The Complete Kate Benedict Cozy British Mysteries

by Carrie Bedford

  “And if I don’t?”

  He put his hand inside his leather jacket. I tensed. Did he have a gun? A knife? But he pulled out a slim silver case. He opened it and took out a cigarette.

  I took another step closer to the range, where the knife block sat, loaded with sharpened steel, apart from the one empty space. He watched me but stayed where he was. He looked exhausted, I saw now. The bright halogen lights over the kitchen island highlighted the dark stubble on his chin and purple circles around his eyes. The initial fear that had jolted me on seeing him ebbed away. It struck me that he might know where the book was hidden.

  “Pierre said you were looking for the codex. Is there anywhere you didn’t look?”

  “Fergus’s office. That was the hardest room to search. Pierre had no reason to be in that area of the castle, so he never went up there for fear of being caught. And I never had the opportunity to examine it myself.”

  My knees felt weak, and I put my hand on the counter to steady myself. I hadn’t really considered Fergus’s office as a potential hiding place. “You didn’t hear about the fire?”

  “Fire?” Remy’s head jerked up.

  “Let’s just say that if the codex was in the office, it’s now a pile of ashes.”

  “Mon Dieu.”

  Exactly. For a moment, I actually found myself hoping that Duncan had hidden the book somewhere safe. Better that than it be lost forever. “Was it Duncan or Lucy who came to your shop in Paris to talk about the codex?” I asked.

  Remy’s dark eyebrows rose. “How did you hear about that?”

  “Pierre said someone came, after you inadvertently sold a Romanov egg to a collector.”

  He crushed the cigarette, obviously unhappy to be reminded of his blunder. “It was Lucy,” he said.

  “She came to you, asking about items from the Romanov collection, right?” When he nodded in confirmation, I went on. “I think she had a theory that, as the Fabergé egg had gone unnoticed in your shop for nearly eight decades, it was possible the codex also lay neglected on a shelf somewhere, waiting to be found. What did she suggest? That you work together to find it?”

  “Yes.” He frowned. “She said that if we cooperated, she and Duncan would share the profits with me. A three-way split. That was an attractive offer, so I agreed. First of all, we examined every inch of the shop.” He paused to extract another cigarette from the case. I remembered Pierre saying that the antique shop was a mess, that Remy had never organized it and had no idea what was on the shelves.

  “We didn’t find the codex, of course,” Remy continued. “However, we uncovered a stack of old receipts in a box in the back. One of them was for the Romanov egg, purchased by my grandfather for a trivial amount. He bought it from a man called Louis Deauville. Lucy investigated him and discovered he was the friend of Anna Vyrubova, the Tsarina’s lady-in-waiting.”

  “Not much of a friend,” I said. “This man, Deauville, betrayed her. He took her treasures, hawked them for a few thousand dollars, and ran away to America.”

  Remy shrugged. “Apparently so.”

  “And the rest of Anna’s treasure trove? The books and the codex? Did your grandfather buy those too?”

  “It appears he did. The receipt showed the purchase of a box of twelve old books. He paid very little for them. But he made a small profit when he sold them to an English collector just a few weeks later.”

  “The Englishman was Cyril Thorpe.”

  “Yes. His name was on the receipt.”

  “And Thorpe sold the box of books to Fergus’s grandfather.”

  “That’s what Lucy thought, yes.”

  “Let me see if I have this straight. You enlisted Pierre to infiltrate the castle and search for the codex. But did Lucy and Duncan know you planned to do that?”

  “No. By that time, we’d had…had a falling out. They didn’t want to involve anyone else.”

  Remy moved towards me. I took another step back. We had the butcher block island between us now, and I intended to keep things that way. But, to my surprise, he didn’t come any closer. Instead, he pulled out a stool and sat down. Arbroath, not showing much good judgment, stretched out at his feet as though they were the best of friends.

  “Is that why you killed Duncan?” I asked.

  “I didn’t kill Duncan.”

  “You didn’t kill Nick either, right?”

  “Nick’s death was an accident. He was threatening Pierre. He’d found him snooping around and guessed he was planning a robbery. He said he’d tell Fergus and have him fired. When I got here, I could see at once the bad feelings between them. I followed Nick out to the lochan on Friday and told him to mind his own business. We had a fight.”

