“Here you are, Clarissa, here is your beautiful little daughter.”
Clarissa’s eyes had been shut. They flew open.
“It’s a girl?” The word “girl” was uttered in a tone that might have led an onlooker to suppose it was a synonym for “slug.”
“Now, Clarissa. I know you are disappointed not to have given John an heir. But you are young and healthy and you have plenty of time to produce a boy. Meanwhile, you have a very lovely baby girl.” Again Marjorie held out the infant.
Clarissa did not move. Instead she stared at her baby as if it were something infected. Then she raised her eyes to her mother’s face and whispered despairingly, “I have to do this again?”
Chapter 10
SATURDAY MORNING
Three Days After Rob Hillman’s Death
Tom Holder couldn’t remember when he’d been happier. He could scarcely believe it, after the unpromising start to his vacation.
The pleasure he’d anticipated in the trip to England had nose-dived when he’d heard, the night before Kathryn’s departure, that she’d had a cousin over there who’d had an accident—a fall, they said—and died. She would have to spend a lot of time doing all those dreary but necessary things that survivors have to do. He was sorry both for Kathryn and for himself; obviously it would put a serious crimp in her vacation, and it would substantially reduce the amount of time she would spend with the church group, which would put a serious crimp in his.
Canceling, however, wasn’t an option. It would be all too embarrassingly clear—to God, Louise, and everybody—that the presence of the Reverend Dr. Koerney was, in Tom’s book, the chief charm of the Oxford trip. Besides, clearing up her cousin’s affairs couldn’t possibly take every minute of the two weeks; she’d still be spending as much time as she could with the gang from St. Margaret’s.
Of that he was certain because he’d learned over the last year that Kathryn had an exaggerated sense of her obligations. She lashed herself with guilt whenever she thought she’d failed to meet expectations—her own or anybody else’s.
As they disembarked at London’s Heathrow Airport and threaded their way through lengthy corridors and tedious lines at customs and immigration, Tom was picturing how Kathryn would look—a bit harassed, but putting a brave face on it, and act—full of smiles and apologies in equal measure. She would bustle about them like a hen gathering her chicks, assuring them that she’d see to it that they were well taken care of whenever she had to be absent, and that she would be absent as little as she could possibly manage.
So when he saw her he was shocked. It was as if someone had pulled a plug and drained the life out of her. The color in her cheeks had faded almost to gray; the light in her eyes had gone out. Others in the group passed by him, greeting Kathryn with concerned noises, but Tom stood stock-still, swearing at himself under his breath, “You stupid dickhead. Just because you never had a cousin who meant more than another Christmas card every December!” He had blithely assumed that her cousin’s death would mean little to Kathryn beyond inconvenience; now, he was ashamed of himself, both because the assumption seemed inconsiderate toward Kathryn, and because as a policeman he wasn’t supposed to make unfounded assumptions. He watched as the women who knew her best abandoned the luggage carts they’d been pushing and went to Kathryn to embrace her and express their sympathy. More than sympathy: concern. Because Kathryn was behaving oddly, almost like an automaton, exercising a steely control not only over her face but over her body. Her legs and arms moved stiffly, as if she had been starched. Tom couldn’t decide whether he should approach her or hold back.
The decision was taken out of his hands, however. Kathryn swept the little crowd with a jerky glance, raised an arm, and gestured for them to follow her. They rolled their luggage carts through the crowds after her, a haphazard caravan, out of the noisy arrivals hall into a soft English twilight marred by exhaust fumes. She led them toward a curb where half a dozen small buses were lined up nose to tail emitting noise and carbon monoxide. One of these, clearly, was to ferry them to their hotel on the outskirts of the airport. Kathryn stopped at a green and white one, turned, held up both hands, and asked for their attention. They gave it to her.
