What a Ghoul Wants (23 page)

“Uh. . . yes, sir. I’m positive he didn’t say anything.”

That seemed to trouble the inspector. Still, he didn’t explain; instead, he eyed his
watch and said, “I wonder if later on this evening I might have a discussion with
the two of you in private—somewhere outside the walls of Kidwellah?”

I was a bit surprised at the request and it took me a moment to respond. After looking
to Heath, who nodded, I finally said, “Of course, sir.”

“Excellent,” the inspector replied, handing us his card and noting the mobile phone
number on the back. “I will be finished here within the next two hours or so. Will
you both meet me at the front entrance at eleven o’clock?”

Heath agreed before I had a chance to question the inspector about what he wanted
to talk to us about, and once he heard we’d meet with him, he saluted us with two
fingers and told us he was heading off to find Mr. Hollingsworth and interview the
other guests of the castle.

“That was. . . odd,” I said once Lumley was gone.

“Yeah,” Heath agreed. “But so far, nothing about this place has been normal.”

For the next two hours we hung out in our room. At one point another constable knocked
on our door, and it was clear he was helping the inspector gather statements from
all the guests. He took our names, and documented where we said we’d been that evening,
and I was grateful that there would be at least two restaurant managers who weren’t
likely to forget Heath and me.

“That should take us out of the suspect pool at least,” Heath said once the constable
was gone.

At five to eleven Heath and I went downstairs only to find Mrs. Lefebvre with her
suitcase packed standing at the front entrance. She ignored us and stood resolutely
staring at the front door.

At eleven on the dot the inspector arrived in the hall and approached us, but he paused
long enough to take note of Mrs. Lefebvre’s luggage. “You’re departing the castle?”
he asked her.

The older woman squared her shoulders, as if she expected a challenge. “I’ll not stay
in this dreadful place one moment longer.”

“I’d prefer it if you didn’t leave the area, Mrs. Lefebvre,” the inspector said, in
a way that clearly suggested he wasn’t pleased she was abandoning Kidwellah.

“You may take it up with my solicitor, Inspector. My husband is dead, and even though
I had agreed to stay long enough for you to finish with your investigation, in light
of that poor woman’s murder, I see no other choice but to leave this death trap at
once, if only to preserve my own safety.”

The inspector grunted, but didn’t protest further, and at that moment a taxi driver
poked his head in the front door and said, “Someone ’ere call for a car?”

The inspector told Mrs. Lefebvre that he’d be in touch soon to inform her when her
husband’s body would be released for burial, and motioned for us to follow behind
him.

We went along with him to his car, and climbed in.

“How is Mr. Hollingsworth?” I asked once we were under way.

“He appears to be quite distressed,” Lumley replied.

“Appears to be?” Heath said, noting the emphasis the inspector had placed on the word.

“I’m afraid I’m a bit suspicious of Mr. Hollingsworth,” Lumley told us. “Several people
have informed me that he’s got a bit of a temper and he’d been seen berating his wife
at dinner this evening. There were also quite a few old bruises on Mrs. Hollingsworth’s
person. I’m convinced he was abusive to her.”

“I overheard him yelling at her yesterday,” I confessed. “And earlier today I heard
her talking on the phone to someone and she sounded close to panic.”

The inspector eyed me sharply. “Why in heavens’s name didn’t you tell me this earlier?”

I felt my cheeks flush. “I’m sorry, sir. I think that I was still in some shock over
her death.”

The inspector grunted and focused back on the road. “Speaking of her death,” he said,
“Constable Bancroft informs me that you made contact with her spirit but were unable
to glean any details as to who might have murdered her?”

I shifted in my seat. “That’s correct. Mrs. Hollingsworth crossed over very quickly
after we found her spirit.”

“Odd business you two are in,” he said, and was silent for the rest of the drive,
which it turned out wasn’t very far at all.

The car turned down a narrow lane and stopped shortly thereafter in front of a tidy-looking
two-story home with a thatch roof and an arched front door. We got out of the car
and moved up to the picket gate, which the inspector held open for us. “Where are
we?” I asked. I’d expected the inspector to take us to his office at the police station
or someplace similar. To come to a residence was quite a surprise.

