The inheritance, p.6
The Inheritance, page 6
It was starting to feel like the semblance of a plan. Sarah would approach each of the suspects and probe them with questions to try to … what was it the police used to say? Eliminate them from her enquiries. One by one, she would discount them, until she had whittled their numbers down to just a single prime suspect whose guilt she would then have to prove. That was the theory; all she had to do was put it into practice somehow – which wasn’t going to be easy.
Where to begin? Perhaps by talking to the police who’d investigated Lucy’s disappearance in the first place to see what they knew, before she then tried to trace the suspects. Would they be willing to share information with her though? Police officers might not want to assist a member of the public who was undertaking a personal investigation into an unsolved murder, but she could at least try to contact them and see if anything came from it.
Sarah turned on her laptop and started searching for information about the detectives on the original case. Eventually she found an article by an investigative journalist who had spent time looking back into Lucy Woodfell’s disappearance. The reporter bemoaned the fact that police officers involved in the case had refused to speak about it to him, even decades after the event. Detectives at the time had been left bruised by negative newspaper coverage, but the reporter claimed that wasn’t the only reason they remained silent. According to the journalist’s sources, they had been ordered from on high never to talk about the case. This was supposedly to spare the feelings of a humbled but still influential family: the establishment had closed ranks to protect them. The official line was that there were no ‘active lines of enquiry’ or any ‘solid evidence of wrongdoing’, and that was that. There was a ‘veil of silence’ surrounding this cold case even now, which the journalist claimed he had never encountered before, despite having reported on many important and contentious cold cases during his career.
Great, thought Sarah. Would getting in touch with the local force as a private individual work, if they wouldn’t even give a comment to a respected journalist? But she really wanted to talk to someone who had worked the case. That way she could work out the difference between the facts and some of the myths surrounding it that had built up over the years.
This was going to prove difficult, especially as everybody involved would have retired or died by now. There might be no one left who could tell her what actually happened, even if they would speak to her. She found the names of two of the police officers assigned to the case and quickly learned that Detective Inspector Mountjoy was dead, but she eventually found a Facebook profile for his Detective Sergeant, Edward Crozier, after going down a list of Edward Croziers from all over the world. She scrutinized his profile photo then compared it to the old black-and-white images of him standing with his DI which had been taken from newspapers and posted on a blog page. She was sure this was the same man, and his page confirmed he was a retired police officer still living in the area. It also showed her a possible way in.
Edward Crozier was helping to raise funds for a local community centre but they were still well short of the total needed. Sarah sent a £50 donation to the fund he had set up, along with a direct message to Crozier, promising more if he got in touch with her with further information about the project and leaving her mobile number.
Next, she turned her attention to members of the family. Evie had warned her niece not to contact the Woodfells until she had a reason to compel them to speak to her. Clearly, Sarah lacked that, but she wanted to meet Lucy’s siblings face to face so she could form her own impression of them. Perhaps her aunt would be wrong and they would cooperate, if only to deny their own involvement in her disappearance. If they were innocent, then why wouldn’t they?
Dickie had provided her with addresses for Oliver, Freddie and Sephy because they all still lived in separate cottages that had once belonged to the estate. Sarah sat down at her aunt’s writing desk and wrote three letters to the Woodfell siblings. In each, she explained that she was Evelyn Moore’s heir, leaving out all references to the conditional nature of that inheritance. Sarah claimed to be fascinated by their family history and the manor house. She told them she would love to come and see them or possibly invite them to return to their family home, so she could gain an insight into Cragsmoor Manor from them. She hoped that approach might appeal to one or perhaps all of the siblings. She would post her letters that morning and wait for their response.
Sephy’s husband, Captain Ramsay, was one of the other three suspects Evelyn had identified but he had died within a couple of years of Lucy’s disappearance. Neither of the other two suspects were family members, so tracking them down might not be easy. She had no idea where Warren Evans – the teenage boy spotted on the beach that day – might be now or how to contact him. She spent some time trying to find any trace of Warren online but there was none. Tracking down David Young, the convicted murderer, might prove easier. He was back in the community, but would it be possible to speak to him? More importantly, was it safe to try?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
When Sarah returned to Evelyn’s memoir, she expected to pick up the story where it left off, talking about hidden priest holes, but it took a decidedly unexpected turn.
As the man emerged from the lake in the grounds of Cragsmoor Manor, I expected to see his lower half clothed in a bathing suit, but no. He was completely naked and thoroughly unabashed by it. After the initial shock, I had to make a conscious effort to look away for fear of making my fascination obvious to him and my friend.
‘For God’s sake, Freddie, cover up!’ Lucy implored. ‘We have guests!’
So, this was her older brother, back from school, but we had not seen him up at the house. It was an unusual first meeting.
‘Don’t be such a prude, Squirt.’ It sounded like a well-worn family nickname. ‘Why don’t you join me?’
Lucy was appalled. ‘Because we don’t have costumes.’
‘Don’t need ’em. Come on, the water is wonderful this morning. You’ll love it.’
Lucy didn’t answer immediately and I experienced a sense of absolute panic, in case she agreed and started stripping off in front of him and I might be expected to follow her example.
‘We are not as Bohemian as you,’ said Lucy.
‘If you didn’t have a guest, you would be peeling off your dress now.’ He reached for her hem with a damp hand and pulled it upwards, exposing her legs.
