The Haunting of Highdown Hall (27 page)

“Yes,” Esme continued to muse. “And now the Hall belongs to Alan, though what he’ll do with such a vast place I don’t know.”

“Did Sally not have children of her own?” Ruby couldn’t help but enquire. She had surmised as such in the past but had never actually asked Mr Kierney directly to confirm it. If she had, she was sure he’d have given her a mouthful for being so nosy.

Esme shook her head sadly. “No, neither Sally nor myself. Alan was the only child between us. We doted on him, my sisters and I, we spoilt him really, well, when he was a child anyway.” Her head to one side, she added: “And it shows.”

Shaking her head again, almost despairingly Ruby thought, Esme returned to the subject of Cynthia. “She was quite the one was Cynthia, quite the movie star. As big in America as she was in England, you know, our finest export.”

“She most certainly was an amazing woman,” agreed Ruby whilst Cash ploughed through the proffered chocolate bourbons. Ruby couldn’t help but marvel at his appetite, he had already put away a ham and cheese Panini, a packet of salt and vinegar crisps and a Danish pastry since they’d left Lewes.

“And from such humble beginnings too.”

“Ah yes,” said Ruby, eager to keep Esme chugging along that train of thought. “Her humble beginnings, as researchers, that’s what we’re particularly interested in, the Cynthia behind the spotlight. She didn’t come from a wealthy background, did she?”

“Cynthia? No, dear. Not at all. Quite the opposite. Her mother was... what did they call them in those days? A charwoman I suppose – she worked for local families, cleaning, child-care, that sort of thing. Shopping and ironing too no doubt – the kind of chores that people from the upper echelons didn’t like to dirty their hands doing.”

“How do you know?” Ruby was intrigued.

“Used to say to Sally, she did, ‘Look at me, my mother always at the beck and call of others, and me the biggest movie star in the world’
,
said it all the time. Not in public of course, she refused to be drawn on her background in public, but to Sally, all the time.”

“She was ashamed of her mother?” It was Cash this time, torn between his interest in Cynthia and what had to be his third bourbon biscuit.

“She must have been,” Esme concurred. “I suppose if you’re putting on airs and graces, you don’t want people to know you’re doing just that, do you?
Putting
them on I mean. Although perhaps her mother was content to be a char, not everyone wants fame and riches. From what Sally gleaned, Mary worked for some big noises in her life, was held in high esteem. Do you remember Aston’s, the famous Brighton milliners? She worked for them for several years as well as the Carr’s, who manufactured gloves – not just anybody got a job with those types of families, you had to have proved your mettle beforehand.”

“It might have been enough for Mary,” Ruby mused. “But for Cynthia, it clearly wasn’t.”

Esme shrugged. “My sister used to think that comparing what she’d achieved to what she perceived her mother
hadn’t
achieved, gave Cynthia a sense of self-worth. Sally didn’t seem to think she was confident, inside I mean. I disagreed though. I thought she was too confident for her own good sometimes. It didn’t do to cross her, you know.”

“Was Sally fond of Cynthia?” asked Ruby, sensing Esme wasn’t overly so.

“Fond? She was devoted. Dazzled by her, as so many were. There was no doubt she was a fine actress, but Sally, she believed Cynthia was a lost soul too; she wanted to take care of her. Look after her. She was like that was Sally; one of life’s carers.”

“Cynthia must have been grateful for it though, after all she left her house to her.”

“Who else was she going to leave it to, dear? She had no husband or children.”

“I know,” consented Ruby, “but to make Sally the inheritor of her estate, that’s quite something. There must have been a special bond between them.”

Esme nodded.

“If she’d had children or a husband I’m sure Sally wouldn’t have got a look in, but yes there was a bond between them. Sally wouldn’t have a bad word said against her.”

“Do you know anyone who did say a bad word about her? Cynthia I mean?”

“No, dear,” Esme was adamant. “Nobody would have dared.”

“Dared? Why not?”

