A Corpse at the Castle

by R B Marshall

  Minutes later, I had a bulging suitcase sitting in the hallway and ran to the desk in the lounge to retrieve my computer kit, which fitted into a padded backpack. Then I joined Trinity in the kitchen where she was packing cans and jars into a hessian shopping bag. Stopping for a moment, I chewed my lip. “D’you think we could take the microwave and kettle? Then we’d have something to cook on. Oh, and mugs and plates?”

  “And cutlery. And the telly.” suggested Trinity. “But maybe we should get the other stuff to the car first before we do that. We can always get take-out if there’s not time.”

  “Okay.” I hurried off to the hall, grabbing the first load of bags as I went. When I got to the vehicle, a line of yellow jackets was advancing up Kirk Street. I reckoned I had time for one more trip.

  I passed Trinity on the way up the stairs. “One more load,” I said, my breathing ragged, “then I think they’ll be chasing us out.”

  “Right,” she grunted.

  Minutes later, with the microwave, TV and kettle on the back seat alongside the dog, I performed a rather messy u-turn and splashed through the large puddle that had encroached onto Kirk Wind. “We made it,” I said, stating the obvious.

  “Yeah.” Trinity breathed a sigh of relief. “An’ you didn’t have to life-save me.”

  I chuckled, then raised a hand at the gaggle of police, who were busy cordoning off Kirk Street. “I guess we’d better phone Lady L and tell her we’re moving in. Early.”

  After a diversion to the small supermarket on the northern side of town to pick up some dog food and supplies to cook dinner, and a garage to buy a bag of logs for the fire, we made it back to Glengowrie Stables Cottage.

  We dropped the shopping bags on the kitchen floor, then used an old towel to dry the dog before offering her a little food on a saucer. “Don’t want to give her too much in case she’s not eaten for a while. It might make her sick.”

  Trinity nodded. “Good point. Shall I put the pizza in the oven?”

  “That’s an idea. It can cook while we pick up those electric fires from Lady L. Then we shouldn’t have to go out again.” I looked back down at the dog. The food had disappeared. “I think she liked that.” Opening her mouth, the terrier sat down and gave a huge yawn, pink tongue lolling from the side of her mouth. We both laughed. “Someone needs her bed!” I said, leading the way into the lounge area.

  I pointed the dog at a cushion on the couch. She jumped up, circled three times, then plopped down with a happy sigh and promptly closed her eyes.

  Quickly, I laid the fire, reminded of weekends in my youth when it’d been my job to set the fire in the family lounge. A useful skill, as it turned out, since London was a ‘smokeless zone’ and Trinity hadn’t been in the girl guides, so was clueless when it came to non-electric fires.

  Soon the kindling had burned, and flames were licking at the larger pieces of wood. “Won’t be long till the room warms up,” I said, as my flatmate appeared from the kitchen area. “Shall we go and get that stuff from the big house before it gets too late?”

  A few minutes later, I parked the car at the kitchen door of Glengowrie House. In comparison to the grand columns and carved stone at the front, the back was made from plain red sandstone blocks and white-painted sash windows. Presumably this had been the servants’ quarters in the old days, and they didn’t warrant fancy architecture.

  Ursula Harkin, Lady Letham’s cook and housekeeper, opened the door to us, accompanied by a waft of warm air and the smell of baking. A small, dumpy woman with curled grey hair, she wore a grey woollen skirt and white blouse under a black apron that was streaked with flour. “Come in, lassies, come in. Get yourselves out of that horrid rain.” She ushered us into the large, flagstone floored room.

  Two electric fires and an oil-fired radiator were grouped near the door. “Jimmy looked these out for you.” Ursula put her hands on her ample hips. “I told herself she should have got the plumber back in this week to connect up the heating so you could move in. But she didn’t want to bother him. His mother took a turn and had a spell in the hospital.” She raised her hands. “But work still has to be done, doesn’t it?” She ploughed on, not waiting for an answer. “Is that all you’re needing? Just the heating?”

