A Stab in the Dark

by Karen Chester

  The housekeeper turned her back on Araminta and drained the sink. “I suppose so,” she muttered, busily swilling the basin.

  “She was quite scatter-brained, too,” Araminta mused. “She dropped an entire tray of tea things when the police arrived.”

  “But that doesn’t mean anything,” Hetty protested, turning around to stare at Araminta. “She’s not the brightest bulb in the box, and besides, she was probably overcome with nerves.”

  “Probably.” But it could just as easily have been guilt.

  “Besides, what earthly reason would Cherise have for killing a complete stranger?”

  “Ah, but you see—” Just in time, Araminta bit off the rest of her sentence. She knew that Cherise and Joel Taylor had had a peculiar, one-sided relationship, but Hetty clearly didn’t, and, just for the moment, Araminta was hesitant to inform her. Luckily, Hetty didn’t appear to notice her sudden hesitation.

  “It can’t be Cherise,” Hetty said. “No, if I had to put my money on it, I’d say it was that Ollie Saunders.”

  Araminta raised her eyebrows. “Why him?”

  “Ollie has been quarrelsome since the day he started. He’s bitter about something, that’s for sure. And...” The housekeeper lowered her voice. “I heard tell he’s been in trouble before; put a man in hospital, apparently. Up north, it happened, before he moved here.”

  “That sounds like a serious charge.”

  “And he’s lazy to boot, too. Always loitering about, sneaking a cigarette or playing with his phone when he should be working. Doesn’t mind making himself at home inside, either. Puts his feet up in the old boot room with a cuppa every afternoon. Even steals a slice of cake or a biscuit from here, can you imagine? Insolent sod. Wish he was more like Isla. Now there’s a hard worker, and grateful for what she’s got, too. You should’ve seen her these past few months, working from sunup to sundown, getting the Hall ready for the visitors. I was helping, too, and her ladyship was giving the directions, but it was Isla what did most of the work. She didn’t like Ollie much either. Stayed right away from him. Not surprising, what with her too scared to say boo to a goose and him such a bear.”

  “If Ollie’s been in trouble with the law before, then the police would be aware of his past, but it wouldn’t hurt to mention it to them.”

  “Well, I thought you could do that, Miss Araminta,” Hetty said quickly. “Seeing as you already know them two coppers.”

  Araminta hesitated before replying, “All right. I’ll do it when I get the chance.” She’d mention it to Paul Kumar at least, but DCI Clegg would definitely not appreciate her information.

  “Thank you.” The housekeeper sighed. “I’m glad you’re here, Miss, and not in Italy.”

  “Me too.”

  Hetty dried her work-roughened hands against her apron. The grey in her hair seemed more pronounced today, and for the first time Araminta noticed the stoop in the housekeeper’s shoulders.

  “I’ve been with your family for more than twenty years. Through good times and bad. I seen a lot. But this...this is different.”

  “We’ll get through it,” Araminta said. But she rubbed her arms to chase away the chill brought on by the housekeeper’s words.

  “You feel it too, don’t you, Miss?” Hetty leaned forward, her voice dropping to a murmur. “I’m not fanciful, but it feels like something, or someone, evil has come into Missenden Hall, and I’m afraid, Miss Araminta. I’m afraid that this is the end. The end of everything we hold dear.”

  10. Uncle George

  THE SENSE OF FOREBODING dogged Araminta for the rest of the day even as she kept herself busy. Her extended sojourn in Italy meant her garden had been neglected, as she had only organised a monthly maintenance during her absence. She spent the afternoon weeding, mulching, and trimming, and the evening reorganising her pantry. She thought about calling in at Good Nosh and apologising to Garrick for her curtness earlier, but couldn’t face talking to anyone. It was times like this that she missed Ian the most.

  At dusk she filled a shallow bowl with water and left it near the shed for Prickles, but her spiky friend failed to show up that evening. Eventually, worn out by her exertions, she went to bed.

  The next morning, she had just finished a breakfast of tea and toast when there was a knock on her front door.

