Murder at Merisham Lodge: Miss Hart and Miss Hunter Investigate: Book 1 (16 page)

I put a hand up to my forehead. My fingers were shaking. “Firstly, can you try and stop Nora telling anyone what I just asked her?”

“I’ll try. But—”

I cut across her. “I need to talk to the inspector. Right now.”

“Now?” Verity shook her head. “How on Earth are you going to do that?”

“I don’t know.” I felt like hitting the privy wall in frustration. “I can’t telephone, I don’t even know if he’s at the police station…”

Verity was chewing her lip. We stared at one another in silence for a minute, my hands clenched, until Verity suddenly gave a yelp. “Oh! I know where he is. Dorothy told me he’s staying at The Brown Cow.” It was one of the inns in the village. I felt a leap of gladness but that was almost immediately quashed.

“How am I going to get there? I can’t just leave.”

Verity suddenly looked resolute. “I’m taking you to the doctor,” she said, firmly. “You’re ill and you need to see him.”

I drew in a shaky breath. “Do you think that will work?”

Verity blew out her cheeks with a puff of air. “Joan, I’m not clairvoyant. It might work, it might mean we get dismissed. But it sounds as though it’s important.” She grinned suddenly and said, “And I want to know everything anyway, and this is the only way we’re going to be able to talk.”

I looked at her for a moment and then half-laughed. It was almost a sob. “You’re right that it’s important. It could be a matter of life or death.”

“Well,” said Verity. “Let’s go, then. Look as ill as you can.”

We stumbled out of the privy with Verity’s arm supporting me. I clutched my stomach and groaned. As we passed the sideboard which stood by the kitchen door, Verity pulled me to a stop. “Wait,” she whispered and then dunked her hand into a half-full glass of water that stood with the other dirty dishes on top of the sideboard. Then she swiped her wet hand over my brow. “Let’s go,” she whispered and we stumbled on, back into the kitchen, me groaning away like an old, sick sheep.

*

“I can’t
believe
that worked,” Verity said breathlessly as we sped away through the darkness, only the bobbing light of a hand-held oil lamp to guide our way.

“I know. Perhaps I’m a better actress than I thought.”

Verity giggled. “You know they all probably think you’re pregnant. Or having terrible trouble with your bowels.”

That made me laugh. “I know.”

We had reached the stile by now. The night was huge all around us, the wind shaking the trees like a giant invisible hand ruffling the woods. Verity climbed over and offered me her hand.

“Thank you.” I jumped down, feeling the shock in my ankles as my feet hit the ground. I felt as if I’d been filled with champagne – I was fizzing with energy.

“So, what
is
going on?” Verity tucked my arm underneath hers and pulled me forward.

I told her. She was so shocked she stopped walking.

“
No
.”

I nodded. I could see her face, pale even in the wan light of the lamp.

“How did you know?”

I shook my head. “I haven’t got time to go into that now. A man’s life is at stake. Come on, V, we need to get on. There’ll be time for explanations later.”

She looked stubborn but I didn’t give her time to argue. We reached the village and raced up the high street to the welcoming lights and noise of The Brown Cow.

Of course, I had never set foot in there before. I’d never been inside a public house in my life. I hesitated on the doorstep but then Verity took my arm and swept me inside as if she owned the place.

I spotted the inspector straight away. He sat at the bar with a newspaper in front of him and a pint of ale in his hand. He looked up as we approached and a strange mixture of emotions seemed to cross his face. He looked at once apprehensive, annoyed, eager and hopeful.

“Miss Hart. And Miss Hunter,” he said, looking from one of us to the other. “What a pleasant, not-entirely-unexpected surprise. What can I do for you?”

Chapter Twenty Two

It was half past ten by the time Verity and I got back to Merisham Lodge. Verity immediately sped upstairs to check on Dorothy. I walked into the kitchen expecting to find it empty, to be surprised by the sight of Mrs Watling sitting at the kitchen table. I was touched to think she’d waited up for me.

“Joan. Are you feeling better?” She got up and came closer. She looked worried, and for a moment I felt very bad about deceiving her, the good woman that she was.

“Yes, I’m feeling much better, thank you. The doctor gave me some medicine.” I didn’t want to look her in the face as I lied.

“You still look awfully pale. I think you should go straight up to bed.”

I couldn’t tell her that my pallor came from apprehension – and possibly excitement. “I must just get the kitchen ship-shape before I go up.”

