The Dead of Winter (17 page)

‘Poor Edwin,' she said softly. ‘You say he had heart problems?'

Rav nodded. ‘I know he'd had angina for years. I don't know how bad it was, but—' He broke off, watching intently as Miriam touched Edwin's hand where it lay on the light blue quilt. He lay on his back, head propped awkwardly on too many pillows, one hand extended on the covers, the other tucked under the blankets.

Gently, Miriam checked for a pulse at wrist and throat that they all knew would not be there. Flexed the fingers, checking for the first signs of rigor. Opened the lids and looked into the dead man's eyes. Then she turned his head and peered at his neck as though puzzled by something.

‘Miriam?' Mac questioned.

‘Do you have your torch?'

Mac rummaged in his jacket pocket, produced a key ring that had a small flashlight attached.

‘There's blood here on his neck. Not much, as though he scratched himself on something. Rav, do you know if Edwin took tablets to thin his blood?'

‘Warfarin? I believe so, yes. He used to complain it took an age to stop bleeding if he cut himself. Miriam, what's wrong?'

She didn't respond immediately; instead, she looked again into the old man's eyes and then stepped back from the bed as though to take in the scene from a better perspective.

‘Blood on the neck,' she said, ‘but only a trace on the pillow, and . . .' Very gently, she lifted the edge of the pillow on which Edwin's head rested. ‘Blood—'

Mac came round to her side of the bed.

‘—on the pillow underneath where his head is placed.' She pointed. ‘I noticed that his head was at the wrong angle to be comfortable.'

‘Petechiae?'

‘Yes.' Miriam looked at Mac, horrified at the implication.

‘What do they mean?' Rav asked.

Rina had caught on now. ‘He was smothered,' she said. ‘Miriam?'

Miriam nodded. ‘It looks that way, Rina. Rav, did you see the door key when you came in?'

‘I – smothered? What do you mean? You mean someone
killed
him?'

‘I think it is a distinct possibility. The key?'

Rina pointed. ‘There, on the chest of drawers.'

‘Ah, yes. Right, we all need to leave and lock the door, then call the police and get some assistance here.'

‘Right,' Rav said. ‘No, you really mean it?'

‘I really mean it,' Miriam confirmed. ‘Rav, your friend didn't die of a heart attack. He was asphyxiated, and I'm guessing it was with this pillow. Whoever did it then placed the pillow under his head to make it look as though he'd died in his sleep. What they didn't realize is that either they'd scratched him or he'd struggled and scratched himself. The blood had flowed out on to the pillow he was lying on. When they put the other one beneath his head—'

‘The blood was on the wrong pillow.' Rav stared. ‘But no one would want to hurt Edwin. He was . . . harmless. Gentle, just a nice old man.'

Rina led him from the room. The others followed, and Mac locked the door. ‘Best check what other keys there are,' he said. He looked grave.

Rav blinked, as though suddenly in too bright a light. ‘Someone here did it? Someone here killed Edwin?'

‘We can't rule that out,' Mac said gently. ‘We should call the local police now.'

They returned to the dining room, and Mac asked to use a private phone. He took Miriam with him.

‘Is he really dead?' Viv asked, eyes wide and a mix of horror and fascinated excitement on her face.

‘He really is. Melissa, how many keys are there to each room?'

‘Two,' Melissa told him. ‘Why?'

‘And a master key?'

‘No, not to the bedrooms. We've got a master to the suite of keys for the downstairs doors, but the upstairs rooms are all just off-the-shelf stuff, we haven't got around to changing them yet. They were fitted when we took over.'

‘Took over?' Rina asked.

‘Um, yes, the consortium bought this place, spent a few months doing what was immediately necessary, and we've been doing it piecemeal since. The people before us tried to get it going as a country house hotel, they'd done it up, but I think most of their stuff was from the local DIY warehouse, we've been upgrading. Look, what happened to Edwin? What does it have to do with keys?'

Rav had sat down at the table, and someone poured him some coffee. He sat now with his hands around the cup. He looked sick, Rina thought. ‘They think someone murdered Edwin,' Rav said.

