The Perfect Guests

by Emma Rous

  Sadie carries the case through to her tiny sitting room, and she blinks around, looking for a clear surface to lay it down on. The coffee table is covered in paperwork—lists of auditions, bank statements, budget plans, job adverts, a half-written letter . . . She plucks a couple of empty mugs out of the way and sets the suitcase on top of the layers of paper.

  She’s hoping the case contains clothes, and she’s not disappointed. There’s a choice of three vintage evening dresses, each in a different shade of cream or off-white, for the dinner on the Saturday night. A cream woolen skirt suit and a blouse, for wearing at breakfast on the Sunday morning. Two pairs of ivory shoes, one with high heels, the other low. A string of lustrous pearls in a velvet-lined box. A silver brooch shaped like a bird in flight. And, to top it all off, a beautiful white faux-fur coat. She examines each item in turn before laying them out on the sofa behind her.

  Underneath all that is a folder of instructions, which begins with a character description for Sadie’s part in the game. She will be Miss Lamb, “newly arrived in the area and seeking employment at Raven Hall.” The mystery central to the game won’t be revealed until the guests sit down to dinner, the folder tells her. Miss Lamb’s preliminary alibi is enclosed in a separate envelope, but Sadie is instructed not to open this envelope until after she’s arrived at Raven Hall, just before she goes down to the drawing room for the predinner drinks.

  Sadie hesitates. She’s never been good at obeying rules, and this tendency has lost her two jobs in the past year alone, and on each occasion, she vowed to herself that she would turn over a new leaf. A memory of her mother’s pained expression flashes into her mind—“Not again, Sadie. What did you do this time?”

  Reluctantly, Sadie sets the alibi envelope to one side. She still feels perfectly justified in what she did, as it happens. She’d hated pestering her customers at the department store to take out the store’s credit card, and her refusal to try to improve her take-up figures led to sharp words in the manager’s office, followed eventually by her being told not to bother coming back. And then, the corner-shop job—all that expired food she was supposed to throw into the bins when there was nothing really wrong with it . . . When the owner realized she was leaving some of it out by the back door for hard-up locals to help themselves to, she was instantly fired.

  Sadie sighs.

  But on the other hand, this murder mystery weekend isn’t an ordinary, rule-bound job, is it? At its heart, it’s just a game, and she’s pretty sure the other guests will cheat too . . .

  She squeezes her eyes shut in a silent apology to her mother, and then she snatches up the envelope and tears it open.

  A small square card informs her: Miss Lamb, you spent the morning alone in your bedroom, writing letters. You took a walk around the garden with Colonel Otter before lunch. At some point between two and three o’clock in the afternoon, you visited Lord Nightingale in his study. You can’t remember the exact time, but you were in there for less than five minutes.

  Sadie smiles to herself. This is going to be fun.

  She tries on each of the dresses in turn, twirling in front of the full-length mirror by her front door to assess their fit. Most of Sadie’s own clothes are secondhand—she loves hunting down bargains in charity shops—so she has an idea of what these vintage items might be worth, and she feels flattered to be trusted with them. They’re all beautiful, but the ivory silk dress is the best; it’s so smooth against her skin, she could close her eyes and forget she’s wearing it. The pearl necklace adds the final touch of sophistication. Rather more upmarket than the mermaid costume, she thinks wryly.

  She sends a quick text to Wendy to confirm she’ll accept the job. Then she starts up her laptop, and types in “Raven Hall, Fens.”

  Within seconds, she’s gazing at a grainy photo of a neglected-looking country house with a tower at one end. Ivy hugs its walls, and for a moment, she envisions it surrounded by a thick forest, like a Sleeping Beauty castle, and the image makes her smile. But a second view, from farther away, shows only a bleak, empty landscape all around, with a glint of dark water in the foreground.

