Читать книгу Cornish Castle Mystery Collection: Tales of murder and mystery from Cornwall - Vivian Conroy - Страница 17

Chapter Six

Guinevere came down to the invigorating scent of sausages, scrambled eggs, and fresh coffee. But in the dining room where they had gathered before the re-enactment nothing stirred. She told Dolly to follow the food smells and rushed after the doggy who was running with her ears flapping against her head.

Dolly led Guinevere to a smaller room with a kitchen unit against the wall. Oliver was just scraping the scrambled eggs from the frying pan onto a plate. He hadn’t shaved yet and he wore a baggy grey T-shirt and sweatpants. His feet were bare.

‘Good morning,’ Oliver said, digging a fork into the egg mass. ‘Excuse me while I refill the protein stash.’

‘Have you been exercising?’ Guinevere asked, seating herself on a chair. Dolly was exploring the room, searching for the origin of the sausage scent.

Oliver nodded. ‘Just a quick jog on the beach.’

‘Did you see anything there suggesting that … someone was there last night? Footprints or something?’

‘Nothing particular but then I wasn’t really looking.’ Oliver frowned. ‘How come?’

‘I thought I saw a light from the tower.’

Oliver grinned. ‘See.’

‘No, it wasn’t Branok – I’m sure. Who else might go there at night?’

‘Any of the inhabitants, I suppose. Fishermen do work overnight. Maybe it was one of them?’

‘I thought you said locals avoid the beach because of the Branok legend?’

‘Some do. Not all, I suppose.’

Oliver wolfed down the eggs on his plate, then put it down with a plunk. ‘Can I make you some too?’

‘Yes, please. And do I smell sausages as well?’

‘In that pan on the table. Help yourself.’ Oliver looked at Dolly. ‘There’s dog food here and bowls. Have a look to prepare something for her.’

While Guinevere made Dolly her breakfast, Oliver poured them coffee. Not from a machine but from a pot under a real filter.

‘Here. Best I’ve ever had. You need coffee to function.’ He handed her a mug. ‘Even in the jungle I carried my coffee. I was famous for it among my colleagues.’

She noticed he was talking in the past tense.

Oliver said pensively, ‘If your life’s very irregular and always changing, you get attached to the things that stay the same.’

‘Like this castle.’

Oliver looked at her. ‘Yes, like this castle,’ he repeated. He reached up and rubbed his chin. The stubble made a scratching sound under his fingernails. ‘I have to shave and dress up. I’m meeting a lawyer to get some advice about my father’s position. I want to know if he could really be charged.’

‘I see. Well, as soon as I’ve finished with this delicious breakfast, I’m going to explore the island. I want to call on Meraud too. At the bookshop. She’s the sister of Mr Betts, my theatre director.’

‘Oh. Happy exploring.’

Guinevere had a slightly guilty feeling as if she was leaving Oliver with the legal hassle and was walking off to have fun in the sun, but in reality she wanted to use the opportunity to glean some information about Arthur Haydock and possible motives for wanting him dead.

While Oliver was away to get changed, the man who had let her in the other day entered the room. Guinevere recalled that his name was Cador. She had to get used to all of these Cornish names. Cador had a sturdy, reliable ring to it that seemed to fit a man who spent his entire life serving someone else.

She smiled at him as he poured a coffee. ‘I’ll take this up,’ Cador explained, ‘to Lord Bolingbrooke. He’s still in bed. The murder must have shaken him. He’s always up early and at work before even I’m around. But now he’s just lying there like the world has ended.’

Cador sounded vaguely worried.

Dolly ambled over and sniffed at his shoes. They were made of leather, Guinevere noticed, and shone as if they had been polished recently. Rubber soles, she bet, and Cador had rather small feet, for a man.

Focusing on her coffee mug, she said casually, ‘Where were you last night when the murder happened?’

Cador turned to her and studied her with his light blue eyes. He didn’t seem offended by the question. ‘I was in the library upstairs, getting the books ready that the master wanted to show to you today. You’re here for the books, right?’

There was a slight emphasis on the question as if he wondered if she was really here for another reason.

Guinevere felt a flush come up. ‘Yes, of course. But if Lord Bolingbrooke is still in bed, he had better take it easy today. I’ll go see the island. I’ve never been here before and I really want to get a better idea of it. I understand that a lot of the books collected here have to do with regional history and folklore and it will be easier for me to work with them when I know a thing or two about it.’

