The Mammoth Book Of Best British Crime Volume 8

by Maxim Jakubowski

  When I stopped to pick it up, I was shocked to find myself holding a flagon of wine. It was half-empty. Instinct urged me to taste the wine and I did so. It was a revelation.

  Gwenllian was in despair. Calling at the house, I found her still weeping over the dramatic turn of events. Once again, she swore to me that her uncle was not capable of murder and that some grotesque mistake had been made. I silenced her with a raised palm.

  “If you wish to help your uncle,” I advised, “answer a question. Did you see the horse on which Idwal the Harpist rode?”

  “Yes, I did, archdeacon.”

  “And would you recognize the animal again?”

  “I’m certain of it,” she said.

  “Why is that, Gwenllian?”

  “It was so distinctive – and so was the saddle. I’d know it anywhere.” She drew back from me. “It’s not in our stables, if that’s what you mean. I’ve been there to look.”

  “I’d like you to look again – in another place altogether.”

  As a sign of the importance of my embassy, I took four armed men with me this time. On the journey there, none of them could take his eyes off Gwenllian, who rode beside me with the breeze plucking at her hair. Roger of Brionne came out of his house to greet us with a frown. Hands on hips, he was smouldering with anger.

  “What’s the meaning of this, archdeacon?” he demanded.

  “We’d like to inspect your stables,” I said. “A horse has gone astray and I wondered if it might have ended up here.”

  His eyes darted and I caught the slight tremble of his lip. Though he tried to deny us access, I deprived him of the power to resist us in one sentence. I thanked him for the wine he gave me. He was rocked. While two of the soldiers flanked Roger, the others took Gwenllian to the stables to begin their search. It was short-lived. They soon emerged with a bay mare in tow. One of the men carried a saddle. He held it up to show me.

  “This horse belonged to Idwal the Harpist,” Gwenllian attested. “And so did that saddle. How did they end up here?”

  “That’s something that the lord Roger will have to explain,” I said, glancing at his ashen countenance. “Meanwhile, he can replace your uncle in the castle dungeon. He’ll be charged with murder, theft and the wilful manipulation of a vulnerable woman.”

  “It’s not I who manipulated a woman,” howled Roger, “but that devil of a harpist. When he stayed with us last year, he left more than the sound of his music in the air. As a result of his visit, my daughter was with child. I had to send her to Normandy to give birth in order to avoid disgrace. Idwal deserved to die!”

  “And you sought to take full advantage of his death,” I noted. “In killing him, you not only wreaked your revenge – you saw the chance to ensnare Owain ap Meurig by hiding that harp in his stables.”

  ***

  Gwenllian was mystified. As we rode back to Usk, I made sure that she and I stayed at the rear so that the soldiers couldn’t ogle her and so that I could give her an account of what had happened.

  “I first began to suspect the lord Roger,” I said, solemnly, “when he told me how much he admired Idwal’s playing. Yet he didn’t invite the harpist back to his house even though Idwal would pass his door on the way to Monmouth. That struck me as odd. There had to be a reason why he didn’t offer hospitality to Idwal. He’s now told us what it was. Knowing exactly when the man would depart from your house, the lord Roger lay in wait for Idwal and struck him down.”

  “Then he blamed it on Uncle Owain.”

  “I fear that he did, Gwenllian.”

  She was dismayed. “Are you telling me that Angharad was his confederate?” she asked, querulously. “I know that the poor woman has lost her wits but I didn’t think she’d forgotten the difference between right and wrong.”

  “Angharad is free from any blame. A dream she had and much of it foreshadowed the heinous crime. When she recalled it to me, however,” I went on, “she admitted that she only saw the figures in dim outline. Angharad knew that Idwal was the victim because she saw the harp. She assumed that your uncle was the killer because the man in her dream resembled him. When she took her story to Roger of Brionne, he couldn’t believe his good fortune. He plied her with wine and put flesh on the bare bones of her dream.”

  “How did she know that the harp was hidden in our stables?”