“You will have heard,” she began with her customary volume and strength but completely without her normal animation, “that my cousin in Oxford died suddenly last Wednesday and that I therefore was going to have to absent myself from this tour for part of the time. I’m afraid it’s worse that that. I am now informed by the police that my cousin was murdered. I am therefore,” she continued without pausing for the gasps and cries to subside, “going to the village where this happened, some miles from Oxford, and I shall be there at least until the perpetrator is discovered and possibly longer.” She explained that she had arranged for an old friend from her Oxford days to act as their tour guide in her stead; he would meet them at the station in Oxford when their train arrived the next day. She was extremely sorry, but it was unlikely that they would see her at all.
Tom was appalled, not because his happy expectations had been dashed, but because it was clear that Kathryn was not only in pain but in shock, and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. He wasn’t a close enough friend to offer a shoulder to cry on, and he would not be able to assist her professionally because he was an ocean away from his own turf. Adding to his feelings of uselessness was the conviction that when her glance had swept over the group, she hadn’t even noted his presence.
She had motioned for them to get on the bus, and they were beginning to do so. She pulled the Rector aside and murmured quietly to him. Tom watched a bit wistfully as Father Mark took one of Kathryn’s hands and patted it, nodding repeatedly at whatever she was saying. Suddenly their brief conference ended; Kathryn turned and began to walk down the line of people and luggage carts in Tom’s direction. His brief, urgent prayer that she at least acknowledge his existence was answered with a divine generosity that left him breathless.
She walked straight up to him and spoke so quietly that only he could hear. “Tom,” she whispered, “I know this is an outrageous request, and I have no right on God’s green earth to make it, but would you come with me? Out to this place where Rob died? I’ve spoken on the phone to the owner of the house, and he told me very kindly that I could bring a friend if I liked, he said there was plenty of space for guests.”
Tom was stunned beyond speech, and Kathryn misinterpreted the amazed look on his face. “Oh, forget it! It was selfish of me to ask, you came here to see Oxford, not to traipse around a country house in the middle of a murder—”
She was waving her hands in a “cancel that” motion. Tom reached out and caught one of them and held it in both of his. Forcing himself to speak calmly, he asked simply, “What do you want me to do for you?”
She caught her breath and blinked back tears. “Oh, Tom, you are such a dear. It’s just that this was bad enough when I thought it was just a horrible accident. But now—now—I seem to be so rattled—I don’t know, the fact that somebody actually killed him, I can’t—and the last time I was around a murder I was a complete idiot and practically got—”
“You were not,” he said sternly. “You were very smart and I—we—would never have cracked it if it hadn’t been for you. We have had this argument before and I am not going to listen to it again. Now pull yourself together and tell me how I can help you.”
It transpired that Kathryn felt that what she needed in her current state of mind was the steady presence of an experienced policeman who also happened to be a friend. Tom promptly pledged all the time and attention she needed, and added that he’d rather help her catch her cousin’s killer than see the sights of Oxford anyway. He figured it was safe to say this because she wouldn’t believe him. Sure enough, Kathryn gave him a wan smile, squeezed his hand, and told him he was a wonderful liar.
“Are you tired?” she asked. “Do you need to crash for the night with the others, or are you up to going straight to O
xford with me?”
He assured her (truthfully) that he was wide awake, and she led him off to the taxi rank.
So it was that Tom found himself the following morning being driven out of Oxford in the car Kathryn had rented. His duty was to navigate them through the rolling countryside to Datchworth Castle. Between the unfamiliarity of the British map (it showed pubs, for heaven’s sake!) and the sure and certain knowledge that they would die any minute because Kathryn insisted on driving on the left side of the road (he knew it was correct but it felt idiotically dangerous), it was a wonder he didn’t feel more anxious. But there was simply no room inside him for negative feelings.
