The Corpse with the Sapphire Eyes

by Cathy Ace

  “Todd’s in mining. My husband,” responded Siân groggily. “You two would probably get on like a house on fire. He’s never happier than when he’s talking about sediment, formations, strata, and deposits. Serves him right I’ve left him alone with the kids for once.” I’d never heard Siân say anything along these lines before, and I couldn’t help but feel that she was in a particularly vulnerable state. “Flies all over the place he does, for weeks on end. He has no idea what it’s like to spend real time with them. Up country to the iron area, off to Newman and Tom Price, and inland to Kalgoorlie for the gold and God only knows what else—I dare say the topless bars there keep him entertained.”

  I had to act, so I steadied Siân, nodded to Bud for him to do the same, and we steered her toward the door. “I’m taking Siân to bed now. I think she needs some sleep. As Owain noted, she’s very tired. I’m sorry we’re all leaving so abruptly. Dinner was delightful . . .” By the time the last words were out of my mouth the three of us were in the great hall and beginning to negotiate the first few steps of the staircase.

  I realized then that Siân had more or less been a non-participant in the table conversation for some time, but it was almost as though she’d gone from stone cold sober, if disengaged, to falling down drunk in the space of about five minutes. Such is jetlag. It never warns you when it’s about to bash you over the head with a brick—it just does it, and down you go.

  “Is she going to be okay?” mouthed Bud as we dragged Siân, who now seemed to be almost unconscious, up each step. She looked slim enough, but she was a dead weight. It wasn’t an easy trip to her room, but eventually we managed to get her inside and lying down on her bed, underneath the old-fashioned eiderdown.

  “Let’s just leave her in her clothes,” I said, motioning for Bud to leave with me. “She should be warm enough under that quilt. It’s not as drafty in here as it is in my room. Fewer windows, for a start, and I might be imagining it, but I think that the wind’s died down a bit, too.”

  I shut her door as quietly as possible, and Bud and I both let out a huge sigh of relief.

  “Leaving the light on inside her bathroom was a good idea, Cait,” he said quietly. “If she’s disoriented when she wakes, at least she’ll be able to navigate her way there.”

  I nodded. “Who knows if she’ll sleep until morning. It’s still only nine-thirty, so if she can sleep in until at least eight, she should be refreshed. How about you? How do you feel?”

  Bud rubbed his temple. “To be honest, I’ve got a bit of a headache, and I think I could at least do with lying down. I just need to stretch out, you know?”

  “I know exactly what you mean,” I replied. I did. My back was aching, as were my neck, shoulders, and legs. “I know it’s early, but I don’t think I can keep going any longer, Bud. However intriguing the death of David Davies, that wonderful plate, and the Cadwalladers’ dysfunction might be, I need my bed. So let’s just call it a day?”

  Our parting embrace quickly resulted in each of us supporting the other, which led to giggling.

  “Off to your bed, young lady,” said Bud, chuckling.

  “My bridal boudoir, you mean.” I smiled as I waved to Bud from my door. “Goodnight, husband-to-be. Love you lots.”

  “Love you more,” replied Bud from his own doorway.

  “Love you most,” I whispered back and shut my door so that I became the clear winner.

  The massive bed looked inviting, but so did my bathroom, so I changed in there, where the radiator allowed for the smaller square footage to be a little less chilly, then scampered across the expanse of the room and dove under the covers. I was almost asleep by the time I switched off the bedside lamp four seconds later. Then . . . nothing.

  I awoke with a start and grabbed the bedclothes to my chest. I probably looked like a right twit as I stared into the darkness, trying to work out what had woken me. The wind howled around my turret. The windows rattled. But, other than that, I couldn’t hear anything else.

  I looked at my wristwatch. It was 2:37 AM, and, lo and behold, I was wide awake. I snuggled back down, but I was restless. My mind raced. The characters painted on the walls and ceiling seemed to be moving in the shadows. It was disquieting. I knew it was all a trick of the dim light that seeped through the crack at the bottom of the door, but it didn’t help. My mouth was dry, and my fingers and ankles were still painful and swollen from the flight. I lay there trying to make spit, twirling my ankles, and clenching and unclenching my fists. The knock at my door startled me so much that I bit my tongue.

