The Haunting of Mount Cod

by Nicky Stratton

  Angel’s inheritance was in the forefront of Laura’s mind as she and Venetia hurried downstairs. If he turned out to be Repton’s son, Repton was far more likely to embrace him with Matilda out of the way and that left Angel in an even more precarious situation. Having said that, Laura had been having doubts about the wisdom of Angel inheriting Mount Cod, but who was she to say? Heaven knows, the value of the estate would be enough to give an awful lot of foxhounds a very happy retirement.

  They spotted Sir Repton sitting at a table in the lounge staring out of the window.

  ‘Is he alone?’ Laura whispered to Mimi, who was coming out from behind the bar.

  ‘Yes, him son gone, I thinking very dishy.’

  They went over to join him and attempted to exchange pleasantries. He sat in morose silence studying his shoes.

  Laura whispered to Venetia, ‘You ask him.’

  Venetia quivered a little and then cleared her throat. ‘So where’s this chappie who says he’s your son?’

  ‘Ned Stocking,’ Laura interjected in case there was any doubt.

  Sir Repton looked up. ‘He’s Jez Abelson. Ned Stocking is Jez Abelson.’

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ Laura said. ‘The tribute act?’ She rubbed her chin. ‘Jez abel… son.’

  ‘How clever.’ Venetia smiled. ‘Jezabel Stocking’s son.’ She turned to Laura and whispered, ‘It’s just as I said.’

  ‘She once played opposite me in The Scottish Play.’

  ‘Mac…’

  ‘Go no further cousin. Don’t speak the word.’

  Laura reminded Venetia of the omen then turned to Sir Repton. ‘So you had an affair with her?’

  ‘I simply don’t remember.’ Sir Repton slumped back, letting one arm dangle over the arm of the chair.

  ‘You mean you had that many affairs?’ Venetia huffed. ‘It’s you that should be on Jeremy Kyle.’

  ‘I don’t know how it could be possible in any event. Matilda and I were unable to reproduce. She always said it was to be expected that I should fire blanks. I had assumed that my tubes had been rent asunder by some childhood complaint…’ Sir Repton wiped his eyes.

  ‘He’s probably an heir hunter,’ Venetia said. ‘There’s a lot of it about. He’ll have been watching the programme and filled his head with grand designs. Grand designs… now that’s very witty.’

  ‘How did he know you were here at Wellworth Lawns?’ Laura asked.

  ‘He was at Mount Cod for the wedding but then it was cancelled. The idea of being married in a barn in Northleach was too much for the bride-to-be and she broke off her engagement. Someone told him I was here and he decided to use the opportunity to confront me. He’s coming back tomorrow afternoon with evidence.’

  ‘What time?’ Laura asked.

  ‘Three-thirty.’

  ‘I think Venetia and I had better accompany you. This is not the kind of meeting you should have alone. I shall ask Mr. Parrott if we may use the small sitting room that he conducts interviews in. There’s a “Do Not Disturb” sign he puts up in cases of bereavement.’ Laura fingered her bracelet. ‘But why has it taken Ned or Jez until now to come out with it?’ she asked. ‘I mean he’s been at Mount Cod playing his tribute act for some time hasn’t he?’

  ‘He did write to me. Somehow I failed to answer his letters. He says he’s been wanting to come forward since his mother passed away six months ago.’

  Laura looked down at the three turquoise stones set in the Navajo silver. ‘About the same time as Matilda died; quite a coincidence.’

  Chapter twenty-two

  Laura eyed the young pretender with calculated curiosity, as Ned Stocking crossed his long lean legs and ran his fingers through his wavy slicked back hair. Buff. That’s how Dudley would have described his sort of physique. The very antithesis of his frail, supposed, father. Laura noted his attire; the neatly pressed wool checked shirt; heavy brown boots unlaced to a fashionable degree; jeans, apparently ripped randomly about the knees. What had she read about such young men in the paper recently? She racked her brain. There was so much new jargon to keep up with. Euro Dandy, was that it?

  ‘This really is a charming spot.’ Ned Stocking smoothed his reddish beard with one hand. A full and immaculately shaped set of whiskers. ‘The hotel I’m staying at has a four poster that James the Second slept in on his way to the Battle of the Boyne.’

