We were sitting at the kitchen table with three balloons of brandy.
“This is disastrous!” Mum exclaimed.
“But not as disastrous as Bryan Laney lying dead in a field,” I pointed out.
Mum lifted her glass and as she did so, I caught a glimpse of bruise marks on her wrists. The minute she saw I noticed, she hastily pulled her sleeves down to cover them.
“Mum?”
“It’s obvious that Rupert did it,” said Mum, giving a barely perceptible nod to Alfred who was nursing his brandy. “He found the body.”
“But why would he kill Bryan?” I demanded.
“Trespassing,” Mum declared. “Shawn said—”
“Shawn came … here?” I cried.
“Oh yes. When he turned up in his pajamas, I felt so sure Alfred had been caught.” I caught a distinct slur in her voice.
“Have you been drinking all evening?”
“Just one or two,” said Mum defensively. “For shock. Gin doesn’t cut it.”
“The copper came here, did he?” said Alfred at last.
“Yes. And I was so sure. So sure”—Mum slammed the brandy balloon onto the table—“that Alfred had been caught and what with you being on parole.”
“Well, we weren’t caught, Iris.”
“There is no we, Alfred,” I said primly.
“But I was so sure you were—”
“Pull yourself together, Iris.” Alfred’s voice was hard again. “We’ve got to get our stories straight. What did you tell him?”
Mum nodded. “Yes. Sorry.” She took another sip. “Shawn seemed surprised when I answered the door because he thought I was out. And then he thought you were out. Which you were.” Mum nodded again. “So I told him that you’d both gone to Plymouth. To the cinema.”
“The cinema,” Alfred and I chorused.
“You stupid, stupid woman!” Alfred yelled. “Why would you say such a thing? Why?”
“I panicked,” Mum wailed. “I said Plymouth because it’s in the opposite direction from Newton Abbot.”
“But why would we go in separate cars?” I said.
Mum clapped her hand over her mouth in horror.
“That’s not the point.” Alfred was struggling to keep his temper. “Why do I always have to clear up after your mess, Iris?”
“What do you mean, always having to clear up my mess?”
“Do you want a list?”
“Children! Children!” I exclaimed. “Let’s focus now. Let’s look at the facts. Mum, your MINI ran out of petrol at the business park. Alfred told Shawn that your car had been stolen—oh, wait…”
“Exactly!” Alfred snarled. “That copper knew we were lying about the car being stolen because he never mentioned the cinema.”
“You’re right,” Mum groaned. “He would have said, ‘Did you enjoy the film?’”
“Hang on!” Alfred frowned. “Shawn didn’t ask us where the car was stolen.”
“We could say it was stolen at the cinema?” I suggested. “The keys were left in the ignition and someone drove it away.”
“It’s the perfect alibi!” Mum enthused.
We all fell silent. Twice, Mum opened her mouth to say something then snapped it shut.
“So … what did we go to see at the cinema?” I said gingerly.
“I’ll get the local paper.” Mum got up—somewhat unsteadily I noted—and grabbed the Dipperton Deal from the oak dresser. She gave it to me.
I couldn’t help but scan the headlines. “Interesting that the lead story is about finding the double-hide.”
“I know,” said Mum. “Not a squeak about Pandora’s murder at all.”
“What’s playing, then?” said Alfred. “I hope it’s something I’ve seen before. We had a Friday night film club at the Scrubs but they always showed kiddy movies.”
I turned to the back of the newspaper and laughed. “Oh dear.”
“What’s on?” said Mum.
“What time would we have seen the film?”
Alfred frowned, then said, “It would have to have been a late-night showing unless we went out for a curry afterward—”
“Which we wouldn’t have done because we would have discovered that Mum’s car had been stolen.”
Alfred nodded. “She’s right.”
“I’m sorry to say that it limits us to one film. Fifty Shades of Grey.”
“I can’t believe they’re still showing that,” said Mum. “What happened to the sequel?”
“I’m just telling you what’s playing. I don’t know the details.”
