by EJ Lamprey
He blew out air through pursed lips and sat back rather abruptly. ‘You terrify me sometimes. There are dozens of men called Alec Burns in Scotland. Hundreds, even. You’ve spent weekends at Burns Hall. Lovely weekends. I wish you’d spend another. Soon. You know what I am.’
‘A gentleman farmer.’ Her lips curved. ‘Scratching round a deserted house at dead of night trying to find a treasure which belongs to someone else. Times must be hard. Were you a carer before you inherited the estate?’ He stayed mute, looking stubborn. ‘Why not admit it? Carers do vital work.’
‘I don’t like it when you don’t believe me.’ He found his voice. ‘Aren’t I enough as I am, you have to go looking for mysteries?’
‘Well, you’ve hinted before that Burns Hall may not be part of the package, so what did you expect me to think? If you are running into financial trouble, better tell me. I’m a rich woman but I have expensive tastes, and there are plenty of men out there with money.’
He winced. ‘That’s why this search matters to me. He called it a fortune, and he knew the value of a penny. It would be worth having. Nearly everything I have is tied up in land, I’ve told you that. We could live in comfort on what we both have, but actual cash would add the final gloss to our future.’
‘It would be nice.’ She thought back over what he had said and cocked her head slightly to one side. ‘A gathering of writers? Maybe I should apply, then I could also search.’
‘You’re hardly the type they want. I’ve seen some of the articles that are being written and they’re actually playing up on the fact it’s a tumbledown death-trap. They want thriller writers, not romantic novelists.’ He added hastily how much he had enjoyed her book, glanced at his watch and drained his coffee cup. ‘I’ve got an early start, I’ll have to go to bed soon.’
‘You want to get back to the search, you mean. Tell the truth and shame the devil.’
He looked offended. ‘That’s an extraordinary thing to say. I would go back if I could but I can’t. The whole neighbourhood knows they’ve put in a caretaker since the incident with Lorna. He’s mainly there to keep an eye on the ancient central heating and the industrial heaters that they’ve put in every room to dry the place out before the house-party. Those can’t be left unsupervised. There’s a ton of painting and renovating going on as well, and I’ve heard the nephew’s decorator is staying there most nights.’
‘So that’s it. No fortune.’ She sighed, then her interest sharpened as he looked slightly shifty. ‘What? You have something up your sleeve.’
‘Well.’ He shrugged and laughed. ‘The guests aren’t going to know each other, are they? I’ve got an idea I’m working on. I’ll let you know but now, darling, I have to go to bed. Up with the lark, and all that.’
After the screen had blanked she thoughtfully finished her wine, then leaned forward and typed a few words into her search bar. Her heavily-painted lips parted in satisfaction as she found a blog about the house-party. There were still places in the group. A fortune, for the taking. Alec would find it harder than he thought to pass as a writer, but she at least was the real thing. Worth a try: if it succeeded she wouldn’t say anything to him. If he could get into the group, they could search together. If he couldn’t, well, a fortune went twice as far when it wasn’t shared . . .
Kkkitty
‘This modern preoccupation with small electronic devices is most unattractive.’ Her aunt’s rasping voice cut through Edge’s absorption and she looked up warily as her rather alarming aunt lowered herself into the empty chair at her breakfast table at the Lawns. The conservatory was almost empty, with two women lingering over coffee at another table, and she had been completely engrossed in her mobile phone. ‘What could possibly be so intriguing?’
‘Oh, this is a new phone and I’m struggling to get its measure. I’m a bit of a rabbit with new technology. I told you about William’s house-party, didn’t I? We’re trying to recruit guests and get the place ready for them at the same time, with an incredibly tight deadline. I’ve just had another application but from a very dodgy writer. I looked up one of her books online, and they’re pretty steamy.’
‘Would I enjoy them?’ Beulah asked with genuine interest and Edge shook her head vigorously.
‘Not unless you’d enjoy a heroine who pretends to be submissive but is secretly manipulative. I was skimming the preview and so far she’s wrung blood, sweat and tears out of four men in about twenty pages.’
‘So they’re selling like hot cakes.’ Beulah, who was eighty years old, extremely cynical and had manipulated many men to her strong will in her time, had never been submissive in her life. ‘People are such fools. Why on earth does she want to write pornography in a death-trap?’
