Hall of Mirrors

by Christopher Fowler

  Of the group, only Vanessa Harrow looked well rested. Her hair was tied back and her cheeks were in bloom. She wore a dark blue sweater with a lemon chiffon scarf and seemed in happier spirits. ‘I’m sorry to have alarmed everyone,’ she told May. ‘I only took the pills to make sure I’d get some sleep. I don’t understand what could have happened.’

  ‘The main thing is that you’re well,’ said May. ‘No side effects?’

  ‘I feel perfectly fine now. That poor old servant – what an awful thing to have happened. I feel so sorry for him.’

  ‘It was murder, Miss Harrow.’

  ‘Who would do such a thing?’

  ‘The same person who added a sleeping draught to your water glass. You’re lucky to be alive.’

  ‘My God. The water was on the table when I went up to my room. I assumed Parchment had put it there for me.’

  ‘Is there anything you haven’t told us? Why would somebody want to silence you?’

  ‘I have no idea. They were disgusting to me yesterday, pretty much all of them. I admit I was upset, but I just needed to rest. What will happen now?’

  ‘The team from Canterbury will probably detain you all until they’re happy that they have everything they need,’ said Bryant. He left the others and walked out into the hall with his hands in the pockets of his absurdly baggy trousers, wondering whether to take Gladys’s advice and go to the library.

  He stopped in mid-stride and slowly walked backwards.

  Something was different.

  The stained-glass windows on the landing sent a diagonal stripe of crimson and blue across the opposite wall. The shadow of Herne the Hunter was sinisterly elongated so that it appeared to have been cast by someone standing at the window. The tip of the hunter’s arrow could clearly be seen. It was the first thing he had noticed when he arrived on Friday evening.

  But what had the arrow been pointing to? What was missing?

  Mirror, painting, hall table – that was it; there had been a second picture there. It had disappeared. He headed back to Iris.

  ‘Lady Banks-Marion, might I borrow you for a moment?’

  She rose from a high chair without bending her back or using her hands, a skill that must have been taught to her in finishing school. When she saw the wall, her reaction was powerful and immediate.

  ‘Do you know what’s different?’ Bryant asked.

  ‘Of course I do. The boats have gone.’

  ‘What boats?’

  ‘Willem van de Velde the Younger’s Harbour Scene is meant to be hanging there.’

  ‘Is it valuable?’

  ‘Extremely. Although not priceless.’ When she saw the detective’s blank look, she explained. ‘It can be sold, Mr Bryant.’

  ‘When did you last notice it?’

  ‘One rarely notices the things in one’s own house.’ She thought for a minute. ‘It was here first thing this morning, I’m sure of it, because of the way the light was coming in. You see how it looks as if there’s an arrow pointing at it? Do you think Parchment saw someone take it? Could the person who stole this also have attacked him?’

  ‘He was at his post in the corridor one floor up,’ Bryant pointed out. ‘It seems unlikely that the events are directly connected. Have you ever had thefts from the hall before?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Lady Banks-Marion impatiently. ‘A house of this size always has trouble. It attracts undesirables. They get to know the parlourmaids and find ways to attend the parties. The villagers know this is our last weekend and are furious with us. I was half expecting them to try something like this.’ She seemed more upset about the loss of the painting than the death of her loyal servant.

  ‘Are you sure it wouldn’t just have been moved for cleaning?’

  ‘On a Sunday?’ She looked at him as if he was an idiot. ‘Cleaning is Mondays and Tuesdays. Well, don’t just stand there, go and look for it.’

  It seemed that the library would have to wait. Bryant conducted a less than systematic search of the hall, and when that yielded no results he checked the bedrooms before heading off for the basement. Near the fuse box he found a deep cupboard stacked with a pyramid of logs. Someone had stood on them recently, disturbing the pile.

  At the back, the edge of an engraved frame met Bryant’s fingertips. He pulled gently and found the picture, or rather what was left of it, because the painting itself had been inexpertly cut out with a sharp blade, leaving only the frame.

  It can be rolled up and hidden, he thought. Just how many crimes are taking place here?

