As the road turned and began to rise, the water came down in a dirty stream, covering our shoes.
‘Some dinner party,’ Aunt Charlotte murmured to me.
I made a sound in agreement but kept my head bent low from the rain.
‘I don’t know if my Dingerling will ever recover,’ Bridget said, shaking her head in dismay.
‘I’m sure he’ll survive,’ Mother said sharply. She angled her face to avoid the rain but it ran round her cheeks and down her neck.
Bridget gave a light little laugh. ‘And you know all about that don’t you? How to look after something or someone?’
Mother’s face fell into a confused frown. Mirabelle looked at her with doubtful, fragile eyes. Bridget gave me a sly glance but said nothing.
* * *
The last part of the road was almost impassable. The rain was driving into us, the wind pushing us away. About halfway along, a terrific sound broke the air. I seemed to feel it first before I heard it, as if it rose up from the ground. Its deep low thunder lingered in my ears and resonated in the air.
‘What the hell was that?’ Mother turned to us all.
‘Incoming!’ Aunt Charlotte suddenly fell into a low, crouched pose.
I looked down at her and frowned. ‘What are you doing, Aunt Charlotte?’
‘Enemy fire. Get down.’ She tugged on the bottom of my coat.
‘As dramatic as usual,’ Bridget sniffed. ‘It’s the Midnight Gun. You were told.’ She marched on into the darkness with a stiff pace.
Aunt Charlotte unfurled herself slowly. ‘Well, always best to have a drill.’ We watched her wipe the dirt down her skirt. ‘Just in case, you know.’
‘The cannon?’ Mirabelle looked round us all.
I nodded and watched her carefully. She had a nervous, ragged edge to her all the time as if she was trying too hard to please.
I held onto Aunt Charlotte’s arm and she smiled at me. ‘What a night, eh, dear?’ she said warmly. ‘Witches, magicians, cannon fire and drunken lords in the iron maiden. They certainly know how to party in Greystone.’
As we scaled the hill, I saw the vicarage with its lights on and imagined them all in the warmth, out of the rain and discussing the incident with Lord Elzevir.
The church spire was partially lit behind the house. Rain circled in the shaft of dim light. And those strange, blue-white lights drifted around below it. Corpse candles, the magician had called them. Making this the Corpse Path. It wasn’t a calming thought.
We climbed the short drive up to the castle, and in the flickering fire light of the torches, I could see the portcullis was down.
‘Wasn’t the bloody fool meant to get in before the Midnight Gun so he could raise that thing?’ Mother said.
‘We can’t stay out here all night!’ Aunt Charlotte looked around. ‘Where the hell has he gone?’
We walked up closer to the great closed bars. Both sets of gates were down. Mother wiped the rain from her face. ‘Probably dead in some ditch.’
He wasn’t.
He was dead on the floor of the gatehouse.
CHAPTER 17: A LORDLY DISH
He lay there, feeble on the hard stone floor. In the darkness, he looked like no more than a shadow cast on the ground. As we moved silently closer, disbelief formed in each of us. I began to make out his face turned to the side. I could only see part of it, frozen in a look of anguish. With every dead person I’ve seen, it is the face I’ve always looked to first.
A dark stain was spreading from his head into the puddle of water. His wig had slipped slightly to the side and a section of it was sticking up. It was a pitiful image. The torches cast a burnt light over everything in the darkness, their reflections flickering restlessly on the pools of rain that had formed among the cobbles.
I looked through the bars. It was such a desolate scene — Lord Elzevir a small, abandoned outline in the shadows of his portcullis, just lying there on the dark, flint wet stones, cold and unforgiving. It had the unreal nature of a stage set, the final scene, everything perfectly placed — the blood, the body motionless behind bars, the lights faded. My mind shot back to us all standing in the sitting room only a few hours ago, our reflections on those dark windows poised and ready to begin.
We stared bewildered through the black bars of the portcullis.
‘Not again,’ Aunt Charlotte sighed. ‘Get up, man.’
‘I don’t think he’s acting this time.’ I could hear the sound of my own voice hollowed out.
