The Will To Live (6 page)

“But why then pretend to be Lawrence?”

“Maybe he didn’t. I mean, he didn’t say what his name was, did he? They all just assumed he was Lawrence but no one actually called him by his name. And he seemed so out of it. He was weaving around all over the place when your mum almost ran him over. Drunk, I suppose. Maybe he thought they knew who he really was.”

“Yes,” said Graham thoughtfully, “I can see how that might have happened. But you’re forgetting the real Lawrence. How on earth did the lord of the manor end up dressed as a tramp?”

Explaining that part was more challenging. I shut my eyes and tried to imagine the course of events. “OK … so Lawrence is really ill. But he knows it’s Marmaduke’s christening day. He might have woken up after James had gone downstairs. Suppose he hears the cars leaving and wonders why no one came up to see him before they went? Maybe he really wants to see Marmaduke in his christening frock. He’s unwell. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He picks up the first clothes that come to hand – the stuff that James has left on the floor, next to the bed – and sets off alone to the church. Only he’s old and it’s chucking it down. The effort kills him.”

“So the whole thing could just have been an accident?”

I nodded. “Could have been. Maybe there’s nothing sinister in it at all.” We looked at each other, faintly disappointed by the conclusion we’d reached. “At least your mum will be pleased.”

“Should we tell anyone?” wondered Graham.

“Maybe later,” I replied. “There’s no hurry, is there? They’re both dead – I don’t suppose it matters much now which one was which.”

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

RIGHT
after Graham and I had decided the whole mixed-up-identity thing was probably a bizarre accident, Sally came in with pots of tea to fortify the guests. We were helping to hand out hot, steaming china cups of it when the vicar tried tactfully to draw Jennifer and Julian to one side.

Julian had come back down to the drawing-room having stashed his dead uncle-father-whichever-he-really-was upstairs. Reverend Bristow seized his opportunity, sidling up to Jennifer and Julian, clearing his throat and saying quietly, “Might I have a private word?”

Jennifer looked taken aback. “A private word, Reverend Bristow? What about?”

“It’s er … a family matter.”

The vicar was trying to be discreet but his furtive manner had the opposite effect. Conversations had died left, right and centre and now all the guests were looking in his direction. Jennifer said, “These people are old friends – if you have anything to say, you can say it in front of them.”

“Very well.” So the vicar explained how he’d found a dead tramp outside the church after the christening. He left me and Graham out of it, which was a relief – we sort of hadn’t quite mentioned the incident to Sally yet.

Jennifer and Julian looked mildly concerned, as if it was an unfortunate event but it didn’t affect them personally.

Lydia and Lancelot – whose swollen nose was now turning a spectacular shade of purple – were indifferent to the point of rudeness.

“A body in a graveyard, vicar?” Lancelot’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Who would have believed id?”

“Quelle surprise!” Lydia laughed. “Jeremy, darling,” she said, placing her hand on the vicar’s arm, “the place is full of dead bodies. Most of them are family members.”

The vicar flushed. Was he upset by her attitude, or embarrassed by her being so touchy-feely? It was difficult to tell. He cleared his throat again. “Indeed, well, yes … funny you should say that. I think it’s probably the case in this instance.”

Jennifer looked alarmed. “Whatever do you mean?”

Reverend Bristow turned to her. “I’m terribly sorry, Mrs Thomas… I believe the vagrant may have been your father.”

“Daddy?” Jennifer gasped. She reached for Julian, who stepped forward to put an arm around her.

“Why do you say that?” Julian asked the vicar. Brother and sister were stiff with shock.

Lancelot, on the other hand, was close to laughter. “Uncle James? He’s durned up afder all dis dime? Dead! You have god do be joking.”

“Regrettably, no.” Reverend Bristow looked pained. “The resemblance is simply too striking for there to be any doubt.”

Jennifer burst into tears. Marmaduke wriggled, unwilling to be soaked again, so she thrust him blindly at Graham and then sobbed freely on her brother’s chest.

“Shhh, sis. Shhhhh,” soothed Julian. “It’s all right, Jen. Don’t fret.” He looked miserable as he tried to comfort his sister.

Their two cousins, on the other hand, didn’t appear to need comfort from anyone.

“It was Uncle James,” said Lydia, staring at her brother. Her eyes were narrowed. Her expression difficult to read. She squeezed the vicar’s arm. “And you found him before you came here? While Daddy was still alive and well?”

