by M. B. Shaw
‘For what?’
‘For everything. Nailing Rory. Taking me in when it all fell apart. My portrait, which I totally love. You sent it on to the States, right?’
Iris nodded. ‘To the address in California you gave me. It’s on a ship as we speak.’
‘Great,’ said Kathy. ‘Once I get my new place I’ll send you a picture. It’ll be the first thing to go on my wall.’
Iris waved her off towards the street, where a chauffeured car was waiting to take her to Heathrow. Only once Kathy Miller’s blonde head had disappeared completely from view did she head for the taxi rank and home.
It would be strange, returning to her flat after so many months away. Strange, but good. Iris had no hankering to return to Scotland any time soon. Not that she regretted her time at the castle, or any of the strange things that had happened there. In fact, in a funny way, she almost felt as if she’d been meant to go to Pitfeldy. As if fate, or something, had predestined her to accept the commission from Jock MacKinnon, and to find those girls, buried in their lonely unmarked graves. Maybe the online trolls were right, and Iris really was a ‘weirdo’ who ‘attracted death’. I can live with that, she thought, climbing into the back of a black cab. Artists were supposed to be weirdos, after all, and Iris was finally coming truly to believe in herself as an artist, not just a random woman who dabbled about with paint. If she did say so herself, her portrait of Kathy Miller was really bloody good, in the end.
Perhaps, when all was said and done, that was enough.
Epilogue
Ten months later…
Iris closed her eyes and lost herself in the sounds and smells of the church. Father Antonio’s voice, as mellow as the stone walls of San Cassiano, echoed off the frescoed magnificence, a soothing burble of Italian that prompted louder, familiar responses from the congregation. Scents of incense and candle wax, of ancient stone and newly polished wood, and of the lilies, massed in vast bunches on either side of the altar, assailed Iris’s nostrils. To open one’s eyes, and be faced with the unspeakable, timeless beauty of Tintoretto’s brush strokes would surely be to risk sensory overload. Only in Venice, Iris reflected, could so much wonder and magnificence be experienced in a single building, and all of it for the glory of a God who, in other, more mundane settings, one might easily choose not to believe in. Venice made believers out of everyone, if only temporarily. It felt fitting that, at long last, the ancient city was welcoming home its two lost daughters.
The memorial service for Paola and Beatrice Contorini had taken many months to organise, a combination of Italian red tape and archaic British regulations about the repatriation of remains after criminal cases. Finally, however, common sense and Father Antonio’s persistence had prevailed, and on this chilly November morning, Beatrice’s and Paola’s bones were being interred at San Cassiano, the church where, for a fleeting few years, both women had felt safe and loved.
‘Tremendous turnout,’ Stuart Haley, looking even smaller and paler than Iris remembered him in a cheap grey suit and tie, whispered in her ear. Perhaps it was being surrounded by so many tall, olive-skinned Italian men that accentuated his anaemic complexion, but Iris couldn’t have been more delighted to see her old friend again. Not only was he intelligent and engaging company, but he was one of the kindest and most generous men she had ever met. Haley had spent his own money flying out to Venice to attend today’s memorial, an expense Iris knew he could ill afford. But the Girls in the Wood had always been more than just a case to him. He wanted to pay his respects, and to say goodbye.
‘I know,’ Iris whispered back, surveying the packed church. ‘I’m really pleased.’
At the end of the service the congregation began filing out, friends and neighbours chatting to one another and, Iris assumed, sharing memories of Beatrice and Paola. Other than Father Antonio, there were few faces she recognised. To her astonishment, Massimo Giannotti had turned up, stiffly elegant in an immaculately tailored dark wool suit. Iris had meant to speak to him after the service, although she wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted to say. He hadn’t raped Paola after all, but Iris couldn’t shake the feeling that he had still played some role in the hardships of that poor woman’s troubled life. On the other hand, it spoke to some sense of responsibility, and perhaps even remorse, that he’d chosen to attend today’s memorial. But by the time Iris reached the peeling green front doors of the church, Massimo had gone, whisked away by private water-taxi. Perhaps it was for the best.
Outside the sky was grey and heavy with threatened rain. A blustery, boisterous wind brought an added bite of chill to the air, and played havoc with the coiffed hair and lace mantilla veils of the women. Iris’s own long woollen skirt and fringed sweater shook and shivered, giving her the look of a particularly cold bird as the priest approached her, his cassock billowing in the wind like the sail of a pirate’s ship.
‘Thank you for coming.’ Taking both her hands in his, Father Antonio looked deep into Iris’s eyes, and she was struck again by how young he looked for his age, and how unusually attractive for a priest. ‘I think it would have meant a lot to Bea.’
‘It means a lot to me,’ Iris said truthfully. ‘The service was beautiful.’
‘The man talking to you earlier,’ Father Antonio asked. ‘The small man. Was he the British policeman in charge of the case?’
Iris confirmed it, looking around for Stuart, who seemed to have beaten a hasty retreat to his hotel already. He never was much of a mingler. ‘His name’s Stuart Haley. I’m not sure where he’s got to, but I know he’d love to meet you, if you have time. He’s a very good man.’