England was as beautiful as everybody said it was, the sun was shining but it wasn’t too hot, and the Reverend Kathryn Koerney, the incredible Kathryn, was his for the next several days. Well, “his” might be putting it too strongly, but she had solicited his companionship in a manner that had made it obvious that they were going to be spending a lot of time together. Tom wouldn’t have been able to enjoy it if she had continued in the state of obvious distress he had witnessed at the airport. But on the ninety-minute ride to Oxford, as he had watched the taxi meter ascend by regular clicks into the fiscal stratosphere and wondered what it would be like to be rich, Kathryn had fallen asleep in her corner of the backseat and the nap seemed to do her good. At the hotel in Oxford she seemed to be suffering from no more than fatigue as she thanked him for the sixth time and bade him goodnight.
In the morning she was downright cheerful over breakfast, explaining to him that the English actually liked their toast cold and their bacon half-cooked and their sausages stuffed to blandness with bread crumbs.
“I assure you, the Randolph serves the best breakfast in town,” she chuckled at him as he held up a piece of bacon as limp as overcooked spaghetti and stared at it incredulously.
Had he suspected that she was putting on a brave face for his benefit, he would have told her instantly to drop the act. But it was a very good act, and it fooled him completely. Kathryn had decided that since Tom had so kindly agreed to sacrifice several days of his vacation, the least she could do in return was refrain from acting the way she felt, and endeavor to make those days as pleasant for Tom as she could manage.
So on the drive she chatted lightly about the house they were going to; not really a castle, she said, but a fortified manor house built on the ruins of an older castle. Apparently every century from the twelfth to the twentieth was represented somewhere in its fabric. She added a few bits of information she had picked up from her cousin’s gossipy emails about the family who lived there. The owner was a baronet, the lowest form of title, but his family was as old as the castle, which was actually more important in the circles where people cared about that sort of thing. And one of his middle names was St. John, but you pronounced it “sinjin.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, rhymes with ‘engine.’ ”
Tom laughed, half from amusement and half from pure joy, as he realized that the tune that had been running at the back of his mind for the last half hour was, “Heaven, I’m in heaven. . . .”
They lost a few minutes to a wrong turn (“Sorry, that was stupid of me.” “Nonsense, Tom, you’re doing brilliantly.”) but eventually they found the entrance to Datchworth. Around it were encamped a number of bored-looking people whose profession was obvious. Kathryn drove slowly through their midst, ignoring the questions that were called out to her and Tom, and guessing that the questions would have been more insistent if they’d known who she was. Tom was making her chuckle by smiling at the reporters on his side of the car and saying, “Hi, nice to see you, thanks for coming, I know how busy you’ve been.” The car crept forward to the bobby standing guard, Kathryn showed him her passport, and they turned into the gates of Datchworth. The press fell back, and Tom and Kathryn gazed at the castle before them.
Kathryn, eyeing the entrance tower, remarked that she could see why they had resurrected the term “castle.” She glanced at Tom and was surprised to see him frowning. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I know I’m supposed to be impressed, but why does it remind me of Disneyland?”
Kathryn whooped with appreciation. “Because it’s a fake, my clever friend! It’s Victorian. The bit we’re looking at here, at any rate, which is obviously hiding the older bits. This is no more than a hundred years old. Good grief, it’s got arrow slits. I think that counts as pretentious.”
By this time they had pulled up by the massive front door. As they got out of the car the big door opened, and the serene presence of Crumper emerged to greet them.
Twenty minutes later Kathryn knocked at Tom’s door and was told to enter. She did so, looked around the spacious, well-lit room with its mellow antiques and picture-postcard view of the park, and shook her head in amazement. “If this is how they house strangers, I wonder what they do for honored guests.”
“Your room this good, too?”
“Every bit. Oh, Tom! How ’bout that butler?”
“I figure he’s an actor this Gregory Sinjin guy hires to impress the guests.”
“Works, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, yeah. Ready to go talk to the fuzz?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
They set off down the corridor, Tom muttering as it branched into three, “I knew I should have left a trail of bread crumbs.”