‘She says her next book will have a Gothic setting and she would dearly love the chance to study the ambience. She sounds tough as nails. I don’t know, though. A week of writers getting on each other’s nerves will be bad enough without bringing in an outsider from a completely different genre.’
‘Nonsense, it would be a welcome change of pace. All the others can prowl around looking sinister and she can disrupt the men and be hated by the women. If I wasn’t so annoyed with William I’d be tempted to come along myself.’
‘Rising damp throughout, and sharing three bathrooms between thirteen people,’ Edge reminded her hastily and her aunt barked with laughter.
‘Not to mention you need me to take your cat while you’re off amusing yourself. Don’t be nervous, you couldn’t pay me to come along. Bad enough living here, I’d go insane actually having to share a house. So will you. You’ll be a basket case after three days.’
Edge nodded ruefully. ‘I’m not far off that now. Every time I complain the others remind me accusingly that it was my idea. Still, we’ve a full house if I take this Kkkitty Catt. I can’t shake the feeling that it’s a bad idea.’
Her aunt eyed her narrowly. ‘That kind of feeling?’
Edge, who remained deeply uncomfortable with her aunt’s occult leanings, shook her head. ‘No, plain old common sense. She looks like trouble. I’ll show you – this is her author photo on her website.’ She frowned over the unfamiliar phone as she re-opened the website and spread her fingers to enlarge the revealed photo. ‘That’s it. What do you think?’
She handed the phone across and Beulah peered at the small screen.
‘She’ll certainly liven up the weekend, especially if she wears that outfit.’
Edge grinned. ‘What was that lovely Gypsy Rose Lee quote? I still have everything I had twenty years ago, but lower down? The Catt woman says it’s an old photo of her. She’s on Facebook under her own name, and there she describes herself as writing traditional romance. I can’t put my finger on why, but I don’t think they’re the same woman. ’ She reached across to tap another link and a lavishly-endowed woman in her forties, heavily made-up, appeared. Beulah looked interested.
‘You don’t see it immediately? Your finger-putting needs work. The likeness isn’t bad but you can see her ears in both photographs, and they’re higher, look, in the older woman. Your ears don’t change position however much you change over twenty years. You don’t have to use your own photo, do you? Any sexy piece would do, and from what you say about the books, she was lucky to find a model who looked so like her. What did you say her writing name was?’
‘She’s written one romantic novel as Jeanette Carr, which is dead in the water, but about a dozen steamers as Kkkitty Catt. Three ks. A bit over the top but they sell well.’
‘Huh. Better keep Donald on a short leash around her. Men get a little carried away around those types.’ Beulah didn’t entirely trust Donald. ‘Where is he, anyway? I thought you always had breakfast together.’
‘We do, but he’s at the shooting lodge. I’ve hardly seen him since this started. He’s setting up lighting effects and technical stuff.’ Edge waved a vague hand. ‘Vivian’s there too at the moment, staying for two days to get the kitchen sorted. It sounds
as if between them they’re transforming the place. It could certainly do with it. I take it you’re coming to exercise class today?’
The older woman glanced down at the track suit she was wearing, her mouth twisting with distaste. ‘That infernal administrator has been badgering me about having to attend exercise classes at least once a week. I would think by the time one reached eighty, there was little point. I’m astonishing for my age as it is.’
‘Think how amazed people will be by the time you’re ninety and still high-kicking like a cancan dancer.’ Edge put her phone back in her bag and got to her feet, holding a friendly hand out to her aunt. Beulah ignored it and heaved herself up with the aid of her elegant walking stick.
‘I’ve danced the cancan. I’ve even danced it at the Moulin Rouge,’ she shot Edge a sly glance. ‘And I met Toulouse Lautrec.’
Edge’s brows shot up. ‘Surely he died around the turn of the last century?’
‘Oh,’ her aunt was vague, ‘I didn’t say he was alive at the time . . .’