  I leapt out of the bed, switched on the lamp, and scampered across the room. “Who is it?” I hissed.

  “It’s me, Bud.”

  I opened the door, relieved to see Bud’s tousled silver hair and wide-eyed expression. “Cait, what’s happened?” He pushed me into my room. “Let me look at you. What is that? Is it blood? Oh my word—what have you done?”

  “I bit my tongue when you knocked on the door. You frightened the life out of me. I’ll get some tissue. It’ll stop.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to . . . Oh, you know I didn’t mean to startle you. Were you asleep? Stick it out, it’ll help,” suggested Bud unhelpfully.

  “You’re just taking the mickey now, right?” I hurled my most aggressively arched eyebrow at him, and he flinched. I felt triumphant. But I did as he suggested and kept my tongue out, as much as I could.

  Bud steered me to the edge of the bed and, once I was settled, dashed to my bathroom. He returned quickly, trailing a length of loo paper. As I dabbed at the bloody mess I’d made, he explained, “I woke up, I don’t know why. I think I heard something. This place is full of such strange noises, and the storm isn’t helping. Anyway, I just couldn’t get back to sleep. I’ll admit that this place has spooked me a little. Back home, it would be the evening for us, not the early hours of the morning, so maybe our bodies think we should be up and about. So I came to see if you were awake too.”

  I replied, “Ny pubby hinksh ish pimmer pime.” How do dentists ever understand a word you say in their chair? Do they get lessons at dental school?

  “Are you speaking Welsh?” asked Bud.

  I shook my head. “Ny pubby hinksh ish pimmer pime,” I repeated.

  Bud interpreted, “Your body thinks it’s dinner time?”

  I nodded.

  “Oddly enough, so does mine,” admitted Bud. “You haven’t got any snacks hidden in your luggage, have you? I know you like to have snacks at hand.”

  I shook my head. “Kishen?” I managed.

  Bud looked alarmed. “What, risk going into Mrs. Dilys Jones’s domain without her express approval? Are you nuts? She’d probably have us garroted with some kitchen twine before we got the fridge open. Phooey!”

  “Wha?” I croaked. My throat was getting dry.

  “Now I’ve mentioned the fridge, I can imagine it full of leftovers. That trifle was really good. Not too sweet. You know I don’t like really sweet desserts. I could do with another serving of that. Or that pâté. Or anything really.”

  A few moments later I was dressed and armed with a flickering flashlight that looked as though it had been in the bathroom since the plumbing was installed in the 1930s. In the darkness, the great hall felt like a huge, black pit, and we held hands as we made our way down the stairs, which seemed to go on forever. At the bottom of the stairs I almost butted heads with one of the suits of armor that stood guard there. Bud pulled me to safety, and we headed to a swinging door beneath the stairs, close to the dining room. Beside the door was a stuffed bear that seemed to rear up out of the darkness and threaten me. I gave it a wide berth as Bud pushed open the door as quietly as he could. Unlike almost every other door I’d encountered in the castle, this one didn’t squeak at all. With two flashlights at our disposal, Bud shone his at the floor, while I kept mine pointing ahead of us as we made our way along a little corridor. Eventually we reached the steps down which I assumed David Davies had taken his fatal plun
ge.

  “Be careful, Cait,” whispered Bud, very close to my ear. “These look as though they are very steep, and you’re not the best on your feet, especially when it comes to precipitous steps, or heights.”

  I set off, gripping the piece of thick rope looped through metal rings along one wall that acted as a pretty inadequate handrail. I could hear Bud breathing behind me, so I knew he was close.

  “I wish you’d let me go first,” he whispered.

  “I’m nearly at the bottom, I think,” I replied calmly. My tongue was finally allowing me to speak properly. When I reached the stone flags of the flooring, I stood still and shone my light onto the last couple of steps for Bud.

  “It looks like it’s this way to the food,” said Bud eagerly as he joined me, and he pulled me into Mrs. Jones’s inner sanctum. We moved carefully into a gaping black chasm. Bud flicked a switch, and fluorescent tubes sputtered to life above our heads. The kitchen was a cavernous room—stone walls; high, small barred windows; and a selection of outdated, well-used cupboards and work surfaces. It felt as unwelcoming as the woman who used it. Even so, five minutes later we were both sitting on the edge of the big wooden table in the middle of the room, swinging our legs like children, greedily scoffing trifle off fine Swansea blue-and-white willow-pattern china I’d taken from the pile of dishes that had been left to air-dry on a long draining board beside the deep, ceramic Belfast sink. I felt like a character from an Enid Blyton book. It was great fun. Bud and I were having an adventure. With food.

