Murder at mistletoe mano.., p.9
Murder at Mistletoe Manor, page 9
‘I wanted to ask,’ he begins, as they draw level in the hall, ‘whether you have any views on what’s happened?’
Donal pauses. ‘I don’t know if it’s for me to say …’
‘Oh, come on.’ Nick attempts a jocular laugh. ‘You’ve as much right as anyone.’
‘I can talk if it’s in private,’ Donal says cautiously. ‘OK, come into the office if you like. I’m just going through the menus for the next couple of days, though it’s a bit tricky, not knowing when you’ll all be rescued.’
‘Us all?’ asks Nick. ‘You’ll be rescued with us, surely? You can’t stay here at Christmas with no guests.’
‘Ah, no, I actually can,’ Donal corrects him as they walk through the chill corridor. ‘I’ve nowhere else to go.’
Nick feels a pulse of discomfort. ‘Wouldn’t you want to go to family, or friends?’
‘Estranged from the family. Friends come and go, don’t they? I certainly don’t think of foisting myself upon them for Christmas. I’ll be fine,’ he says. ‘Once the Wi-Fi’s up and running again.’
‘Can I ask why you’re estranged?’ Nick asks. It’s intrusive, but it feels as though it might be important.
Donal opens the door to his office, a small, pale grey room with a desk, shelves of box files, staff rotas pinned up and two hard plastic chairs. There are no home comforts, not even a giant Sports Direct mug for tea or a photo on the desk. Donal appears to have made no mark on the room whatsoever.
‘Have a seat.’ Donal fiddles with the Venetian blind, then gives up. ‘Never works, this thing. Estranged … Oh, lots of reasons. Nothing I particularly want to go into, if that’s OK with you. I haven’t been back for years. I’ve got Aisling now,’ he adds quickly, as if family members are infinitely replaceable.
‘Do you have a photo of her?’
Donal pats his pockets. ‘Left my phone in my room. I’ll show you later.’
The disquiet Nick feels intensifies.
‘Donal, what brought you here? What were you doing before?’
‘The job came up, and I was glad to get it. Beautiful place, friendly guests …’
And hidden miles away from whatever you left behind, thinks Nick.
‘Before, I was working in various jobs. Here and there.’ Donal pauses. ‘If you don’t mind me asking, Nick, how’s this relevant?’
‘I’m just trying to get a picture of your life,’ says Nick. Donal is at his desk, fiddling with a glass paperweight. It looks heavy and he has a sudden vision of Donal’s raised arm, the dull thud as he brings it down hard on bone. The paranoia drifting through the manor like smoke is affecting him too, but Nick has to stay calm. If he can’t find out why Penelope was killed, and by whom, they’re all at risk.
‘I could just as easily ask you,’ Donal points out. ‘You say you’re a journalist, but we’ve no proof of that. You show up out of a blizzard and immediately wheedle your way in, getting on with everyone, asking your questions, stepping in to help. For all I know, your wife and baby don’t exist, you’ve had a bitter grudge against Penelope for years, for reasons unknown, and you decided you’d track her down here and finally bump her off. Good old Nick, friends with everyone, offering to investigate – it can’t possibly be him, can it?’
Donal glares. Nick knows he’s right; without Wi-Fi he has no way of proving his identity – even his driving licence is in the car. ‘Look,’ he says, eventually, ‘I can’t prove I didn’t do it any more than you can. But think about the facts.’ Nick holds up a hand as Donal begins to speak. He remembers the intensity on Lorraine’s face as she said, ‘I’d keep an eye on that one.’
‘One, you know the hotel inside out – you’d know how to get around in the dark, where each room is, and who’s sleeping where. The rest of us have never been here before, apart from Matilda.’
‘Well, I think we can rule her out,’ says Donal grudgingly. ‘Penelope could have knocked her out with a gentle tap on the nose.’
Nick almost smiles. ‘Two, you have a giant bunch of keys, and can access anyone’s room at any time. The rest of us would have had to steal the right key and find the right door in the early hours.’
‘Unless Branson did it,’ says Donal flatly. ‘Has nobody ever told you, Nick, that it’s always the husband?’
‘Except his story about using the other room checks out,’ Nick says. ‘His stuff was in there – he said he was looking for one that was unlocked to sleep in.’