***
The exercise class seemed a bit empty, with several residents away on late summer holidays and Donald missing from the front row. Jayenthi Pillay beckoned to Edge to take his usual place next to her but she pretended not to notice and went into the next row, as far from Major Horace as possible. She liked Jayenthi, she did the class every day because it pleased Donald, and she did feel the benefit, but she’d never taken a place among the super-fit in the front row and had no intention of starting now. Beulah, her mouth set in a disagreeable line, marched toward the back where William was holding court in the chairs set out for the older residents. He refused point-blank to make a spectacle of himself birling, as he put it, like a ballerina, and stuck to chair-based exercises. He glanced up at Beulah warily, but politely nudged the chair next to him towards her. She ignored him stonily and took a seat at the far end. The administrator, Katryn, bustled in at the last minute, beamed approvingly at Beulah, pretended not to notice the glare she got in response, and took a place alongside Edge.
PART TWO
Maids in the kitchen
‘There’s enough here to feed an army.’ Edge heaved four more bulging shopping bags onto the enormous wooden kitchen table and freed her fingers, flexing them with relief.
‘Coming through!’ Stuart Butler spoke urgently from behind her and she stepped smartly aside as he heaved a twenty-five kilogram bag of flour onto the table, then brushed his shirt down as he shot her an apologetic smile. ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to bark at you but I was about to drop it. Where do you want it, Vivian?’
‘Thanks, Stuart, I’ll empty some into a flour bin before you move it again. I thought we’d have to get William to carry that in, I know it weighs a ton. Guests shouldn’t have to work!’
‘I’m not really a guest.’ Stuart grinned at her, flipped off his cloth cap to run fingers through his sweat-dampened hair and mopped at his forehead with his forearm before replacing the cap. ‘Besides, it is my inevitable rule in life to get in with the cook, wherever I will be staying. It never fails to pay off. Tea is offered at regular intervals, I am to allowed to help in the kitchen, which I enjoy, and when cake is made, which with this much flour I imagine will happen at least once, I get to scrape the bowl. All good.’
Vivian laughed at his hopeful expression and switched on the new kettle. ‘Tea it is, then. And somewhere in one of those bags there’s a tin of home-made shortbread.’
‘I’ll start packing stuff into the pantry, if you like, while we look for the shortbread? Any rules, or just keep savouries together, and herbs and spices stay in the kitchen?’ He was already swiftly unpacking the latter as he spoke, arranging them on a wall shelf next to the rented stove. He hefted a large bag of sugar thoughtfully, then held it out to Edge. ‘Pantry, I think. See if you can find a tin so we can keep some in the kitchen, though.’
‘What did your last slave die of?’ Edge asked severely, wincing at the weight of the catering-size packet. ‘Vivian has her own tins but I have no idea where.’
‘They’re here. Coffee, tea, sugar, salt, all marked.’ Vivian unpacked the tins from a larger bin marked Flour. ‘All to go on the shelf under the spices, at least for now. But honestly, Stuart, Edge and I will potter on by ourselves. I do like to pack my own stuff away, then I know exactly where to find it again. Donald is in the master suite dashing about doing finishing touches, and I know he’d be really grateful if you genuinely want to help.’
She smiled at him and their eyes held for a beat too long. Edge raised an eyebrow. Stuart had been waiting in his rather elderly Series One Land Rover when they arrived and had said very little. She studied him now with sudden interest. She’d accepted William’s dismissive description of him as a pedantic paper-pusher but his smile was pleasant, his eyes nearly as blue as Donald’s, and his dark hair, only lightly peppered with grey, was cut to suit him. He was the same height as Vivian, who was tall for a woman. He wore jeans which fitted his thin frame well, neither too baggy nor too tight, and an open-necked short-sleeved shirt which showed the tan of an outdoors man. Not, after all, as dull and dry as she had first thought.
‘I prefer the company of beautiful women, I’m odd that way. But okay. Send me away. I can bear it. Could I have tea first?
‘You can take it with you, and I’ll give you some for Donald too,’ Vivian said sternly, but a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth as the kettle boiled and she briskly made a large pot of tea.
Edge looked after him as he left reluctantly, and lifted her brows as she looked back at Vivian.
‘Okay, he grows on you. You don’t find him a little smarmy?’
