Seven Steps to Murder

by Benjamin Ford

  I come back down until my face is level with his. I keep my voice low when I ask: “Isn’t it better for the truth to come out?”

  Rashid shakes his head. “No. People will get hurt, mon ami.”

  I frown. “Who’s going to get hurt?”

  “Herbert and Cuthbert both, but mostly Cuthbert.”

  I take Rashid to one side, pulling him into the library doorway. I glance around to make certain there’s no-one near. Everyone – except Herbert – seems to be in the drawing room. “If you know what happened to Albert, why don’t you tell me?”

  “What good would it do now, after so long?”

  I sigh. “It would bring closure – to Cuthbert. You told me to ask Major Simmons, and he told me to ask Herbert. You both clearly know what happened, and yet neither one of you is willing to say. Why? What are you hiding? Did the pair of you kill Albert? Did Herbert see you and keep your dark secret to himself? Is he blackmailing you?”

  Rashid shakes his head sharply. “You have it all wrong. If you are determined to get to the truth, it is Herbert you should speak to. Perhaps it is not Albert’s death you should be concerned about.”

  I gasp in appalled shock. “You mean Mrs Hardcastle?”

  “Perhaps. I do not know about that. But do not forget, Wilberforce Cunningham, that Mrs Waterfield – Annie – she was poisoned.”

  I choose my next words with care. “You think Herbert killed Annie – out of jealousy?”

  Rashid smiles slyly. “When Herbert and I were in prison, we talked at length about our lives. He told me things about his family that he perhaps should not have. He is no stranger to killing. And as for–”

  There is a sudden loud bang, and then the sound of something metal hitting the floor behind me. Rashid slumps against me, and his weight, although slight, drags me to the ground. There’s blood on my hands; blood on his shirt, and on mine.

  I should out in alarm, trying to stem the flow of blood. “My God. Someone help! Rashid’s been shot!”

  I hear the sound of panic from the drawing room, and a stampede of feet. More footsteps come from above, and suddenly everyone is crowding around. Tears trickle down my cheeks.

  When she sees the inert body lying on the floor, Mrs Draper wails, burying her face in Cuthbert Waterfield’s chest.

  “What the hell happened?” Waterfield demands.

  Dr Runcible checks hastily for any sign of life, whilst I continue to try to stem the flow of blood. Runcible places a hand on my arm, moving it away gently and shaking his head. “It’s no use, lad – he’s gone.”

  I wipe my eyes, and recoil from the sight of the blood on my hands. I’m shaking, crying like a hysterical woman.

  “What happened?” Waterfield repeats.

  “We were just talking,” I manage to say through my sobbing. “He was talking about your brother’s death.”

  “Albert’s death? Why on earth was he talking about that?”

  I sniff loudly. “I asked him what happened. He wouldn’t tell me at first; told me to ask the Major. The Major wouldn’t say, and told me I should speak with your brother.” I point dramatically at Herbert, who’s staggered down the stairs, looking grey and unwell. “I was on my way up to speak to Herbert, when Rashid pulled me to one side. He warned me not to speak to Herbert about it, that people would get hurt. He said Herbert wasn’t a stranger to killing, and that he might have killed Annie. And then he was shot.”

  Dr Runcible stands. “Shot straight through the heart. Would’ve killed him instantly.”

  I point towards the stairs. “He turned, like he’d heard something. Someone must have heard him talking – shot him before he could say anything else.”

  Sweating profusely, Herbert backs away as the others turn to him.

  “The rest of us were in the drawing room, Herbie,” says Waterfield solemnly. “Where were you? A sudden attack of food poisoning is very convenient don’t you think? No-one was with you after you were taken to your room”

  “I was – that is I–”

  “He was upstairs,” says Mrs Draper quietly. “I saw him on the stairs as we ran out of the drawing room.”

  I nod. “That’s right. I was going upstairs to speak to him when Rashid pulled me to one side.”

  Major Simmons takes off his jacket and covers Rashid’s body. “Poor bugger survived the war, only to be killed here by a lunatic.”

