Seven Steps to Murder

by Benjamin Ford

  “I knew Bert as a lad,” he continues gruffly. “He never liked figures of authority, even when he was a boy, so you can imagine what he was like going into the army!”

  I nod emphatically. I can indeed imagine. To an extent, in that respect Herbert reminds me of myself. I’ve never been one for following instructions. When I did my National Service I thought they would chuck me out. They didn’t, though. Why would they? That’s what the National Service is for, after all – to break us rebels, to make us conform and become all the better for the experience.

  Of course it doesn’t always work. You have only to witness the way that Herbert and the Major are at loggerheads to see this.

  “I take it then,” I add quietly, “that you also knew our host?”

  Runcible nods, and again I am mesmerized by the manner with which the pendulous folds of excess flesh around his face wobble. It’s quite curious, really, as he doesn’t seem inordinately overweight elsewhere, just around his face. He reminds me of a bloodhound, I decide, and the image sticks with me. It’s as much as I can do not to laugh.

  I quickly realise that he’s been talking and I’ve not heard a word he’s said. Hoping he hasn’t noticed my glazed expression, I grunt an agreement at a juncture in his conversation, and then listen to the rest of what he says in the hope of extrapolating what I’ve missed.

  It becomes clear that he’s been talking about our host as a boy and that, unlike Herbert, he was actually quite a pleasant child, along with a third brother.

  “Do you believe him when he says he didn’t invite us here?” asks Rashid, coming over to us.

  As someone who’s known our host since childhood, Dr Runcible is perhaps best placed to shed some light on this perturbing matter. “Well, he was always the truthful one out of the three,” says Runcible after some thought. “I suppose it depends on the reason for each of us being here.”

  He seems as uncomfortable as both Rashid and the Major. Out of the three of them, only Herbert seems at ease with his situation.

  I indicate Herbert surreptitiously and say: “Perhaps he knows more than he’s letting on. What do you think, doctor?”

  I have planted a seed of doubt in the good doctor’s head, and I can practically see that doubt grow before me – in Rashid’s mind, too.

  “Should we confront him, do you think?” I say in a hushed whisper, not wanting Herbert to overhear.

  Runcible indicates clearly his belief that this would not be a good idea. “He’ll reveal his true colours soon enough, dear boy. If he plans on blackmailing us, then sooner or later he’ll deal his hand.”

  I press for a confirmation. “So you think it’s him, then?”

  Runcible nods emphatically. “Oh yes, most assuredly. You mark my words, before this night is through, Herbert Waterfield will show us his true nature, and we must all be ready for it.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The storm is approaching rapidly. The flashes of lightning are brighter, illuminating the darkened sky so that storm clouds disappear into whiteness. In the distance there is forked lightning as well, cutting through the horizon with a jagged haphazardness that could only be found in nature. The ferocity of the rain is partnered by the wind that batters the poor garden into a sodden submission, hammering the spray of water harder still against the glass and rattling the windows in their frames.

  The house is clearly well built and designed to withstand elemental forces such as this, but even so, I cannot help but fear that the roof will not stay on the house, and that the windows will be blown inwards.

  No-one in their right mind would be out in such inclemency, and there’s no way any of us is going outside to explore the grounds. We’re stuck here with each other for the night, and we’re going to have to make the most of it.

  The loudest rumble of thunder yet crashes outside, shaking the house and dimming the lights momentarily.

  Seated next to me on the expansive settee, Mrs Hardcastle grips my arm tight. I wince and flinch slightly. When she apologizes without feeling, I smile reassuringly. “I think the storm’s right overhead,” I say, removing her hand. I want to appear compassionate, but the woman has a vice-like grip. “It might take a while to pass by, so I think perhaps you should try to calm yourself.”

  She glowers at me. “Easier said than done. Do ye no’ have any fears, laddie”?

