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

by VICTORIA DOWD

  Ron didn’t look worried at all. Insane, yes, but not worried.

  So now there were only five people left in the village — Joseph Greengage and his girlfriend, Scarlett, the mysteriously private Peacocks, and Mrs Bradshaw, who wanted to stay just in case Scarlett came back. It felt more important than ever now to keep track of everyone’s whereabouts.

  My eyes turned towards the castle that had stood ominously over all of us from the very beginning. As our sombre line moved silently on towards it, there was a sense that we were sealing our fates, if they hadn’t already been sealed.

  We all stood in front of the open portcullis, staring at the broken form of Lord Elzevir, still laying on the floor.

  Ron suddenly bolted across the gravel and down the bank towards the moat. We couldn’t see the chair where his wife sat, just the tip of the other end of the pole, but it was very clear where he was heading. Gerald called after him but made no effort to follow.

  He looked at us. ‘He needs to be alone with his grief,’ he said solemnly.

  I saw Marsha and Verity link hands for a second. Lucy Morello made another of her snared animal sounds that seemed to come from deep inside her.

  Unperturbed, Marsha led on with an iron purpose. ‘Wait here,’ she said. She skirted round Lord Elzevir’s body and went up the small stairs by the side of the portcullis. In a moment, she was opening the side gate for us. We passed quickly the way we’d come over the top of the gatehouse and hurried up to the main door of the castle. Marsha opened it and walked in determinedly.

  ‘Mirabelle, you’re with me.’ Bridget stood firm with Dingerling clutched tight to her chest.

  ‘Why should she be?’ Mother shot.

  Bridget paused and then let a smile trickle across her lips. ‘Because that’s how it is now. You made a choice to push her away. No use trying to go back on that now.’

  Mother looked at her dumbfounded and then at Mirabelle. ‘What?’ Her voice was quiet. ‘Mirabelle?’

  Mirabelle gave her a strained look and turned away.

  Marsha paused. ‘We do not have time for this! There is a man missing. My husband has been killed and there’s a dead woman strapped to a chair. People are dying and you’re still doing this! Look, Verity and I—’

  ‘Before we do anything else, I think we should open up the priest hole.’ Gerald looked genuinely excited at the prospect of this, although a touch of desperation was edging into his voice.

  ‘OK. OK.’ Marsha walked purposefully through the hall towards the tapestry and we followed. She pulled it back as if it was a big reveal moment. I half expected to see the vicar standing there behind the curtain.

  ‘Wait!’ Tony Voyeur moved towards her. ‘Let me see if I can sense a presence.’ He closed his eyes and held out his hands.

  Mother pushed past him. ‘For God’s sake, move out the way, David Blaine.’

  ‘I knew his real name couldn’t be Voyeur!’ Aunt Charlotte nodded to herself in confirmation. ‘Filthy man.’

  Marsha bent down and started feeling around behind the wood panelling. After a moment, the small door opened just as before and swung out. There, in the tiny space we’d seen before, was nothing. It was empty. There was no vicar curled up hiding as we’d all started to imagine. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

  ‘Now what?’ Mirabelle frowned.

  Marsha let out a sigh. ‘Verity, you know the castle plans. Where are the rest of the priest holes?’

  Verity looked confused for a moment and Lee Colman put a comforting arm around her. Some sort of realisation flickered across her face. ‘Wait, Lee. Can you help me?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Inside, on the right there.’ She pointed and he bent to look inside the small space. ‘There’s a handle. It’s a tiny black metal thing.’

  He crouched down and looked around before starting to shuffle himself further inside. His wide shoulders barely fit and there seemed hardly enough space for him to even look around. ‘I think I see it.’

  ‘Pull it,’ Verity said before adding, ‘be careful. Hold onto something.’ I watched as Verity looked around us all anxiously as if she’d said more than she should. As if she’d revealed a secret.

  Lee struggled to pull his arm through into the hole, and after a few minutes there was a dull click and he shimmied his way out of the space.

  We all drew round and peered into the dark little cupboard.

  It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust fully but, there at the back of the hole, a section of the floor had fallen away. A small, black rectangle of darkness hinted at a whole new area.

