The Complete Kate Benedict Cozy British Mysteries

by Carrie Bedford

  And where was she now? And what had she seen in Duncan’s journal? How had she known it was there? I felt dizzy and bewildered, drowning in a deluge of inconclusive theories. I needed to gain control, put order into the chaos, if I were to have any hope of saving Fergus and Duncan.

  Remembering there was a notepad and paper next to the phone, I hurried to the drawing room and jotted down the names and dates I’d seen in Duncan’s notebook as well as his single word notation of ‘Helsinki.’ There had been the mention of a Fabergé egg and an address in Paris, but I couldn’t recall all of the details. If I’d been thinking clearly, I’d have taken photos of the pages, but my forage through Duncan’s belongings had made me so nervous that I wasn’t functioning properly.

  Sitting on the edge of the sofa, I gazed at my notes, thinking about Lucy and Duncan’s odd relationship. Why would Lucy be looking at his journal? It struck me that she might have been searching for evidence of his cheating on her. A date or a note about another woman perhaps. Although she’d seemed unruffled by Duncan’s dalliance with Fiona, she had to be upset or angry or both. I would be. Yet there was the mention of the Fabergé egg, a link to the press clipping in Lucy’s room. Did one of them know something about the egg? Could Duncan be the collector who’d bought it in Paris? I thought back to the articles I’d read. None of them had mentioned the name of the buyer. I straightened up. Was that a possible reason for Duncan to be in danger? Because he owned something incredibly valuable? But then what was he searching for in the library?

  An uneasy feeling coiled through my stomach, rising into my chest. Obviously, Lucy and Duncan were searching for something, possibly a Fabergé egg. But how could such an incredibly valuable item be here without Fergus being aware of it? What made Lucy or Duncan believe that it was hidden in the castle? Were they working together? That seemed unlikely. Their relationship was hard to fathom, but it didn’t seem very collaborative. Just the opposite.

  Then there was my mystifying vision of the killing in the ruins. Why had I seen it? The murder had taken place five hundred years before the manufacture of any Fabergé eggs. How could there be a link?

  There probably wasn’t one. Frustrated, I threw myself back against the cushions. Time was running out, and I’d made no progress on identifying the source of the threat. The estate sale still seemed the most obvious, but now that Knox had agreed to keep on all the staff and tenants, much of the tension had been defused. There was Nick’s father, of course. He certainly represented a threat to Fergus. I couldn’t imagine why he’d go after Duncan though. But sometimes people got caught up in dangerous situations and were hurt or killed as innocent bystanders.

  My imagination went into overdrive. Jameson going after Fergus with a gun. Duncan stepping in to protect his uncle. Both of them shot dead, blood on the floor. I sat up, rubbing my eyes and stretching my neck from one side to the other, telling myself to calm down. Where would Jameson get a gun? That wasn’t so easy in Scotland. Then I thought of Lachlan’s hunting rifle. Maybe Jameson owned one of those too.

  Perhaps I should call Inspector McMahon to ask him to monitor Jameson. Could the police take someone into custody on the suspicion that they meant harm but hadn’t yet committed a crime? That seemed unlikely but, if I told the inspector about the nasty threat Jameson had made to Fergus, he’d have to look into it. I didn’t have McMahon’s direct number memorized, however, and calling the emergency operator seemed a little over-dramatic. I’d have to ask Fergus for the number later.

  Meanwhile, my sitting around conjuring a list of possible calamities was pointless. I needed to get moving. Tucking my scribbled note into my jeans pocket, I considered going to find Lucy. She had a vested interest in protecting Duncan, and she seemed to have grown fond of Fergus. Still, for now, I decided, it was best to work alone and ask Josh for advice when he wasn’t too busy with the estate sale negotiations. He had good instincts, and Fergus’s well-being was his highest priority.

  As if knowing I was thinking about him, Josh walked in just then.

  “Where’s Fergus?” I asked.

  “He’s fine. He’s outside, chatting with Lachlan.”

  “I’m glad you’re back.” I threw myself at him, relieved to feel his arms around me, a solid reassuring presence in the center of the chaos. “How did it go?”

