After several moments they reached the bottom of a set of stone steps which travelled up into darkness, a thin line of light testifying to an opening of some nature at the top. Tom groaned inwardly at the thought of manoeuvring more stairs, but hobbled ahead nevertheless. Max pushed through a door in the thickness of the wall that led them into a scintillation of dust-moted light. From the evidence of racks of saddles and horse trappings hanging in shadow, Tom recognised a tack room. He took a deep breath, glad for healthier, pungent air redolent of leather and linseed oil and saddle soap. Had whoever come this way early Sunday morning felt the same relief? Or had open air brought fear of exposure? And where might he or she have travelled from here? He glanced at Jane, noting her pensive expression, guessing she shared his worried thoughts.
“What say you, Mr. Christmas? Do you think Uncle Oliver’s murderer came this way?” Max tilted his pith helmet back on his head.
“I suppose it’s possible,” Tom replied reluctantly, unwilling to voice in front of the boy the question that rose in his head: Who at Eggescombe Park lived nearest this tunnel exit? Dowager Lady Fairhaven, Max’s beloved grandmother, did—with her protégé Roberto Sica, a man with no affection for Oliver fforde-Beckett. The thought was discouraging.
“Perhaps there are clues here, Daddy.” Miranda bent to lift the lid of a wooden trunk.
“Perhaps. But we’re best leaving the work to the police.” Tom hobbled forward. “Shall we …?”
“To your grandmother’s?” Jane addressed Max, who was eyeballing the space. “We’re expected for tea before very long.”
“Oh, look, maybe that’s a clue.” Max gestured to a corner of the room.
“I think that’s a person,” Miranda corrected. They all peered through the shadow at a figure reclining on what looked to be a pile of horse blankets assembled on the floor.
“Oh, bother, it’s only Anna.” Max sounded disappointed.
“Anna?” Jane glanced sharply at Tom.
“Anna … Phillips, I think,” Max answered unnecessarily. “Nice girl. She cleans for Grandmama.”
But Jane had already advanced to the figure who, evidently, was no longer asleep, if indeed she had been. “I’m sorry if we disturbed you.”
“We met this morning.” Tom stepped forward, noting the girl’s hesitation as she rose to greet them. “This is Jane Allan,” he added by way of introduction. “And my daughter, Miranda.”
But Anna had eyes only for Jane—who, studying her with frowning intensity, said:
“We’ve met before.”
But Miranda interrupted, “Are you hiding?”
The question seemed to startle Anna. “I’m keeping out of the way.”
“Why don’t you two,” Tom interceded, noting Miranda’s furrowed brow, “go on to Lady Fairhaven’s and help her sort out the tea.”
“Isn’t it appalling”—Max turned to Miranda—“how adults try to fob us off, as if we were six-year-olds? Really, Mr. Christmas, cousin Jane, if you wish to speak to Anna in private you have only to say so. Miss Christmas and I can entertain ourselves quite adequately.”
“You could give the horses their tea,” Jane suggested.
“Capital idea. We’ll do that. Come along, Miss Christmas. Don’t be long,” he called back airily. “It’s rude to be late, and I am feeling a tad peckish.”
“Have one of the horse’s apples to tide you over,” Jane called after him, turning back to Anna, who regarded her uncertainly. “I’m sorry if we disturbed you. And I’m sorry, too, for your recent loss. Tom said he’d talked with you this morning and told me …” She paused. “Anna, look, I’m sorry to be blunt, but of course you knew John, my brother-in-law, in Tullochbrae.”
Anna nodded.
“Is he living with you? Now? In Abbotswick?”
“No, I live with John Phillips.”
Jane’s lips thinned. “Tom tells me after Scotland you moved to Bournemouth and settled your brother into a school there. I’m curious why you would then relocate to a little village in Devon?”
“Village life suits me. And there’s a school here similar to the one in Bournemouth.”
“Yes, the paper mentioned the one at Buckfastleigh. Tell me”—she frowned as Anna bent to the floor to lift the top horse blanket, a tartan of blue and green—“a little about John Phillips.”
“There’s not much to tell.” Anna began folding the blanket into neat lengths. “A good man.”
“But physically. Short? Tall? Dark? Blond?”
