The Dead of Winter (27 page)

‘Forged!' Melissa said fiercely. ‘They were forged. Weston was an evil man, a criminal.'

‘Aside from that, both the previous sale and the current one were totally legitimate, even if those that bought this place are using it as a front for illegal activities.'

‘So can't their assets be seized?' Rina asked. ‘This house included?'

‘That won't help Melissa, will it? Not if there's any hint she was implicated in any of it.'

‘I've done nothing wrong.' Melissa spaced the words emphatically.

Chandler did not comment on that. ‘So you sold on part of your share. Was that to get Toby out of debt too? You must really have resented that. Selling your birthright to get a wastrel like Toby out of the shit again.'

‘It wasn't like that.'

‘So you were Grace Wright?' David Franklin was outraged. ‘We bought our shares from you?'

Melissa shrugged. ‘I told Edwin, he liked the idea, he told Simeon and Simeon persuaded you. No one but Edwin knew I had a connection to this place. Edwin was just amused.'

‘Sounds like Edwin,' Jay muttered.

‘But I still don't understand what brought Edwin here in the first place,' Tim said. He seemed to be going off at some kind of tangent, Rina thought, when the question should have been: did Melissa kill Toby?

‘I told you – well, I told Rina. Edwin heard we were setting this place up for conferences; he wanted to know if he could see the library and Albert's room. We became friends, sort of. I liked him, and I liked the idea of him having a share in this place. I didn't realize he'd then sold most of his shares on.'

Hence the shock when she heard the names on the list, Rina thought. That's if she was telling the truth now.

‘And did you kill Toby?' Chandler asked. ‘Did his demands become just too much? After all, he was frittering away your birthright, wasn't he?'

Melissa did not respond. She stared past him at the curtained windows.

‘Especially when you found out that Toby wasn't a Southam after all. That his family descended from George Weston's side.'

‘I didn't care about that,' Melissa said. ‘You just don't understand, do you? I loved Toby. I always had. Why should I care what part of the family he came from?'

‘But did you kill him,' Chandler pursued.

Melissa's look was pure malice. ‘No,' she said. ‘I did not kill Toby, or Edwin, or Simeon. Why would I? You want to find a murderer, Inspector Chandler, then you'd better start looking elsewhere.'

THIRTY-ONE

T
he evening dragged on. Slowly, people drifted off to their own rooms, leaving Mac and Chandler and Rina by the fire. Miriam and Jay had wandered back to the library and were poring over esoteric texts on early microscopy which, Miriam told Rina, she had only ever heard about, never thought she'd be able to actually handle.

Jay, it seemed, was a polymath. Early science, magic and what came to be known as stage magic were all closely related, he told Rina excitedly. Rina had looked in on them to see if they wanted anything from the kitchen, and they had been deep in conversation about some obscure sixteenth-century treatise on what Rina took to be alchemy. She ducked out again when the talk switched to red dragons and cinnabar.

PC Brown was back to pacing, and Terry, for some reason Rina had yet to fathom, had perched on a high stool in the kitchen and was investigating Melissa's store of recipe books.

‘Are you all right?' she asked him.

‘Yes, I just phoned my wife. She's snowed in too. I told her I'd find a recipe for potato bread.' He shrugged. ‘It's something to do.'

‘What have you told her?'

‘That we're cut off and that Edwin died. I was worried just in case something made it on to the news, but I didn't want to worry her too much. If she knew the truth she'd be going frantic.'

Rina nodded; she'd indulged in similar half truths when she had made her own phone call home. ‘Why potato bread?'

‘My mum used to make it. Daft how that sort of thing suddenly becomes important, isn't it?'

‘Not so silly,' Rina told him. A rattle from behind the kitchen attracted her attention.

‘Rav's bringing the lanterns through. The lights keep flickering. I've found some candles too.' Terry pointed to where several boxes had been laid on one of the counters. ‘And I've filled the Thermos flasks and the tea urn.'