  Having at least partially fulfilled Lady Banks-Marion’s request, he went to the library and found himself a big armchair, a still-warm coffee pot and an ashtray. He needed to clear his head. Anthony Trollope had said that the habit of reading would last you until your death. He could have added that it was a tool to ignite the mind.

  The great wall of leather-bound volumes faced him. Their immaculate spines suggested that most had never been read. Some recounted the history of the house and its owners, others pertained to the Kentish surroundings. To fully understand the tenants of Tavistock Hall would take years.

  He had just two and a half hours.

  Rising, he walked along the shelves, his fingertips brushing the dust jackets. The endless volumes of family history made for dry reading, and had clearly been produced with the co-operation of the estate, so were unlikely to contain anything detrimental or revealing. Animal husbandry, garden maintenance, guides to collecting art; after a few minutes he felt like giving up.

  Away from the more illustrious volumes was a separate case filled with old paperbacks. At least some of these appeared to have been handled. He found a first edition of Sherlock Holmes. Allowing the pages to fall open, he guiltily read from ‘The Boscombe Valley Mystery’. Sometimes Conan Doyle could help where columns of statistical data failed.

  His finger ran along a single line: ‘There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.’

  What was the most obvious fact? Pulling his black notebook from his jacket, he dug out a pencil stub and made a careful entry.

  He needed something else. In the other bookcase an elegantly embossed volume caught his eye: The Treasures of the Wallace Collection. His natural curiosity took hold of him.

  The index revealed a name he had just heard. Willem van de Velde the Younger, Dutch marine painter buried in St James’s Church, Piccadilly. And there it was, Harbour Scene, a not especially eye-catching painting that existed in several versions. As Lady Banks-Marion had stated, not priceless, but one that could be fenced if stolen.

  There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.

  Heading back to the armchair, he poured himself a strong coffee and sat back, sipping with the cup perched between both hands.

  The final weekend party.

  Monty’s accident.

  Vanessa at the barn.

  Burke’s body in the macerator.

  Parchment’s brutal, slapdash death.

  The barman in the Goat & Compasses: ‘You newcomers are always in such a rush.’

  Claxon telling him, ‘If I put this in one of my crime novels nobody would believe a word of it.’

  The white gloves.

  The pig, Malacrida.

  It was there at his fingertips, if he could only …

  He went back to the beginning. It all started with Harry meeting Donald Burke. Norma explained that her husband was planning to buy the property without having seen it. He had no real interest in Tavistock Hall. He merely saw it as an investment opportunity. His friends admired his ability to read future trends. He wasn’t interested in any of the guests. He was distrustful and wanted to be left alone. He knew four people: his wife, his mistress, his lawyer and, tangentially, Harry, who had been useful in securing the house below its real value.

  Therefore, since he felt uncomfortable with strangers, he could only have been meeting one of those four in the barn. But Norma and Harry had been in the dining room and the lawyer had been
stood up. So he had to have been seeing Vanessa Harrow.

  Bryant set down his coffee cup and returned to Iris. Vanessa and Monty were sitting by the window. Vanessa caught Bryant’s eye as he entered, as if she had sensed that he would come for her.

  ‘It was you Donald Burke arranged to meet at the barn,’ he said, a statement of fact. ‘Yesterday, just before lunch. It could not have been anyone else but you, Miss Harrow.’

  ‘I’d been to the village,’ said Vanessa, fright showing in her eyes. ‘I came back – didn’t mean to – I never wanted …’ The words died in her mouth.

  ‘You never wanted what?’

  ‘Nothing. I shouldn’t have agreed to come here this weekend.’

  ‘Why did you?’

  ‘I – I – Please, leave me alone.’ She rose suddenly and fled from the room.

  ‘Vanessa,’ called Monty, going after her.

  ‘John, what am I missing?’ Bryant asked his partner as they left. ‘Why can’t I get an outright admission from anyone?’

  ‘Because you’re chasing them around like a hound worrying foxes to death,’ said May.

