Her soft, deep voice lulled over the room, and in another life, Viviane always thought she’d have made an excellent librarian or one of those people who narrates audiobooks.
Rita met her eye over the heads of the women and smiled slightly, a little curl of the lips. Viviane grinned back and left her to it, deciding to check on some other rooms whilst Rita finished her tour. The old ladies adored her and for a fair reason. Out of all of them, Rita looked like she actually belonged in the house. She had delicate features, dark eyes and pale skin, her lips always painted red, her hair in chin-length curls that made her look as if she’d wandered from a period drama herself.
Viviane left the room, heading through the open doors to the music room beside it. Much quieter of visitors, it usually was. The pianoforte was centre stage, and it wasn’t the grandest thing in here. It sat by the window, music propped up on the stand in fading, crinkled sheets. Viviane wandered around the room, running her hand over the chairs and the curtains. Checking artefacts for damage or any signs of wear and tear. She barely got halfway around the room when Josephine appeared in the doorway.
“I’ll finish up,” she told Viviane in a voice that would not be argued with. “We’ve got another tour.” She had crossed over, taking the clipboard gently from a now scowling Viviane, who reluctantly wiped her hands on her dress and headed to the timid looking group. She hated tours. Though after how well this morning had gone, she wondered how many more of them she’d actually have to give.
As the rain came down harder upon the city, more visitors flocked in, taking refuge in the dry rooms. There was little time for them to sit still. They moved from room to room to monitor, answering questions and reminding people that certain things were off-limits. By the afternoon, even Rita looked weary of it. When five o’clock hit, Rita pulled on her long coat, giving Viviane an empathetic glance.
“You sure you don’t want company?” she asked.
“No.” Viviane waved a hand. “You go ahead. It’s Saturday. People won’t stay much longer.”
Rita didn’t look so sure, but she nodded. “See you on Tuesday, then.”
“See you.”
Rita, strangely hesitant, nodded and shouldered her bag, clutching it tightly as she wandered out into the rain, paying no heed to the water that quickly drenched her hair. She seemed out of sorts, but Viviane pinned that down to the busy day it had been.
Josephine appeared next from wherever she had been, dropping the large ring of keys on the desk as she pulled her own coat on.
“We’ve got a group still,” she told her, nodding to the computer screen. Their security wasn’t the highest quality, but they had enough cameras to make do. Viviane watched the small figures amble from room to room.
“I doubt they’ll stay much longer,” she murmured.
“Damning words, those,” Josephine said as she fished a small umbrella from her bag.
“See you on Tuesday,” Viviane called as Josephine rounded the desk. Her manager paused, glancing back and nodded.
“See you later.”
Viviane watched her go and then leant against the desk, watching the screen. They weren’t damning words; she was sure of it. It was Saturday evening. Who wanted to neb around an old museum on a Saturday evening?
Over half an hour later, Viviane rather wished she’d taken up Rita’s offer for company. She cleaned the entrance, noting that the group was now downstairs, organised the desk and tidied up the leaflets that were always in such a disarray. Damning words, indeed.
Now, Viviane reclined against one of the large sash windows in the drawing room that overlooked the street, waiting for the last few straggling tourists to leave the house. People were outside, running from cars to doors in their evening gear, a few premature drunks roaming about, laughing in the rain.
Her group was in the parlour now, just beside the entrance, she could see them. They were stalling, trying to wait for the rain to settle down a bit before scurrying out with their puffy coats and umbrellas. It really was quite a dismal spring. At least it should be a nice summer, she liked to hope. She tucked a brown curl behind her ear and turned to the room, making sure all the drawers and cabinet doors were locked, though, of course, they were never opened. She straightened all the frames, dusted down the heavy brocade curtains and the sofas, plumped a few cushions and then stood in the doorway, giving the parlour one last once over.