  “We talked to everyone. And they were all happy with the update on their future employment.” He removed his jacket, which was soaking wet, and laid it over the back of a chair. “To be honest, I don’t think any of them had any intention of doing harm to Fergus, but I feel better for being able to give them good news.” He looked towards the door. “Maybe we neutralized any threats. Perhaps the danger is over?”

  I hoped so, but as soon as Fergus came in, I saw that his aura still swirled. When I gave Josh a faint shake of my head, his shoulders sagged.

  “Any sign of Duncan and Lucy yet?” Fergus asked. Water dripped from his coat, and flattened his hair. “It wasn’t supposed to rain today,” he grumbled.

  “Lucy, yes,” I said. “But Duncan is in the village and I haven’t seen him this morning. We need to find him.”

  “His car’s on the driveway,” Fergus said. “Are you sure he went out?”

  “Lucy thinks so. Apparently, he had a tryst with a young woman.”

  Fergus’s expression would have made me laugh if I weren’t so depressed about his situation. “A tryst?” he repeated. “But what about Lucy?”

  “I don’t know. She didn’t seem too surprised. But I’d feel better if we saw him— to be sure he’s all right.”

  “Do we know where he is?” Josh asked.

  “It’s only conjecture, but it’s possible that he’s with Fiona, the girl who’s been helping Mrs. Dunsmore.”

  Fergus looked shocked. “Fiona? Ramsay’s young daughter? Well, we can go take a look, I suppose. I’ve taken Arbroath over there a few times. The vet’s office is attached to his house.” He buttoned up his coat again. “I’m not sure we should be chasing after Duncan, though. He’s a grown man, after all.”

  “I’ll go myself if I have to,” I said. “I don’t care about Duncan’s feelings. I just want to see him, to check he’s okay.”

  “Ah, the aura things,” Fergus said, as though he’d forgotten all about them. “You have a point. Come along then, Josh. We have a good reason to meddle. Besides, the young whippersnapper deserves to be embarrassed. He can’t bring his girlfriend up for the weekend and then dump her for a dalliance with a younger woman. Most ungentlemanly behavior.”

  That made me smirk. I would never have associated the term ‘gentlemanly’ with Duncan. Josh picked up the jacket he’d just discarded. With Arbroath at their heels, the two men set off to the Land Rover once again, leaving me alone to fret over Fergus’s aura, which spiraled ever faster.

  Unable to face another trek around the castle in search of Lucy, I sat on the sofa and retrieved the scrap of paper with the list of names I’d copied from Duncan’s journal. It was a bewildering line-up with no obvious relationships between them: Alexandra 1917, Anna Vyrubova 1939, Cyril Thorpe, 1940.

  Alexandra must be the Tsarina, wife of Nicholas. She and her family were executed in 1918 by the Bolsheviks after the communist revolution. It was the Romanovs who’d commissioned the creation of the Fabergé eggs. I thought back to what I’d read online. Of the fifty eggs they had owned, some had been shipped to safety at the start of the Revolution, while a few had been seized by the Bolsheviks, and seven of them were unaccounted for. Each one was worth millions of pounds.

  I had no idea who Anna Vyrubova was, nor Cyril Thorpe, which meant that Alexandra was the most promising lead to pursue. After a moment’s reflection however, I tapped my finger on Alexandra’s name, perplexed. Intriguing as the list was, what possible relationship did it have to Fergus? It might be a massive diversion, drawing my attention away from the real threat. I couldn’t afford to run around after dubious clues. When Duncan got back, I’d confront him, confess to readi
ng his notebook and attempt to enlist his help in the interests of saving Fergus, and maybe himself too. For now, with little else to do, I decided to go back and do some more research on the computer. The sprawling castle was starting to get on my nerves. Everything I wanted to do involved a mile-long walk. Still, I started towards the stairs. Apart from the ticking of a grandfather clock that stood against the wall, the entry hall was quiet. The first stair tread creaked underfoot, making me pause. As I took the next step, a shrill scream ripped through the silence, sending my heart pounding against my ribs. I stopped, gripping the handrail, and turned my head to work out where the sound had come from. Then again, a second scream. I realized it came from the direction of the kitchens. I jumped back to ground level and ran across the hall. Taking the stone stairs two at a time, I slipped and only saved myself from falling by grabbing the thin wood rail.