  Bryant waved his hands helplessly. ‘I can’t understand what goes through these people’s heads. If you asked me to find out whether Tavistock Hall was built on a confluence of ley lines I’d be able to figure out the answer, but all this … human emotion makes no sense to me.’

  Outside the sky was thunderous once more. Penny-sized spots of rain had begun to clatter against the glass. ‘There’s no more time for abstract thinking,’ said May. ‘We have to be practical, and leave everything in a fit state so that it can be handed over. By the way, where’s Fruity? He’s supposed to be keeping watch for us.’

  ‘I haven’t seen him all morning.’

  ‘Oh God, don’t let there be another one.’

  The rain began beating down so hard that they had to shout above it. ‘It doesn’t take both of us to look,’ said May. ‘You said you had clues. Do you know what’s going on here or don’t you? There’s no time left to hold anything back.’

  ‘I have most of the pieces, but the overall picture is – unfocused,’ Bryant admitted helplessly.

  ‘Then go back to the library and for God’s sake find your focus,’ said May. ‘I’ll try the gatehouse. I don’t think we’re in control of the situation any more.’

  When he stepped out on to the lawn and looked back at the house, he saw only a monumental phantom, half lost in sweeping veils of rain.

  38

  * * *

  STEP IN TIME

  Bryant walked back into the hall from the library and passed by each of the other rooms: Snowdrop, Lavender, Rose, Iris, Hawthorn, Primrose, all decorated in pastels and perfectly tidy but badly laid out, with the English habit of pushing the furniture too far back towards the walls. On the first floor Parchment’s upright body remained behind a sheet like a shop mannequin put into storage, while the undissolved parts of the first victim still lay in the barn outside.

  He thought about the dissected Donald Burke and the bludgeoned Monty. The pair were roughly the same size, age and shape. It wasn’t entirely unlikely that someone could mistake the two of them. Different scenarios replaced each other like pages in a flick-book. Burke turning up at the barn in place of Monty. The killer thinking Vanessa was a witness. Parchment placing the water glass on Vanessa’s bedside table.

  Once again, his thought processes had led him astray from what he had intended to do. As he was passing Primrose, the breakfast room, something caught his eye. There was a fresh black mark on the carpet in front of the fireplace. He entered and rubbed at the carpet with the toe of his shoe. The wrought-iron grate was covered in a new fall of soot.

  There were no longer enough members of staff to keep the fireplaces lit. He noted that most of the ground-floor rooms had electric radiators. Someone had recently stood here.

  Removing his pocket torch, he bent down and peered up the chimney. The flue was partially wedged open, but the beam could not light the brickwork above it. He needed to stand inside. Climbing over the grate and pushing himself into the chimney breast he rose and reached up, shoving back the flue. A shower of soot poured down over him.

  Coughing, he felt around the edges of the brick. As he had suspected, there was a ledge just at the end of his fingertips. He gave a little hop, dislodging a fresh fall of soot. I’m going to look a right Charlie if I’m wrong, he thought, jumping again.

  John May was walking around the gatehouse, trying to see in through the windows, but the gutters were overflowing and the ground underfoot was so slippery with mud and leaves that he had trouble getting close. From this distance he could not see into the rooms. He tried the front door but it was now wedged shut. The cottage was permanently shaded by the trees, and there were no lights on inside.

  ‘Mr Metcalf?’ The house was silent except for the patter of rain on its roof.

  There was a small green wooden shed at the rear of the gatehouse. He was not expecting to find anything, but it was worth a try.

  Inside it was too dark to see. He ran his torch beam over the tools that had been neatly arranged along one wall. Each item had a hook and fitted into a painted outline.

  One large piece was missing: by the look of it, a sledgehammer.

  An unpleasant feeling started to grow in his stomach. If Parchment had seen something that had cost him his life, how much more likely was it that Fruity, employed by the unit as a double agent, had met his end? After all, he had been asked by Roger Trapp to report back on everyone.

  May began searching the field behind the gatehouse with renewed energy. At the ashram he interrupted some kind of prayer meeting involving chanted responses, but no one was able to help him. Only Melanie and Donovan knew whom he was talking about.