“Jane,” Tom cautioned, startled at her intrusiveness.
“Tom, I simply don’t believe this. It would be strange if John Phillips wasn’t John Allan. Anna, you must know that my husband and I—John Allan’s whole family—are anxious to find him. We thought we’d done so last year in Thornford, but then he slipped from our fingers. Why are you keeping him from us? Why are you protecting him?”
Anna’s busy hands stopped. The blanket, forgotten, slipped from its folds, as she passed assessing, cautious eyes from one to the other. Something of the agony of indecision rooted her, Tom thought, as at last she responded to Jane’s provocation:
“You never believed John—your John, John Allan—killed William—Boysie—did you?”
“No,” Jane replied, her voice touched by surprise. “Not for a minute. Why? Did you?”
“I did. John said he did. The court said he did. And then—after a long time—I didn’t believe. I knew he hadn’t.”
“Why,” Jane pressed. “Why did you change your mind? What made you realise John hadn’t killed his brother?”
“Because …” Anna’s face seemed to bleach suddenly with misery. “Because my brother saw the killer.”
“What?” The word came from Jane like a cry of despair.
Tears pricked Anna’s eyes. “He didn’t know what he had seen. And when I realised what he had seen, it was too late.”
“Too late?”
“Too late to help John.”
A groan rose from Jane’s throat, as Tom asked, “And what had your brother seen?”
But Anna was concentrated on Jane. “You knew what Will Allan was like.”
“Yes, Boysie was …” Jane hesitated. “… arrogant, nasty, snobbish. I tried in vain to like him. He didn’t like me. He thought I was some sort of gold-digging colonial.”
“And he was vile to my brother.”
“What? Because he was mentally handicapped?”
Anna nodded, wiping at her eyes. “He would tease David for his flapping hands and taunt him for having big ears and the like—and do it in a cunning way when he thought no one was witness. This from an adult! It would put my brother in a terrible, anxious state, and when he was anxious he could explode in a temper—which became worse when he reached puberty. On the afternoon of William’s … death, he had been getting at my brother. Davey was particularly volatile in the wake of our father’s passing and then the guests and excitement around your wedding.” She paused. “You knew William had been staying at Aird Cottage at Tullochbrae.”
“Yes. Jamie stayed with him the eve of our wedding, while I remained at the castle. But of course, Aird Cottage is where Boysie died.”
“Davey, I understood later—much later—had gone to the cottage to … protest? I’m not sure what—to William. I’m not sure why with his social anxiety he chose that occasion, of all occasions, but he did. It was not locked, the door was open, and … it was he who found your brother-in-law’s body.”
“David? But—”
“I know, I know,” she said softly. “But you also know what John was like.”
“Mirror opposite to his eldest brother.” Jane looked to Tom.
“He was enormously kind to David,” Anna continued, the blanket limp in her hands. “Including him in activities during school breaks and such. John had witnessed the exchange between Davey and William—”
“There was little love lost between the two brothers,” Jane murmured, taking the blanket from Anna’s hands a
nd setting it on a nearby rack.
“—and followed David to Aird Cottage.”
“I’m not sure I understand.” Jane looked up sharply.
“John came upon David with the fireplace poker in his hand in one of the bedrooms. David was confused, frightened—”
“You mean …”
“John told David to run back to our cottage, making him promise to say nothing. I was in the village shopping and running errands. I wasn’t back until late. By then the estate was in pandemonium. In the confusion, I barely noticed that David was even more anxious than usual. But then it was not always easy to understand his thoughts.”
“John took the blame for his brother’s death,” Jane intoned, adding with rising indignation, “I’m sorry, Anna, but that is just simply above and beyond—”
“I know.”
“But surely John knew that David, as an adolescent, would be treated less harshly by the court.”
“But he would be completely separated from me. He wouldn’t thrive.”
“But he really made this terrible sacrifice for you, didn’t he?” Tom had been observing her face, which contorted.
“Yes. Though I had no idea at the time.” She paused, lifting another blanket from the pile and folding it. “We had been lovers that summer, briefly—secretly, but when he declared he had murdered his brother, I thought underneath he must be like William. I simply had to leave Tullochbrae, to go. That’s why I left. I couldn’t face life there as it had become.
