Читать книгу Death Plays a Part - Vivian Conroy - Страница 12

Chapter Three

It was a short terse statement with a lot of implications.

Oliver said, ‘They believe they can do a better job of exploiting it. Open it to the public.’

‘It would draw people in droves. It’s so beautiful.’

‘It’s also private property. People should respect that.’ Oliver tapped her shoulder. ‘Watch your step now; it’s very uneven in places.’

They reached a large room with metal cage constructions along the wall. There were four of them on either side. Each cage had metal rings in the wall to which the prisoners used to be shackled. In one of the cages there was a table and a chair.

Dolly managed to squeeze herself through the bars and dashed under the table. When she ran out on the other end, she touched the chair, and it tottered, almost falling over.

‘Come here, girl,’ Guinevere called and added to Oliver, ‘The floor is really ragged there.’

‘Yes, the cells were never meant to have furniture in them. But Haydock claimed that by the time of the Branok trial these cells weren’t what they had once been. He wants to sit at that table, writing up his last will. History does say Branok wrote a will in here, or a map with directions to his hidden stash, whatever you like to believe, but I bet he did it shackled to the wall. If he could write at all, of course. Over time he must have become larger than life, while he might just have been a lawless scoundrel.’

‘But he was steward at the castle, right? Shouldn’t a steward have been able to read and write?’ Guinevere asked curiously.

‘Not necessarily. Branok might have been appointed because he was shrewd and knew how to play people. A clerk may have kept the accounts. Many orphans who had been raised at monasteries could read and write and they found positions at keeps like this one.’

‘If Branok had a clerk who knew about all his dealings, and some of them were unfair, that clerk must have been his accomplice,’ Guinevere mused. ‘Was he heard at the trial?’

‘A partner in crime?’ Oliver winked at her. ‘I doubt that Branok shared his illegal transactions with the clerk who kept the official records for the castle. He probably went about that business alone.’ He scanned her expression. ‘You sound like you know something about trials.’

‘More about murder investigations. We’ve been rehearsing a play set in the roaring Twenties about a murder at an estate where young ladies are groomed for high society. I helped working out some kinks in the scenario.’

‘In the scenario?’ Oliver frowned.

‘Yes, some clues were too obscure. And one motive didn’t make sense at all. The audience does need a fair chance to unmask the killer, you know.’ She looked at the cell Haydock was going to use. ‘Only one way in – through the door. But there is a sort of hole in the wall?’

She pointed at a square, large enough to put a man’s fist through. Light seeped in, but the outside world couldn’t be seen clearly as the walls were so thick that her view was obstructed by the stone she looked upon.

‘It’s like something is moving on the other side,’ Guinevere said, squinting. ‘The light isn’t flowing in naturally.’

‘Probably bushes,’ Oliver said. ‘That’s the garden out there. I think …’ He frowned as if conjuring up the plan of the castle in his mind. ‘Rhododendrons.’

‘So these dungeons are not like cellars?’

‘In part,’ Oliver said. ‘You may have noticed that the castle’s entry door has steps in front of it. The whole castle is built a little higher, as it were, and the room below was used for these dungeons and for cellars to keep food. The dungeons did not need to be deep underground as escape was virtually impossible anyway. Just look at it. You were shackled to the wall. Then the cage was locked. The door through which we just entered was bolted from the outside. And there were always people around.

‘So even if a prisoner miraculously made it out of the dungeon, he’d not be out of the castle yet. He would most likely be spotted. At night the gate was closed, and a gatekeeper kept watch over it. Also keep in mind that the island’s cut off from the mainland during high tide. So a prisoner would have to know exactly when he could use the causeway or have a boat ready for his escape.’

‘It could only have been done with an accomplice,’ Guinevere said. The silence made her lower her voice. ‘If someone came from the outside, to lure the guard away, made sure a boat was ready and waiting along the beach … Maybe even delivered the key of the shackles to the prisoner.’

