Ten Lords A-Leaping: A Mystery Part 30

"I'm ten years older than my sister. She was fourteen when she was killed."

Tom's hand pushed reflexively into the coa.r.s.e wicker. The girl's tender age made the crime all the more repellent. Miranda would be fourteen in a mere four years, a spell of time so fleeting he couldn't bear thinking about it.

"Her name was Kimberly. Her body was found by hikers in a hollow in a wooded area on The Wrekin. Police thought she had been lying there ..." Ellen's face hardened as if to suppress corrosive grief. "... two or three days. We had been frantic with worry, my gran and I. Our grandmother brought us up, you see. 'Teenagers go missing all the time,' the police told us when we went to make a missing persons report. 'You watch. She'll be along with some lad and a guilty grin before you can say Jack Robinson.' But she wasn't like that-boys, staying out late. She was a good girl."

"I see," Tom said, not quite seeing-despite the story's piteousness-its relevance. "Was-?"

"The rapist was never found, Mr. Christmas." She seemed to antic.i.p.ate his question.

"But ... these days ... DNA a.n.a.lysis ..." Tom stumbled over the words, recalling his own experience in the wake of his wife's death-the taking of daubs, the swabbing of cheeks.

"Kimberly was killed before such a thing was common."

"But sometimes-"

"Did the police keep something, some bit of clothing tucked in a back room, that might be useful now? I wondered that years after, Mr. Christmas. I don't know. You ..." She looked at her hands cradled in her lap. "You let yourself forget, don't you. You have to, if you're to go on."

Tom studied her strained features in the cruel light, allowing a new and certain and very ugly and unwanted awareness to seep into his soul. He paused to take a cleansing breath before giving voice to his thoughts: "You're going to tell me that Oliver fforde-Beckett-Lord Morborne-did this terrible thing. He-" The words felt like bile in his mouth. "-raped and murdered your sister."

Her eyes returned to his, her mouth sagging. "My husband is certain."

"Certain. But why-?"

"Because he was there."

"What?" Tom jerked in his chair. "You can't mean he was a partic.i.p.ant! Mrs. Gaunt, that is ..." He groped for an apt word-shattering, appalling, criminal-but she interrupted him before any fell from his lips.

"No, no! Not as a ... as a partic.i.p.ant. As a-" She pulled a handkerchief from under her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. "Oh, Mr. Christmas, G.o.d has seen fit to turn my whole world upside down this weekend. I've learned the most horrible things. I'm not sure I can forget or forgive."

"Take your time."

Ellen twisted the handkerchief on her lap. "I met Mick in a graveyard."

"Oh?"

"At All Saints Wellington, near Telford. It was perhaps a year after Kimberly's death. I was working at a country hotel and taking care of my gran, who had taken a turn after Kim's death. I would go as often as I could to bring flowers to her grave. One day, I fell into conversation with a young man, Michael-Mick-who was visiting his mother's grave. She had died in childbirth." Ellen looked away. "Before long, we were married. And we've been happily married, Mr. Christmas ... until ..."

"Until?"

"Until Mick insisted we leave the Arouzis' employ last year and join Lord Fairhaven's household. I couldn't understand why he was so insistent. The Arouzis were very good employers. We were well established with them. I was always grateful for their kindnesses. As I said, before the Arouzis we were with Lord Anthony fforde-Beckett, Dominic's father. Mick was very young to be butler-valet. I suppose I was young to be the cook-housekeeper, but it was a household in a wretched state. Lord Anthony couldn't keep staff, and we were keen to establish ourselves.

"You may know of the ... theft of Lord Anthony's wife by his brother and the trouble it caused. I'm afraid Lord Anthony behaved very badly as well. He became alcoholic, neglected his son-terrible given that his mother had virtually abandoned him to chase after his uncle-then drowned in that foolish sailing adventure. We stayed on in Ladbroke Square for a time. Dominic was still in his teens. Someone to come home to on school holidays. We had learned earlier we wouldn't be able to have children, so Dominic became ..." She stopped, lifted an unsteady hand to her forehead. "I'm sorry, my mind has ..."

"You were talking about how you met your husband," Tom prompted.

"Yes." She paused as if to gather her thoughts. "When I visited my sister's grave in those months after she'd died, I'd often find blooms left, small bouquets, though no name attached. Friends or schoolmates, I thought. Perhaps some lad had ... admired her or perhaps they came from others in town who felt sorry, as it did get attention and cause strong feeling." Despair etched her features. "Mick left them, Mr. Christmas. He told me yesterday, in the kitchen garden. Kimberly had been ... his lover. I didn't know. It never crossed my mind."

"How extraordinary. But surely someone else knew? Can you really successfully keep a relations.h.i.+p a secret?"

"Kim was fourteen, Mr. Christmas. Mick was nineteen."