“David was uncommunicative for a long time. His version of moody adolescence, I thought. He kept his promise to John, but then, a few years ago, provoked by I don’t know what, he began to talk about that day at Tullochbrae. Strangers would find my brother a little difficult to communicate with, but I can—could—usually understand him, and after a while it dawned on me that he had been at Aird Cottage that afternoon, and had seen someone. I thought at first he meant he had seen John, and that that explained some of his mood right after William’s death.
“But it wasn’t John he’d witnessed. It was a ginger-haired man. A ginge, he insisted. But of course, as you both know, John isn’t ginger-haired.”
“No other details?” Jane’s voice was urgent.
“None helpful. People with David’s disability aren’t at their best in recognising faces, although …” She took the folded blanket from Jane. “All I could gather was that David glimpsed this ginger-haired man slipping through the French doors. If you remember Aird Cottage—”
“After John’s sentencing, my father-in-law in his grief had it knocked down, but I do remember, yes. The French doors in the bedroom led to a terrace near a stand of pines.”
“David didn’t follow. I can only imagine his confusion. At some point soon after, he must have picked up the fire poker—”
“Which is when John came into the room,” Jane finished the thought.
“But did this ginger-haired man see your brother?” Tom asked.
Anna’s lips pinched. “David didn’t seem to know, but I was frightened that this man might have, and I thanked my mother’s genes that I had obscured our origins and made it difficult for anyone to locate us.”
“But most of the change was to your name,” Tom pointed out.
“Yes, that’s true. But David is so common a name, I thought it would easily escape notice. There might be thousands of Davids and Annas sharing homes in England, fewer Davids and Rhiannons. In addition, David wouldn’t have been able to keep to a name change for himself. And I’ve always been Ree to him. Always was,” she amended.
“But once you had an inkling Boysie’s killer couldn’t be John,” Jane began, “surely you—”
“I did,” Anna replied, anticipating her. “But I wanted to be sure before going to any authority. And I was frightened for my brother, what any press attention might do, whether the ginger-haired man would be put on alert and … I wrote to your mother-in-law, Jane, asking for John’s address, that I might write to him, and she very kindly supplied it, without question. By then, he had been transferred from Scotland to an open prison—”
“—near Arundel,” Jane murmured.
“—and was only a few months from release. I wrote and arranged to travel to see him at Ford Prison.”
“It must have been a very difficult conversation,” Tom said.
“It was for me. I was horrified that John had made, as you say, Mr. Christmas, this terrible sacrifice, and that there was nothing I could do that would give him back those lost years. I wondered at first if I should let it be, but he had not done it. He had not killed his brother. He was innocent! The thought that the world would always think him a murderer was unbearable.” She seemed to sort through her memory. “He was changed in many ways—more solemn and serious, taciturn—but I sensed the same integrity and sweeter nature within. He was oddly accepting when I told him what David had told me, stoical—but then we were in the visit room. He had strengthened in his faith, as you know, Mr. Christmas—”
“ ‘Tom,’ please, Anna. But I suspect Sebastian—John—welcomed you, however unwelcome your news.”
Her silence was her assent. “He had written. I never received the letters, of course. To the post office, Ree Corlett no longer existed.”
“But I can’t believe he was ‘accepting’ of this, Anna,” Jane said. “Surely—”
“No, of course not. We’ve gone over it and over it ever since.”
“We’ve? We’ve! Then your good man John Phillips is John Allan. I’m right! But why this masquerade, Anna? I don’t understand.”
A shadow flickered along Anna’s face. “As I said, John had changed. He wanted to live a very simple and quiet life. If we brought the claim of a mentally handicapped man to the police or courts after all these years, what would it do?”
“It might launch a proper investigation!”
“And launch publicity and attention, and bring no peace, Jane. He couldn’t bear a repeat of the circus around his arrest and trial all those years ago. The memory was still raw.”
“And,” Tom interjected, “I expect he was concerned for your well-being, particularly if this ginger-haired man had seen your brother at Tullochbrae.”
Anna nodded. “We decided we would solve this puzzle ourselves, and only then come forward and clear John’s name. A very kind old gentleman who visited John in prison—”
“Colonel Northmore,” Tom supplied.
