Love, Honour & O'Brien

by Jennifer Rowe

  ‘I’m Sheena,’ she said, closing the door on a walk-in cupboard lined with shelves of sheets, towels, pillows and blankets. ‘I’m the housekeeper, for me sins. Well, chief cook and bottlewasher in the madhouse, more like it. Not for much longer, though, thank the Lord.’

  ‘You’re leaving too?’ Holly asked. She had instantly warmed to Sheena. It was a great relief to have come across a normal, cheerful person in Maggott manor.

  Sheena blinked uncomprehendingly, then her pleasant face contorted into a wry grimace. ‘Oh, you mean Lily!’ she said dismissively. ‘Yes, she’s going, finally, I gather, but that’s a different kettle of fish. I’m going of my own accord, but Lily—well, she’d stay on if she could. Who wouldn’t, I ask you, with free board and bugger-all work to do? But she’s been given her marching orders. About time, too. It’s beyond me how she lasted as long as she did.’

  Clearly it had not been tactful to group Sheena with the decorative Lily. Holly hurried to make amends. ‘So, what will you be doing, Sheena?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, I’m going back to nursing.’ Apparently mollified, Sheena adjusted the pile of sheets against her bosom, settling in for a chat. ‘I start down at the hospital Monday week. Got a room in a share house organised, just to start me off.’

  ‘You sound as if you’re looking forward to it.’

  ‘Can’t wait. Well, I’ll be sorry to leave this place in a way—it’s been home to me for going on six years—but it hasn’t been the same since me dear old Roly passed over— Roly Maggott, the present owner’s da, that is.’

  The husky voice flattened slightly at the mention of Una Maggott. No love lost there, Holly thought. Presumably cheery, blowsy, garrulous Sheena was another of Una’s murder suspects. She obviously lived in. She had probably been in the house the night Andrew took off.

  Sheena would be worth talking to. She might have some idea where Andrew had gone, and why. Those merry hazel eyes were shrewd. Holly was willing to bet that not much went on in this house that Sheena didn’t know about.

  ‘You originally came to nurse Mr Maggott, did you?’ she asked casually, to start things off.

  Sheena grinned. ‘He didn’t need nursing so much as company, really,’ she said. ‘Female company, if you know what I mean.’ She winked. ‘Nearly ninety he might have been, but some men never lose the urge.’

  Holly nodded and smiled. In truth, remembering the man in the portrait, remembering those cunning, teasing eyes, those thick, smirking lips, she felt rather sick.

  ‘Oh, he was an old rascal, no doubt about him,’ Sheena said reminiscently. ‘I nursed him in hospital—he was in for a gall bladder. We had a lot of laughs. The day he was discharged he gave me his card and said to me, “Sheena, if ever you get sick of carrying bedpans around, give me a call. I’ve got a job for you.” And one fine morning after that, when I’d been blown up by a crabby patient once too often, I got out that card and rang him. I came to see him that night, saw over the house . . . and that was it. I gave in me notice at the hospital the next day.’

  She sighed, clasping the sheets more tightly to her breast. ‘I don’t regret it. I was fond of him, daft, dirty old bugger that he was. Maybe at the start I thought something else might come of it—a girl has to take care of herself, doesn’t she? But that was a pipe dream. Just my luck.’

  Her face fell slightly as she looked down the corridor at the shabby strip of carpet, the faded wallpaper, the gleaming doors.

  ‘This place used to be a bed and breakfast, you know. Roly’s parents-in-law ran it for years—his first wife’s parents. Made quite a good thing of it, too, by all accounts. Could be a nice little business again, with a bit of spit and polish, some ensuite bathrooms . . . eight bedrooms there are on this floor, plus the maids’ rooms in the attic, and there’s a lovely view from the back. I’d have done well with it. I’m not frightened of a bit of hard work. Roly and I used to talk about it all the time . . . making plans . . .’

  She wrinkled her nose humorously and shrugged. ‘But he’d been spinning me a line, the crafty old bugger. Or maybe half the time he forgot the real state of things—he only remembered what he wanted to, it always seemed to me. When he popped off it turned out the house wasn’t his to leave. It belonged to this daughter I never even knew existed, because she’d been living overseas. It had been in her ma’s name, see, and Ma had left it to her. Roly only had it for his lifetime.’