Satisfied, she turned off the lights and closed the doors, locking them quietly and drifted into the entrance hall, her heels clipping against the stone floor loud enough to attract the attention of the tourists. She smiled pleasantly but made an obvious glance at the clock on the desk which she stood behind, hands folded, fully aware of the slightly venomous look in her eye. It was very obvious, the sign on the door. They closed at six. And now, at three minutes to, when usually Viviane had every room cleaned and safe for the next week, she was painfully aware of all the turned-on lights and open doors above her head.
She breathed in a tight breath, drumming her nails on the wooden desk as the tourists finally got the hint and started to bustle through the front door, one of them battling with an umbrella as they shouldered out onto the wet street, calling a few muffled “thank you’s” behind them.
Viviane sighed and let her pleasant customer service expression fall flat from her face. She quickly crossed to the doors and locked them, outer and inner, before retreating into the house. It was worth it; she had always thought. Dealing with tourists and questions, reminding people for the hundredth time to, “Please, don’t touch the artefacts.” It was worth it for times like these when she was alone in the house.
It had been beautifully conserved, and she rather liked to think that she had a hand in that. An early Regency home, the kind people liked to imagine Jane Austen drifting about in, notebook in hand. A bit too far north for Jane, but the ideal was a grand one. It was a delicately balanced house of white marble, elegant wallpaper, and wooden floors. The furniture, too, stiff and unfriendly as it seemed, all the highest quality of the time; patterned silk and cherry wood, painted with enamel panels and secret cubby holes.
Viviane pulled out the clip holding her hair up, letting the brown curls fall around her shoulders. With a faint sigh, she tugged her cardigan on as she picked up the hoop of keys. She’d start at the top, always did, even the rooms that weren’t open to the public just in case anyone had decided to overlook the signs or velvet ropes that slung across stairways.
There was little upstairs. A few snug attic rooms where a couple of maids might have slept, mostly now used for storage. Furniture from the wrong eras, mostly that were too good to throw away but didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the house. Some paintings that weren’t deemed properly suitable for a house in which parents often dragged young children in against their will and a handful of spare frames. All of them packed in boxes or draped in long white sheets.
There were even some clothes up here, somewhere, Viviane knew. Cravats, coats, and empire dresses. She’d often fought the temptation of digging one out and trying it on, swanning around the house when she was here alone. She knew where the security cameras were and how to avoid them, but she was too clumsy to risk it. There was a reason she never dressed in pale colours. She’d had enough of a nightmare dealing with paint and coffee stains on those, let alone an antique dress probably worth a few months’ wages.
So, she ensured all the windows were locked, and then the doors and closed up the attic to begin on the next floor.
Bedrooms, these were. Every single one decorated in its own style. Viviane had also long held the desire to throw herself down on one of the four-poster beds, but she suspected that they weren’t as comfortable as they looked, and they always looked rather short. Perhaps people were shorter back then, or perhaps Viviane was simply too tall. Checking them was a routine, one that Viviane had long since perfected. Check the windows, check the wardrobe doors, check the chests, under the bed, behind the curtains. All clear and safe, and
she locked the doors, moving to the next one. A few free-standing desks and cupboards filled the time between rooms, and then she went down to the next floor. A few more bedrooms, a private little parlour and a study, all of which were clear.
Viviane ended up on the ground floor again and headed around in a circle. A drawing room, the music room with its grand piano and velvet-clad chaise lounges. The library, stacked to the brim in books carefully kept behind glass doors, the curtains almost always drawn to keep the sunlight from bleaching the spines. Armchairs sat wherever they were, the large desk with so many tiny doors and drawers, all of which Viviane had to check. Besides the library were a few rooms closed off from the public. The dining room, whose elegant marble fireplace was in the process of being repaired, the floor covered in dust and the furniture hidden beneath more white sheets.
Connected to it was the morning room, and between them, a long thin hallway lined with windows to the gardens, little seats built into them. Nobody ever came in here apart from the girls who worked there. It gave access to the door’s downstairs, to the old kitchen and butlers rooms, most of which were more storage. Occasionally they opened the kitchens to the public, for Christmas or when visitor numbers dropped slightly.