‘Are you suggesting he couldn’t have killed her and then moved rooms?’
‘No, but there was no blood on him. When we spoke afterwards, I looked at his nails, his hair – nothing.’
‘Because he’d have had a shower after killing her!’ Donal says heatedly. ‘Honestly, none of this proves a single thing.’
‘So who do you think did it?’
Donal finally lets go of the paperweight and leans back. ‘Someone I don’t entirely trust,’ he says. ‘Someone I’ve been watching since they arrived, who doesn’t appear to be quite who they say they are. You don’t work in customer service for this long without getting a good handle on whether people are truthful.’
‘Who?’
Donal stands up. ‘I’m not going to tell you tonight,’ he says. ‘There’s something I want to check out – I need to do a bit more sniffing around. There’s something I need to find before I can be sure. I was going to look this morning when I was cleaning, but someone came past. But I’ll know by morning, and if I’m right, we’ll talk then.’
Fury suffuses Nick. ‘For God’s sake, Donal, there’s a killer wandering around! The more I know, the better I can help you! This isn’t the time for some solo Famous Five mission.’
‘If it was a Famous Five mission, it wouldn’t be solo, would it?’ Donal relents. ‘When I discover it’s them, I’ll know I can trust you. But until then, I’m saying nothing – except that I’m almost certain it’s not Colt. He’s never given me the slightest reason to distrust him.’
‘I’m happy to hear that,’ says Nick, meaning it.
‘And now, if you don’t mind, I’ll get on with the menus for him,’ Donal adds. ‘Fish pie tonight. There’s a load of prawns in the freezer that need using up.’
‘Here’s hoping it won’t be poisoned,’ says Nick, trying for a smile, but Donal’s expression remains stony as he waves Nick away and returns to his papers.
‘Nick!’ says Violet as he returns to the drawing room. Branson is still staring blankly at the smouldering logs in the fireplace. ‘We’ve got a plan.’
‘Oh?’
‘We all know we might be in danger, so we’re all going to our rooms at the same time – nine thirty – and jamming furniture against the doors. If anyone tries to break in, we scream, and hopefully someone hears and we catch the killer.’
Nick thinks this sounds like a disastrous plan. The cold, alien mind that would use the festive star as a murder weapon then risk presenting it to a child is not going to be stopped by a rickety Victorian desk.
‘What if nobody hears?’ asks Alan.
‘Then we get the chance to react,’ says Violet. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a knife from the kitchen and sleeping with it next to me.’
‘Hold on,’ Nick says, ‘don’t you think it’d be safer if we’re all together? Earlier on, some of us were discussing bringing down mattresses and taking turns to keep watch.’
‘Oh, I can’t sleep with other people breathing,’ says Destiny, horrified. ‘It’s like torture to me. I have misophonia, I can’t cope with certain noises. Snoring makes me feel physically sick.’
‘Well, better snoring than screaming, surely,’ says David pleasantly. Emily has headphones on again and is leafing through a large book, presumably from the library, showing old-fashioned illustrations of plants and wildlife.
‘What do you think, Branson?’ Nick asks, and he starts, and half turns his head.
‘I want to be by myself,’ he says. ‘You all do what you want to do, but I’ll be in Rowan again. I won’t sleep anyway.’
‘I must say, the idea of sleeping on just a mattress sounds rather painful at my advanced age …’ puts in Matilda querulously, and Lorraine agrees:
‘Oof, yes, absolute disaster for my neuralgia.’
Nick wants to shake them. We’re at risk of being murdered and you’re wittering about back pain. He breathes in and out slowly. ‘We may be able to contact the police tomorrow – this would be for just one night, and it would mean we’re all safe. We could have a rota system for the watchers.’
‘But, Nick,’ Violet speaks up. ‘If the murderer’s here, they could be the one watching over us in the early hours – ready to strike.’
‘That’s true.’ He has already considered this. ‘But it’s unlikely they’d do it in a room full of people.’
‘Because none of us will get a wink of sleep!’ Violet snaps. ‘Look, I’m going to bed in my room, with a knife, and the rest of you can take your chances.’
‘I am too,’ says Matilda, and Alan and Lorraine mutter agreement.
