Murder in Thistlecross

by Amy M. Reade

  “Where’s the will?” he asked, low and deadly.

  “There is no other will!” I grunted, trying to free myself from his grasp, my head spinning from the force of the blow against the stone.

  “I should have known you’d be trouble from the minute I arrived at the castle,” Hugh said, yanking me into a standing position. His arms closed around my chest from behind, squeezing, making it hard for me to breathe. “I should have killed you instead of Annabel—it would have been easier to convince her to destroy the new will.”

  I let out a groan. “Why did you kill her? Your own mother?” I managed to ask.

  “Because she never loved us! She didn’t care about us! All those times she let our father beat us senseless… It should have been her. She had a duty to protect us and she failed!”

  “She loved you, Hugh. She was scared to death of your father. And she was young and made mistakes. But she loved you more than you realize. She wanted to make amends.”

  “Ha!” Hugh shouted, his voice ugly and ragged. I was struggling to get away from him and it was just making him angrier. Someone was pounding on the wooden door leading to the ruined wing of the castle. I glanced in that direction and saw that Hugh had wedged a stone under the door so no one could follow us.

  “Help!” I cried, but my voice came out as more of a croak.

  “Eilidh?” I had never been so happy to hear Griff’s voice. “Eilidh, are you in there?” He rattled the door handle again. “Open the door!”

  “Shh,” Hugh whispered savagely in my ear. “Maybe he’ll go away.”

  In reply, I made a noise with my throat that I hoped would be loud enough for Griff to hear on the other side of the heavy door. Hugh immediately let go of me and struck out at my face with his closed fist. I saw stars. There was a loud ringing in my ears that wouldn’t stop. I stumbled back toward the door and slammed into it with my shoulder. Then I was on all fours on the floor, shaking my head and trying to get the ringing to stop when Hugh rushed over to me. Bending down, he held me in place with his arm while he kicked my abdomen repeatedly. I curled up into a ball as best I could to stop the blows, still making sure to hit the door with my feet so Griff would know I was inside.

  I couldn’t stand up. Hugh had tired himself out—he was bent over, his hands on his knees, taking a few deep breaths. I knew I wasn’t getting back into the castle without serious injury, or worse, if I couldn’t get help. I could dimly hear shouts coming from the hallway, and just a moment later Griff burst through the door, splintering the wood and heaving a heavy crow bar onto the stone floor as soon as the door opened. He took one look at what was happening and advanced toward Hugh. Hugh stood up straight, flexing his hands to let his fists fly at Griff. But Griff wasn’t tired like Hugh was. He picked up a stone and hurled it at Hugh’s head.

  Hugh hit the floor with a sickening thud and suddenly my ordeal was over. Hugh lay unconscious amid the crumbling old walls of the castle ruins and I stood trembling by the door, crying my thanks and trying to keep my arms around my chest, protecting the bones I was sure Hugh had broken with his vicious kicks.

  Griff sank to the floor next to me. I cried like a baby as he held me in his arms, waiting for the police and an ambulance to arrive.

  “Could you hear what Hugh told me?” I asked between gulps of air and wrenching sobs.

  “I could hear most of it. He killed Annabel, didn’t he?”

  I nodded, unable to speak until I could catch my breath. He helped me shift my position so I could breathe more easily.

  By the time I could relate the full conversation between Hugh and me, the police had arrived at the castle. In all their visits to the castle they had never been in the ruined wing and Rhisiart showed them where to go. Two ambulance attendants wheeled a stretcher down the hallway behind the police, but they weren’t able to enter the ruins with it. They waited for me in the corridor.

  Not long afterward, Sylvie ran up to the rest of us, clamoring to know where I was and what had happened to me. Sylvie broke down and cried with relief when she saw me.

  Griff rode with me to the hospital in the back of the ambulance. Once I had been examined, prodded, X-rayed, and given a room, the police came in to ask questions. Griff stepped out when they first arrived, but a nurse came in just a moment later to ask the police to keep their questioning to a minimum, as I had to rest. I was thankful to have Griff looking out for me.

  I told them everything Hugh had told me—that he killed Annabel, that he believed there was another will, that he had attacked Brenda thinking it was me. The officers took notes furiously while I spoke, then the nurse ducked her head in again to ask if they could come back another time to continue questioning me.

  They left, but it was several minutes before Griff returned. He told me they had questioned him too, in the hallway right outside my room, and he gave them the same information I had shared with them. He was holding my hand and stroking my good arm, helping me to fall asleep, when Sylvie arrived. She started crying all over again when she saw me. The emotions across her face told me everything.

  “Seamus said he’s sorry he can’t come to the hospital, but he’s too sick,” she said with a hiccup. “He’s mad at you, though, for going over to the castle without him.” She let out a short laugh; the tears started afresh.

  “Tell him that’s okay, I won’t need his help after all,” I said, barely able to smile through the pain in my face and jaw.

  “I’m so glad you’re all right,” Sylvie cried, bending over to kiss my forehead. One of her tears fell on my cheek and my tears mingled with it.

  “I’m fine, Sylvie. Stop crying. I’m going to be as good as new,” I assured her. “I’m just sorry you had to make the trip back here.”