  ‘Oh, what a shame,’ Holly murmured. The response seemed woefully inadequate, but she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  ‘Well, I can’t say it wasn’t a disappointment,’ Sheena said dryly. ‘Still—’ she shrugged her shoulders again ‘—Roly did what he could for me. The house was Una’s but the contents were his—quite right, too, he’d paid for most of the expensive things anyway—so he left them to me. Una had to buy the lot off me first thing, or she’d have been rattling round in this old place like a pea in a bottle, without so much as a knife to butter her bread.’

  She laughed uproariously and shrugged again. ‘So I’ve got a little nest egg for me trouble—can’t grumble really. Well, I’d better get on. You too, I daresay—that’s the bedroom you want, by the way.’

  She jerked her head across the corridor, to a door marked ‘1’.

  10

  Holly felt her face grow hot. Sheena grinned.

  ‘Don’t fret,’ she said, as if Holly had apologised for trying to deceive her. ‘You’ve got your job to do. But you’d better think of another cover story. As if Una would let an estate agent in here! She’s mad about this house—not that she isn’t mad full stop. Anyway, Eric told me he was being sent to get you. He wasn’t best pleased, but as I told him, Una’s like a dog with a bone about this thing, and if she wants to spend her money on a wild goose chase, that’s her business.’

  She tilted her head and regarded Holly quizzically.

  ‘You don’t look like a detective,’ she said. ‘Not that I ever met one before. Have you been at it for long?’

  ‘Not really,’ Holly said, with perfect truth.

  Recovering her poise a little, she decided to make the best of a bad job. At least she could stop attempting to be subtle. She crossed the corridor and tried the door of the room marked ‘1’. Sure enough, it was locked. Very aware of Sheena’s amused gaze, she slid the key from her jacket pocket.

  ‘So I gather you don’t think there’s anything suspicious about Andrew McNish’s disappearance?’ she asked in a businesslike manner, as she stuck the key into the keyhole.

  Sheena snorted. ‘’Course not. Done a flit, hasn’t he?’

  She wandered across the corridor and watched with lively interest as Holly attempted to make the key turn.

  ‘It was only a matter of time,’ she said. ‘Andrew’s a charmer, and I won’t say it wasn’t fun having him around the place, but he didn’t take me in. I knew he was a con artist the minute I laid eyes on him.’

  She returned Holly’s startled glance complacently. ‘Take my word for it. He was no more Una’s little brother than I am, and he knew it. But Una had convinced herself, so he played along. Who wouldn’t? She’s rolling in it. Then things got too hot for him, so he took off. The police could see how the land lay. Everyone could, but Una. Here, let me do that.’

  She plumped the vaguely camphor-smelling sheets into Holly’s arms and casually elbowed her aside. Then she pulled the key back out of the keyhole, replaced it, and began jiggling it gently.

  ‘This is the bathroom key, really,’ she said. ‘It does work in this lock, but only just. See if you can get her to give it back, after this, will you? It’s a bugger sitting on the jacks waiting for Dulcie’s creepy son to walk in on you. I’m as sure as I can be that he does it on purpose.’

  Holly laughed.

  ‘No, I’m telling you!’ Sheena insisted, scowling at the key. ‘He’s a real piece of work, Sebastian. Mind you, you’re pretty safe till mid-afternoon because he stays up all night with his computer, downloading the Lord kno
ws what off the internet. He couldn’t be more than sixteen, either.’

  ‘Is Dulcie the woman in room 5? I saw her earlier—I think she heard me coming up the stairs. Who is she?’

  Sheena’s expression became disdainful. ‘Oh, some relation of Roly’s—fourth cousin twice removed, or something. Lives in Queensland. Except for Una, she and Sebastian are the last of the Maggotts, or so she says. So in her opinion that means they’re rightfully in for the dosh—and this house, of course—when Una pops off.’

  ‘Really!’ breathed Holly, immediately considering the pug woman in a new light.

  ‘She’s been here since Tuesday, looking down her nose at me and Eric, smarming up to Una. She’s a pain in the whats–it. Roly couldn’t stand her, wouldn’t have her in the house. And Una only invited her out of spite.’

  ‘Why spite?’

