A large iron cage was hung in the far corner and it seemed to gently sway with the draught from the windows. Small candles had been placed beneath it on a pewter plate, sending shadows clawing up the stone walls.
‘That’s a strange ornament.’ I smiled and nodded over towards it.
‘Oh yes, that’s one of Greystone’s treasures.’ Harriet’s face grew quite animated. ‘We keep it here to preserve it. It’s a gibbet.’
‘I’m sorry?’ I frowned.
‘A gibbet. They used to string people up in them and leave them to rot. The birds would peck—’
‘Stop!’ I’d shouted the word, although I hadn’t meant to. The room seemed to pause. I could feel Mother looking at me. All of them were, judging me. I closed my eyes and the image flashed up again, as familiar as pain — Dad. The bird pecking at him.
I opened my eyes. He was there, waiting behind that gibbet — looking as guilty as the souls it once housed.
I turned my back to him and instantly saw Mother watching me.
Aunt Charlotte walked towards the gibbet.
‘Don’t touch it! It might be precious,’ I said.
‘Worthless!’ Lord Elzevir swilled down the ale. ‘Like all the rest of the old bric-a-brac they collect.’
‘Well, you’d know about collecting old things, wouldn’t you?’ It was a new, young voice at the door to the sitting room. The girl held her head at a provocative angle. The first image of her against the darkness was a shock of blonde hair and sharp, pointed boots. She cast a long, slim shadow that seemed to cut the room in half. She looked round us all with expectant eyes, the kind of eyes that saw possibilities.
‘Ah, Scarlett! There you are.’ Harriet made her way over to the girl. ‘Where’ve you been? Your father and I have been worried.’
‘You haven’t. You’re cross that I wasn’t here for your dinner.’ She spoke with a surgical voice, each word very carefully cut.
‘Look at the weather!’
‘I can’t. We’re sealed in this tomb. You never open the curtains.’
Scarlett was right. The whole house had the atmosphere of a place in heavy mourning. The dark flowers on the curtains didn’t look like they’d seen sunlight for years.
‘Scarlett.’ Harriet shook her head. ‘You know we have to keep our precious pieces out of the light.’
‘You make us sound like vampires, Mother.’ The girl’s voice was keen, with a sharp edge. She had cultivated a dismissive, sullen expression.
‘I only came home because of the lightning,’ Scarlett continued. ‘Hit something in the village. The Peacocks were out running around in the rain like frightened little birds. They said it hit the exchange.’ As the girl moved further into the room, an agitated air spread. ‘Ron.’ She nodded at him as he turned the beer glass nervously in his hands.
‘Scarlett.’
‘Where’s Jocasta?’
I looked around. I’d only just realised she wasn’t there but I had no idea when she’d left. From what we’d been told, she didn’t live too far away. Perhaps she’d got fed up of the weather, but why would her husband Ron still be here?
Scarlett let a long smile seep out. ‘Lost your wife again, eh?’ She tutted twice, slowly. ‘Very careless.’
The air leaked out of him as if he was deflating. He looked away.
She walked towards the table of drinks, prowling the room, her eyes flicking from face to face.
‘She’s right,’ Harriet said frowning into her phone, ‘I’ve got nothing.’
‘New friends, Marsha?’ There was an instant tension between them.
Marsha made a nonchalant noise.
‘Shame there’s no new men for you.’
‘That’s enough,’ Harriet said. She had the resigned voice of a woman who’d lost control of her daughter years ago. ‘Gerald, try the phone in the kitchen.’
‘What?’ he shouted through. He sounded flustered, the way Mother does whenever she visits the kitchen.
‘The phone,’ Harriet called. ‘The Peacocks say it’s down.’
Gerald peered round the corner of the door, his face looking mildly steamed. He was holding a large serving spoon in one hand and the telephone in the other. He shrugged and whipped the tea towel over his shoulder as if he was heading back into battle.
Tony took the first plate of pie that was handed out of the kitchen.
‘Don’t look so worried, ladies. Dartmoor gets a lot of heavy weather.’ Harriet tried to sound reassuring. ‘We’re used to it up here.’
‘Pie?’ Gerald glowered at Lord Elzevir.