  She waved her hand at me to dismiss the thought. “We’re so glad we could be here when you needed us the most,” she said. “What happens next?”

  The nurse had come into the room. “What happens next is that you go home,” she said, “and let this poor woman rest.”

  Sylvie left with a promise to return later in the day and a few minutes later I was sound asleep. I didn’t sleep long, though, because I got more visitors. Griff whispered in my ear, “Eilidh, Cadi and Rhisiart are here. Do you want to talk to them?”

  “If I have to,” I mumbled. The pair walked into my room, Cadi’s hands clenched in front of her and Rhisiart running his hand through his hair. Griff eyed him warily.

  “How are you doing?” Rhisiart asked.

  “I’ve been better, but I’m going to be all right.”

  “I think we owe you an apology for everything that has happened,” he said. Cadi nodded beside him.

  “I really thought it was Sian who killed Annabel. Sian really is an avid gardener. What I told you was true. God, how I wish it had been her. I can’t believe it was Hugh,” she said. “I have always known him to have a temper, but not like that. To kill his own mother…” She trailed off, probably thinking about what life would be like for her after Hugh went to prison, which would surely happen. I knew a thing or two about surviving while a spouse was in prison. I knew what anguish was headed her way.

  “And to attack Brenda like that, thinking she was you,” Cadi continued after a moment. “I’m so very sorry for all of it.”

  I could do nothing but nod. Rhisiart spoke again. “Hugh was frantic when he found out there might be another will. He felt we should find it and destroy it in case Annabel had left her estate to someone else. Like you,” he said, pointing to me.

  “Even if she had, I wouldn’t have accepted it,” I said. “I don’t want to live at the castle without Annabel. She was the one who made it a happy place. It’s not a happy place anymore.”

  “So the will—do you know where it is?” Rhisiart asked. Would he never stop this line of questioning?

  “Rhisiart,” I said with a long sigh, “there is no other
will. You can turn that castle upside-down and you’ll never find it because it doesn’t exist. As I told Hugh, I made up that story because I knew you were following me and Sylvie that night out by the garden and I wanted you to go fritter away your time on something other than browbeating the people who worked for Annabel. Please, no more about the will.” I had exhausted myself talking.

  It had obviously been a mistake to make up the story about the missing will, and I had learned my lesson well. I would never do such a thing again—the next time I wanted to get somebody to stop doing something, I would confront them myself and tell them the truth. All the pain, the violence, the death, over something that never existed, would haunt me for the rest of my life. And Brenda was dead because of the lie I had told.

  I waved my hand at Rhisiart and Cadi in an effort to get them to go away, and Griff understood immediately what I wanted. “It’s time for you two to go,” he said gravely. “And please don’t come back unless you’re invited.”

  They nodded their assent and left the room. I opened one eye just long enough to satisfy myself that they were gone and I was asleep again in no time. Griff stayed overnight in my room and was there in the morning when the police returned, this time to deliver the most shocking news of all.

  “We wanted to inform you that Maisie Wellingbottham has been arrested and charged with killing Andreas Tucker.”

  I gasped and struggled to sit up. Griff put his hand on my arm to keep me from hurting myself.

  “You’re kidding,” he said.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Officers at the castle yesterday found her trying to sneak away after you had been taken away in the ambulance, miss. When they stopped her and began asking questions, it was clear that she was afraid of something in addition to what had happened in your bedroom. Upon further questioning, she broke down and admitted that she had been responsible for Mr. Tucker’s death.”

  “But how?” I asked, unable to believe what I was hearing.

  “When he left the castle the night of his death she was still there working. She heard him leave; she followed him while he took a walk down by the water’s edge. She pushed him into the river,” the officer answered.

  “But why? Why did she do it?”

  “Apparently to stop him from selling cocaine to her daughter, miss.” And now that daughter was dead.

  I didn’t say anything. I was trying to imagine how I would react if I knew the person selling cocaine to my own daughter, trying to get her hooked, ruining her young life. I had to admit to myself that I might do the same thing under the same circumstances. Finally I said softly, “She was just trying to save Brenda.”

  “We know that, miss.”

  The officers left and Griff held my hand as tears coursed down my cheeks—tears for the pain Maisie had lived with trying to keep her daughter off drugs, pain for her future, and pain for Brenda, for her life snuffed out because of a lie I had told.

  Chapter 21

  Over the next few days as I recuperated in hospital, several things were revealed to me by the police. Most importantly, Hugh had officially admitted to killing his mother and Brenda.

  “How did he poison Annabel?” I asked.

  “He ground up the wolfsbane and put it in her favorite body lotion and her lip balm.” My mind snapped back to the day of Annabel’s death. I had given her lip balm because her lips were so dry. I had inadvertently killed Annabel. I blurted this out to the officer.

  “The medical examiner, Dr. Thomas, determined that the dosage in the body lotion was more than enough to kill her. The dosage in the lip balm was much lower. In other words, she would have died from the wolfsbane even if there had been no poison in the lip balm. So don’t lead yourself down the road of believing you killed her. You did not.”