  The rain was falling harder now and his jacket was soaked. His shirt stuck to his back. Knowing how reluctant Metcalf was to go inside the house, he decided to walk the perimeter. He could hardly get any wetter.

  There was no birdsong any more, only the whispering, suffocating rainfall. The rooftop of the hall was effervescent with water, its drainpipes inundated. It seemed as if the house might be sinking back into the loamy Kentish soil stone by stone.

  Halfway around the wall he came to a break where an oak tree had been allowed to spread on wild scrubland. At its roots a hawthorn bush had grown between the trunk and some rocks. It was a melancholy corner, dark and foul-smelling, but what brought him to a halt were the shattered branches near the base.

  He crouched and stared into the undergrowth, amazed that he hadn’t noticed it before. The fallen leaves were saturated in blood. Partially hidden beneath them was a length of machine-tooled wood. Carefully reaching in, he dislodged the handle of the missing sledgehammer. Its iron head was draped in a skein of gore too thick to be washed off by the rain. The undergrowth bore marks of having been crushed. Leaves and broken branches were spattered with blood where a body had been dragged from the site. The raised rubber boot that had been attached to Fruity’s artificial leg was lying on its side, torn and blood-soaked.

  The trail ended as soon as he left the cover of the oak. Here soaked grass began, cut short and rain-flattened. The corpse could have been pulled in any direction.

  He ran back to the house and into the hall, not stopping to remove his muddy boots. Pamela Claxon was on the stairs with a book in her hand.

  ‘Shoes, Mr May,’ she said, shocked.

  ‘Have you seen Arthur?’

  ‘He was either in Iris or Primrose, I can’t remember which. You’re treading in an awful lot of mud. Mrs Janverley will kill you.’

  ‘Which one is Primrose?’

  ‘The unheated one. Straight ahead on your left.’

  He ran to the breakfast room and charged inside, only to find it empty. ‘Arthur,’ he called, ‘where are you?’

  ‘I’m stuck,’ Bryant replied from somewhere inside the walls, his voice muffled. ‘I think I’ve swallowed a mouse.’

  Ma
y looked around and saw a pair of legs poking out beneath the chimney breast. ‘What on earth are you doing in there?’

  ‘Can you pull me out?’

  He climbed in and tugged at Bryant’s trousers. ‘Try wriggling,’ he suggested as soot fell all around them. Bryant came free and landed on his backside in a filthy cascade.

  ‘Fruity Metcalf’s had his head bashed in,’ said May, spitting soot.

  ‘Is he all right?’ When Bryant blinked open his very white eyes he looked like one of the chimney sweeps from Mary Poppins.

  ‘No, of course he’s not all right, someone hit him with a sledgehammer and dragged his body away. We have to find him. Why were you stuck up a chimney?’

  ‘To get this.’ Bryant brandished a roll of filthy cloth tied with a piece of string. Together they stepped out of the fireplace. Bryant was completely black. The room looked like a bomb had gone off in it.

  ‘What is it?’ asked May.

  Bryant coughed out something unpleasant, then dropped to the floor and tugged at the string on the roll. ‘It’s the missing painting. Primrose is the only room with an unlit fire. Behind the dampers in the chimneys of these old houses there’s always a smoke shelf. That was where the thief put it.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Well, that’s something I have to prove.’

  ‘Can it wait? This is rather more important. I’ve got a murder weapon. Half-hidden inside some tree roots at the end of the property.’

  ‘What about the body?’

  ‘We need to conduct a proper search of the undergrowth. There’s blood everywhere. I suppose he could have been buried, but I have a feeling our murderer has a nastier surprise up his – or her – sleeve. We’ll have to get shovels.’

  ‘That doesn’t fit in with my hypothesis at all,’ Bryant complained, ineffectually patting himself down. ‘If it was a proper country house murder mystery it would be the guests who were bumped off, not the staff. The running order isn’t right.’

  ‘Wait, what hypothesis?’ asked May, annoyed. ‘You’re supposed to be staying in touch with me. How can we work as a team if you keep holding stuff back?’