  I looked around at the others. Verity didn’t seem shocked at all, more anxious.

  Marsha, however, did look surprised. ‘Well, I suppose you did say this place is riddled with holes and tunnels.’

  ‘Yes.’ Gerald leaned into the space, nodding excitedly. ‘Imagine how many priests hid there — maybe even died there!’ He sounded almost gleeful. He turned to us all, the smile gradually falling with the realisation that his excitement might not be quite appropriate.

  Lucy Morello made some more faint sobbing sounds from the back of the group.

  ‘Verity?’ Marsha looked at her tentatively. ‘Is this . . . ?’ she paused.

  Verity nodded. ‘One of the tunnels.’

  ‘Leading to . . .’

  ‘The graveyard.’

  No one spoke. I felt a cold gasp of wind rise up from the tunnel.

  ‘Right,’ Aunt Charlotte cut in, ‘I think someone’s going to need to take a look inside.’

  ‘Well, you’re not going to fit in there!’ Mother said.

  ‘I don’t think many people would.’ Mrs Abaddon had appeared at the back of our group. She folded her arms decidedly.

  Aunt Charlotte looked ponderous. ‘As my sister so kindly pointed out, it’s going to need someone slim but also young enough to be quite bendy, so that rules you out as well, Pandora, with your old bones.’

  I looked back at Lucy Morello, who was still in a completely agitated state. There was no prospect of her being able to do this. Another gust of wind rose up through the entrance and this time seemed to make a faint whistling sound.

  Even Gerald was slowly backing away.

  ‘I can’t leave Dingerling,’ Bridget said quickly.

  Lee Colman had struggled to even get through the door, let alone down through into the passage below. Tony Voyeur was even wider than him.

  I was slowly aware that all eyes were settling on me. ‘Really?’ I said in disbelief.

  Mother gave me a resigned look. ‘This is going to cost a fortune in therapy bills.’

  * * *

  As I lay on my belly staring into the dark, small opening I felt a cold little wind in my face. It smelled of the damp stone. An old smell.

  I had my phone light but it only revealed the first section of the passage. It seemed to fall away down a steep drop. It was not much bigger than my shoulder width and only a small pocket of space remained above my head.

  There was a dankness to the air that stuck in my throat.

  I heard Mother’s voice behind me. ‘This is ridiculous. No, no. She can’t go any further. Ursula, come out immediately. It’s not safe. What if the priest is in there. I’m not sending my daughter to meet a killer.’

  ‘She’s right!’ I heard the muffled sound of Aunt Charlotte just before one of them lunged for my legs. But it seemed to push me down further rather than drag me back. My stomach was teetering on the edge of the back lip of the cupboard area, just before it fell away into the passage. I tried to steady myself a little.

  And then I fell.

  As the board gave way, I slipped fast down through what seemed to be some sort of trap door and landed hard. It knocked the wind out of me and dust filled the air. It didn’t feel like I fell far, possibly only the height of a man.

  But Mother’s voice seemed quite distant. ‘Ursula!’

  I looked up and could see the light from above. The woode
n floor to the cupboard seemed to have given way into a small bare-brick chamber below. It was rough on the palms of my hands. The air was colder here, the walls damp like the sides of a riverbank. There was a fetid smell.

  I managed to shuffle onto my hands and knees and turn around to look at the space. I was in some sort of long, narrow cavity with dark-red brickwork all around me.

  ‘Ursula, what is going on?’ Mother’s face appeared, god-like, from the white square of light above.

  ‘You’re blocking the light, Mother. I’m fine.’ I shuffled round on the gravelly floor. ‘It’s another chamber below.’

  ‘Is everything all right?’ Marsha called. Her voice seemed further away than I’d imagined. ‘What can you see?’

  ‘I’m fine. It’s another priest hole, I think, below.’

  ‘Dummy chambers.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Quiet, Charlotte!’ Mother snapped.

  ‘This top one is a dummy chamber,’ Gerald called again. ‘To put the priest hunters off the scent.’

  ‘Don’t tell me to be quiet! My niece is in there. I’m coming in, Ursula. Get out the way, Pandora.’

  ‘I’m fine! Aunt Charlotte, there isn’t room.’ I brushed the dust from my face and as I looked down the opposite wall, an outline began to form. Another small, rectangular opening.