“We are at my home,” Lumley told me.

Heath took my hand, and when I looked up at him, I could read his expression. He didn’t
quite trust the inspector. We moved to the door and Lumley opened it for us. As we
stepped through into the front hall, a woman appeared from the other end. “Jasper?”
she called, looking quite surprised to see us first.

“Good evening, Penny, I’m so sorry to have kept you so late. How is she?”

The woman glanced toward a set of stairs to her left and wrung her hands. “I tried
calling you on your mobile, but it went straight to voice mail.”

The inspector’s posture stiffened. “What’s happened?”

Penny eyed us nervously and Lumley seemed to remember that we were there. “Excuse
me one moment, please,” he said and he moved with Penny to the kitchen, leaving Heath
and me to wonder what the heck was going on.

At last Penny and the inspector appeared again, and she was wearing her coat. He walked
her to the door and she apologized for not keeping a better eye out, to which Lumley
replied that it was hardly her fault and he’d see her the next day.

He then closed the door behind her and turned back to us without explaining a thing,
although the strain in his eyes spoke volumes. “Shall we?” he asked, motioning to
the sitting room, which was off to our left.

We preceded him there and took our seats next to each other on a rich chocolate leather
sofa with an aubergine throw and striped green and purple pillows. Instead of sitting
across from us on a matching sofa, the inspector shrugged out of his suit coat and
moved to the fireplace, where he began busying himself with a fire.

Heath and I exchanged another look, and I could tell he was about out of patience
with this whole mysterious meeting business. “Earlier this evening, Miss Holliday,
you saw the ghost of my brother. What can you tell me about him?” the inspector asked
abruptly.

For a moment I was so taken aback by the question that I found it hard to gather my
thoughts and answer him. “Well. . . I don’t know that I can tell you much more than
that I thought I was looking at you, and that his spirit has unfortunately become
chained to the Widow.”

The inspector paused almost imperceptibly as he was loading the fireplace with logs,
but he kept his tone conversational when he asked his next question. “You’ve said
that he didn’t speak, but did he gesture to you, or signal in any way that might lead
you to believe he was trying to communicate some message?”

“Not really, sir. But that may have been because he didn’t really have a chance. I
only saw him for a few moments. . . seconds even, and in that time he only held his
arms out to me, as if he was pleading with me to help him.”

The inspector stiffened again, and it was a moment before he relaxed the set of his
shoulders and stuffed some newspaper under the logs before reaching for a match. Lighting
it, he said, “Did you see the Widow along with my brother?”

“No, but I think she was under the drawbridge at that moment.” I was recalling how
Heath and I had been tortured across the planks by something pounding from the underside
of the bridge.

The fire caught and Lumley stood. For several long moments he did nothing more than
stare at the flames with his back to us.

“Inspector?” Heath said. “Will you please tell us why you brought us here?”

Lumley lifted his chin and reached for a photo on the mantel. Bringing it over to
us, he handed it to Heath and said, “My brother, Oliver.”

I peered at the image and was struck again by how similar Oliver was to the inspector.
What also struck me was that Oliver was wearing a policeman’s uniform. “He was a cop?”
Heath asked.

Lumley took his seat across from us, his eyes betraying the pain he felt over the
loss of his brother. “Yes. At the time of his death three years ago, Ollie was an
inspector here in Penbigh.”

“Whoa,” I said. “That must have been awful for you and for the community.”

“Yes,” said Lumley as if the admission left a particularly bad taste in his mouth.
“Of course, I wasn’t here at the time.”

“Were you away on holiday?” I asked.

A sardonic smile played briefly across the inspector’s lips. “No. Not quite. I was
at Met Pol.”

“Met Pol?” Heath and I asked together.

“The Metropolitan Police Service,” he explained. “At their headquarters in London.
You Yanks might know it best by its nickname, Scotland Yard.”

“You were with Scotland Yard?” Heath asked, and I could tell he was impressed.