“Fifty what?” said Alfred. “The last film I saw was called Freeze or Frozen.”
Mum reddened. “It’s a spoof on Houdini only with whips.”
Despite the seriousness of the situation I couldn’t help chuckling.
“Oh, that’ll be easy enough to remember.” Alfred ran his fingers through his thatch of hair. “If that’s our alibi. Then that’s our alibi. I’m off. I’m tired. I’m not as young as I was.”
“But what about all that stuff in my car?” I said.
“I’ll sort it out tomorrow.” Alfred shuffled out of the kitchen. We heard the door to the carriageway slam.
“I’m off to bed, too,” I said.
“No,” said Mum quickly. “Not yet. I need to talk to you about something.”
“You mean Houdini?”
“Oh. Right. Well—Alfred can be a bit prudish,” she said.
“After all those years in prison?” I took one look at the expression on her face and my heart sank. “Oh God. Please tell me you didn’t have anything to do with Bryan—”
“Of course not,” Mum exclaimed, “but he was here earlier.”
“O-kay,” I said slowly.
“I heard a noise outside and thought you were back.”
“Go on.”
“Well … it was Bryan. I caught him coming out of that old feed shed, snooping about.”
I waited for her to continue.
“He thought everyone was out—no cars, you see. Of course he turned on the charm. He said he’d recognize me anywhere because I hadn’t changed a bit.”
How original.
“And?”
“He started talking about Pandora and if I remembered anything about the night of the midsummer ball,” said Mum.
“And?”
“I said, not really. Just the fact Pandora had been wearing the Cleopatra costume that I’d made for her ladyship,” Mum went on. “Then he said something about telling fortunes and I said why, did he want me to tell him his and he said, ‘So you don’t remember?’”
“Remember what?”
“He wouldn’t say.” Mum bit her lip. “He was acting very funny,” she said. “All jumpy. Nervous. He asked when I’d last seen Joan Stark—”
“Joan.” I remembered seeing Bryan’s camper van leaving Sunny Hill Lodge and told Mum so.
“Well, I haven’t for donkey’s years so I told him,” said Mum. “He asked if I’d seen the Daily Post and I said yes.”
I thought for a moment. “Mum, I think Bryan either saw something or knew something about that night—something that actually got him killed.”
Mum’s eyes widened. “Well, I nearly killed him myself—before someone else did, I mean. I haven’t finished my story, yet!”
“Okay.”
“And then Bryan seemed to relax and he asked for a tour of the Carriage House.”
“He wanted to see the Carriage House in the dark?”
“I know. I thought it was a bit odd,” said Mum. “We went into the carriageway and he started poking around the stalls and tack room—really nosing about and asking questions. We reminisced a bit about—well, the past.”
“Okay.”
“He kept calling me Electra, which to start with was funny but after ten minutes, became very annoying,” said Mum. “And then he pointed to the hayloft and winked. He wanted a bit of nooky for old time’s sake. Can you believe it?”
“
I thought you just kissed Bryan, mother. You never told me about—nooky.”
“Didn’t I?”
“No wonder Alfred didn’t approve of Bryan,” I exclaimed. “You were underage!”
“It was different back then,” said Mum. “I was very mature for sixteen.”
“Fifteen.”
“And we didn’t go all the—”
“Argh! I get the picture, spare me the details.”
“Well—that was then. This is now but Bryan wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
I was appalled. “Is that where you got those bruises from? On your wrists?”
“Oh don’t look so surprised,” said Mum coyly. “I told you that men still find me—”
“Alluring, I know,” I said. “But I thought you told me that when you kissed him it was like being washed by a cat.”
Mum’s face fell. “Well. It is—was,” she said. “He hasn’t changed.”
“You mean—he tried to kiss you?”
“Tried? He did!” Mum said indignantly. “He got me cornered in the tack room. Apparently I’d promised him—whatever it was I promised him—back in 1958 and he’d come back to claim it.”
“What a creep!”
