by Cathy Ace
‘She often mentioned that,’ said Megs.
‘A lot don’t, you know. Afraid they’ll never come out,’ added Mabel.
‘Died a while after Christmas, I think it was. A great pity. Wicked sense of humor,’ said Maisie.
‘That’s a shame. If it was the same Daisy, it might have been someone to help Grannie’s friend feel at home here. Did she have a family to leave everything to? Did they come to collect her stuff? I might be able to put Grannie’s friend in touch with them, if so.’
‘No one,’ said Megs.
‘She left the lot to this place. The MAH Trust, they call it. That’s where they put all the money they’re given, then spend it doing the place up and keeping it nice,’ added Maisie.
Mabel chuckled, ‘As if what we pay isn’t enough.’
Amy chimed in with: ‘Got new curtains and one of those really thin tellies for the wall in the lounge after that Daisy went, we did. Very nice it is, isn’t it, ladies?’ Christine noticed she shouted, unnecessarily she thought, but maybe the young woman was so used to doing it she didn’t notice anymore.
‘You’re right, Amy,’ said Maisie. Looking at Christine she added, ‘Some of us get together to watch Strictly Come Dancing and we raised a glass of sherry to her after they’d installed it, didn’t we?’ Her pals agreed they had.
Christine knew she had what she wanted, however much she didn’t like it. ‘Thanks ladies, I’ll tell Grannie’s friend all about it. Come on, Alexander, I think we’d best be off.’
Alexander kissed all three women’s outstretched hands, and that of the surprised Amy, before they left.
‘I’ll be sure to speak very highly of the people who live here to Grannie’s friend,’ said Christine as they began to move back toward the car.
‘And come for the concert if you can. Friday, six o’clock, with tea beforehand,’ called Maisie.
‘Maybe we will,’ replied Christine, and she started to hum the Gilbert and Sullivan standard as they crunched along the drive, heading for the road.
NINETEEN
Carol had phoned to say she was running late for dinner at the hall, so Ian Cottesloe had been sent in the Gilbern to collect Annie from her cottage in Anwen-by-Wye, then he picked up Althea and Mavis on the way. It was a cozy journey during which Annie shared the tale of how she’d managed to get photographs of two rather dim thieves at the Swansea sweet factory making off with cases of product, all the while hoping no one would notice. Tudor had sent his apologies, and Annie emphasized to Althea how very keen he’d been to join them for dinner, but that he had no cover at the pub that night. What she didn’t mention was that Tudor had been spitting nails to think he’d missed his chance to get one up on Marjorie Flaming Pritchard – as he usually referred to the woman.
Alighting from the car at seven o’clock on the dot, they entered Chellingworth Hall to find Bryn and Val Jenkins had also just arrived. Edward ushered everyone into the drawing room, where drinks were being served.
Annie hadn’t seen Lady Clementine for some time, which she suspected was a good thing; she didn’t like the woman but, of course, had to act as though she did. She suspected Lady Clementine didn’t like her either, but was stuck with the same dilemma. They greeted each other with politeness and Annie was surprised to see the woman had blue and purple hair. She’d never seen it dyed two colors before, it was usually just one, hideous shade, all over.
As Annie cast her eyes about the collection of people in the room it suddenly struck her that polite society was really very odd; no one ever said what they truly thought – or, if they did, they were treated as though they’d grown a second head.
Christine and Alexander already had drinks. Annie sighed with just a hint of jealousy as she admired the way the peach chiffon Christine was wearing glowed against her lightly-tanned skin, and made her look almost ethereal. She also noted that Alexander looked as sharp and dashing as ever in his navy suit and crisp white shirt. She thought Stephanie looked a bit out of sorts; maybe she’d been rushing about, which was why she looked a bit pink in the face. She was pounding down fizzy water with a lot of ice in it so was maybe trying to cool off, though she was wearing a sleeveless shift-dress, so she couldn’t have worn much less. Henry, on the other hand, was bedecked in a somber-looking charcoal three-piece suit, sloshing his drink about as he told some tale or other.
