The Corpse with the Sapphire Eyes

by Cathy Ace

  I jumped down from the table to join Bud. “Okay then, so let’s go back upstairs and see what he might have knocked against within a couple of minutes of his fall. He couldn’t have covered much ground in that time, so we could go up the stairs he came down and hunt about at the top. Oh, wait a minute . . . let me think.” I held up my hand as my mind whirred.

  “I wasn’t saying a word,” whispered Bud.

  “Ssh. Think about it, Bud. David Davies’s body was at the bottom of the up stairs—Dilys said so—not at the bottom of the down stairs. Why would that be?”

  Bud shrugged. “We just walked down the up stairs, Cait. Why wouldn’t, or couldn’t, he do the same thing?”

  “Because we didn’t know the difference, because we don’t live here, and it’s the middle of the night, so we weren’t likely to be found out by the delightful Dilys. Besides, even if we had known, we’re guests here and we leave in a few days, so what’s the worst she can do to us? David lived here. He was her son-in-law, and I bet he’d get it in the neck from her if she ever found him using the wrong stairs. Also, it was the middle of the afternoon. It would have been very risky for him to use the wrong stairs.”

  Bud shook his head. “I know you have a brain the size of a planet, and you’re a genius and belong to Mensa, and all that, but you really do overthink things sometimes, Cait. David Davies, if we’re to believe what little we’ve heard, wasn’t someone who was well liked by Dilys Jones, and maybe that’s because he was habitually misusing her stairs. Just saying it sounds ridiculous, I realize that. Stairs are stairs, for heaven’s sake. Of course I get that using the ones nearest the dining room means that the food gets there hotter, but, other than that, there really cannot be a good reason for her rules being observed. And this is me saying this, Cait, and you know what I’m like for obeying the rules.”

  “Except when it comes to stealing trifle in the wee hours.” I smirked.

  Bud shivered. “That aside, maybe when there was a huge staff of people running up and down with dishes and multiple servings, it would have made more sense to have an in-door and an out-door for the kitchen, like they do in modern restaurants, and associated up and down staircases. But these days? It seems to be just her carrying food from one place to another, so why all the fuss? She can’t run into herself.”

  “Maybe Rhian, her daughter, usually helps?” I suggested. “Despite the fact that no one wanted to talk about the nature of David’s death very much, there’s no denying that tonight’s dinner wasn’t what had been planned. Delicious though it was.”

  Bud dropped his shoulders and admitted, “Yes, maybe you have a point there.” Then he lifted his head and added, “But I still think that David Davies sounds like the kind of guy who’d quite happily jog down the up stairs if they got him where he wanted to go. And hang what his mother-in-law might say to him if she found him breaking her rules.”

  “Why was David Davies in the kitchen, or coming down the stairs to it, at least?”

  “Oh come on, Cait. That’s no great mystery. His wife might have been down here, or he might have had any of a number of other reasons to be coming here—you know, like being hungry and wanting to nibble on something? Or he might have been looking for someone he thought was down here—anyone who lives here. Well, not Alice, I guess, because there’s no way she’d get down here because of her wheelchair. But anyone else. We just don’t know.” Bud sounded exasperated. Not with me, I hope.

  I had to admit it. “You’re right, Bud. In fact we hardly know anything about the whole matter. If I’m brutally honest, we don’t even know if any foul play took place at all. And I don’t like not knowing. I can’t help it. It’s my nature. I like to understand things. And this is a puzzle.”

  “A puzzle. A maybe-murder mystery? With treasure?” Siân had finally roused herself. “Sounds just like your cup of tea, doesn’t it?” Is she sneering?

  “If you like,” I replied softly. She didn’t look well. Beneath the glow of her suntan, I could see that her face was drained.

  “How are you doing, Siân?” I asked.