  It came back to Laura what the paper had said. Haute Lumbersexual, but Ned Stocking had plainly never been near an axe let alone in conjunction with a tree.

  Sir Repton sat in silence opposite the young man, stroking Sybil Thorndike as she lay curled up on his lap.

  Laura decided it was time to cut to the chase. ‘So tell us Ned, what is this evidence that you have regarding your parentage?’

  Sir Repton jolted as Ned Stocking reached down to the leather satchel at his feet and drew out a faded copy of Life magazine.

  ‘This is dated November 1985,’ he said, holding it up so that they could all see the cover. The title read, “Jezebel Stocking– The New Ellen Terry.” Below was a picture of Sir Repton clasping the actress as he gazed dramatically at her upturned face. Both heavily made-up actors were sporting cumbersome iron crowns; it looked an uncomfortable embrace. Ned handed the magazine to Sir Repton who gave it straight to Venetia.

  ‘Oh Repton, how young you look,’ she said, before handing it back to Ned.

  ‘He was sixty and my mother was forty-seven. It was her finest hour.’ Ned wiped a tear from his eye. ‘But after that my poor dear mother never worked in the West End again.’

  Laura watched Sir Repton wince. ‘I don’t remember.’

  Had he really forgotten such a conquest?

  ‘She became pretty much of a recluse.’ Ned Stocking kept up his gaze on Sir Repton. ‘And then of course I was born almost exactly nine months after the curtain came down for the last time. She was no spring chicken and bringing me up alone… In penury… Well it ruined what remained of her health. She kept the secret to her dying day.’

  ‘When exactly did your mother pass away?’ Laura asked.

  ‘Quite suddenly in January. Not long after your own wife Matilda actually Repton…’

  So he wasn’t trying to cover that up.

  ‘It was a double tragedy,’ Ned continued. ‘Luckily there were no weddings at the time or I should have found it very hard to keep the tribute act going.’ He shook his head and sighed. ‘It was when I began to go through my mother’s private papers, that I had my first inklings as to my true ancestry.’

  ‘How was that?’ Laura asked

  Ned crossed and re-crossed his legs. ‘These things are really not important, it’s all in the picture you see.’ He handed the magazine to Laura. ‘Look, it’s plain as the nose on my face.’

  Laura studied the picture. ‘What is?’

  Ned Stocking stroked one side of his fine aquiline nose with a well-manicured finger.

  Laura looked at the picture and then back at the young man. ‘Do you mean to tell me that you are basing your claim of heredity on a single similarity between yours and Sir Repton’s nasal protuberance?’

  ‘Let’s face it Lady Boxford, without my muzzle lashings, he and I could be brothers. Actually it was Pom who confirmed the similarity when I showed her the magazine.’

  ‘Pom?’

  ‘I’ve known the twins since RADA. We kept up after they left. That’s how I got the Mount Cod gig.’ He sighed. ‘Dear Pom!’

  ‘They were at RADA?’ Laura said. Had he found the perfect way to infiltrate the Willowby’s through Tam and Pom?

  Sir Repton gave a bemused giggle. ‘How do you tell them apart?’

  ‘As a connoisseur of faces, it’s a no-brainer. Pom has such a delicious little mole on her neck, just above the clavicle, more of a freckle really, but that aside, she is the more simpatico of the two. Tam has a hardness about her and that, almost indistinct, hint of a moustache that does not bode well for the future.’

  Sir Repton’s brow furrow
ed as he took this in.

  ‘So what happened to their acting ambitions?’ Laura said.

  ‘They had to have a career rethink after the first seminar on tragedy. Tam’s not good with what she perceives as sentimentality. Heartless it might be said, whereas Pom is quite the opposite. Anyhow she convinced Pom that acting was not for them. Probably the right decision – Pom took things too much to heart and Tam’s much better suited to the world of commerce.’

  ‘But in the wedding business she must have to deal with sentimentality all the time,’ Laura said.

  ‘Pom is the perfect partner in that respect. She deals with the brides. She was the one who encouraged me to come forward. You see…’ Ned let the words hang for a second before turning his attention to Sir Repton with an adoring smile. ‘That while this must come as something of a revelation to my father,’ he leaned over and patted Sir Repton on the knee. ‘I would hope that this meeting would give him time to stop and think about the situation and having seen the joy it would bring, to accept it. I believe it is still not too late to make amends for the distance that has passed between us in all these years. It make take time I know… But I wish him to embrace me,’ he ended with a flourish.