  “Uncle George!” she exclaimed when she saw Lord Winthrop standing on the porch. Her surprise was understandable. Neither he nor Lady Winthrop were in the habit of ‘dropping in’ for a visit. In fact, she couldn’t remember her uncle coming to her cottage more than a handful of times, and never without prior notice. Now, seeing his drawn expression, the dread that she’d sought to suppress resurfaced with a vengeance. “Please, come in.”

  But Lord Winthrop shook his head. “I’d rather you came with me.” A muscle above his left eyebrow twitched.

  Swallowing her misgivings, Araminta plucked a red cotton jacket from the stand near the front door and followed her uncle to his battered, mud-splashed Land Rover. He drove in silence, his craggy brow furrowed, his left eyebrow still palpitating. Araminta didn’t try to make small talk or ask where they were going. Her uncle had something to say to her; he would do so in his own way.

  They made their way out of Cranley, and eventually turned in at the gates to Missenden Hall. Why hadn’t he called her and asked her to come over? But she kept her silence.

  “Your aunt had some errands to run,” Lord Winthrop said by way of explanation as he parked the Land Rover.

  He led her into the Hall and proceeded up the grand staircase. Araminta followed him without comment. Upon reaching the first floor, Lord Winthrop continued down the corridor to a small, inconspicuous door that led to the servants’ staircase. These stairs ran from the downstairs domestic offices all the way up to the attics. Countless maids and footmen had trudged up and down its steep and narrow treads, carting water, coal, chamber pots, and everything else its inhabitants needed. With those days long gone, the staircase was quiet and cold, while a musty odour lingered in the air.

  Lord Winthrop began to trudge up the stairs with Araminta in his wake, and soon he was huffing and puffing from his exertions.

  Ordinarily, Araminta would have implored him to slow down or take a break, but, sensing his mood, she held back from giving advice which he’d only ignore. As they ascended, the stairs grew narrower and steeper and creakier. The sound of their breathing echoed around them, loud and laboured in the confined space.

  At last they made it to the top of the stairs where a door gave onto a cramped, low-ceilinged corridor with a rough, uneven floor. They had reached the uppermost floor where once only the lowliest of scullery maids had slept. It was now a graveyard of decades of junk. They passed a series of small rooms filled with mouldering boxes and cobwebbed shapes. Rounding a corner, they came to another door, which proved stiff and unyielding until Lord Winthrop leaned a shoulder against it. With a reluctant creak it yawed open, allowing light and air in. They had reached the rooftop of Missenden Hall.

  Araminta hadn’t been up here in ages. The rooftop was an alien landscape of sloping valleys and rusting gutters, punctuated by thickets of chimneys. For the unwary it was a minefield of broken tiles, loose bricks, and discarded wire.

  Lord Winthrop paused to catch his breath. Araminta wiped a bead of perspiration from her forehead. The day was warm but cloudy, the overcast skies making the atmosphere thick and dull.

  “Watch your step,” Lord Winthrop muttered as he led the way forward.

  Araminta followed, picking her way through the debris. A large section of badly corroded sheet metal caught her attention. “That looks bad,” she couldn’t help saying.

  Her uncle grunted. “Leaks like a sieve when it rains.”

  She didn’t ask him how much repairs would cost. This was the whole point of the tours; to pay for the myriad maintenance tasks that the ageing mansion needed.

  Lord Winthrop halted at the parapet that ran along the edge of the building. Joinin
g him, Araminta glanced over the barrier at the dizzying drop below for a second or two before lifting her gaze to the much more pleasant view of the surrounding countryside. Spread before her was a patchwork quilt of fields, trees, and houses stitched together with hedges, rivers, and roads. Once, the Winthrop estate had stretched for miles, but those halcyon days were long gone, the land holdings having dwindled to almost nothing over successive generations. As was only right and proper in a fair society, Araminta thought, though it left Missenden Hall in a precarious situation.

  “Saw a stoat down there recently,” Lord Winthrop said, waving a hand to the east.

  “In the Harewoods?”

  He grunted.