  Siân shook her head in despair. “Not good, sis, not good at all. I thought I’d put it all behind me. I honestly thought I’d got over what he did to me, how he made me feel at the time, and the anger that I allowed to grow inside me afterwards. But seeing him lying there, like that, it’s all as fresh as it ever was. Oddly enough, I can even remember how very much I loved him. And why. I feel sorry for him.” She rubbed her face with both hands. “I’ve got to pull myself together. I cannot allow him to win again. I will not become full of the same hate. We have to find out who killed him. However horrible he was to me, no one deserves to die before their time. Not even him. I was a nurse. I helped to save lives. Then I created two new lives, my children, and now I keep them safe. I owe it to him, as a human being I cared about, to help him now, the only way I can.”

  She stood, steadying herself against the chair. I reached up and put my arm around her shoulder. She’s a good three inches taller than me, so I stood on tiptoe. This time she allowed me to comfort her.

  “I’m so sorry, Siân, I know this must be difficult for you,” I said.

  “It’s okay, Cait. I’ll be fine. I just have to come to terms with how all this is making me feel. It’s weird. I don’t like it. But I’m really glad you’re both here, because you can help me work out how he died and who killed him.”

  “Oh no, we’re not doing anything like that,” said Bud firmly.

  Siân gave Bud a cold stare. “I don’t know you well, Bud, nor, frankly, do I really know my sister—as an adult. But I do know what you two have done for complete strangers, when justice has needed serving. Cait’s at least shared that with me in her emails. So, maybe, this time, you can help someone who’s family.”

  It was clear that this was a critical moment for the future of my relationship with my sister. I chose my words carefully.

  “I think we could at least make some inquiries, Bud,” I said gently.

  Bud and I locked eyes. Eventually, he nodded. “It’s the moral thing to do, and the right thing to do, I know,” he said quietly. I smiled my gratitude.

  “Thank you, both,” said Siân. “If someone meant to kill David, by whatever means, then I’d like to know who it was, and why they did it. I’ll be honest and say I’m surprised at myself, because I didn’t think I’d care if, or when, or how he died. But I do. And if we can find out who did it, then, I admit, I think I might be tempted to shake their hand. I know that causing someone’s death is wrong. I do. Of course I do. Everyone does. But, frankly, for most of my adult life, I’d have fought off a crowd to be able to push him down the stairs myself.”

  She nibbled her lip as Bud and I stood in silence, then added, “I . . . I am finding it hard to believe that I’m so . . . that I feel so strongly about this.”

  Bud moved to stand behind me and gave my shoulders a squeeze. “It’s decided then. I don’t think we should say anything to anyone about what we’ve seen on the body, or our suspicions, agreed? We’re guests, just guests. It wouldn’t be a ‘normal’ thing, for us to get involved.”

  I nodded. “We don’t know who might be a suspect, so everyone has to be considered as a possible pusher or tripper. So no cats out of bags, I agree.”

  “I agree too,” said Siân sleepily.

  I said, “Let’s just hunt about upstairs for a few moments, please? I want to see if I can find something that might have hit him on the legs just moments before he fell. I won’t rest at all until I do. And it would be difficult to do that when everyone’s up and about, without letting on that we’re looking into David’s death.”

  About half an hour later we stood outside the door to Siân’s bedroom. I was still puzzled about the mark on the dead man’s legs—we hadn’t been able to locate anything that might have hit him or that he might have inadvertently walked into. But we’d all agreed it was impossible to judge, moving slowly in the darkness, just how far a man confident in h
is own home surroundings could stride in a couple of minutes.

  “We’ll tackle that issue in the morning,” whispered Bud sensibly, “when we can move like normal human beings, and not naughty schoolchildren.”

  I agreed. “I suspect we shouldn’t be late for breakfast. Dilys said half past eight, so we’d better be in the dining room by 8:29 AM at the latest, okay?” We all said our goodnights.

  Deg

  BUD KNOCKED AT MY DOOR at exactly 8:23 AM the next morning. Luckily, I was ready, so we walked to Siân’s room. I knocked, but there was no reply. I knocked again and called her name. I dared to open her door a crack, then stuck my head inside. There was no sign of my sister. Her bed was perfectly made, and her room was neat, though I could tell she’d unpacked. I could see right into her bathroom, so I was sure she’d left the room altogether.

  “Maybe she went down early,” I said to Bud.

  Almost immediately, Siân appeared, running up the stairs looking flushed and out of breath. Her hair was wet, and her spandex-clad body was entirely soaked.