Viviane locked up the dining room, her back to the long, shadowed corridor, the old key struggling with the equally old lock. She managed it, hearing a rattled over her shoulder as she did. She scowled, already furious as whatever tourist had gotten lost from their group and ended up whiling away the hours in these old rooms. Nobody called out, and a flicker of nerves ran along her spine. Viviane held the keys tightly in her hand and quickly ran through the day in her head. She’d locked the front doors and the back. They weren’t easy locks to pick; old, complicated mechanisms that didn’t even like their keys most of the time.
She turned around, startled slightly by her own reflection in the windows, the darkness outside lending itself to handy, unwelcome focus on what was inside, and narrowed her eyes down the hallway. Someone was in the morning room, but there was no rustling, no rooting that she might have suspected from a robber. She reached for her back pocket and winced. Her phone was on the front desk, where the manager insisted they keep them during the day.
Viviane glanced to the discreet doors to her right, the ones that would take her down into the basement, but she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to go down there. Swallowing her nerves and with slightly shaky hands, she inched to the side to unlock the dining room doors again. She could loop back around to the entrance. Before the locks clicked, the person emerged from the morning room, stepping into the light, and Viviane laughed breathlessly, her hand flying to her chest. She felt stupid, still trembling, but she felt the weight flood through her as she laughed.
“Gosh, it’s only you!” Her voice was higher pitched than usual, breathy. “You scared me,” she admitted. She locked the doors again and walked into the hallway, cocking her head to one side. “You’re very quiet. Did you forget something?”
They stepped closer into the hallway, one hand trailing along the curtains. Viviane’s smile dropped away.
“Can this not wait for another time?” she asked. “I’m nearly done here. We could grab a drink?” Her tone was a little hopelessly. She’d had a feeling something like this would have happened eventually. Maybe she’d been waiting for it. Little hope for it now though, there weren’t many ways out of it.
The person came closer, their face shrouded in shadow, and their reflection in the mirror moved suddenly, grabbing Viviane. The keys fell from her hand in a loud clatter that bounced around the stone walls.
Two
Thatcher
I’d always liked a rainy Sunday. The sky outside was grey. Puddles lingered in the dipped cobbles of the streets, and raindrops pattered against my windows, rolling down in little rivers. It was quiet outside, for once. People stayed inside with their central heating and kettles, and I was glad to be one of them. Though, I’d been staying in a lot these days. Work couldn’t go ahead on the coaching house until the rain let up, and there wasn’t much I could do inside, not on my own anyway. I needed an extra pair of hands, and with Mike away, there weren’t many for me to call on. Mills, perhaps, but he was busy.
I sat in my armchair by the window, looking outside. A few cars rattled along, windows misting up from the heat inside. It was one of those springs, and I imagined it would hang on for dear life as long as it could. Wet, miserable spring. I owed Elsie a visit, see how she was holding up, but I didn’t have much of a stomach for it these days. There were questions, always were, about a certain red-headed journalist who I hadn’t seen for some time. Nor had she been taking my calls. According to her paper, she was chasing up a story, one that had taken her out of the county for a short time. Still, the rejection stung, and I made myself busy however I could, lounging around my house in joggers, reading and catching up on the tv shows I’d been told to watch. Apart from having dinner at Sally’s not long ago, I’d done a good job of keeping to myself. Even Mills had backed off, talking about anything and everything to distract me, and at other times sitting in comfortable silence.
Standing up from my chair, I padded around the house, throwing a load of laundry in and cleaned up the plates in the sink. The place was in good shape, thanks to Mrs McIntosh. I’d tried to pay her for keeping the house for me, but she waved me away each time, muttering under her breath about dust bunnies and workaholics. I had assumed that she referred to me. I was running out of stuff to do. I’d been to the pool for a few laps, sorted some paperwork for the coaching house, even made a lasagne for later on. There was only so much television I could watch, only so long I could spend hunched over a book before my back started to ache or my mind wandered off. I drank tea, tidied my room, rearranged some shelves. Now, I was bored. Thoroughly bored. The type of bored that would usually incentivise me to try calling Jeannie again, but I knew it would be wasted minutes.