  ‘Well, Andrew had moved in, hadn’t he?’ said Sheena, manipulating the key with the concentration of a safecracker. ‘Una couldn’t resist the chance to rub Dulcie’s nose in it that a long-lost brother had turned up, and Dulcie could forget about ever getting her claws on the money.’

  She chuckled, her natural good humour fully restored. ‘The old girl did it in style, too. Threw a dinner here on Tuesday night with caterers and a waiter and all that. Very formal, and in the library, too, with the big long table, instead of the breakfast room where we usually eat. She invited her solicitor, and all the people in the house—Eric and me included, and even Lily, who must have thought it meant she was back in the good books, because she was purring like the cat who’d swallowed the cream.’

  Clearly taking malicious pleasure at this memory in particular, Sheena chuckled again before swearing at the key, withdrawing it, and easing it back into the lock for another try.

  ‘So we all chat like ladies and gents through four courses,’ she went on. ‘Then over the port and cheese Una makes the big announcement that Andrew is changing his name to Maggott, and she’s going to make a will leaving him the lot.’

  ‘That must have been a fun evening,’ Holly murmured. She smiled inwardly at the thought of Andrew weighing up whether being heir to a fortune was worth being a Maggott, and deciding it was.

  ‘It was a circus—a real circus!’ Sheena agreed. ‘Dulcie nearly fainted. Then she and Stiff Cliff—that’s the lawyer—’

  ‘Cliff? Oh, I think she was talking to him on the phone just now,’ Holly broke in.

  Sheena nodded. ‘The two of them are thick as thieves,’ she said. ‘Well, they started carrying on like chooks with their heads cut off. Running round, whispering in corners, trying to get Una alone . . . And Lily, of course, was looking daggers, muttering to herself like . . . Ah, there we go!’

  The key had finally turned and the lock had released its hold with a sulky clunk. Sheena opened the door, pushed it wide and stood back.

  ‘The police opened the curtains,’ she said. ‘Otherwise nothing’s been touched. Help yourself.’ With a mocking flourish, she gestured for Holly to enter.

  Feeling very self-conscious, Holly handed back the pile of sheets and went into the room. It was very large. She registered barred windows, a stunning view of green hills and grey sky, a double brass bed, neatly made, a worn but beautiful Chinese rug in cream and pale blue, and a massive mahogany wardrobe with matching dressing table, chest of drawers and marble-topped washstand. Dust motes drifted in the stuffy air, which still bore the faint, lingering scent of Andrew’s cologne. Holly shivered.

  ‘Best room in the house, this one,’ said Sheena from the door. ‘Lovely and big, isn’t it? It was Una’s when she was a kid.’

  The room was empty of life, empty of any signs of life. All the surfaces were bare, and very lightly filmed with dust. Holly repressed a sigh. For once, Andrew had cleaned up after himself.

  ‘Roly had number 2, across the hall, before his knees went and we had to move him downstairs,’ Sheena went on chattily. ‘It’s not so big, because the linen room takes up part of it, and it hasn’t got the view, but Roly liked to keep an eye on the road. He always slept with the remote for the front gates under his pillow. He had a thing about burglars. Una’s got it too now. She didn’t when she first came, but it’s grown on her.’

  Holly went to the wardrobe and opened the three doors one by one. There was nothing to see but a brass rail and some wooden coat hangers.

  ‘You won’t find anything,’ Sheena said. ‘He’s taken all his things. Plus two hundred dollars out of Dulcie’s handbag— she’d been fool enough to leave it downstairs—twelve silver teaspoons, and who knows what else we haven’t found out about yet.’ She chuckled.

  ‘I’ve still got to look,’ Holly snapped. She was reflecting sourly that Una Maggott hadn’t said a word about any stolen money. It looked as if Una, like old Roly, had a selective memory.

  ‘Sure,’ Sheena said kindly. ‘Well, I’ll leave you to it. Do you want this door shut in case Dulcie—?’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Holly, turning round and smiling stiffly to make up for snapping. Not that she really wanted to be closed in with the smell of Andrew’s after-shave. But she had promised Una Maggott that she’d search the room, so she felt compelled to do it. And if she were going to make a fool of herself she’d rather do it in private.

  ‘If you need anything, give me a hoy,’ Sheena said. ‘I’ll be in me room across the way—number 4, beside the stairs.’