Annie’s lightweight, silky black trousers and vivid red blouse were just right for the temperature in the room, though she knew that, at some point, the unwelcome whoosh of heat would hit the back of her neck and envelop her entire body for a few moments; she hated the feeling, but steeled herself for its arrival, and decided an extra couple of cubes of ice in her G&T would help.
The chatter was muted, but pleasant. Annie would have found such a gathering horribly uncomfortable just six months earlier; now she was able to take in her surroundings and feel pretty much at ease within them because she knew the people in the room. The portraits were the things she always wondered at; it was so alien for a girl from the East End of London to imagine living with paintings of predecessors, some of the canvasses twenty feet tall, peering down with dead eyes. It made her shiver a bit.
‘Feeling the cold?’ asked Alexander solicitously.
‘Nah, I’m fine,’ replied Annie quickly. She looked around to make sure no one could hear her. ‘I know I don’t know much about you, but I know you’re a Londoner, like me, and not from a family with pots of money like this lot. It’s the paintings. I feel like they’re watchin’ me. ’Orrible, it is. How do you feel about ’em?’
Alexander allowed his native accent to emerge as he lowered his voice. ‘Best this type ’as someone to keep an eye on ’em. Never know what they might get up to otherwise. Need someone to keep ’em in line, they do.’
Annie laughed aloud, though the tone of Alexander’s voice had given her another chill. She just couldn’t make up her mind about him at all. Handsome, definitely; dangerous, probably; criminal? She wondered.
‘What are you two nattering about?’ asked Christine, joining them.
‘Them paintings,’ answered Annie honestly.
‘Annie doesn’t care for them,’ added Alexander, his accent re-polished.
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ said Annie feeling she had to explain herself, ‘I can see they’re good. But … do you have stuff like this at your place in Ireland?’
Christine nodded. ‘Yes, but fewer of them, and they are smaller. Most of the ones that were worth something were long gone before I came along, my wastrel of a grandfather saw to that being a necessity. Ironically, so my father tells me, it was a rather fine portrait of said grandfather, by a well-known and sought-after Irish portraitist, that he was able to sell to pay my school fees. So some good came from the family art, I suppose. By the way – since you’re not mentioning it, dare I ask how your case in Swansea went?’
Annie grinned. ‘Of course, you don’t know …’ And she proceeded to tell the couple about her recent triumph. It kept them entertained until dinner was announced.
Nurse Thomas joined the group to dine, otherwise they’d have been eleven at the table because Tudor hadn’t been able to arrange for a stand-in at the pub. Annie didn’t think the world would have ended if eleven people had eaten instead of twelve, but she didn’t say anything. Henry sat at the head of the table, which Annie had to admit looked magnificent with its gleaming silverware, glinting crystal and tasteful porcelain.
Finally settled next to the just-arrived Carol, Annie accepted wine and sorted out her napkin. She noticed Carol checking her watch. ‘Oi, you only got here five minutes ago, and Bertie’s with Dave – so, come on, relax.’
Carol glared at her friend. ‘It’s true that Albert is with his father David, but, other than popping across the village green for something from the shop, this is the first time I’ve left the two of them alone. It’s a worry.’
Annie patted her chum on the leg. ‘Did David push you out and tell you to have a nice time?�
�� Carol nodded. ‘Well since you’re here, try to do exactly that then. They’ll be fine. They need time to bond an’ all.’ Annie hoped she was saying all the right things, though she wasn’t really sure she was.
Carol sighed, but didn’t look convinced. The dinner conversation was muted, but jolly enough. Annie noticed Lady Clementine knocking back a couple of glasses of wine under the withering gaze of her nurse, and she seemed to be having a rare old time telling stories about her friends back in London. Alexander and Christine were absorbing most of her excited chatter, which Annie reckoned was to be expected. Val Jenkins and Althea seemed to be hitting it off like a house on fire, while Bryn and Mavis – who were seated next to each other – seemed to be having quite an intimate tête-à-tête. Annie wasn’t sure she liked that so much. Nurse Thomas was at the far end of the table and kept herself pretty much to herself, even when Annie tried to draw her into the conversation.