‘In a homemade pasty?’ Oliver grinned. ‘We should have forgotten about re-enacting this boring trial and gone for a daring escape instead. It would have been so much more fun.’

He made a movement as if he brandished a club over his head. ‘Knock the guard down, sneak through the dark passageways …’

Guinevere had to laugh. ‘I think the historical society would not have approved. That’s not how Branok’s story played out.’

‘Well, sometimes to sell something you need a little fiction to make it juicier. Ah, the lighter. Can you open the lanterns’ doors for me? They’re slightly crooked and never stay open when I want them to.’

They had to stand closely together to make it work. Guinevere looked at Oliver’s features as the lighter’s flame threw shadows across it. She couldn’t make any sense of him. What he was about. If he really disliked his father and the castle, or only pretended he did.

And if so, why.

‘Hello?’ Oliver tapped her shoulder. ‘Are you there? We’re all done. Father can come down to lock Haydock in. My part as judge will be a disaster of course. I haven’t had time to rehearse, and Haydock will be livid when my stumbling ruins the flow.’

He leaned over to her, whispering, ‘Who knows, I might condemn that scoundrel to death anyway.’

***

The flickering light of a few candles illuminated the group gathered in the tall room.

Oliver sat on a carved chair, holding a broomstick by way of wand of office. His father had said he would only produce the real wand, which was part of the castle’s collection, for the actual trial. That one special night when everybody would be present.

Kensa, grave in her plain garment, had given her testimony to condemn Branok for killing two innocent children when he had ordered the house to be set on fire.

‘But he never knew the children were in there,’ Leah had just said. She was a witness to defend Branok and plead his innocence. ‘You yourself had left them, being a bad mother who neglected her brood. You were at the inn meeting men and inviting them to the attic above the horse shed.’

‘I am not proud to say I made money that way in the old days,’ Kensa replied, ‘but not any more after I wed Merek.’

Leah laughed. ‘We all know Merek is a weak man who drinks too much. He may earn money but he spends it on stout and ale, not on your children. If you wanted them to have anything, anything at all, you had to return to your old trade.’

Oliver lifted a hand. ‘Do we know,’ he asked in an exaggerated baritone voice, ‘where the accusing party was when her house burned to the ground? Was she really at the inn with men?’

‘I have witnesses to confirm it,’ Leah said eagerly, gesturing to where Tegen and Bolingbrooke were waiting for their turn.

‘All liars, for gain!’ Kensa cried. She beat her fist on the wooden table before her.

‘You are accusing the other party of bringing bought witnesses into this court?’ Oliver asked.

‘Before this tribunal,’ Bolingbrooke corrected audibly from the side.

Guinevere suppressed a laugh, as this was so like rehearsal in their London theatre.

Oliver frowned at the interruption, but the women, completely into their parts, were already moving on.

Kensa cried, ‘Yes, my lord, he has done it before. He is a wicked man who buys people’s words for gain. He is a murderer too, of innocent children.’

‘She is just accusing Branok out of spite.’ Leah’s cheeks were red as she leaned forward. She had let down her hair, and it hung to her shoulders in waves, framing her delicate features. The dark colour of the plain garment underlined her solemnity. ‘Branok never wanted her and told her husband of her lecherous activities at the inn. Merek beat her for it, and she blamed Branok. But it was her own doing that got her beaten and also got her children killed. The thatch on the roof caught fire when she was not there. It was not arson.’

Oliver opened his mouth to say something, then seemed to have forgotten his lines. He scrambled to pull a piece of paper from his pocket.

Bolingbrooke called out, ‘Hurry up with that cheat sheet; you’re spoiling the momentum.’

Oliver nodded. ‘Calm yourself. I’m just a stand-in. What does he say here? Oh, yes. Do you have proof of that?’

‘The house is burned to the ground,’ the mother wailed. ‘How can I produce proof of anything?’

