The Dead of Winter (23 page)

‘Edwin is supposed to have based the ghost on a real person,' Joy said. ‘What if he deliberately based her on Elizabeth and Albert's child?'

That seemed logical. ‘What else do you have there?' he asked, eyeing the newspaper clippings and foxed papers they had unearthed. ‘Was all of this found in the seance room?'

‘In the deed box Melissa is supposed to have found just inside the door, yes.'

‘You don't think she did?'

‘I don't know. We're trying to piece the story together. Melissa was right, though. This stayed in the news for months.'

‘So, what happened then?'

‘So far as we can make out –' Tim was shuffling papers on the dressing table – ‘it started with that death of the gamekeeper. It was supposed to be accidental, but there were rumours that his wife had been in a relationship with a man called Rico Spinelli. He was a vicar or something, but he held seances, and Mrs Creedy, that's the gamekeeper's wife, is supposed to have been involved. Creedy is reported to have spoken Spinelli's name before he died and there's the inference that if the shooting wasn't accidental then Spinelli might have done it. Anyway, Albert Southam heard the rumours and brought in a private detective to investigate, but he wasn't able to get to the bottom of it. Albert Southam then seems to have taken care of the widow and her children, and she lived in a cottage on the estate.'

‘Then there's this George Weston person. He's the estate manager,' Joy said. ‘He more or less took over after Elizabeth left and Albert seems to have gone to pieces. When Albert died, George Weston goes missing with a large amount of cash and some diamonds. Or at least, they go missing at the same time he does.'

‘Then this place is leased out,' Rina added. ‘Neither Elizabeth nor the daughter ever seem to have come back here.'

‘It was still being leased until about five years ago,' Mac said. ‘Chandler says it had never been sold until the people who tried to start the hotel bought it. He says he thinks there was some kind of trust administering the place. It's a terrifically long time for something like that to continue, don't you think?'

‘Nothing about Aikensthorpe is what you'd expect,' Rina said quietly. ‘My question, I suppose, is what happened to Elizabeth and Grace?'

‘And why did she leave, and why did Edwin model his ghost on her?' Joy wanted to know.

‘All very interesting,' Mac said. ‘But the questions we need to be asking right now are who killed Simeon Meehan and Edwin Holmes and where on earth has your friend Toby got to? More to the point, is the killer still here? Most likely, I'd have said. In which case, does he have anyone else he wants to be rid of?'

The CSI team had been roaming the house, fingerprinting and taking photographs. Miriam showed them the attic rooms, and Melissa found an old map of the Aikensthorpe Estate and the cottages the farm workers and other employees had used over the years.

Finally, with the darkness closing in somewhere behind the white-out, they had to concede nothing more could be done that night. Jay and Rina helped Melissa set out a buffet in the dining room and find bedding and spare mattresses for the unfinished bedrooms so that people could camp out in relative comfort. No one said much; the police presence, small as it was, seemed to intimidate everyone – that, and the constant reminder of Edwin's body still lying upstairs, though enclosed now in a white sheet and body bag, ready to be moved. Although the police presence should have spelt security for the other guests, Rina felt that it just intensified the sense of threat. There was a murderer among them, and no one but the killer themselves knew who.

Rina found she was examining everyone with unwarranted closeness. Was the bracelet on Rav's wristwatch sharp enough to have caused the scratches on Edwin's neck? Was Gail's psychic persona just an act after all? Could Melissa be tempted to put something unpleasant in the food? (Unlikely, as she tasted everything she prepared, but still.)

Mentally, Rina gave herself a good shaking and an even better telling off.

She was lucky; there were people here she knew unquestionably that she could trust. Could any of the others now feel the same way?

No one had yet spoken to Robin and Viv about New Year's Day, and when Viv waved rather pathetically as Rina entered the dining room, she decided that now would be a good moment to try.

‘Do you want anything more?' she called as she helped herself from the buffet.