  “And the shower isn’t connected up,” I said. “But we’ve got water to the basin and the bath.” I moved to the side and picked up the two fires. Trinity hefted the radiator and headed for the car.

  Ursula shook her head. “I’ll be having a word with the plumber for you. Canny be having you young ladies shivering over there in that draughty house.”

  “We’ll be fine with these,” I nodded at the fires, “And the log fire. At least we’ll be dry, which is more than we’d have been down in the town.”

  “Oh, I know, it’s terrible, it is. All those houses. All that water. All those poor people.”

  That reminded me of something. I turned back from the door. “Oh, by the way, we found a stray dog down the town. We’ve taken her home with us for now and we’ll speak to the vet in the morning, but if you hear of anyone who’s lost a wee Jack Russell Terrier, will you let us know?”

  “Of course I will.” Ursula disappeared for a few moments, then ducked out of the kitchen and thrust a tin at me while I was loading the fires into the car. “Here. A cake for you and Miss Trinity. You lassies are far too thin.” She patted my arm. “You need some meat on your bones.” Without waiting for a reply, she scurried back in out of the rain.

  “Thanks,” I called after her, but the door was already closed. “Pizza and cake for dinner,” I said, handing the tin to Trinity as I clambered into the driver’s seat.

  “Yum,” she said, licking her lips. “That’ll be most of the main food groups covered, then, won’t it?”

  I snorted. “Yeah. Carbohydrate and more carbohydrate.”

  She lifted a corner of the cake tin lid and peered inside. “There’s some strawberry jam in the sponge. So that’s us got fruit covered. And tomato and cheese on the pizza, so there’s veg and protein.” With a wink, she added, “Almost a balanced meal!”

  I raised my eyes heavenwards. “At least we’re not eating watermelon. Or watercress. Or water chestnut. Or—”

  Trinity slapped my arm. “Will you stop with the flooding jokes? You know I’m scared of drowning. Come on, let’s get back before the pizza burns. Or before the dog eats it!”

  Not only was the new flat missing a working shower, it also didn’t have a television aerial. Or internet. And we didn’t have any DVDs. This would have made for a quiet evening, except that I decided to use Trinity as my ‘Watson’ and bounce ideas off her about Hamish’s murder. Or murderer, to be more precise.

  “Craig sounds lovely,” she said when I told her that Eagle had seemed upset when he appeared. I still hadn’t had the courage to tell her about the visions. “I can’t imagine it’d be him. Why would he do something like that?”

  “That’s just it. He’s the one with the most to gain, so in theory he has the biggest motive. Although, when I questioned him, he didn’t seem bothered about getting Hamish’s job.”

  “Well, who else could it be?”

  I grimaced. “On the TV it’s always the person you’d least suspect. But if you read the newspapers, it’s usually a family member. Except his wife is a wee sweetie and doesn’t look like she’d hurt a fly. And his daughter wasn’t even here—she just arrived, from Glasgow or somewhere.”

  “What about other people he worked with?”

  “Well, there’s Slytherin Stan and the Child Catcher.”

  Her eyebrows disappeared somewhere up under her hairline. “Don’t tell me they’re making a Disney movie up at the estate?”

  I chuckled. “No, just my names for them. Stan is a groom, and the gamekeeper—the one who looks like the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang—”

  “I never saw that one,” interrupted Trinity.

  “Not even at Christmas time?” My nose wrinkled in surprise.

 
She shrugged. “We was more into game shows and soaps in our house. Dad never had the patience to sit through a whole film.”

  “Well, the gamekeeper looks like a beanpole wearing tweed, with a nose that would make Caesar proud. But he only popped in to the yard briefly, and there didn’t seem to be any animosity between him and Hamish.”

  Brow puckering, Trinity took a sip of her tea. “And weren’t there anybody else at the stables?”

  “Not that I saw.” I cradled my coffee mug while I thought back. “There were three guys at the B&B who were part of the next day’s shooting party I think. But they weren’t on the estate on the Monday as far as I’m aware.”

  “What else do you know about Hamish, then? Were he involved in anything else that could give him enemies?”

