by Lily Ashton
Alice took the flapjack. Not her favourite, but it was the biggest of the items on offer. Livvie crouched down in front of the incident board. “So, how’s your investigation going? I don’t see any coloured string linking pictures together.”
Alice held out a hand to catch falling oats. “You’ve just summed up my problem. I have some victims and suspects, but nothing to tie them together.”
“What about him?” Livvie stabbed a finger at the dog picture. “He looks evil.”
Alice ripped the illustration off the board, crunched it up and tossed it on the sideboard. “That stupid thing?” She felt heat rise to her cheeks. “I’ve been taken for a ride on that one.”
Livvie lifted a box of sweets from the arm of the sofa. “Hello! What have we got here? Coconut barfi, jalebi … yeah, I know those. But oh my god, look at the others. Those green things – they must be pistachio. And is that gold leaf on the pink ones?”
“I think so. They’re Indian. Devi gave them to me, so I expect they’re at the luxury end of the market.”
“Can I try one?”
“Go for it. By the way, she said those green ones are her favourite. Pass one over, will you?” Alice bit into earthy pistachio marzipan and a sweet, creamy pistachio filling. “I like it. But it’s a bit heavy on pistachio. What did you go for?”
“The pink one. It’s coconut, but nutty too, cashew perhaps. Utterly delicious.” Livvie hovered a finger and thumb over another candy. “You’re going to have to up your game on the sweet front from now on.” She nodded at Alice’s sweet jar on the coffee table. “And these all the way from Mumbai, too.”
“Devi bought them from an Indian deli in West London. Though I suppose they came from India originally.”
“Wherever. They’re ace. How’s your bro, by the way? Have you heard anything from him lately?”
Christian had replied to Alice’s message, thank goodness, she had not been sure that he would. He had said that he would check in with her later. Alice had read many different interpretations into those few words. She had toyed with the idea of sending a response, even drafting a couple of versions, but she couldn’t decide the most appropriate. And she didn’t want to make the situation any worse, so she left it. Christian would contact her again soon.
“I’m not sure where Christian is. He’s not being very communicative at the moment.”
“He’s probably busy with Devi’s launch.”
Alice smiled at her friend. “Thank you for your pragmatic, and probably completely right, answer.”
“Good, I’m glad you’re not over-stressing about it. So, now that’s sorted, let’s crack the Renton Hall murders. My money’s on Cheryl. Money and love, the two biggest motives.”
“I thought that too, but Simon Newgate is not in the clear. And he was on the premises the day Jeremy was killed.”
“Just because you didn’t see Cheryl at the party doesn’t mean she wasn’t there. And she was there. You said she was changing when you arrived, but she could have been hiding in the wood, whacked Nick and then run back to the house pretending she’d just found him. Or maybe she sent someone else to do the job for her.”
“All true, but it still doesn’t give us a clear answer.”
Livvie checked her watch. “Jeez, I need to shoot, Steve will be waiting for his pint.”
“Don’t tell me you and Steve are actually spending some quality time together?”
“We had a big talk and decided that we can’t carry on working all hours and never seeing each other. We agreed to have a date night once a month and tonight we’re going to The Bull for a quiet drink.” Livvie picked up a coconut barfi and left.
Alice’s eyes fell on the scrunched picture of the dog on the sideboard. As with Harry’s, she picked it up and smoothed out the creases. The dog’s stony eyes glared back at her. Sarah Evans was adamant that the dog was the cause of both deaths, and until Alice was absolutely, positively sure that Sarah was mistaken, she had to keep an open mind.
Chapter 23
Eleanor waved at Alice before vanishing into the kitchen, Wilson following behind. Alice raced after her. But the door to the garden was open and Alice stalled. Pursuing her client and Renton Hall’s owner into the grounds was a bit over the top. Obviously, the key to staying well-off was to avoid paying your bills.