  I have a few, but I’m not about to reveal them to the gathered group, who are now all gathered for warmth on the settees and chairs around the fireplace. I lean close to Mrs Hardcastle, and whisper so only she can hear: “I have a fear of drowning.”

  She looks at me. “I should think that’s something everyone’s frightened of.”

  I shrug. I have tried my best to be pleasant, but the woman’s attitude is now grating on me.

  Mrs Hardcastle tells me that she appreciates my effort, and shifts over to one of the other settees, settling beside Dr Runcible. She’s whispering to him, and I can guess what she’s asking. I am pleased that she has latched on to him – it gives me breathing space.

  He looks at her directly, a slightly appalled look on his face, but then his features soften. “Of course, my dear. I’ve got something in my bag that’ll calm your nerves.”

  Runcible reaches into the black doctor’s bag he has brought with him, withdrawing a small bottle, out of which he tips a couple of tablets. I can only assume that as a doctor he comes prepared wherever he goes – just in case. I can only wonder what else he has within that black bag.

  He places the tablets in Mrs Hardcastle’s palm and closes her hand around them. “Don’t take them until after our meal,” he says in a gently warning tone. He allows the woman to snuggle closer as another loud crash of thunder echoes about us. “Until then, you just bury your head in my chest if you need to.”

  The man is such a cad! Still, who am I to comment? Mrs Hardcastle seems quite happy to comply with his request, and I think given the opportunity she’s the sort of woman who’d bury her head in the chest of any man here.

  Finally, Mrs Draper and Mr Waterfield return to the room. They’ve been gone so long that I’d almost forgotten about them. I smirk as I have rude thoughts about what they’ve been getting up to, unlikely as the scenario might be. But those thoughts vanish as I focus on Mrs Draper’s face.

  Mrs Draper still possesses the airs of someone of a more domestic nature; by which I mean a housekeeper more than a homemaker, and yet she has a coldness about her – like she has lost someone and feels sadness at that loss.

  Yes, that’s it entirely. This woman, who was once a housekeeper, black skirts rustling, a long chain filled with keys jangling at her waist, is also a woman of self-importance, with an arrogance about her that reminds me of someone from my past: my mother.

  Mother abandoned me when I was but a child, and my sense of loss at her abandonment would consume me if I allowed it. This woman has lost someone dear to her, I know it for certain.

  There are so many similarities between the two women, but with her apparent sadness, I feel compelled to give Mrs Draper the benefit of the doubt. And yet – I cannot quite bring myself to do so.

  “If I might have your attention please, everyone?” she calls in her imperious nasal voice.

  The others all look up with rapt attention. How they can think what she has to say is more important than their current conversation is beyond me.

  “Mr Waterfield and I have prepared a meal, so please; do come into the dining room.”

  Mr Waterfield holds open the door, trying to be a genial host to a group of strangers he doesn’t want in his house. I cannot blame him for his reticent silence. It can’t be easy. He’d probably planned a nice quiet weekend alone, and now seven interlopers have descended upon him, ruining his plans.

  I know that if I were in his position, no matter what the weather was doing outside, and no matter that the tide had come in, I’d have shooed everyone out of my home, bolted the doors and windows and drawn the curtains to shut them all out. If I’d
had a nice peaceful weekend planned, nothing would have spoiled it.

  I guess Mr Waterfield is just a more polite and hospitable gentleman than I.

  “Please don’t expect much,” our reluctant host says as we file past him into the hallway. “It’s mostly just salad, with some potatoes and cold meats. If I’d known to expect guests, I’d have bought some more food in.”

  Would you? I thought. Or would you have run a mile and locked yourself away in a quiet hotel somewhere if you’d known this lot were about to turn up unannounced?

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” says Dr Runcible as he passes Mr Waterfield. I can hear the smile in his voice even though I can see only the back of his head. I’m sure that at some point in the future these two might love to reminisce about this evening. It would make an amusing anecdote for any after dinner drinks party.

