A christmas murder of cr.., p.1
A Christmas Murder of Crows, page 1
First published in 2022 by D M Austin, in partnership with whitefox publishing
www.wearewhitefox.com
Copyright © D M Austin, 2022
ISBN 9781915036506
Also available as an ebook
ISBN 9781915036513
THE AUTHOR asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the author.
Edited, designed and typeset by Jill Sawyer Phypers
Cover design by Dominic Forbes
Project management by whitefox
For AJ
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Floor Plans of Crowthwaite Castle
Character List
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Epilogue
FLOOR PLANS OF CROWTHWAITE CASTLE
CHARACTER LIST
SIR HENRY DE TROUVILLE, Lord of the Manor of Crowthwaite and Tenth Baronet of Crowthwaite Castle, in the county of Westmorland
LADY VIOLET DE TROUVILLE, his wife
AVA RICKARD, Sir Henry’s eldest niece
DAVID RICKARD, Ava’s husband
BERTHA TAYLOR, Sir Henry’s second niece
STEPHEN TAYLOR, Bertha’s husband
THEIR CHILDREN: BETSY – age six
ROSE – age four
CLARA DE TROUVILLE, Sir Henry’s youngest niece
CHESTER JOHNSON, Clara’s guest
SUSAN MARKHAM, Sir Henry’s distant cousin
JAMES BOWES, friend of the family
THOMAS (TOM) ATKINSON, Sir Henry’s private secretary
FAWCETT, butler
GEORGE TURNER, Sir Henry’s valet
MAY CARVER, Lady Violet’s maid
IVY BRIDGES, housemaid
LIZZIE ‘SILVER-TONE’, housemaid
PEARL BELL, barmaid at The Black Feather
KENNETH WATSON, Chief Constable of Cumberland and Westmorland Constabulary
GILBERT DUNDERDALE, Detective Inspector of Manchester City Police
CHARLES COLLINS, Sergeant of Appleby Police, Westmorland
ERNEST SHAW, Constable of Appleby Police, Westmorland
JOHN DONNELLY, Constable of Appleby Police, Westmorland
JOHN ATKINS, Sir Henry’s solicitor
PETER BARNES, Chief Constable Watson’s nephew
PROLOGUE
GILBERT DUNDERDALE DIDN’T only wake to Christmas alone but earlier than intended due to the urgent knocks on his mid-terrace front door.
‘By Athena!’ he protested, not best pleased while looping the belt of his dressing gown into a knot. ‘What’s the reasoning behind this, Jonesy?’
‘The motor’s waiting, sir… Chief said you’re needed up North.’
‘We are up North,’ the detective inspector of Manchester City Police reminded the constable.
‘Pardon, sir, I meant further north. Someone from somewhere back of beyond’s dead and Chief said, nevertheless, it matters.’
‘Hmm,’ Dunderdale replied, and, turning around, began to undo the short-lived knot.
ONE
‘DO YER KNOW what the collective noun is for a gatherin’ o’ crows?’ the barmaid asked the traveller while pouring his ale.
‘Haven’t the foggiest.’
‘Murder. A murder o’ crows. Not many people know it, but ask anyone in Crowthwaite and we’ll know it.’
Over the rim of his tankard, the traveller regarded the bonny young woman.
‘If heat hadn’t taken Grandad this summer, he’d be sittin’ in his chair opposite and while he warmed his worn joints – his back legs as he liked to call ’em, he’d be suppin’ ale and puffin’ away on his pipe and tellin’ a story. ’Course, he used to say “word” for a gatherin’ o’ crows. Sir Henry de Trouville – that’s ninth not tenth baronet – told him the correct name for it, but Grandad wouldn’t have it. Do yer know what the word is for a gatherin’ o’ crows? he’d have said… and then, right this minute, he’d be tellin’ yer a story.’
‘Of a murder of crows? Then why don’t you take his place?’
