“Lapsang souchong or PG Tips?” he asked me.
“PG Tips,” I said, “always!”
He laughed. “Great minds think alike. Shortbread from Fortnum and Mason, Bourbons, or ginger nuts? I made the ginger nuts myself.”
“Well, bring them on,” I said. “This is quite a kitchen. I almost feel like I’m standing in a castle. Tell me how you came to find such an English house out here.”
“I didn’t so much find it as bring it with me,” he said. “And you’ve hit the nail on the head about the castle. I grew up in one and in parts of the house, I’ve tried to re-create it. I’ve even given its name to this house: Mallaby.”
“Did you really grow up in a castle?”
“Well, okay, it wasn’t really a castle but it felt like one. It was a rambling slate manor on the edge of the Yorkshire moors, an old farmhouse with bits added on to it, but it had a tower at one end and there was a wide stream surrounding three-quarters of it that felt like a moat. I always thought of it as a castle.”
“I don’t really know Yorkshire,” I said. “I grew up in London and I’ve lived there ever since.”
“Oh, you’re a ‘townie,’ poor thing.” He was unplugging an electric kettle and pouring boiling water into the teapot. “I’m a country boy, in fact I was a nursling of the moors, filling my little lungs with the bracing air of the north wind every day. It’s probably why I’m drawn to the bleakness of the Atlantic coast here.”
“I didn’t think the Hamptons were supposed to be bleak,” I said.
“Try being here in February,” he said darkly, “which you might well be once you get stuck into my book. Anyway, the house—it started with the central bit. Some tycoon from Ohio built himself a folly—a Norman tower. When I first came out here to look for a place, the real estate brokers couldn’t wait to show it to me because they said it was English. Well, it was no more English than they were but it gave me an idea. I loved the isolation of the property, it was exactly what I was looking for, set way back here in the woods. I thought whatever the tycoon started, I could finish but I knew I’d never be able to re-create an old house by building it.”
“Well, I don’t know how you managed it,” I said, “but this house really does seem old. It feels like it was built hundreds of years ago.”
“That’s because it was,” he said. “Instead of getting a builder I hired a structural mover. They move houses lock, stock, and barrel from one place to another. We scoured New England and I bought two houses, each over three hundred years old, and then we moved them here and placed them either side of the folly.”
As I followed him out of the kitchen, I was happy to see the strain on his face was lifted, if only temporarily, by his enthusiasm in explaining the house’s restoration to me. In my mind, I started to plan a chapter that would deal with his experiences in putting together his house and then almost immediately I started to wonder how much control he would allow me in the structure of the book. Some subjects allowed me a free rein, others thought they knew exactly how to tell their story. Which they didn’t—otherwise why would they hire me?
I heard voices up ahead of us. As we emerged from the gloom of the long corridor into the great hall Detective Morrison came toward Shotgun. He wasn’t alone. Behind him were two other cops and through the windows I could see police cars lined up down the drive.
Evan Morrison was holding a shotgun.
I saw Shotgun’s hands clench by his sides but his voice gave no sign of tension.
“Detective Morrison, back so soon?”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Marriott. This shotgun was found yesterday, buried in the sand on the beach just beyond your property. As you will see, it’s a Purdey.”
“So it is,” said Shotgun. He wasn’t looking at Detective Morrison. He was staring through the open front door as if he were fixated on something at the far end of his driveway.
“When I interviewed you the first time a few days ago, Mr. Marriott . . .” Evan Morrison was advancing toward him and as he did so Shotgun backed away, still without looking at the detective. They were performing a kind of bizarre dance around Shotgun’s hallway. “I asked you if you owned a shotgun and you said you owned a Purdey twelve bore. You showed me where you kept it, we examined it and determined it had not been fired. What you omitted to mention was that it was one of a matching pair that was made by Purdey’s for your father in 1937. When we found this gun”—he held it aloft—“naturally we ran the serial number past Purdey’s in London and when I got back just now I found they had come back to us with the details. You never told us it was one of a pair.”
What Detective Morrison said next gave me such a shock I felt as if I had been blasted by a shotgun myself.
“Christopher Marriott, I am arresting you for the murder of Bettina Pleshette. You have the right to remain silent. If you give up the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak with an attorney and—”
I had only ever heard these words spoken in the movies and I watched in horror as an officer holding handcuffs stepped forward to stand beside Shotgun, who stepped away from them with his palms held high.
“You heard what the man said.” He whipped out his cell phone. “I have the right to speak with an attorney before you can come up with any more fantastic scenarios. If you ever think about writing fiction, Lee”—he turned to me—“book in for a lesson with Detective Morrison here. He seems to have a highly inventive streak in him.”
He made his call, then they cuffed him and took him outside to one of the waiting cars. As I followed them in the Phillionaire’s Jeep, I watched the back of his head outlined in the rear window of the police car and saw it sink lower and lower as we drove slowly down the dirt track to Cranberry Hole Road.
