Eleven Pipers Piping: A Father Christmas Mystery

by C. C. Benison

  “Well, what if he did.”

  “Last night, as you know, Judith Ingley was shot dead by someone who knew his way around a shotgun.”

  John frowned. “Folk at church this morning were speculating about Nick Stanhope.”

  “Anyone carrying a shotgun at the Old Orchard last night is being investigated. But the direction of the shot, the type of ammunition, and the discovery of a shotgun in the vicarage garden suggest the involvement of another party. It might be Nick. A phone call apparently prompted him to leave the Wassail a little before Judith was shot, so he may have had the opportunity, but …”

  John glanced again towards the communicating door, as if someone on the other side might be listening. “Is this why you’ve come?” He dropped his voice, shifting his eyes, now steely, to Tom. “Are you suggesting that I shot Judith Ingley?”

  “I pray that you didn’t, John.”

  “The gun was Colm’s, not mine. I don’t own a Purdey.”

  “How do you know the gun was Colm’s?”

  “It’s certain, isn’t it? I saw the look on Colm’s face when your daughter brought it in, then you and he closeted yourselves in the vestry with that detective. If it wasn’t Colm’s, why would he be bothered? And how would I have got hold of one of Colm’s, in any case?”

  “Thornridge’s security system has been inoperative much of the week. Nick was supposed to have been doing an upgrade. Access wouldn’t have been difficult.”

  “I only ever see Nick Stanhope at band practice. I know little about his work or his whereabouts.”

  Tom ran his finger absently over the rim of his glass. “Was Helen with you last night?”

  John reddened. “I’m not sure that’s any of your business.”

  “I agree it isn’t,” Tom responded evenly. “But her presence here would establish an alibi for you.”

  “I don’t bloody need an alibi.”

  Tom stepped towards his jacket, turned it to its tartan lining, and slipped his free hand into an inside pocket. “John, my purpose in venturing out on a winter’s eve isn’t to spread accusation—”

  “Don’t you have an evening service?”

  Tom glanced at a clock on the mantel. It was almost six; Evensong was in half an hour. “They’ll manage if I’m delayed.” He pulled a piece of folded paper from the pocket. “I came for another reason, although …”

  “Although …?”

  Tom hesitated. “Perhaps we should sit.”

  Regarding him with new unease, John settled onto the sofa. Tom sat opposite, in the wing chair.

  “You recall previous mentions we’ve made about our parentage,” Tom began. “We’re both adopted. We’ve each wondered from time to time who our natural parents were, particularly when we were teenagers, but neither of us has pursued it as an adult. When my wife and I were planning a child, we thought of exploring my parentage, for the usual reasons, genetic legacy and so on, but somehow it fell to the wayside. Life crowds in in other ways.”

  “Yes.” John frowned at him over the rim of his glass.

  Tom placed his tumbler on a table beside the chair and ran his thumb unthinkingly along the paper’s folds. “Mrs. Prowse found an old document among Mrs. Ingley’s belongings earlier today. It’s something that should properly be placed with the police, but …”

  “What is it?”

  Tom studied John’s watchful, weathered face a minute, dreading what the next few minutes would bring. “I want very much for this document to be utterly irrelevant, but I believe very much that it isn’t. Actually, I thought about simply destroying this, but I have my reasons—good reasons, I think—for showing it to you.” He straightened the paper along his lap and read from it. “Were you born April second, by chance?”

  “Yes.” John’s brow furrowed. “I’ll be forty-nine this spring.”

  Tom glanced at the stated year of birth in the second column, and made a swift calculation. “Your mother—your adoptive mother—never said where you were born, did she?”

  “Near Leeds. Or in Leeds.”

  “At Furness House Nursing Home?”

  “That I wouldn’t know. Or remember. I know it was a private adoption.” He shrugged. “It’s been many years since I’ve had this sort of conversation with my mother.”

  “Your parents—your adoptive parents—had you christened John?”

  “Yes. What are you on about, Tom?”

  “And they chose John? Adoptive parents often change the name of the child.”

  “My parents apparently liked the names my birth mother gave me. Most of them, at any rate—the traditional ones, William and Anthony. But they didn’t care for Sean, which was the third one. I think they thought it too trendy … or too Irish, so they changed it to John, and I suppose I was always called John because it was the name they more or less chose. Why?”