After topping up the traveller’s tankard and placing the ceramic pitcher on the table beside him, the barmaid settled down onto the threadbare seat cushion that still held Grandad’s imprint. ‘Search the history books,’ she began, ‘and yer’ll discover Crowthwaite in’t reign o’ King John, hidin’ in a vast area of huntin’ land, but try as yer might to travel back further and yer’ll soon see the ink dries out. You, if yer divn’t mind me sayin’, are fortunate to have travelled here in body and mind for now yer’ll hear words passed down from afore Christianity itself reached us lands… From long afore when these parts were thick with forest…’ Leaning forward to stoke the fire in the open grate, the storyteller’s voice was drawn up the chimney; detangling from heavier particles it was carried away on the cold dusk air. Drifting north-east, her voice followed a gentle rise from where, as time had travelled through millennia, trees had been plucked and the ground gutted to make way for settlement. Barely above roof level the waves mounted the lower contour of Cross Fell, until a magnet from the east altered their course: the manor of Crowthwaite, nestled within the remaining forest like the frog within the horse’s shoe. Before the barmaid’s words could reach the forest edge they snagged on the thorn of a lonely, bare hawthorn, where a black-and-grey-hooded inquisitor, perched on a gnarled branch, cocked its head to the valley below, its beaded eye picking out two white dots cutting erratically through twilight shadow in perfect parallel.
* * *
‘Yes, the journey’s been tiresome, but I was referring to you. Look, you know full well these tracks weren’t built for speed never mind motor cars!’
‘You promised a quiet Christmas,’ David said, ‘just the two of us to see in nineteen twenty-four.’
‘I never made any such promise.’
‘Then you should have.’
‘Uncle Henry would never countenance our not joining the family for Christmas.’
‘Because, Ava, dear wife, you indulge him – as does everyone else.’
‘What was I saying…? Oh, yes, tiresome! What I don’t understand is for someone who professes a dislike for family gatherings, you’ve certainly driven with enthusiasm.’
‘I’m fed up of driving, that’s what this is,’ her husband corrected her while negotiating a few houses clinging to an s-bend. ‘I want this journey to end!’
‘You were the one who insisted on driving.’
‘Because the alternative would have meant being cooped up in a train compartment along with your sister and her husband.’
‘David!’ Ava cried, her gloved fingers grappling at the blanket tucked round her lap.
‘Damn bump! Catches me out every time…’ And while David proceeded to mentally redesign the road layout – ‘How does a bit of ditch water warrant a bridge, that’s what I’d like to know!’ – Ava acknowledged she should not allow Uncle Henry to dictate her life.
The obstacle to the Rickards’ marriage being a happy one was rooted in Ava having failed to disguise a habitual yearning for the manor, the childhood home provided to his three nieces by Sir Henry de Trouville upon his brother’s death. Worse still, without a seed there can be no germination, and Ava knew someone had planted a seed in David’s mind early in their acquaintance that Crowthwaite would always hold another draw for the woman whom the young, handsome, wealthy David Rickard had fallen for. A draw which, at this moment, was precipitating a collision of heart and stomach not even the bridge had produced.
David had split their journey down from London into three days, the route planned so they’d incorporated two overnight stays with friends. The first two days she’d found tolerable, with glimpses of her husband’s old self, but during today’s stage he’d regressed, and Ava had observed a correlation between a reduction in mileage and an increase of criticisms. The bridge had given way to tarmacadam – rather, the lack of – before tarmacadam had laid the foundation for a tirade on Westmorland County Council’s reluctance to invest in arterial roads. ‘The construction alone would create employment,’ he concluded, finally reducing speed as the car entered the village of Crowthwaite. ‘God knows the poor souls have need of work.’
Smoke was billowing from one of The Black Feather’s chimneys. Outside, under lantern light, the pub landlord was balanced atop a pair of wooden stepladders, clutching one end of a garland. Seeing the black sedan’s approach, he inclined his head. Ava returned his greeting and David, misreading her beautiful smile as being for the man holding the garland’s other end, slammed his foot down on the pedal. The large motor car surged forward and David, no longer spouting verbal criticism, drove up the main track that split the green in two (the cottages long ago having spilled out to its edges). Where the track diverged at the height of the village, David kept right to trace the Pennines’ lower contour to the east. The light now rapidly fading, the headlights alone directed their journey’s end and Ava knew it wouldn’t be lon g until two large stone posts would embrace her return to Crowthwaite Castle.