Viv shook her head. Robin was pushing food around on his plate, but didn't seem to be eating, so Rina assumed a no from him too. She joined them at one end of the long table. Miriam was chatting to the CSIs at the other; their conversations seemed to be about a television series rather than work, Rina was relieved to note. She didn't think Viv was up to forensic conversations over the supper table.

‘How are you holding up?' she asked.

‘I was doing OK until I called my mum,' Viv said. ‘She's all anxious and fussed, and that set me off.'

‘She's bound to be,' Rina said. ‘Have you called your family, Robin?'

‘I . . .'

‘Robin doesn't really have family,' Viv said.

‘I'm sorry to hear that.'

‘Oh, it's OK,' Robin said. ‘My mum died when I was young. Dad remarried, and I didn't get on with his new wife. I went to uni and sort of moved out completely. We don't really talk now.'

‘That's sad,' Rina said.

He shrugged. ‘It happens. My half sister is planning on going to uni next year. She phoned me and asked advice. That was nice. I like Fliss.'

He didn't seem to want to pursue this topic, so Rina introduced her own. ‘You were here with Toby at New Year, I understand.'

Robin nodded. ‘Just for the afternoon. I'd been at Viv's for New Year's Eve. Toby said we should drive up to see the place. Viv wasn't keen, so I came up with him on my own.'

‘It's a long drive from London, isn't it? Just for a few hours?'

‘Not really. Well, it is, but we were going back to uni then anyway. Toby had been down in London visiting friends or something; he said he'd give me a lift, and it saved on train fares. Viv came up the next day.' He grinned suddenly and unexpectedly. The smile transformed his face. ‘She was too hung-over to drive up with us, anyway,' he added.

‘Was not! Well, maybe, yeah, but it was a good night, wasn't it?'

‘I spent the holiday with Viv's family,' Robin said. ‘Christmas and New Year. It was nice being with people.'

Rina nodded sympathetically. ‘Robin, what was the mood like that afternoon? We know Simeon had quarrelled with everyone, but it would be good to hear an outside view.'

Robin thought about it, nudging the food on his plate with the tines of his fork. ‘We didn't really get to talk to anyone except Melissa and Edwin,' he said. ‘Or, at least, I didn't. Melissa was nice, she showed us the seance room and made sure we had a sandwich before we headed off. Edwin was lovely. He came with me into the room, and we talked about camera angles and so on, and then we went back into the library. He said he'd found some books he wanted to use in his new research. Then he laughed and said he was probably being a bit ambitious, planning another book at his age, but that he couldn't seem to break the habit. I liked him. I can't understand how anyone would want to kill someone old like that.'

It happened all the time, Rina thought. ‘What was Toby doing while you were in the seance room?'

Robin shrugged. ‘I don't know. I left him in the kitchen with Melissa. He came and checked what I'd decided, but I did the main survey.'

Rina nodded, recalling the impression she'd had at the start of their stay that Toby and Melissa knew one another well already. ‘Did Toby give you any indication he wanted to leave here before he vanished?'

Viv and Robin looked at one another. ‘No, not really,' Viv said.

‘You don't like him very much, do you?'

Viv wrinkled her nose. ‘It was like he thought he was God,' she said.

‘Thought?'

‘Yeah.' She didn't seem to have noticed her own change to past tense. ‘When I asked if he'd be my supervisor for the MA, he was like, well, of
course
you're going to ask me, I'm the best. Then when I got more involved with him, you know, he got kind of like—' She looked at Robin.

‘Possessive,' he said.

‘He's been better since we came here,' she added, changing back to present without a blink. ‘Or at least he was, then he started acting like we were all, well . . . Like he was too good for all of us. I can't make him out.'

Robin nodded. ‘Viv had a row with him, said she didn't want him to be her supervisor.'

‘It's pointless, of course. I'm much too far through to switch to anyone else, but he made me so mad, just the way he talks to everyone.'