  Tom stared silently at the aging document with its entries in tidy cursive handwriting, now faded. He considered for the second time that day tossing it into the fire—the flames were so near—but desperation to protect the welfare of two people stayed his hand. Silently, with foreboding, he passed the certificate to John and watched as the man’s eyes below their heavy brows scanned the information.

  “Are you suggesting …? Frost?” John glanced up from the paper, his features creased with perplexity. “Should the name be familiar? I don’t understand?”

  “Frost is Judith Ingley’s maiden name. She said so at the Burns Supper.”

  John frowned again at the document then lifted his eyes once more, only this time they were narrow slits of contempt. “But this can’t be. It’s a … coincidence. There must have been another baby born that day who was named …” His heavy face, turned the colour of ashes, suddenly pricked with red. “Did she tell you this? That I was her …”

  “No, she—”

  “There you go then.”

  “John, listen to me.” Tom leaned forwards. “Judith said she came to Thornford with a notion of buying a business and moving back. That might be true, but I think in the end it would have depended on another factor. You see, she told me that she had travelled to the village last Saturday very purposefully to arrive at Thorn Court in time for the Burns Supper. She wouldn’t tell me why, but we had a provocative conversation about adoption and children and in what combination they are products of their parents’ nurturing or their own inborn natures. This afternoon I made an attempt to get in touch with Judith’s son to alert him to his mother’s death. You may recall her saying she had a son working in Shanghai.”

  John gave him a quick assenting nod.

  “She doesn’t have a son working in Shanghai. I talked to a woman related to her by marriage, who’s known her well for almost half a century, who told me Judith had no son. None. And yet”—Tom gestured towards the certificate—“she did have a son, born almost forty-nine years ago, with the same three Christian names you have.”

  “That doesn’t—”

  “I’m certain she came to the Burns Supper to see the man who was her son, to see what life had made of him, and what he’d made of his life.”

  “They’re not to make direct contact like that! They’re supposed to—”

  “I know. Make contact through some intermediary agency. And maybe Judith would have in time, but …” He didn’t voice the obvious. “At first, this afternoon, I thought that Will might be the child. He”—Tom chose the next word carefully—“said … he was adopted. He’s your age, but the dates and places don’t match. Yours do.”

  As he spoke, Tom observed a succession of emotions struggle for supremacy on John’s normally stolid visage: incredulity, shock, fear, cunning, and, finally, horror. He stared at Tom, his mouth wrenched open, seized in a rictus of disbelief.

  “It can’t be.” His eyes had a feverish shine. “It’s impossible.” But as the seconds passed, the full implication seemed to seep into his expression. “Why?” his voice rasped as he lurched from his seat. The certificate fluttered to the floor.
“Why are you saying this? She’s dead! You didn’t need to tell me this. I didn’t need to know.”

  “John, there’s something more,” Tom began, his heart sick, watching the man stagger past him and dart his eyes around the room as if in search of something, an exit, a drink, a weapon. Tom jerked forward in his chair in readiness as John stumbled along the carpet, crashing into the drinks table, steadying himself by grasping the edge of the mantel with one hand. With the other he clutched his stomach and bent towards the fire as if he were about to be ill.

  “Jesus Christ,” he groaned. “What have I done?”

  A muted keening, more terrible somehow coming from a man, seemed to inhabit the room in that moment. An echo of the bagpipe’s chill lament, it pierced Tom’s eardrums and travelled his spine. Helpless, horrified, he watched John struggle to stop. The connecting door flew open and Helen burst into the room like an avenging virago. She stared at John speechlessly, then turned to Tom.

  “What’s he done?”

  Her phrasing, her knowing tone, nonplussed him. He looked to John, who raised his head.

  “Get out.” He had recovered his voice. “Get out!”

  She didn’t blanch. She stayed her ground. “You did it, didn’t you?” Her voice was cold. “You shot that woman.”

  “Helen, shut up!”

  “He was gone for about an hour last night.” Helen turned to Tom, her eyes blazing. “And in my car! And when he got back, he was—”

  “Shut up, I said!”

  “John Copeland, what have you done?” Her jaw thrust forward, her teeth bared. “All because of that bloody woman—that bloody Caroline.” She spat out the name. “I’m calling the police.”

  “No!” John howled, lunging towards her.