CHAPTER 5
ON THE WAY BACK TO THE CABIN I WAS SO CONSUMED with worry about Shotgun that I paid no attention to the road. Pretty soon I had totally lost my way and eventually I found myself at the end of a spit of land with water on all sides. I got out of the car and went to lean against a rock on the beach. The sun was beginning to go down across the bay in a huge ball of crimson and for a while I drank in the breathtaking view. Normally if I stare long enough at water it calms me and enables me to empty my mind but this evening the astonishing beauty just seemed treacherous. I watched fishermen coming in across the bay, approaching the launching pad to my right, and I wondered if Sean had been tossed from a boat. Were there more bodies in these little skiffs approaching the harbor, lying in the bottom beside the catch of the day?
Of course there weren’t! Why did I do this to myself? Why did I always have to imagine the darkest possible scenario? To force myself to get a grip, I checked my cell phone messages. There was one from Rufus that seemed to end in midair, saying he couldn’t meet me tonight because he had to go to Riverhead to get his truck serviced and wouldn’t be back until late. He’d see me in the morning at Franny’s for breakfast at seven thirty and would I please—and then nothing. There was a very simple reason for this. Now that I came to think of it, I had not recharged my battery for at least two days—another sure sign I was losing it.
The mention of breakfast made me realize that after Franny warned me off paying her extortionate prices at the Old Stone Market, I still didn’t have anything to eat for supper. It was getting dark and I’d already lost my way once so I approached a fisherman and asked for directions to the market. When I got there, Franny wasn’t around but a Latino with the soulful brown eyes of a Labrador was lurking behind the counter. He told me his name was Jesus so I pointed at myself and said “Lee Bartholomew,” and he clapped his hands in apparent delight and asked how he could help me. I remembered what Franny had said about the cooked dinners and within minutes I was driving home with a steaming aluminum foil dish containing a chicken pot pie.
Driving back to the cabin, I was a little nervous going along Cranberry Hole Road because it was a lonely stretch and unt
il that moment it hadn’t dawned on me just how isolated the cabin was. I was mildly comforted by the fact that Rufus was staying in the pool house just a short walk up the beach. But what about the nights when he stayed at a girlfriend’s?
An unfamiliar light was blinking in the dark as I walked in and because I’m such a panic princess my immediate thought was that I’d set off some kind of alarm. Then I flicked a switch and saw it was the answering machine by the phone. I sat at the island and chomped away on my chicken pot pie (“I make,” Jesus had announced with pride on handing it to me and I had to admit it was delicious), while I wondered whether or not to pick up the Phillionaire’s messages. They had to be for Phil, I reasoned, because this was his retreat. Anyone wanting me would call my cell phone. But unless I passed them on, Phil wouldn’t get these messages for quite a long time. What if they were urgent?
Procrastination was another of my special talents so of course I had a shower in order to have more time to consider my options and while I was rejoicing in the force of the water pressure and the way it sweetly kneaded my shoulder muscles, the phone rang again. I heard my mother’s voice.
“For God’s sake, Lee, where on earth are you? This is the second message I’ve left.”
There was an abrupt click and she was gone before I could pick up.
In fact both of the previous messages were for me and they were back to front. The first made me sit down suddenly on the bed.
“Hi. It’s me. I’ve been texting you but you haven’t come back to me. I’ve just seen your mother and she gave me this number. Anyway, I thought I’d give you a call.”
That was it. Tommy was never much good on the telephone at the best of times and this kind of abrupt message was typical. The idiot had probably been texting me on the mobile I’d left in London. I switched off the tape quickly. The sound of his voice was enough to make me throw a wobbly in any case but hearing it so uncharacteristically gloomy made it even worse.
Suddenly I remembered my mother saying she had called before.
When I turned the machine back on I had to listen to Tommy’s message again and then my mother began to speak. And speak and speak, until I began to wonder if she’d ever shut up. I wished it had been the reverse. I wished it had been Tommy who had left me a long and rambling message, using up most of the tape, and my mother who had shut up after three sentences.
“Lee, darling.” Uh-oh, this was a bad sign. Her use of “darling” usually meant she wanted me to do something. “Phil gave me this number because I can’t raise you on your cell phone. You’ve turned it off or something. We’re in London, on our way to Venice, and you just will not believe the state of Blenheim Crescent. It’s a complete and utter pigsty and I cannot imagine what induced you to let Cath stay here. She’s reduced the place to a kind of squalling day care center. We walked in on a gaggle of mothers and screaming babies. I just cannot imagine what Phil must have thought.”
This was a bit rich! First of all it was my mother who had suggested Cath Clark and her boyfriend Sgt. Richie Cross, together with their baby Marcus, move into our house in Notting Hill Gate while their flat in nearby Shepherd’s Bush was being renovated. Cath and I had been friends since we were kids, growing up in the same neighborhood, going to school together. We’d always had our designated roles. I was the hopeless one—the neurotic, willful, self-indulgent one who treated Tommy badly and didn’t deserve him. Cath was the caring, responsible rock who always stood by me and gave me advice on how to get through life without alienating absolutely everyone.
