The Complete Kate Benedict Cozy British Mysteries

by Carrie Bedford

  I found myself eyeing kind, gentlemanly Alistair Ross. He wasn’t on my suspect list, but was that an omission I should correct? He knew more about the codex than any of us. Perhaps our request for assistance had come like manna from heaven, giving him unfettered access to the castle and to information he might not have otherwise had.

  The idea seemed ridiculous. “Shall we start with the east wing?” I asked him. When he stood up, I eyed his neat tweed suit and clean white shirt. “But I have to warn you, the place is a mess. Cobwebs, dust. Are you sure you want to see it?”

  “Absolutely sure.”

  “If you’re going into the east wing, you’ll need the torches,” Josh said. He got up, opened a kitchen drawer and pulled out two Maglites.

  Each holding one, Alistair and I set off through the old scullery and through the pine door into the passageway that ran under the house. As we passed the place where I’d seen the button, I stopped. I had a memory of a cardigan with silver buttons that Lucy had worn. Still pondering it, I continued walking until we reached the small east wing scullery and then out into the hall with the painted ceiling.

  Alistair was fascinated, poking around, murmuring to himself. I let him take his time, but I was jumpy and stayed close to him, unsure whether I needed the comfort of his presence or the reassurance that he could get up to no mischief if I watched him closely.

  Inside the first bedroom, he examined the rotting furniture, swinging his torch around and commenting on the damage. A curtain stirred at the boarded-up window. A floorboard creaked. Was someone there, lurking among the shadows in the corners? As the torchlight meandered along the perimeter of the room, I was sure I heard a footstep in the hall. My heart sped up.

  “Did you hear that?” I asked Alistair.

  He looked over at me blankly, shielding his eyes from the light I was pointing at him. “What?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing. Never mind.” I pointed the Maglite at the bed. “See here, this is where the books were hidden.”

  Alistair bent down to look under the bed frame and then straightened up, sneezing. We moved on to examine another couple of bedrooms, tableaux frozen in time from the moment the bomb came crashing through the roof.

  Finally, we crossed the green and white tiled floor of the central hall and arrived at the base of the rotting staircase.

  “Perhaps we should go around the other way and come in through the upstairs,” I suggested.

  “Young lady, I may look old to you, but I still ramble ten miles on Saturdays and I recently completed the Hadrian’s Wall hike. I can manage a few stairs. You lead on.”

  We reached the top without mishap and crossed the sloping landing to the door that led to the salon.

  “Marvelous,” Alistair said when we were inside. He was gazing at the limestone fireplace as I held my torch up high to illuminate the space as much as possible. After a circuit of the room, he came to a halt in front of the roll-top desk. “This is a fabulous piece.” He ran his hand over the walnut inlays.

  “The lid is stuck. I tried to open it but could only get it halfway. That’s as far as it goes.”

  “Too bad.” His voice was muffled as he bent down to peer inside as I had done earlier in the day. “You should convince Mr. MacKenna to have this renovated. In good condition, it’d be worth a lot.” He ran his fingers over some scratches on the front panel. “It appears that someone tried brute force to open it at some point.”

  The door rattled just then, and we both jumped. It was silly to imagine an intruder, but I still blew out a breath when Fergus stepped in. “Just checking on how you’re doing,” he said.

  “I was admiring this wonderful desk.” Alistair patted the surface. “It’s really quite beautiful. I hope you might consider rescuing it and restoring it to its former glory.”

  “Yes, I intend to. I’ve been thinking about it since Kate told me it was here.”

  “The lid is sticking,” I said. “I tried to look inside.”

  “I’ll have a go with a bit of oil later on then.”

  “And I saw the Queen Anne tallboy downstairs in one of the bedrooms,” I went on. “Remember, it was on the list, but we didn’t find it in the main house? It’s in decent condition, considering. Imagine it all refurbished and shiny. It has fan-shaped insets on each of the drawers.”