  When we’d finished, which didn’t take long, I rinsed off the dishes and placed them back on the draining board. We’d both acknowledged that we’d have to admit to our sins in the morning, when food was found to be missing, but that we’d charm Mrs. Jones into forgiving us.

  We each had a glass of milk, agreeing it was too dangerous to try to carry full glasses back to our rooms, but then we were at a loss as to what to do next. We were both not only wide awake but now buoyed up by the sugar we’d just consumed.

  Just as I was about to suggest that we should leave and go back to our rooms, because I knew it was the right thing to do, I saw the unmistakable sweep of a flashlight in the corridor beyond the kitchen by which Bud and I had entered. I grabbed Bud’s arm.

  A figure, dressed all in white, appeared noiselessly at the doorway. I froze.

  Wyth

  “WHAT THE—?” GASPED BUD AS he leapt down from the table.

  “It’s only me,” said Siân.

  “What do you think you’re playing at?” I snapped. I could have hit her.

  “I’m sorry I frightened you,” she said sheepishly, as I too jumped down from the table. “I didn’t think there’d be anyone here, then I heard you two and thought I should make myself known.”

  “You very nearly gave me a heart attack,” I said. “What are you doing out there? Have you come looking for food too?” It seemed unlikely.

  “No, I came down to look at the body,” said Siân simply. “I have to see if it’s him.”

  “If it’s who? And stop pointing that in my eyes.” I sounded as cross as I felt.

  Siân lowered the light and said quietly, “David Davies. I have to see if it’s him. I couldn’t believe it when Eirwen said his name.”

  “I told you the man’s name,” said Bud, sounding puzzled. “I told you it was David Davies. Cait even told me off for saying the guy’s name the wrong way.”

  Siân smiled sadly. “She was the one who said ‘Davies the Eyes,’ you see. ‘David Davies’ could be anyone.”

  Bud held up his hands in confusion. “I don’t get it.”

  “I knew four David Davieses growing up,” I explained. “It’s not an uncommon name in Wales.”

  “Aren’t there enough names to go around?” replied Bud, bemused.

  “Hmm, it’s funny, isn’t it? I also knew two John Joneses, a Thomas Thomas, an Owain Owens, and a Llewellyn Llewellyn. There is a reason, connected to sons taking fathers’ names, to signify lineage, but I’ll save the lecture, because I think we should focus on my sister. So, go on then, tell us what you’re talking about, Siân.”

  She nodded. “When they said he was called Davies the Eyes earlier on, I couldn’t believe it. I wondered if he was my Davies the Eyes, so I had to come and have a look. It’s taken me forever to find this kitchen, but he’s not here. I don’t know where to look next.”

  “And who exactly is Davies the Eyes, and what is he to you?” I asked.

  Siân clenched her hands into little fists and growled through her teeth. “Don’t you ever remember the important stuff, Cait? I went out with him, back when I was seventeen, eighteen. Mum and Dad hated him, which, of course, made him all the more attractive.”

  I nodded. “You mentioned someone to me, once, on the phone, though only as ‘David.’ Mum told me more. Is he the one who dumped you before some big party or other?”

  “Here’s a great example of sisterly love for you, Bud,” said Siân angrily. “Bluntly put, Cait left home for university when I was thirteen, so I was no more than a child to her then. A child with a very inferior academic ability to her older sister, so worse than nothing. Since then, we’ve had a relationship built solely on Cait’s infrequent trips home when she was at university, phone calls, duty-visits, and, more recently, emails and photos.”

  Siân held up her hand to stop me responding. I thought it best to allow her to rant, which she did. “Cait’s memory is a wonderful thing, if she’s been paying attention. I’m pretty sure she took almost no notice of me at all until I hit my mid-twenties and married Todd. When she came to Wales for our wedding—yes, in case she hasn’t told you, Todd and I came all the way from Australia to be married—she looked surprised to see an adult Siân, rather than a lanky kid. We hardly know each other. We just have childhood memories. Be honest, Cait, that’s the truth, isn’t it? If we were really more to each other than that, you’d know that David Davies was the man who broke my heart. In the worst possible way.”