  “You hit him with a rock and then left him there to die.”

  Remy covered his eyes with one hand. “It was an accident. I panicked.”

  “That doesn’t sound like an accident to me.”

  “He’d been drinking and was irrational.” He straightened up. “You weren’t there to see how deranged he was. He tried to hit me with his whisky bottle.”

  My legs felt like jelly. For all of his pathetic excuses, Remy had just confessed to murdering Nick. I glanced again at the phone on the wall, wishing I could reach it to call the police. Remy must have noticed. “Don’t even think about it,” he said. The timbre of his voice had changed. It was lower, more threatening.

  I contemplated my options. Could I bolt for the door and outrun him? Unlikely. He was closer to the door than I was, and I’d have to get past him.

  “Okay,” I said finally. “You didn’t mean to kill Nick. But what made you decide to mess with the brakes on the Land Rover?”

  “I’d been watching you. You were asking questions, poking around.”

  “Oh right. So naturally you tried to kill me.”

  “I didn’t try to kill you. The idea was to scare you off, to stop you snooping.”

  That was what McMahon had thought. Not that it was much consolation for the hair-raising ride in the disabled Land Rover.

  Remy’s dark eyes stared unfocused at the unlit cigarette in his hand. “Nick’s death was bad enough, but then Duncan showed up dead. The police were all over the place. It made it impossible to search where we wanted to. I decided to disappear for a while.”

  “You didn’t do a very good job. The police caught you on CCTV at the pub car park. They’re well aware you didn’t leave the area. Listen,” I said. “Why don’t you turn yourself in? If you cooperate with the police, maybe they’ll reduce the charges against you. Manslaughter instead of murder, something like that.” I knew it was unlikely to be that easy, and I also believed Remy had killed Duncan. He could deny that to me all he liked, but the police would uncover the truth.

  Arbroath stirred. He lifted his head and growled, looking towards the back door. Hauling himself to his feet, he barked as Alistair Ross poked his head around the door. “Can I come in?” he asked.

  Remy shot to his feet. He looked like a scared rabbit. And he ran like one, sprinting to the door, where he shoved Alistair out of his way, throwing him to the floor. I wanted to run after him, but Alistair lay on his back, not moving. Fighting down my panic, I felt his wrist for a pulse. His eyelids fluttered open. “I’m all right. He just knocked the breath out of me,” he gasped. “Go on, see if you can find the blighter.”

  At the door, I caught a glimpse of Remy disappearing into the undergrowth beyond the parking area. I had no intention of following him out on to the moors and I had to be sure Alistair wasn’t hurt. When I went back to him, he insisted he was fine and suggested I call the police, so I hurried to the phone and rang 999. The operator listened while I explained the situation and asked her to track down Inspector McMahon. By the time I’d finished the call, Alistair had taken a seat on the stool Remy had just vacated, and Arbroath had gone back to sleep as though nothing had happened.

  “What was that all about?” Alistair asked. He said again that he wasn’t hurt, simply a bit shaken
up, so I put the kettle on and put tea in a pot while I explained about Remy and his connection to the codex.

  “Are you comfortable enough here?” I asked as I handed Alistair a mug of tea. “Do you want to lie down?”

  “I most certainly do not want to lie down. I’ve survived far worse, young lady, far worse.”

  “All right.” I kept an eye on him, worried that he was just being brave. “I’m supposed to be making sandwiches for when the others get back from Nick’s funeral, and I haven’t even started. But I can take you up and show you the Russian books if you like?”

  “No, you do your sandwiches, and I’ll enjoy my tea. We can go up later. I’m glad to hear you found the books. No codex, though. Any ideas?”

  “Remy suggested the codex could have been hidden in Fergus’s office,” I said, as I sliced cheese and opened a jar of Branston pickle.

  “That’s a terrible thought,” Alistair said. “The book would have been destroyed.”

  “But I think it’s more likely Duncan has hidden it.”

  Alistair’s eyes widened. “Can you elaborate?”