Rav appeared with his hands full of lanterns. He smiled at Rina. ‘I thought I'd put these in the hall. They've all been filled.'

‘Matches?'

‘With the candles.'

‘Looks like we're all set then. Where's Melissa?'

‘Gone to her room,' Rav said. ‘I told her to lock the door.'

Rina nodded. She gave Rav a hand to bring the other lanterns through and then wandered back to Mac and the fire.

Passing Melissa's office, she saw Chandler speaking on his mobile; he looked annoyed about something. Moments later he followed her through and flopped down on the small sofa.

‘More problems?' Mac asked.

‘No, not exactly. They picked up Melissa's dodgy book dealer. Surprise, surprise, he had form. He admits being here on the Friday night, which is when Rina saw him leave, presumably. He said Melissa left a package for him in the boot room in one of the cupboards, as was usual. He trekked back across the fields and picked up his car not far from the cottage where we found friend Toby. He denies going in. Forensics will tell us more on that, but he is adamant he's not been back since, so the footprints you spotted must have been someone else. Always supposing, of course, that he's telling the truth.'

‘What reason would he have to kill Toby?' Rina mused. ‘None that I can see. Toby knew what Melissa was doing, so he's not likely to have caused trouble.'

‘Any record of violence?'

‘None.'

‘So who did I see on that second night?'

‘Well, whose
footprints
did you see?' Chandler corrected her. ‘It's entirely possible that someone just went for a walk.'

‘True, but don't forget, Toby followed someone and tried to film them. They killed him.'

‘That's the assumption,' Chandler agreed. ‘I now know that Toby was passing on information to whoever we have undercover,' he added. He frowned, the lack of information clearly nagging.

‘Do we know if that officer is here? Or just part of the broader set-up?' Mac asked.

‘No, but I'm guessing maybe a driver or one of the caterers. They have reason to come here, opportunity to see what is going on.'

Mac nodded. ‘That would make sense.' He glanced at Rina, expecting an opinion, receiving none, but Mac recognized that look and wondered about it.

THIRTY-TWO

L
ater, when she heard Mac and Miriam return to their room, Rina unlocked her door and knocked on theirs, glad now that this wing of the house was so cut-off from the rest.

‘So,' Mac said, when Rina had taken up possession of the window seat, ‘what is it you haven't told me?'

‘Viv came to me earlier this evening with some interesting information,' Rina said. ‘I'm honoured that she made such a judgement call and decided I might be trustworthy; I happen to know that she is a very frightened and confused young woman.'

Mac waited, but Miriam was ahead of him. ‘She's the undercover police officer, isn't she?'

Rina nodded. ‘Apparently, she really is doing the MA, and she just happened to know Toby because of that. She was offered the chance to do her Master's full time rather than stretch it out over two years if she took the job; originally, she'd cut her hours and turned down a promotion so she could study. I think there's a bit of family pressure being brought to bear.'

‘There'll be even more now,' Miriam noted.

‘She's just a kid,' Mac objected.

‘She is twenty-four, and you and I are just feeling our age. She was Toby's link; he passed his information on through her. Melissa didn't know. Toby was allowing her to sell items from the house on his behalf and at the same time was working as a police informer. Viv says he seemed to think that might give him some leverage, afterwards, when the house was sold again.'

‘Or someone allowed him to believe that,' Miriam suggested. ‘Just to get him on side.'

Mac absorbed this. ‘Then why didn't Viv come to me or Chandler?'

‘Because she doesn't know you, and she has reason to suspect Chandler. He's been under investigation, Mac. They think he might be mixed up in all this.'

‘
Chandler
? Why? No, I can't accept that. What evidence?'

‘She doesn't know. Only something about financial irregularities in his bank account.'

‘Which could be anything.' Mac frowned. ‘I don't see it, but—'

‘But we have to keep it in mind. She's out of her depth, Mac.'

‘And Melissa knows nothing? About Viv? About Toby feeding her information?'

‘No,' Rina said. ‘Melissa just kept paying Toby's debts; she didn't know anything of what else he was doing.'