  Out in the hallway, I gaze upwards, marveling at the immense double staircase that goes up to the left and right into two separate wings of the house. I surmise that one side is Waterfield’s personal wing whilst the other is reserved for guests. The whole house is impressive. In the grand entrance – which I hadn’t really taken much notice of on my way in – stands a striking grandfather clock with an ornately decorated face and even more ornately carved frame, and a number of suits of armour. One pair seems to guard the bottom of the stairs, whilst another pair flanks the currently closed double doors of a room to the side of the stairs. I can only wonder what room lies beyond those solid doors.

  They don’t lead to the dining room, which lies directly opposite the drawing room. I cannot get over the exquisite manner in which this house is styled. It takes me back to the pre-war era – which is obviously the intention. The attention to detail is superb. The dining room is equally a match in size to the drawing room. A rug of monumental proportions lies upon the floor, on top of which stands a huge mahogany dining table with carved pedestal legs and clawed feet, with ample room to more than comfortably seat a good dozen-or-so people. Today, though, the table has been laid at only one end with eight place settings.

  Waterfield waves his arm expansively. “You can sit wherever you wish. Had I known in advance that you were all coming then I would have drawn up a seating plan.”

  It seems that our host likes to do things properly in an organized manner, and as such our unexpected arrival here has thrown his order into chaos.

  I think it would be fascinating to have been to a properly organized dinner party here at West Cliff House. I have no doubt that such an evening would be a roaring success. Waterfield doesn’t strike me as the sort of host who does things in a half-hearted manner. There would be a doorman to greet guests and take coats, maids serving drinks and canapés whilst we await dinner, which would be served with proper decorum, with a full seating plan organized to keep people who hated one another apart and seat the sexes alternately around the table, and never have anyone sat next to someone they knew. There would most likely be seven courses of small proportions and the meal would go on for several hours, after which the women would go into one room to sip sherry and gossip whilst the men went to another room to down brandies and whiskies and smoke pipes and cigars. And doubtless there would be card games of some sort.

  Such a party would no doubt have been nice. As it is we must make do with what is, admittedly, a rather splendid spread. Cold meats and salmon, with several large bowls of salads await us on the table.

  It’s a bit of a free for all as we all dive in to load up our plates, but eventually we are all seated and feasting on the delicious food in silence.

  I avoid eye contact with Mrs Hardcastle, whom I am seated directly opposite. Her jumpiness has abated somewhat now that we are eating, and I can only assume that she has taken the tablets which the doctor dished out to her earlier. We each have a glass of white wine to accompany our dinner, and I wonder whether it’s entirely appropriate to for her to be drinking alcohol whilst taking the tablets. I say nothing on the matter.

  Herbert Waterfield sits next to the doctor, and next to him, rightfully at the head of the table, sits his brother, whilst between our host and me sits Rashid. On my left, eating rather too noisily for my liking, is the Major, and next to him Mrs Draper.

  Outside the wind, rain and thunder continue unabated, but here in the dining room, other than the sounds of mastication and the occasional slurp of wine there is no noise from any of us. I don’t think we really have anything to say to one another, although everyone is probably still thinking the same thing: if Cuthbert Waterfield didn’t invite us here this evening, then who did – and why?

  CHAPTER SIX

  I want to make an effort to get to know my fellow guests, but I have never been of a particularly gregarious nature, and so conversation with strangers isn’t something that comes naturally to me.

  I am spectacularly unimpressed with the table manners of certain members of the group, but don’t dare to comment.

  The Major, I think, if we’d had soup, would have slurped it noisily if his drinking of the wine is anything to go by. He’s also the first to ask for a refill, downing the glass in a single swig with his mouth still full of salmon. He really is a pig, I decide. Bad table manners are something I simply cannot abide, and good table manners really don’t cost a thing.

  Rashid clearly didn’t learn any more table etiquette in jail. I’m not sure how long he spent behind bars, but I’m fairly certain they would have had knives and forks – not that you’d guess that from the way he rips his meat apart and eats with his fingers, licking them clean in a most disgusting display of bad manners.