  “We’ll salvage it,” Fergus said. “At least I’ll bring some of my grandparents’ belongings with me, wherever I end up.” He gazed around the room for a second. “It’s very sad that the place was abandoned. I feel a bit guilty that I haven’t paid it any attention for the last ten years. I should have made more of an effort to reclaim what I could.”

  “Well, it was abandoned a long time before you got here. Besides, it happens a lot with these old houses, doesn’t it?” I said, trying to cheer him up. “To save money, whole wings are closed off, even when they’re in good shape. And this one would have cost a fortune to repair. I don’t think you should feel bad about it.”

  “Maybe not.” He rubbed his hands together. “It’s chilly in here.”

  “Have you seen enough?” I asked Alistair, who was examining the fireplace. “If so, we can sit in the drawing room to look at the books.”

  “Yes, of course. Whenever you’re ready.”

  Once we were all back out in the corridor, Fergus paused to pull the door closed and then caught up with us. As we passed the library, he stopped. “I left Josh reading over some paperwork, so you two go ahead. We’ll join you once we’re finished up here.”

  After the chill and damp of the east wing, I was happy to see the fire lit in the drawing room. Alistair and I sat on the sofa in front of the coffee table where the Russian novels were stacked. With great reverence, he lifted up the first book and examined the title. “Fascinating.”

  “None of us speak Russian,” I said.

  “Me neither.” He turned the tissue-thin pages. “They are lovely to look at, though.”

  He worked his way through the pile of books, examining each one while I looked over his shoulder.

  “I wonder what this is?” He pointed at the title page of the book he’d just opened. Under the printed Cyrillic title was a handwritten number. ‘51088.’ The script was cursive and neat, penned in black ink that had rusted with time. Around the numbers was a hand-drawn rectangle, half an inch high and about two inches wide.

  Alistair adjusted his glasses and peered at the figures for a few seconds before closing the cover. He put it aside and opened the next one. The indecipherable black type blurred as my mind wandered, contemplating Fergus’s uncertain future. The uneasy feeling I’d had in the east wing had dissipated while we examined the books, but now returned in full force. I felt my heart rate spike and my palms grow damp. I needed to see Fergus.

  “Wait here for me,” I said. Alistair looked startled, but he nodded. I ran out of the drawing room and up the stairs. When I reached the library, the doors were open, but the room was empty. That made me feel a little better. At least Josh was with his uncle somewhere. I wondered if they had gone to the east wing to look at the roll-top desk and decided to try there first. As I rounded the corner, I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that the door was ajar. I was right, then, that they’d come here. When I reached the door, I pushed it further open and peeked in. The salon was filled with white light from a battery-operated hurricane lamp placed on the floor close to the desk. Next to it, Fergus stood with a spray can in his hand, obviously trying to free up the broken roll-top.

  I stepped inside, glad to see Fergus working on the beautiful desk. The desk. I thought about the scratches on the front panel, as though someone had tried to force their way in. Someone looking for the codex?

  “Fergus…” I stopped when I heard a noise, a creak in a floorboard in the hallway outside. Before I had time to turn around, something slammed into me from behind, and I stumbled and fell to my knees.

  Fergus turned. “What the…” He didn’t get any further before a figure dressed in jean
s and a hoodie flew towards him, hand raised. Glimpsing a strand of blond hair, I realized it was Lucy. And she had a knife in her hand, the eight-inch carving knife that was missing from the kitchen.

  35

  “Get out, Fergus,” I yelled, but Lucy had already grabbed his arm, sliding the blade under his chin.

  “Shut up, Kate,” she said. “Any more shouting and I’ll kill him, understood?”

  I clambered to my feet, a shooting pain burning my left knee. “What do you want?”

  “The codex, of course. Nice of Fergus to be making it easier for me.”

  “I’m not making anything easy for you.” Fergus dropped the can and watched it roll away. It teetered for a second on the splintered edge of the hole in the floor and then fell in, landing with a tinny clatter in the room below.

  Keeping the point at his neck, Lucy motioned me closer. “Come and make yourself useful. And don’t even think of trying any heroics.”