  “Because that’s where the lord Roger had it placed,” I explained, “and where he convinced Angharad that it would be. Her dream was real but it was peopled by the lord Roger, whispering in the ear of a woman affected by strong drink. I can vouch for its strength,” I added, “for he offered some to me. When I found a flask of it at Angharad’s hovel, I knew who her benefactor was.”

  “Poor woman!” she cried. “He practised upon her.”

  “The full truth will emerge at the trial – the full truth about the murder, that is.” When I turned to look at her, she dropped her head guiltily to her chest. “There’s something you held back from me, isn’t there?” I probed. “It’s to do with the night when Idwal tapped on your chamber door in search of your favour.”

  “I’d rather not speak about it.”

  “It’s a shame that must be acknowledged, Gwenllian. It may be habitual among the Welsh but it’s wrong and I’ve preached against it many times. Tell me the truth, child.”

  “No, no,” she whispered. “I dare not.”

  “Then let me put the words into your mouth,” I said, recalling that moment when I passed by her and felt that peculiar sensation. “You didn’t open the door to Idwal that night for one simple reason. Someone was already sharing your bed.”

  Her face turned white and she brought a hand up to her mouth to smother a cry. Owain ap Meurig would be released from custody but, in truth, he was no innocent man. Roger of Brionne had exploited the weakness of the Madwoman of Usk and implicated her in a murder plot. Owain had seduced his niece and turned her into his mistress. Both men would answer for their sins before God. I was once again honoured to be chosen as the instrument of His divine purpose.

  DEAD AND

  BREAKFAST

  Marilyn Todd

  “GEORGES, HAVE YOU put those pillows in number twenty-two yet?”

  Pillows. Pillows. Georges dragged his eyes away from the grebes out on the lake as he remembered the pile of goosedown in his arms.

  “Doing it now, Mother.”

  But it was so comical, the way they dived for fish. You watch them go down, follow the ripples on the surface, then pick a spot where you think they’ll come up. Except you’re wrong. Every time, it’s that much further from where you expect them to, and this time one of the grebes had caught a fish. A big one. Georges watched, fascinated by the contest between predator and prey. One false move and the fish was gone forever. Both sides fighting for survival.

  “And don’t forget to unblock that drain in the second-floor bathroom while you’re up there, love.”

  Drain? He looked at the spanner in his hand. Oh. Drain. “No, no,” he called down. “I won’t forget.”

  Georges loved this lake. He loved the way the boats bobbed on smooth days as well as in rough weather, their yards clanking gentle lullabies, their hulls gleaming in the sun. He loved the way that spring dawns glimmered hazy and yellow on the surface, like melted Camembert. How fiery sunsets multiplied out and flickered on the water. How autumn mists swirled round the islands and then disappeared, as if by magic, and how the moon reflected double on the lake. And none of this would be possible, were it not for the pines that surrounded it, repelling the winds that drove in from the west, fending off the snows that swept up from the Pyrénées, thwarting the desiccating frosts that gripped the rest of France. In fact, he thought, if it wasn’t for the gulls, flapping round the perimeter in search of tiddlers in the shallows, you’d think the coast was a lot further than eight kilometres away.

  Except not everyone enjoyed neat promenades that served up ice creams and carousels, or took pleasure in roasting themselves on br
oad, white sandy beaches that stretched to infinity in both directions. The people who holidayed at Georges’s lake were more discriminating. Not for them long treks through woods, laden with parasols and picnic hampers, just to then do battle with the highest dunes in Europe. Let others wrestle with deck chairs and drink lukewarm lemonade—

  “Oh, Georgie!” His mother jerked the pillows from his arms with a good-natured, but nonetheless exasperated sigh. “Will you ever stop your silly daydreaming?” She gave his cheek an affectionate squeeze, before setting off down the corridor to give 22 their extra pillows. “But if you don’t mind, love. The drain?”

  The what? Oh, that. Second floor. Blocked. At last, the grebe managed to turn the wriggling fish and gulp it down. Almost at once, it was diving back down for more.