Of course my mother has always thought Cath was completely wonderful and whenever she was in despair over my antisocial ways, Cath’s name would be invoked as a paragon of everything she would wish for in a daughter. Now don’t get me wrong, I have always adored Cath and she is my best friend, no question. But recently I have begun to feel that her judgment of me can be a little unfair. I just don’t think I am as bad as she makes out. I suspect that under the surface Cath might just be as neurotic as I am and the only difference is that I am quite upfront about it whereas she pretends her life is eternally perfect.
Well, it isn’t. Cath has been in and out of rehab for a drinking problem that, until quite recently, she kept secret from me.
“I was very good about it, darling,” my mother’s voice continued, “because she is your friend but I do think you might call her and have a word. And there’s another thing. Why haven’t you been in touch with poor Tommy? He didn’t have the slightest clue you were even in America. Phil and I came back from the theater one night and found him sitting at the kitchen table with Cath. He was pretty far gone, I’m afraid. At least half a bottle of whiskey and before you say a word, Cath didn’t touch a drop. It seems he’s lost his job at the BBC and he doesn’t know what to do with himself. His first thought was to come and tell you about it. You can imagine how utterly miserable he felt when he discovered you’d gone to America without telling him.”
Why should I tell him? He was the one who called off the wedding.
“But before you jump on a plane and come rushing back to him—” my mother continued. She was joking, right?—“let me tell you that Cath was doing a fine job of consoling him. She really is the kindest person and—”
I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of this. A while ago, in an unguarded moment and long before she’d got together with Richie, Cath had confessed to being in love with Tommy.
“—she told me you hadn’t been in touch with her either. What is the matter with you, Lee? These people are closer to you than anyone and you appear to have just walked away from them.”
Well, hello! There was the little question of the subject of my latest assignment being caught up in a murder investigation. Even if Tommy didn’t grasp the significance of that, Cath was married to a detective, a murder detective, and if my mother had spared a moment to fill them in on where I stood work-wise then Cath would understand that I was probably a little preoccupied.
“Anyway,” said my mother, “I gave them both your numbers so no doubt you’ll be hearing from them. Now, Lee, what’s happening with the construction of the beach house? Have you met the contractor yet? Have they cleared the ground? I want to know when they will be pouring the foundation.”
I wasn’t really listening. I was trying to work out why Tommy had not mentioned that he had lost his job in his message. He said he was calling after he’d seen my mother. I guessed what must have happened. He would not have wanted to admit he’d been fired in a message. Even if he’d reached me, I would probably have had to coax it out of him having heard in his voice that there was a problem.
I vaguely registered my mother droning on for another minute or two about her travel plans and when they would be returning and what she expected me to do about the beach house. Her voice followed me around the one-room cabin as I placed my plate in the dishwasher, switched off the lights, and turned down the bed. I would have an early night. I needed sleep to harness my energy to deal with the beach house and Tommy and Cath and what on earth I was going to do about my elusive assignment with Shotgun Marriott. Tucked up in bed, my thoughts turned to Tommy. I wondered if it was too late to call him. I switched on the light and dialed his number.
No reply.
It was three in the morning in London. Where was he? I left a quick message—“I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you called. I’m sorry about your job”—and then, before I changed my mind—“I love you, Tommy.” And then I hung up. Should I have mentioned that I knew he had lost his job? Should I have waited for him to tell me about it himself? How I wished it had been I rather than Cath who had been there to console him. But was it not a good sign that he had come around to tell me the news, an indication that maybe he did still see a future with me?
And then, as I switched off the light and the cabin was plunged into darkness, I saw a flicker of light outside. Suddenly I realized that there were no curtains or blinds on any of the windows. I got out of bed and crept through the darknes
s to the back of the cabin where I had seen the light and, peering through a window, I saw it came from the headlamps of a car in the distance along Cranberry Hole Road.
The car turned into my road and the headlamps were coming toward me. If the lights had still been on in the cabin I would have been clearly visible.
And then the headlamps went out. Whoever was out there had parked halfway down the dirt track to the cabin.
Was it Rufus? And if so, what did he want at ten thirty at night? Well, if it was, he would be here any second.
I grabbed my robe and sat huddled in it on the bed waiting for a knock on the door but it never came. I waited for the sound of the car starting up and driving away but after a while I found that the sheer silence all around me unnerved me more than anything. I went around to all the windows checking that they were firmly locked and I turned the key in the door. Then I crept back to bed and reached for the TV remote.
I watched Letterman, aware that the flickering of the TV screen must be visible through the window to the person in the car outside. And finally, about twenty minutes later, I heard the sound of the engine and, peering through the darkness, I saw the car back up and drive away.
I lay awake for nearly an hour telling myself it was nothing to worry about. People probably turned down deserted dirt roads at ten thirty at night and parked for half an hour all the time out here in the Hamptons. I was a city girl, what did I know of the habits of beach folk?
How to Marry a Ghost Page 8