"Oh ..." Tom groaned, sensing already the unfolding of events. The lovers stood each the other side of that s.e.xual Rubicon: the age of consent.

"My grandmother wouldn't have worn it, if she knew. She was a bit of a Tartar. And Mick's father was worse. He was valet to Lord Rossell, proper as you would expect to His Lords.h.i.+p, but brutal to his son. He would beat Mick."

"I am sorry," Tom said, pausing to reconsider Ellen's earlier testimony. "When you say your husband was there-at your sister's death, you mean he was ... witness in some fas.h.i.+on, but-what?-too frightened, too intimidated to say or do anything?"

"Not witness-"

"I think that would be unforgivable."

"He says he and Kimberly had had a row about something-he can't remember what now. It was autumn, they had been walking on The Wrekin. They went there because it was too easy to be seen in Telford or Shrewsbury or one of the villages. There are lots of secluded places in the woods along The Wrekin. Do you know it?"

"Only in name."

"After the quarrel, Mick stalked off in a sulk, leaving my sister alone-he believed. He realised soon how stupid and immature he was being-darkness was beginning to set in. He had one of Lord Rossell's motors-which he hadn't been authorised to take and only added to his worries-and thought that if he didn't drive her, she had a very long walk off The Wrekin back into town. So he turned back to find her, and saw her aways with two boys, which he says put him off, made him jealous." She shuddered. "If only he had ..."

"He walked away again."

She nodded. "Then he drove a time before having another pang of conscience. He went back, but he couldn't find her. He called, but nothing."

"No response?"

"The Wrekin seemed deserted. It was a school night, supper hour for many, not warm. Finally, he retraced his route to their 'secret place'-it was sheltered, he wondered if she was hiding there, making him come to her to punish him." She regarded him bleakly. "He found her there."

"Oh, my."

"Then he left her there. I don't know if I can forgive him for that, though I know the Lord says I must."

"I wonder if he can forgive himself, Mrs. Gaunt."

Her face hardened. Tom considered the agonies of being young and in love and in being terrorised by a disapproving parent. And then he had another thought: "Why," he asked, "does your husband think Lord Morborne-well, the boy who would become the Marquess of Morborne-would be the perpetrator of this appalling crime? Could he identify him?"

Ellen shook her head. "He couldn't. Neither of them. He only glimpsed two young lads in dark clothing-but then the light was fading, wasn't it. He thought one of them might be coloured."

"Coloured? You mean ... African or Asian?"

"Mick wasn't certain. It was growing dark."

"Then what-"

"It was the whistling, Mr. Christmas. Lord Morborne's queer whistling. Mick heard him on The Wrekin that day. And he never forgot it."

is dead! Mum, I've just spent the last little while at the dower house where Ellen is with Mr. Christmas. When I heard Roberto was dead, I dropped my pen and ran downstairs and I must have shocked Ellen and Mick with my presence. But they shocked me! Mick looked very peculiar indeed and Ellen had gone as white as a sheet! Roberto had somehow got himself electraocuted. An accident, they seemed to think, but it wasn't! Lady Kirkbride told me after Ellen went to talk to Mr. C. that the electriocution was no accident! Which made me wonder about Ellen and Mick. They were in such an awful state here at the Gatehouse-or at least Ellen was. Mick set about making tea, calm as you please! I knew something was terribly wrong-something besides Roberto's death-but Ellen wouldn't say. Finally, I said I was late to Mr. C.'s birthday tea, at which point Ellen took up my earlier suggestion to talk with Mr. C. as he is so good with folk who have troubles. Of course, I'm disappointed they're talking in private. Of course, they're talking in private, as is proper in these situations, so I can't tell you, Mum, what's happened. I only tarried a moment. The dower house is lovely, more cosy, not so immense as the Hall, and I had a bit of the gateau (baked by Lady Fairhaven herself! Fancy!), but everybody's spirits were v. low, as you can imagine (Poor Mr. C.! Not the most cheerful of birthdays!) so I thought I might be of better use here at the Gatehouse getting Mick to tell me seeing to Mick. Oddest thing, Mum! Do you remember our old verger, Sebastian, who went walkabout over a year ago? Well, as I was approaching the Gatehouse, I thought I glimpsed him come out the door to the private apartments and turn into the trees by the road. But as the afternoon had turned a bit grey and I was down the road aways, I couldn't be sure, and of course it seemed so peculiar, even though I know Venice Daintrey insists she once saw him on the moor near here. But anyway, to make sure, I opened the big gate a crack to see if PC Widger was still on duty, forgetting, of course, about reporters and such. Well, Mum, by the time you get this you might see a picture of muggins here poking her head through looking not her best. Once they realised I had nothing I was going to tell the likes of them, they went back to smoking and hanging about uselessly. Anyway, PC Widger was on duty, so I asked him if he had let in anyone of Sebastian's description. No, he said. He sounded a bit offended, so I slipped through the gate to see if all was well, as he had been quite friendly and chatty before. Apparently he'd got something of a wigging from the higher-ups for saying things that have fetched up in the papers. Anyway, on the q.t., he told me what with Roberto pa.s.sed on unexpectedly, poor man, the police will be taking an interest in Lord Fairhaven. Never, I said, shocked at first, as he is a peer of the realm, but of course, Mum, he and Lord Morborne had been at each other, hadn't they-up in the sky, no less, so it stands to reason. That's what PC Widger said, as their fight on Sat.u.r.day has been broadcast everywhere. I wonder if I shall feel safe up at the Hall. We talked on a bit, PC Widger and I. Turns out his mother-in-law is a cousin once removed of Tilly Springett's late husband who used to farm near Thornford, you remember. Anyway, his mother-in-law is a lady golf ball diver (ret'd). She would dive into the water traps at the golf courses all over the West Country and sell the b.a.l.l.s she found! So nice to have a chat with someone about something normal! This really has been quite the oddest weekend I've ever spent, I think. Now here I am, back at the Gatehouse, at this lovely little writing desk in my room. When I got back inside there was no one here at all. I can only think Mick's gone back to the Hall, which I shall do too immanen eminen in a minute. At least I can be of use with the meals. I know what tonight's menu is, so I can make a start if Ellen is long with Mr. C. PC Widger has promised to post this for me. Make sure you read them in the right order!