‘I’m sure he is.’ Father Antonio lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘Although I think at one time he may have suspected me of being involved in some way. No?’
‘It’s his job to suspect people,’ Iris said simply. ‘The same way it’s your job to forgive them.’
‘That’s one way of putting it, I suppose,’ the priest laughed, kissing Iris on the cheek goodbye before a stream of chatty parishioners pulled him away.
She was about to leave herself, to head back to the hotel for a warmer coat and some gloves before braving the boat out to Torcello to see the Byzantine mosaics at Santa Maria Dell’Assunta, but decided to find somewhere for lunch. She stumbled upon a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it pasta place tucked behind the Grand Canal, not far from Palazzo Grassi, where she enjoyed a delicious meal washed down with some Chianti – rather more than she had intended.
Later, back at her hotel, Iris flopped down onto her to-die-for Frette bed sheets and gazed mindlessly out of the window across the rooftops of Venice. A right turn here, a wrong one there. Poor Beatrice Contorini and her mother had been dealt poor cards to begin with. But they’d each tried their best to play their hands to their advantage, to take risks and reach out for something better. For happiness. Neither had achieved it in this world. Closing her eyes, Iris found herself praying that they would find it in the next.
By the time her ringing phone jolted Iris awake, it was dark outside and dark in the room. Fumbling blindly on her bedside table like a hungover mole, she picked up.
‘Hello?’ she croaked.
‘Iris? Good God, you sound like you’ve been gargling with gravel. Are you all right?’ Greta Brun’s voice sparkled blithely down the line like cut crystal. ‘I didn’t wake you, surely? It’s only seven o’clock.’
‘I’m fine,’ rasped Iris. ‘Long afternoon, late lunch.’
‘Ah,’ chirped Greta, ‘I see. And there I was thinking you were being terribly worthy going to funerals. Anyway, never mind,’ she went on, not waiting for Iris to respond. ‘I’m calling because I’ve got a potential new commission for you. Very prestigious, painting the new Master of St Michael’s College in Cambridge. That’s St Michael’s, as in the richest college in the university, and supposedly they have a budget of up to seven figures for this portrait. It’s between you, some French artist I’ve never even heard of, and bloody Martin S
need.’
‘Sir Martin,’ Iris corrected. England’s most famous, and famously pompous, living portrait artist had been knighted last year, the result of a decades-long campaign of brown-nosing and donations to the Tory party. Greta and Sneed had fallen out years ago over something or other and positively loathed one another. Iris’s own feelings were less charged. As far as she was concerned, Martin was a bit of a dick, and certainly self-important. But there could be no denying his talent. For a traditional, high-profile commission like this one, he seemed the obvious candidate. Iris made the mistake of saying as much to Greta.
‘Nonsense!’ the agent trilled. ‘The fact that they’re considering three of you proves there must be someone on the college art committee who doesn’t want to go with a crusty old fart. You’ve as good a chance as anyone, Iris, and you need to be in Cambridge on Monday to interview. You did hear the part about it being a million quid?’
Iris hung up feeling shell-shocked, then happy. The job wasn’t hers. But Greta was right. The chance of it was exciting. To be considered was exciting. Once again, it felt as if a new door was opening, and a new chapter about to begin. She’d been too long with the dead recently, too preoccupied with the lives and loves of others. It was time to focus on herself again.
St Michael’s College Cambridge.
Why not?
Acknowledgements
Thanks to my agent, Hellie Ogden, and to everyone at Janklow & Nesbit, as well as to my family, especially my husband Robin and our children, Sefi, Zac, Theo and Summer.
Murder at the Castle is dedicated to my lifelong friend Sarah Glynn, whose courage, positivity and unchanging sense of humour through the last three painful years have blown both me, and everybody else who knows her, away. Sarah, and Kris, thank you for loving my Sefi, for being there for her through thick and thin and welcoming her into your wonderful family. I could not have chosen a better godmother, or friend. You are a complete legend, and I hope you like the book.
About the Author
M.B. Shaw is the pen name of New York Times bestselling writer Tilly Bagshawe. A teenage single mother at seventeen, Tilly won a place at Cambridge University and took her baby daughter with her. She went on to enjoy a successful career in the City before becoming a writer. As a journalist, Tilly contributed regularly to the Sunday Times, Daily Mail and Evening Standard, before turning her hand to novels.
Tilly’s first book, Adored, was a smash hit on both sides of the Atlantic, becoming an instant New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller. She now divides her time between the UK and America, writing her own books and the new series of Sidney Sheldon novels. Murder at the Castle is the second mystery in the Iris Grey series. For more information, please visit www.tillybagshawe.com
MURDER AT THE CASTLE
Pegasus Crime is an imprint of
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Copyright © 2021 by M. B. Shaw
First Pegasus Books cloth edition December 2021
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ISBN: 978-1-64313-833-6
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-64313-834-3
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