“I told you, it wouldn’t do to cross Cynthia. She had a temper, particularly in the last year of her life; she was always flying off the handle for some reason or other. Even Sally, whom she was usually civil to, came in for a verbal lashing every now and again, although Cynthia was always very apologetic to her afterwards. One of the few people Cynthia ever apologised to, mind. She was a powerful woman, if you upset her, she could destroy you.”

“And did she?” Ruby probed further. “Destroy anyone?”

“Not to my knowledge, dear, but then I kept out of the way of both her and her entourage.”

“Her entourage?”

“Yes, the band of sycophants she kept around her at all times, hung on every word she uttered they did. If she said the sky was green not blue they would have agreed with her. Sickening really.”

“Why didn’t Cynthia leave the house to one of them?”

“I don’t know,” Esme shrugged. “Perhaps she knew that’s what they were; sycophants. Perhaps she knew Sally would look after the house properly. She was meticulous was Sally, a perfectionist. Cynthia was as well, they had that in common. Deep down, and this is only my theory, I think Cynthia might have realised Sally was the only person who genuinely cared for her, not the movie star her, but the real her, the person, as you say, behind the spotlight. The people she surrounded herself with, oh they paid lip-service alright, but only because they wanted a share in her glory. Any fool could see that.”

“She should have sacked the lot of them,” Cash piped up.

“But she wouldn’t,” Esme continued. “She needed them. Sally said she kept them round her because she was desperate to be loved, because she wasn’t loved by her family.”

A tingle ran down Ruby’s spine.

“Wasn’t she? Do you know that for sure?”

“That’s what Sally said; that she was a lost lamb in the wilderness was Cynthia – more like a bloody Bengal tiger in the suburbs I’d say!” Esme laughed at her own joke.

Although she was smiling too, Ruby couldn’t help thinking what a waste of time their trip to London had been. Time they just didn’t have any more. It was lovely to meet Esme, she was a charming lady, and not at all demented as Mr Kierney had suggested, but she hadn’t learned anything new concerning whom might have held a grudge against Cynthia. It couldn’t be someone from her family. If they had abandoned her in life, they probably weren’t around for her in death either. The man in the shadows, he could be anyone.

Attempting one last question, Ruby asked, “When was the last time you saw Cynthia?”

Esme didn’t need to think, straightaway she answered, “The night she died. I was there, at Highdown Hall, helping out. Got paid well for working on Christmas Eve we did, made it worth our while. I’ll say this for her, Cynthia didn’t stint when it came to wages.”

“You were there the night she died?” said Cash, his attention wholly captured now.

“Yes, I was; what a tragedy, eh? Only thirty-one and at the height of her career too.”

“Can you tell me exactly what happened that night, Esme?” said Ruby, trying to keep her voice neutral, to stifle the urgency in it.

Esme was only too happy to oblige.

“It was a lovely night,” she was misty-eyed once again, “and she looked beautiful in that dress of hers Cynthia did; a dress Sally kept so nice after her death, despite cradling it to her chest sometimes, as you would a child. Even though there were so many lovelies in attendance, Cynthia was the loveliest; there was no doubt about it. John Sterling was there too, her on-off lover you know, well, on for his part, off mainly for hers.” Esme chuckled. “Dashing he was; her match in looks, I can tell you. All us maids were quite agog at the sight of him, and some of the waiters too,” she winked. “But she didn’t dance with him, snubbed him I would go so far as to say. She danced all night but not once in his arms, being swung round and round the dance floor by handsome man after handsome man, breathtaking in her happiness. It was her birthday, you know, Christmas Eve, she was radiant, the world at her feet. And then she disappeared. One minute she was there, holding court, Queen of all she surveyed, and the next she wasn’t. I don’t know why. John Sterling found her upstairs a while later; she died in his arms, a heart attack of all things. Destroyed him it did.”

Again Ruby’s heart sank. They knew all this; it wasn’t going to help them. Starting to rise, she was about to thank Esme for her time, when she was stopped in her tracks.

“Two deaths that night... tragic. And it started off so well too.”

“Two deaths?” Ruby could feel the blood draining from her face. “What do you mean two deaths?”