  I walked to the desk, taking the opportunity to squeeze Fergus’s hand for a second. He squeezed back. I wondered where Josh could be.

  Lucy nodded towards the curtains that hung at the boarded-up window. “Secure Fergus’s hands behind his back. Use the tiebacks.”

  “No.”

  “I would cooperate if I were you.” Lucy pushed the point of the blade into Fergus’s neck, drawing a single drop of blood.

  “Just do it,” Fergus said. Reluctantly, I unhooked the braided rope ties. Once crimson, they’d faded to dirty pink. I hoped they’d fall apart in my hands, but they felt surprisingly sturdy. I took them and wrapped them around Fergus’s wrists, knotting them loosely.

  “Pull them tight, Kate. And get a move on. We don’t have all day. Now, roll the lid all the way up.”

  I heaved on the pulls with both hands. Although the lid squealed in protest, I persevered and managed to get it to the open position. Then I tugged open the first drawer, which yielded a handful of mold-splotched papers. When I held the pages out to Lucy, she shook her head.

  “You look at them. Tell me what they are.”

  She shifted the grip on her knife, holding it more firmly against Fergus’s neck, her other hand grasping his upper arm.

  As I leafed through the papers, dust and mold spores flew up, making my nose itch. “They’re bills,” I said. “Mostly from food merchants. And this one seems to be an invoice from a gardener. It’s dated November 1939.”

  “Throw them on the floor. Check the next drawer.”

  I did, retrieving more stacks of bills, all dated between late 1939 and May 1941. At Lucy’s insistence, I went through each drawer, removing piles of paper: invoices, bank statements and letters addressed to Gordon MacKenna or his wife, Helen. Although historically interesting, their presence seemed to infuriate Lucy.

  “Enough with the drawers. Lift the blotter out of the way,” she instructed.

  I paused, considering my options, but they were very limited. I raised my eyes to look at Fergus, trying to communicate with him. If we both moved at the same time, surely we could overpower Lucy, even with his hands tied. It seemed that she read my mind though. She pressed the edge of the blade into the soft flesh under Fergus’s chin until a thin red line appeared, leaking blood.

  “Stop it,” I said, holding both hands up in the air. “Don’t hurt him.”

  “Then do what I say. Raise the blotter.” I did, revealing the desk’s surface, gleaming and unscathed by time. An inlay of light-colored wood formed a decorative geometric pattern in the center.

  “Push on that.” She pointed to a small circle of pearly white wood right in the middle of the inlay. When I pressed it, I heard a click. At the back of the desk a panel cantilevered open, revealing a shallow box.

  “That’s it,” she said. “I knew it. Look inside.” She wiggled the blade against Fergus’s neck.

  I peered at it. “There’s nothing.”

  “You’re not trying hard enough.” Lucy raised her voice.

  I picked up the hurricane lamp, surprised at how heavy it was, and held it closer to the desk. “Okay, I can see better now. There’s a thin metal strip with some marks on it.”

  “A combination lock maybe,” Fergus said. I was glad to hear his voice, as strong and firm as ever. “I’ve heard of these old desks being fitted with secret compartments, where people could hide valuables or papers.”

  “Or a book,” Lucy said.

  “But we don’t have the combination,” I pointed out.

  “Fergus knows it.” Lucy said.

  “I don’t. How would I? It’s been years since I even saw the desk.”

  “Think,” she said. “This was your grandfather’s. What would he have used?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Then I have no choice.” Lucy pulled the knife back as though preparing to plunge it into his neck.

  “For God’s sake, Lucy.” I straightened up. “This is ridiculous. It’s over. You may have found what you were looking for, but we can’t get at it. Just walk away. Go home. Fergus won’t press charges.” My voice caught. “I can’t believe you’re behind all this. Did you kill Duncan?”

  “Do me a favor and shut up. I intend to take the codex and disappear. So just cooperate and no one will be hurt.”

  I glanced at the door, praying for Josh to appear. Fergus followed my gaze and then shook his head. “He’s working in the library.”

  I hadn’t seen him there when I passed by. Maybe he’d been in the drinks cupboard or had gone to use the loo.