‘We can confirm that Branok was elsewhere at the time,’ Leah said. ‘He didn’t do this evil deed. Nobody did. It was an accident.’

Guinevere thought that, if Leah was like this in real court cases, she had to win a lot. But then she wasn’t even sure what Leah’s part in her father’s law firm was and what kind of cases they handled. Maybe it was just settling disputes and mediating between people? Nothing as big and dramatic as this old trial. It seemed like tension grew with every line, filling the room up to the shadows in the rafters overhead.

‘It is high time I hear the accused speak his own mind.’ Oliver rose slowly from his seat. ‘I will go to him in his place of …’

He consulted his cheat sheet again. ‘Confinement. Looking at this poor woman who suffered such loss, he will not be able to lie. I will see in his face if he speaks the truth.’

He looked around. ‘Is that the way they did it those days? Just take the villain’s word for it that he hadn’t done it?’

Bolingbrooke exhaled as if the delay was getting on his nerves. ‘Apparently. As Branok was influential, his word was worth a lot. And what else do you suggest to get at the truth? Torture?’

Oliver waved the broomstick. ‘All right, I get the point. Let’s go down into the dungeon then. Did the whole group come?’

‘Yes, of course. How else can we have another altercation between the accusing and defending parties?’

‘But during the re-enactment you actually propose to take the audience down there? There’s not much room.’

‘I guess that we might have to bring Branok up then and do it here anyway. However, I like the dramatic setting of the dungeon and the sort of … sense of impending doom it has. The presence of death.’

Tegen, who didn’t have to speak in this section, gave a little shriek.

Oliver shook his head at his father. ‘You lay it on too thick.’

Guinevere said, ‘We could build a stage version of the cage in the dungeon right here in the room. That way you could have Branok in his cell present in the proceedings.’

‘Rattling his chains at us and shouting abuse.’ Oliver grimaced.

‘Very funny,’ Leah said with a pinched expression.

Oliver exhaled as if he wanted to apologize for what he had said, then his expression tightened and he just snapped, ‘Follow me.’ To Guinevere he said, ‘Dolly had better stay here. We’ll be back up in ten minutes.’

‘Stay, girl.’ Guinevere gave the doggy a quick pat on the head. She sat down and watched them with her inquisitive little eyes, her tail wagging across the floorboards.

Carrying the wand of office like it was a sword he could use to hack at invisible enemies, Oliver led the way into the dungeon. Guinevere was in the back of the group making its way down there and entering into the flickering light of the tea lights in the lanterns.

Her eyes strained to see the figure of Haydock sitting at the table. She remembered that he had specifically requested a table and chair be brought in to make it easier for him.

Kensa called out, ‘Arthur! What’s wrong? Arthur!’ She pushed forward.

Guinevere felt a shiver go up her spine as if she suddenly felt what Bolingbrooke had just put into words. Impending doom.

The presence of death.

Oliver said, ‘Haydock, that’s not funny. You’re giving us all a heart attack.’

Leah gave a shriek. ‘Maybe he really had a heart attack? Look at his face.’

Something fell to the ground. Being in the back, Guinevere still couldn’t see what the commotion was all about. Her heart beat fast. Was Haydock on the floor? Looking like he was unwell?

Oliver was at the cage already, pulling at the metal bars. ‘Where’s the key?’

‘I have it,’ Bolingbrooke said and handed it over.

Guinevere stood on tiptoe and craned her neck to see what had caused the alarm.

Haydock seemed to be down on the floor, on his back. One hand was grasping at his chest. Had he really had a heart attack, like Leah suggested, or had he merely fainted?

Was there bad air in here? Lack of oxygen?

Or was it an act like Oliver had suggested? Haydock’s way to make the re-enactment a little more exciting than just ending with a non-conviction and an accused who had drowned in the sea at night.

Oliver opened the door and went in. He knelt beside the body to feel the face and the neck.