‘Murdered! Oh, for Pete's sake.' Toby was almost amused. Then: ‘You mean it, don't you? Oh my God.'

‘How?' Viv asked. ‘Who? I mean, there's only been us here.'

‘One of
us
?' Robin sounded less shocked than the others. He was watching Rina intently.

‘We don't know that,' Rina said quietly. ‘Melissa, where are the spare keys kept?'

‘I'll show you.' Melissa almost fled from the room, clearly glad to be doing something. Rina and Tim followed her through the hall and back towards the kitchen. They passed Mac and Miriam in Melissa's tiny office, still talking on the phone. Mac was frowning, and Miriam looked anxious. Into the small but shining kitchen, and through to a back office opposite what Rina assessed to be an old boot room. A flight of stairs led down to a basement, and a cold draft blew upward.

‘What's down there?

‘The old wine cellar and various storage rooms. Why?' Melissa didn't wait for an answer. ‘We keep the keys in here.' She pointed at a wooden cabinet fastened to the wall. There was a lock, but no key in it, and the door was held closed by a metal hook and loop that had been screwed to the door and the side of the box.

‘We never had the key to that. And the door was off when I took over. I screwed it back on its hinges and then cobbled the hasp and staple together from stuff I found in the cupboards.' Melissa was babbling now.

‘Here,' Tim said. A rough wooden table served as a desk in here, and an old mug stuffed with pens and pencils provided Tim with the implement he was looking for. He handed Rina a pencil with an eraser on the end. She used it to push the hook out of the loop, making as little contact as she could. The door swung open to reveal rows of hooks with keys hanging from them. Door keys and old-fashioned gate keys; a ring for the estate van and car. Each was labelled, the top two rows being bedrooms with numbers beside each one.

‘Which was Edwin's?'

‘This one.' Melissa pointed. The second key was still in place.

‘Can you get into here from the rear of the building?'

‘Yes, I suppose so.'

Melissa led them back out into the lobby and into what Rina had thought must be a cupboard next to the boot room. The rear door led out into a small courtyard with a gap in the wall through which Rina could see the carriage house across the lawn. Various outbuildings surrounded the courtyard, and Rina made a note to herself that she must come out and check them over later. When she actually had her shoes on and not the pink satin slippers. The snow lay thick and heavy, and various sets of footprints crossed the space.

‘Have you been out here today?' she asked Melissa.

‘Um, yes. Into that building there. We use that as the laundry, all the machines and so on are inside it.'

‘So that set of footprints would be yours. There and back again. And those?' Heavier and larger, booted feet.

‘I don't know. Oh God, you don't think . . . ?'

‘It could easily have been one of the guests exploring,' Tim soothed.

They retreated into the lobby once more, and Rina glanced into the boot room, satisfying herself that no exit led from there. ‘You say that's a basement. Can I go down?'

Melissa reached around her and switched on the light. ‘The stairs are steep,' she said. ‘And it's bloody freezing. Damp too.'

Rina and Tim descended. Melissa, arms wrapped around her body as though hugging herself, stood at the top of the stairs. The ceiling was arched and had been whitewashed, though this was now flaking and crumbling. Wine racks stood against the wall closest to the stairs, and it was soon evident that the staff, such as they were, rarely ventured beyond this point. Old wooden shelves filled a lot of the space; broken chairs and old crates took up much of the rest. ‘There's so much of this place unfinished, undealt with,' Rina said quietly when Melissa was out of earshot. ‘Why not just bring in a full compliment of staff, get this up and running as quickly as possible?'

‘Ah, yet another thing to nag at Rina's brain,' Tim said with a smile. ‘But you're right, it is all a bit odd. Nothing down here though, except—' He pointed. The window was set high in the wall, as befitted a basement, but not so high that Rina could not see the snow settled against the broken panes.

‘You think someone could have come in that way?' Rina upended a crate and stood carefully on its top. ‘The latch is broken,' she said. ‘You could just push it open from the inside, but no, the snow is thick, no one's disturbed it. My bet is they simply came in through the back door.'

