THE SUPPER CLUB MURDERS a gripping murder mystery packed with twists (Smart Woman's Mystery Book 3)

by VICTORIA DOWD

  Just as we were leaving and everyone else was distracted with coats and logistics, I quietly asked Verity where the toilet was. I didn’t announce it this time, just in case anyone else felt like rushing out ahead of me. She pointed to a small door off to the side of the hallway. Inside, everything was immaculate. I put the lid down and sat staring at the glossy white tiles. I felt inside my coat pocket for the Bible and pulled out the flask of brandy. It had a sour metallic scent and the liquid burned its familiar path down my throat.

  I closed my eyes and smoothed my tongue along my teeth, waiting for the glow to spread. Every time it had less of an effect. The past is addictive. The first taste is almost overwhelming, but each sip after that becomes necessity rather than joy. I suppose it could one day even become something unpleasant or damaging.

  I waited and finally slotted the brandy back into the book. It nestled there so snugly, all those memories packed in so tight. Like the wink Dad gave me when he’d taken his sip. There was no regret or despair on his face, just a secret little pleasure. This book and its contents had taken on a whole different flavour now they sat in my hands. How sad I had made it. I closed over the front cover and ran my fingers over the embossed word ‘Bible’. There was only the memory of gold left in the grooves of the letters.

  I shoved the book back in my coat pocket and rubbed the stray tears from my face. I was angry they’d appeared so easily.

  I stood and turned to look at myself in the mirror.

  The eyes were looking back at me. Floating in his face, with that same lost look as if they didn’t know what they were for. Black as two ink blot tests and I never know what I’m supposed to see there.

  ‘Why did you do it, Dad?’

  His shook his head.

  ‘How can you do something like that and not even know why? At least have some reason.’

  A frown burrowed across his forehead and he still shook his head.

  I looked away. He was infuriating now, and if I could have made him disappear right then I would have.

  ‘Just go,’ I whispered. But as soon as my brain realised the words were out there, I looked back at the space he’d been in.

  He’d gone.

  ‘Oh God.’ I touched the mirror but it was just my face there at the ends of my fingertips now. ‘No, I didn’t mean it. Don’t go.’

  ‘Ursula.’ It was Mother at the door. I could tell from her voice she was leaning in close. ‘We’re leaving now.’

  I stared into my own face in the mirror. ‘Don’t go. Please don’t ever go. Just come back! Come back to me.’

  ‘Ursula.’ She rattled the handle. ‘Ursula, open the door.’

  I sank slowly. My knees giving way. I was weightless. Ungrounded. As if my tether had been cut and I was suddenly set free. My hands were shaking as they reached for the glass shelf.

  As I fell to the ground, a great mess of untidy make-up fell around me. Eyeshadows, lipsticks and creams all unlidded and used, roughly scattered across the floor. They were all dark colours, purple and blacks. Bruised colours.

  The world sparkled and dissolved into darkness.

  CHAPTER 28: THE MAN WHO SAW NOTHING

  Mother was looking directly into my face when I opened my eyes. It was not the best reminder that I was still alive.

  ‘What are you playing at? You stink like a bar towel.’

  ‘Thank you, Mother. At least I know this can’t be heaven.’

  She was doing her loud whispering that sounded like an angry librarian. But Mother doesn’t do libraries.

  ‘Do you want them to think that you’re mad as well?’

  ‘Mother, how did you manage to conjure yourself up in here?’ I leaned up on my elbows, which brought me uncomfortably close to her face.

  She stood up and put her hands on her hips. ‘Penny trick. You just turn the lock with it. I used to have to do it all the time when you’d locked yourself in the loo again.’

  My mind caught on something but then it was lost.

  ‘Hurry up. Aunt Charlotte is waiting outside and God knows what she’s doing.’ Mother had become distracted by her own reflection and was pulling her face back to see what she’d look like walking into a force ten gale.

  I slowly began to stand. ‘But we need to . . .’ I looked around at all the mess of make-up on the floor. It seemed strange that Verity had so much of it and it was all so ill-kept.

  ‘Leave it.’ Mother made for the door. ‘They’ve got staff.’

  ‘You mean the woman they’ve drugged upstairs?’