  I point over to the stairs. “I heard something fall to the floor over there.”

  Major Simmons crosses to the stairs, takes a handkerchief from his pocket, and picks up the revolver that’s lying tucked against the bottom of the stairs. “Does anyone recognize this?”

  Slowly, Herbert raises his hand. “It’s mine.”

  The Major cocks the gun. “One bullet missing from the chamber.”

  “Now you all wait just one minute,” cries Herbert, doing his best perplexed expression. “That’s my old army gun. It was taken from me some months ago.”

  “How convenient,” says the Major, fixing Herbert with a penetrating glare. “You and I both know what this gun has been used for in the past, don’t we!”

  “No need to bring that up, Julie,” says Herbert quietly.

  Major Simmons rounds on him. “Why not? I’d say it’s relevant, considering how, other than yourself, only poor Ahmed and me knew your secret! Was I to be your next victim? Was I to go to sleep and not wake up again, poisoned or smothered to death?”

  Herbert trembles wildly. “No. It’s not like that. I swear it wasn’t me.”

  The Major turns briefly to Waterfield. “I’m afraid your brother isn’t to be trusted. He’s a dangerous man, and should be locked up. Is there a room we can lock him in?”

  “All the bedrooms have keys.” Says Waterfield with a frown. “But really, he’s my brother. I’ve known him my entire life. He couldn’t kill in cold blood.”

  “No?” says the Major, arching an eyebrow. “Are you certain that you know your brother as well as you think?”

  “Of course,” says Waterfield after a pause.

  To me, that momentary pause speaks volumes and tells me that Waterfield isn’t so sure about his brother any more. Dr Runcible and Mrs Draper have also moved slightly away from Herbert, clearly no longer trusting him either – if in fact they ever did.

  “You don’t sound so sure of that, Cuthbert,” says Mrs Draper softly.

  “You have to believe me,” cries Herbert. “I didn’t kill Rashid. He was my friend.”

  I have dried my tears by now. I cast a disdainful glance in Herbert’s direction. “He was no friend of yours. He was afraid of you, and now it seems with good reason. He told me about your time in prison.”

  Herbert blanches even more, if that’s at all possible. He leans against the wall heavily, giving all the impressions still of illness. It would seem the others are no longer convinced

  “I see that fact unnerves you,” says Major Simmons with a satisfied grimace. He looks to Waterfield. “Do you need further proof?”

  Waterfield shakes his head. “Take him upstairs and lock him in one of the rooms adjacent to mine. They have no interconnecting bathrooms.”

  The Major passes the gun to Waterfield, who cannot look his brother in the eye, and asks me to accompany him with the prisoner. He obviously believes that if he goes alone, Herbert might try to overpower him, even in his current weakened condition. Two of us will be better matched.

  I keep my distance from Herbert. I’m not really afraid of him. He has no weapon – unless he has another concealed about his person – but he’s now like a caged animal, afraid and dangerous. There’s nothing more deadly or unpredictable than such a creature.

  “Do you think he did it?” I whisper to the Major as we shepherd Herbert upstairs.

  “It’s highly probable. He did kill Albert after all.”

  “You swore you’d never reveal that!” Herbert hisses without turning.

  The Major snarls contemptuously. “Sorry, old chum, but recent events
have altered that agreement.”

  “Do you really think I’d kill Rashid, after all the things we went through?”

  “Yes, if you thought your secret was about to be revealed. You’d kill me too in a heartbeat. And now our young friend here knows what you did, you’ll kill him too, given half a chance.”

  Sarcasm drips from Herbert’s voice: “And I suppose you’re going to tell everyone else, so I’ll have to kill them too!”

  The Major and I glance at one another, and nod in agreement. “All the more reason,” the Major intones, “to make sure you stay locked up until we can get off this bloody rock!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  When Major Simmons and I return to the drawing room, we find the remainder of our group huddled around the fireplace in absolute silence. Other than our footsteps, the only sound is the crackling of the fire and the patter of rain on the windows.