“I was,” said Lumley with a note of pride. “I’d tried at one time to convince my brother
to apply to a post in London, but he preferred the country. My mother’s family is
from this region, you see, and we used to visit Wales quite a lot when we were young.
I suppose Ollie preferred the tranquillity of a small village over the hustle and
bustle of London. He settled here, and I settled there to pursue a prestigious career
and look after Mother, but we remained close, as twins usually are.”

I looked back at the photo of Lumley’s brother. “Were you two identical?”

“Not quite,” Lumley said. “Oliver was an inch shorter and his eyes were green rather
than the brown of my eyes. Other than that, however, most people were hard pressed
to tell us apart.”

“Is that why you ended up here?” I asked. “You wanted to be closer to your brother’s
spirit?”

“No,” the inspector admitted. “Not really. What I mean is that the driving force behind
my leaving Met Pol and taking up the position here of inspector—vacated by my brother—was
to investigate his death. I never believed for a moment that he drowned accidentally.
Oliver was a very good swimmer, but the even bigger mystery was to ask, what the devil
would he be doing swimming in a moat in the dead of night? He was a smart chap, my
brother. He’d never do something so ridiculously reckless.”

“I take it there were no prominent signs of foul play like you discovered on the two
men found dead in the past few days, and like you discovered on Mrs. Hollingsworth?”

“None. But then, my brother’s body was in the moat for three days before it was discovered.
By then the elements had done their worst, I’m afraid.”

“Three days?” Heath repeated. “How come nobody noticed?”

“According to the official police report, filed by a man that I later fired for incompetence,
Oliver’s body must have become submerged, and only surfaced when a heavy rainfall
came through to stir up the currents.”

I made a face. I get squeamish around stuff like that.

The inspector must have noticed because he apologized. “I’m so sorry to elaborate
on the grim details,” he said. “I forget how upsetting these things can be for you
laypersons.”

“It’s fine,” I assured him. “But I’m still not quite sure why you wanted to speak
to Heath and me privately.”

The inspector picked at a loose thread on his shirt cuff. “As you no doubt know, Kidwellah
has a rather unscrupulous past. I’ve always believed in the ghost stories originating
from the castle. Ollie and I would play near the moat as children, and the both of
us would see things in some of the castle’s windows that we couldn’t readily explain.

“And while I was put off by such things, Ollie became fascinated. He would comb the
library shelves for information about the castle and its most famous residents, and
he knew all about the Grim Widow and her murderous past. I believe it was those summer
holidays spent here that he fell in love with Penbigh and wanted to serve it in some
way.

“After university he did the most unexpected thing; he applied to the Penbigh police
department and was accepted. Mother of course was most upset—”

“She was afraid for his safety?” Heath asked.

Lumley shook his head and chuckled softly. “Oh, no. Not that. She expected Ollie to
be an accountant, engineer, or perhaps even a solicitor. Something respectable, but
he felt a calling to law enforcement, and to my mother’s great dismay, after hearing
my brother speak so enthusiastically about his new post, I applied to Met Pol and
was accepted.”

“What’d your dad say?” I asked.

Lumley looked at me oddly. “Nothing.”

“He’s the silent type, huh?”

“If my father has anything to say, Miss Holliday, it would likely be to you, not to
me.”

Heath said, “Your father passed away?”

“Yes. At least that’s what we believe. You see, he left my mother when we were very
small, barely three, and no one in his family ever saw him again. Mother finally won
a decree declaring him dead when Ollie and I were ten. Mother claims that my father
became involved with some unscrupulous characters, and they were the cause of his
disappearance.”

“Oh, that’s awful,” I said, and the inspector merely shrugged as if he’d had all these
years to deal with it and it no longer bothered him. “Do you remember him?”

“No. But from what my mother told us, he was a wretched husband and father. His one
contribution to the family was a sizable trust established for me and my brother when
we were born, which allowed us all to live in relative comfort and attend some of
the best schools.”

I studied the ether around Inspector Lumley. Normally, when someone mentions a deceased
relative, I’ll feel a slight knocking sensation, almost like the spirit has been waiting
to be asked to join the conversation and, immediately upon hearing his or her name,
is all over my energy, but I didn’t get any sense of the inspector’s father.