Belchester Box Set

by Andrea Frazer

  Beauchamp replied in a rather frivolous manner. ‘I shall not disclose the contents. I think it would be more fitting if we all went there together and took a look, and I suggest we leave that until rather later, so as not to arouse anyone’s suspicions. It might be injurious to our hostess, should she have had the misfortune to have been kidnapped, although I assume she must be in the dungeons themselves, as I didn’t come across her on my little fact-finding mission.’

  Halfway back down to the ground floor, Lady Amanda bade the other two go on ahead. She was absolutely knackered, although she would never use that word aloud. She’d ‘snail’ her way down to Hugo to see if he’d dislodged anything interesting from the library books. As she plodded doggedly on, she wondered about Enid.

  She had changed enormously since Hugo’s arrival, and the events that had followed on from that. The woman was always in and out of hospital with some minor complaint like in-growing nose-hairs and septic toe (Lady A was not the most sympathetic of creatures) but now she had, it seemed, a new lease of life – and health.

  She must just have been bored before, she decided, and seeking attention in the only way she knew how. She had, after all, had her demanding old mother living with her and a smelly old cat that did nothing but destroy things and leave intentional messes, although she was fond of both.

  Hugo had, of course, found nothing. She had only given him the task because she didn’t want him feeling left out, and eventually they all came together again in Lady A’s room. Beauchamp having produced refreshments, Lady Amanda informed them of what she had gleaned from the visitors’ book, and declared that they now needed a map. Those addresses were important in some way: she could feel it in her water. Hugo winced as she said this, and turned his head away at the very thought of Lady A’s personal eau, wrinkling his nose in disgust. There were limits!

  ‘No need for cumbersome old maps, your ladyship,’ Beauchamp announced, ‘for I have one of those electronic tablets that give one access to the internet and global maps, with zoom capabilities.’

  ‘I have no idea at all what you’re talking about, but I’m sure it’s marvellous. Perhaps you would explain it to us?’ Lady A wasn’t very up on the latest technology, although she had a laptop, and a mobile phone, albeit a very ordinary model.

  The manservant went to his half-sister’s wardrobe and reached to the highest shelf. ‘I left it in here for security,’ he explained, bringing out a relatively small, flat, black plastic thing. ‘This is the tablet,’ he explained, ‘and it works just like a computer, with a few other functions that are rather unique. I can log on to a global map site, type in the location of the addresses, and it should bring up a picture of that area. We can then zoom in for quite a close look, although it might get a bit fuzzy if we try to look too closely.’

  ‘Whatever will they think of next?’ exclaimed Lady A. ‘I want one as soon as we get back home.’

  ‘I can also search their names. If they’re listed, we might learn a few interesting things from that service,’ he continued.

  ‘Actually, I want one NOW!’ Lady Amanda had never been known for her patience.

  The only addresses that were actually in Scotland were those of Wallace Menzies and Quinton Wriothesley, although both men had excruciatingly posh English accents due to being sent away to school.

  Menzies lived furthest north, on the coast, and it was possible to see what looked like a fishing business on the coast that was part of his land. Although Wriothesley lived further inland, a quick look for him on the internet revealed that he had a small haulage business. These two facts were very encouraging when allied with the other information they had gleaned.

  Their meeting was interrupted, at that point in the proceedings, by Evelyn Awlle, who announced that Inspector Glenister had requested the presence of Lady Amanda in Sir Cardew’s study, and he awaited her even as she spoke. Muttering under her breath, ‘Bum! More dashed stairs,’ Lady A rose, grabbed one of Hugo’s walking sticks, and followed her from the room. Much more of this castle-exploring and she’d be after his walking frame when they got home.

  Inspector Glenister greeted her with a hearty handshake and a smile. After requesting that she take a seat, he said, somewhat facetiously, ‘No article belonging to you was found in connection with the corpse this time, so it would seem that I can eliminate you as our prime suspect for the piper’s murder, and that of Sir Cardew.