Much love, Madrun

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.

Tom lifted the map left open on a low table in the Gatehouse sitting room. It was a detailed but-judging by the frayed folds-not a new Ordnance Survey map of Dartmoor, the bottom half expanded to set out the demarcations of the southern fringes of the moor, with web-like cl.u.s.ters of lines for Abbotswick and variegated squares for Egges...o...b.. Park. Someone had spilled tea, recently it appeared-liquid pooled in a saucer by the map; the cup sat apart on a tray in its own ring of wet-leaving a damp golden splash, but marked with a whitish puckered trench as if Gaunt had forcefully traced a path through the paper with his finger along a footpath from Egges...o...b.. up into the moor around Hryre Tor.

Tom lowered the map and looked towards Ellen, who had returned from the Gatehouse kitchen, mobile in hand. They had hurried from the dower house moments before, deflecting curiosity and concern, and now he was regretting letting himself to be drawn into such a charged matter. You must go to the police with this-it had been on his lips in the dower house conservatory, but Ellen sussed his reluctance and repelled it. She had sought him out because he was a priest, a counsellor, an intercessor, because the authority of his office would lead her husband down the path of righteousness, to make his confession to the police. Tom understood her suffering. She did not want to be a wife who betrayed her husband, no matter what his crime.

"You must come with me and talk to him." She had leaned towards him, her eyes beseeching. "You must. I can't ... I can't bear to have my husband s.n.a.t.c.hed away from me in front of His Lords.h.i.+p and pushed into a car."

And now they were in the Gatehouse and there was no Gaunt to be had. Ellen stared at him numbly from across the room; he found himself once again prepared to summon the authorities. The phone in Ellen's hand rang, piercing the tense atmosphere. "His Lords.h.i.+p!" She released a cry of dismay glancing at the screen. She let the instrument exhaust itself, then pressed fluttering fingers along the keys.

"He's called several times in the last hour." Surprise contended with concern on her plump features.

"Is Lord Fairhaven normally so ... insistent?"

She gave him a sharp glance. "My husband is practised in antic.i.p.ating every need."

"Surely Lord Fairhaven has your phone number, too?"

"He does." She reached into the pocket of her dark skirt. "But he hasn't called me." She looked from her mobile to Tom. "What can be so urgent?"

They were again jolted by Gaunt's phone ringing.

"Give it to me." Tom reached for the phone, his mind struggling with a new and frightening possibility. "Hector," he said without preliminaries, steadying his voice for the falsehood to come. "This is Tom Christmas. I'm sorry to say that Gaunt has taken ill quite suddenly. I'm with Mrs. Gaunt at the moment. How may we-"

Hector, whose surprise at Tom's answering seemed to seep through the ether for a few seconds, cut him off with a fit of pique. Where was Gaunt? He was expecting him shortly to prepare preprandial drinks. And did Gaunt have the key to the wine cellar? Or Mrs. Gaunt? He had been looking for his copy of it earlier, intending to distract Dominic with a tour of his grandfather's collection of vintage claret. Most vexing. As Ellen nodded agreement, Tom told him that Mrs. Gaunt would ascertain the location of the wine-cellar key, subst.i.tute for Gaunt with the drinks trolley, and follow, in due course, with the serving of supper. Hector rang off abruptly. Tom stared at the mobile. He ought to feel aghast. He would say Lord Fairhaven was pigheaded, if he were pressed on the subject, but this fulmination over domestic minutiae seemed outlandish, a contrivance, almost a ploy.