  Mother shrugged. She gripped me round the shoulders and guided me out.

  ‘Everything all right?’ It was Verity, radiating calm and concern.

  ‘Yes, she’s fine. She does this a lot.’

  ‘Mother!’

  ‘Oh, well if there’s anything I can do?’ Verity glanced round us into the toilet and frowned. ‘You’ve left . . .’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I’ve got to get her some fresh air.’ Mother hustled me out of the door as if we were escaping.

  * * *

  Tony Voyeur opened the door dressed in his shiny black dressing gown that had more than a passing resemblance to a bin bag. When he turned to lead us into the house, I could see that the word VOYEUR was etched on the back in faded gold lettering. I glanced through into the kitchen as we passed to see a pile of dirty pots in the sink.

  The house smelled of grease and dust, like an old rundown chip shop. In the sitting room, there were still the glasses and bowls of nuts abandoned on bookcases from last night’s party. Aunt Charlotte’s half-eaten sausage roll languished next to the beheaded doll.

  The dingy light barely touched the corners of the room. I looked at the washed-up magician as he cleared a few magazines and put them with the rest of the cans and papers that littered the glass coffee table. A plate with a few stale crusts on it and some congealed egg had been left on the sofa. Something had just made this man give up. He’d resigned from life or any semblance of a decent one, at least.

  ‘Please make yourself at home.’ He spread out an arm towards the sofa and frowned when he saw the plate.

  ‘Hardly.’ Mother sounded particularly tart. She doesn’t do mess. She has our house deep cleaned and scrubbed so regularly it’s as if she’s trying to erase it from existence.

  Tony Voyeur hadn’t taken in her snub. He was too busy dumping piles of papers from a chair into a corner that already had a small tower of various unopened letters, books and crisp packets. It was all topped off with an overflowing ashtray.

  ‘I’ve not quite finished tidying from the party.’

  ‘Or started,’ Aunt Charlotte mumbled as she lowered herself gingerly into the sagging chair. It creaked and groaned in weak protest.

  ‘Any news on Verity?’ He looked around us innocently. He’d already gone home last night when we’d gone to tell Verity of Lord Elzevir’s death. This house was next door and only a few minutes’ walk. But it would also only have been a few minutes’ walk up to the castle. Had there been time for him to leave Verity’s, run to the castle, kill Lord Elzevir then run back here? Possibly. Judging from what we’d seen of him so far, he wasn’t capable of lowering a duster let alone a portcullis. But he certainly had a motive and it was very clear that this mess of a life was in part due to Lord Elzevir and his revelations.

  ‘Mr Voyeur,’ Mother said his name like it was past its sell by date. She was perched on the arm of a small brown chair that had a pair of grey pants dangling from the back of it. ‘I’m afraid we have some bad news for you. Well, news — depending on your point of view.’

  ‘OK, fire.’

  ‘Lord Elzevir has been murdered.’

  His large, pale forehead wrinkled.

  ‘So has Jocasta MacDonald,’ Aunt Charlotte added.

  ‘What?’ His expression turned to disbelief. ‘Murdered? Are you sure?’

  ‘Fairly sure,’ Mother said. ‘His Lordship had his head caved in with a cannonball and Jocasta was drowned on the ducking
stool. Neither death looked particularly accidental.’

  Tony’s mouth fell open. ‘You’re kidding. When?’

  ‘Last night. Lord Elzevir just before the Midnight Gun, we think. But we don’t know about Jocasta. We saw her around about twelve fifteen when we went to tell Verity about Lord Elzevir. She left quite quickly and, according to her husband, never came home. You’d already left Verity’s by then.’

  ‘Yes, they didn’t need me anymore so I thought I’d make myself scarce.’

  ‘Did you go straight home?’

  ‘Yes.’ He frowned. ‘It was still raining and I needed to clear up from the party.’

  I looked round at the dishevelled room. It didn’t look like he’d made any effort to clear up at all.

  Mother leaned forward. ‘Did you see anything of Lord Elzevir? He would have been heading up the road at around five to twelve. Almost exactly the time you were going home.’

  ‘No, no I didn’t. You know what it was like, pitch black and bucketing it down. I could barely find my own way. Listen, what is this? I thought you’d come to warn me, not interrogate me! You’re not the police.’