  I wanted to say so much, and normally, I would have done. But one look at Siân told me it wasn’t the right moment. So instead of biting back, or telling her how hurtful her words had been, I said, “I had no idea.”

  “Of course you didn’t,” spat Siân. She was exhibiting all the classic signs of distress, and stress.

  My heart took another knock when I heard the unmistakable voice of Dilys Jones behind me. “What do you all think you’re doing in my kitchen?” She seemed to be shouting, because we’d all been trying to keep our voices down. “No right to be down here, you haven’t. No right at all. What do you think you’re up to?”

  Bud admitted, “I’m afraid we were drawn here by the thought of your delicious trifle, Dilys. I hope you don’t mind that we ate some.”

  I’d suspected that we’d get a thorough scolding, but, almost immediately, Mrs. Jones’s demeanor softened a little. She even almost smiled. “It’s a very nice accent you’ve got there, Bud,” she said sweetly, “but guests shouldn’t be down here, by rights. The missus doesn’t like it, nor does Idris. It’s not proper. You should be upstairs, where you belong. Off you go now. It’s the middle of the night. Noise carries in a place like this, you know. Wake the whole place you will. Go on now, back to bed with the lot of you.”

  “We were also looking for the body, Mrs. Jones,” replied Bud in his no-nonsense voice. “Where is it, please?”

  Dilys looked surprised—to be fair, she had every right. “Idris helped me move it. It was in my way, his body, right at the bottom of the up stairs like that.”

  “The ‘upstairs’?” I echoed. “I thought the body was down here, downstairs.”

  Mrs. Jones looked me up and down, then rolled her eyes as she tutted, “A bit twp are you?”

  I straightened my back as she used a word for “stupid” that I hadn’t heard in years, and certainly not applied to myself.

  Her thin lips pursed before she spoke. “There’s stairs for going down, the down stairs, these ones
behind me, which bring you into this end of the kitchen, and there’s stairs for going up, the up stairs, which you use when you go out of the other end of the kitchen, and up to the dining room. Otherwise people going to and fro would always be bumping into each other. See?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t think I understand,” said Siân simply. She sounded tired.

  Mrs. Jones shook her head as though she were sorry for us all. “Oh dear me. Let me explain.” She began to speak more loudly, imagining it would help us better understand her, I supposed. “The stairs are the same, but we use them different. You’ve got to have a system, see? Otherwise everything goes to pot. Besides, the up stairs come out next to the dining room, so the food stays hot. The down stairs, these ones,” she motioned behind her, “are at the other end of the little corridor under the main staircase. They come out over by the drawing room. No use to me when I’ve got hot food in my hands. Alright for clearing things away, though. I needed my up stairs cleared, so we moved the body, see?”

  “Earlier on, you and Eirwen referred to the man who died as ‘Davies the Eyes,’ Mrs. Jones,” said Siân, clearly wanting to get information about the body, rather than the layout of the place. “Why was that? Was he always known that way?”

  The cook straightened her shoulders. As I noted her curlers and hairnet, I felt a little less intimidated by her presence.

  “Always been called that, as far as I know,” she said. “Always before and since he married my Rhian. Married six years, they’ve been. Never any children, mind you. Sad. I don’t think it was Rhian’s fault. To my mind it was him.” She gave Siân a withering look. “So, yes, always called ‘Davies the Eyes,’ he was. Men and woman called him the same. Anyway, why d’you ask? Know him, did you?”

  Mrs. Jones’s eyes narrowed as, this time, she gave Siân a good looking over. Siân squirmed. “Tall, blond, slim. Just his type,” assessed the cook. “Mind you, his type was any woman with a pulse,” she added bitterly, “and maybe a bit of money in her pocket. Rhian was a pretty thing when she married him, but look at her now. Let herself go something terrible, she has. But that’s enough about him. This is my kitchen, and you shouldn’t be in it by rights. Even I have to wear a hairnet in here. Health and safety rubbish. You shouldn’t be where the food is. Not till it’s in front of you, on a plate anyway. So go on, off you all go.”