  “It’s funny you should ask that. I did some research on him and discovered that he saved the Queen’s life back in 1984 when he was in the Household Cavalry. Some guy shot at her during the Trooping the Colour, and Hamish and a policeman overpowered him. But the guy would be in his fifties now, so I can’t see why he would wait till now to take his revenge.”

  “Yeah, that would be really weird. Anything else?”

  I thought back to Hamish’s office at the stud. “He was very tidy. And maybe a councillor or something—there was a photo of him wearing a chain and carrying a staff. I must look that one up.”

  Trinity’s face took on a sly look. “Or you could phone Craig and ask him.”

  Beside me on the couch, the dog raised her head, opened her mouth in a yawn that showed every one of her little white teeth, got up and turned round three times, then settled herself back down to sleep again. I scratched the back of her neck. “I suppose I could.”

  My housemate gathered the plates and cups from the low table in front of us and motioned towards the kitchen area. “I’ll get on with the washing up while you phone him.”

  Tactful. But would Craig think I was chasing him if I phoned so soon after seeing him this afternoon? I sighed. I wasn’t very good at these dating games. If that’s even what it was between us. We’d only shared a couple of meals and a couple of kisses. Did that make him my boyfriend? Probably not.

  “’Ave you phoned him yet?” questioned a voice from the kitchen.

  I rolled my eyes, but pulled my phone out of my pocket. There may not be internet connection here, but at least there was phone signal. And then I gasped. The device showed one bar of wi-fi, labelled ‘Letham01’. We must be picking up the internet from the big house! Just.

  Instead of phoning Craig and jeopardising… whatever we had, I phoned Mrs H and got the wi-fi password. Using my laptop to investigate was much more in my comfort zone, and I could always phone Craig tomorrow if I needed any further info, couldn’t I?

  After about an hour’s internet sleuthing, I’d uncovered further surprising information about Hamish, and an explanation for the strange photo I’d seen in his office.

  It turned out that Hamish was Grand Master of a secret society—the one Craig had mentioned—called The Horseman’s Guild. Operating mainly in the north-east of Scotland, and reminiscent of the freemasons, the membership consisted of men—it looked to be only men—who worked with horses.

  The most secret part of their secret society was ‘the horseman’s word’—a special word that was supposed to calm and tame any horse, if only you knew it.

  Hmmm. I had my doubts about that. But it explained the photo of Hamish with the tartan and the staff.

  It didn’t help any with explaining how or why he had died, though. But maybe some of his colleagues from the guild would know more. Or might hold a grudge. I stared out the window a moment, eyes fixed on the elegant branches of the oak tree outside, but not really seeing them. Time for the heavy guns.

  Flexing my fingers, I fired up Gremlin, the app I’d written specifically for burrowing into the deep web, and set it to hunting for more information about the Horseman’s Guild membership.

  Chapter Thirteen

  It seemed like no time later that I was once more navigating the country roads back to Balmoral. But this time it was a distinctly more sombre affair, as we were on our way to Hamish’s funeral.

  Lady Letham was in the front seat of my Volkswagen, handbag clutched in her lap with the disabled car pass that Mrs Harkin had remembered at the last minute sticking out of the top. Trinity sat in the back, along with the dog.

  We’d had no luck finding out who the animal belonged to, so had taken to calling her Jorja, after one of the characters in CSI, our favourite TV show. She was a sweet and well-mannered thing and seemed quite happy to potter around with us while we worked with the horses.

  Strictly speaking, Trinity didn’t need to be there, since she’d never met Hamish. But she wanted to come along so she could meet Craig. And I was glad to have her with me. I hoped that, with her superior people-management skills, she could winkle out some gossip about the man.

  Lady L was uncharacteristically quiet, staring pensively out of the passenger window at the scenery. I was about to ask if she was okay, when she dabbed a handkerchief at her eyes, then turned to me. “It will be very lovely to see Beverly again, even if the circumstances are not the most conducive to reunions.”

  “Beverly?” I asked.

  “Mrs Douglas. Hamish’s dear wife.”