“He never forgot me. Or so he said.” Mum’s expression was hard. “I’m not stupid. He was a womanizer then and he’s a womanizer now—was a womanizer.” Mum was growing angry. “He was Mr. Charming—all hearts and flowers—and jewelry as a matter of fact. Bryan loved the chase but once he got his girl, he lost interest. He went through all the girls in the village but of course, I was always the one who got away … because we went away!”
“I don’t feel so sorry that he’s dead now,” I said.
“He broke a lot of hearts—even poor Peggy although she daren’t admit it.”
“Mrs. Cropper,” I said. “You don’t think Seth Cropper—”
“I wouldn’t know,” Mum said darkly. “But she told me that Seth has a bit of a temper.”
“Seth Cropper has got about as much backbone as an amoeba. I can’t see him beating Bryan to a pulp.” I thought for a moment. “Why didn’t you tell me all this before?”
“I’m telling you now.”
“How did it all end this evening?”
“For him? Not very well.”
“Mother! It’s not funny!”
“I hit him.”
I groaned.
“Gave him a right hook,” Mum went on. “He went down and caught his forehead on an old saddle peg.”
“But he was alive.”
“Of course he was alive!” Mum said hotly. “I grabbed a pitchfork and threatened to hit him with that unless he left me alone. He got up, apologized for his behavior and walked out as fit as a fiddle.”
“I really want to believe you,” I said.
“It’s the truth. I swear to God. Cross my heart and hope to die.”
“So you’ll tell Shawn what you’ve just told me?”
Mum shook her head vehemently. “Of course I can’t tell Shawn! If Alfred found out he’ll take the blame. I know he will.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Katherine,” Mum said sadly. “There is so much you don’t know about me.”
It was with a heavy heart that I climbed the stairs to my bedroom. Mum was right. It was only since my father died that I was beginning to really get to know my mother for the first time. I’d known nothing about her colorful past and I’d never thought to ask her. To me, she was just my lovely Mum who was always waiting for me to come home from school. I hadn’t even thought to question her frequent migraines that turned out to be excuses for her to keep writing her romance novels in her bedroom. But I’d accepted her reasons for not telling me the truth and had forgiven her. It just seemed that the proverbial skeletons kept on coming out of the closet.
At first, I’d been angry and disappointed that she had kept so much from me about the traveling fair and boxing emporium and her life on the road. Perhaps ten years ago, I would have been embarrassed at my background. Back then I was a different person and was the first to admit to being a bit superficial and materialistic—but not anymore.
I stood at my bedroom window gazing out at Cromwell Meadows. I could see the glare from the halogen lights through the trees that presumably marked the location of the culvert and where Rupert had discovered Bryan’s body.
I was deeply troubled. I didn’t want to accept the obvious. My mother was absolutely involved. Mum had admitted to finding Lady Chatterley’s Lover in the hayloft. This same book then turned up in the first hide and even had Mum’s name in the flyleaf for good measure. Then, there was Mum’s fight with Pandora over the Cleopatra costume that had been witnessed by Peggy Cropper. And most damning of all, someone had forged a thank you letter purporting to be from Pandora and posted it from St. Ives, a known stop made by the fair and traveling boxing emporium. I had to wonder if Alfred was involved, too.
I kept replaying the scene from the warehouse. What had possessed Alfred to steal other works of art? And even worse—they were still in my car! Hopefully, David would still be on his honeymoon in Hawaii but it wouldn’t take long for him hear about it. In situations like this he was always the first man they called.
And then there was Ginny.
Chapter Eighteen
“We’ve been summoned to the Hall at ten,” said Mum as I joined her for breakfast.
She looked very much the worse for wear with large dark rings beneath her eyes although I wasn’t sure if that was a hangover or a sleepless night from a guilty conscience.
She took one look at me and said, “You look awful.”
“You don’t look so bright, either.”
“I’ve got a headache,” Mum grumbled. “Now I remember why I never drink brandy.”
I poured myself a cup of tea and Mum clutched her head when I thrust the bread into the toaster. “Do you have to thrust it down like that?”
“Have you seen Alfred this morning?” I asked. “He’s still got those paintings in my car!”