Decorators were stripping off wallpaper in the room next to the kitchen. Previously used as the Carberry’s informal dining room, it would now serve as a breakfast room for hotel guests and double up as a private dining room for hire. Gina had kept the original fireplace, now being painted black. She patted the decorator’s shoulder as she talked to somebody else on her mobile.
When the call ended, Gina said, “So, Alice, an informal room for breakfast and at the same time, a formal dining room for special occasions. They make my job difficult, no?”
Had Eleanor paid Gina upfront for the paint the men were using? Or for the curtain track they were replacing and the new curtains that would be arriving soon? Gina’s Parisian art dealer would certainly have demanded a deposit to secure the pieces he was buying for her. Thinking of which made Alice ask: “Gina, has Eleanor spoken to you about the Hall’s plans? She wants them hung in the entrance?”
“She hasn’t, no.”
Coward! “Eleanor was very keen on the idea, I’m surprised she hasn’t mentioned it.”
“We’ve already discussed my design for that space and I won’t renegotiate at this stage. Tsk, am I not busy enough already?” Gina’s phone went and it was soon clamped to her ear again.
Alice walked through the conservatory and onto the decking, over the bridge and up the path to Jeremy’s snug. The police tape had been removed, but the building felt dark and forbidding. It almost looked as if it was in pain. Alice hurried passed and into the heart of the wood.
She reached the pet cemetery and made straight for the stone greyhound. Crouching down on one knee she inspected the dog thoroughly. She ran her hand over the sculpture from ears to tail, but there was nothing unusual about the weather-beaten ornament. She got up and circled the graveyard. Finding nothing further to detain her, she carried on to Bill Trevelyan’s house.
Barleyland’s front door was wide open, but when Alice peered inside, the hall was empty.
“Hello,” she called, leaning in from the threshold. She heard a male voice from the back of the house and was just about to reply when she recognised it as belonging to radio presenter JC Brown. The Trevalyans were not going to hear her over him, so Alice thumped on the door and stepped into the house. Getting no response, she walked across the hallway and was at the kitchen door before Elsa Trevelyan looked up from her newspaper.
“Good heavens dear, you did give me a fright,” said Elsa, pressing a hand against her chest. “How did you get in, by the way?”
“The front door was open. I did call out, but you probably couldn’t hear me over the radio.”
“Oh, that would have been Bill, he went out to look at the sweet peas. Anyway, now you’re here, would you like a cup of tea?” Not waiting for a reply, Elsa emptied tea leaves from a chipped teapot into a plastic box on the drainer and spooned in fresh ones.
“Em, we haven’t actually met. I’m Alice. I’m working for Eleanor Carberry at Renton Hall.”
Elsa smiled. “I know dear, Nick Carberry told me all about you at his party. He pointed you out.” She lifted a kettle from the Aga and poured water in the teapot. “It must be exciting for you, being at the Hall while all that fancy work is going on. I expect I won’t recognise the place when it’s finished.”
A cat dashed into the kitchen. Elsa poured milk into a saucer beside the back door and the animal bolted over, slurping up the liquid as quickly as it was replenished.
“That wretched cat got in again,” said a man from the hallway. “It shot past me before I could—” He stopped. “And who are
you?”
“This is Alice. She’s working with Eleanor at the Hall.”
Alice recognised Bill Trevelyan from the party, but he did not appear to remember her. He limped into the kitchen, leaning heavily on a walking stick.
“What are you doing feeding that thing? It’ll never leave now.”
Elsa put the teapot on a large wooden table, along with three cracked mugs from a Welsh dresser. Bill waved his stick at the cat, which ignored him.
“Sit yourself down and we’ll have a nice cup of tea.” Elsa pulled out a chair and manoeuvered Alice onto it.
Bill propped his stick against the sink and clutched the edge of the unit with both hands. “You’re the art lady Eleanor’s got in.”
“That’s right. I’m sorting through the attic at the moment and I’ve already found some of Wilfred’s pieces that I’m hoping we can hang in the hotel.”