  “Is he safely locked away?” asks Mrs Draper, her eyes wide with fear.

  The Major responds with a nod. “He’s not going anywhere – unless he fancies shinning down a drainpipe in the rain.”

  Mrs Draper’s eyes widen still further. “Is there a drainpipe within easy reach of his window? He’s killed poor M. Rashid in cold blood – I wouldn’t put it past him to attempt an escape.”

  Waterfield raises a hand. “Don’t trouble yourself, Mrs Draper. None of the windows have drainpipes within reach, easy or otherwise.”

  The woman relaxes, albeit slightly. She’s clearly terrified of being the next victim, and the fact that the apparent killer has been secured appears to be of scant relief to her. I glance around at the other frightened faces. She’s not alone in her fear it would seem.

  “D’you think it’s possible that Herbert caused Mrs Hardcastle’s death?” asks Dr Runcible.

  “Why would he wish her dead?” I ask. “I can understand wanting to silence M. Rashid, but did he know Mrs Hardcastle?”

  “Yes,” says Waterfield quietly.

  “How?”

  Waterfield glances over at me, sadness in his eyes. “She was acquainted with my late wife, Annie. They were friends in their youth. It was such a long time ago, that I’d clean forgotten about it.” He looks across at the Major. “She used to have a name similar to yours – Julie Symmonds, as she was back then. She and Annie sort of drifted apart, as friends so often do, after she married and became Mrs Julie Hardcastle. I knew I recognized her from somewhere when she arrived.”

  “Odd that she didn’t remind you of who she was, don’t you think?”

  Waterfield shakes his head at my question. “Not really. There was no love lost between Julie and us Waterfield boys. She warned Annie from the very beginning that getting involved with one of us would be her undoing. Annie ended up getting involved with all three of us.”

  “So you think Mrs Hardcastle bore a grudge? Perhaps it was she who invited us all here – to wreak her revenge and have witnesses to the revelation of Herbert’s guilty secret.”

  Waterfield shrugs with a deep sigh. “I really don’t know what to believe any more. I still cannot believe that one of my brothers killed the other. Why? Was it over Annie?”

  “It must have been,” says Major Simmons. “During the war, Albert would talk incessantly about his beautiful wife. It made all the guys sick with jealousy. Some of them didn’t have anyone waiting back home for them, and those that did weren’t as happy as Albert so clearly was. He had a couple of photos of her, which never left his side. He kept them in his pocket, right next to his heart.”

  Waterfield smiles wistfully. “I know precisely how he felt. He truly loved Annie, and she never really got over his death. To the day she died, she kept a photo of their wedding in her bedside table drawer. If she was ever feeling a bit low, she would go and sit with it in her hands. She would often just talk with him, as though he were still alive.”

  “That’s a little creepy,” says Mrs Draper with a shiver. “Didn’t that make you feel a belittled?”

  Waterfield shakes his head. “Not in the least. I always knew, right from when we stood at the altar, that I could never replace Albert in her heart. I accepted the fact that I would remain second place to my brother. I think in a way I felt comforted that even in death, a part of Albert remained alive – in Annie’s heart.”

  Offering a loud harrumph of indignation at the interruption, the Major continues with his tale. “One night, while we were on patrol, an argument broke out between Albert and Herbert. I witnessed it, as did Ahmed. One of Albert’s photos of Annie was missing, and he had it in his head that Herbert stole it.”

  “And did he?” I ask.

  Major Simmons nods. “As the commanding officer, I couldn’t have dissent among the ranks, no matter what the provocation. I didn’t take sides. I searched every one of my men personally. I left Herbert till last, and found the photo tucked away in his breeches. He obviously didn’t want it to be found. He’s lucky we came under attack right at that moment, because he told me I should watch my back.”

  “Did you not reprimand him afterwards?”

  “No, lad. There was so much blood spilled that night that reprimanding a man over a stolen photo seemed a little petty. I warned Herbert to keep his distance from Albert, but in our close confines that wasn’t exactly practical. It caused a lot of friction among the men. Some sided with Herbert, saying Albert brought it on himself by banging on incessantly about his wife, whilst others rightly sided with Albert. One of the Ten Commandments should have read Thou shalt not covet thy Brother’s wife!”