  ‘It appears, though, that someone is planning to go into the kebab business. What an extraordinary way to go about a murder. Do you have any idea about what’s going on?’

  Not wishing to lie, she decided to prevaricate. ‘I can’t imagine what could link the death of a piper with the death of our host,’ and in a way, this was completely true. She didn’t have a clue what linked these murders, but she was damned sure that they had something to do with the illegal hooch business that was being carried out on the estate, but hunches were not fact, so she felt quite justified in keeping her silence.

  ‘I understand that no one was present – save for the murderer – when Sir Cardew was done away with. Can you confirm that?’

  ‘I think we had all been taking some filthy non-alcoholic substitute for brandy in the library, but I can’t be sure. They’re such big rooms, and people were coming and going, and talking in pairs and groups that constantly reformed.’

  ‘Come on, lassie! There were hardly hundreds of guests there,’ the inspector declared, with a modicum of impatience.

  ‘No, there weren’t,’ she retorted in a challenging voice, ‘but then, no one told us we were going to have to make a statement about who talked to whom, who went off to the lavatory or to tidy their hair or make-up, and who may have gone to their room for something. We had no idea that we were to be held to account because there was going to be a murder. None of us has a crystal ball, you know!’

  ‘I’m sorry if I sounded a little testy. It’s just that I cannae seem to get an accurate picture of who was where, when the fatality occurred. And to top it all, we have Lady Siobhan’s disappearance, and we don’t know whether she’s run away in distress, or whether she’s been kidnapped: which seems vera unlikely, but we have to consider every avenue of possibility.’

  As he finished his speech, there was a sharp rap on the door, and Constable MacDuff burst into the room waving a piece of paper in a gloved hand. ‘There’s a note, sir. It was nailed to the outside of the front door. I went outside for a wee toke on ma pipe, and there it was. It’s a ransom note!’ He was very excited, not just at the turn of events, but that he had been the one to find the note. The length of his rolled ‘r’s had increased with the progression of his triumphant tale of discovery.

  ‘That confirms it, then,’ declared Glenister. ‘It is kidnapped, she’s been. I’ll need to get a search party together to go through the estate with a fingertip search. Do we know how many bothies and shelters there are in the forest? No doubt there are dozens, and the trees are vera dense in some parts. Have the evidence lads left yet? No? Right, well tell them to stay on, and procure as many members of the outside staff as you can. They know the estate better than anyone else, and their knowledge could prove invaluable.’

  The constable bustled off full of self-importance, and Glenister once more turned his attention to his interviewee. ‘I’m sorry, lassie, but this is of prime importance, now we know that Lady Siobhan has been taken against her will.’

  ‘No problem, Inspector. I quite understand. And don’t forget to pass on my best wishes to Adrian, when you speak to him next.’

  ‘Ma wee Sassenach nephew? Aye, of course I will. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but ma brother’s no better than all these nobs who were born in this glorious country and whose parents sent them to posh schools and universities south of the border. Ma aen brother didnae want any children of his to speak with a Scottish accent, snob that he was. I must be off, but I’ll need to speak to the rest of your party before I go, so don’t leave the castle grounds, now w
ill ye?’ He seemed to have suddenly become more Scottish with the excitement, and begun to repeat himself in his agitation. ‘And I’d better summon a hostage negotiator too,’ he concluded.

  Lady Amanda knew that his request not to leave the grounds was an order and not a polite request, and left him to it, as he was obviously eager to get on with the search for their hostess. She’d hobble her way back to the others, so that they could make plans. They certainly knew a lot of things. Now all they had to do was to put them together in a coherent story, and make plans for how to uncover all the dastardly deeds that were being committed on this estate.

  Hugo was in the drawing room reading an old edition of The Scotsman which he had found lying around, and was apparently absorbed in it. Of Beauchamp and Enid, there was no sign. ‘Hey-ho, old thing,’ Lady Amanda greeted him wearily. Where are the other two?’