  Laura noted that there was a certain similarity in his dramatic speech pattern to that of Sir Repton, but then he too, was an actor. ‘How long will you be here?’ she asked. ‘I’m sure Sir Repton will, as you say, need time to assimilate this news.’

  ‘My agent wants me to be at a casting in Bermondsey tomorrow morning at eight.’

  ‘How thrilling,’ Venetia piped up. ‘What is it?’

  ‘A biopic of Jim Morrison.’

  ‘Animal Magic, I used to love his show.’

  ‘That was Johnny Morris, Aunt Venetia, may I call you Aunt Venetia?’

  ‘Aunt?’ Venetia asked.

  Ned left her pondering this. ‘I should make a move,’ he said. ‘I need to get in the zone. The Lizard King was a complex persona and I must be well prepared for the audition. I’ll come again soon, once you’ve had time to digest my proposition.’ He rose from his chair, walked over to Sir Repton and kissed him on both cheeks before bidding them all farewell.

  As the door closed Sir Repton lurched from his chair dislodging Sybil Thorndike. ‘I can see it all clearly now,’ he said. ‘This is what Rosalind has been trying to tell me all along.’ He hurried to the window and peered from side to side in an agitated fashion. Then he went to the door, opened it, looked out and closed it. ‘This young man…’ He opened the door again, glanced out again and shut it before picking up Sybil Thorndike and returning to his chair. ‘This young man,’ he repeated. ‘Is the threat Rosalind has been trying to warn me of. He has plainly entered my life with evil intent.’

  ‘You could be right; he may be an impostor.’ Laura couldn’t believe she was condoning the ghost. ‘But I don’t think we should jump to conclusions. We must wait and see what his next move is.’ He’d plainly had access to Mount Cod but he didn’t look like the sort of person who would have killed Matilda to gain his inheritance. ‘On the other hand,’ she continued. ‘He was most illuminating on the characteristics of the twins; Tam in particular.’ She turned her bracelet. ‘I think it’s time to show our faces at Mount Cod.’ She was contemplating this when there was a knock on the door. Parker growled and Sir Repton floundered forward from his chair, once again dislodging Sybil Thorndike onto the carpet as Edward Parrott put his head round the door.

  ‘Have you nearly finished?’ he said. ‘I have a meeting with a nutritionist from the Institute of Age Related Inconvenience.’

  ‘But it’s too unfair!’ Gladys stamped her feet. ‘Repton said he was going to show me round the park. He said he has a fastigiate oak at Mount Cod. And now you are going there without me.’

  Laura had foreseen trouble and had taken the precaution of inviting Gladys to her room in order to break the news to her. ‘There will be plenty of other opportunities to visit Mount Cod, I’m sure but on this occasion it would be better if I went alone with Repton. There are certain matters that I must have his undivided attention over.’ She handed Gladys a box of tissues.

  Gladys blew her nose. In the background the local news had just come on the TV.

  ‘Police are asking people to be aware of the theft of statuary and garden ornaments in the locality,’ the newsreader was saying.

  ‘If I could just get in there,’ Gladys said. ‘I know he fancies me. My body clock’s only got so much battery life left and I must take my chance soon…’ She let out a little sob. ‘I’m a ticking time bomb.’

  The newsreader was on the next item, ‘Break out at Woldham Kennels…’ Laura watched old footage of a hunt galloping over green pasture.

  ‘I’ve got a pencil skirt I know would do the trick,’ Gladys continued.

  ‘… a cat was tragically killed…’

  ‘Hang on a minute, Gladys.’ Laura turned the remote volume up.

  ‘… it is not clear how the hounds escaped. DCI Phil Sandfield is leading enquiries and would like to hear from anyone who may have information.’ There flashed a local telephone number across the bottom of the screen.

  ‘Phil Sandfield. He’s about as much chance of running the culprits to ground as…’

  ‘I could have the hem lifted if you thought it would help? Gladys said. ‘Venetia would help I know, she’s good with a needle.’