  I thought about what we knew so far. Everything pointed to Lucy and Duncan collaborating on the search and trying to cut Remy out. They must have been furious when he turned up at the castle. I quickly filled Ross in on the details of Lucy’s visit to Remy’s shop in Paris and their agreement to look for the codex together. “I think Lucy found evidence of the Russian books while she was helping Fergus with an inventory of the contents of the library. Duncan moved them the night of the party. It was only after we found the books under the bed that we examined the library shelves and noticed an empty space on a top shelf that Fergus couldn’t recall seeing before.”

  “Yes,” Alistair said. “It’s easy to ignore the obvious when you’re not looking for it.” His brows met over his nose as he frowned in concentration. “But why move them? No one else knew their significance.”

  I stopped spreading butter on the bread. “Remy did. If he’d seen them, he’d conclude that the codex had been brought here with them. But if there are no novels, there’s no proof that the chest of books had ever been here. Lucy and Duncan were just trying to close off his search and give themselves more time to find the codex themselves. Ever since they got here on Thursday night, they’ve been foraging through the castle. The book inventory project provided the perfect excuse for Lucy to sift through the library.”

  I dropped the knife and retrieved it, sticking it in the sink before finding a clean one. Something struck me. “The inventory, of course. That’s where Knox comes in.”

  “Stanton Knox? The buyer?”

  “I’m quite certain that Knox and Lucy knew each other. Fiona saw them together in Lucy’s room.”

  Alistair’s cheeks bloomed red.

  “Nothing like that,” I said. “At least I don’t think so. But I’m fairly sure they were collaborating.”

  “You’ve put butter on that slice of bread three times,” Alistair pointed out. I contemplated the goopy mess I’d made and began scraping some of it off.

  “Does Knox know about the codex as well?” he asked. “All three of them were in on it? But if Knox were after the codex, why bother with all the clandestine sneaking around? He could simply wait until he owned the estate and take all the time he needed to find it.”

  “Not if he thought Lucy and Duncan would find it before the sale was concluded. Perhaps he was worried they were going to cut him out of the deal. So he comes up with the idea of buying the estate, gives himself the leverage he needs. All along, he’s been hurrying the sale through. Once the estate is his, the codex is too, as long as his former collaborators don’t beat him to it.”

  “Well, that’s not going to happen now,” Ross said. “Duncan’s dead and Lucy’s out of the picture.”

  “So we have to find it before Knox signs on the dotted line,” I said as I pressed the last slice of bread on top of the cheese and pickle filling. “We can persuade Fergus to slow things down a bit. He’s got plenty of good excuses to miss a deadline or two.”

  34

  The blare of sirens jolted Arbroath from his sleep, and he jumped up, his paws sliding on the tile floor. Seconds later, several uniformed police officers barged into the kitchen, followed by Inspector McMahon. “Where is he?” he asked.

  “Gone,” I said. “He ran off when Mr. Ross arrived. I think he was cutting through the garden towards the moors. I’m sorry I couldn’t keep him here.”

  “Well, as long as you’re safe,” McMahon said. “Don’t worry. We’ll catch him.”

  He gave instructions to the officers. “Use the car radio to put out an APB for Remy Delacroix. Check the bus stop and get people out to the train station in Oban.”

  Once the officers had jumped into their cars and driven off, McMahon asked me a few questions about my unexpected visitor. He took notes in his battered notebook and then told us to be cautious and to secure the place in case Remy returned.

  From the door, I watched him cross the gravel parking area, his sturdy shoes crunching on the stones. When he reached his car, I turned back into the kitchen and refreshed Alistair’s tea. He still looked a bit pale. We both jumped when we heard a door slam upstairs and footsteps on the back stairs. My heart rate shot up as Arbroath sprinted off, but I relaxed when I heard Fergus greeting him.

  “Kate?” Josh called.

  “I’m here. Everything’s okay.”

  The second Fergus appeared at the bottom of the staircase, I saw that his aura still swirled over his head. Why? Surely the danger was over? Remy wouldn’t risk coming back to the castle, not now. The police were right behind him. He’d be lucky to get to Oban before they caught him.