  ‘There’s something else here,’ I called.

  ‘Christ!’ Mother cried. ‘Get out! Someone get her out! I knew this was a mistake.’

  I squinted into the darkness and held up my phone light. ‘I think there’s a little tunnel leading off it,’ I shouted back to them.

  ‘She’s right,’ Verity called. ‘Remember, on the plans?’

  ‘Plans?’ Marsha sounded as clueless as the rest of us.

  I stretched out my arm and held the torch further towards the small opening. I moved towards it.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, Ursula?’ Mother called. ‘Get back up here at once!’

  ‘Mother, now I’m down here, I might as well take a look. There’s no space for anyone to run at me. You can only crawl down here.’ I moved along a little.

  Mother dangled further in and shouted down the small passage. ‘I warn you, priest, if you’re down there and you lay a finger on my girl, I’ll crucify you!’ Her voice echoed along the tunnel.

  I pushed myself forwards. It was a bitter, cold darkness. There was a loneliness to it. How abandoned those men would have felt down here, waiting, wondering in fear. I could see their faces in the gloom, picture them shivering against the walls, half-starved with round ivory eyes peering out from the shadows. The blood fluttered in my chest at the thought of it. I paused to try and keep my breath slow and even.

  ‘Ursula?’ Mother’s voice had a worried edge to it.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I called, although I hadn’t really made it sound like that. I was aware my voice came out slightly strangled. I took another long breath. It was just walls around me. Just walls.

  I could feel the sweat prickling along my back, the fine dust sticking to my face. I turned my head to the side and looked back towards the small chamber. I’d crawled in quite a way now. I couldn’t see Mother’s face in the opening anymore. I looked down into the tunnel, as far as I could. The darkness was overwhelming.

  I felt something under my hand and brought it up close to my face. A small torch. I clicked it on and a pool of blue light fell on the floor. The corpse candle. The light I’d seen last night dodging through the darkness. It was no ghost, as Tony Voyeur had tried to suggest.

  I lay flat in the tunnel and felt a breath of something cross my face. My chest started to feel tight. And the familiar panic began to swill through my stomach. There was a sour taste in my mouth. My heart thumped against the cold floor. What if I couldn’t turn around? What if he really was down here?

  I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to settle myself. But the black little thoughts came in quickly, landing like birds on a newly sown field. I could feel something there with me in the darkness. Something close to me.

  I opened my eyes and his face was directly in front of me.

  I drew back fast and banged my head on the roof of the tunnel. My eyes swam.

  ‘Ursula, what’s happening?’ Mother’s voice was frantic but strangely distant.

  The eyes were there in the darkness, staring into mine. I smelled the familiar fug of his tobacco. For a brief moment of confusion, Dad was real. I reached out to touch him. My head sparkled with pain and my eyes began to close.

  ‘Ursula,’ Mum and Dad both said.

  An iron-rich breath of blood filled the air in the small tunnel. The shape of Dad faded and behind where he had been was the unmistakeable shape of a body sprawled on the floor. The face was turned up towards me in an agonised, wide-eyed stare. It was the vicar — already grey with death.

  ‘He’s . . . here. The vicar. He’s dead,’ I rasped. ‘Mum. Please.’

  I felt a hand on my calf. I was being dragged backwards.

  ‘I’ve got you.’ It was Mother’s voice.

  CHAPTER 30: INCIDENTS IN THE SITTING ROOM

  As I surfaced, little motes of light caught my eye. I was in the hall, laying down next to the entrance to the priest hole. Voices were troubled and indistinct, as though I was looking up from the table in an operating theatre.

  Mother’s voice drifted in. ‘Are you all right?’ It sounded so distant.

  ‘Of course she’s not OK.’ The sound of Aunt Charlotte echoed in my head. ‘She’s just fallen in the messy grave of a vicar!’

  ‘I can’t believe this. How is this happening?’ Mirabelle sounded shaky.

  Their voices circled me.

  ‘OK, give her some space.’ Mother tried to sound in control.

  ‘Space?’ Mirabelle took on a firmer note than I’d heard from her in all the time we’d been here. ‘There’s no space between you. No space for anyone.’