  In the kitchen, with one hand on the counter, Mrs. Dunsmore was doubled over, clutching her stomach. She straightened up when I called her name.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Are you ill?” I rushed to her, pulled up a stool and grasped her hand. “Sit down. Talk to me. Should I call for an ambulance?”

  The housekeeper stared at me with eyes widened. Her cheeks were pale and a sheen of sweat glazed her brow. She had no aura, but she looked deathly ill. “It’s…” she murmured. “I can’t…”

  “Please Mrs. D., tell me what’s wrong.” I let go of her hand, planning to reach the phone that hung on the wall near the sink, but she grabbed my wrist and held it tightly. “No, I’ll be all right,” she said. “You need to fetch the police.”

  Why the police? Still held captive, I glanced around the room. No one else was there. The kitchen was as clean and neat as when I’d visited it earlier this morning, with no signs of a break-in or damage. The clock on the wall showed that it was nearly noon. I assumed that Pierre would be in soon.

  “I’ll ring the police station,” I said, gently extricating my wrist from by lifting her fingers up one by one. She didn’t seem to notice. “But you have to tell me why. What do I say to them? What happened?”

  She jutted her chin towards the other side of the kitchen and then lowered her head into her hands, her shoulders shaking. Frustrated that I wasn’t able to make any sense of what was bothering her, I went for the phone. She was obviously in shock and certainly in need of a doctor.

  “The meat locker,” she whispered, stopping me in my tracks. I turned back. On the far wall, the heavy steel door of the meat locker gleamed. It hung ajar, I noticed as I got closer. Cold air escaped through the opening in wisps of white mist. My heart thundered so loudly that it drowned out the noise of the compressor. I put my hand on the lever, curled my fingers around it, and pulled the door open wide enough for me to look inside. The vapors obscured my view. Wary, I took a step in. Objects loomed at me through the fog. I brushed up against something soft and jumped back. It was only a pheasant hanging from a hook, but my pulse raced as I stepped forward. And then I saw something lying on the floor in a corner, a dark mass that took shape as I peered more closely, just as the monk had materialized through the mist in the ruins. It was a man, I saw, lying face down, in tan trousers and a blood-soaked blue shirt. The blood had come from a deep gash in his back, visible through the ripped fabric.

  Without seeing his face, I knew it was Duncan. I knelt and touched his hand. It was as cold and unresponsive as the dead pheasant.

  17

  While we waited for the police to come, I made tea and then stood facing Mrs. Dunsmore, trying to coax her out of the kitchen to a more comfortable seat upstairs. She refused to move, though, and remained on the stool, shaking and crying. “It’s Master Duncan, isn’t it?” she asked me a few times. I told her yes and held her hand.

  Two local police constables arrived within ten minutes, and they told us Inspector McMahon was on his way. The older of the two directed us to stay where we were while they investigated. A few minutes later, another group of people arrived, looking like a CSI team I’d seen on a television program. In blue paper suits and booties, they set up cameras and strung up yellow tape. Several of them were soon dusting for fingerprints, starting with the meat locker door. They all had serious expressions, and no one spoke to us until a man requested that we move to the other side of the big butcher-block island. We watched all the activity for a while, and I cringed when a team went inside the chilled room. Luckily, we couldn’t see the interior from where we sat.

  With my back aching from perching on a less than ergonomic stool, I stood up to stretch just as DCI McMahon arrived. He shot me a strange look when he saw me there, but didn’t say anything until he’d consulted with the police team in the meat locker. When he came out, he was rubbing his hands to warm them. “I wouldn’t mind a cup,” he said, nodding at the steaming mug in front of Mrs. Dunsmore. While I poured milk into a clean mug, he pulled up a stool and sat down.

  “Were you the one who found the body?” He directed the question to me. He must think my special talent was finding dead bodies.

  “It was me,” Mrs. Dunsmore said, with a tremor in her voice. “I found him.”

  McMahon took his notebook and pen from his pocket and put them on the counter. Unlike Duncan’s elegant journal, McMahon’s had a cardboard cover and its pages were littered with sticky notes, all yellow. I remembered from my interview following Nick’s death that the wire spiral was bent out of shape from when he jammed his pen in there to store it.