“Hmph! I wouldn’t want some stranger rummaging through my things after I’ve gone.” Bill folded his arms and fixed Alice with a hard stare. “I bet old Wilfred is turning in his grave.”
Alice stirred imaginary sugar in her tea. “Eleanor wants a record of all their possessions, so they can work out what to do with them before the house is filled with paying guests.” She knew she sounded pompous, but she didn’t care.
Elsa put a hand on Alice’s arm. “Don’t take any notice of him dear, of course they have to sort through Wilfred’s things. Eleanor is only being practical, as always.”
Alice sipped her tea and fought to disguise a sudden cough. It tasted like antifreeze.
“Is it strong enough dear? I never know with visitors.”
Alice nodded, wiping away a tear. She gobbled the chocolate biscuit Elsa offered, hoping that her taste buds would forgive her. “It will be different for you too, won’t it? Having a hotel next door instead of a family home.”
“It’ll be a big change for us and there’s been no consideration given to it,” said Bill.
“It’ll not have any real effect on us,” said Elsa. “The guests are not staying here after all. And Eleanor will run the hotel, so we’ll still see her regularly. We miss Mary of course, she was a lovely lady. Though it was right that she moved back with her sister, she was lonely at the Hall by herself after George passed away. And as for Nick …” Elsa put both hands over her eyes for a moment. “Well …”
“He’s gone and that’s the end of it,” said Bill. Alice caught his grimace as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “There’s a new phase now at the Hall and I suppose we’ll just have to get on with it.”
“Of course, there’s the wood dividing the two properties, so it’s not as if we’ll see any of the guests,” said Elsa.
“But there’s the path through the wood,” said Alice. “I followed it myself this morning.”
“We’ll block it off.” Bill took a shaky step and grabbed hold of a chair. He leaned towards Alice, dark eyes glaring. “I won’t have strangers tramping over my land.”
Alice shrank into her chair.
“We’ll put up a gate at our end of the path and that’ll stop people coming through,” said Elsa. “And Eleanor said there’ll be signs up at the Hall, telling people this area is private property.”
“But what about Jeremy’s snug?”
“The police have closed it and it’ll stay closed,” said Bill. “The same goes for that animals’ cemetery. I own the whole wood and it’s about time people respected that.”
Had Bill been watching Alice when she had discovered the pet cemetery? Nevertheless, Alice had come to find answers and she intended to get some. She took a deep breath and put her mug on the table. “So that dog is yours? The stone sculpture in the cemetery?”
Elsa picked up the teapot. “Would you like a refill, dear?” Alice shook her head. “The Carberrys will always be welcome on our property. I’m sure that Eleanor’s children will still want to visit the pet cemetery; we’ll be happy for them to carry on doing so. And as for the hotel guests, well there’s plenty of land on the Carberry’s estate for them to roam around.”
“I heard that Nick Carberry had been thinking about putting in an outdoor swimming pool. It would probably be just the other side of the wood from your house. I wonder whether Eleanor will pursue that idea?”
“Not if she’s got any sense,” said Bill. “Kids jumping in the water screaming their heads off. We’ll get no peace around here. Now, I’ve got things to do.” He retrieved his walking stick and stumbled out the back door.
“He’s got grumpy in his old age.” Elsa smiled. “I have a meeting at the church hall shortly, so I’ll see you out.”
The women walked along the gravel driveway. There was no sign of Bill, though the sweet peas looked in good shape.
“It’s been lovely meeting you,” said Alice. “And thank you for the biscuits. And the tea.”
“I’m glad you came. I was going to chat to you at the party, but I didn’t get a chance. Dear Nick, what a horrible shock it’s been.”
“It was so sudden. And what happened exactly, is still a mystery. Do you have any idea who might have killed him?”
Elsa stopped and turned to Alice. “Do you?”
“I have some suspects in mind, but I’m not sure about any of them.”
Elsa put a hand on Alice’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t worry dear,” she said. “These things always sort themselves out in the end.”
