he toned it down when he was talking to the bride who he’d plucked from the raw ranks of the peasantry.

  “On the night in question we’d determined to elope, but a vehicle would have ra
ised the alarm, so instead we were to hike overland, to the nearest transport station.”

  Doyle was skeptical, and offered, “She doesn’t sound like much of a hiker, to me.”

  “No,” he agreed. “Looking back, I should not have been surprised when I discovered that it was all an attempt to force my father’s hand.”

  Again, there was a silence, whilst he contemplated his glass. “Your father doesn’t sound like someone who’d let his hand be forced,” she prompted.

  He made no response, and so she inquired gently, “Was there an ugly confrontation, there in the kennels?”

  He nodded, his fingers pressed tightly against the glass. “Indeed, there was. When I came in, my father—” he drew a breath. “My father was waiting for me. He’d tied her up, and took great delight in her frustrated fury, and my pleas for her release.”

  “Holy Mother,” Doyle repeated, thoroughly shocked. “A monster, he was.”

  “Yes. He’d taken hold of a clearing axe, and threatened to cut off her fingers, one at a time, so that she could never play again.”

  “Oh—oh, Michael, that’s horrid. To think that he’d threaten such a thing—”

  “But she would not be cowed—foolhardy, under the circumstances. Instead she cursed him, and spit in his face. In a fit of rage, he swung the blade, and severed one of her arms.”

  For a few seconds, she could only gape at him. “He—he cut off her arm? Oh; oh, Michael—” Swiftly, she rose and went to kneel before her husband, taking his hands in hers. “How truly awful—”

  His head bent, he ran a distracted thumb over the small hand that clasped his. “It was very hard to bear.”

  Nearly flinching from the toxic combination of bleak misery and black anger, she gazed up into his face. “Then we won’t think about it—ever again. We’ll put it in a balloon, and let it float away, forever.”

  He took a breath, his chest rising and falling. “My father then left me alone with her. I was—I was distraught, but she was still alive; when a limb is amputated, the blood vessels constrict immediately, so as to prevent a bleed-out. I enlisted Hudson to stay with her, while I ran to ring up Timothy. When I returned, though, Hudson informed me that she’d died.”

  As he paused to pour another glass, Doyle gave voice to the unspoken thought. “A shadow murder, I imagine. Hudson is nothing if not loyal to the House of Acton, and this little episode was a problem in more ways than one.”

  “I would assume.” He took another healthy swallow.

  “So,” she ventured. “The girl—along with the building—disappeared.”

  “The building burned down,” he replied, and offered nothing more.

  She kissed his hands, one at a time. “I am unsurprised, my friend. And then your father was made to pay the price for his many misdeeds.”

  He nodded. “Hudson informed me there was a loosely-organized group of men in the area who could procure black-market guns, for a price.”

  “Ah,” she said neutrally. She was too much the police officer to express admiration for this wholesale breaking of the law, but it now seemed clear from whence her husband’s illegal gun-smuggling urges had sprung. “Our Hudson is a trump. Poor Reynolds hasn’t got a prayer; he’ll have to settle for bein’ the under-steward, or somethin’.”

  Acton struggled to focus, and met her eyes. “I can’t be sorry.”

  Gently, she reminded him, “But you should try, Michael—it’s in the rules. And redemption is always miles better than retribution—you’re supposed to try to keep your eyes on eternity, rather than what gives you relief in the here-and-now.”

  But he was past philosophizing, as he lifted his hand to lay a palm against her cheek. “I love you.”

  She turned her head to kiss the palm. “You don’t have to say; not to me. Now, let’s get you to bed.”

  This was not as easy as it would seem; Acton was unsteady on his feet, and she was off-balance in trying to support him, but she managed to navigate him into the bed, and pull the comforter over him, as he settled in. She straightened up, her hands on the small of her back, and watched him for a moment as his breathing became more regular. Small wonder Acton was compelled to do his masterminding—he never wanted to be that helpless again. And now she knew why he always stroked her arms—creepy, it was, but she couldn’t very well ask him to stop.

  One of his hands groped across the bed and he murmured in his sleep, clearly seeking her out. “I’m comin’, husband,” she soothed, and carefully crawled in beside him.

  20

  Today’s proceeding should set the hook.