‘So, if Melissa confided in Edwin; and he told Simeon; and our assumption about them going to expose what was going on here—' Miriam began.

‘If our assumption is correct, then someone either overheard them talking or Melissa talking to them, but the sad thing is, whoever killed them did it to protect cover that was already blown. Toby had already exposed what was happening here, and they died for nothing.'

‘It looks that way,' Mac said.

For a minute or two they sat in silence, then Mac said, ‘OK, so we need to cover all bases here. Has Chandler lied about what back-up we can expect? How much suspicion is actually attached to him?'

‘How do we find that out?' Miriam asked.

‘We call someone who can do some quiet checking for us,' Mac said. He plucked his mobile phone from the bedside table and skimmed through the contacts. ‘Alec,' he said. ‘No, we're both well. Sorry to be calling so late, but we need a favour. A discreet favour.'

Rina smiled. Of course. Pinsent was only forty miles or so away; it was quite likely Alec Freidman would be able to discover something, and at least they then had a trusted outsider ensuring they would not be forgotten.

She twitched back the curtain and looked out on to a white world. Soft fields of snow were overhung by fat bellied clouds from which the occasional flake escaped. Would it hold off long enough for the cavalry to arrive? she wondered, though there was no way of knowing what drifts blocked the roads.

‘There's no television here,' she said suddenly. ‘No radio, for that matter. At least, not that I've seen.'

‘I expect Melissa has both in her room,' Miriam said. She shrugged. ‘I'd not given it any thought.'

Mac finished his call. ‘He's looking into it for us,' he said.

‘Good,' Rina approved.

At that moment, the lights went out and plunged them into the dark.

THIRTY-THREE

T
he sound of the handbell ringing in the lobby drew everyone downstairs. PC Brown met them at the foot of the stairs. ‘Boss says everyone should gather in the big room,' he said. ‘We've got the lanterns. Power's out,' he added unnecessarily.

‘We should go and switch on the generator.' Terry's voice sounded from deep shadow by the kitchen door.

‘Right you are.' Brown sounded quite cheerful about the whole thing. ‘Boss is calling round to see how local the power outage is,' he added. ‘Likely, the lines are down. It happened last winter and the one before.'

He went off with Terry to see what lights could be restored, and Mac, Rina and Miriam joined the others in the main room.

Viv and Robin were already there. Rina smiled at the girl, nodding encouragingly to indicate that it would all be all right. She hoped.

‘Can we make toast?' Robin said. ‘By the fire?'

Viv laughed. ‘What?'

‘Isn't that what you do in a power cut?'

Silently, Rina blessed him for breaking the tension. ‘Toast sounds good,' she said, ‘and I think I saw some crumpets in the kitchen. I'll go and find us something to use as a toasting fork.' Chandler met her as she crossed the dark reception hall, lantern in hand. ‘Power is out for a ten-mile radius,' he said. ‘Lines are down.'

‘Just as well we have the generator.'

He nodded. ‘Ah, good.'

The lights flickered and began to shine, albeit dimly. ‘Robin will be disappointed,' she said. ‘He wants to make toast in a power cut.'

‘He obviously didn't live through the three-day week,' Chandler observed.

Terry and PC Brown emerged from the kitchen looking triumphant. ‘We should just use what lights we need,' Terry said. ‘So someone should go and check what's on upstairs.'

As he and PC Brown loped off up the stairs to do that, Rina foraged in the kitchen, finding bread and a barbecue fork that would do for toasting. A sound behind her caused her to turn, startled. It was only Mac.

‘Sorry,' she said. ‘I'm more jumpy than I thought. What is it?'

Mac glanced behind him and then came close, speaking quietly. ‘Alec called,' he said. ‘Chandler didn't lie about problems with reinforcements, though he does seem to have downplayed what went on here.'

‘How can you downplay three murders?' Rina wondered out loud.

‘And he
is
under investigation. There are big rumours that he's been on the take, that he knew exactly what was happening here.'