  As the door closed behind her, it occurred to Holly that the key was still on the outside. If Dulcie crept out of her room to find out what was happening, she might snaffle it. And if Una Maggott didn’t get the key back, there would be a scene.

  She hurried to the door, wrenched it open, and jumped as she saw Sheena still standing almost directly outside. Sheena gaped at her, blinked twice, and whipped an aerosol can from the waistband of her tracksuit pants, her finger on the trigger.

  Mace! Holly thought wildly, and jumped backwards.

  There was a hiss, and the air filled with the smell of synthetic lavender.

  ‘Rats,’ Sheena said, spraying vigorously around. ‘Una got a fellow in to lay baits a month ago. They’re supposed to go outside to die, but that was a joke. The smell’s shocking.’

  She sniffed, nodded as if satisfied, and took off towards her room, charging the air with puffs of spray as she went.

  Heart still pounding uncomfortably, Holly watched as the lime green figure disappeared through the door marked 4 without looking back. How could she have thought Sheena was attacking her? She was getting as paranoid as Una Maggott.

  It’s this house, she told herself. It would make anyone jumpy. Taking herself firmly in hand, she pulled the key from the door and put it back into her jacket pocket, her fingers trembling only slightly. Still, it had been an odd incident. Her thoughts ran on as she shut herself into Andrew’s room again. Why had Sheena been hanging around like that? It had nothing to do with air-freshener, for sure. Had she been listening at the door, curious about what Holly was doing? Maybe she’d been planning to steal the bathroom key herself.

  Feeling much freer now she had no audience, Holly checked the chest of drawers, the dressing table, and the drawers of the washstand. She conscientiously searched the rug. She peered under the bed, felt under the mattress, and finally, embarrassed by her own zeal, stripped off the cream brocade bedspread, and the pillows, blankets and sheets. As Sheena had predicted, she didn’t find so much as a used tissue. And by now she’d started thinking this was odd. Why would someone planning to make off with his hostess’s teaspoons bother to leave his bedroom so pristine? It didn’t sound like something Andrew would do. He hadn’t left the Springwood house pristine—far from it.

  Frowning over the problem, she remade the bed. She could have left it, she supposed, but it went against all her instincts not to restore it to its original, impeccable state. As she smoothed the bedspread, something else occurred to her. Surely Andrew would have at least sat on the bed, after he had packed and while he was waiting for the house to settle
down. There was nowhere else to sit. Yet the bedspread hadn’t been even slightly disarranged.

  She sat down on the bed herself, stood up, and noted the definite rumples she’d left behind her. Perplexed, she sat down again and gazed around the room. And it was then that she saw the small, dark object lying against the skirting board to the right of the door. Her stomach turned over.

  She got up and walked slowly to the door, telling herself that she was imagining things. It was insane to think that this could happen to her twice in one day. But it had. The object was a sleek little mobile phone—not plugged into its charger this time, but lying all by itself.

  It was Andrew’s phone, she was positive. She picked it up. It showed no signs of life. Either the battery was flat, or it had been turned off. She stared at it, and then at the place where she’d found it. How on earth had it got into that spot? How had Andrew, whose phone was like part of his body, left the room without it? And why had no one noticed it before?

  The answer to the last question was obvious as soon as she thought about it. No one had noticed the phone for the same reason she hadn’t noticed it when she first came into the room. Because when the door was open, the phone was concealed behind it. Because Una Maggott had been right—the police had only given the bedroom the briefest of surveys, to humour her. They had seen that the bed hadn’t been slept in and that Andrew’s belongings were gone, and left it at that. But how had the phone magicked itself out of Andrew’s right hip pocket, where he invariably kept it, and hidden itself behind the door in the first place? It must have happened moments before Andrew left the room, otherwise he would have noticed it was missing.

  Holly looked at the dark crack under the door. She remembered the rubber flap of the draught excluder grazing the floor as the door opened. If the phone had been lying directly in front of the door, it would have been swept back against the wall as the door opened, and ended up just where she’d found it.

  A nasty, creeping feeling squirmed up Holly’s spine. A vivid image sprang into her mind: Andrew’s limp body being dragged to the door, the phone slipping from his pocket, unnoticed in the dark. The door being stealthily opened, the phone being brushed aside as its dead owner’s body was . . .