Читать книгу Cornish Castle Mystery Collection: Tales of murder and mystery from Cornwall - Vivian Conroy - Страница 15

Chapter Four

‘What a day to arrive here.’

Guinevere didn’t turn her head to Oliver’s voice. He had come up to her without making a sound. Or maybe she had missed the sound as she had stood there, staring up at the skies that were so full of stars. Once upon a time, Gran had pointed them all out to her, telling her their names and the stories connected with them. Guinevere had felt small standing under the canopy, thinking about the universe out there and the places far away where the stars were born. But at the same time she had felt totally safe, with Gran’s arm around her shoulders, totally loved and in place, part of her own little universe in which Gran was the sun around which everything revolved.

Those memories, and Dolly’s warm body against her, drove away the cold of their forced stay in the dungeon with the dead body until Constable Eal arrived. Kensa’s harsh accusations against Bolingbrooke still echoed in her ears. Would her new employer really get into trouble now? Would his guilt be readily assumed? Oliver had earlier said that a lawsuit was the last thing the castle needed. He had then referred to one for assault. Would it now be one for murder?

Oliver looked up at the night skies as well, his hands folded at his back. ‘You should be in bed by now.’

‘What did the constable say when he left?’

‘That he’ll tell us when he has more. What else can he say?’

‘But what do you think that he thinks?’ Guinevere glanced at Oliver. His expression was blank, but there were lines of fatigue around his mouth. ‘I don’t know anything about the police around here, but Tegen suggested that Constable Eal can’t catch a killer even if it was obvious that he had committed the crime.’

Oliver sighed. ‘Eal has never had much to do here. Just keep an eye out for people poaching, for illegal fishing, for fires made on the beach at night. He also collects the money people have to pay for putting their boats in the harbour. Cornisea hasn’t had any big or shocking crime since he started work here. And he has been here for decades.’

Guinevere nodded. ‘I already thought so. The way he questioned me … He didn’t try very hard to get anything relevant out of me.’

‘Maybe, as you’re an outsider, he didn’t think you could know anything worthwhile?’

‘That’s nonsense. I was there tonight. I saw everything play out. The way people looked at each other, what they said. There was a lot of tension. And not just between your father and Haydock. The way Leah and Kensa went at each other during the re-enactment. There was so much genuine emotion in their statements. As if Leah was really defending her father against Kensa, not some vague medieval figure against a made-up charge.’

Oliver shrugged. ‘I don’t know why Leah wouldn’t like Kensa. Outside of the historical society they have nothing to do with each other. Besides, Eal won’t ask such deep and profound questions. He sees the obvious. It doesn’t look good for my father. He had motive; he had opportunity.’

‘Eal did ask me if I knew for sure where the others were before it started, when you and I were lighting the lanterns and were rehearsing your part. But I couldn’t tell him. I only saw Leah carrying the robe for her father to the dungeons. I suppose she stayed with him while he put it on. He also wanted to put on this ring he had, right? An old ring that was supposed to have a link with Cornisea.’

‘Right, it was on his finger when he lay there dead. I saw it clearly.’

‘Haydock acted like it was something very special but he never told us why.’

Oliver nodded. ‘You’re right. I didn’t have a close look at it but it shone like gold. It also had a signet with engraving. A coat of arms or something.’

Guinevere gestured with her hand. ‘There you go. Maybe it’s significant. You told me Haydock was after the castle. And he turns up here with a ring with a coat of arms on it. Maybe he believed he had discovered something important about the rights to Cornisea? Maybe Kensa was in the know? Why else would she be so sure your father had a reason to kill Haydock? And what did her remark to Haydock mean, about hurting children being the worst thing in the world?’

Oliver shrugged. ‘She referred to the Branok trial. Him being accused of causing the lethal fire.’

Guinevere shook her head. ‘There was more to it. She meant actual children. Her daughter Tegen? Had Haydock somehow hurt Tegen, and was that a reason for Kensa, or for Tegen herself, to get back at him?’

Oliver grimaced. ‘I don’t really want to see my father accused and in trouble, but to go pointing fingers at a schoolgirl … This is a murder case. We’re looking at a long stint in prison.’

‘Even so we must be objective. What do you know about Tegen that can help figure out what really happened tonight?’

Oliver looked her in the eye as if he wanted to ascertain something. ‘Are you serious about this?’ he asked slowly.

‘Of course. We can’t just sit around and wait for your father to be accused. You told me the castle is under threat from people who want to buy it or change it. Your father is the only one who stands in their way of succeeding. What if the murder has something to do with that?’