Mrs Watling glanced about. “Maggie and I have done most of it.”

I put a hand on her arm, trying to inject as much sincerity into my voice as I could. I could not afford for her to stay in this kitchen, not tonight. “Really, Mrs Watling. I’ll just do the last little bits and then I promise I’ll turn in for the night. Why don’t you go? Go and get some rest.”

She took a little bit more persuasion but eventually I saw her off to her room with a ‘good night’. After she had gone, I stood there in the middle of the floor, fizzing. I wiped my forehead with shaking hands, took a deep breath and then turned and made for the staircase.

The house seemed so silent. It could have been the early hours of the morning, so still and quiet were the rooms and corridors. I walked softly but quickly along the passageway towards the study, knowing I had to do this right now before I lost my nerve.

The door to the study was shut but the internal window gave out a soft glow of light. I paused outside the door for a moment, trying to control my breathing. My hands were shaking, and I smoothed them down my apron again and again, trying to stop the movement. I had to look calm, I had to look purposeful, otherwise it wouldn’t work. I took a final deep breath and then opened the door.

Rosalind Makepeace looked up in surprise as I entered the room. She was alone, sat at the desk to the right side of the fireplace, her glossy dark hair pinned smoothly back from her face.

“Joan,” she said. “What is it?”

I surprised myself by the firmness of my voice. “I was just wondering if you wanted more tea, miss?”

If she was surprised at the undercook asking her that question, she didn’t show it. Her brows drew down in a slight frown but she answered quite civilly. “No. No, thank you.”

My heart was thumping so hard I was surprised I could hear myself over its beats. “Are you sure I can’t get you anything, miss?”

Rosalind was looking at me properly now. “No,” she said after a moment.

I drew closer to the desk, close enough so I could rest the tips of my fingers on the edge of it. Rosalind stared at me. “Nothing at all?” She said nothing. I leant a little further in and said “Nothing from the root cellar, for instance?”

There was a moment’s silence. I saw her face flicker with an emotion that was quickly suppressed. I waited.

“What on Earth do you mean?” she asked eventually. Her face was blank but her voice betrayed her with the slightest tremor.

I leant ever further forward, fixing her with my gaze. “I saw you,” I said, quietly. “I saw you down there on the day Peter Drew died.”

She said nothing. I could see the pupils of her eyes shrink down to pinpoints, even in the dim light. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said, eventually.

“No?” I straightened up. It was wicked of me but I was almost enjoying this. “I’m sure I could jog your memory.”

I saw her throat ripple as she swallowed. Then she tore her gaze from mine and bent her head down again. “Joan, you’re deluded. I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, trying for a bored tone but not quite able to master it.

“Well,” I said, leaning forward again. “I’ll give you an hour to think about it. Perhaps your memory will come back. You can find me down in the kitchen if you want to…talk about
arrangements
.”

I left then. I thought that was as good a line as any.

I hurried back down the corridor, trying not to look over my shoulder. The house seemed more than ordinarily full of creaks and whispers. I walked down the stairs to the kitchen, trying not to flinch at the sound of my footsteps on the boards. Would what I had done be enough? Surely it would. If what I had surmised was correct, there was no way that a threat such as the one I had just made could be ignored.

I reached the kitchen and checked that the back door was unlocked. For a moment, I stood in the middle of the floor, unsure of what to do. My eye fell on the knife block and I picked it up and moved it into the pantry. I had a nasty moment when I thought someone was hiding by the larder but it was just the shadow cast by an apron hanging from the hook on the wall.

I had to look busy. I had to
keep
busy, otherwise my nerve would go completely. I picked up a cloth and began wiping the already clean table-top with quick, nervous swipes.

Outside in the corridor I heard the tinkle of one of the bells.
Verity’s signal
. My heart felt as if it had leapt up into my throat. I moved to the sink, unable to turn my back fully to the doorway.

Above the thumping of the blood in my ears, I heard footsteps coming down the stairs. Quiet footsteps, as if the person walking down was trying not to be heard. I realised I was holding my breath. I turned more fully towards the doorway and saw the long black shadow falling over the threshold. My heart hammered.

“Oh, Joan,” said Duncan Cartwright, coming into the kitchen. He looked very big against the light from the corridor. I turned so my back was against the kitchen sink, trying to smile, trying to look innocent and unconcerned. I couldn’t stop my gaze falling to his hands, which, thank God, were empty.