  My expression, I suspected, spoke volumes, because she didn’t so much greet us as shout at us, “You two go on down. I’ll be there in five minutes. I had to have a run. Needed to clear my head.”

  I heard myself tut just like my mother. “Of course you did, Siân. Can’t stop still for a minute, can you?”

  “Ha!” she called as she swung past us and into her room. “Still as active as a bump on a log, is she, Bud?” Then she shut the door, and I fumed as Bud and I made our way down the stairs toward what I hoped would be a hearty breakfast.

  “She seems a good deal more chipper this morning. But don’t let what she said get to you,” whispered Bud as we entered the dining room.

  “I won’t. I’ll eat my way through it,” I whispered back.

  And, thank goodness, Dilys Jones’s spread was obviously going to give me the chance to do just that. Mair was already seated at the table, nibbling toast, when we arrived. She greeted us warmly and informed us that Alice Cadwallader always breakfasted in her apartment, and that we should help ourselves from the dishes on the sideboards. She also warned us that Dilys cleared everything away promptly at 9:15 AM so we’d better have all we wanted before then.

  A little hesitantly, Bud and I began to open silver-domed dishes to see what was on offer. I was pleased for Bud to see that scrambled eggs were available, and I was delighted for myself that the second lid I opened was to a warming dish laden with perfectly cooked, glistening black pudding and chunks of golden fried potato. I took a little of each, while Bud heaped creamy scrambled eggs on top of hot, buttered toast.

  Grimacing at what I had on my plate, Bud said, “That’s that blood sausage, right? I don’t know how you can eat it. Just the thought is enough to make my stomach turn over. What’s in that dish, there? I dread to think.”

  I lifted the lid on the next dish, and my nose told me what it held, even before my eyes could—cockles and laverbread.

  “Good grief, what’s that?” exclaimed Bud.

  “It’s seaweed that’s been boiled for many hours, until it becomes this thick, green-black sludge. It’s cooled, rolled with oats, sold that way, then prepared in your own kitchen by frying it with bacon, or certainly in bacon fat. Finally, the cockles are added so they warm through. They are like tiny little clams.”

  “It looks disgusting,” Bud finally mustered, and I had to agree with him. “Does it taste better than it looks? It must do, or no one would eat it.” He looked horrified, and I thought he might start to heave.

  “Okay, calm down, I won’t force you to taste any of it.” I smiled nervously at Owain as he entered the room, greeted his sister, then us, and poured himself a cup of tea at the sideboard next to the one bearing the food. His appearance was rather alarming. The tired old suit he’d been wearing last night was obviously reserved for dinner wear, and he was now sporting a pair of vivid green tweed pants and a long-sleeved purple turtleneck sweater, over which he’d elected to don a V-necked, sleeveless, knitted mustard top. The garish ensemble was finished off with an incongruous pair of red rubber clogs, and the ultimate flourish of a large gold medallion, resting on, and occasionally bouncing off, his little pot of a tummy. I could tell it was engraved with something, but couldn’t make out what. The chain upon which it hung was heavy and long—the thickness of a watch chain. Luckily I hadn’t drunk enough the night before to develop a hangover, or I’d have needed sunglasses.

  Owain and Mair had adopted what I guessed to be their usual places to the right and left of the vacant space at the head of the table. I noted that the seat there seemed to have been removed permanently to accommodate Alice’s wheelchair. It also meant that no one else could sit at the head of the table when she wasn’t present. Telling.

  Bud and I applied ourselves to our food. Mair was fixated on an e-reader, using her knuckle to move the pages along. I wondered what she was reading.

  “Sounds like we were lucky that we didn’t lose power last night,” she said, to no one in particular. She didn’t lift her head as she spoke, so I wasn’t sure if a response was required. “Lines down all over the place, it says here,” she added.

  “Do you generate your own power here at the castle?” I asked.

  Mair looked up and smiled. “That’s quite a sore point hereabouts. Grandfather invested in bringing electricity to the Gower Peninsula very early on. Just so the castle could be hooked up. So we still get our electricity from the main grid. But we have our own generator ready to go as a backup, of course. If the lines on our property were to go down, we wouldn’t be a priority for reconnection. Luckily they didn’t last night, and the whole of the Gower seems to be fine as well.”