“Stop fussing,” said Mum. “Alfred knows what he is doing.”
Even so, it made me very nervous.
At five minutes to ten Cropper answered the front door dressed in his butler regalia. He did not say good morning or utter a greeting of any kind. In fact, he just opened the door and drifted off at his usual glacial speed. I tried to imagine him as a young lad with raging testosterone, bouncing off the walls and wooing Peggy Cropper. I was quite relieved that I couldn’t.
How quickly life changed. Just two days ago, the biggest problem seemed to be how to repair a rare plasterwork ceiling. Now, we were discussing two murders and one missing person.
Cropper ushered us into the library. It was freezing cold with the only heat coming from a fire that roared in the grate. Unfortunately, Rupert, dressed smartly in cords and tweed jacket, was standing with his back to it absorbing most of the warmth. Cromwell, his deaf, old English setter, lay dozing, stretched along the hearth. Edith and Lavinia were sitting on the leather Chesterfield sofa with ramrod straight backs. Lavinia was dressed in jodhpurs and jacket with her hair clamped under a thick hairnet. Edith wore a navy calf-length suit with a cameo brooch at her throat. Her gray hair lay in neat pin curls and she held a pair of dark navy gloves in one hand and a small purse in the other. She looked dressed for an occasion.
None of them looked up as we walked in and when I said, “hello,” no one acknowledged us whatsoever.
Presumably, news that a serious crime had been committed was no substitute for my so-called interview with the Daily Post.
“Where would you like us to sit, your lordship?” Mum meekly asked Rupert.
Rupert gestured to the window where Eric and Alfred stood to attention in their socks, with caps in hand.
“I’m sorry, your lordship,” said Mum. “But you mean you want us to stand?”
Rupert just glared. Mum pulled her mink closer. We trooped over to line up with the men.
During
the uncomfortable silence that followed, I took in the room—a man’s domain that I always admired. The walls were papered with marbled pages from old books and smelled of cigars. One entire wall sported a mahogany floor-to-ceiling bookcase filled with leather-bound collections. Heavy dark crimson brocade curtains framed the two casement windows that overlooked the parkland toward the ornamental lake.
A captain’s chair stood behind a walnut partners’ desk. I noticed that Rupert had deliberately propped the Daily Post—showing the headlines—up against a letter rack.
“How immature,” Mum muttered, echoing my thoughts.
Oil paintings of animals—stags, dead pheasants and shot rabbits—cluttered every empty wall space.
On top of a long mahogany dresser were display cases filled with carefully posed stuffed animals—a Victorian hobby that I never really understood—badges, foxes, ferrets, an owl and various birds of prey. One glass case held the famous bloodstained hawk that one of the Honeychurch ancestors had brought back from the Crimea. A pair of rabbits, playfully dancing on a bed of imitation grass, reminded me of Harry and his pillow mounds at Jane’s Cottage.
“Where is Harry this morning?” I asked.
“Roxy has taken him out for a walk with Mr. Chips,” Shawn answered as he breezed into the room followed by Detective Constable Clive Banks—who Mum insisted on calling Captain Pugwash thanks to his heavy black beard. He was carrying a plastic shopping bag.
“Uh-oh,” whispered Mum. “They’ve found something.”
Mrs. Cropper wasn’t far behind. Judging by the amount of flour that covered her pink striped pinafore over her plain white linen dress, she had probably been in the middle of baking. She stopped next to Mum. The two of them exchanged a look that smacked of some kind of agreement. When I searched Mum’s face for a clue, she just smiled.
We fell into another uncomfortable silence whilst Shawn and Clive went into a huddle in the corner.
“Is this going to take long, Shawn?” Lavinia demanded. “I’m frightfully busy this morning now that Edith’s going to church.”
“Church?” Rupert exclaimed. “You never go to church, Mother.”
“Well today I am going to church,” Edith declared.
Mum whispered into my ear. “That’s a sign of guilt if ever there was one.”
A Killer Ball at Honeychurch Hall Page 14