‘An attempt to frame him?’

Guinevere shrugged. ‘He was the only one who had access to the cage, so someone wanted the police to conclude that he did it. Someone used this re-enactment tonight to set up the murder and your father as the most likely suspect.’

‘The knife was on the table for the taking. Can’t it have been a crime in anger? Grab the knife, go down to the dungeon where Haydock was all alone …’

‘And how to get into the cage?’ Guinevere held Oliver’s gaze. ‘We had the same thing in Well-mannered Murder, the play we are rehearsing. A locked-room mystery. Someone dies in a room that is closed off so how did the killer get in and out? The thing is: there is always a way into the locked room. You just have to figure out what it is.’

Oliver sighed. ‘I don’t feel like playing detective.’

‘Well, with your father under suspicion, we might not have a choice.’

Oliver walked away from her and sat down on the steps leading to the entry door. He rubbed his face with both of his hands, then pulled them away and faced her, as if he had come to some decision. ‘I did see something. Before we started the re-enactment. Something between Tegen and Haydock.’

‘Aha.’ Guinevere came to sit beside him, Dolly still in her arms. The dachshund looked up at Oliver with her head tilted as if waiting for his revelation.

Oliver said slowly, ‘There have been rumours, for years, that Haydock isn’t faithful to his wife.’

Guinevere looked at him. ‘And you think he was betraying his wife with Tegen? He’s old enough to be her father!’

‘I know. And I never believed it before. But tonight there was something between them … Almost like an understanding.’

Oliver frowned. ‘I can’t put a better word to it. She looked at Haydock and he looked at her and … at some point I think Haydock passed her something.’

‘Passed her something?’

‘A note maybe. Something made of paper, I think, but I didn’t look too closely. I don’t want anything to do with his tricks.’

‘If you’ve been away from here for years, only dropping by for occasional visits, you can’t have known much about him.’

‘People don’t change, Guinevere. Not in the sense that they suddenly become the exact opposite of what they always were. Usually they go down the road they’re taking.’

‘They get worse, you mean?’

‘If you want to put it that way, yes. Haydock often got what he wanted, and it made him want even more.’

Guinevere stared straight ahead. Dolly turned her head to her and licked her cheek. The doggy had an uncanny ability to read her emotions and give her a little encouraging push. That Dolly had faith in her made her feel more confident to dig into this case.

Guinevere asked, ‘So suppose Tegen was having an affair with Haydock. Why would she kill him? And how would she have entered the cage while the door was locked and your father had the only key to it on his person?’

‘That’s the thing, isn’t it?’ Oliver said, leaning his elbows on his knees. ‘My father had the only key and he swears that when he left Haydock, the man was still alive and well.’

Guinevere nodded slowly. ‘We have to focus on the other way into the locked room. That’s how we set up the scenario for Well-mannered Murder. We started from the way it was done and then we tried to obscure it with false leads and red herrings.’

She looked at Oliver’s profile. ‘Did Eal look if someone had been at the air hole? On the outside, I mean. If there are bushes there, there’s also earth. You should be able to see footprints or something.’

‘Clever, but no. Eal drew the same conclusion as I did right away. You can’t propel something through that air hole with sufficient force to embed the object in the victim’s chest.’

‘Not even if Haydock was standing at the air hole when it happened?’

Oliver looked her over. ‘What are you thinking?’

‘Imagine the scene.’ Guinevere lifted her hands and gestured. ‘Haydock’s locked into his cage. Your father has turned the key, asked him if he’s all right and he has gone away. Haydock’s sitting there, waiting for us to appear. That won’t happen for half an hour, he knows, because we still have to play out the entire trial sequence, until we reach the point where the judge wants to talk to Branok himself. So it’s kind of tedious for Haydock. What do you do under such circumstances? You get up and go to the air hole to look out. Or just kill time, whatever. Then … boom!’

Oliver considered it. ‘I think it would be hard to get your arm through the air hole. Let alone do it in such a way you can actually stab someone via the hole. I also think the height argues against it. If Haydock stood at the hole, his face would be at the right height. How could the killer stab him in the chest?’

Guinevere nodded. ‘You’re probably right. Still I think we should go see if there are any fresh footprints under the rhododendrons near that air hole. Broken branches, something that can prove a person made his way to the air hole tonight. It is the only other way into the cage, except for the door that was locked by your father.’