Suddenly, a lonely jackdaw perched on a gnarled branch of an ancient hawthorn took flight, giving a keen ‘jack’ while its wings displaced the still and silent air. ‘And that’s another raucous I could well do without,’ David said, his voice returned. ‘Damn crows!’
* * *
A few miles back, Sir Henry de Trouville’s chauffeur was driving along the same track.
A girl of four broke off from singing and, reaching through the sliding glass window to the front passenger seat, tugged a strand of dark hair. ‘’Ots and ’ots of toys, Mummy?’
‘Of course there’ll be lots of toys, silly!’ her elder sister by two years answered. ‘Father Christmas always brings lots of presents to Uncle Henry’s, doesn’t he, Daddy?’
The father playfully pinched her plump cheeks. ‘He most certainly does, Besty Betsy.’
‘There!’ Betsy delighted in telling her sister. ‘Now sing, Rose… A day or two ago, The story I must tell / I went out on the snow, And on my back I fell; A gent was riding by / In a one-horse open sleigh, He laughed as there I—?’
‘He laughed as there I sprawling lie, But quickly drove away…’ her father prompted. ‘Come, Rosie Posie… Jingle bells, jingle bells…’
Betsy was well into the next verse – ‘…Take the girls tonight / And sing this sleighing song…’ – when her mother complained to her husband with an ‘Oh, Stephen…!’ about teaching the girls ‘that’ version.
‘Look, Betsy!’ Stephen exclaimed, disregarding his wife as the motor car cruised up to The Black Feather, where a garland of holly and ivy was bedecked in soft light. Clambering across her father’s lap and pushing her sister aside, Betsy planted her hands against the glass and launched into another song: ‘The holly and the ivy, Now are both well grown…’
In the doorway, the bonny barmaid reached up on her tiptoes to kiss her companion on the lips – a bunch of mistletoe hanging above their heads. ‘Tom and Pearl?’ the mother questioned the chauffeur, who, his eyes on the track ahead, said nothing.
‘I told you of my suspicions, old girl,’ Stephen said.
‘Sing, Daddy, sing! The rising of the sun, The running of the deer, The playing of the merry groan, Sweet singing in the choir…’ The chauffeur, turning right onto the village green track, gave a sotto voce groan at father and daughter’s blasphemy.
Crowthwaite Castle and its surrounding forest came into view as one silhouette against a cloudless sky, and Betsy and Rose burst into applause. Upon opening their door, the chauffeur was almost unbalanced in their hurry to get out of the car; then it was Susan Markham’s turn. The distant cousin of the de Trouvilles, who’d been standing in the outside porch awaiting their arrival, was likewise unsettled when she became tightly bound in a skirt hug. ‘Oh my, Bertha,’ she said to their mother, ‘what it is to be young!’
‘Look at that… The old man’s finally gone and done it!’ Stephen greeted Susan, referring to the weathered red sandstone arch and its newly carved coat of arms, whose edges, accentuated by the shadows cast by the lamplight, were as clearly defined as its predecessor, circa 1340.
‘Didn’t you say,’ Susan teased, ‘our Creator would be more likely to witness you eat your own tail before that creature ever ate its own again?’
‘Really, Susan!’ Bertha said.
‘Sometimes, Suzie, a man likes to be proved wrong.’ Without warning Stephen tickled Rose, then Betsy, under the arms, loosing both from Susan’s skirt. Betsy pursued Rose through the vestibule and into the great hall, where four little shoes rapped across the stone-flagged floor. David, already sitting by a roaring fire, was unprepared for his youngest niece as she catapulted herself into his arms – ‘Uckie David!’ – almost knocking the whisky glass out of his hand. Laughing, he placed the glass down and proceeded to plant raspberry blows on any visible skin until Betsy demanded it was her turn, whereupon Rose, spotting the Christmas tree, surrendered ‘Uckie David’.
‘Do break it to me gently,’ Bertha said, wishing to know who her younger sister Clara had brought with her this Christmas.
‘According to Susan,’ David said between blowing raspberries, ‘a jazz player.’
‘According to Clara’s introduction,’ Susan corrected.
‘A jazz player!’ the Taylors echoed – Stephen intrigued, Bertha shocked.
‘Mummy, no toys!’
‘Silly… Rose,’ Betsy gasped between raspberries, ‘Father Christmas… comes… on… Christmas… Eve. Enough… Uncle… David!’