  Doyle had decided to wear her best black knit maternity dress—despite the fact it was getting a bit too tight—to the committee hearing, being as she thought it made her look as though she respected the gravity of the committee’s work, and didn’t think it all a pack of nonsense. She’d pulled her hair behind a black headband and did her best to appear composed, like a worthy baroness, and not like some skimble-skamble pretender who’d married a fellow pretender who was certainly much better at pretending than she was.

  She’d half-expected Harding to make a re-appearance in her dreams last night after she’d heard Acton’s horrifying story, but she’d no ghostly visitors, and had slept as well as could be hoped for when one was half the size of a baleen whale, and expected to play a starring role in Parliament the next morning.

  Neither she nor Acton made reference to the prior night’s recital—which was to be expected, after all—but she’d sensed that his mood this morning was upbeat. Looking forward to matching wits with Sir Stephen’s team, he was, and more power to him; it would be a nice change not to have to constantly suspicion that Acton’s stupid heir was trying to kill her.

  At present, she was seated in her armchair against the wall whilst the committee was discussing some point of order with the chairman, their heads all huddled together. Acton’s counsel had made a motion to preclude any further argument that Acton had been previously married, being as Acton had unequivocally testified that he hadn’t been, and the only evidence offered by Sir Stephen were documents that were not supported by any live testimony—not even that of a records-keeper. In general, documents didn’t make their way into evidence without someone swearing to them under penalty of perjury, and Doyle decided that she probably shouldn’t mention that the reason there were no records-keepers for these particular documents was because Philippe Savoie had managed to murder both of them.

  Sir Stephen’s counsel had argued that the birth records were official in nature, and therefore should be admitted outright into evidence; any questions about their authenticity should be directed toward how much weight to give them, rather than whether they were admissible in the first place. Counsel focused on the significant fact that there were two separate documents from unrelated places that referenced a marriage—the Holy Trinity Clinic record, where the supposed first wife had supposedly given birth, and the copy of the same record found in Lord Aldwych’s archives.

  Acton was seated at the respondent’s table with his counsel, and appeared serenely unconcerned with this point of law, but Doyle knew he was keenly interested in the outcome of the discussion. Therefore, it was with some surprise that she could sense his flare of satisfaction when the chairman—rather regretfully—informed the committee that the records could indeed be admitted into evidence, and the argument about the first marriage could continue to be made.

  Acton’s counsel, however, pretended to be very unhappy with this turn of events and reluctantly rose to his feet. “If that is the case, my lord, would it be possible to have the two documents examined by a forensic specialist? As there is no evidentiary foundation for them, the committee should be assured by an expert that they have not been falsified in any respect.”

  “We cannot have anyone from the Met examine them, my lord,” Sir Stephen’s counsel protested. “It would be a clear conflict of interest.”

  Acton’s counsel offered, “We would have no objection to an in
dependent specialist, my lord, appointed by this committee.”

  “Duly noted,” said the chairman, who made a note. “That will necessarily delay the introduction of the documents themselves, though. Is there any other live testimony, with respect to the alleged first wife?” He then rested his forehead briefly against his hand, so that he could cast an apologetic glance at Doyle, who was actually somewhat relieved by this gesture, as his contrite attitude suggested that he was not looking to navigate her out of her marriage. She’d entertained the alarming possibility that he was hoping to lay romantic siege to the next Orkney lslander in line, regardless of her whale-size.

  Sir Stephen’s counsel stood. “As it was a secret marriage, we could find no witnesses, per se, but we do have a witness who will testify about the relationship between the principals during the time frame in question.”

  “Objection, my lord,” said Acton’s counsel. “Unduly speculative.”

  “I will allow,” the chairman decided. “As is the case with the records, the committee can sort out how much weight to give the testimony.”

  “Then the petitioner would like to call Mrs. Wright.”

  Doyle sat up in alarmed surprise. Mrs. Wright had been the treacherous cook at Trestles, who’d been conspiring to ruin Acton. Needless to say, once the plot was exposed Mrs. Wright had been unceremoniously given the sack. Her presence here could only be considered ominous, and Doyle resisted the urge to send a panicked glance in the direction of her husband.

  After having been called by the clerk, the former cook made her way down the aisle with her hands clasped tightly before her, apparently so nervous that she did not dare raise her gaze. Despite the woman’s meek mien, Doyle’s level of alarm rose because she was not fooled; Mrs. Wright was enjoying herself hugely.

  After the witness had been sworn, Sir Stephen’s counsel began his questioning. “You were employed at Trestles as a cook, during the time period in question?”