I stood at the fireplace, looking at myself in the mirror there, debating whether or not I was in need of a haircut as strands fell about my face, and my phone rang, Mills’s name and a picture of him stood in a river with waders over his suit flashing up. I frowned; he was working today.
“Thatcher,” I answered automatically.
“Sir.” I heard him move away from the noise that was surrounding him, the familiar murmured hustle of voices calling and shouting.
“What’s amiss?”
“I’m on a crime scene, sir. Dead body. Looks like a suicide.”
My frown deepened, and I paced around the room, my feet sinking into the thick rug.
“Suicide? Pretty clear cut, Mills. Why are you calling me?”
“Because I don’t think it is, sir. Neither does Crowe, only she can’t pin it yet. I know it’s your day off—”
“I’m on my way,” I cut him off, striding for my bedroom. “Send me the address.”
“Will do, sir. I’ll meet you outside.”
I hung up, yanking on a pair of trousers and a clean shirt, looping a tie over my neck and a jacket, stuffed my feet into boots and headed for the front door, reaching for my coat. Well, this was one way to end boredom.
The address Mills sent me was a museum, a house, not far from the city centre, not far from the river either. One of those big Regency townhouses that would have ruled the roost back in the day. A few police cars were outside, the street marked off with tape, a couple of tourists hanging on the other side of the road, watching and whispering. As I pulled up and ducked under the tape, Mills appeared in the doorway, looking worse for wear. His forehead was drawn in a frown, his expression worried.
“Mills.”
“Sir. Thank you for this.” He led me inside, past a few members of SOCO who were already looking to clear out.
“So, it looks like a suicide?”
Mills nodded. “But I’m not sure. Something doesn’t sit right.”
“You’ve got good instincts, Mills. If you say something’s not right, I believe you.”<
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He seemed to relax slightly then, giving a little nod. “Sharp might not be best pleased.”
“I’ll handle Sharp,” I assured him. “You just fill in, quick as you like.”
We stood in the entrance of the house, a large, open-spaced foyer of polished white and black tiles. A desk took up most of the room, the wall behind it lined with shelves to mark it out as the reception. But everything else was a perfectly preserved time capsule. I clocked Smith heading up the stairs and followed Mills through a set of wide doors into a drawing room where three women sat. The elder, her silver hair tied back in a neat bun, was talking to a constable, her hands fluttering, face flushed. The other, younger, with a face like a silent movie actress, sat stock still, her pale face staring unblinkingly at the fireplace.
“Josephine Goddard,” Mills muttered to me, indicating the older woman. “She manages the museum. Rita Jones,” the younger girl, “works here. The body was found by the cleaner,” he pointed to another woman who stood at the window, clutching herself. “Nia Jenkins. She called it in.”
“I’ll talk to them later,” I decided. “Let’s take a look first. I want to speak to Crowe before she leaves.”
Mills nodded and let me through the interconnecting rooms, each one beautifully curated, and I felt a small pinch of remorse that I’d never get to live in a place like this. We passed through a room shrouded in sheets, the fireplace slightly dismantled.
“The dining room,” Mills told me. “Closed off to the public for some repairs.”
I nodded, and we walked through to a long, windowed hallway. A few more doors, cleverly hidden in the panelling, had opened to reveal access downstairs. But it was the centre of the room that drew my eye.
A rope hung from the sturdy-looking chandelier, taken, it appeared, from the heavy, long curtains that lined the wall. Beneath it, a girl lay. Dr Crowe knelt beside her in her white plastic suit. She glanced up as we drew near, feet loud on the stone floor, her face drawn with an unusual amount of sympathy. Dr Crowe was long used to examining bodies, so I could not help but wonder what about this had conjured such a response from her.
Dangerous Relics (A DCI Thatcher Yorkshire Crimes Book 3) Page 2