  “Now, if you wouldn’t mind.” She didn’t seem entirely surprised to find her son still staring out of the window when she returned. “Breakfast’ll be over any minute, and the guests are bound to need the bathroom.”

  “Right-oh.”

  He mightn’t have won any prizes for spelling, maths, or grammar, but Georges was handy with his hands. In no time at all, he’d unscrewed the waste and was flushing out the pipe, though he didn’t see what all the fuss was for. A few hairs, a bit of gunge, and bien sûr, it would reduce the drainage to a trickle, but that was no reason to go grumbling to his mother. She went to a lot of trouble to make the guests feel welcome. She set vases of flowers in their rooms, left them boiled sweets on the dressing table, and placed mothballs in the drawers. The sheets always smelled crisp and clean and fresh.

  But then, some folk were never satisfied, he thought, his big, strong hands spannering the pipes back into place. If they weren’t griping about lumpy mattresses, they were moaning because there wasn’t an ashtray, or could someone change their bedside lamp, it wasn’t bright enough to read by. Still. He mopped up the puddle of dirty water with a towel. Surrounded by such stunning scenery, people probably expected the same level of perfection from Les Pins. Most of the time, they blooming got it, too.

  “I don’t believe it!” An hour must have passed before his mother came storming into the dining room, where he was cramming the last of the unwanted croissants in his mouth. “Look what you’ve done to Madame Fouquet’s towels!”

  Eh?

  She held up the filthy, sopping linen. “She’s absolutely livid, and quite frankly, so am I.”

  Oh. Those towels. “Then she should have taken them back to her room,” he said, spraying crumbs over the table. “Instead of leaving them in the bathroom for anyone to use.”

  “That’s still no excuse for you to use them as rags. And to just leave them lying there, as well, you lazy toad!”

  “Sorry.”

  It wasn’t often that he saw his mother angry, and it wasn’t simply because she had endless patience with him. She simply could not afford to lose control. Georges’s father, Marcel, was the chef, and since food was his passion as well as the foundation for his business, he was either shopping for it at the market or else creating magnificent works of art with it in the kitchen. The hotel management was Irène’s responsibility, something she accomplished with a combination of politeness, style, and military crispness, being just strict enough to keep the chambermaids on their toes, but not so tough that they looked for work elsewhere. Welcoming enough towards the guests, but not so sociable that they might be tempted to take advantage.

  “Oh, Georgie, it’s not you,” she said, instantly calm again. “It’s that wretched bloody bathroom that’s got me so worked up.” She swiped her hair out of her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m going to have to call a plumber out, and God knows how long that’ll take in August.”

  “Why?” He might be big and slow and clumsy, but Georges took great pride in his work.

  “Why?” Her voice rose. “Because that stupid, bloody washbasin’s blocked up again already—”

  Wash … basin … “I’ll take another look.”

  “Not sure there’s any point, you’ve only just been up there.”

  “Yes, but I’ll check further down the pipes.” He turned away, so she wouldn’t see how red his cheeks had gone.

  “Will you? Oh, you are an angel. And while you’re up there, would you put clean towels in thirty-four for Madame Fouquet? I can hardly leave the poor woman with just a hand towel for her bath.”

  “Right-oh.”

  Washbasin. He wrote it on the back of his hand with a Biro, so as not to forget. Second floor, he scribbled underneath. And towels.

  Which was just as well, because by the time he’d brushed Minou the cat, topped up the birdbath, and then fed the ducks out on the lake, it was fast approaching midday. Four o’clock before he actually got round to fixing it.

  Madame Fouquet never saw her towels.

  For all its pine-scented air and picture-postcard views, it wasn’t always easy here for Georges. Life was comfortable enough. Marcel and Irène were the first to think of shipping in sand, to create a private lakefront beach. They revamped the gardens with Mediterranean palms and oleanders, tacked on a veranda, then a terrace, and built moorings for the hotel clients’ boats. This was good. With every improvement, the hotel grew and prospered.