  She skims down the other search results, but there isn’t much. A ramblers’ group blog entry from a couple of years ago describes the house as having been “abandoned and uncared for since a tragedy befell a local family in the late 1980s.” Sadie clicks back to the photo and peers at the hazy smudging on the pale walls around one of the upstairs windows. It looks like soot—perhaps there was a fire there. How awful. And how sad that the house then sat empty for thirty years—but what a perfect location it makes for a murder mystery event.

  If the glossy invitation and the attention to detail in the suitcase of clothes are anything to go by, the company has the funds to have turned Raven Hall back into a comfortable, welcoming place, Sadie thinks. But even if it hasn’t been restored—even if she turns up and discovers it’s still a crumbling wreck—she’ll follow through with the job anyway. Her mother’s landlord hasn’t yet returned the house deposit, and Sadie can’t push her overdraft any higher; she doesn’t have any other options. She’ll cheerfully camp out in a soot-blackened room in a mansion heaving with ghosts if it means she’ll get paid this month before her rent’s overdue. Besides, the game sounds like it will be fun.

  Beth

  July 1988

  Nina gave me the beginnings of a house tour before dinner. We started downstairs, in the drawing room, and I could have spent ages in there alone, looking at the paintings and the grand piano and the black marble fireplace. My fingers itched to stroke everything, but I clasped my hands firmly behind me. Nina was already marching back out to the hall, and I hurried to follow her.

  The dining room felt as big as the entire footprint of my old house. The kitchen was similarly huge, with a rich aroma drifting from the enormous oven. I could see no evidence of meal preparation on the long wooden work tops, and I wondered fleetingly whether the Raven Hall family did the same as the children’s home, buying in meals that had been prepared off-site. Nina went straight to the open French doors and stepped out onto the terrace, and she gestured at the wide lawn in front of her.

  “What would you like to see first? Do you like raspberries? We could go and pick some.”

  My stomach rumbled, but Leonora bustled into the kitchen behind us and interrupted.

  “Dinner in ten minutes, girls. Leave the raspberries ’til tomorrow, okay?”

  So, instead of heading outside, Nina led me down a short corridor from the back of the kitchen to a long, narrow room that I guessed was meant to be used for laundry. A wooden work top ran all the way along one wall, with a huge double sink at one end, but there were no clothes or drying racks to be seen. Instead, the whole of the work surface and much of the tiled floor were covered in piles of paper. Drawings, paintings, and sketches were stacked haphazardly on every surface.

  “Mum’s an illustrator.” Nina picked up a few of the sketches at random. “Have a look—they’re good, aren’t they? She doesn’t sell much, but . . .”

  I admired drawings of fantastical beasts and fairy-tale castles and tropical islands. “Yeah, they’re great. And what does your dad do?”

  “Oh, he runs a landscape gardening business,” Nina said. “Based in Cambridge. He took the day off today to welcome you.”

  I felt flattered but also bemused. I thought of my own parents’ former full-time jobs at the council, and the modest family home we used to live in, and I marveled that a gardener and an artist could make enough money to own a house like Raven Hall.

  “So . . .” I plucked up my courage as we returned to the kitchen. “Do you know where my violin went? Only, I like to play it every day, especially since . . .” I bit back the rest of the sentence. My violin was the one constant in my life, the one activity that kept my grief at arm’s length. Nina looked surprised, but Leonora, who was removing a casserole dish from the oven, turned aro
und with a delighted smile.

  “Markus put it in the drawing room, just now, Beth. Please, play it whenever you like. We’re all looking forward to hearing you.”

  This had to be a good sign. My newfound optimism glowed a little brighter. Nina and I hurried off to set the table in the dining room, and then the four of us sat down to enjoy the most delicious chicken casserole I’d ever tasted.

  “So, Beth,” Markus said, offering me a second helping of vegetables across the table, “did you have a nice afternoon? You don’t want to go home yet?”

  I flinched at the word home, but I didn’t blame Markus for being tactless—I’d lost count of how many well-meaning people had said similar things since my parents and brother died; they spoke without thinking. Leonora, however, shot me a look brimming with sympathy, and then she frowned at Markus.

  “Give her a chance to settle in, poor girl. She’s barely had time to unpack yet.”

