Murder at Honeychurch Hall: A Mystery (28 page)

I handed her the brown envelope. “Gayla sent this to my mother to give to Lady Edith,” I said. “I thought Shawn should take a look at it. We think there could be some kind of connection to Vera’s death.”

“I’ll make sure Shawn gets it,” said Roxy. “As a matter of fact he just called in to say there have been some new developments in Vera’s case. He was actually looking for both of you and wants you back at the Hall ASAP.”

“Cute kids,” I said as the boys tipped out crayons and opened their coloring books on the coffee table.

“Aren’t they?” Roxy said. “They don’t look like Shawn, do they?”

“They’re Shawn’s children?” I was surprised.

“It’s tough being a single parent,” she said, “But he’s a wonderful father and we all chip in, don’t we, Malcolm?”

“That’s right,” said Malcolm.

“What happened to his wife?” said Mum bluntly. “Run off with the postman?”

Sometimes my mother could be so tactless.

“She died,” said Roxy. “Cancer.”

“Oh, I am so sorry,” mumbled Mum. “We’d better be going. Come along, Katherine.”

“I’ll be along shortly,” said Roxy. “Be careful what route you take back to Little Dipperton. Avoid Totnes. There’s a huge demonstration over the new railway line.”

“Don’t worry. I know a back way,” said Mum.

Ten minutes later we flashed past the welcome sign:
TOTNES: TWINNED WITH NARNIA.

“We’re supposed to avoid Totnes, Mother,” I said. “Give me the map.”

“Do they mean the same Narnia from
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
?”

Rounding a corner we came to a large group of people chanting and marching in small circles blocking the road and waving banners—
VOTE NO TO HS
3 and
WE DON’T NEED TRAINS.
Two traffic cops were standing next to a West Country ITV news van.

“Darn. We can’t get through.” I looked in the rearview mirror. “And there’s a ton of traffic behind me. You’re a hopeless map reader.”

Mum pointed to a narrow alley. “Go down there. It’s a shortcut.”

“Shortcuts are not my specialty and that is a one-way and we’re facing the wrong way.”

“Go on. There’s nothing coming.”

For all of one minute things went well. But then the alley made a sharp right turn and to my horror, my Golf came face-to-face with a silver Porsche SUV driven by—David. Even worse, Trudy was sitting in the front passenger seat.

“Bugger,” I muttered.

Mum gave a cry of alarm. “Good God! Isn’t that
David
?”

“No.”

“Yes, I distinctly recognize his registration plate—
WYN
1
.
That’s his new car.”

“Then it is David, isn’t it,” I snapped.

“But wait! Who is that in the passenger seat?” Mum gasped. “Good grief! Isn’t that Trudy Wynne? I always think she looks like Cruella de Vil.”

Our car front bumpers stopped just inches away from each other. I tried to stem the tide of boiling fury that was consuming me. “I’m not reversing. Let him bloody reverse.”

“It’s his right of way, dear.”

“Be quiet, Mother.”

I’d never seen David and Trudy together and when two figures leaned forward from the rear seats—namely Sam and Chloe—that was the final straw.

“Quite the family outing,” Mum put in.

Trudy leaned over and hit David’s horn with a gesture that clearly implied that I was in the wrong. Which of course, I was. She wound down her window and leaned out yelling, “Reverse! Reverse, you idiot.”

I wound my window down, too, and screamed back, “
You
reverse!”

David sat motionless. Trudy turned her anger on him, her mouth opening and closing like a stranded fish. David must have said something because he began to reverse—erratically. There was a sickening crunch of metal as he backed into the car following.

“Bloody hell,” I said.

Mum started to laugh.

I was close to tears. “It’s not funny.”

“It is, it is,” she gasped. “Look!”

The driver—presumably from the car behind the Porsche—got out. He was bald with a handlebar mustache and dressed in shorts and a wife-beater T-shirt. The man hammered on David’s window.

Mum squealed. “He’s going to punch him.”

Trudy flung open her door and got out. Mum was right. With her tall, angular frame and sleek black bob she
did
look just like the Disney villain from
101 Dalmatians
.

“No,
she’s
going to punch him.” Mum was practically in convulsions. “Oh,
no
! She’s coming this way. Reverse! Reverse!”

I thrust the car into reverse as Trudy stormed toward us, delivered a perfect three-point turn in someone’s open—and fortunately—empty garage, and we sped off. By the time we joined the main road the protesters had moved on.