  A nasty cold sensation coiled in my stomach. Remy seemed to be out of commission, effectively prevented from doing harm. Lucy was in London and the police were about to pay her a visit. Who was left? Who or what threatened Fergus? Perhaps I’d been wrong all along. Maybe he was going to have that heart attack I’d been worrying about, or fall down the stairs, or bang his head on the bathtub. Something I had almost no chance of preventing. Disheartened, I blinked away the tears that blurred my vision.

  Mrs. Dunsmore followed Fergus into the kitchen, removed her coat and hat and began arranging my sandwiches on a platter. “Thank you for doing this, Kate. We’re all in sore need of some sustenance, I think.”

  Lachlan, who’d trailed down after her, declined to join us and said he had some work to do. When he’d gone, Mrs. Dunsmore smiled ruefully. “He should eat, but he’s had enough of people for one day. A couple of hours of enforced company is about his limit. I doubt we’ll see him again before dinner.”

  Fergus looked at me, then at Alistair. “Has something happened? Alistair, you’re looking a bit peaky.”

  “Remy paid us a visit,” I said. “When Alistair arrived, he ran away. DCI McMahon was here, briefly, and the police are out looking for Remy now.”

  “Bloody hell. Well, sit down, sit down. Tell us all about it.”

  We all settled round the big island, drinking tea and eating the sandwiches, which weren’t bad considering my lack of concentration when I’d made them. I brought everyone up to date on what Remy had told me.

  “Good God, Kate. You were alone here with a murderer,” Josh said, his cheeks almost as pale as Alistair’s.

  “He never threatened me. And he claims he didn’t intend to kill Nick.”

  “Good try, but I don’t believe that for a minute,” Josh said. “So, what do we do next?”

  “We stay busy,” his uncle replied. “We let the police do their jobs, and we’ll get on with planning Duncan’s service and cleaning the place up ready for the handover to Knox.”

  “That will still be a month or two, won’t it?” I asked. “You’ve got plenty of time.” If Alistair and I were right, then Knox was highly motivated to keep things moving at a fast clip. We needed more time to search for the codex ourselves.

  “Aye, but consider how much th
ere is to do with clearing out my personal things, my papers, and the furniture I want to keep.”

  Fergus finished chewing on his sandwich while Mrs. Dunsmore described Nick’s funeral service and praised the vicar’s heart-warming sermon. She and Alistair talked about a few people who’d attended the service and then drifted into a discussion about her scone recipe.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Fergus said to Josh and me. “You two should get yourselves back to London. I’m sure your boss isn’t too happy about all the days you’re missing, and I will manage quite well here with Lachlan and Mrs. D. You can come back up for Duncan’s funeral, whenever that will be.”

  “We’ll leave when everything is resolved,” Josh said.

  “You mean when this aura disappears— or whatever is going to happen to me actually happens?”

  “Nothing will happen to you.”

  Fergus didn’t answer. He took another sandwich from the platter.

  “I promised I would show Alistair the Russian books,” I said, to change the subject. “And he wants to peek inside the east wing, if that’s okay?”

  Fergus waved his sandwich at me, which I took as a yes. I quickly conferred with Josh, who said he would stay with his uncle. While I carried our dirty plates to the sink, the wall phone rang, and Fergus answered it. He was silent during the short call, apart from a ‘thank you’ at the end.

  “That was Inspector McMahon. They’ve picked up Remy Delacroix; he’s in custody. He was on his way to Pierre’s flat. And they’re bringing Pierre in again and will hold him as a possible accessory to murder.”

  “Pierre’s still here?” Josh asked. “I assumed he’d have rushed straight back to Paris.”

  “Pierre’s convinced he did nothing wrong,” Fergus reminded him. “He had no reason to run.”

  Perhaps not, but Fergus’s aura was still moving rapidly over his head, even though the police now had Remy in custody. They didn’t have Pierre yet. Was he the threat? But if so, why? I felt like banging my head against a wall. There was something I was missing. Leaning against the sink, I ran through the possibilities. My eyes rested on Mrs. Dunsmore, but I rejected that idea immediately. What would she do? Feed Fergus poisoned lemon shortbread? Lachlan was a mystery. He was going out of his way to avoid spending any time with us, but that wasn’t necessarily a sign of a man plotting to kill his employer.