  Nina didn’t quite manage to suppress a smirk, and I dipped my head and focused on my food, conscious of the ache in my arms from the rowing, and the tingle of sunburn on my shoulders from swimming in the lake.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Markus said. “I’m sure we’ve got a bike the right size for Beth in the stables. I’ll have a look after dinner, and I’ll check everything’s roadworthy, and then maybe the two of you can cycle around the lake tomorrow. What do you think?”

  Nina shrugged and looked at me.

  “That sounds nice,” I said. “Can we ride into the village?”

  There was a moment of silence, and I sensed I’d made my own faux pas. Leonora appeared to choose her words carefully.

  “We don’t tend to encourage that, Beth. But—” She tried to catch Nina’s eye, but Nina had her head lowered. “Nina has a little friend who comes out here to play with her, don’t you, Nina? Jonas, whose mum runs the B and B. He’s a nice boy.”

  Nina’s eye roll was so dramatic, I felt sure either Leonora or Markus would tell her off, but neither did. Leonora turned back to me instead.

  “Perhaps you could play something for us after dinner, Beth? Would you mind? That piece you played at the concert last week was lovely. It might inspire Nina . . .”

  I nodded eagerly. “Of course. If you like.”

  Leonora smiled. “Thank you.” She turned abruptly to Markus. “Oh, did you ring the caterers? The party’s so close, and I’ve got so much to do . . .”

  I could see where Nina got her rapid changes of subject from.

  After dinner, I played my violin for them, and then we all carried our drinks out to the terrace—white wine for Leonora and Markus, lemonade for Nina and me. Nina and I played cards and chatted lazily as the sun went down, and I felt more tired than I had in a long time. When Markus picked up his guitar, Nina and I settled back in our chairs, and we gave him our full attention as the sky grew darker and the stars came out over Raven Hall. Markus’s songs were like stories, and I closed my eyes, picturing Rocky Raccoon falling back in his room, and strawberry fields stretching on and on forever . . .

  Nina shook me gently awake. “Come on, Beth, it’s time for bed. Busy day tomorrow.”

  * * *

  * * *

  After breakfast the following morning, Nina led me back up to my bedroom and cast her eyes over my still-unpacked bags.

  “Have you got a swimsuit?”

  “Yeah, somewhere.” I tugged clothes from the bags until I found it: my old black suit from school. “Will this do?”

  Nina smiled. “It’s perfect. Put it on. I’ll meet you downstairs in two minutes.”

  When she was gone, I surveyed the tangle of clothes on the floor and turned to the chest of drawers next to my bed. The entire contents of both my bags would fit into just one of those deep drawers. There was a huge dark wood wardrobe in the corner too, and I swung open its doors and peered into the faintly lemon-smelling interior. Just one dress hung there, and strangely it looked to be about my size. I lifted it down on its hanger cautiously. An old-fashioned design, high-necked and long, in blue gingham checks with white embroidery on the front. I replaced it on the rail and closed the doors on it.

  “Beth!” Nina was back. “Aren’t you ready yet?”

  I began to scoop my clothes into the bottom drawer. “Give me a chance. Why are you in such a hurry?”

  “Jonas is coming.” She wrapped her arms around herself, as if her impatience with me were threatening to burst out of her. “We’re gonna swim in the drain on the other side of the lake. It’s a good spot.”

  “In a drain?” I pushed the drawer shut and stared at her. “No thanks.”

  But she merely grinned. “Wait and see. Just—hurry up, will you?”

  As soon as I stepped outside the front door, I could tell the temperature was shaping up to being even hotter than the day before. The sky was a vibrant blue, and the sun turned the gray-white gravel into a dazzling sea of light. Nina and I shielded our eyes with our hands as we wandered over to the stable block that sat at right angles to the house. It was made of the same gray stone, and it had a low wall in front of it, which we perched on to wait for Jonas. I was mildly disappointed to see no evidence of real live horses; the family seemed to use the building for nothing more than storage. Two bikes were propped against one of the stable doors, and I felt a pang of gratitude to Markus for keeping his promise and readying them for us.