“There were two deaths. David Levine left the party around the same time that Cynthia had the heart attack I believe, maybe a bit before, I can’t remember exactly; it’s all so long ago now and my memory isn’t what it used to be. Said he wasn’t feeling well when he asked me to get his coat. And he didn’t look great, I remember that, he was all hot and bothered under the collar. Anyway, he must have been feeling awful, because he crashed his car, not far from the house, a few minutes later. Ran off the road and hit a tree. Died instantly.”

“David Levine? Who’s he?” said Cash before Ruby had the chance.

“He was a film director I think, dear. Not big fry, like some at the party, but up and coming. Who’s to say he wouldn’t have gone on to be a big noise had he lived? Another glittering career wiped out, just like that. A crying shame.”

Unlike Ness, and sometimes Theo, Ruby couldn’t read thoughts, but as she looked at Cash, she knew what he was thinking. Could David Levine be the man in the shadows? The one who waited for Cynthia? And, if he was, why? What had Cynthia done to upset him?

Chapter Twenty-Two

Esme was getting tired; Ruby could see her paper-thin eyelids growing heavy, her almost painfully thin shoulders, formerly upright, sagging. No doubt the rare treat of having visitors was draining her. Armed with their new information, she thought now would be a good time to take their leave and indicated as much to Cash with a nod of her head. Wiping imaginary crumbs from the side of his mouth, he nodded back.

“Thank you so much, Esme...” Ruby began.

But it seemed Esme wasn’t quite done yet.

“I’ve got a box you might be interested in; it’s full of newspaper cuttings of Cynthia.”

“A box?” Ruby sat back down again.

“Yes, it was found beside her on the night she died. Sally found it. She had no idea how it had got there, never seen it before in her life. She brought it to me for safe-keeping. Daft old Sally, she seemed to think keeping the box at Highdown Hall upset Cynthia in some way, said it was best if it were removed from the house entirely. I haven’t a clue what she meant, how could it upset Cynthia when she was dead? Would you like to have a look through it? It might help.”

“Yes, please,” said Ruby, once again glancing at Cash. His eyes sparkled with excitement.

“It’s in the spare bedroom. In the wardrobe. Run up and get it would you, dear? I don’t think I’ve enough energy to negotiate upstairs at the moment. It’s a brown box, has some gold engravings on it. Not real gold, you understand, it’s nothing special I can assure you. You can’t miss it, there’s barely anything else in that wardrobe.”

Ruby did as she was told, squeezing past the chairlift before taking the stairs two at a time in her eagerness. At the top of the landing, she turned right into the spare bedroom. From the lack of furniture – just a wardrobe and a bed with a faded pink counterpane on it – she gathered Esme didn’t have many overnight visitors. She opened the wardrobe doors and found what she was looking for straightaway, a box, lying forlorn at the bottom.

Bending to retrieve it, she brought the box close to her chest, tuning in for a few moments to see what vibes emitted from it. Although faint, she could detect anger and bitterness, but also surprise – the latter confusing her. It was definitely the odd one out.

Aware that she shouldn’t keep Esme and Cash waiting, she dashed back downstairs with the box.

“Is this it?” she asked Esme.

“Yes, but don’t give it to me, I don’t want it. You take it.”

“Are you sure?” Ruby was struggling to hide her delight.

“Of course I’m sure. I’m thrilled to help with your research.”

“Thank you,” said Ruby, impulsively leaning forward and kissing the old lady on the cheek, her lips touching skin as soft as clouds.

Esme looked surprised initially and then delighted, one hand reaching up to linger where she had been kissed.

Saying their warm goodbyes, Ruby clutched the box to her. When the door had been closed on them, she imagined Esme tottering back to her armchair for a well deserved nap.

Back on the street, the day starting to fade, Cash said, “Well, that was productive.”

“It certainly was,” agreed Ruby, looking down at the box. “And I can’t wait to look through this. But before we do, do you remember me saying to you, the very first time we drove to Highdown Hall, that we’d passed the scene of a car accident?”