by Rhys Bowen
Hughes, who had never been anything other than sane and sensible, coughed in reply.
“And then the old Lord Bland-Tyghe died?” he asked.
“Actually he was Sir Ambrose. Knight. Not lord. Slight difference.”
Evan noticed Hughes bristle at the condescension.
“Sir Ambrose then. Lady Annabel inherited on his death?”
“Yes. She was the only surviving Bland-Tyghe. That was two years ago now. The property is so huge that the death taxes were horrendous, as you can imagine. Annabel begged me to come up with a way to keep her property. But I had no idea she’d get this crazy notion of turning it into a New Age center.”
He leaned forward in his seat. “Between you and me, Chief Inspector, Annabel has always been very gullible. One day she was going to be an actress, the next she was going to fly out to Calcutta and help Mother Teresa. They were all passing whims. This would have passed too if that dreadful man hadn’t latched onto her.”
“Mr. Wunderlich, you mean?”
“Of course. When Annabel poured out all her troubles on that wretched psychic hot line, he realized he was on to a good thing.”
“You think he only married her for the property?”
“Of course. Why else? Young, fit men don’t often go for chubby middle-aged women, do they? The other way around, I admit, but …”
“I take it you didn’t approve.”
“It was a disaster. The man had big ideas but no capital to back them up. I warned them to get the enterprise up and running first and then put in amenities with the profits, but he wouldn’t wait. He wanted the spa and the meditation center and the gourmet kitchen all at once. It has drained the very last of Annabel’s inheritance, I can tell you that, Chief Inspector.”
“Didn’t Lady Annabel try to stop him?”
“She wouldn’t listen to me. She was still at the infatuation stage. Everything Randy did was wonderful. It would only have lasted another month or two and then she would have tired of him anyway.”
“So all in all, you’d say that Randy Wunderlich’s death is a blessing?”
“As her financial adviser, I’d say it has come too late. She may well have to auction off the property. But as a friend I say better late then never.”
“Do you take sleeping pills, Mr. Cresswell?” Hughes asked.
“Sleeping pills? Good lord no. I was in the Guards, man. I don’t mamby pamby myself.”
Hughes got to his feet. “Thank you, Mr. Cresswell. You’ve been most helpful. Can I ask you to stay around a few more days until we’ve got this matter sorted out?”
“Sorted out? What is there to sort out? The fool went into a cave and got himself drowned.”
“Not exactly, sir,” Hughes said. “Someone made sure he was asleep when the tide came in.”
Ben Cresswell took a moment to register this. “Someone made sure—Good God! So that’s why you asked me about sleeping pills … . Well, that changes everything, doesn’t it?” His red face flushed even redder. “Listen, old chap. All that I said about not liking him and Annabel being better off without him—I don’t want you to think …”
Ben Cresswell blundered out of the room.
Chapter 17
“Interesting.” Chief Inspector Hughes looked up at Evan. “We’ve already come up with one person who didn’t adore Randy Wunderlich.”
“I don’t think he’ll be the only one, sir, from what I’ve observed,” Evan said.
“Really? Well, let’s bring in the next contestant, shall we?” He chuckled at his little joke.
Mrs. Roberts sat stiff and erect on the straight-backed chair and eyed the chief inspector coldly.
“You’ve no right to be putting Miss Annabel through this after what she’s gone through already,” she said. “The poor man is dead. Let him be. What good can come of asking questions over and over?”
“The truth, I hope,” Hughes said. “Now, if he killed himself deliberately, for example …”
Mrs. Roberts gave a brittle laugh. “Kill himself—that man? I’ve never seen a person who thought more of himself. Never passed a mirror without stopping to check how he looked. Vain as a peacock. No, if he was going to kill himself, he’d want to be found lying somewhere special, looking lovely.”
Evan nodded to himself. Mrs. Roberts was nobody’s fool.
“You’ve been here long, Mrs. Roberts?” Hughes asked.