‘One more for good luck… There! Now, why don’t you show Rose the bearded man’s favourite Christmas tree.’ Jumping down from David’s lap, Betsy took her sister’s hand and led her across the cavernous hall towards the drawing room.
‘Mind you don’t touch any of the adults’ boring presents already delivered by the elves,’ Stephen cautioned, ‘the magical dust will give you away!’
‘I know, Daddy!’
‘A jazz player,’ Bertha repeated. ‘You don’t mean…?’
David, amused by his sister-in-law’s discomfort, smiled.
‘And what of Uncle’s latest wife?’
‘His usual type,’ a voice answered, its vessel descending the grand staircase.
‘Clara!’ Bertha embraced her sister.
‘Though when I say “usual” I’m obviously not referring to sweet, dearest Catherine – bless her soul, wherever it wanders! – who had only her family’s heritage to recommend her.’
‘And why is the “usual type” not here to greet us?’ Bertha asked.
‘Snoozing. You’ll have the honour at dinner. David, darling’ – Clara gave her cigarette holder two sharp taps – ‘I hadn’t realised you were here… Where’s dearest Ava?’
David removed a lighter from his pocket to light his wife’s youngest sister’s cigarette, her eyes not leaving his. ‘With your uncle.’
‘Of course she is.’
‘But what of our new aunt?’ Bertha broke in, flumping down onto the settee.
‘Oh, must we talk of her! Why is it, Bertha,’ Clara wondered, while opting for the arm of David’s chair, ‘Uncle who sees everyone through those critical lenses of his has blurred vision when it comes to the gold-digger?’
‘I think we know the answer to that one, eh, David?’ Stephen said.
‘I think I’ll reserve my judgment.’
‘Oh, David,’ Clara said, her voice huskier than usual, ‘you know full well what to expect.’
‘Do I?’
‘Yes. You. Do.’
‘Very well… I’ll play along. I expect ripe lips the colour of a virgin’s blood, curvaceous child-bearing hips and a bosom that threatens to expel the sweetest of milk, in which case, if I’m right, the old man miraculously continues to enjoy twenty-twenty vision.’
Stephen chuckled.
‘A most accurate description – isn’t it, darling?’ Clara said, directing the tag to her guest as he stepped off the bottom step.
‘Of who?’ he asked in a smooth southern American accent.
‘Whom,’ David muttered into his drink.
‘Really, Chester – wife number three!’
‘Her! Yeah. A picture of virility.’
‘Fertility.’
Susan gave David a warning glance, but she needn’t have worried for David’s correction rolled off the shoulder of Chester’s dinner jacket.
‘One child would suffice,’ Stephen commented.
‘Providing it’s male,’ Clara added.
‘Oh man, I’ve never seen a bedroom so huge!’ Chester remarked.
‘It’s teeny, darling, half the size of mine…’ Clara said.
‘Get outta here!’
‘… which is half the size of Ava’s.’
Chester looked to Bertha. ‘No way!’
‘No, that’s Bertha, not Ava. And “yes way”. Ava’s room’s always been in the east tower apartment – isn’t that so, David?’
‘Really, Clara, does one speak of such topics?’ Bertha lectured as David converted ‘Ava’s room’ to ‘our room’.
‘Oh, pooh, Boots, don’t be a snob!’ Clara said, addressing Bertha with the nickname she’d given her when the three sisters were still adolescents – when their uncle had upbraided Bertha to re-tie her laces. ‘Careful you don’t snap them… Boots!’ Clara had taunted as she watched the strain Bertha was putting her riding bootlaces through. ‘You’d take off a boot and let Uncle kick you in the buttocks with it, if he only asked!’ There wasn’t a progressive bone in Bertha’s body, Clara thought. ‘Yes, Uncle. No, Uncle.’ Once Mr Stephen Taylor came on the scene it was ‘Yes, Stephen. No, Stephen.’ Just the sort of compliance Stephen was looking for in a wife. He soon had a ring slipped on Bertha’s finger and she, only too readily, swapped her dreary boots for a pair of wedding slippers. Stephen had become the patriarch whom Bertha sought to please – Uncle Henry had been relegated.