‘I’m not eating that.’ Lord Elzevir struggled to stand still.
‘I’ve not poisoned it,’ Gerald muttered and turned away back to the kitchen.
The room fell into a heavy silence, the rain pattering against the glass like nervous fingers drumming on a table. We ate our pie in quiet anxiety, an occasional attempt at small talk dripping into the silence, then falling away.
Eventually, Lord Elzevir made a strangled sound of frustration. ‘Can’t we just leave? The bloody vicar’s gone, and if it’s all right by God then . . .’
I looked around. The vicar had gone. The party was obviously as popular with the locals as it was with our group. By now, the fascination for their neighbourly disputes and gossip had worn as thin as our clothes felt in the freezing rain. The evening was quickly turning into a confusion of people dipping in and out of the dark while we visited damp village houses. The guests were starting to fall into the background of their local feuds and tiffs.
Mirabelle and Bridget hadn’t moved from the small sofa.
‘What’s going on with those two?’ I said quietly to Aunt Charlotte, who was carefully pouring from her hipflask into the beer mug. I nodded over towards Mirabelle and Bridget.
She looked up and sighed. ‘Not much, as far as I know.’
‘Come on, Mirabelle never goes this long without talking to Mother.’
Aunt Charlotte looked at Mother. She turned her eyes back to the hipflask. ‘You’ll have to ask Mirabelle. Some secret. I don’t know.’
‘Secret? What secret? Mirabelle doesn’t have any secrets from Mother.’ I bent and looked up into Aunt Charlotte’s face. ‘Does she? You can’t tell me she’s that much of an enigma.’
Aunt Charlotte frowned at me. ‘It’s got nothing to do with code-breaking. Why on Earth would you think that? Silly girl.’ She drank heavily from the mug.
‘That’s an enigma machine, Aunt Charlotte.’
‘Call her what you want, but I can’t help with what’s going on.’ Her mouth yawned open and she downed the rest of the drink.
The room had quickly splintered into small factions now, intently whispering and watching one another through the suspicious gloom.
Harriet Bradshaw was deep in muffled conversation with her sulking daughter; Lord Elzevir was slumped over the back of the chair that Verity was sitting in; his sister still seemed quite breezy and was smiling at Marsha, who brought them both more drinks; and Ron was talking animatedly to Tony the magician, who pulled out a large spotted handkerchief. A bundle of ten-pound notes fell out of its folds. He laughed nervously and quickly scooped them up.
‘Win on the gee-gees?’ Ron nodded towards the money.
‘Yeah, something like that,’ Tony said self-consciously. ‘Just a job I did for someone local.’ He seemed to look over the room towards someone, but it was impossible to tell who in the dim light and no one acknowledged him. He hurriedly shoved the money back into his jacket.
‘So, how are you enjoying our little soiree?’
I hadn’t noticed Harriet slip in beside me. Scarlett wasn’t with her anymore. In fact, she wasn’t in the room now and I couldn’t say at what point she’d left.
‘Oh, it’s lovely, thank you,’ I lied.
‘You must ignore our little spats. Just village life, you know.’ She forced a smile. ‘Gerald and I have worked tirelessly to secure the historical importance of this village. Some people,�
� and she nodded indiscreetly across at Lord Elzevir, ‘will stop at nothing to destroy centuries of archaeological importance. You should come with us tomorrow — we’re metal detectorists. We’ve got a meeting. You can find all sorts. It’s great fun. We found all those coins.’
She nodded over to a large bottle filled with loose change. ‘None particularly valuable but a good little horde, shields, bits of armour, all sorts. Oh, and a couple of shopping trolleys. There’s always shopping trolleys. You know, Gerald and I have been digging all over Greystone. We found a small, abandoned cemetery round the back of the church. Going down towards the stream there’s a little overgrown grave we both love, and then down towards the outer edges of the village there’s an old millstone, and we found a boot in a ditch only the other day. Then there’s . . .’
I nodded and my thoughts glazed over. I stared into the middle distance until my eyes started to hate me for not blinking. I knew if I’d looked over at Dad right then we’d have shared a knowing smile and an eye roll, one of those moments when we both knew what the other was thinking. So I didn’t look. I don’t give him that anymore.
‘Hello there!’