“Since Lady Annabel was born. I was only a housemaid at the time, of course, but I rose to housekeeper and I’ve stayed with her ever since—even though I never imagined I’d be running this kind of establishment. Sir Ambrose would be turning in his grave if he could see them cavorting on his lawns. Heathens! Devil worshippers, that’s what they are.”
“So why didn’t you leave?”
“Leave Miss Annabel to him? I should think not. She might look hard on the outside, but she’s as soft as marshmallow. He had her wrapped around his little finger, you know.”
“So you didn’t like Mr. Wunderlich?”
“I did not, sir. I couldn’t stand the man. Quite wrong for Miss Annabel, he was. Not that she had much success in picking men after her first husband. Colonel Hollister was a proper gentleman. The rest have been ragtag and bobtail, if you’ll pardon the expression, sir.”
“So his death is a relief to you?”
“I wouldn’t wish anybody dead, sir. That’s not Christian, is it? But if you want my real feelings, yes, I’m glad he’s gone. Now maybe things can get back to normal again, and she can marry someone suitable.”
“Like Mr. Cresswell?” Evan couldn’t resist asking.
“At least he has her best interests at heart,” Mrs. Roberts said. “He wouldn’t be turning the place into a fun fair.”
“That will be all for now, Mrs. Roberts,” Hughes said. “Would you please ask Michael Hollister to come in?”
“Very good, sir. And may I bring you in a tray of tea or coffee?”
“Thank you. Most appreciated.”
She gave a curt bow before she closed the door behind her.
Hughes turned to Evan. “What made you ask that question about Cresswell?” he demanded.
“I’m sorry, sir. I shouldn’t have interrupted you. I just wanted to prove to myself that Cresswell was sweet on Lady Annabel.”
“Good lord. What made you think that?”
“Just a feeling. Why else would he stay on here? And she asked for him when she found out the news about Randy’s body.”
“Ah. Did she? So that gives Cresswell a real motive for wanting Wunderlich out of the way. And Mrs. Roberts too—she was frank enough, wasn’t she? Clearly loathed the man. I’m afraid Annabel was sadly deluding herself when she said that Wunderlich had no enemies. It’s fairly obvious that—” He broke off as there was a tap at the door.
Michael Hollister poked his head around the door, then came in reluctantly, blinking owlishly behind his glasses.
“Ah, come in. You must be Michael.” Hughes waved him to the chair. “Take a seat. Now, if you don’t mind, we’re trying to fill in the background on Randy Wunderlich.”
“S-something’s happened, hasn’t it?” Michael asked. “You’ve d-discovered something or you wouldn’t be back here. Did he kill himself or did somebody do it for him?”
Again that interesting mixture of shyness and arrogance. He was stuttering more than usual, Evan noted, but that could be a shy person’s response to facing D.C.I. Hughes.
“We are only at the beginning of our investigation. Just asking a few questions. Now, I understand that you are Lady Annabel’s son. Is that correct?”
“Although she has often denied it, that is correct, yes.”
“Why would she want to deny it, Michael?”
“B-b-because I make her look old, of course. How can she be thirty when she has a twenty-year-old son?”
Hughes smiled. “I also understand that you grew up with your father, not your mother.”
“That was because she ran out on us whe
n I was very small.”
“And yet you are with her now.”
“We met up again when I left school. By that time I could understand why she had run out on my father. She liked life—not being stuck in some grim old fortress and only shooting and fishing for entertainment.”
“I also understand that you were at university until recently.”
“Until last Michaelmas Term actually.”
“So you haven’t completed your degree?”
“No. I broke off my studies because I was worried about my mother. When I heard what was happening to the place—well, I thought someone ought to be keeping an eye on her—and on my inheritance.”
“So you didn’t like Mr. Wunderlich?”
“I can’t say I disliked him as a person. He was always pleasant enough to me, although we didn’t have much in common. I think he thought I was a poor specimen, because I play the cello and like poetry and don’t like sport much. Randy was very into the body beautiful—healthy mind, healthy body, always pumping iron and jogging.”