  “You know her?”

  “From the Angus Flower Show. On many occasions, I’ve presented the prizes, and she regularly wins the cup for the best flower arrangement. She’s also a leading light in the Women’s Institute. Quite the exceptional lady.”

  I filed that information away. “Did you know Hamish as well?”

  “Somewhat. He is—was,” she corrected herself, “not the most… gregarious of men. But a dab hand with the horses.”

  “I believe he used to be in the Household Cavalry?”

  “Yes, I recall hearing something to that effect. And he got a medal from the Falklands War.”

  “Really? When was that again?”

  “Sometime in the eighties? If I recollect correctly, Thatcher was the prime minister.”

  From the back of the car, Trinity’s voice piped up. “Google says 1982.”

  Scrunching my brows, I caught Trinity’s eye in the rear-view mirror. Could there be a murder motive there?

  Seeming to understand my look, her shoulders raised. “Bit early?” she mouthed.

  She had a point. Like the Marcus Sarjeant incident, surely a war that long ago would have nothing to do with a murder in 2018. I sighed inwardly. Back to the drawing board. Or, more accurately, back to the computer investigations.

  Gremlin’s most recent discoveries had been some details about the horseman’s guild committee, including the fact that Oliver Seaforth, the vet, was deputy grand master. I’d also seen documentation that explained how, as Grand Master, Hamish could expect to serve a five-year term, that he had the deciding vote on any resolutions, and executive authority on any spending decisions.

  Would that be reason enough for another member to kill him? Perhaps. Ghoulish as it might seem, I was hopeful that we might find out more at the funeral.

  My musings were interrupted by my employer. “Ladies, I should tell you, in the event that Libby attends poor Hamish’s funeral—”

  “Will the Queen be there?” Trinity interrupted. “Really?”

  “I cannot be sure,” Lady Letham continued, “but she occasionally attends funerals of dear friends and esteemed staff. If she is there, are you aware of protocol when meeting the Queen?”

  I shook my head. “I’ve never met her. What about you, Trinity?”

  “Me either. Waved at her from a street corner in London once with my school when I were a kid. But that’s it.”

  Lady Letham tapped her forefingers together. “Well, the first thing you should know is: never speak to the Queen unless she speaks to you first.” As she spoke, her back straightened, as if she was remembering her days as a lady-in-waiting. “And if she does, do give her a quick curtse
y before you speak. Finally, if need be, you address her as ‘Your Majesty’ the first time, and then ‘ma’am’ after that.”

  “Got it!” said Trinity.

  “Thanks,” I said. “But I doubt mere plebs like us will get to speak to her.”

  Little did I know how wrong I would be…

  The biggest surprise about Hamish’s funeral—apart from the size of the crowd, which was huge considering how grumpy the man was—was that the Queen did, indeed, attend.

  As I squeezed my car into the disabled car parking space outside Crathie Church, a spotless burgundy limousine swept past, and drew to a halt near the back of the church.

  We all watched in surprise as the chauffeur hurried to open the door, and out stepped Queen Elizabeth, hat and handbag first. Slightly stooped, she wore a monochrome coat and dress, with matching black shoes and gloves.

  “Libby!” breathed Lady Letham, bright eyes following the monarch’s entourage. “She hasn’t aged a day.”

  Waiting at a side door was the church minister, who greeted the Queen and led her into the church. She was accompanied by another smartly dressed lady, and followed by a couple of men in dark suits, muttering into their shirt sleeves as their eyes darted everywhere.

  Once we’d lifted our jaws from where they’d dropped on the ground, we made our way to the front of the church and found Craig hanging around near the porch. The wooden structure looked like it was made out of gingerbread and belonged in a Hansel and Gretel fairytale rather than a Scottish church.

  Craig’s face lit up when he spotted me. “I saved us some seats,” he said, then dipped his head at my boss. “Lady Letham, it’s good to see you. Are you keeping well?”

  “Why yes, dear boy, thanks for asking.”

  Obviously they knew each other. I gave Craig a sideways look. I’d need to interrogate him later.