  Not even the ladies are immune. Mrs Draper, having stuffed her mouth full to capacity with various folded slices of meat, proceeds to chomp it very loudly like some starved vagrant who has been given food for the first time in weeks. She chokes. Serves her right for stuffing too much in her mouth in one go if you ask me.

  Even our host and his brother show a distinct lack of manners by having their elbows on the table, leaning forward to talk quietly to each other with their mouths full and thus excluding the rest of us from their conversation.

  Dr Runcible and Mrs Hardcastle, along with myself, are the only guests to display excellent table manners. No talking with a mouth full, no eating with fingers, no elbows on the table, no spraying food everywhere, no slurping noisily: just a small amount of food on the fork – cut not ripped apart – placed into the mouth, chewed quietly with the mouth closed and with the cutlery set down on the plate between mouthfuls.

  I catch Mrs Hardcastle’s eye, and it’s clear to see that she has also noted the lack of table manners. Dr Runcible, however, is too keenly cutting his food to notice anything.

  I smile knowingly at her, and she returns the smile briefly, before returning her attention to the food before her. I’m not sure whether to be upset or not by this slight.

  I can tell that getting to know more about the others is going to be a tall order, and I ask myself whether the end result will be worth the effort. It’s not as though I shall see any one of them again once the weekend is through.

  I am feeling rather fulfilled by the small amount of food I’ve eaten. I wasn’t overly hungry in the first place, having eaten heartily before coming here. Because I hadn’t known whether food would be provided, I ate my fill at a restaurant in Eastbourne. I doubt I’d have eaten any less beforehand if I’d known this would be our meal, though, and so I am grateful for having eaten my steak earlier.

  I excuse myself from the table, and trying not to drag my chair across the lovely Chinese rug, I stand. My departure raises a few eyebrows amongst the other diners, but I don’t care. I’d quite like to be alone with my thoughts. But it’s not to be.

  Herbert has followed me out into the hallway. “Hello, there,” he says as he hastens to catch me up. I could hear his footsteps behind me, so I stopped to wait. He thrusts out his hand for me to shake. “We weren’t properly introduced earlier. I’m Herbert Waterfield.”

  I shake the proffere
d hand amicably. “I know. You’re our host’s brother. I’m Wilbur, by the way. I say, do you really think your brother didn’t know anything about the invites like he claims?”

  Herbert nods. “In all the years I’ve known him – which is quite a few – I’ve never known him to tell anything other than the occasional white lie. If he says he didn’t send them, then he didn’t send them. I guess you’re none the wiser either then?”

  “No,” I say with a shake of my head. I wave my hand around the hallway. “This really is a most impressive house, don’t you think?”

  “Yes. Do you know, I’ve never been here before though!”

  This intrigues me. “Why on earth not? You’re brothers, after all.” I recall their first interaction when Herbert arrived soaked from the rain. Back then I’d thought there was a sense of animosity about the pair, but then at the dinner table they’d seemed thick as thieves.

  Herbert confirms my initial supposition. “We fell out a very long time ago. In fact, I don’t think we’ve spoken since just after the war. Mind you, I was in prison for a number of years.”

  “I take it your brother never visited you in there?”

  Herbert laughs like this is the most absurd idea. “Honestly, can you imagine someone who lives in such palatial surroundings visiting their ne’r-do-well brother in the clink?”

  I have to agree that it’s a little preposterous; however, they are brothers as I remind him.

  “You seem to think that blood is thicker than water, you man,” he says, scowling.

  I muster a frown. “Isn’t it?”

  Herbert shakes his head. “Not always. You see, I was in prison because I was caught burgling my brother’s old house up in London. I never thought to ever hear from him again. So you can imagine my surprise when I get an invitation, practically commanding me to come here this evening.”

  “Indeed. And what a house!”