The Haunted Season (12 page)

Cotton shook his head. “Show Sergeant Essex where to find this temple of love, and we'll have a closer look tomorrow. There's not a lot of point in everyone's tripping around out here over fallen branches in the dark. We're just getting started gathering and analyzing evidence, and it will be a while until we've got anything to go on—
if
we're as lucky as the killer was. Of course, it is a case for the coroner, and we'll have all we can manage gathering everything we need in time for the inquest.

“But where I'll need you, Max, is in providing background on the family. Talking to one or two of them, even. What do you say?”

“I don't honestly know the family that well,” Max demurred. “They've scarcely been a presence in the village in the time I've been here.”

“But you can tell me something about the family?”

“Well, I've spoken with the son recently.”

“So there's a son. Do tell me more.”

Max hesitated before speaking. Then he sighed, as if having decided where his duty lay. “Not a towering intellect, I would say,” he began at last. “Genial, quite young for his age, rather awkward around adults. I don't know how well he does with his peer group at university, but I gained the impression he was uncomfortable around me, at least at first. To some, I'm an authority figure, you know. I also rather got the impression he was lonely and wanting someone to talk to, so I let him know my door was always open.

“There is also a daughter, but I've only spoken with her briefly.” He hesitated again before adding, “I think she is rather fond of the estate manager. But I wouldn't read a lot into that if I were you. I'd say it's puppy love on her part and not reciprocated. He's too old for her—not in years perhaps, but in experience. He is a man used to the company of women. That was my fleeting impression.”

Cotton was staring in the direction of the house as he listened, his expression inscrutable.

“You have such a quaint way of putting things, Max. You mean he's a bit of a lad, correct?”

Max nodded. “He knows he can have his pick of women and is a bit spoiled in that department.”

“I see. Well, brace yourself for the media circus. It's a well-known family, of course. Which fact generates more interest right there. Your average drug deal or pub brawl that ends in death can't hold a candle. Whenever I try to interest the media in helping us catch a suspect, I can find them chasing after Prince Harry's latest girlfriend. Still, it's understandable, human nature being what it is.” Cotton turned to face him. “What do you know about our victim, Max?”

Max shrugged. “He wasn't too interested in the village duck race for charity—but of course that's not what you mean. He distinguished himself overall by not taking much of an interest in local affairs. People say he wasn't a patch on his grandfather, who kept the village going for years: He made sure poor children had porridge and milk in their bowls, and he paid to get a railway line in to the village—things like that. Again, to be fair, I didn't know Lord Baaden-Boomethistle—the present lord—all that well. The family stayed away for tax reasons, leaving the place in the care of a handful of loyal retainers.”

Cotton took a deep breath, peering up at the night sky as though it might hold the answers. “Look, I really am going to need your help on the local angle,” Cotton said at last. “I'll square things with your bishop if you need me to. I'll tell him you're essential to helping me solve the case and restore order to the parish, which will be torn apart by this appalling crime. The villagers may even revert to pagan sacrifice in their shock and distress. A sort of cry for help. You know, the usual.”

Max laughed. Cotton could be relentless: if he'd thought bribing the bishop would work, he'd probably try it on. Besides … “I do know the butler, but slightly,” Max said. “He's a member of St. Edwold's.”

“See? If anyone knows anything about the family, that's the man who will.”

“But a good butler would never gossip about his employer.”

“It wouldn't be gossip” was Cotton's ready reply. “It would be more like confession in this case. An opportunity to get things off his chest.”

Max just smiled:
Nice try
.

“But for now, just you go home to Awena and the baby. I'll be in touch.”

 

Chapter 8

MAX AND THE BUTLER

Several days passed before Max heard from Cotton again. The forensic tests, even though logged in with a note citing Cotton's pleas for haste, had run up against the usual bureaucratic backlog and the competing demands of other crimes in the area. Still, given the prestige of the family, and the spectacular way in which the head of the clan had lost his head, this was a matter of some urgency. (“We have
got
to stay in front of the media on this,” as Cotton put it.)

And so Cotton managed to get what he wanted out of the coroner's inquest (more time to investigate) and out of all the forensics specialists (faster test results) through a combination of finesse and a calling in of favors owed. And while he never bullied, he did, as he liked to put it, persist until he got results.

Which in this case did not amount to much. The wire used as a murder weapon had eventually been found after a brief search, not far from the body; it had been taken down and thrown into the undergrowth around a large oak tree. The speculation was that this had been done to prevent any further catastrophe for anyone unlucky enough to decide to ride a horse on that same path, following after Lord Baaden-Boomethistle.

“We are dealing with a considerate murderer, in other words,” Cotton explained to Max over the phone. “And someone who knew he rode on that path at that time every day, which was not a well-kept secret, apparently. But there are no prints—impossible on such a narrow surface. No DNA, either—the chances are the killer wore gloves, anyway. The wire seems to have been cut from a supply that had been sitting around a storage area in the stable for an undetermined amount of time, although long enough for rust to have started to form on it.”

“The tack room, no doubt,” said Max. “We're looking for someone with access to the stable, then, obviously.”

“Yes, and that could be anyone in the area. The buildings are shielded by trees from the house, and sited far away, so nipping in, taking what you wanted, and nipping out again would be easy. While there are stable hands and people like that running about with ropes and saddles and other horse accessories, there aren't enough of them that someone's comings and goings would necessarily be noticed. And if the perpetrator concealed the wire about his person, under a coat or sweater, say, wrapped around his waist, there would be nothing in particular for anyone to notice.”

Cotton's reference to “horse accessories” rather than “tack” reminded Max that Cotton was even less in his customary environment of mean city streets than usual, and that he knew even less than he, Max, about the world of horses. They might need to take expert opinion on this case before it was through. Unfortunately, the nearest experts to hand were all suspects in the case.