“Yes. I meant to tell him, of course. But I never had the opportunity.”

Lancelot’s voice was flat and emotionless, but his eyes gleamed. “Uncle James died firsd.” The words were heavy with a significance I didn’t understand.

“Oh, really, Lancelot, he’s not even cold!” Julian protested over the top of his sister’s head. “Must you think of such things at a time like this?”

“No dime like de presend, old chap.”

“Aren’t you forgetting the codicil in Grandfather’s will?” asked Julian frostily.

“Well, I know id rules
you
oud.” Lancelot smiled.

Julian flushed angrily. “What do you mean?”

“I heard aboud your liddle ceremony. Thoughd you could keep id quied, didn’d you? You’re married. And nod do a Bridish girl from a good family…”

Julian’s lips thinned into a tight line. He seemed furious.

Jennifer looked at her brother anxiously. “Jules, don’t! You don’t need to say anything!”

“It’s fine, Jen.” Pulling away from her, he drew himself up, and keeping his eyes firmly fixed on Lancelot, announced to the room in general, “I’m married, yes, and I’m proud of it. It was a private ceremony, not a secret one.” He glanced around. “Where are you, Joe? Come and be formally introduced.”

To the obvious astonishment of the Strudwicks’ old friends, the pancake-loving Canadian cut through the throng and came to stand at Julian’s side. “This is Joe,” said Julian, taking his hand and addressing the assembled guests. “My partner. We were married last month.”

All around the drawing-room jaws dropped.

“Extraordinary!” exclaimed Major Huwes-Guffing, his moustache twitching.

No one else uttered a word. No one but Jennifer, who clearly already knew about the ceremony and now kissed Joe’s cheek fondly, squeezed her brother’s hand and murmured, “I know you’ll both be very happy.”

“Foreign and gay…” sneered Lancelot at last. “I wonder which Grandfather would mosd have loathed? He will be spinning in his grave! But I congradulade you, Jules. Rules you oud of de whole shebang in any case!”

“Maybe. But until the vicar’s story can be verified, my sister is still in the picture.” Julian spat the words out like cherry stones. “As is her son.”

“Your sisder married a Welshman. A miner’s son! I hardly think Grandfather would have considered his family background good.”

Bristling with anger at this insult, Gethin said, “My family’s as good as yours, you toffee-nosed prat. Better, in fact. Want to come outside and let me prove it to you?”

“There’s no poind.” Lancelot sniffed dismissively. “Id’s too lade for your brad now, old chap. James has seen to thad. Fancy one’s father turning oud do be a vagrand! Seems straightforward enough to me. He’s dead. And now my pa’s popped off. The line’s preddy clear, wouldn’d you agree?”

Julian looked at his cousin shrewdly. “I wouldn’t be quite so sure about that. Where’s that Frenchman? What’s his name? Toulouse? I’d like to know a little more about that sister of his.”

At this, everyone looked towards the door, expecting to see Toulouse still sitting, cradling his injured hand in a bag of ice. But he wasn’t there. In fact, he wasn’t in the drawing-room at all.

“Where the devil has the fellow got to?” demanded Julian. “I want to ask him a few questions.”

As if in reply there was a sudden scream from the courtyard outside. Ghastly. Bloodcurdling. Bone chilling. And at that very same moment, every light bulb in Coldean Manor shattered.

GLASS
rained down on people’s heads as the house was plunged into the murky darkness of a stormy afternoon. There were shrieks, and cries of “Oh, I say!” and “What’s going on?” and “Who turned the lights orf?”

While the guests stood in the gloom picking shards of light bulb out of each other’s hair, Graham and I sped out of the room towards the source of the scream.

We found ourselves running along a corridor we hadn’t been down before. An open door at the far end led to the courtyard. It was banging on its hinges as the wind tore at it and barged into the house in furious, sodden gusts. Rain was pooling on the worn slate floor.

It was as slippery as an ice rink as we peered out over the cobbles. There was a small stone building to the right. An outside toilet, I guessed. Its door was wedged open by something. Someone. Most of the body was inside, hidden from view, but two feet in muddy trainers were sticking out into the yard, perfectly still. Rivulets of water ran down grooved soles. The jeans were slightly rucked up, and exposed ankles glistened wetly in the grey light.

No one but Toulouse had worn casual clothes to Coldean Manor. We knew it was him before we stepped outside for a closer look.