  “And what made you look in the meat locker?” he asked.

  “Pierre is supposed to be making lunch for everyone,” she answered. “He rang me to say he’s running a little late. So I thought I’d get a start on things for him and went to bring out some smoked fish and a ham. I saw the body lying there and… I yelled, I suppose. It was such a shock I couldn’t help it.”

  “And where were you at this time?” he asked me.

  “In the entry hall. I heard a scream and ran down here. Mrs. Dunsmore was in a bit of a state.” I patted her hand.

  “And you saw the body yourself? Do you know who it is?”

  “Yes, it’s Duncan MacKenna, Fergus’s nephew.”

  I shifted on my stool and wished that Josh and Fergus would get back. I glanced at the phone on the wall and thought of calling Josh, but I didn’t think he’d taken his mobile phone with him. He and Fergus were out looking for Duncan and they wouldn’t find him. I couldn’t believe that he had been here, dead, all morning, perhaps all night. I had a hundred questions, but McMahon kept talking, mostly gathering basic information, it seemed, on the residents and guests. He grimaced when I reminded him of the party the previous evening. It would make his job that much harder, I supposed, if he had to talk to everyone on the guest list. But he quickly recovered his equanimity and asked me who was still in the house. I told him Lucy was around somewhere, and that Josh and Fergus had gone to the village to find Duncan.

  He looked surprised at that. “You already knew he was missing?”

  “Well, we thought he was out with a friend. When he didn’t come back for breakfast, we decided to go find him.”

  “Come back for breakfast,” McMahon repeated. “When did he leave the house? Why do you think he was out with a friend?”

  I looked at Mrs. Dunsmore, who shrugged. “I believed he’d gone out last night, after the party,” I said. “That’s what Lucy told me anyway.”

  “Lucy?”

  “Lucy Cantrell. Duncan’s girlfriend. She came up from London with him for the weekend.”

  “Oh, that poor dear girl,” Mrs. Dunsmore’s voice shook. “Lucy doesn’t know that Duncan’s dead. She’ll be devastated.” She put her cup on the butcher block counter and stood up. “I should go to her.”

  McMahon rested his hand lightly on her arm and gave her a reassuring smile. “All in good time. If you don’t mind.”

  Around us, several officers were measuring distances from the meat locker to the bottom of the staircase and various other points aroun
d the kitchen. The kitchen was a hive of activity, but I felt disconnected, removed from it all as though watching it from afar. The bustle calmed briefly when a man clattered down the stairs and entered the kitchen. He waved a hand in greeting to McMahon and followed one of the officers into the meat locker.

  “The medical examiner,” McMahon said. “I need to consult with him. Perhaps you’d like to go upstairs, and I’ll come to you when I’m finished here.”

  I jumped to my feet, glad to be released, and Mrs. Dunsmore followed me up the stairs. She moved slowly, one hand to her chest as though having trouble breathing. I paused, waiting for her to catch up. “Are you sure you don’t want me to call for a doctor?”

  “No, no. I’m right behind you.”

  As we emerged from the staircase into the entry hall, I saw Pierre coming in the front door. Like the rest of us, he’d had a late night, but he looked bright-eyed and well-groomed. “Je suis désolé, Mrs. Dunsmore. I am sorry to be late. I was delayed but I will catch up. We will serve lunch in one hour, yes?” He tipped his head towards the door. “There are many cars out there. There is something wrong?”

  Mrs. Dunsmore didn’t answer. Her face had paled, and she seemed to have trouble getting the words out. I jumped in. “Something happened. Duncan MacKenna is dead.”

  “Dead?” Pierre echoed. “I am sorry to hear that.”

  I waited for him to ask a question. In my experience, when apprised of a death, people expressed curiosity about the how and the when. Yet Pierre barely reacted. Was it a language issue or a cultural difference? Of course, he didn’t know Duncan, other than that he was a member of the family.

  “He was murdered,” Mrs. Dunsmore added, looking a little better, with the color returning to her cheeks. “He was stabbed to death in the meat locker.”

  That statement finally elicited a gasp. “Mon Dieu!” he exclaimed. “In my kitchen?”

  “The police are down there now,” I told him. “I don’t think you’ll be cooking lunch for some time.”