  ‘Well, they were with me, but then Iain Smellie joined them, and informed them that Elspeth’s maid had been doing a bit of eavesdropping, and had heard talk of some illegal goods being stashed somewhere. Anyway, the maid told Elspeth, Elspeth told Iain, and he went to Sir Cardew with the information. This was just before dinner last night. Iain said ‘I don’t know if it means anything with regard to what happened later, but I think we’d better inform the inspector, don’t you?’

  ‘I said he ought to do what he felt was right, and left it at that, and he scuttled off. Immediately, the other two took off for the staff quarters, to see if they could get anything more detailed from that Campbell girl, and then you arrived.’

  ‘Good!’ declared Lady Amanda, her spirits lifting. ‘He won’t find the inspector because he’s getting a search party together. That constable – what was his name? MacDuff? – found a note nailed to the outside of the front door. I didn’t get a good look at it, but they said it was a ransom note, so we know more than anyone else, at the moment.

  ‘He won’t have time to interview him, but he might get him to round up the other guests to help in the search party. I certainly hope so, because that’ll give us the castle more or less to ourselves. We can plead age and infirmity, Hugo. Don’t look at me like that! It’s true! And we can plead that we need Beauchamp and Enid to help us. That should give us enough time to get together, assemble this new information, and come up with a plan.’

  ‘You’re using one of my walking sticks. You might have asked,’ Hugo exclaimed, having just noticed it.

  ‘See, I am infirm!’ she declared, trumping his ace.

  Now all they had to do was wait for the return of Beauchamp and Enid, to see what they had managed to winkle out of the dazzlingly ugly Mary Campbell.

  When Beauchamp and Enid returned to the drawing room, they were bursting with news, the first item being more of culinary importance, than of interest in their investigations. ‘We are charged with fending for ourselves until an early supper is laid out. It will be a cold collation for those returning from the search, to be self-served, as and when they return. May I offer you some smoked salmon sandwiches for your midday sustenance?’

  ‘Butties be damned!’ burst out Lady A, while Hugo murmured,

  ‘That would be very nice, and good of you to suggest it, Beauchamp. Thank you.’

  ‘Come on, man! Give! What did you find out? I’m bursting to know.’

  Beauchamp gave them both a sweeping glance, and bowed his head slightly at Hugo, to affirm his appreciation of his good manners. ‘It transpired that when the constable went to the staff quarters to ask for volunteers for the search party, he told them what was in the ransom note.’

  Lady A and Hugo both sat forward in their seats eagerly, waiting for him to continue with the details. ‘It appears that the note was written in disguised capital letters, and asked for safe passage for three, from the country, before they would return their hostage. If this was not complied with, they would kill her. The note was found nailed to the front door.’

  ‘What lousy pen-pals they’d make,’ was Lady A’s comment on this last. ‘Well, we know who two of those three are already. One member of the little gang has been eliminated, and it’s obvious that Siobhan knew nothing about any of the monkey business going on right under her nose. We need to foil those three, whoever the third member is – probably one of the woodsmen – and rescue Siobhan, before we can let any of what we know out.’

  ‘Precisely,’ agreed Hugo. ‘Who’d believe us, with all these people of seemingly impeccable reputations under this roof? And if we say anything and let them know what we know, then they’ll realise we know, and make a run for it before they can be taken into custody, don’t you know?’

  ‘Pardon?’ asked Enid, confused with who knew what about whom, and what the result would be.

  ‘Ignore him, Enid. He gets a bit like that sometimes. I don’t know whether they’re senior moments, or whether he’s somehow related to Winnie the Pooh,’ Lady A reassured her. ‘The important thing now, is to decide what to do, and when to do it.’

  ‘Well, whatever it is, I suggest we carry it out under cover of darkness, when everyone is safely asleep. We don’t want to put poor Lady Siobhan in any more danger than she is in already,’ declared Beauchamp, with impeccable logic, as usual. ‘I’ll get those sandwiches now, while Enid rustles up a nice pot of tea, then I suggest you two have a nap this afternoon, because it could be a very busy night for all of us.’