Gerald had come in from the other side of me as if he and his wife co-ordinated their tactics and formed a kind of pincer attack of boredom. He smiled and I imagined him actually enjoying torturing someone to death with boredom, his face leering over the delicious last moments of their victim begging for mercy. ‘No more local history! I beg of you . . . I . . .’
‘And I said to Harriet, “Harriet, should we have the medieval pie or the mead?” Because, you see . . .’ He paused. ‘I’m not boring you, am I, miss?’
I took a moment to understand what he’d said then too late I stuttered, ‘No! No! Not at all.’ It didn’t sound convincing.
Their daughter never reappeared and I didn’t blame her. She’d presumably had a lifetime of ye olde flagons found in the ground, broad swords, coins and torturous weapons of boredom. The Bradshaws were worse than any thumbscrews.
By the time we were invited to drink up, the queue for the exit had already formed.
‘On to the last house!’ Marsha sang.
‘Thank God.’ Lord Elzevir was so farcically drunk now that it was becoming the distraction of the evening to see how much longer he could stay standing. Verity took his arm. It was hard to tell who was holding who steady.
‘Now, do we have everyone? Where’s Ron?’ Marsha looked around.
‘Went home. Probably to try and find his wife.’ Tony seemed to enjoy saying that.
As we stepped out of the house, the wind was fast and instantly snatched the hair across my face. This was no longer the twee little village I’d imagined but a disturbing world where everything seemed slightly tilted in the wrong direction. I gave in and finally looked for Dad, but I couldn’t see him in the fast, dark night.
I had lost my compass.
CHAPTER 15: LAST RITES
A general fatigue was spreading, and I could see I wasn’t the only member of our group relieved to hear we were about to visit our last house. Branches and leaves littered the dark road. As we stood looking out into the dank street, a grim, lacklustre spirit spread through the party.
I saw some lights flickering in the house opposite. It wasn’t one we’d visited. As we came through the gate out onto the road, I saw two figures stumble sideways through the open door of the house. Moments later a light came on upstairs and was interrupted by a shadow passing through it. Two shadows that moved together.
‘We need to get to the last house.’ Marsha had adopted a disaffected, almost defeated mood now. The gleaming hostess was crumbling. ‘Come on, you.’ She grabbed Lord Elzevir’s arm but he pulled away.
‘Get off me,’ he growled and stumbled into our group. There was a raw animosity now between Lord Elzevir and Marsha. The bickering had simply been a prelude to this unguarded, vicious truth. It was as if we were being given a glimpse into their home late at night when the mask of acceptability had slipped, the alcohol had finally worn them down and the full-scale argument was let off the leash.
‘Stupid bitch. Always have been.’
‘Elzevir!’ Verity said. ‘Please.’
Marsha looked to the floor. All the charming confidence dissolved once more and yet another version of Marsha surfaced. It was clear to see that beneath that veneer of well-groomed control was a self-conscious woman being eroded by her own husband. This man had a lot more power than I’d assumed. He was no foolish drunk. He had complete control, particularly over Marsha.
The wind shook the bare branches above.
‘Oh, this is cold for my Dingerling, isn’t it?’ Bridget wrapped the cat inside her coat, its wrinkled pink skin in the dim light giving the impression that it was some part of Bridget we were getting a glimpse of through the gaps in the coat. ‘Is that scarf spare?’ She looked at Mirabelle, who was wrapping a large woollen scarf up high around her neck.
‘Well . . .’ Mirabelle’s hand paused on the scarf.
Bridget looked expectantly at Mirabelle.
Mirabelle began to slowly unravel the scarf from round her neck.
‘Oh, how kind of you, Mirabelle! Isn’t that kind, Dingerling?’ Bridget took the scarf before Mirabelle had fully unwound it. Mirabelle flinched as the end of it dragged across her neck. ‘There we are Dingerling.’
‘This is unbelievable,’ Mother said sharply. ‘I really—’
Aunt Charlotte shook her head slowly at Mother. ‘Let’s just get on with it.’
‘For God’s sake.’ Lord Elzevir pushed through the group. ‘This is bloody ridiculous. Marsha, you’ve dragged me, my poor sister and these sad, depressed-looking women—’
‘Who?’ Aunt Charlotte leaned forward as if she couldn’t hear.