  Mother stared at him unblinking. ‘It was Lord Elzevir who ended your career, wasn’t it?’

  He stood up. His face increasingly agitated. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘You had every reason to kill him,’ Aunt Charlotte spoke plainly. ‘And you were one of the few people on your own at the time of his death.’

  ‘I would never kill someone. I resent the insinuation!’ His dressing gown fell open to reveal the large dome of his belly hanging over a pair of Dr Who Y-fronts with the words ‘Sonic Screwdriver’ emblazoned on them. He quickly grabbed each side of the dressing gown and wrapped it around himself. ‘Now please leave.’

  ‘Very well.’ Mother stood. ‘We thought you should know.’

  ‘That you think I’m a stone-cold killer?’

  ‘We just needed everyone to know there’s a possible murderer on the loose.’

  ‘Oh and the vicar’s missing,’ Aunt Charlotte added.

  ‘The vicar?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Well perhaps you might start looking for Father Brown.’

  ‘Green,’ Aunt Charlotte corrected. ‘Vert is green in French, not brown.’

  ‘Let’s just leave.’ Mother was already making her way to the door.

  Aunt Charlotte smiled and followed. I made my way out behind them, avoiding eye contact with the hapless magician.

  * * *

  Back out on the street, the rain misted the air but it was calmer. The wind had lost a lot of its ferocity but it was still biting cold. I shuddered and looked across the road to where the Bradshaws were going through their gate. They had Ron with them. Gerald Bradshaw had an arm round him that might well have been holding the man up. Ron looked so exhausted, spent with the shock and pain.

  ‘We’re taking him to lay down,’ Harriet Bradshaw called. ‘He’s collapsed.’

  ‘OK,’ Aunt Charlotte nodded. She dropped her voice. ‘Poor sod. To lose his wife like that.’ She looked at me, then Mother. ‘Sorry,’ she whispered.

  Mother pulled back her hair. Her face looked worn today. She seemed weary, as if she was slowly unravelling. We’d not spoken about Dad since we’d left Scotland last year. The lid had been firmly shut on that little box of horrors, but I could feel it now, wriggling to be set free, for us to release it in a gale of screaming and shouting about disloyalty, misplaced trust and all the things we find it so easy to blame each other for in times of severe stress — at least, that was Bob the Therapist’s assessment before he jumped ship. Quite literally. The last we’d heard from the travel company that took him to the remote jungle was that he’d jumped into a fast-flowing river shouting, ‘There’s still reception! She’s calling again.’

  But here, now, in this tiny village, there was an increasing feeling that the timer had been set and was running down.

  ‘I think we should head back to Verity’s.’ Mother’s voice was cold.

  ‘Wait, here come Mirabelle and Bridget,’ I said.

  ‘Not forgetting Dingerling.’ Aunt Charlotte noticeably winced.

  The five of us gathered in the bleak street, surrounded by the cute little cottages and homes that harboured all this death and hatred behind their chintz curtains.

  ‘Anything to report?’ Mother asked.

  Mirabelle shook her head. ‘Not really. Scarlett Bradshaw and Joseph Greengage were in there together, as we suspected. They said they were together all night.’

  ‘They would, wouldn’t they?’ Mother heaved a sigh.

  ‘Well, I don’t trust that magician either,’ Aunt Charlotte sniffed. ‘There’s something very odd about him.’

  ‘Fortunately for you, very odd doesn’t always equal murderer,’ Mother said.

  ‘Surely that’s more fortunate for you really, Pandora, as it would definitely be you who was in the most danger.’

  ‘OK. OK, we’re all tired,’ I said. ‘Let’s just say they’re all really odd and we need to keep our wits about us.’

  ‘How very kind of you, Ursula.’ It was Marsha standing at the end of the path to the vicarage with Verity.

  ‘Any sign of the vicar?’ Verity asked, trying to deflect the situation.

  I shook my head. ‘So what now?’

  ‘We’ve got to do something!’ Mirabelle breathed heavily. ‘We’ve got to get out of here!’

  ‘No chance of that, I’m afraid.’ It was Lee Colman trudging up the lane towards us. ‘Road’s still out and will be for a while.’