Eventually the subject of the imminently-successful restoration of the religious volumes from the lower library came up, and celebratory toasts of thanks to Bryn were made with raised glasses, then the topics of the bothersome books, the mysterious miniatures and the curious Cruickshanks were broached.
Henry and Stephanie were brought up to date with the progress that had been made across the board, while Clemmie sipped her wine and looked more bemused than anything else. Everyone was pleased to hear about Christine’s foray into the world of the Mountain Ash House old folks’ home.
‘I’d still like to know why Sarah Cruickshank is doing it,’ said Bryn when all the information had been shared around the table. ‘It’s very nice of her to donate the bric-a-brac and clothing the departed residents leave behind to such good causes, but she should realize my shop doesn’t work the same way. I buy and sell books – I’m not a dumping ground for unwanted dross.’
‘Maybe she thinks she’s doing you a good turn, Dad,’ said Val, ‘giving you something you can sell on and make some money from. Some of the books have been in good condition – just not the type you, or I, sell.’
‘Well, why not hand them to me then? Either I, or someone else, is always there. Why sneak them onto the tables and shelves? It’s suspicious, if you ask me. I’ve thought so from the outset.’
‘But you wouldn’t accept them, would you, Dad?’ said Val a little sharply. She explained to her tablemates: ‘The bookshop owners in Hay are all experts in their fields, in a way, and they can be pretty particular about what they will, and won’t, accept for sale.’
‘Which is the way it should be,’ replied Bryn. ‘I owe it to my customers to only offer a carefully curated selection of specialized works. It’s what they expect.’
‘Bryn has a point,’ said Mavis, tipping her head coyly in his direction. ‘It’s no’ the way I’d go about handling books that have been left to me. I’d be looking to sell them, or even give them, to someone, openly.’
Christine piped up with: ‘I have to admit the idea that elderly people with no one left in the world are leaving their belongings, and maybe all they have, to the Cruickshanks did make me worry a little. Your Daisy Dickens, or Drayton, leaving her worldly goods to them must have amounted to a good deal of money, Althea. Rather more than what would have been needed for some new drapery and a television – however thin it might be.’
‘Do you think they’re running some sort of murderous scheme?’ asked Althea, horrified. ‘Knocking off octogenarians to feather their own nest?’
‘Mother, that’s a dreadful thing to suspect,’ responded Henry, looking mortified. ‘Of course, one finds it difficult to understand why one would leave all one’s money to such a place, or such people, but if one is alone in the world – at the end – it has to go somewhere. Where would it go otherwise? It’s not something I, nor anyone in my family, has had to consider.’
‘Taxman,’ said Althea heavily. ‘Death and taxes? Tax you to death, they do.’
Annie thought Henry looked almost apoplectic. ‘Mother!’
‘Oh shush, Henry. It’s not as though the Inland Revenue has a secret agent up the chimney. I can say what I want about them. Blood-suckers. Over the decades they’ve done their best to remove this estate from this family’s control. Your father was always worried about taxes. The state gets enough. Why shouldn’t a woman leave her fortune to a couple she’s come to know and like, and to a home where she’s been happy? I tell you, it’s that or the taxman gets it … and if it’s not the taxman it’ll be someone who works along the corridor from him.’
Annie’d never seen Althea cross. Indeed, she’d only ever thought of her as a fluffy old bird with a love of Monty Python and a deep affection for most things with four legs. She was beginning to see where the woman’s reputation as a human Jack Russell had come from – she had a bark, and Annie suspected her bite might be quite nasty.
At a tilt of the head from Mavis, Althea took a sip of wine and composed herself. But Annie – and probably everyone else at the table – could tell she wasn’t finished.
Althea, calmed, continued, ‘All that being said, I don’t like the idea that Daisy, or anyone else for that matter, might have been coerced into changing whatever they might have had planned for the distribution of their estate by a couple with an eye for a killing – if you’ll pardon the pun.’ She paused, then added, ‘You don’t think they really are doing that, do you?’