  “Newspaper?” I asked.

  Mair smiled and blushed a little. “I’m sorry, it’s very rude of me to read at the table, but it’s usually only family, and it’s nice to know what’s going on in the world. This is the local one. South Wales Evening Post. Pretty good usually, they are. Of course, they’ve got a lot in here about that terrible business with the football supporters’ coaches on the M4. Five dead, twenty or more with serious injuries, hundreds treated for cuts and bruises. Very sad. And they’re still trying to clear all the wreckage. Down to one lane eastbound for a couple of days, they say. Then they’ve got lots of stories from people sending in photos on Facebook or Twitter about how the storms affected them.”

  “Why does everyone think we’re interested in the minutiae of their lives, these days?” asked Owain pointedly. “I grant you there might well have been some inspiring tales of folks overcoming challenges caused by the weather, but I bet they aren’t the people sending out Twit-things.”

  “It’s Twitter, Owain, as you very well know,” snapped Mair.

  “Lowest common denominator pseudo-communication, that’s what it is. I suppose they’ve filled their pages with photographs of broken branches, overflowing garden ponds, and drenched tabbies looking cute despite nearly drowning. It’s all rubbish.”

  Mair rolled her eyes as she looked toward me. “Owain thinks that the time I spend communicating with friends on Facebook is all wasted. He cannot believe that I am able to have wonderful fun discussing knitting patterns with people who share my passion for them all over the world.”

  Siân bounded into the room, looking annoyingly slender in magenta sweats, just as Mair was talking about knitting. I braced myself. I could guess what was about to happen.

  “Are you a knitter, Mair?” asked Siân brightly. I was taken aback by her cheeriness, given how upset she’d been when we’d left her the night before.

  “Yes, I am,” replied Mair defensively.

  “Me too.” My sister grinned. “Ever heard of a web community called ‘Ravelry’?”

  Mair glowed. “I’m on there a lot. I have a busy project page, and I belong to lots of groups; the Archers’ group and the classical music and opera one are my favorites.”

  “Me too,” exclaimed Siân. She walked around t
he table to Mair’s seat and reached out her hand saying, “You’re Mair from Wales, aren’t you? I’m Siân from Perth. We’ve talked on forums.”

  Mair leapt up from her seat. “How silly of me, of course! I hadn’t put two and two together. I saw that fabulous shawl you just made, on your project page. Beautiful colors. I can’t believe it’s you. I’m so very pleased to meet you in person. How wonderful to meet a fellow Raveler, and you of all people. That music forum’s a bit quiet these days, isn’t it?”

  “You’re right,” replied Siân, “it is. Which is a great shame; I miss talking to knitters about opera—listening and knitting go together so well. You make those wonderful socks, don’t you? You post a lot of patterns, and all your own original work.”

  I could feel the happy enthusiasm buzzing between them from across the table.

  “I enjoy designing patterns. What a coincidence, us meeting like this, here in my very home. I’ve got some projects I’d love to show you,” observed Mair, looking gleeful. I envisaged hours of pally knitting chats between the two of them. “Did you bring a project with you?”

  Siân nodded. “I couldn’t knit on the flight, of course, but I packed one. It’s going to be a lace scarf for the winter. I got the yarn from a woman in Perth, lives down near the Swan River. She uses local soils and minerals to dye it. Mixture of wool and silk, lovely to work with.”

  Siân tutted as she peered down at my plate on her way to get some breakfast. She hovered at the sideboard, poured some hot water into a cup, dunked in a teabag for a millisecond, then plopped herself beside Mair. She’d put a half a slice of toast on her plate. Dry toast, of course.

  Settled beside her yarn-buddy, Siân said brightly, “Well this is a super coincidence, Mair. Serendipity. It’ll make my weekend so much more enjoyable.”

  My sister’s words stung me. “Bud and I aren’t big on coincidences,” I said grumpily.

  “Well, you two wouldn’t be, would you? You work with people who do horrible things, so I expect you always think that there’s some sort of plot being played out.”