‘Lord Elzevir,’ Mother said hesitantly, then with more insistence. ‘Lord Elzevir!’ She held the gates and rattled at them as if we were the ones trapped.
‘This is ridiculous,’ Bridget said. ‘It’s not funny.’
We pressed our faces up against the bars. There was something distasteful in our appalled awe. Death is private, a moment only the cherished few should witness. I barely knew this man. It felt wrong to look at this, as if I’d made myself part of it, elbowing my way into a picture I did not belong in.
‘Is he really dead?’ Mirabelle said carefully.
No one spoke. I thought of his prank, his body rigid on the floor, the fake blood seeping through his pale coat. It was similar to this, no doubt about it. But there was something very different.
‘Lord Elzevir, if this is some sort of joke . . .’ Mother’s voice trailed off.
‘Your Lordship, one fake death is enough for any evening. Two just looks needy!’ Aunt Charlotte shouted.
Lord Elzevir’s legs seemed to have collapsed under him. Part of the picture didn’t look human anymore. The man he was had instantly gone and left nothing but a pile of clothes and flesh. His hands lay flat to the stones, a gentleness about them, as though his last act was to feel the earth beneath him.
Everything pulled in tight to the centre of me, some need to protect sparked. My muscles hardened and gripped my bones. I was rigid, the breath trapped inside me, held in until my head sparkled with lights. I let go of the bars but I could still feel the cold imprint of them.
All of me froze instinctively as though catching sight of a predator, and unable to move, I waited, completely still, watching as it stalked past. I know Death’s scent very well when it passes now.
My hands bunched into fists, the fingernails driving hard into the palms. My jawline bulged out at the sides as my teeth drilled into each other. My legs began to feel heavy. I let my eyes wander to the side and caught sight of the shape of Dad in the flickering light. Sadness was heavy on his shoulders. But this time he held my gaze as if he was holding me up.
‘Get the bloody gate open.’ Mother looked around the walls.
‘Lord Elzevir,’ Aunt Charlotte called through the bars. ‘Lord Elzevir, are you dead?’ She peered through the bars at him as if he was an animal. ‘Or is this another farce, man?’
‘If this is a joke,’ Mother called, ‘I will sue for therapy bills.’
Panic was starting to blow through our group.
‘What do you mean, Mother, “if this is a joke”? He’s clearly dead!’
Mother looked at me, anger and panic gnawing at the edges of her. ‘He’s done it once, he can do it again.’
‘Look at him, all of you. Of course he’s dead or near as damn it. It looks completely different.’
‘Perhaps we should ring the intercom.’ Bridget leaned her head over to the side and looked through the bars. ‘Lady Black will definitely want to see her dead husband, that’s for sure.’
She clutched the cat close to her before pushing the button on the grey box. It was a weak buzz, one that seemed utterly inappropriate for such a place — for such a moment. She tried again, and we listened to the rain dashing the cobbles. She leaned closer to the intercom. ‘Lady Black, if you can hear me, your husband is dead, we think for real this time, and we can’t get the portcullis up.’
‘We don’t know he’s dead.’ Mirabelle peered at him with an anguished look. ‘We need to get to him. Check if he’s alive.’
; ‘That’s what I’m doing!’ Bridget pushed the button again. Somehow the insistent little buzz seemed to be creating even more anxiety.
‘Wait, won’t she be at Verity’s? She took her back there.’ I held onto the bars and looked closely at the sprawled body. I half expected him to jump up with a supercilious grin on his face and laugh at us for our foolishness, just as he’d done with the iron maiden. But he didn’t. He was dead. I was sure of it. Dead people are different. They don’t look like people anymore but a kind of near-perfect imitation. There is something other, something instantly different about a dead face. It has an uninhabited shell-like nature, an immediate emptiness.
Lord Elzevir was one of those deserted bodies.
‘There’s no answer.’ Bridget looked expectantly at us, as if it was our turn to try something.
‘Maybe Ursula’s right and she’s still at Verity’s.’ Mother frowned and wiped the rain from her eyes. ‘We have to get the gate up.’
‘Why is the gate down?’
Mother gave an exasperated little sigh. ‘Marsha told us, it’s that bloody midnight gun!’