  The trouble was, in order to capitalize on a silence broken only by the croaking of frogs and the splash of fish – the very qualities their middle-aged, middle-class guests looked for in a holiday – his parents also banned transistor radios and banished TV to the public lounge. Their intention was that busy Parisians should come down, plug into two weeks of time-warp bliss, then go home refreshed and free of stress. But for Georges, this was his home. And, rather like the resort itself, which had grown up to create its own identity but in doing so had paradoxically isolated itself from the outside world, so he, too, became disconnected.

  While other teenagers were rebelling, flower power passed him by, and whatever the Summer of Love might be, it never came his way. But not being “groovy” didn’t trouble him. To be honest, he didn’t know what groovy was, so it didn’t matter that Jesus might be loving Mrs Robinson more than she would ever know, much less that Mick Jagger was having his mind and other things blown by honky-tonk girls. But then he turned sixteen and things began to change. Not being clever enough to stay on at school, he quickly lost touch with the few friends that he’d had, and though he took over as the hotel handyman from doddery old René, the staff were invariably too busy to stop for idle chit-chat. Naturally, Georges picked up the broad outline of events from the national news, but what he wasn’t getting was life’s rich tapestry of trivia, and this became a problem. All he wanted was to do what the Parisians did, only in reverse. Plug into normal life. But how?

  The more time passed, the more his desire – his need – to tap into normality intensified. It wasn’t that he was lonely, exactly. He’d always enjoyed his own company, but there was a hole somewhere, a big black hole that needed to be filled, and whoever said it was the little things that mattered was absolutely right. And it was the little things that were missing from his life.

  At least, that was the case until one warm and sunny April morning when his mother asked him to oil the sticky lock on Number 17. And would you believe it, there was the answer. Staring him right in the face. He oiled, he turned, he oiled, he turned. No sticking. No rubbing. No catching.

  No noise …

  At long last, Georges had found a way to connect to the world beyond Les Pins.

  The idea of being called a Peeping Tom would have cut him to the quick. There was nothing mucky about what he was doing. Nothing sinister about his motives. He was simply using his master key to slip into rooms, and there, just being among the guests while they slept, he was able to note other people’s eccentricities and foibles. The big, black void was filled.

  While Irène was just delighted that her son had at last showed some initiative by oiling all the bedroom locks, not just the one.

  “Madame Garnier’s eldest daughter’s getting
married,” Georges told Parmesan, the heavy horse who used to pull a plough but had long since been put out to pasture. “I saw the telegram on her dressing table.”

  MAMAN PAPA GUESS WHAT STOP HENRI PROPOSED AT LAST STOP ISN’T THIS JUST WONDERFUL STOP

  “Both Monsieur and Madame Garnier were smiling in their sleep,” he added. “So they must be pleased about it.”

  Although he still spent the same amount of time fishing, bird-watching, and watching squirrels in the woods, Georges and Parmesan tended to see a lot more of each other these days. Blissfully unaware, of course, that Marcel was having to drop his bœuf bordelaix and drive at breakneck speed so the Gérards – the LeBlancs – the St Brices or whoever – didn’t miss their trains. Or that the Duponts, the Brossards, and the new people in 38 had to lug their cases up several flights of stairs, because the handyman had forgotten to reconnect the lift after regreasing the cogs and chains.

  “Mother doesn’t like that Madame Dupont, with the blue-rinse hair, who rustles when she walks. She thinks she’s hard and crusty, but she’s not.” Georges passed the horse an apple. “She’s soft as dough inside.”

  He knew this because of the soppy romances Madame Dupont read, and more than once he’d had to pick up a paperback that had fallen from her hand, replacing the bookmark and laying it gently on the cover next to her.

  “You wouldn’t think it, but twenty-seven wears a toupee.” It gave Georges quite a fright, seeing it draped over the footstool. He thought it was a rat. “Someone should tell him he looks a lot younger without it, though.” Unlike Madame 27, whose teeth snarled at him from the glass beside the bed. “She snores, as well,” he said.