  Tom was on his feet in an instant. Helen struggled towards the door, her hand straining for the knob, John tearing at her shoulder. Tom wedged his body between them, seeking purchase on John’s arm to pry them apart, but John was powerfully built and it took all Tom’s mettle to separate him from the woman. In doing so, he slammed John face-forward against the wall, knocking a picture off its nail, sending it cascading to the floor with the resounding shriek of fragmenting glass.

  “Helen,” Tom gasped, winded, his heart crashing against his chest as he squeezed John’s wrists in a lock with both his hands, “please, leave us for a few moments. Do nothing, not yet. Please, I beg you.”

  She regarded them as if they had both lost their minds. “I’m leaving! I’m getting out of here!” She darted towards the door to the hall. The decisive slam of the outside door failed to move John, who slumped against the wall, the fight gone out of him. Tom let go of John’s wrists, and caught his breath. Outside, a car could be heard roaring to life, then receding over the cobbles. He waited, anger contending with pity for this foolish, troubled man.

  “You knew Colm’s was wide open.”

  John regarded him hollow-eyed. “Yes, Nick happened to say at the inquest the alarms were off at Thornridge House when I asked him what he was doing with himself. I knew from Adam about Colm’s collection. It was nothing to walk into Thornridge last evening unseen.”

  “There was someone staying there.”

  “A few lights were on. I saw no one. The key was in a drawer. Perhaps if the access hadn’t been so easy …” He trailed off. “I thought no one would ever think I had …”

  “But why, John? Were you so in love with Caroline? It’s a perverse love that leads a man to do the terrible, terrible thing that you’ve done.”

  “I couldn’t protect Regina from her demons, you see. I thought I could protect Caroline, then maybe one day …”

  “John, you have to give yourself up to the police.”

  “Do I?”

  “Of course. Have you lost your mind? Do you think you can get away with this?”

  Beads of sweat glistened along John’s hairline. “But no one knows but you.”

  “I can’t treat this as private confession. If you don’t give yourself up willingly, then I must. John, you’ve trespassed against God’s law, and man’s. A woman has died. You shot into a crowd of people, with children, my child—and your child, didn’t you know? Didn’t you think Ariel would be among them …?”

  “… and shot the woman who gave birth to me.”

  “You shot and killed another human being.”

  “But the world will know if I confess.”

  “The world will know if you don’t. There can be no bargaining here. Helen has guessed. Before long Tamara Prowse will question Caroline’s alibi. If there’s a police investigation, don’t you see that everything will unravel? Your kinship to Judith Ingley will be unearthed and exposed. And, John, there’s something more, and this is why you must be quick and make a clean breast of it.”

  And now came the moment he dreaded most. He picked up the certificate from the carpet where it had fallen from John’s hands. “Caroline must never know about the woman … and the man who gave you life.”

  “Man?” John spoke listlessly. “But … that column was empty, wasn’t it?”

  “Judith didn’t wish to record the name on the certificate, but of course she knows who the father of her child was—your father, your natural father.”

  “Who was my father, then?”

  Tom took a deep breath. “Clive Stanhope.”

  “Clive Stanhope? You mean … Caroline’s father … and Nick’s?”

  “Yes, John, and yours, too. Do you see why Caroline must never know, why there must be no protracted police investigation, why this must be kept from the world?”

  John stared at him, his full unblinking gaze, his blood-drained face, horrible to behold, yet Tom could not look away.

  “Do you see?” he intoned with greater urgency.

  “Merciful God,” John’s voice fell to a low groan. “Ariel. Caroline’s daughter, my daughter … A child of …” He brought the back of his hand to his mouth, as if he could stifle the truth by stifling its utterance.

  A silence enveloped the room broken only by the intermittent snap of the burning wood in the fireplace. A dog’s bark intruded, but heralded no trespasser; no chorus arose in the wake. John dropped his arm after a minute, the set of his mouth revealed as a grim line. Straightening his spine, as if gathering resolve, he said to Tom, “I must have some air. I need to think.”

  He gave Tom no opportunity for rebuttal. He stepped towards the door to the hall. He did not stagger.

  Tom sank back into the wing chair, labouring to calm his roiling mind, bend it away from the harrowing events of the last few minutes, the last few hours, the last few days, towards prayer and contemplation—and to a decision. He had no fear John would take flight. Following the usual hall sounds of gathered jacket and hurried exit, no noise announced retreat from the estate—no car door slammed, no ignition turned over, no gravel crunched along the drive. Only the dogs set to an excited yowl, but soon they abandoned their quest for attention, leaving Tom to the crackle of the fire and the thrum of his own blood. Even if John did try to vanish, tramping through the dark to some road, to some village or town, eventually to some great conurbation, he would be found in time. Britain was a moated nation and the drawbridges were well manned.