‘You want to look for footprints now?’ Oliver asked incredulously. ‘It’s getting dark already. Shouldn’t we just suggest it to Eal and leave it at that?’

‘You told me he’s never done a murder investigation before. And if it starts raining, all traces could get washed away.’

Oliver studied her. ‘Why are you doing this?’

‘Doing what?’

‘Looking for evidence to clear my father. You’ve just arrived here.’

‘I don’t like unsolved mysteries.’ Guinevere got to her feet. She wasn’t about to tell him that family was everything to her, and a sense of place. She wanted to defend this beautiful castle and its owner, even if he was a little rough around the edges.

Dolly barked, satisfied that they were going to do something.

Guinevere smiled. ‘You heard her. Are you coming?’

‘If you don’t like unsolved mysteries,’ Oliver said as he followed her to the narrow door in the large gate, ‘you shouldn’t be staying here at Cornisea Castle. This place is full of them.’

His own relationship with his father being one of them, Guinevere supposed, but she didn’t say so. They stepped outside. It was eerily quiet. Dolly pressed herself against Guinevere’s chest, moving her ears as if she was listening for a significant sound.

A shiver went down Guinevere’s spine. They were sneaking around in the dark with a killer on the loose.

The half-moon was bright and illuminated the surroundings, but still Oliver used his phone to light the path directly ahead of them. Guinevere stayed close to him, glad he knew his way around here. On her own she could never have figured out where the right air hole was. But Oliver led her, with confidence, to where thick bushes grew with shiny, dark green leaves.

He pointed. ‘It’s behind these rhododendrons.’

Guinevere nodded. ‘Shine it on the bushes,’ she ordered. ‘We have to see if someone pushed his way through them.’

‘Those branches are pretty pliable,’ Oliver said. ‘Wouldn’t they have just snapped back in place after the killer had passed?’

‘Hey, you there!’ a voice resounded. ‘What are you doing there?’

Guinevere froze, clutching Dolly in her arms. ‘Who’s that?’ she whispered.

A man in dark clothing came their way, shining a torch.

Oliver released his breath in a frustrated hiss. ‘It’s Eal,’ he whispered. ‘I bet you he’ll now make a fuss about us being out here. But if we had told him what we intended, he would have brushed it off as unimportant. He’s like that, you know.’

Guinevere now recognized the same constable who had questioned her briefly. He was a broad-chested man in his fifties with short hair and a huge moustache that he twirled when he was uncertain. He had eagerly listened to Kensa when she had explained over and over that Bolingbrooke had to be the killer. As a local, did Eal have some reason to hate Bolingbrooke and not mind that he got accused and even convicted?

The constable said, ‘What are you doing here? It’s the dead of night.’

‘I’m walking on my own ground,’ Oliver said tightly. ‘I’m not afraid of some murderer who might be long gone.’

‘Gone? You think it was a stranger?’ Eal shook his head. ‘I don’t believe you. And you have to go back inside this instant. We still have a lot of work to do in the morning.’

‘And what if it rains before that?’ Guinevere asked. ‘Traces could be deleted.’

‘What traces?’

Oliver prodded her with his foot not to tell, but Guinevere said anyway, ‘I was wondering if somebody tried to get to Mr Haydock through the air hole that led into his cage.’

The constable studied her. ‘And why would you wonder about that?’

‘Well, if somebody did try and reach the air hole, pushing through these dense bushes, there might be traces of it. Evidence. If it rains before you investigate in the morning and the footprints fade, you can prove nothing any more.’

The constable studied her. ‘You think you’re some kind of private detective? A real Sherlock Holmes in the making?’

His condescending tone lit Guinevere’s blood. ‘No, I’m just trying to protect an innocent man against a murder charge.’

‘So you know for sure that Bolingbrooke didn’t do it? That’s very impressive considering you don’t know him at all, or local sentiments.’

Guinevere flushed. Dolly seemed to feel her discomfort and licked her neck. She steadied the dog in her arms.

Eal moved to stand in front of Oliver, speaking low. ‘What are you really here for?’

If he had been as tall as Oliver it would have been intimidating, but Eal was a head shorter and seemed to be talking to Oliver’s chest. ‘To take something away? Change the scene? Maybe you were in league with your father. It’s odd you pop up here and the day after somebody dies.’

Before Oliver could say anything to defend himself, a light flashed in the darkness from around the bend of the path. Another man came up to them. He walked fast and determined. ‘Constable Eal?’ he called out.

The constable froze. He stared at the approaching man as if he couldn’t believe his eyes.