“You’re up late,” he said, smiling, walking forward. We faced each other across the kitchen table.

“I’m just off up to bed, sir.” I braced my trembling fingers against the cold porcelain of the sink behind me.

Duncan looked about him with curiosity. “I haven’t been down here for years. Not for years.” He stopped moving forward and I breathed a little better. “I used to come down here all the time when I was a boy.”

“Yes sir, I know. Mrs Watling told me.”

Duncan was still looking about him. He had a strange look on his face, as if he were in the midst of a not particularly pleasant dream. Like a sleepwalker. “Yes, I used to come down here a lot. It was…safe. It felt like a safe place.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, sounding stupid. In my plans, I hadn’t thought this far ahead as to what I would actually say. Well, I
had
thought it out, but now that it actually came to it, I wasn’t sure I could go ahead with it. It was something about Duncan’s face, a kind of vulnerability to it. Despite what he had done, I didn’t want to hurt him.

He stopped looking around and focused on me then. Something of the dreaminess went out of his face and his expression sharpened. My heart rate sped up a notch. “You’ve been telling stories, Joan.”

I cleared my throat. “I know what I saw, sir.”

“So Rosalind tells me. She said you saw something.”

“Yes.” I could feel a thin trickle of sweat beginning to inch its way down my spine.

Duncan’s face darkened. “What do you want?”

I know I was supposed to say ‘money’ but the word stuck in my throat. “I don’t want anything, sir.”

He came close then, his eyes fixed on my face. I swallowed. “Everybody wants something.”

We stared at one another. Part of me wanted to scream but nothing had happened, had it? He hadn’t admitted to anything. In a split second, I made up my mind.

“Why did you kill your step-mother?”

The baldness of the statement shocked me. I saw Duncan’s face whiten. It was then I realised how utterly exhausted he looked, his eyes ringed with shadow, a smudge of beard growth on his jaw. I was reminded of Rosalind, when she’d come down looking for Mrs Anstells, how wraith-like she had appeared. It was then I had an inkling of just how much this whole affair had cost the two of them. Had it been worth it?

Duncan flexed his fingers. “Don’t be ridiculous, Joan. You know I have an alibi for that night.”

“No, you don’t.” I had never spoken like this to any of the family before. “Benton lied to the police about where he was that night. He wasn’t bringing you things in the drawing room at all. You had ample time to go to the library and kill Lady Eveline.”

A muscle twitched in Duncan’s pale cheek. “Oh, so you think you know all about it, do you? A chit like you?” He leant forward. “You – you’re nothing. You’re
nobody
. Nobody is going to be believe you.”

I stared back at him. “I’m not so sure about that.”

“Well, they’re not going to get the chance.” He was trembling, his hands shaking. “You think we’re going to stop now, after all we’ve done?”

This is when I knew I should scream. I tried to but my throat was so dry, all I heard was a click. I couldn’t take my eyes from Duncan’s face, from his haunted eyes and the lips that were drawing back from his teeth.

“That’s what nobody tells you,” he said in a whisper. “Once you’ve done it once, it just gets easier and easier. The first time is the worst. I wasn’t expecting the blood. I wasn’t expecting that at all. But she didn’t make a sound –
not a sound
. One minute she was standing up alive, and the next minute she was dead.”

Somehow I managed to force a word out. “Why?”

Duncan raised his trembling hands. “She deserved it,” he whispered. “She killed my mother.”

Then his hands were around my throat, and the scream that should have been screamed a moment before, saving me, was choked off. Gasping, I scrabbled uselessly, pulling at his hands with fingers that weakened even as I tried to pull free.
I should have screamed before
, was the one thought that kept hammering through my brain, even over the pounding of blood in my ears.
I should have screamed before.

Then I
was
screaming – no, not me, but somebody was. In my darkening vision, I saw a flash of red hair and then there was a sound like somebody hitting the side of a heavy saucepan with a wooden spoon. The pressure around my throat eased and I slumped downwards to my knees, gasping for air. Then there was shouting and the crash of the kitchen door as it hit the wall, and the sound of heavy boots and more shouting, and amidst it all, I became aware of Verity’s arm about me, holding me up, and her voice in my ear saying very calmly, “Don’t worry, Joanie, you’re safe, you’re safe. I’ve got you now.”