  ‘Exactly, as finding a needle in a haystack,’ Laura said. ‘But I on the other hand, have a pretty good idea who is responsible.’

  Chapter twenty-three

  Laura and Sir Repton arrived at Mount Cod to find that there had been an incident involving the creation of the boating lake. The contractors had gone for lunch leaving the pump from the river unattended. The hose had sprung a leak where it rounded the corner of the laurel bushes and the short incline of the path was enough to channel the flow. The chapel had been deluged with water.

  ‘Oh woe is me, what can Rosalind mean by this latest aquatic misadventure? It can only be related to Ned Stocking,’ Sir Repton moaned, as they went to meet Tam and Pom to inspect the damage.

  As they joined them on the lawn, one of the girls said, ‘I hope you’ve got insurance for this Repton?’

  More insurance? Laura scrutinised her.

  ‘Part of the Union is going to have to cop for it I’m afraid.’ The girl thought for a moment. ‘But talking of cops, you could try contacting the police and say the contractors acted with malicious intent.’

  A ray of sunlight illuminated her face and Laura saw a line of downy hairs on her upper lip was distinctly visible. Ned Stocking was right about that much at least and judging by her tone of voice he was right about Tam’s character as well. ‘But it must have been an accident,’ she said.

  ‘They took against me from the word go.’ The faint moustache twitched. Yes, Tam was the hostile one.

  They reached the chapel and Sir Repton lifted the latch and pulled open the door.

  ‘Either way, I don’t think it’s got anything to do with Sir Repton and Part of the Union,’ Laura said.

  The dank smell emanated from the gloomy interior was reminiscent of the previous plumbing incident. It was a pity that this unfortunate coincidence was only fuelling Repton’s delusions. ‘Surely State of the Union was insured to flood the bog garden.’ Laura turned to Tam. ‘After all it was you that hired the contractors.’

  Tam gave short exhalation of air from her nose and turned to Sir Repton. ‘And all this when we’ve only just seen the back of the Woldham police over the gypsy business.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say. It’s terrible luck.’ Sir Repton looked about the chapel.

  A thin layer of mud coated the pink and green polka dot runner leading to the altar and to either side Laura could see that the original floor tiles were now uneven.

  ‘I’m sure we can get a new carpet. It wasn’t very expensive.’

  This was the newly identified Pom.

  ‘Robert won’t like that one
bit.’ Her sister turned and marched out.

  ‘I had better placate her,’ Repton said. ‘I’ll ring my insurance people… again,’ he called, as he hobbled after her.

  Laura and Pom were left surveying the scene in the chapel. Pom walked up to the altar and began to rearrange the minaret candlesticks, placing them closer to the Perspex cross.

  ‘I met a friend of yours the other day,’ Laura said.

  Pom turned to her, ‘Who was that?’

  Laura sat down on a pew and beckoned to her. ‘Jez Abelson, or do you prefer to call him by his real name?’

  ‘Dear Ned.’ Pom walked back down the aisle. She sat down beside Laura and as she did so, Laura could just discern the little mole on her neck where the top of her shirt was unbuttoned.

  ‘Did you meet him with Repton? I do hope he’s not too shocked. Ned’s such a poppet. His Elvis at the Rock and Roll wedding in December last year was amazing. And we’ve had so many requests for him since he did Tom Jones, even though he hates doing it. Say’s he much prefers Michael Buble and Ollie Murs. He’s so talented. I’m sure Repton will come round to him.’

  Laura noticed a slight flush on the girl’s cheekbones. It was a funny thing that twins could suddenly appear so different. The hardness that Pom lacked made her the prettier one by far.

  ‘He said you were at RADA together.’

  ‘For a short while. I wasn’t cut out for it though. I kept forgetting it was just acting. I was in tears the whole time when I had to play Gretl von Trapp in The Sound of Music. So sad! Then Tam changed her mind when she met Robbie.’

  ‘Robert Hanley Jones, you mean. But wasn’t he an actor once, what happened there?’

  ‘He had some problems with stage fright. He’d hoped he would get over it but sadly Repton’s wife Matilda said the company couldn’t keep parts open for him indefinitely. But it all kind of came full circle when they needed money to keep Mount Cod going and Robbie suggested they make it a wedding venue. Amazing really.’

  ‘Does he like weddings?’