‘But if—’
Mother held up her hand. ‘We just need to act. Not think. Not go over and over the scenarios. We need to get this gate up and check he isn’t still alive.’
I was sure he wasn’t. I looked at Dad. He shook his head slowly.
‘He’s dead,’ I said quietly.
Mother looked over to the empty wet wall behind me, then back at me. She frowned. ‘We still need to get the gate up. We need to check him and we need to find Marsha. She might be in danger.’
‘That looks very doubtful now, doesn’t it?’ Bridget said archly.
‘We don’t know what happened here. We shouldn’t speculate,’ Mirabelle said quietly.
Bridget drew back her head. ‘Oh, shouldn’t we? Well, thank you for telling me what I should and shouldn’t be doing. I appreciate that, coming from you.’
The rain was being driven into us by the brittle wind, slanting across our faces. It typed with fast efficient fingers on the stone cobbles. There was a shrill little sound in my ears, half there, half not. A desperate, tuneless note of something trapped inside my head. I touched my face, wet with rain. I reached for Mother’s arm to steady myself. I’m not good with death, not good with looking at it, which isn’t useful for someone who is confronted with it so often.
Dad’s spirit watched me with hooded eyes. In that moment, I didn’t want him to go away. As I stood with the rain puddling in my shoes, it was him I looked to.
Mother watched me. ‘Ursula?’ Her voice was clipped, as if she didn’t want too many words to come out. The rain was frantic in our faces but neither of us moved. She didn’t flinch. She let the droplets roll down over her cheeks unchecked. One lingered on the end of her chin and I watched it hanging there.
‘Ursula.’ She peered closer. ‘Right, we need to get you inside. Bridget, try the buzzer again.’
Bridget held the cat close under her coat and pushed the button again. There was still no response.
‘She must be asleep,’ Mirabelle said quietly.
‘Or dead,’ Aunt Charlotte added. The idea had been in all our heads but no one else had felt the need to set it free.
‘Unless she killed him.’ Mirabelle didn’t look at us but just stared at the motionless body.
‘We need to get the gate up.’
‘What about the side door?’ Aunt Charlotte ran over to it. She pushed hard. ‘No handle. It’s tight shut. There’s no getting in there.’
‘Yes, Charlotte.’ Mother was a clenched fist of frustration. ‘It’s built to keep out armies, not just random dinner guests.’
Aunt Charlotte’s face clustered as if she was focusing every cell in her body on this. Finally, she said with an air of revelation, ‘The plum man . . .’ She left the words hanging in the air.
‘What?’ Mother paused. ‘You mean Greengage?’ Sometimes Mother is on her sister’s wavelength.
Aunt Charlotte nodded once.
Bridget pushed the button again with a sharp, frustrated jab. It sounded into the darkness. Still no one responded, and I looked at the crumpled-up form of Lord Elzevir on the floor. ‘We need to go for help.’ My words were short and broken. Mother put her hand under my elbow.
I stared at the ink stain spreading out into the black water. That was it. That’s all he left.
‘We need to find Joseph Greengage and get these gates lifted. He seems to know most about them.’ My eyes blurred with tears. I blinked and let them fall, disguised among the rain drops. ‘We’re never going to lift it, and Marsha either isn’t here or hasn’t heard.’
‘Or . . .’ Mother began.
‘Let’s not speculate.’ I tried to inject some efficiency into my voice, but it still trembled. ‘All we know is Lord Elzevir is probably dead and we need help.’
‘Or he’s pretending to be dead, in which case we’ll have to kill him anyway,’ Aunt Charlotte said determinedly.
‘I vote we go to Verity’s first,’ Mirabelle said slowly. ‘They’ll know what to do. Mrs Abaddon might still be there, or the maid. Marsha might be there. I don’t think we can just turn up at the Greengage man’s house.’
‘Why ever not?’ Bridget blustered. ‘We need assistance and we know he can give it.’
‘I just—’
Bridget leaned closer. ‘Are you questioning me, Mirabelle?’
Mirabelle seemed to retreat into herself and Bridget locked eyes with her until she finally looked away.
‘We could always split up,’ Aunt Charlotte offered.