  His hand still clutched John’s certificate of entry of birth and he turned his attention to it, smoothing it on his lap along its resistant folds. Somewhere in some file in some office in England, presumably, a similar certificate existed for him that declared his natural parentage. An odd thought struck him: Might Dosh have a copy that she had kept from him all these years? His had been a private adoption, too; perhaps the paperwork had travelled to places it normally wouldn’t, or shouldn’t. Had he ever asked if she had such a document? He couldn’t remember. And then a brooding thought: Might there be some telling detail about his natural mother or father that Dosh was keeping concealed? She was always the more watchful of his two adoptive mothers, as if she were bracing herself for that certain trait bred in the bone to come out in the f
lesh.

  He was being fanciful.

  At last, he rose from the chair and bent to the fireplace. He smoothed the certificate once again and placed it on one of the dying embers. The paper glowed, flared yellow-red, then burst into full flame. Seconds later, it was a wisp of grey and black, but marked by ghost text that still declared its content. Tom took the poker from the nearby rack and stirred and stirred the remains of the certificate into the anonymity of the wood ash. Satisfied that nothing remained, he lifted himself off his haunches and reached into his pocket for his mobile to make the unavoidable call. As he switched it on, he heard several sounds in near quick succession: cars—more than one—beating along the cobbles then halting, doors opening, and the voices of men. John’s expected guest, the shoot captain? And colleagues? Barely a moment had passed when he heard, muffled but still detectable, farther off at some distance, a sound he hoped not to hear again soon—a shotgun blast.

  He raced for the door.