“Does the butler ride?” Max wondered aloud. “Hargreaves?”

“I don't know. Why don't you go ask him?”

*   *   *

The butler occupied a nice little living quarters within the house. As tradition held, it was near the kitchen and it no doubt was a major perk of the job to have an on-site living arrangement included. Max knew, as he had in his MI5 days impersonated a butler on more than one occasion, that the position also often came with a decent salary, paid vacation time, a mobile phone, and, in remote spots like Nether Monkslip, a car. The downside was that the job generally required a sixty-hour workweek, since the modern butler was often a jack-of-all-trades, including bodyguard.

Hargreaves looked, however, as if his bodyguarding days might soon be over. He was in his mid to late sixties and probably looking forward to retirement. His lodgings, while pleasant, were more like a private suburban bedsit than a suite of expensively wallpapered, tufted-satin rooms, as might be found in the rest of the house. It was warm and cozy, with plaid fabric on the chairs and sofa contrasting in a pleasing, old-fashioned way with floral prints and narrow-striped pillows. The overall effect ought to have been ghastly, but it was more as if the fabrics had accumulated over time, each butler from the past having left behind a cherished possession or two to mark his occupancy. Hunting scenes and inspirational quotes hung on the walls, a quote from
Henry
V
being the most stirring (“I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,/Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:/Follow your spirit; and, upon this charge/Cry ‘God for Harry, England and Saint George!'” A fire burned in the hearth to take the chill off the air, and the butler offered Max some tea and homemade oatmeal biscuits “made by the cook early just this morning, special for your visit.” Max, who had come to accept that murder investigations were fattening, especially in the environs of Nether Monkslip, took a biscuit from the proffered plate. Had he been in London, he realized, he'd have been lucky to be given water, and then only if he appeared to be suffering from heat prostration.

The butler handed him a cup with the requested one lump, no milk, and then sat down opposite him in the riot of color that was his sofa. Max shuffled the selection of pillows at his own back and settled in, taking a sip of the excellent tea and a bite of biscuit, delicious enough to rival anything Elka Garth might produce.

“It's the murder you want to talk about, of course, Vicar. If it were the funeral arrangements, I imagine you would be talking with Lady Baaden-Boomethistle.”

Max acknowledged this was true. Lord Baaden-Boomethistle would be buried out of St. Edwold's, as had all the Baaden-Boomethistles who had come before him, and he would be interred in the family vault. It was normally not a matter in which to involve the household staff, although as a matter of courtesy Max might keep them informed of the family's decisions, particularly if it seemed communication had broken down somewhere along the way. There would always be extra arrangements involving relatives come to stay, a gathering after the service, and so forth, on such an occasion.

“You have been with the family how long?” Max asked him. He was trying to avoid licking the crumbs from his fingers, as he had not been provided with a serviette. Hargreaves noticed instantly and flung himself off the sofa to go and rectify the omission.

“Eighteen years” was the reply on his return from the pantry. The butler went on to explain that his former employment had been at a famous grand old house in the north of Scotland. “I could not endure the winters any longer,” he told Max, resuming his seat. “I am not a young man, and when you start thinking in terms of your bones actually freezing and snapping apart like sticks … well. Either that or being blown clean off a cliff, which could easily happen. Anyways, when this opportunity opened up—well, I gave a good long notice. Lord Rosefield was nice enough about it—it seems it had happened before. I heard my replacement was a hale and hardy Scotsman who lived nearby. Too bad. Too bad I had to leave, I mean. They had two wee bairn who were the nicest children.”

“Ah,” said Max, wondering if this were in any way a comparison with Lord Baaden-Boomethistle's children. Was the butler trying to say they were
not
the nicest children? Was he using a sliding scale—not quite as nice but pretty decent kids overall? As Max contemplated exactly how to phrase this, the butler returned his cup to its saucer and saved him the trouble.

“They were not spoiled, those two up in Scotland. They knew the value of a pound, for one thing—I know, I know: It's a stereotype, the thrifty Scot, but I mean that they were instilled with character, not with an inflated sense of entitlement. I blame the parents when that does happen, and I try not to fault the child. Of course,
these
two here lost their mother at a very young age, so perhaps there is no comparison. Lady Rosefield was a paragon. Lady Baaden-Boomethistle—the first lady—was likewise an absolutely lovely woman, long-suffering though she was. So for the children to lose her at a tender age—well … You do see.”

Max nodded sagely, as if this rather rambling discourse were all he could have hoped to hear. He was well aware the man would not be talking about his employer like this to any outsider—stating opinions as to how the children were turning out, and who might be to blame if they were not turning out well. The fact that Max was a priest—his confessor, in fact—made Max's place in the grand investigative scheme of things rather ambiguous.

The lyrics of the song “Our Lips Are Sealed” came into his mind just then. Rather a theme song for priests, it had been a running joke during his training at St. Barney's in Oxford. The sacrament of Reconciliation, commonly known as Confession, meant that he could not relay what was told to him in confidence by a penitent.

“You are friends with that DCI, I know,” said the butler. Perhaps it was that servant's ability to anticipate problems—missing serviettes, a wine cellar that needed restocking, a conflict of interests—that made him sensitive to Max's position.

Max acknowledged that this was true.

The man sighed. “I wish I could tell you something that might help, but the fact is, I can't. I mean I know nothing about the murder and I have no inkling of who could have done it.
None.
” Did he protest too much on that last word? Max thought it a possibility. “I have indicated the children are not all they could be—the usual bun fights at meals, you know the sort of thing—but they are not murderers. I would bet anything I own. They are spoiled and headstrong—the boy especially—but this is another arena. I wouldn't think them capable of it.”