  “Who?” Lucy demanded.

  “Josh. He’ll soon realize Fergus is missing and will come looking for him.”

  “Then we’d better crack on,” she said. “Check that metal strip again. And please don’t underestimate me, Kate. I will use this weapon quite happily.”

  I shone the light right on the metal band and saw five tiny dials, each one set to zero. Five numbers. I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to see it. The handwriting on the title page of the Russian book, the number Alistair had pointed out.

  It might not be that number, but I would bet money it was. Fergus’s grandfather had bought those Russian books and stored them in the library. Anyone could have written in them, I knew that, but the clue was the thin box drawn around the numbers. It was almost identical in size and shape to the metal strip that held the five dials. But now what? If I gave Lucy the number, would she release Fergus? It was unlikely. If we discovered the codex, would she grab it and run? Or keep Fergus with her for protection? And if it weren’t there, I dreaded to think of what her reaction would be.

  “Kate, what the hell…?” she demanded. “You look as though you’re meditating. Wake up and tell Fergus to give me the number. Then I’ll let him go. If not…”

  Fergus thrust his hands backwards, catching her in the ribs. As he pivoted away from her, she jerked the blade, cutting deeper into his neck. He sank to his knees, blood dripping to the floorboards. Lucy pounced, the knife raised high, aiming at the point between his shoulder blades, exactly where Duncan had been stabbed.

  Screaming, I dropped the lamp and threw myself at her, pushing her away. She staggered and recovered, holding the knife out in front of her.

  “Put down the knife, Lucy,” I said.

  She backed up. “Stay right there.”

  Next to me, Fergus tried to rise to his feet and failed. He collapsed back on the floor. Ignoring Lucy, I bent over him. “I’m going to get you some help,” I said. “Hang in there.”

  “Not until he tells us the combination, you’re not,” Lucy said, moving closer to us. Fergus needed urgent attention, and I’d had more than enough of Lucy. I grabbed the lamp, jumped up and faced her and then I charged, swinging the lamp at her. She took a step back and then another.

  “Watch out!” I yelled, but it was too late. With a scream, she disappeared through the jagged hole in the floor and a sickening thump preceded the clatter of the knife hitting the floorboards in the room below us.

  36

  Ferg
us lifted his head. “Jesus,” he groaned. “Is she dead?”

  “I don’t know. Right now, we need to get you some medical attention.”

  I rolled him on to his side, and put my hand against the cut in his neck. Blood leaked between my fingers, making my heart rate spike. Just as I opened my mouth to shout for help, Josh and Alistair burst in, Josh holding a torch. Its beam blinded me for a second until he clicked it off.

  “Thank God you’re here,” I cried. “Call for an ambulance and the police.”

  “I’ll do it.” Alistair rushed back out while Josh came to help his uncle, propping him up against the desk and untying the ropes from around his wrists.

  “What the hell happened?” Josh asked, as he ripped off his shirt and pressed it against Fergus’s neck. Blood soaked through the cotton, but Fergus was still conscious.

  “I’ll explain later,” I said. “Let’s take a look at the wound.”

  Josh slowly lifted the shirt away while I hoisted the lamp so we could examine Fergus’s neck. The flow of blood had slowed. “It’s not bad as I feared,” I said. “We just need to keep pressure on it until the medics get here.”

  “One of you should check on Lucy,” Fergus said.

  “I will,” I said. But there was something I had to do first. While Josh reapplied the wadded-up shirt to Fergus’s neck, I lifted the lamp higher.

  “What are you smiling at?” Fergus demanded after a few seconds.

  “Your aura has gone.”

  “Whatever you say,” he replied, but he and Josh high-fived each other, both grinning like mad people.

  Satisfied that Fergus was safe, I clambered to my feet. Josh gave me his torch, and I picked my way around the room and down the derelict stairs. In the hall, I turned towards the bedroom where Lucy had fallen. My heart pounded. She was a first-class liar and a thief, and quite probably a killer, but I didn’t want her to be dead.