‘And do you have a particular “they” in mind? Something tells me you don't mean whoever killed Edwin.'

‘No,' Rina confirmed. ‘I still have that one down as an inside job. But twice now I've seen things that lead me to believe someone is poking around this place at night, and I don't want to guess yet if that's connected to Edwin's death or not.'

‘You've not mentioned this before.'

‘Nothing much
to
mention. Let's go back up, it's freezing down here.' She hopped off the crate and led the way back through the warren of basement rooms and up the stairs. Melissa didn't appear to have moved.

‘Let's go and get warmed up,' Rina said, ‘and see when the police are likely to get here.'

It had started to snow heavily again, Rina noted as they returned to the dining room. Lunch was untouched, and the company sat around the big table looking glum and rather lost. Mac followed close on their heels.

‘When are the police getting here?' Rina asked.

‘Well, that's a bit of a problem,' Mac said. ‘There's been a multi-vehicle pile-up on the A1, abandoned vehicles and people trapped by the weather all over the county. As you can imagine, resources are stretched.'

‘But this is a murder.'

‘And, unfortunately, the two main access roads are blocked. The road through Hickling, where we stayed last night, is now completely closed. It looks like we left just in time. I phoned the landlord at the Oaks, where we stayed last night, and he reckons even his Land Rover can't make it up the hill, and there's been a landslide coming in from the other way.'

‘That happened last winter,' Melissa said. ‘Up by Crispin crags. It took three days to clear it that time.'

‘So that will have to be sorted out before we can depend on help getting in, and then they've got the gated road to negotiate. The idea is, they'll get on to the local farmer and see what help he can provide, maybe get some officers in by tractor, but for now, folks, it looks as if we're on our own.'

‘Oh, and to make it even more interesting, a lot of the phone and power lines are down,' Miriam added.

‘We've got a generator for if the power does go down,' Melissa said. ‘We learnt that lesson last year. Phones might be more of an issue; let's just hope for the best there. But we can't carry on as normal with a dead body upstairs, it's just not right!'

‘We don't really have a choice,' Mac told her. ‘I've been talking to an Inspector Chandler, and he's going to call back as soon as he can. Meantime, we need to record the scene, take statements, work out where everyone was when Edwin died and so on.'

‘So you're planning on taking over, are you?' Toby was oddly aggressive.

His hangover must be really bad, Rina thought. ‘Do you have a better suggestion?' she asked.

‘Poor Edwin,' Viv said softly. She glared at her professor. ‘What can we do to help?'

‘Well, first of all, Miriam and I need to record the scene. Melissa, do you have any kitchen whites? We don't want to risk contaminating things further than we already have, wearing our outdoor clothes.'

‘Yes, yes, we have those.' She looked close to tears. ‘What else?'

‘Camera equipment. Toby?'

‘No, you damned well can't.'

‘Don't be an ass, Toby,' Tim said.

Toby glared at him for a moment, then sighed. ‘Sorry,' he said. ‘I'm just upset, and I don't like, well, being bossed around.'

That, Rina thought, was probably what everyone actually needed right now. To be told what to do.

‘We should all stay in here for the moment,' she said. ‘Just while Miriam establishes the extent of the crime scene.'

‘What do you mean?' Viv was curious now.

‘I thought the crime scene was just the bedroom,' Robin added.

‘It's anywhere the killer might have left a trace,' Miriam explained.

‘But that could be anywhere, couldn't it?' Viv said. ‘Doesn't that mean we can't even go to the loo?'

Rina hid a smile.

‘No, it just means we have to be methodical,' Miriam said. ‘I suggest that Melissa takes us to the kitchen, we get changed, and then we start with that part of the house. That way everyone can get access to food and drink and the downstairs cloakroom. I doubt that will take long, but we still need to check. Later, they'll have to fingerprint the locks and so on and take fingerprints for comparison and elimination. Then we'll know, for example, if someone came into the house last night.'