But he led her without hesitation or error to where they were supposed to be, which was back in the wide entrance hall. There they were met by an officer who introduced herself as Detective Inspector Meera Patel, who looked so little like a policewoman that both Tom and Kathryn blinked in surprise. Meera gave Kathryn a firm handshake, a warm smile, and a short explanation of what a Family Liaison Officer was. Kathryn responded with her customary good manners, and introduced Meera to “my friend, Tom Holder.” She did not mention Tom’s profession. They had decided, for the time being at least, to keep that information to themselves, lest the local police think she had brought Tom along to horn in on their business.
D.I. Patel was leading them down a broad passageway toward the parlor that Crumper had allotted to the investigators, when a door opened on their left and Derek Banner all but walked into them.
“Oh, I, ah, beg your pardon, ah, Detective Inspector!” he uttered in short jerks, attempting a polite smile and making a poor job of it. Then he saw Kathryn.
Kathryn Koerney’s physical appeal was directly proportional to her emotional state. In high spirits, she was exceptionally beautiful, lit from within. In a more somber mood, she was merely very, very good-looking. It was enough for Derek, whose dismal attempt at a smile gave way first to surprise, then pleasure, then with some deliberate magnification on Derek’s part into a rapt expression that if made verbal would have been, “Where have you been all my life?” He did this while effectively blocking their path, forcing Meera to respond.
“Hello, Mr. Banner. This is—”
But he didn’t need her. He reached Kathryn in two long paces, held out his hand, and asked breathlessly, “Are you Rob’s cousin? Welcome to Datchworth! I’m Derek Banner. I’m sorry that my uncle—that’s Sir Gregory—isn’t available until lunchtime.”
Kathryn introduced Tom, whose hand Derek wrung warmly before turning back to Kathryn a fraction of a second too soon. Kathryn began, “About your uncle, Mr. Banner—”
“Derek! You must call me Derek!”
“Derek,” she nodded with a smile. “I’m aware that Sir Gregory’s health is frail; Rob mentioned it to me. It’s exceedingly kind of your uncle to invite us to stay, and I wouldn’t dream of asking him to wear himself out talking to strangers.”
Derek informed her earnestly that she was most considerate, rather implying that he didn’t meet with such wonderful persons very often, and upon ascertaining that she and Tom were bound for their first session with the police, began to escort them down the corridor in that direction, leaving D. I. Patel to bring up the rear.
> Derek inquired, as they walked, if Kathryn and her friend had found their rooms satisfactory (“Palatial,” Kathryn assured him.), if they were tired or jet-lagged (“A bit.”), if they needed anything (“Just a long nap after lunch, I think; you, Tom?” “Same here.”).
When they reached their destination, Derek opened the door for them with a tasteful version of a flourish, saying, “I’m only sorry that you’re here on such a sad occasion, but nevertheless”—he gave Tom a nod and a smile—“I am pleased to meet you and on behalf of my uncle”—he turned to take Kathryn’s hand, which he bowed over rather than shook—“I present you with the keys to the castle. Figuratively, you know.”
Kathryn could not help but smile, but her thanks were perfunctory, as her attention was promptly claimed by the policeman who had been waiting for her in the parlor.
Said policeman, George (“Gee Gee”) Griffin, took one look at the victim’s cousin from America and was instantly glad he was wearing his Harrods suit and his Sulka tie. D. I. Griffin was justly proud of his appearance, which lay approximately halfway between that of a smart, competent cop and that of a male model; he spent a goodly part of his salary making sure that his clothes tended more toward the latter. Probably nothing much could be stirred up with the lady minister, given the professional distance the situation called for, but one never knew. He hadn’t been nicknamed “Gorgeous George” for nothing.
Kathryn shook hands with him and gestured toward Tom, introducing him as “my friend, Tom Holder; he’s come along for moral support.”
D. I. Griffin gave Tom a handshake and all the attention he merited, which amounted to waving vaguely in the direction of a chair off to the side, and courteously offered Kathryn a seat opposite himself at the table. Meera Patel sat down unobtrusively in a corner and prepared to be unimpressed. She and her best friend on the force had decided long ago that the double G actually stood for “God’s Gift” (to women), because that was what the man so obviously thought he was.
Thieves Break In Page 8