“Yes, he fought with John’s grandfather in the war. He made arrangements that John could live and work at Thornford Regis.”
“And you moved from Bournemouth,” Jane said. “But why—”
“We didn’t choose to live together or marry at first because we thought that might create too much notice.” Anna anticipated her. “But we wanted to be nearby, so Lady Fairhaven—”
“What! Marve? Do you mean Marve has known all along John’s whereabouts?”
“Yes. Her support has been vital.”
“But,” Jane gasped, “John’s mother, Jamie, me … we’ve been desperate to find him for the last four years. And we thought we had last year when we were alerted to a murder in Thornford—”
“I’m so sorry, Jane. I can understand this has brought suffering. But John very much wanted a life free of trauma, and so did I. Only if we could identify William’s killer was he prepared to communicate again with his family.”
“But Marve is family!” Jane protested. “Near enough.”
“I know it’s been difficult for Marguerite. But she has been marvellous to us. She’s asked us no questions, made no demands, and kept our secret, as John asked her to do.”
“But how—?”
“Marguerite is a trustee of the National Association of Official Prison Visitors for one thing—”
“Of course!”
“—she regularly visits at Dartmoor Prison. And she visited John, when he was at Ford. He asked for her help and she gave it willingly, helping me find a cottage in Abbotswick, arranging work as a d
aily to Eggescombe and as a server at the Pilgrims Inn—and when John left Thornford last year and joined me, she helped him find gardening work. He’s an undergar-dener here on the estate, part of the time. He’s been using my last name.”
Tom said: “Surely he’s come to Lord and Lady Fairhaven’s notice.”
“No. They’re so rarely here, or at least Lady Fairhaven is. Lord Fairhaven comes more often, but he’s paid no notice to me, a daily, and I doubt if he pays much attention to the gardening staff. It’s Marguerite and the employees of the Eggescombe Trust who really manage Eggescombe Park. Besides, when Lord and Lady Fairhaven are in residence, John absents himself.”
“Good God, right under our very noses!” Jane fumbled in the pocket of her trousers. “I can hardly believe it! But where is he? Where is John? In the village? I have to call Jamie.” She pulled out her mobile. “Oh, no, what is it?” Her voice dropped with disappointment as she looked from her phone to Anna’s face, now stiff and vaguely furtive.
“He’s … gone.”
“John? Not again. Anna, he can’t have!” Jane’s body slumped. “Why?” she asked in an anguished voice. “Is it because Jamie and I are here?”
“No,” she said, then amended her reply, “I don’t know. Yes, probably,” she amended again, more firmly this time.
“Perhaps you should explain.” Puzzled, Tom watched her as she loosed the band from her hair, letting it cascade along her shoulders.
Anna paused as if to gather her thoughts. “We have racked our brains for a long time, John and I, about the identity of the ginger, going over the people at Tullochbrae at the time of William’s murder. One or two of the staff had red hair, and at your wedding, Jane, a guest or two had red hair, but by the time of your brother-in-law’s death, most of the wedding guests had departed. We could think of no one from David’s brief description—absolutely no one—with a motive strong enough, or the character brazen enough, to—”
“And your brother could give you no other description?” Jane asked impatiently. “Height, build …?”
“No.” Anna shook her head. “Not that he could say.
“David lived in another Steiner community, Highdale, this one near Buckfastleigh—not far from here at all. Both John and I volunteer there. John helps them with the gardening. I often lend secretarial support, which they always seem to run short of—helping with fund-raising and such. David was very happy there. There’s a hundred acres of farm and gardens and woodlands on the edge of Dartmoor, and he spent much time working on the upkeep with the other residents. He’d gained enormously in confidence. Although they’re supervised as they work, they’re not minded as though they’re children. Last week—a week ago today—David was working in the lower vegetable garden, then went to walk up Hawkmoor Road to another garden. He would do this every day, at virtually the same time. Routine was very important to him. As you know, he was killed by a car on Hawkmoor Road, very much a speeding car, the police tell me, to have …” Anna looked bleak. “So hard to take in what has happened in a week.”
Ten Lords A-Leaping: A Mystery (Father Christmas) Page 27