Back in the attic, Alice ran through her inventory. She covered her eyes with her hands. The task was far more time-consuming than she had envisaged. Worse, she now realised that she had under-quoted; she would lose money on her first freelance job. She snatched up her phone and sent a firm email to Eleanor, asking for her fee to be paid by the end of the day.
Alice needed to get through the rest of the work as quickly as possible. As she was standing beside an old trunk, she would deal with that next. It was full of papers and photographs, jumbled up together. She emptied armfuls into the wheelie suitcase she had brought with her, zipped it up and headed for Daisy. She would work through the material at home, while she looked for other clients who did pay their bills.
Chapter 24
Alice cleared a space in Daisy’s saloon and tipped the contents of her wheelie bag onto the floor. Rummaging through the pile, she picked out some notebooks and piled them onto the coffee table to look at later. That left a heap of loose papers, invoices, letters and photographs. Alice grouped them together in manageable sections.
Thinking the invoices would be the least informative, Alice started with those. There were bills for repairs to a chicken coop and the respray of a Daimler Conquest. A bill for the hire of a morning suit and top hat for Bertie Hampton’s wedding, had moved Wilfred to write ‘charlatan’ in big letters across the chit. Whether that referred to the hire shop or the groom, was unclear. The bills were a fascinating insight into Wilfred Carberry’s iron grip on the household finances, but, as Alice had expected, they were not much help. She took a couple of pear drops from the sweet jar and flopped onto the beanbag with a pile of letters.
The letters were all written in Wilfred’s hand, mostly in black ink. One was a complaint about a boiler service. Written in an authoritative manner, the letter resulted in a reduction of fifteen percent on the bill. An IOU from the local grocer for eggs caught Alice’s eye. If those were from Wilfred’s chickens originally intended for the family’s use, they had provided an entrepreneurial opportunity. Another letter was to someone called Ned, thanking him for his hospitality during a recent visit. It took a second reading of the ‘Ned’ letter for Alice to realise that either Wilfred had not sent the letter or, perhaps more likely, he had laboriously written a copy to keep himself. Thank goodness for photocopiers!
The letters and invoices exposed another side to Wilfred Carberry, but they did not push Alice’s investigation any further forward. The stack
of photographs was no more useful.
Alice stretched and went up on deck. The river was as still as a landscape painting. She leant an elbow on the barge’s side and looked upriver. Over in Farrell’s field, Patches was grazing contentedly, watched by a pair of blackbirds perched on the gate. Alice whistled, and the pony looked up and whinnied.
Back below, Alice opened the first of Wilfred’s notebooks. The pages contained columns of numbers, so at first it looked like an accounts book. Except there were sketches too. In one section, headed ‘Chicken Coop’, Wilfred had drawn designs for a new home for his birds. Underneath each drawing was a description of the structure and a list of the materials required to build it, together with an estimated cost. Wilfred had come up with three different ideas, but in the end he had decided to repair the one he already had. Clearly it had been thanks to Wilfred’s frugality that the farm at Renton Hall had survived and thrived.
The next book was a personal diary, each entry headed with the day and date. The book began on 21 June 1970, with a moan about the weather. It had rained, ruining Wilfred’s plan to spend the day painting beside the river. Not wanting to stay inside all day, he had done some gardening and got soaking wet. He dried off then watched horse racing on the television. Mary had served lamb cutlets for dinner – very good – and he had enjoyed a brandy afterwards.
Alice flicked through the book, every line filled with Wilfred’s neat writing, recording some observation almost every day. She picked up another diary, this time for 1972. On the back page, her attention was caught by some rare capital letters: “HE AGREED.” She read on. “Agreement to be finalised, but he’s broadly happy with my draft. All in all, a good day’s work.”
Alice backtracked and discovered that the agreement was between Wilfred and Bill Trevelyan. Wilfred noted that the two men had met on 7 August to discuss ‘the issue’. Wilfred did not elaborate further, simply recording that the conversation had gone well. Bill had been receptive to his proposal. But Alice could not see the proposal.