  I looked up at her to see her eyes were glossy with tears.

  Mother had a look of confusion. ‘Is that what this is all about?’

  ‘All what?’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Gerald interrupted. ‘But I believe the vicar is dead. Could you do this later?’

  ‘What the hell is wrong with you people?’ It was Lucy Morello, her eyes hectic, looking round each of us. ‘Elzevir is dead! Jocasta’s dead! And now the vicar! This place is a morgue and you’re discussing if you give each other enough space! I just . . . I c-can’t . . .’ Her words were stuttered between the tears.

  ‘Get a grip of yourself, girl,’ Marsha snapped. ‘And it’s Lord Elzevir to you.’

  Mrs Abaddon had an arm around Lucy. ‘Let’s get you sat down now.’

  Lucy almost collapsed onto the elderly woman as she was guided to one of the heavy, dark chairs against the wall.

  ‘Mrs Abaddon.’ Marsha sounded very calm. ‘Some tea, if you wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘Tea?’ There was an edge of hysteria to Lucy’s voice. ‘Lord Elzevir is dead! You’re his wife and you’re thinking about tea!’

  ‘Well, it’s a little late to be remembering that he was a married man. But then your family never were any good at keeping their hands off other people’s property, were they? How long has he been in Dartmoor prison for now? A good few years, I suspect. Is it just your brother who has strayed over to the criminal side?’ Marsha smiled. ‘You needn’t have bothered if you did. I checked his will regularly and there’s no mention of you, regardless of what you think he told you.’

  Lucy’s mouth hung open. ‘I . . . how . . . ?’

  ‘There’s a dead body down there!’ Mirabelle shouted. ‘Someone else has been murdered! We need to do something.’

  ‘And what exactly do you suggest we do?’ Bridget said calmly. ‘We need to leave him where he is for the police. We can’t touch anything and no one else is going down there. It’s not safe.’

  ‘I found this.’ I held out the torch.

  ‘What? You shouldn’t have taken it. There co
uld be fingerprints.’ Bridget looked affronted.

  ‘It shines blue,’ I said and looked at the magician. ‘So not corpse candles then.’

  He gave a dismissive shrug.

  ‘But what killed him? Was there any sign of what happened?’ Verity asked. She held onto Lee Colman’s arm to steady herself.

  ‘I smelled blood. It was all around his head. I think he . . .’ I saw the image of him so still and staring out of the darkness. ‘His throat had been cut.’

  Gerald coughed. ‘And he’s definitely dead?’

  I nodded. ‘Looked cold, as if he’d been there a while.’

  His drained face, so still, so frigid, flashed across my mind again. ‘There were scratches. Deep scratches on the side of his face and neck.’

  ‘Scratches?’ Mother leaned close to me as if she was checking me for the truth.

  ‘I couldn’t really see. But yes, like he’d been slashed at, clawed at by something.’

  ‘Good God,’ Gerald whispered.

  ‘Madam, I will go and fetch the tea,’ Mrs Abaddon announced.

  A sharp, grating sound started. We paused and looked at one another. The grinding continued, a metallic sound that seemed to be coming from outside. Mrs Abaddon walked slowly and calmly towards the door, which someone had left open.

  ‘I will go and see what is happening, Your Ladyship.’

  ‘Maybe it’s Lord Elzevir putting the gates down again.’ Aunt Charlotte looked ashamed of the comment almost as soon as she’d said it.

  We waited in a glowering silence, Marsha and Lucy Morello both sharp-eyed.

  When Mrs Abaddon returned, she wasn’t alone.

  ‘I found Mr Greengage out in the courtyard, Your Ladyship.’ She looked accusatorily at Marsha, as if this hadn’t been the first time she’d been called upon to announce his unexpected presence.

  ‘Joseph?’ Marsha’s face was suddenly a lot more animated. ‘What are you—?’

  ‘I’m moving the scaffold, Your Ladyship.’

  ‘What? Why would you be doing that with a dead man there?’ Bridget and the cat eyed Joseph suspiciously.

  ‘Well, I was told Verity thought you and His Lordship, God rest his soul, would want it moved for the visit. It had already been moved so I was just making sure—’