‘Doing what, Mother?’ asked Clemmie loudly. Everyone turned to look at her, which made her giggle. ‘Do you think that in the middle of Wales there’s a couple who are getting little old ladies to sign away everything to them, then bumping them off? Here? That sort of thing? Rubbish.’
Clemmie emptied her glass and looked hopefully at Edward, who retreated, bottle in hand, at a warning glance from Nurse Thomas.
‘It seems a little far-fetched, Mother,’ said Henry. Annie reckoned he didn’t enjoy agreeing with his sister. ‘Let’s not forget this all began over a few books. One shouldn’t get carried away.’
Althea grunted and indicated she’d like a little more wine. Edward complied, then passed Henry’s request for the table to be cleared to the rest of the serving staff.
As plans were being made for after-dinner activities, during which Annie had to plumb the depths to come up with as many reasons as possible for not wishing to learn to play bridge, she overheard Althea asking Christine for details about the guest accommodation available at the old folks’ home and she knew immediately where Althea was headed.
‘I thought I was our undercover specialist,’ she whispered to Althea, chuckling. ‘Sometimes I think it’s all I’m good for – so don’t go nickin’ it from me.’
Althea looked as innocent as a pup when she replied, ‘Undercover work? Me? The idea had never entered my head.’ She smiled sweetly, but there was no lightness in her tone when she added, ‘Though I am concerned that this issue has raised some rather worrying questions. What if people are being taken advantage of at the Mountain Ash place? What if poor Daisy was duped? I know there’s a lengthy process that usually ends up with everything owned by someone who dies intestate going to the state, but what if she’d had some previous plans to allow some specific charities to benefit after she’d gone, and those greedy people talked her into leaving them the whole shooting match?’
Annie could feel the level of tension increasing around their circle, a shift in the dynamic that seemed to draw Carol to them so they were, all five, together at last.
Althea rallied and added, ‘Now we’re all present and correct, I’d like to retain the WISE Women to investigate the goings-on at this old folks’ home. Post haste.’
All eyes turned to Mavis. Clearing her throat she began, ‘Aye, well the first thing to say, Althea dear, is that there’s no indication the Cruickshanks have done anything questionable at all. To be fair to them, there’s nothing to suggest they are anything but a solicitous couple running a delightful retirement home. With happy residents, if what Christine tells us is true, which I believe it to be. An
d as for you becoming our client – again – I suppose it falls to me to point out we’re not really your private band of investigators to be put to work on any pet project you might have.’ Annie noticed Mavis had moderated her sometime-harsh tone to be sympathetic.
Althea looked puzzled. ‘I can become a client like anyone else, can’t I? Isn’t my money as good as the next person’s?’ The four women nodded their heads, reluctantly. ‘And I know for a fact you don’t have any other cases pending for next week.’ Shoulders shrugged. ‘So why not work for me for a few days? I realize I’d lost touch with Daisy, but this is a bigger issue. None of you is as old as me, but, as the years pass, you’ll begin to realize how very little our society cares for its elders. Out of sight is out of mind in so many cases. It shouldn’t be so. I would at least like to know that this one little residential home, almost in my own back garden, is at least respecting the real wishes of its residents, even when they have no one to speak on their behalf. I’m fortunate that I am able to afford your – our – agency to look into this. And I propose we do so. You can draw up a proper contract and everything, Carol.’
Once again eyes rolled until they finally all came to rest upon Mavis. Annie could tell by her expression she was on the verge of capitulating.
‘And what would your desired outcome – as a client – be for this case, Althea?’ she asked.
Althea gave the matter some thought. ‘To be certain that no undue pressure is being brought to bear upon the residents of Mountain Ash House to give their all, after they die, to the proprietors of said old folks’ home,’ said Althea, looking satisfied.
‘The Case of the Over-generous OAPs? Or what about the Swindled Seniors? The Ripped-off Retirees? The Gypped Geriatrics?’ risked Annie, with a wink.