I was shaking with fury.

“You should have seen her face,” Mum chortled. “It was purple. So unattractive.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” A tear rolled down my cheek. I brushed it angrily away.

“Oh Kat, my love,” said Mum, seemingly contrite. “David is too weak for you. Did you see how he backed down?” She gave a snort. “Literally.”

“This isn’t a romance novel,” I shouted. “People have responsibilities. His father-in-law is dying. It’s hard for David.”

“Yes, poor man,” said Mum. “We must pray for him.”

“You’re
impossible
!”

We drove on in silence but my mind was whirring furiously. Why did this matter so much? It wasn’t as if David had told me a lie. I knew he was with his family.

I couldn’t possibly understand the intricacies of a broken marriage but I was beginning to understand that divorce was never really final. Screenwriting legend Nora Ephron was right when she said, “Marriages come and go, but divorce is forever.”

It was only when we turned into the courtyard to the Carriage House and saw Detective Constable Clive Banks waiting that Mum broke the silence between us.

“What is it with these Devonshire men and their facial hair?” muttered Mum.

We got out of the car and Clive hurried over. “You’re needed at the Hall,” he said grimly. “Everyone is waiting.”

“Why, what’s happened? We know that Gayla has been found,” I said.

“There have been a few new developments.” Clive paused dramatically then said, “Shawn is going to make an arrest.”

Chapter Twenty-three

“What a grand room,” said Mum as Cropper ushered us into the drawing room. “And how very
Downton Abbey
.”

It certainly looked like it. Everyone had taken their positions and seemed to be waiting for the word,
“Action!”
The “gentry” were seated and the staff—Mrs. Cropper, Eric, and William—stood stiffly in a formal line with their arms by their sides.

The atmosphere was tense.

Rupert was in front of the fireplace beneath a magnificent portrait of Charles I—a vivid reminder of Honeychurch Hall’s role in the English Civil War. He did not look happy.

Mum hesitated then whispered, “Where should we go? Over with the servants?”

Lady Edith patted the seat beside her. “Do sit down, Mrs. Stanford.” There was a general murmur of surprise at my mother’s unexpected leap across the void to join the upper classes.

Two Knole sofas faced each other across an antique ebony and mother-of-pearl coffee table. Mum joined Lady Edith on one sofa and Lavinia and Harry sat on the other. It was the first time I’d seen Harry without his goggles or white scarf. It made him look older.

“Kat!” he said, bouncing happily. “Sit next to me.” So I did.

“What are we waiting for?” said Lavinia.

“God knows,” Lady Edith muttered.

“The police, of course,” snapped Rupert.

No one spoke again, giving me the opportunity to take in my opulent surroundings.

The drawing room, with elaborate cornices and decorative strapwork, was exquisite. Red silk wallpaper shared the walls with tapestry hangings. Damask curtains fell graciously from the four casement windows that overlooked the park. The furniture reflected the Hall’s various incarnations from seventeenth-century oak court cupboards to an ugly twentieth-century drinks cabinet. There was the usual plethora of side tables, lamps, and gilt-framed mirrors as well as an overwhelming number of miniatures that took up almost the entire wall to the right of the fireplace. A copper Gibraltar gong stand stood in the corner.

A very fine eighteenth-century French tulipwood and parquetry display cabinet contained more porcelain snuff boxes and some early glassware. David’s comment about the robbery being an inside job struck me anew.

With David’s determination to expose the fraud, Rupert’s plans to break up the estate, and the horror of Vera’s murder, things did not bode well for one of England’s greatest families.

Clive had said Shawn was going to make an arrest. Since Lady Edith and Lavinia had solid alibis, that left the four men in the room—Cropper, Rupert, William, and Eric—one of them was responsible for Vera’s death. Cropper didn’t seem physically capable, William claimed to be with a horse all night, and Eric had a firm alibi. That left Rupert.

Sensing my eyes upon him, he looked up. I expected to see defiance or even guilt but instead Rupert just looked sad.

Shawn walked in followed by Clive who was carrying a Tesco plastic shopping bag and the large brown envelope I’d given to Roxy earlier. Shawn scanned the room, pointedly ignored my smile of greeting, and said, “Are we all here?”

“Vera isn’t,” chipped in Harry. “Where is she?”

“I knew this would happen,” Lavinia declared. “I told you I didn’t want Harry here.”