  “So, why aren’t you allowed into the village?” I asked Nina.

  She squinted down the driveway and sighed.

  “Trust me, I’ve tried arguing about it hundreds of times. But Mum just hates me going there. She drives me mad, sometimes. Bloody mothers . . .” She shot me a horrified look. “Oh, Beth, I’m so sorry . . .”

  I shook my head. “It’s okay.” I’d learned how easy it was to complain about the people you loved when you still had the luxury of seeing them every day. I scratched my nails up and down against the wall we were sitting on. “So Jonas has to come out here to see you?”

  “Oh, him.” Nina grinned. “He comes for the swimming, really. And skating in the winter, if it’s cold enough. That’s why he came here the first time—his mum told him Avermere was the best place to skate, so even though all his mates were going down to the other end of the village, he trekked up here by himself—he was only eight, then.”

  “And your mum didn’t mind?”

  “Oh, well.” Nina wrinkled her nose. “She wasn’t massively keen, but he kept coming back, and—well, Mum knows his mum from when they were young, and says she can be trusted, so . . . Yeah. Jonas kept on coming back.”

  I straightened, peering toward the road. “Is that him now?”

  A figure on a bike turned into the drive and drew nearer, and Nina and I got to our feet. I’d been picturing Jonas as around Nina’s height and younger than me, but as he came closer, I saw he was taller and older—maybe even sixteen, I thought. He sprang down and dropped his bike on the grass by the stable block and squinted at us.

  “Hi,” he said. He looked from me to Nina and back. “Are you Beth, then?”

  I nodded. “Hi.” I was struggling not to stare. Soft reddish brown hair, light hazel eyes, the longest eyelashes I’d ever seen . . .

  He took a step backward. “So . . . are we going swimming, then?”

  “ ’Course we are.” Nina moved forward, and the two of them fell into step as they made their way down the grass and joined a track that curved around the lakeshore. I hurried along behind them. From this angle, I could see the straps of Nina’s swimsuit emerging from the neckline of her T-shirt: pale gold fabric that looked delicate and sophisticated against her brown skin. I adjusted my no-nonsense school-regulation straps with a twinge of embarrassment.

  The path grew fainter as it ran along the side of the lake, and within minutes we had to hold our arms in front of our faces as we barged our way through a patch of cow par
sley higher than our heads. The bitter green smell of sap clung to my hair even once we’d emerged on the other side, and I swatted at clouds of tiny flies around my face, while my legs prickled from the brush of nettles. Nina pointed out a broad tree stump between us and the lake, barely visible under a coating of pale brown fungi.

  “No one can see you from the house, after you’re past the stump,” she said. “Just an interesting fact that Jonas and I once calculated.”

  Jonas laughed. “We were pretty bored that summer, weren’t we? It took us ages to check from every window.”

  “Hey!” She punched his arm. “It was fun. Anyway, it would have been quicker if you hadn’t fallen off your bike on the second day.”

  Jonas dropped back slightly, and it took me a moment to realize he was pointing out a scar to me, on the back of his arm.

  “Twelve stitches,” he said rather proudly. “The doctor gave me the gravel he picked out of it, in a little pot.”

  I nodded, fascinated, but Nina rolled her eyes.

  “Urgh, can we not talk about such disgusting things? So, what are we gonna do this summer? We need a new project . . .”

  But Jonas squinted sideways at me. “Are you going to join the high school in September, then?”

  “Oh, I—” I glanced at Nina. “I don’t know yet.”

  Nina shrugged. “Who cares? That’s ages away. Let’s not think about it now.”

  We fell into single file by a low hedgerow, and yet again, I was left to contemplate my uncertain future. I blinked sweat from my eyes, and I kept my gaze mainly on the uneven ground in front of me, glancing up only occasionally to examine Jonas’s broad shoulders, the whorl of hair at the base of his neck, and the scar on the back of his arm. Our conversation dropped to just an occasional comment.