Here we go, Nick thinks. End of the cosy fireside chats, start of Lord of the Flies, every man for himself. That didn’t take long.
Finally, David speaks up. ‘I think Nick’s idea is good,’ he says. ‘But if nobody’s keen …’
There’s a painful silence. David glances unhappily at Emily. ‘Then let’s hope the furniture holds out,’ he says eventually.
14
Three days till Christmas Eve
Nick cannot remember a less pleasant night. At two in the morning he’s still wide awake, heart bumping noticeably against his ribs, aware of every creak and cough in the snow-bound old manor house. The desk is shoved against his locked door, the chair balanced on top, and he’s lifted the wall mirror down and placed it against the door too, hoping that if anyone forces the lock, the glass will shatter and wake him. Though of course, he’ll also be providing the intruder with a ready-made weapon. He sighs, rolls to the edge of the tumbled bedsheets and stands up. He wishes he’d borrowed Jingle for the night; at least the cat would be a comforting presence, but after the fish pie – which was delicious and so far, at least, seemingly unpoisoned – Emily bagged him and carted him upstairs like a furry cushion.
Outside, the rising drifts are making monstrous, hump-backed shapes beyond the buried terrace. Maybe in the morning he can find an old TV hidden in the house, or a radio they can at least tune to a news station. The whole country must be at a standstill. For a moment, he worries about Harriet, whether she’s able to reach the shops, but of course, London isn’t going to be under seven-foot snowdrifts. The city’s light dusting has probably melted back to its usual grey chill by now, a simple winter backdrop to noise and life and people, glittering lights and packed buses and tinny Christmas songs. The thought of it is like remembering another planet in a distant solar system. He closes the shutters again and turns back to bed. There’s no noise but the occasional clanking of the pipes. He turns off the lamp and waits, tense, for sleep. In its absence, he considers the possibilities. Who does Donal suspect? he wonders. And was he probing their personal belongings while they were all eating rich fish pie and exchanging small, sorrowful remarks?
Someone must know who owns this place. Donal was unforthcoming – Nick had vaguely assumed a distant conglomerate, or perhaps a small, local hotel chain. But there’s no corporate branding here. Everything feels as though it’s appeared organically at some point in Mistletoe Manor’s history. Some of the furniture dates back two hundred years or more, as do the books in the library, and there’s no evidence of coherent interior design, paint charts and carpet samples – it’s as though the house simply evolved on its own.
In the morning, he thinks, he’ll press Donal on whose place it actually is, and whether they ever visit. Because if they do, it’s not completely out of the question that they might have made it through the snow before it blocked the way in and out – and that they might, for reasons entirely unknown, have committed murder. With the slightly reassuring thought that the killer might not be any of the guests or the staff at all, Nick finally drifts into an uneasy sleep, and dreams about losing Cara in a snowdrift. He can hear her crying, but no matter how much snow he scoops away or how frantically he runs, panting, he never gets closer to where she lies hidden.
He wakes with a choking gasp, and sees it’s six thirty. Nick sighs. He may as well get up, to begin another day trapped inside the manor.
He’s the first down to breakfast, and is relieved to see that Donal is also up and about, laying the long table and setting out baskets of rolls and pats of butter. The air smells pleasingly of fresh coffee, and the pine scent of the Christmas tree has filled the hall and corridors. Nick might almost feel festive, if it weren’t for his awareness of Penelope’s body, lying in its frozen shroud behind the kitchen. I know what you did. Today, he’s determined to find out what she might have done – and why it was devastating enough for someone to kill her.
‘Did you find what you were looking for?’ he asks Donal, who shakes his head.
‘No. But I’ll look again later.’
‘Are you sure you can’t tell me? It would be very helpful.’
‘’Fraid not. I might be wrong. And I don’t trust anyone yet.’
Nick is about to argue, when the sound of hectic panting becomes audible and Destiny arrives with Gaia, whose tongue is lolling from the side of her jaws.
‘Morning,’ she says. ‘I didn’t get a wink of sleep, did you? Even my hatha yoga flow session didn’t work. Gaia was awake half the night too. She could definitely tell something was wrong.’
Nick wonders whether her mistress thumping about in a series of complex poses might be to blame.