‘I hope he's OK,' Robin said quietly. ‘I mean, where's he gone?'

They both looked at Rina as though she might be able to provide the answer. Where indeed, Rina thought. And was he still all right? She doubted that very much.

TWENTY-SIX

R
ina had locked her doors that night and been glad that Mac and Miriam were literally next door. Mac and Chandler had insisted that no one be alone, and he'd included the CSI and his own people in that directive. Melissa had reluctantly agreed to share her room with two of the female CSIs, and Constable Brown had bedded down with the crime scene manager. The degree of paranoia had seemed to increase exponentially through the evening, and by the time Rina finally made it to her room, she had practically been twitching.

‘Pull yourself together, woman,' she had told herself sternly and allowed a moment of amusement that no one had suggested
she
required company that night.

Morning brought clarity. Bright skies clear of threatening snow clouds, frozen ground; the layer of frost clearly visible overlaying the covering of snow. Clarity of mind, too, Rina thought, waking with the – probably unfounded – sense that today would bring solutions. Unfounded or not, it made her feel better.

Over breakfast, Chandler divided them into search teams: a police officer or CSI as lead and the rest allocated to one of four groups. The hope was that the roads would be clear again by midday and Edwin's body could finally be moved.

By half past eight, decked out in warm clothes and borrowed wellingtons, Rina was with her assigned group, led by DI Chandler himself, and joined by Rav they set off across the fields towards Aikensthorpe woods on a search for any sign of Toby.

‘Virgin snow,' Rav said. ‘Just bird tracks and fox footprints. At least the sky has cleared.'

‘For now, anyway,' Rina said.

‘Do you think we'll find him?'

‘I think if Toby had simply up and gone, he would have had the grace to call someone and tell them that's what he'd done. Tim, if no one else. Tim would not have judged him. Toby knows that.'

‘You think he's dead.'

‘I think that's crossed everybody's mind. None of us want to put it into words, that's all.'

Rav nodded, then said wryly, ‘I'm sort of surprised, then, that Gail hasn't claimed to have sensed it.'

‘There's still time. No, that's unkind – and disrespectful too.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘For what? It amused me too. We can be bad people together.'

Rav laughed aloud at her comment, and Chandler, a few paces ahead, looked quizzically at Rina.

‘Where are we headed?' she asked.

‘To the tower. We can start there. There's a bit of an underground thing there too, like a crypt; that's if we can still get into it. The roof was coming down last time I looked.'

‘Tower?' Probably the ruins Tim had spotted.

‘An old church, don't know what period. I think it was from the big house that was here before Aikensthorpe was built. The house burned down in the civil war, so I'm told. Then there was a small hunting lodge type of thing that got turned into the Dower house later. It's been boarded up for the past few years, but it used to belong to the headmaster when this was a school and was offices when this place was a college. The church was left to fall down, and the tower is about all that's left of it.'

Rina tried to recall what the map had looked like. ‘Where have the other groups gone?'

‘One search team to the three workers' cottages over on the other side; one to the cottage and barn down towards the main road; and the third team is looking at all the outbuildings.'

‘We searched those already,' Rina objected.

‘You may have done, but it doesn't hurt to look again with a different eye.'

Rina couldn't argue with that. They had reached the woods now, skirting the edge. The going was difficult, deep snow and cold air making it slow and wearing. When the tower came into view, Rina was surprised by its height and solidity. Definitely not a folly, she thought. This was much older.

Chandler paused, and the others gathered round him, suddenly anxious about what they might find.

Chandler called out: ‘Toby. Toby Thwaite, are you here? Can you hear me?' He glanced round sheepishly at the others as it dawned on all of them that there would be no answer. If Toby had come to this grim place and had been able to return to the house then he would have done so, not remained here in such bitter, unforgiving weather. Had he been alive, but unable to make it back to Aikensthorpe, then the chances were he could not have survived the two intervening days. He would have frozen out here.