  The Harewoods was fifty acres of untouched woodland and one of the few remaining remnants of the Winthrop estate. From their rooftop vantage point they could see it in the distance, a green oasis surrounded by farms. Araminta had always loved the Harewoods, but she hadn’t visited for a while, on purpose.

  “I’m thinking of donating the woods to the National Trust,” Lord Winthrop said.

  His out-of-the-blue statement caused Araminta to blink. “You are?”

  “He’ll be furious, of course.” Lord Winthrop picked at the chipped brick edge of the parapet.

  “I’m sorry, who will?” she asked.

  “Can’t be helped.” Lord Winthrop flicked at a fragment of masonry. “If I don’t do it, he’ll sell it to developers. There’d be an uproar, and people would try to stop him, but he’s no slouch, not when self-interest is involved.”

  “You mean my father,” Araminta said.

  Her uncle looked away. “Dorian was born restless. Always champing at the bit to get away from Missenden Hall.”

  To get away from any kind of responsibility, Araminta thought. A wife, a child, a brother, a heritage—all that was too boring for him, though he enjoyed the trappings. When it came to his lack of responsibility, especially towards his family, she could only agree with her uncle.

  “Never understood him,” her uncle mused. “I fear for what might happen to the Hall itself when I’m gone. The estate has been in our family for generations, but I doubt that will hold much water for Dorian. He cares nothing for tradition.”

  The thought of her feckless father inheriting the title, inheriting Missenden Hall and all its history and memories, made her shudder. For years the inevitability of this had remained in the distant future, something she wouldn’t have to face for a long while. But now, noticing the lines carved in her uncle’s face, the wispy white hair, the spots on his hands, she sensed time running through her fingers like sand, and a feeling of panic took hold of her.

  “You might outlive him,” she burst out. Was it terrible of her, to wish her own father would die before her uncle?

  A rare smile flitted across Lord Winthrop’s face, his facial muscles spasming as if from long disuse.

  “He does carouse a lot,” she added, feeling no guilt in siding with her uncle.

  Lord Winthrop glanced down at his less than steady hands. “I’m no teetotaller either,” he said ruefully. “In any case, it hardly matters, because your brother will inherit one day, and Terence has even less interest in preserving his heritage, which means the outcome will be the same.”

  Araminta gazed at the Harewoods and imagined herself strolling through its ancient trees, dappled light stroking her face, cool leaf litter crunching underfoot. Deep in the middle of the woods, right at its heart, was a gnarled old chestnut tree, that had stood for centuries, listening to the secrets of those who sought it out. The first time she’d brought Ian to the Harewoods, she’d shown him the venerable tree, and three months later, under its branches, he’d proposed to her.

  She clenched her hands. “Terence is just a puppy. I’ll make him care.”

  Her uncle shook his head. His acceptance made her angrier.

  “If only Robert had lived.”

  The words spilled out before she could swallow them. She bit her lip, appalled by her insensitivity. Lord Winthrop turned his head away.

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know what came over me.” Still, he remained unmoving. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Joel Taylor turned up at the Hall a month ago.”

  “Oh.” The breeze picked up, stinging her eyes.

  “He came to me with a preposterous story.” Her uncle’s profile was a study in granite.

  Araminta pushed her hair back. Here it is, then. The reason why we’re up on this roof.

  “He claimed to be my son!” Lord Winthrop’s voice shook on the last word, from outrage or shock, she couldn’t tell because she was outraged and shocked herself.

  “What?” She shook her head. “How—why—I don’t understand.”

  “Oh, isn’t it drearily obvious?” He made a cutting gesture with his hand. “I ignored my vows. I was unfaithful to my wife.”

  Her uncle drew in a breath. After his initial outburst, his face became grim and solemn. “It happened a long time ago, just after we lost Robert. We were awfully cut up...Poor little chap. Such a bonnie lad—” He scrubbed the back of his neck. “I was a cheat and a liar. No excuses. No, no. Your aunt was in a clinic, doctors’ orders. I was by myself. In Dorchester. I went to a pub, intent on drinking myself into a stupor. That’s where I met her. She knew nothing of my circumstances, and I was hardly good company, but she, well, she was a nice woman, kind, comforting, generous. We went...we went back to her flat. I spent two nights there before I came to my senses and returned home. Never saw or heard from her again. I tried to forget, put it behind me. Reprehensible, I know. It’s all come back to bite me. No one to blame but myself. All my fault. Yes, all my fault.”