Cador nodded. ‘Cornisea is a beautiful place.’

‘You’ve lived here for all of your life?’

‘Yes. I couldn’t live in any other place. I need to see the sea and feel the wind on my face. I need to dig into the garden and feel the dirt between my fingers.’

‘There’s sea along the entire coast,’ Guinevere countered gently, ‘and dirt in most gardens.’

‘Yes, but it isn’t my sea and it isn’t my dirt. This is my place. Everybody is born into a place to call his own. And this is mine.’

Cador spoke quietly but with a possessive undercurrent that warned Guinevere to take it seriously.

How had he really regarded Haydock’s interest in the castle, the pressure on Bolingbrooke to sell, or at least make the castle available to the public?

Had Cador been angry about it?

Angry enough to kill maybe?

The door opened, and Oliver stepped in, wearing a neat light blue shirt and impeccable jeans. He smiled at her. ‘I’ll walk down to the harbour with you to meet the lawyer. I don’t think he’s ever been out here.’

‘Great. I’ll take along one more sausage. They taste great, just like my grandmother used to make them.’

Guinevere put Dolly on the leash, and they left the castle’s yard. Birds were singing overhead, and they could see boats on the water. Guinevere said to Oliver, ‘You must have felt so lucky to grow up here.’

He scoffed. ‘On an island? With hardly any friends?’

‘The castle must have been one big playground to you. You could be a knight, a pirate, an adventurer, an archaeologist. Didn’t you look for hidden treasure?’

‘It’s not as much fun when you have to do everything by yourself.’ Oliver looked her over. ‘I bet you grew up with a bunch of brothers and sisters. A whole gang.’

Guinevere shook her head. ‘I’m an only child. I was always outside, trying to find out where animals lived or what they did. I had notebooks full of little stories about them. Growing up here must have made you interested in wildlife. Given you the idea to travel the world and look for rare species.’

‘When I first left, I wasn’t going anywhere. I was just getting away from here.’

Oliver’s jaw was tight. Then he suddenly said, ‘I couldn’t sleep at first and I’ve been thinking – maybe the dungeon wasn’t the key element.’

Guinevere looked at him. ‘I don’t follow. Haydock was killed in the dungeon for a reason, right?’

‘I mean this. He was killed playing Branok the Cold-hearted, a ruthless man who extorted people. Does that signify something?’

Guinevere considered it. ‘You mean that whoever carried a grudge against him wanted him to die like a man in a dungeon? A prisoner?’

‘More than that. An accused, awaiting trial. But in anticipation of the trial the killer executed his own sentence. Death.’

Guinevere shivered. ‘It seems so drastic. Yes, people dislike each other and when somebody ruins your life, you can wish them dead, but … to actually do it? Plunge a knife into someone’s chest? In close proximity, face to face? I don’t think I could do it.’

‘Does that also mean that another woman couldn’t have done it?’ Oliver glanced at her. ‘Do we cross Kensa and Tegen off the list? But the footprints outside the air hole were small and most likely made by a woman. What does that mean?’

‘Not a whole lot if the murder wasn’t committed via the air hole.’ Guinevere stared ahead deep in thought. ‘Is Kensa staying on the island now? You said to LeFevre that she runs the B&B in summer.’

‘Yes. It keeps her busy. “Off the street” as she puts it. I think you’ll find her there. Tegen as well.’ Oliver gave her a sidelong glance. ‘You’re going to see them, right? You want to ask questions about last night.’

Guinevere flushed that her little lie about wanting to explore the island had been so see-through. ‘I just want to ask them if they’re all right. Kensa appeared to be in shock.’

She waited a moment. ‘Tegen didn’t seem sad though. More … worried. She was looking at her mother like … I don’t know.’

Oliver hitched a brow. ‘Do you seriously think Tegen could be suspecting her mother of the murder? They were together before the re-enactment started, weren’t they?’

‘That’s what we assume. But we don’t know for sure what they told Eal. Besides, Eal wasn’t being very thorough.’

Oliver nodded slowly. ‘In the meantime, they might have agreed on a story. They’ve been at the B&B together since they returned there last night. They’ve had a lot of time to agree on what they’re going to say.’

‘To the police, yes,’ Guinevere agreed, ‘but will they be suspicious of me dropping by for a chat? I think it would be best to catch them off guard and see if I can learn anything. It’s interesting to think everything is a little piece in a puzzle and if you collect all the pieces, you can make them fit into a picture.’