‘I hope everyone’s OK,’ he says. ‘I’m not sure I’ll relax until we’re all assembled for breakfast.’
‘Well, Colt’s all right,’ says Donal. ‘I just saw him frying bacon.’
Destiny pulls a face of disgust. So far, Nick thinks, Destiny seems to have no sense of humour whatsoever, and is almost a parody of what Harriet calls ‘woo women’. He wants to talk to Destiny next – could she be the person Donal suspects? Turning up and staging a faint, so she’d be brought into the heart of the group, befriending Penelope and borrowing her clothes, meaning she’d get a good look at the layout of her bedroom? None of them really knows anything about each other, as Donal pointed out. She may claim to be a yoga teacher, but for all they know, she could be a KGB spy or an escaped prisoner.
Today, she’s back in her draperies: a long, ethnic cardigan over a turtleneck and leggings, with a swoopy black skirt and those tiny ballet shoes. She looks too small to cause anyone harm – but yoga builds core muscles, he remembers Nuala, who ran their antenatal classes, telling them.
‘Destiny,’ Nick begins, ‘I’m trying to get a sense of where everyone was the other night, and their relationship to Penelope, for the police.’
‘Is that because you’re a “journalist”?’ Destiny asks quietly. ‘A member of the MSM, who thinks it’s fine to hack phones and spread establishment lies about innocent people? I prefer to do my own research, thanks.’
Yes, right down a YouTube rabbit hole where the algorithm feeds you endless conspiracy theories.
‘Well, I’m not really that kind of journalist,’ he says mildly. ‘I’ve won awards for reporting on social injustice. Anyway, I’d appreciate your thoughts.’
‘Fine. But don’t think you’ll be taking my photo.’
‘Why would I need it?’ He’s genuinely puzzled.
‘Because I’m pretty sure I’ll find my way into your biased newspaper report on what happened here. I’d rather have my name and face kept out of it.’
‘I’m not writing a bloody feature about it!’ he says, frustrated. ‘I’m trying to stop anyone else being killed!’
She glares, and even Gaia studies him with a vague air of betrayal.
The door opens and admits Alan, Lorraine and David, with Emily trotting in behind him.
‘Morning,’ says David on a yawn. He looks grey with tiredness. In fact, only Emily seems cheerful.
‘Hello, Gaia!’ she cries, and throws herself down beside the little dog, scratching its scooped ears. ‘Jingle slept on my bed all night!’ she confides. ‘It was like having a cuddly toy, except Daddy says I’m too old for those now.’
‘I didn’t exactly say that, poppet.’
‘You’re never too old for a teddy bear,’ says Matilda, overhearing as she enters. She’s perfectly coiffed as ever, but there are lilac shadows around her eyes. Today she’s wearing a fitted red wool dress, with a sparkling brooch in the shape of a robin pinned to the shoulder.
‘You look so Christmassy!’ says Emily, in awe.
‘Well, I like to dress up a bit for important occasions.’ Matilda smiles at her.
‘I like dressing up, too,’ Emily tells her. ‘I dressed as Where’s Wally for school once, but I was the only one, so everyone knew where I was.’
Nick laughs. He looks up as Branson comes in.
‘How are you, Bran, my love?’ Lorraine asks, pouring tea. ‘Any sleep?’
Branson sighs heavily and collapses into a chair. He’s wearing the same jumper and jeans as yesterday, and he looks unshowered.
‘Not much. Hell, it’s all so unreal. She was the sweetest woman, the kindest person. The worst thing is, Pete and her parents still don’t know. They’re so frail, this will kill them … and they’re not well off, they wouldn’t accept any money from us to make their lives easier …’ He sighs.
‘Awfully difficult,’ puts in Matilda from across the table. ‘One should never have to suffer privations in old age. Thankfully, my late husband provided for me.’
‘What did he do for a living?’ asks Nick, interested. Matilda waves a hand.
‘Oh, something terribly dull in the City,’ she says. ‘I was never quite sure what, exactly.’
Nick tries to imagine Harriet not knowing what he does for a living, rather than being subjected to his nightly rants about ‘bloody Rob Kershaw and his inability to recognise a good story if it bit him on the arse’. He should rein it in a bit, he thinks guiltily.