  I wouldn’t have been able to bear the guilt if I had been responsible for Annabel’s death, so the officer’s assurances that I didn’t kill her were a salve on my frayed nerves.

  “How did Hugh know about wolfsbane?” I asked. “Why didn’t the police find any information on his computer?”

  “He got his information the old-fashioned way—at the library. He went and looked up the information he needed in a book.”

  “But he was so keen to have an autopsy performed on Annabel,” I said.

  “He was just trying to deflect suspicion away from himself,” the officer replied. “He figured it wouldn’t be discovered and that Annabel’s cause of death would simply be heart failure. And if it was discovered, he thought he wouldn’t get caught. Typical bloke with a big ego.”

  “He did all of this because he hated his mother?”

  “Apparently he did hate his mother, but he and his wife Cadi were also experiencing serious financial problems. He thought he was safe with one-third of his mother’s estate, especially if it turned into a center for horse breeding. But when he suspected there might be another will that left the estate to someone else, he panicked. He had already been dealing drugs to make extra money—he took over where Andreas left off, as you know—but that wasn’t enough.”

  “Brenda wouldn’t tell me that she was getting her drugs from Hugh,” I said in a quiet voice.

  “I can explain that, too,” the officer replied. “Apparently she knew her mother was responsible for the death of Andreas Tucker. She didn’t want her mother to lash out at Hugh, too. There’s been way too much death in this family.”

  I was dumbfounded. Brenda had known her mother was guilty of killing Andreas?

  It would be a very long time before I could make sense of everything I had learned.

  One day Cadi came to see me. She called first to ask permission, as she had promised to do, and I consented to a short visit. She showed me a letter Sian had found when she was cleaning out Annabel’s desk. Cadi handed it to me and stood at a distance while I read it.

  My darling boys,

  You will never know the suffering I have endured because I haven’t been able to take care of you the way a mother should. Your father threatened to kill you all, and me, if I revealed the extent of his brutality, so I stood by, meek and useless, as he continued his despicable behavior. I figured it was better for you to be hurt than dead.

  I want you to know that I did everything I could to protect you, though I’m sure there were other things I was too timid to do. I took blows and beatings meant for you in exchange for leniency by him toward you three, but it was never enough.

  In the end, it was I who watched him die in the throes of an alcohol-fueled stupor. He demanded help through the fog of his drunkenness, and I ignored his pleas. I killed him by my inaction. I have never regretted letting him die before my eyes because I knew his death spelled the end of the horror you faced as children. My only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner. You can never know how much love I have for all of you and how I have suffered from my own shortcomings.

  Love,

  Mum

  So Hugh had killed his mother without the knowledge of how much she suffered for him and without knowing that she was the one who, in the end, allowed her husband to die an agonizing death, all for Hugh and his brothers. I thanked Cadi for showing me the letter and she left. There was nothing more I could say to her. It had all been so senseless.

  By the time I left hospital the doctors were concerned that I had sunk deep into a depression for which I would require further treatment. Rhisiart and Sian had given me permission to live in the coach house for as long as I needed, and Sylvie and Seamus had to return to their lives in Scotland. I hated to see them go, but it was time. They had done all they could for me and I had to face the future without them.

  But I didn’t have to face the future alone. Griff stayed with me in the coach house until I had healed physically, then he stayed on until my mind began to heal, too. He had quit his job at the castle stables and had found work at another stable near the
village.

  I knew the best thing for me was to get a new job. If I could get back to work, to give myself something to do every day, then I knew I would begin to feel better. I visited Maisie whenever I could, but often my mood prevented me from going to see her. She had plenty of her own troubles—she didn’t need me showing up in a melancholy, self-blaming mood at the prison where she was being held until her trial.

  I still had a hard time believing Maisie had killed Andreas, but I couldn’t condemn her for it. She had only done what I imagined I might do under similar circumstances—protect her daughter at all costs. Maisie and I talked about it when I visited her the first time, after I had had a chance to sort out my thoughts. She cried when I told her how I felt, relieved that I understood how she could kill Andreas because of the anguish and harm he was causing Brenda.

  Though I appreciated being able to stay on the castle property rent-free, I didn’t want to stay there any longer than I had to. The day came when I knew I had to move out of the coach house and into a flat of my own. Griff begged me to come live with him in his cottage in the village, but I knew I needed to be able to survive on my own before I could think about living with him.

  So I let a flat in the village over the dress shop Annabel had loved to frequent. It seemed right that I shared that connection with her even after she had died and I had moved away from the castle.

  But there was another connection, too. As the months passed and I got better, Griff and I continued to grow closer. I was still looking for a job, but nothing had opened up and I was trying to find other jobs that I might be able to do, including working part-time at the dress shop. But Griff had another idea. Rhisiart and Sian, who both continued to live in the castle, remained hell-bent on their scheme to convert the castle and its surrounding property into a racehorse breeding center. They decided to sell all of Annabel’s horses and replace them with younger racing horses and valuable studs. When Griff got wind of their plan, he used all his savings and I chipped in much of mine to buy the horses. In exchange for doing some extra work around the stables where he worked, he was allowed to board Annabel’s horses there.