Oliver didn’t seem to share her enthusiasm. ‘I’m not quite sure what elements in this case are clues and what things are totally unrelated. LeFevre had a point saying that Jago didn’t show up but he might have been around. Why did he not come on this very night to play his part as judge in the re-enactment? Coincidence? He couldn’t know there would be a murder and still we think his absence is suspicious. On the other hand, if he’s the killer, he might have planned it all this way.’

‘Did he have any grudge against Haydock?’

‘Not that I know of, but I’m not exactly around all of the time. You might get better information from somebody else. Try Meraud. Or Emma at the Eatery. Jago doesn’t like to cook for himself so he’s there most evenings for the daily special. After dinner he then takes his walk along the beach. Like clockwork.’

Oliver stretched his arms ahead of him. There was an imprint just below his elbow as of some jagged object.

‘What did you do?’ Guinevere asked, pointing at it.

‘I always do push-ups on the beach. Must have been a shell that was in the sand.’

Guinevere frowned. It was kind of hard to see how a fit man doing a couple of push-ups would have made contact with a shell in the sand on that particular place. But she wasn’t about to suggest anything like that. Oliver probably already thought she was taking her deductions too far.

‘That’s the B&B.’ Oliver pointed at a red roof to their left. ‘You can take that little-used path there and end up at the backyard. Maybe you’ll catch Tegen feeding the chickens.’

Guinevere wondered briefly how, if Oliver wasn’t around Cornisea a lot, he knew Tegen’s daily routine, but she forgot all about it after they had parted and she followed the narrow path and came into a beautiful authentic backyard with a henhouse, geese waddling near a small pond, and a peacock giving its high-pitched cry. It wasn’t the usual peacock, but the white variety, which Guinevere had only seen in pictures.

Tegen, dressed in a simple red top and jeans, stood throwing grain from a bowl onto the ground for the hungry chickens.

Dolly focused on all the feathered turmoil with her nose stretched ahead of her. She didn’t yap though or run forward. As Guinevere halted and gave a little tug on the leash, Dolly sat down, still mesmerized by the chickens.

Tegen looked up, saw Guinevere, and flashed a reluctant smile. ‘Hello. Isn’t Ollie with you? I thought I saw him coming down from the castle.’

‘Yes, but he has to meet someone at the harbour.’ Guinevere didn’t want to mention it was a lawyer and Oliver was worried enough about his father’s position to get legal advice. ‘I just wanted to ask if you and your mother are all right. How did you sleep?’

Tegen shrugged. ‘I didn’t really mind the death. I mean, I’ve seen dead people before. On TV.’

‘That’s not real,’ Guinevere countered. ‘This is.’

‘I know. But somehow it didn’t seem real.’

Guinevere had to agree with her. Her own first thought had been that Haydock was fooling them, playing a part.

Tegen continued, ‘The way he lay there in that stupid robe. Mum said it looked “stately” on him, but I just thought it was stupid. Will there still be a trial re-enactment now? We can ask somebody else to play Branok. Maybe Jago can do it? And Oliver can be judge. He did a good job last night.’ Tegen smiled again, cocking her head.

‘I think that once news of the murder hits the papers, people won’t be eager to come to a re-enactment,’ Guinevere said. ‘And it might be tasteless to continue. Think of Haydock’s family.’

Tegen didn’t seem impressed. ‘We could replace Leah as well. She wasn’t very convincing.’

‘I thought she was quite good,’ Guinevere said, surprised at Tegen’s assessment. ‘You could tell she’s a lawyer in real life.’ She studied Tegen. ‘Your mother was very convincing too. It almost seemed that she and Leah really had some gripe with one another.’

‘What? How? They hardly know each other.’ Tegen cast her an angry look. ‘And you have nothing to do with our play. You can’t decide about the parts. If we want to continue, we will.’

Then her expression brightened. ‘That’s it! You could take Leah’s part. Then the Haydocks are no longer involved, and it won’t be tasteless to continue.’

Guinevere asked, ‘Did you notice anything odd last night? Did Haydock seem worried or afraid? You were talking to him away from the rest.’

‘I was just asking if the robe fit. Mum had fussed with it for ages.’ Tegen’s cheeks turned fiery red. Judging by her recent remark that it had been a stupid garment, this sounded a lot like an impromptu lie.

Guinevere pressed, ‘So you didn’t notice anything different about Haydock?’