"Not a single word about Roberto," he murmured as he handed the phone back to Ellen. "Hector must have been told by now."

"I directed the police myself to His Lords.h.i.+p in the estate office."

"Which is how you learned of Mr. Sica's death."

Ellen nodded. "But not of the manner."

It crossed Tom's mind: Was Gaunt protecting Hector? He tilted the map towards Ellen. "Is it possible your husband might go up onto the moor?"

She glanced at the map with mute incomprehension.

"Does he have walking shoes? Or a waterproof?" he added, conscious of the lowering sky in the window behind him.

"Mr. Christmas." Ellen found her voice. "This isn't a holiday for us. We have only our work dress. And ..."

"And?"

"We've never taken a holiday in ... wild places. Mick doesn't care for them."

Tom thought he knew why: Dartmoor, Exmoor, Bodmin Moor, Dark Peak-any might remind Mick of The Wrekin and the horror he witnessed that day. But he could see no such realisation dawn in Ellen's eyes. She bent to sweep the cup into its saucer and the tray into her hand, for all this a creature of habit. Running his fingers along the edge of the map, he pondered his next question: "Mrs. Gaunt, what would you say was the state of your husband's mind when you left him here an hour ago? There had been ... raised voices ...?"

"We didn't often row, Mr. Christmas." Ellen's face looked pinched. "He had put the kettle on for tea, but the water hadn't boiled before I could bear it no more and left for the dower house with Madrun."

Tom wasn't sure this answered his question. "Your husband has certainly seemed the consummate professional, at least to me this weekend-"

"He's never before been derelict in his duties." Ellen moved to a side table to collect another teacup.

"-but these terrible events must be taking a toll, whatever blame might be attached to him. He's told you the darkest secrets of his soul, Mrs. Gaunt. You're ready to believe he killed Lord Morborne. Roberto, too? What is the it you could not bear?"

"The weeping, the begging forgiveness, the whole horrid unimaginable story about poor, poor Kim! Everything." She stared at him. The cups rattled on the tray. "I can't bear what he's done. I can't bear what he didn't do."

"Fail to report-"

"Kim can't be brought back, but her killer could have got what he deserved! Rot in gaol for years and years. All that time living not knowing who had done this terrible thing to my sister and married to a man who did."

We have offended against Thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done. The words of the Morning Prayer flooded his mind.

"Perhaps, Mrs. Gaunt, he can bear it no more himself. What he ought to have done. And what he has done."

Tom turned again to the map. He imagined the man in his black jacket, striped grey trousers, and polished dress shoes trailing through the bracken and gorse, a peculiar figure next to hikers in their khakis and day-trippers in their short trousers. All that would be needed to complete the absurdity, he thought, noting a low, distant rumble of thunder, would be an unfurled umbrella. Glancing towards a half-stuffed umbrella stand in the hall, he gave a thought to a paris.h.i.+oner he had had in Bristol, a woman who under the duress of losing a young child to cancer went missing for several days until she was found by police wandering the Wednesday market at Wells emptied of any memory of how she had pitched up there.

And yet Gaunt had had the presence of mind to consult a map.

Had he bolted instead? But why not take a vehicle? The Gaunts, he knew, drove down to Egges...o...b.. from London in a separate van, laden with provisions and goods for the family's fortnight in the country. The very van was parked in the stable block forecourt. But of course the police and SOCOs had been everywhere at the stables. The Gatehouse gates themselves were closed against traffic. Gaunt was on foot, somewhere. The moor-he glanced again at the OS map-a good bet. With reluctance, he said, "I wonder-again-if we shouldn't alert the police."

"Please, no."

"But Mrs. Gaunt, it was your intent in coming to me that we together should persuade your husband to go to the police, but as he seems to have vanished-"

"Please. Not the police, not yet. I can't bear it."

Tom bit his lip in indecision, looking at the pain in her eyes. Common sense decreed leaving this to the proper authorities, but his heart understood her mortification. How far could Gaunt have possibly got on foot? In under an hour? The only formally dressed man on the moor, he should be quite identifiable and easy to find. His eyes fell to the tray gripped in Ellen's hands, drawn by a glint along its silver surface. He felt a jolt of surprise.

"Why-?" He stopped himself.

"Mr. Christmas?"

"Oh ... it's nothing." He forced his eyes from the tray. Why were there two cups of tea? Hadn't Mrs. Gaunt fled the Gatehouse before the kettle had boiled? Troubled by the implication that someone had joined Gaunt at the Gatehouse after Ellen and Madrun had left, he struggled to paste a rea.s.suring smile on his face. Suddenly, finding Gaunt-discreetly, alerting no one-took on a new urgency.