Guinevere waited for his reassuring words that Haydock was fine and just pulling their leg. He’d rise to his feet laughing and cause another row with Bolingbrooke, who would blame him for his insensitivity.

Then Oliver inched back. ‘He’s dead. And there’s a knife in his chest.’

Tegen shrieked again.

Guinevere found herself saying, ‘What? That can’t be.’ Her mind refused to grasp the meaning of the word ‘dead’. There had to be some misunderstanding. Haydock had staged this somehow, for dramatic effect.

Oliver repeated in a curt tone, ‘There’s a knife in his chest. His hand is curled around it as if he wanted to pull it out again, but he didn’t manage.’

He looked up, straight at his father.

Bolingbrooke looked back with a blank expression. ‘A knife? How can that be? There are no knives here in the dungeons.’

Oliver said, ‘Somebody brought it in here and stabbed him.’

Guinevere swallowed. Her stomach squeezed at the idea that a man had died right under their feet.

Kensa said, in a thin voice, ‘That stupid castle. Arthur never could stop talking about it. How much he wanted it. And now he’s dead for it. Now …’ She pointed a finger at Bolingbrooke. ‘You killed him! You killed him so he couldn’t take Cornisea away from you.’

Bolingbrooke glanced from Kensa to Oliver and back. ‘Are you all out of your minds? I? Kill for the castle? When I locked him in here, he was sitting at that table, alive and well. I even asked him if he was all right and he said he was fine. The door to the cage was already closed so I only turned the key in the lock. I never went near him. I couldn’t have stabbed him.’

‘But,’ Oliver said, ‘you’re the only one with the key to this cage. If you locked him in when he was still alive and well, how did he die? Nobody else could get in here to get at him.’

‘Through the air hole?’ Guinevere suggested. She had found her voice again and, to stop the light feeling in her head, she had to think rationally, discover how it had been done.

Oliver shook his head at her suggestion. ‘It’s too small to throw anything through with enough speed or strength so it would embed itself into his chest. I’m no expert but I think this stab wound has been delivered face to face, in close proximity.’

‘Then it’s clear,’ Kensa said. ‘Bolingbrooke did it to save the castle.’ Her voice was steady and her expression almost calm. Only her eyes showed a little too much white. Maybe she was in shock and didn’t know what she was saying?

‘The constable has to come and see this,’ Leah said. She hugged herself tightly. ‘He can determine what to do next.’

Tegen scoffed, ‘Eal? He couldn’t catch a killer if he bumped into him still carrying the bloody knife.’

Kensa poked her with an elbow to make her shut up.

‘I’ll call Eal right away.’ Oliver reached below the robe he wore for his mobile phone. He kept an eye on all present. ‘Nobody moves from this spot until he’s here.’

Kensa said, ‘Why? Can’t poor Leah leave? The girl must be frantic with her father dead in front of her.’

Leah made a soft, suppressed sound in her throat. With her loose hair and the dark garment she suddenly looked like she was already mourning.

Tegen was staring at her mother. Her eyes were narrowed and questioning as if she was trying to work something out.

‘Leah can stand back,’ Oliver said, ‘but she can’t leave. This is a crime scene and we can’t run the risk of anything being disturbed here. Eal will have to collect evidence.’

‘Evidence?’ Kensa echoed. ‘In here?’

‘Yes.’ Oliver looked straight at her, a cold hard look. ‘You just accused my father of this murder. But it’s not the Middle Ages any more. We have fingerprints now and DNA traces. The killer must have left some proof behind that will point him or her out to us. It’s only a matter of time until we know the truth.’

In the silence his words seemed to linger, like a knell of death.

Guinevere’s arms were full of goose bumps, and she ached to hold Dolly close and feel the dachshund’s reassuring licks on her face.

Only a matter of time until they knew the truth.

But what would the truth be?

Who had hated Haydock enough to kill him? To stab him in the chest, face to face?