  Araminta struggled to take it all in. This couldn’t be happening. Not her uncle.

  “I don’t—I’m sure—” She stopped short, lost for words.

  He turned a glassy stare at her. “Kathleen. That was her name. I remember that much. Joel Taylor was her son, born forty years ago. When he came to me, he said his mother had only spoken of me six months ago, on her deathbed. Told him he was the son of an aristocrat, a rich nobleman.” A muscle ticked in his jaw.

  “What did you do?”

  “I told him it was balderdash, that his mother had spun him a cruel fantasy, that he was certainly no son of mine.”

  “How can you be so sure of that?”

  “Just take my word for it,” he snapped.

  “Um, okay, but did Joel?”

  “Naturally, he did not believe me.”

  “What did Joel expect from you? Even if he was genuinely your offspring, surely he must’ve known his showing up put you in a difficult situation?”

  “He did, and he was under no illusions on that score. No, he quickly got to the heart of the matter. Money, of course. Ten thousand pounds, to be exact.”

  Araminta had no trouble picturing Joel coolly laying down his demands. In the short time she’d met him, his brashness had stuck in her mind. “What did you do?”

  “I asked him to wait in my study. I left and returned with my shotgun and told him he had five minutes to get clear of Missenden Hall.”

  Araminta gasped. “You threatened him with a gun?”

  “My only mistake was not firing it over his head,” her uncle countered grimly. “He returned a few days later with a different demand. This time, he wanted twenty thousand pounds, and if I didn’t pay up, he was going to tell your aunt everything.”

  The knot in Araminta’s stomach grew tighter. She thought of Aunt Edwina, immaculately turned out, never a hair out of place, the elegant chatelaine of Missenden Hall. Aunt Edwina, who so easily could have been cold and distant, had in her own cool manner, made Araminta, a sullen, homeless, unwanted ten-year-old, feel less homeless and less unwanted.

  “You’re disappointed in me, aren’t you?” her uncle said. “Yes. You’re quite right to think the worst of me.”

  “I don’t think the worst of you. In fact, I...”

  “Go on
.”

  “I think it shows you’re human, like the rest of us.”

  “You haven’t seen the worst of me.” His eyes grew steely. “Make no mistake, I wanted to kill Joel Taylor. I mean that. I could have plunged that silver dirk straight into his heart, without hesitation. I want you to know that, Araminta.”

  She swallowed. “But why tell me all this? You didn’t really kill him, did you, Uncle George?”

  “How do you know I didn’t?”

  “Because you were asleep in your study at the time.”

  “Possibly, but I might have woken up.”

  “You’d been drinking. You were in no state to stab a man to death and then race back to your study and pretend to have been sleeping all the while.”

  “Perhaps I hold my drink better than you think.”

  Araminta clenched her hands. “Why are you doing this? Do you want to be a suspect?”

  “I just want you to know,” he said slowly, “that I could’ve done it.”

  She couldn’t understand him. Why was he determined she think the worst of him?

  On impulse, she asked, “Are you trying to protect someone?” When he drew back, she knew she’d struck a nerve. “Uncle George?”

  “I had means, motive, and opportunity. Remember that.” But there was a note of uncertainty in his voice.

  It hit her then, the answer to her question. “Aunt Edwina. You think she might have killed Joel Taylor,” she said numbly.

  “Absurd. Impossible.” He fumbled in his pockets, pulled out a handful of crumpled tickets, coins, lint. With a huff, he shoved the junk back into his pocket. “Edwina knows nothing about Joel Taylor or his outlandish claims. Nothing.”

  “But you can’t be certain. That’s what you’re afraid of, isn’t it, Uncle George? You’re afraid that she did find out, somehow. Who knows, maybe Joel rang her, or called in at the Hall when you were out. Or maybe he sent her a letter.”