“But his death is very convenient for you. Now your mother is free of him and you get your beloved home back.”
“I wouldn’t call it a beloved home. I hardly know the place. I only came here a couple of times in school holidays to stay with my grandfather. But it is family property. It should stay in the family.”
“Well, now you’ll be able to go back to uni and finish your degree, won’t you? I expect you’ll be happy to be with your friends again. It must be rather dreary to be in a place with nobody your own age around.”
“Oh, absolutely—although I’m not a particularly social kind of chap. Not exactly the life of the party, like Randy was.”
Hughes consulted his notes. “I see from what Sergeant Watkins has written that you were out on the afternoon Randy Wunderlich went missing.”
“Yes. My mother asked me to run some errands for her, so I took her car after lunch and drove into Porthmadog. Not exactly a shopping metropolis, is it? But I had to pick up a prescription for her and mail a couple of parcels—that kind of thing.”
“And you got back when?”
“Not exactly sure. I stopped off at the harbor to see some chaps who sail with me. I like to sail, you know. I spent most of the afternoon there. They were laying the tables for dinner when I got back here, so it must have been around five. You can check with security; they log cars in and out.”
“Michael—did your mother take sleeping pills?”
Michael grinned, making him look suddenly very young. “She wouldn’t admit to it, because Randy went in for alternative healing, but she popped quite a few pills. Mogodans, tranquilizers, diet pills.”
“And what was the prescription for that afternoon. Do you remember?”
Michael grinned again. “It was some sort of vitamin A cream for her wrinkles.”
“I see. Thank you, Michael. You’ve been very helpful. Let me ask you one last thing. Do you think anybody at the Sacred Grove wanted to see Randy Wunderlich dead?”
“I should have thought the question would be who didn’t,” Michael said. “Mrs. Roberts couldn’t stand him. Ben loathed him and Rhiannon—”
“Ah yes, the famous Druid priestess. I’m looking forward to meeting her. Would you ask her to come in next, please.”
Michael swallowed hard so that his large Adam’s apple bounced up and down. “She sent a message to say that she wasn’t to be disturbed during her meditation. You can come down to her when you’ve finished up here.”
“Damned cheek,” Hughes muttered. “Does she always behave like this, Michael?”
“Oh, she fully believes this is her center,” Michael said. “Or it should be. But you have to speak to her yourself. Then you’ll get the idea. So there’s nothing more you want from me now?”
“Make sure you check with security that he really was gone all afternoon that day, Evans,” Hughes said as Michael shut the door behind him. “I’d imagine he’d be happier than anyone to be rid of his stepfather and get back to university life.”
“Yes, but you don’t go around killing people just to get back to uni, do you, sir?” Evan chuckled. “Or just because you don’t like somebody. You have to be pretty desperate to kill in my experience—back against the wall.”
“Yes, quite,” Hughes said crisply, reminding Evan that it was probably rather tactless to talk about his experience in solving murders. On the whole he had been rather more successful at it than Inspector Hughes.
“So what do you want to do about Rhiannon, sir?” he asked quickly. “Do you want me to go and fetch her?”
Hughes gave a little half smile. “I don’t want to risk your being turned into a toad or a tree stump, Constable. If we’ve finished up here, then I suggest we pay her that visit. The mountain will go to Mohammed.”
Chapter 18
The Druid Ceremony
We believe in the concept of circularity.
Life is a circle.
Death, life, regeneration, and rebirth.
The soul does not die, but is reincarnated.
Death is merely a point of change in a perpetual existence.
Therefore, we use the circle as our symbol. It symbolizes wholeness and eternity.
In the center of the circle is the still point of being and not being.
The place inside the circle is the sacred area in which humans can reach the spiritual plane. In the center of the circle is the cone of power, creating a link between natural and supernatural, reaching to the otherworld.
This is why we cast the circle at the beginning of our ceremonies.
This is why our sacrifices take place within the circle, where the Gods can reach down to accept our offerings.