We all stared at her in disbelief.
Mother folded her arms. ‘Because that always works so well for us.’
‘What’s that?’ I peered into Lord Elzevir’s cage.
‘What’s what?’ Aunt Charlotte followed my eyeline. They all did.
‘There.’ I pointed to a small, black ball on the floor beside Lord Elzevir’s head.
‘It’s a cannonball,’ Mother said slowly.
‘Not a very big one,’ Bridget sniffed. She was right. It was not much bigger than a grapefruit but a lot deadlier.
I leaned my head to the side. ‘Big enough.’
We continued to stare at it as if we expected it to do something.
‘Well, at least we know what killed him.’ Bridget began walking down the long slippery path away from the light.
‘The Midnight Gun!’ Aunt Charlotte gave me a wide-eyed look and started to follow. ‘Now all we need to do is find out who and why, fix the phones, get the roads cleared and we can leave without any more problems.’ She strode off into the rain, which was still coming down as if it didn’t know how to stop. Even Dad was staring after her in surprise.
I gave him one more quick look and he nodded for me to follow them. I walked into the rain, and I could feel the hot glare of Mother’s eyes on my back.
CHAPTER 18: TELLING VERITY
We hammered with a rude insistence on the door. There was no need. Simply knocking would have brought about the same result after midnight in this quiet place. But there seemed to be a need in us to announce the urgency — to attempt to somehow prepare them.
It didn’t. It never could have. Nothing would.
After some time, Mrs Abaddon answered the door. She was still clothed and didn’t look like she’d been to bed yet. She didn’t get the chance to open the door fully before Aunt Charlotte was ploughing past into the house.
‘There’s been a terrible accident,’ she said bluntly.
‘We don’t know what’s happened for sure.’ Bridget frowned.
Lucy Morello emerged from another door downstairs. She was in her pyjamas, a strange, little-girl Disney outfit that she’d presumably worn in some attempt to make her look Lolita-like. It seemed so out of place in the moment.
‘Accident?’ From the sound of her voice she hadn’t been asleep; a pair of AirPods were just visible under her hair.
Verity also emerged into t
he hallway, bleary eyed, her cane tapping heavily on the stones. She winced with every step, and as she turned to Mrs Abaddon, I could see at the bottom edge of her night gown that the livid bruise from her fall was already beginning to form down the back of her leg. She gave an enquiring look, but Mrs Abaddon frowned and shook her head.
Verity turned to us. ‘Hello, ladies. How are you? How may we help?’ She tapped towards us, not seeming to pick up on the urgency of the situation. ‘How was the Peacocks?’
It was Mother who stepped forward first. ‘We need to talk to you. Do you know where Marsha is?’
‘Yes.’ Verity’s eyes were widened, as if taking us in for the first time. ‘She’s up at the castle. Mrs Abaddon walked up there with her.’
‘Aye, that’s right,’ Mrs Abaddon confirmed. ‘I just got back ’bout ten minutes ago. I’ve been down in the kitchens clearing away.’
‘Did you see anything? Is Marsha in the castle alone?’ Bridget put the cat down and clipped on its lead.
‘What’s going on?’ Lucy Morello took out her AirPods. ‘Why are you asking all this? You said there’s been an accident.’
Eyes suddenly sharpened, Verity’s darting between us. ‘What’s happened? Please.’
Bridget sighed as if the burden to tell them was hers. ‘I’m afraid we have some possible bad news. We think Lord Elzevir might . . . he might be very badly hurt or, well, possibly . . . dead.’
Lucy Morello’s face gathered into a frown. ‘Again?’ She shook her head. ‘It’ll be one of his little tricks.’
‘I’m afraid it didn’t really look like that . . . this time,’ I said quietly.
‘What do you mean?’ Verity asked.
Mother stepped forward. ‘He really did look as though he was dead, or very near to it.’
The room slowed. The next sound was the cane clattering on the stone as it fell. The dull sound of Verity’s body followed it.
‘Miss!’ Mrs Abaddon was there, crouching down beside her.
THE SUPPER CLUB MURDERS a gripping murder mystery packed with twists (Smart Woman's Mystery Book 3) Page 13