  I nod in agreement. “Was that when Herbert shot Albert?”

  “No. That was much later. For months after that incident, the brothers avoided one another as much as they possibly could – which really wasn’t easy. They barely uttered a word to one another until we were due to return to England. You can imagine what sort of atmosphere that caused. It was when we were on the way home that the murder took place.”

  Waterfield sinks down into one of the chairs. “Did you and M. Rashid really see what happened?”

  “Sort of. Ahmed and I were comforting one another – not sexually, you understand; not after what happened to him some months earlier. He was afraid of what would happen to him once we arrived back in England, and I was trying to reassure him that things would be fine. I wasn’t sure they would be, not for him or for me, but I felt duty bound to at least try to reassure him. We saw Herbert leading Albert off into the trees nearby. They were speaking quite animatedly, though we couldn’t hear what they were saying.

  “A little while later there was a gunshot, and moments later Herbert came out of the trees – alone. Ahmed and I were on our way over to find out what had happened. Herbert didn’t realise then that we’d seen him go into the trees with Albert. He was quite nasty to us, calling us all sorts of vile names, thinking we were going into the woods to – well, you get the idea.”

  “So you went into the woods and found Albert’s body?”

  “Yes, Cuthbert. Herbert carried on his tirade of abuse, hoping to stop us going in there. He called on his cronies to attack us verbally. Ahmed wasn’t as tough as me. He ran into the woods crying, with shouts of ridicule following him whilst I argued with the men. When Ahmed screamed in the woods, they all stopped squabbling and ran off to see what had happened to him.”

  “Leaving you alone with Herbert?”

  Major Simmons sighs deeply and nods. “He said he knew that I knew what had just happened, and that the men would find Albert’s body. He said he’d make certain none of them spoke about what Ahmed and I were, knowing full well that Ahmed wouldn’t say anything about what they’d done to him, but in return, we both had to keep our silence about what we had seen.”

  “If Herbert went down for murdering his brother, then you two would go down for gross indecency?”

  “Yes, Cuthbert. But now the truth is out, about Herbert and about me. Poor Ahmed has paid the ultimate price for speaking out about Herbert’s crime, and I suppose now so shall
I pay the price.”

  Waterfield rears up, looming over the Major with a presence I’ve not noticed before. His eyes blaze with hatred, but his voice is quiet. “I don’t care about your sordid little secret, Simmons. What I do care about though is that you kept Herbert’s secret for so many years. You and Ahmed are no better than him. You might just as well have killed poor Albert yourselves. You both deserve what comes to you.”

  “You cannot mean that you believe M. Rashid deserved to die,” gasps Dr Runcible, aghast.

  Waterfield whirls on him. “Why not? He knew who killed my brother. He could have prevented so many years of heartache. Not knowing what really happened to her husband nearly destroyed Annie. I could never take away the pain she felt, and she didn’t even know the anguish that ate away at my soul. Ahmed could have prevented all that.”

  “As could I,” whispers Major Simmons, head bowed in shame. “What can I ever do to make things right?”

  Waterfield shakes his head violently. “You can’t. There’s nothing you can do to bring Albert back, and you can’t bring Annie back, either.”

  “I know, and I am most truly sorry, old friend.”

  Waterfield holds up his hand. “Not another word, Simmons. I don’t wish to hear any more of your wicked lies. Any apology is meaningless. I hope you suffer the same fate as Rashid for your betrayal.”

  “Surely you don’t mean that?” gasps Mrs Draper. From her expression, I can tell this is the first time she has seen this side of her former employer.

  Waterfield nods emphatically. “Oh, I mean every word. I can’t bear to be in the same room as that man!” He points at the Major. “I need some fresh air. When I get back, I want Simmons out of my sight. Lock him in one of the other rooms. We’ll let the police deal with him when we finally get out of here!”