  Mirabelle’s voice cracked. ‘There’s two people dead and a missing vicar. We’ve got to get out!’

  We stood with the cold wind tracing round us as if it was watching, waiting.

  ‘It’s such a small village,’ I said. ‘There can’t be many places where a priest would hide?’

  My eyes drifted up to the outline of the castle against the stone sky. More rain was brewing over the moors. My thoughts landed on Lord Elzevir laying there alone on the dead stone — all his pretentions, all his moods and drunkenness washed away across those cobbles. Lord Elzevir Black was nothing more than a name for a gravestone now. A ridiculous name at that.

  A cog suddenly seemed to slot into place in my mind. ‘Marsha, what was your husband’s name?’

  She frowned. ‘Elzevir — Lord Elzevir Black, as you well know.’

  ‘No, no,’ I said. ‘I mean the real man, before all this money. When he bought the title did he not have the name to quite match up to it? It’s a very unusual name for the kind of man who buys a title.’

  She paused as if assessing the various pros and cons. ‘His name was Jack.’

  ‘Jack Black?’ Mirabelle frowned.

  I looked at Aunt Charlotte and gave her my warning eyes. She closed her mouth.

  Marsha nodded.

  ‘But why did he change it to Elzevir?’

  I watched Marsha’s eyes grow keen.

  ‘Or may I guess? The books on the bedside table in my room – were they his favourites?’

  She nodded again, this time her face full of resignation.

  ‘Moonfleet. Elzevir Block smuggles barrels in—’

  ‘How my husband made his money is of no consequence whatsoever!’

  ‘And I’m not interested in it either. But what I am interested in is the fact that the barrels in the book are smuggled in under the gravestones through the tunnels. When you told us about the priest hole, you said Nicholas Owen built many of the priest holes and tunnels. You didn’t mean generically. You meant many in your castle, didn’t you?’

  She nodded again, keeping her face blank and unreadable.

  ‘I’m willing to guess those tunnels come up near the church, perhaps under the graves, and that’s what prompted Jack Black to become Lord Elzevir Black. Another of his witty jokes perhaps?’

  Marsha looked suddenly at Verity. Then nodded again. ‘There’s many of them — the tunnels.’

  All eyes
were turning towards the castle. ‘There’s another way in isn’t there?’ I said quietly.

  Marsha paused and looked at Verity again. She simply said, ‘Yes.’

  I looked around at everyone. ‘We need to go up to the castle.’

  ‘Well, you’re not leaving me.’ It was Tony Voyeur at his gate still in his dressing gown. ‘You’re not pinning this on me. I need to be there.’

  My thoughts spun out to that castle, the intricate map of tunnels and holes running beneath its stones. Built to protect religious men. Just what did they hide now?

  CHAPTER 29: PRIEST HUNTER

  Verity insisted on going with us, so there was no surprise that Lee Colman did too. He stayed close to her, almost too close. Lucy Morello came out bleary eyed and groggy. She refused to be left behind as well.

  So we formed a macabre little Pied Piper trail up to Black Towers, but just who was playing the pipe wasn’t clear at all.

  As we set off from Verity’s, Ron ran crying into the street. ‘I need to see her! I need to come with you. You’re going to the castle, aren’t you?’ His eyes darted frantically between us.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ Mother grumbled. ‘It’s not a tour!’

  ‘Mother, don’t you think it’s better if we’re all together. We’re safer and no one can scuttle off doing secret things.’

  She took a deep breath, filling herself up with frustration.

  ‘She’s right,’ are not words Bridget’s mouth is used to. Even the cat looked surprised. ‘I have a feeling we might all need to gather very soon in any event.’ She ploughed on ahead, looking very pleased with herself as if she’d just said something important. Perhaps she had, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.

  ‘Go with Ron.’ Harriet Bradshaw was at her gate and almost pushed her husband, Gerald, out into the lane. ‘He needs you.’

  Gerald looked bewildered.

  ‘The artefacts,’ she said through gritted teeth.

  His eyes suddenly widened and he scampered on towards Ron, an obsequious look on his face. ‘Ron, don’t worry. I’m here.’