  Chapter Eight

  It was a very dark place, the only light filtering in from a tiny piercing of the wall, and Siobhan had no idea where she was, what time it was, or even if it was a different day. All she knew was that her ankles were in irons, as were her wrists. She could not stand, but could manipulate food and drinks.

  These had been brought to her twice since she had been seized by someone wearing a dark ski mask, but she had no idea whether it was someone from the castle, or a complete stranger, seeing an opportunity she didn’t understand.

  She was lucky she had been wearing her dressing gown when she was taken, for it was cold here, wherever here was, and she’d had no idea that there had been a set of stone steps inside the walls of the castle. She thought she was in the dungeons, but she couldn’t be sure, because a handkerchief soaked in something sweet and disgusting had been put over her face once the perilous staircase had been descended. In reality, she could have been transported anywhere. She had no way of knowing.

  The food was delivered by the masked man, but she couldn’t be sure whether it was the same one who had kidnapped her, or an accomplice. All she knew was that he didn’t utter a word, so she had no way of identifying him from his voice.

  Whoever it was had some sense of decency. There was an old china commode within her reach, and a roll of necessary paper, and this object had been emptied and returned on both occasions when she had been brought sustenance, so her captor couldn’t be an out-and-out monster. She just wished it was either a little warmer here, or that they would bring her a blanket.

  Her mind was in a turmoil about everything that had happened. It had started with the murder of their beloved family piper. Then Cardew had been brutally murdered, and here she was, kidnapped. Whatever she could have done to deserve all this, she had no idea. She hadn’t thought that anyone hated her enough to deprive her of a member of staff, a husband whom she had grown rather used to over the years, and then her own liberty. She wondered how long it would be before she regained her freedom, if she were that lucky.

  Then the terrible and terrifying reality struck her. What if she were never released, and spent the rest of her life in captivity – like the Man in the Iron Mask? Only without the mask! What if they killed her because they couldn’t get whatever it was they wanted? If they (whoever ‘they’ were) would only ask, she’d give them anything she had, to get out of her current situation.

  She was far too young to die, despite having reached what other people might consider a reasonable age. She simply wasn’t ready. There were far too many things that she had never done, too many places that she had never s
een. She wasn’t ready for the castle to be handed down to the next generation. Was anyone even looking for her, or had they assumed that she had decided to go away for a few days, after the shock of the tragedy that had befallen her husband?

  A thousand fears beset her racing mind, as she heard someone approaching the place where she was being held prisoner. Would this be food? Or was it Death, who came for her this time?

  ‘If the ransom note was found nailed to the front door,’ Lady Amanda was expounding, ‘then why did no one hear it being done, and investigate. And surely someone would have seen them.’

  ‘Because the note was merely speared on an extant nail, that has probably been there for decades,’ said Beauchamp’s distinctive voice just by her ear, and she shrieked with shock.

  ‘How the heck did you get there? Oh, don’t tell me. You have a tread with the lightness of a cat’s,’ she scolded her manservant, then, as he approached the coffee table in front of them, she saw his face, and her spirits soared. His expression was one of suppressed glee, and there was news in his eyes. ‘You’ve got information, haven’t you, Beauchamp? What is it? Was it that Campbell girl?’

  ‘All in good time, your ladyship,’ he advised, maddeningly, and proceeded to pour the tea for four, Enid joining them from behind his rather larger frame.

  ‘Come on, man! You know you’ve got us in suspense.’ Even Enid looked excited, and a little triumphant, knowing something that Lady A and Hugo did not.

  When they were all seated, it not making any difference if guests and staff sat together, with the absence of almost all the usual characters who might disapprove, he told them what he had discovered. ‘I didn’t get any more from the Campbell girl …’

  Here, Enid interrupted him with a comment that was extremely un-Enid-like. ‘When they handed out “pretty” she must have thought they said “shitty” and said she didn’t want any. I’ve never seen anyone who looked so like a medieval gargoyle in my life.’