‘I think that’s just his manner, and considering both William and Donald vanished as soon as we got here, I’m as happy having his help unpacking the car. Anyway,’ Vivian turned away rather than meet her eyes, ‘a little flirting never killed anyone. Once the guests get here he can be smarmy with them. It was good of him to agree to join the group, he’s really taking William’s inheritance to heart, and how many executors would pitch in and help?’
‘For a fee, probably quite a few. William should get a very healthy tax deduction from all this.’
‘Not at all, Stuart thought it sounded fun. I think he’s quite a lonely man. There’s no Mrs Burns, and no son for the next generation of Butler & Son, and I have the idea he’s not exactly overworked. He’s only ever mentioned this place, the glen consortium and one other client, the Burns Hall estate. He’s here to represent the estate, not paying the same as the others and not charging William to be here.’
‘Burns Hall, that place about ten miles away? The ‘neighbours’? The area isn’t stuffed with potential clients, for sure. I’ve never driven through anywhere so isolated in my life. Miles and miles spotted with the occasional sheep and a distant house on a distant hill every ten miles or so. You’d never believe we were an hour from the motorway and two hours from Onderness. World War Three could devastate the whole planet while we were here and we wouldn’t have a clue. It should be peaceful, anyway.’
‘Apart from the bloody deer.’ Vivian was tugging the shopping bags into a sort of order on the table as she spoke. ‘I stayed here two nights last week, remember. I don’t think they stopped roaring at each other for a single minute all night. Stuart said it’s near the end of the season, they’ll be at it all week. He has to do headcounts every few months, he loves it, thinks they’re magnificent. They’re certainly noisy.’
‘Mmm. What does Buster think of him?’ Vivian’s aging labrador was famously quick at picking out dubious characters.
‘I have absolutely no idea. Both the dogs are in the conservatory off the master suite until things quieten down a bit and they can come out. I’m dying to see what Donald has managed in the way of tidying it up for us.’
Edge accepted the change of topic. ‘I never did see it, thanks to the Lorna furore. Donald won’t even show me the original architect plans. He did say the conservatory originally had imported tr
opical finches flying round, but most of the top glass has gone now, and it’s a bit dilapidated. I gather the suite has a morning room, two bedrooms and its own bathroom. No nasties, he promised me. William’s uncle based himself there, so it’s booby-trap free.’
‘Apart from the bathroom!’ Vivian let out an involuntary hoot of laughter as she trundled a laden trolley into the still room, now fitted with hired shelves to serve as their pantry. ‘It’s superb. There’s an Edwardian shower that blasts water out from about ten different angles. I’m not one for showering but I did enjoy it. That whole suite is nice, there’s a wonderful Georgian day bed in the morning room which I slept on during the week. I’m claiming it this time as well.’ She glanced slightly defensively over at Edge. ‘I’ve told you how loudly William snores. I couldn’t take that for a whole week. Wait till you hear him. Hope you brought earplugs.’
‘I have heard him, when we were staying in Tenerife. Even through the wall it was like distant thunder, but I can sleep through pretty much anything, and so can Donald. Sudden noises wake us, not constant ones. I did think you’d got more used to it, though. You haven’t mentioned it for ages.’
‘No, I haven’t got used to it. Especially the sudden snorts. I haven’t got used to the sulky bear bit either. Don’t put the cereals there. Anything for breakfast goes either in the big fridge or on the shelves next to it: the idea is people make their own and it will all be Continental style, nothing cooked. You can put all the cold meats and cheeses into that fridge, if you would, along with the yoghurts and the fruit juices.’
Edge obediently packed the large fridge, then went through the bags on the table to find anything that seemed to fit under the heading of breakfast. The kitchen had been repainted a cheerful sunny yellow, and scrubbed to sparkling point. Two enormous fridges now faced each other across the expanse of stone-flagged floor, and a third walk-in unit hummed quietly against the far wall. The ancient range gleamed and was topped with trays of growing herbs, flanked by stacked ovens on one side and a large multi-plate hob with a flat grill on the other. The result was attractive, welcoming and efficient and she took a moment to swivel to appreciate it all. She had seen very little of her friend in the past ten days, or of Donald, who had stayed several nights on end at the lodge, occasionally returning home wearily very late at night and mysterious about his set-designing, but their hard work had definitely paid off.