He’d tried to put the light on – that was all. His hand, damp from the rain, had connected with a loosely dangling wire, which was now melded to his palm. Not only had he blown all the manor’s light bulbs, he’d blown his own brains, too. By the time we reached him Toulouse was French toast.

As I bent down to look, Graham screamed, “Don’t touch him!”

“Why?”

“Don’t you remember anything about electrical circuitry?”

I trawled through my memory of various science lessons. Nothing came to light. “Frankly, no.”

“You ought to pay more attention. If you touch him, the current will pass through you, too. You want to end up like that?”

Graham fetched the wooden broom that was propped up by the back door and managed to prise apart the Frenchman’s hand and the wire. Then he checked for Toulouse’s non-existent pulse and slowly shook his head. At which point various people, including the four Strudwicks, appeared from inside the house. Rain and wind were temporarily forgotten as they stepped out to stare at Toulouse’s dead body.

“Oh my goodness!” exclaimed an elderly lady.

“He’s done for!” gasped another.

“How?”

“Electrocuted, by the looks of it.”

Major Huwes-Guffing said, “The whole place should have been rewired years ago. Lawrence would keep putting it orf.”

His companion asked, “Why on earth did he come out here? There are plenty of lavatories inside.”

It was actually a very good question. Which nobody answered. Not directly, anyway.

Julian looked at Lancelot. “And so your accuser dies. How very convenient.” His voice sliced the silence like a knife.

His cousin looked shifty. “Whadever do you mean?”

“Well, we can’t ask him about his sister now, can we?”

“Are you suggesding thad I…?” Lancelot was all outraged innocence. “This is gedding beyond a joke.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Julian,” snarled Lydia. “This was clearly an accident.”

“For heaven’s sake, let’s be reasonable,” soothed Jennifer. She stared sadly at Toulouse. “We can’t just leave the poor man there. We must bring him inside.”

Graham and I looked at each other uncomfortably. We both knew that people who die in suspicious circumstances shouldn’t be moved until the police have investigated the scene. But the flood had cut us off from the emergency services and one or two of the Strudwicks were looking dangerously close to violence. Now didn’t seem like a good time to interfere.

We kept our mouths shut, and this time it was Gethin and Joe who carried the body indoors and stashed it away in a bedroom. Meanwhile the guests trickled back inside, following the Strudwick cousins who seemed reluctant to take their eyes off one another. Lydia glowered at Jennifer. Julian glared at Lancelot. Mutual suspicion prickled between the two sides of the family, stiff and bristly as the broom Graham had used on Toulouse.

But there were immediate, practical things to distract them. The wind had escalated from gale to hurricane force in the last half-hour. It rattled ancient windows, and found its way through every ill-fitting frame and under every door. The house was groaning and creaking like a ship that had just hit an iceberg. There was a roaring fire in the drawing-room grate but the rest of the house was beginning to feel like a wind tunnel in Antarctica. It was also getting darker by the second.

“We need to change a fuse or something,” Jennifer said fretfully. A rumble of distant thunder made her forehead contract into deep anxiety lines. “Any idea where the box is, Lydia?”

“No, afraid not.”

“Lancelot? Julian? Anyone?”

It turned out that Graham was the only person present who’d ever paid sufficient attention to the subject of electrical circuitry. Armed with a torch, and with Jennifer and Marmaduke trailing along behind us, Graham first found and then examined the fuse box. To the accompaniment of increasingly loud and frequent thunder claps, he explained to Jennifer that the system was so antiquated, repairing it would require a particular kind of wire that had to be cut from a particular kind of roll. And of course none of the Strudwicks had any idea where such a thing could be found. After a fruitless search they eventually fell back on old-fashioned methods of lighting, i.e. candles and paraffin lamps and occasional flashes of lightning.

Sally managed to find an extra bag of coal stuffed in the back of the larder, so she stoked up the Aga and put pans of water on to boil. She’d been asked to supply everyone with fresh cups of tea and insisted that Graham and I stay with her and help. The water took ages to heat up and it was pretty much pitch-dark outside by the time we took fresh drinks and sandwich rations to the drawing-room. I was just carrying a full plate of thinly sliced cake towards Julian and Joe when I stumbled over a rucksack. It had been shoved under the “naughty chair” that Toulouse had been confined to but I’d managed to get my feet caught in the strap. I put the cake down so I could disentangle myself.