Evan expected to find Rhiannon sitting lost in contemplation on the floor of her mediation room. Instead, she came out to meet them before they had reached the building. She was dressed again in jeans and a black sweatshirt with a silver Celtic knot design. She looked like any middle-aged woman about to go hiking or even shopping.
“You’ve found something, haven’t you?” she asked, in her deep, rather masculine voice. “I knew you would. It was only a matter of time. Please, come inside. I’ve made conee—good and strong, not like that revolting decaf nonsense they drink up there.”
Hughes gave Evan a quizzical glance as they went inside.
“Why did you expect us to find something?” Hughes asked as she went ahead of them to a little kitchen. There were three hand-thrown pottery mugs waiting on the table. One of them had sugar and milk in the bottom. Rhiannon poured coffee without answering.
“Did you have a premonition or some sort of psychic message that something had happened to Randy Wunderlich?” Hughes insisted.
Rhiannon handed him a coffee cup. “I assume you take it black.”
“Yes, I do.”
“And the constable here no doubt likes coffee only when it is disguised with milk and sugar.”
Evan laughed. “Yes. I do. Thank you.”
Rhiannon ushered them out of the kitchen to a small sitting room with comfortable chintz-covered armchairs.
“Now,” she said. “To answer your question—it had nothing to do with intuition or second sight. It was merely observation. The man was incredibly fit. I used to watch him jogging along the beach, swimming in the sea. He was a powerful swimmer. There’s no way he’d have let himself be drowned in a cave—without outside intervention.”
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a few questions,” Hughes asked in a rather subdued manner for him.
Rhiannon nodded graciously.
“Your full name is?”
“Rhiannon.”
“And last name?”
“Just Rhiannon. Having a last name implies owning or being owned or belonging to the tribe. I don’t subscribe to that idea. I am my own free person, belonging only to the universe.”
“So when you file your income tax forms, you just put ‘Rhiannon’ on them?”
“I don’t file income tax forms. I don’t believe in money. Useless commodity. Nothing good ever comes of owning it.”
“So you’re not paid to be here?”
“I made what I thought was a good agreement. My own cottage on the grounds, my meals, and running expenses in return for my presence here and my endorsement of the center.”
“So that’s what made you come here?” Hughes asked.
“When I first heard about it—a center for Celtic spirituality and myself a key part of it—I thought I’d died and gone to what you Christians call heaven. Later I found that the reality didn’t exactly measure up to the promise.”
“It wasn’t what you’d hoped for?”
“It was all a sham. They were playing at these things. Not a serious New Age believer among them. It was just another way to attract tourism.”
“But Randy Wunderlich was a world-renowned psychic.”
“Randy Wunderlich was a charlatan, or a showman, if you like. He wanted me to hold weekly ceremonies on the lawn for the guests, and could I throw in some more visually dramatic elements—a chalice or two, flaming brands, swords, probably sacrifice a white cockerel, for all I know. I asked him if he’d suggest the same to the minister of the local chapel. He looked surprised—stupid man.”
“So you didn’t like him?”
“I disliked him, if you must know.”
“But you didn’t leave.”
“If true seekers came here, I wanted them to find at least one person who could guide them. And I do get a chance to hold my ceremonies in a real sacred grove. We have one of the most important ceremonies of the year approaching, you know. Galan Mai, we say in Welsh. In English it’s called Beltane. The spring festival of the new fire. You should come to it. I hope I’ve already persuaded Constable Evans to come—since he’s one of us.”
Hughes glanced at Evan.
“A Celt, she means,” Evan said quickly.
“To get back to Randy Wunderlich,” Hughes said. “Can you think of anyone who wanted him dead? Apart from yourself, of course.”
Rhiannon did not return Hughes’s grin. “What makes you assume that I wanted him dead? Negative thoughts are never productive, you know. They surround the thinker with her own negativity until it stifles her. I have never wished anyone dead. I wished him enlightenment—and a few brains wouldn’t have hurt either.”