“Vera’s gone on holiday, my pet,” said Lady Edith. “Can we
please
get this over with?”

“Roxy will be here any moment,” said Clive. “She’s gone to the toilet.”

“Mummy told me we can’t say toilet,” said Harry. “It’s common. We say lavatory.”

“Hush,” hissed Lavinia but cracked a smile. The tension eased and a peculiar giggle–half snort erupted from my mother.

Roxy threw open the door and hurried in. “I’m dying for a cuppa.”

“There will be no cuppas today,” said Shawn gravely. He perched on the edge of the coffee table in front of Harry. “I just have a quick question for you, young man, and then Roxy is going to take you for an ice cream.”

“Okay,” said Harry.

“I want to talk about yesterday morning in the sunken garden,” said Shawn. “You and Kat were playing—”

“We were on a mission.” Harry looked to me for reassurance. I gave him an encouraging smile. “We were looking for one of our men who had been captured by the Germans.”

“We were looking for Flying Officer Jazzbo Jenkins, weren’t we, Harry?” I said.

“Jazzbo Jenkins?” said Lady Edith sharply. “Did you say Jazzbo
Jenkins
?”

Lavinia rolled her eyes. “It’s just one of Harry’s silly games, Edith.”

“Jazzbo Jenkins is a Merrythought ‘Jerry’ mouse, your ladyship,” I said. “As you know, I deal in antiques. Jerry mice are quite hard to find.”

“I’m sure Shawn doesn’t care about toy mice,” said Rupert.

“Well, I do,” said Lady Edith. “Tell me about Jazzbo Jenkins, Harry.”

“Jazzbo wears a blue cardigan,” said Harry. “But he doesn’t have any badges like William’s mouse, Ella Fitzgerald.”

“Don’t you mean your Granny’s mouse, Harry?” I said pointedly. I tried to catch Mum’s eye, hoping she’d understand the significance of the question but her own were fixed on William.

“No. It’s William’s,” Harry insisted.

“Where did you find Jazzbo Jenkins?” Lady Edith demanded.

“Jazzbo belonged to my mother, your ladyship,” I said.

Lady Edith gasped. “Your
mother
?”

I felt, rather than saw, Mum look daggers at me but I didn’t care. I was getting fed up with all these ridiculous secrets.

“Can we just get on with this?” said Rupert. “Seriously? Mice?”

“Of course, your lordship,” said Shawn smoothly. “Master Harry, did you and Kat go to the grotto in the sunken garden yesterday?”

“I went there alone,” I insisted. “I told you all this yesterday.”

“Let Master Harry answer the question, please,” said Shawn.

“No.” Harry shook his head. “I don’t like the grotto.”

“He doesn’t like it there,” Lavinia echoed.

“So you’re positive you didn’t go anywhere near the grotto?” Shawn said again.

“He already told you he didn’t,” said Rupert.

Shawn stood up and started pacing around the room with his hands clasped behind his back. “The exact location of the grotto is very hard to find,” he said in a pompous tone. “I grew up here. I know the estate like the back of my hand and I
still
have trouble locating the entrance.”

Shawn spun on his heel and turned to me, “So what were
you
doing near the grotto, Ms. Stanford?”

I was no longer Kat. I was now Ms. Stanford. With a sinking heart, I suspected where this line of questioning was heading. “I stumbled upon it by accident.”

“And where was Master Harry when you stumbled upon the grotto by accident?” asked Shawn.

“Harry had run off.”

Shawn cocked his head. “But weren’t you supposed to be looking after him?”

“Tell them what happened in the sunken garden, Harry,” I said. “With William’s mouse.”

“I only borrowed it,” Harry whispered. “I was going to put it back.”

“What did you take this time, Harry?” Lavinia demanded. “You must
stop
taking people’s things without their permission!”

“Don’t shout at him,” said Rupert.

Harry’s bottom lip began to quiver. “I just borrowed William’s mouse, the one with all the badges because Jazzbo wasn’t where I left him.”

“Shawn, is this really necessary?” William hurried over. He appealed to Lady Edith. “Whether Harry took one of my childhood souvenirs or not is irrelevant—”

“But I thought you said the mouse belonged to Lady Edith, William?” I said.

A faint blush began to creep its way up William’s neck. “I said no such thing—”

“I don’t see what this has got to do with Vera’s death,” Rupert grumbled.