Mother gave everyone The Look.
‘We won’t make it back for midnight,’ he sneered at Marsha.
‘I can’t help all the delays with your stupid gate. We were meant to be there by now.’
‘Elzevir,’ Verity spoke softly. ‘Elzevir, it’s been fun. An adventure. We don’t need to stay long. They’re expecting us.’
He paused and let out a sigh. Small droplets of rain rolled down the side of his face. ‘Very well. One last house. But . . . ’ He staggered a little, as if he’d just remembered to, and held up his finger too close to Marsha’s face. She pulled up her large fur hood, shielding herself. She didn’t flinch, but I could see her fingers fiddling at the edge of the material.
‘This is a tragic mess of an evening, woman.’ Lord Elzevir’s eyes slimmed. ‘We will discuss this in the morning.’
There was a new sense of menace now that felt all too authentic. I looked into Marsha’s face and she drew herself up, trying to manufacture some form of courage. But she wasn’t brave. She was scared, in a very deep, entrenched way that spoke of too many nights like this.
The tendons down Lord Elzevir’s neck were taught, standing proud of the skin, his eyes wide and unblinking. ‘You’ll pay for this.’ His voice was low, guttural. ‘You won’t humiliate me again. You’ll see.’ There was a deep malice here.
Mother frowned and dropped her head to the side. I was willing her not to speak, but when she did, I was glad. ‘I think you should stop there.’
Slowly, Elzevir turned his head towards her, his body still positioned aggressively towards Marsha. ‘Oh.’ He feigned an intrigued little look. ‘You do, do you?’
Instinctively, I moved towards Mother and felt Aunt Charlotte do the same.
‘Because I don’t give a shit what you or your band of freeloading—’
‘Elzevir, that’s enough,’ Verity said.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, calming himself.
A droplet passed down over the curve of Marsha’s face. It could so easily have been the rain. But it wasn’t. She wiped it away quickly. ‘Come on then, everyone,’ she sniffed and drew on a smile. It seemed like an automatic act, one she was very used to. ‘On to the next house! Last
one.’ She pulled on her gloves and began walking towards the gate.
I saw the Bradshaws look at each other knowingly. This wasn’t the first time they’d had an insight like this. But they both stayed silent. The magician Tony lingered awkwardly in the doorway drawing his long coat around him. It was embarrassment on all their faces, not anger, not concern. They just looked away as if wishing themselves elsewhere.
We walked in a silent, broken line down the lane, the wind pushing at our backs insistently. I shoved my hands deeper into my pockets and felt the dimpled leather grain of Dad’s Bible. My thoughts stirred at the thought of a single mouthful of that brandy. I looked to the side of the road. There was no path, just a high line of hedgerow. But Dad was there, drifting along beside our miserable little party. I tried to look angry, dismissive even, but the night was becoming too disconcerting for any more angst. I needed calm. I needed kinship and comfort. I needed him. Something was percolating here and it wasn’t good.
I paused and looked back. Tony the magician walked up alongside me. ‘Come along, dear girl. Don’t want the spirits of Dartmoor to see you out here.’
In the distance, near where I thought the church was, I could see small lights drifting in and out of the darkness. There was a strange blue tinge to them. ‘What’s that?’
Tony raised an eyebrow. ‘Corpse candles, dear. The dead carry them. This is the corpse path up to the church.’ He nodded and walked on ahead.
Dad’s eyes seemed to cleave the darkness and cut straight into the centre of me. I missed him. That was the real truth. I could feel the rush of tears building, my throat blocking, sealing everything into my chest until it felt like there was no room left inside me and it would all burst out.
Why? I only mouthed the word but Mother was there.
‘Why what?’ she said suspiciously. She looked over at the empty air. Dad looked straight back at her as if he wanted her to see him. But she didn’t. Her eyes searched the darkness but slipped over the outline of him.
She never really had that much time for looking at him when he was alive, so why I thought she’d see him now was anyone’s guess.
‘Let’s get this over with,’ she said firmly and marched on ahead.
THE SUPPER CLUB MURDERS a gripping murder mystery packed with twists (Smart Woman's Mystery Book 3) Page 11