  Hotel Playa de los Doce Días

  Tenerife

  21 JANUARY

  Dear Mum,

  Here we are in Tenerife. I can hardly believe we managed it after the events of the last ten days. I felt quite horrid leaving Mr. Christmas and Miranda yesterday, even though I’d filled the fridge with ready meals and made sure everything was washed and ironed. Mr. C has contacted contracted a wretched cold, so I can’t imagine the state of his speaking voice at yesterday’s funeral for Will Moir. Like a death bell, Karla said. I should very much like to have gone to the funeral but Karla had us to the airport hours in advance of the flight as usual, as the airline says you’re to do. I always think it unnecessary, but Karla is a stickler for the rules. Jago, however, was VERY put out and was quite short with Karla in the car. He had said he would drive us to Exeter airport as he always does, but he hadn’t counted on there being a funeral and the Thistle But Mostly Rose part of it. Since there was no time to arrange other transportation, he was a bit stuck, though as I say I think there was likely time enough. It wouldn’t have mattered if Jago had driven us wearing his kilt, knobby knees showing and all! Anyway, what’s done is done. I expect we’ll be finding another way to get to the airport next year! And I’m not sure who will be fetching us when we fly back next week. Oh well, worse things happen at Seaford, as Dad sometimes used to say, though had he ever been to Seaford? Before you were married perhaps? In the car going up, we couldn’t help talking about the last few days. Jago said John always seemed like such a regular fellow and couldn’t believe he had shot himself over some woman. SOME WOMAN was how your son put it, Mum. I said to him, didn’t you know John had a soft spot for Caroline? No, he said. It came as a complete surprise. I thought him (and his kind—men!) very thick, and said so, which only made him shirtier. But I have to say, Mum, I’ve thought to myself that John Copeland’s doing what he did—poisoning Will Moir, shooting Judith Ingley, and then taking his own life—seemed very over the top too odd quite extraordinary. Still waters run deep was my hipothes view. Or volcano—John was a volcano of passion set to explode! I think I said to you in my last letter, or maybe it was Monday’s, that I thought there had to be more to it, especially as Mr. C was VERY offhand when I broached the subject. As I wrote earlier, I was so very relieved that my lovely tartlets were innocent (what a shame I tossed all the berries I had put down last autumn!) but I couldn’t help wondering how John managed to get whatever that poison’s called into Will’s food. Well, Mum, imagine my surprise when I learned the truth! I was packing for the trip after breakfast and getting Miranda off to school yesterday morning when Mr. Christmas came up to my rooms and asked if he might have a word before I leave. I told you there was more than what met the eye, and there was! But it’s terribly sad. Will Moir took the poison himself. He had the early signs of Huntington’s Korea cor chor disease and didn’t want to suffer or make his family suffer. Do you remember Moira Docherty who was the landlady at the Roundhead in Hamlyn Ferrers? Isn’t that what she had? I remember folk said she had completely lost her mind at the end. So cruel! Anyway, Will planned his death for the Burns Supper so that it would look like an accident or at least anything but suicide so that Caroline could collect the insurance money and not have to sell the hotel and give up the family home. The plan might have worked, Mum, but for the unwanted snow and an unexpected guest which threw a Spaniard spanner in the works. (More on that in tomorrow’s letter!) I don’t know what will happen to Caroline and the hotel now, as Mr. C says she has told the police everything and given them a private letter that Will wrote to her and had left in his safe box at Barclays and I do feel sorry for her, despite what Will put me through the last week, but the only thing I could think of was your granddaughter. What if Tamara marries that Adam Moir and has a baby? I remember from Mrs. Docherty’s instance, how Huntington’s Kor disease runs in families and how chances are 50/50 of catching getting it. Does Adam have it? I asked Mr. C. There are tests for it now. But Mr. C said Adam and Ariel know nothing. Caroline has yet to tell them, or at least Adam since Ariel is so young and perhaps can’t take it in, but will have to tell them very soon, as it will all come out when the inquest into Will’s death resumes later this week. What a trial that will be for Caroline! Anyway, I didn’t say anything in the car to Jago, as I thought he might go off, and anyway Mr. C asked me to keep it to myself as he didn’t want Adam hearing it from anyone’s lips but his mother’s, which is quite correct of course. I haven’t even told this to Karla, but I thought by the time this letter gets to you, the inquest will be over and it will be in the papers. You mustn’t worry, Mum. Tamara is too young to settle down and even if she should settle down with Adam, which she won’t of course as she is a smart girl and will have a brilliant career, then you can be sure she will be completely sensible. Judith Ingley’s parents are buried in St. Nicholas’s churchyard, but of course she is to be buried at Stafford next to her husband. Mr. C said he thought he might attend, if the funeral is held after I return to England, though I suppose if it isn’t Miranda could stay for one night with the Swans while he is away. I feel very sorry for Judith’s son who has lost both his parents in less than 6 months and has to come again all the way from Shanghighai for another funeral. Of course, as I mentioned, Anthony Ingley has a natural father and I told you who I thought it might be! Yesterday, when Mr. Christmas was with me in my rooms, I asked him, was Clive Stanhope Anthony Ingley’s natural father? Well, I could see I had quite shocked him. I don’t think I’ve seen such a peculiar look on his face before. After a minute, he said no, it wasn’t. He had had a long conversation with Judith one afternoon and they talked about their lives. Judith happened to say to him that Anthony was not her husband’s natural son. She had brought him into her marriage. Mr. C said Judith had mentioned the lad’s name who was the natural father, but it wasn’t any of the old Thornford names and he couldn’t remember now. What a shame Judith never wrote it on the birth registry! Any guesses, Mum? I would have been too young to pay attention to what a couple of teenagers were up to. Someone likely at least Judith’s age now—late 60s—or maybe in his 70s or I suppose 80s. I just had the most peculiar thought! Could it be Old Bob? They had been seen having a long talk in the pub and he was VERY distraught when she died. But he would have been old enough to be her father! Is it possible? I’ve always had a feeling Bob had once set his cap at someone in the village and was disappointed. Funny he never married. Well, I best end this letter. I can hear Karla roaming about and we’ll be going down to breakfast soon. We haven’t stayed in this hotel before. It’s new and looks quite nice, though this is the third room we’ve been in since we arrived yesterday. Karla didn’t think the other two were at all what was pictured in the brochure and of course made a point of saying so. I had a bit of trial finding stationary, too. I suppose folk send messages on their phones now, but I can’t say I’ve ever wanted a mobile. Anyway, I’ll send you a postcard of the hotel with our room—our NEW room—marked with an X. We have an ocean view now, as promised. The weathe
r is wonderful. So sunny. I shall be brown as a berry when I get back to dear old Thornford R. All is well here. Love to Aunt Gwen. Glorious day!