‘Freddie!’ Lucy squealed in chastisement as she tugged it down again, but there was another emotion there too, a kind of shocked amusement that her brother could be so outrageous, standing there naked and trying to pull her dress up. She stepped away from him as he let go of it and he turned towards me.
‘I’m sure she’s seen it all before.’ Of course I hadn’t, but I tried to act as if I had.
‘No, Freddie, she hasn’t,’ said Lucy.
‘Then I am happy to advance her education.’ He scooped a towel from the grass but instead of wrapping it around himself, he used it to wipe the water from his face then dab at his hair. He was completely on show and stayed that way even as he drew nearer, water still dripping from an impressive torso, a mop of blond, very damp hair above an obviously handsome face, sporting a grin the girls back at St Hilda’s would have described as ‘rakish’. He was confident to the point of arrogance and I was confused as to whether I found this attractive or not. The spectacle he presented was distracting enough as it was, without taking his personality into consideration too.
He thrust out a hand and said, ‘Freddie Woodfell. You must be the Squirt’s latest project.’ As if I was a painting or an unweeded garden.
‘Evie,’ I managed and he clasped my hand with his still damp one and shook it firmly.
‘Oh, do stop showing off.’ Lucy was exasperated by his insouciance but he just laughed and strolled past us. We watched as he walked away, still using the towel to dry his hair, leaving me with an uninterrupted view of a pale but muscular posterior which made me feel quite giddy.
We continued our walk around the lake. ‘Does your brother always swim …’ I was going to say ‘in the nuddy’, but I realized how prudish it would make me sound.
‘Like that?’ she finished my sentence. ‘He is a complete exhibitionist. Oliver’s the same. My sister used to do it too, would you believe? Freddie thinks he is being very modern …’ then she frowned, ‘… or classical, or something,’ she couldn’t make up her mind, ‘… you know, like the Greeks.’
I had heard that the Greeks wrestled naked at the ancient Olympics but had assumed they did it without ladies present. Stepping from the lake like that, without caring that there were two young women present, one of whom was his own sister (cringe) appeared to me to be the oddest behaviour imaginable. To learn that Lucy’s older sister had also done this seemed even stranger to me.
‘Don’t they mind people seeing them?’ It was a foolish question. I had already learned that Freddie didn’t mind at all.
‘The lake is far enough from the house so the help can’t see, and it’s only really family that comes down here. I don’t approve of it and I’d rather the girls,’ she meant the ones at school, ‘didn’t get the wrong idea about me.’
‘Oh, I shan’t breathe a word.’
‘Thank you, Evie,’ she said earnestly.
‘We all have eccentric family members. My mother is barking,’ I confessed.
‘Is she really?’
‘Absolutely, so my father says.’
At that we both fell into a silence that was only broken when I said, ‘He doesn’t look like you – your brother, I mean.’
‘He’s a half-brother. Our father remarried two years after Freddie’s mother died. I am of the second marriage,’ she said quite formally, and I wondered why she had never mentioned this at St Hilda’s. ‘She drowned, actually, in the Mediterranean while on holiday.’ Perhaps that was my answer. I reasoned that it must have been a strange feeling to know that you only existed at all because someone else had died in a tragic accident.
‘Freddie, Sephy and Oliver are all my half-siblings.’
There were four of them and that seemed like a lot to me, but then I was an only child, which was rarer in those days. I couldn’t help feeling that my mother had taken one look at me and immediately decided against having any other children because I was deficient in some way.
‘Do you get on?’ I asked.
‘Usually, when we see one another. Freddie and Oliver can be a bit beastly, but then they are boys.’
My personal experience of boys was confined to brief glimpses of the delivery boy at school or the young man who helped the gardener. I had never had a proper conversation with one, let alone held hands or actually kissed one, though I had practised on the back of my hand, because the other girls assured me that one had to, in order to do it properly when the time finally came.
Now I had seen a man completely naked and felt as if I had somehow leapt forward, bypassing several stages along the way, thanks to Lucy’s entirely shameless brother.
Sarah realized she was smiling to herself. She had always known her aunt as an older woman. Sarah’s mother and Evelyn were also half-sisters, Sarah’s grandfather having married suspiciously quickly following his divorce from Evelyn’s mother, so she expected her grandparents had already been having an affair. Sarah’s mother then arrived and when she in turn grew up, married and had a child of her own, Sarah was blessed with an aunt; a somewhat distant but glamorous figure from a different era, who Sarah found herself irresistibly drawn to from an early age. She kept in contact with Evie and, as she got older, their shared love of books and writing kept them connected. When Sarah eventually became a published author too, no one was prouder or more supportive than her aunt.
She had never imagined what Evie was like as a young girl, had not even considered the possibility that she had once been one. It’s as if we think the world starts when we are born into it, thought Sarah, and everything that came before is merely unknowable history. Now that she was reading Evie’s own story, it felt as if the young girl she had once been was speaking to Sarah directly.
It was raining and our plan for a long walk had been foiled by the weather. We read books in the library instead but eventually tired of that and grew restless. For the first time since my arrival at Cragsmoor, I was in danger of becoming bored.
‘How would you like to see a secret room?’ Lucy asked me abruptly.
‘The priest hole? Yes, please.’ I’d been worried she had forgotten about her promise to show it to me.
Lucy led me out of the library, along the corridor and up the grand staircase almost to the very top. She sat down on the penultimate stair and turned back to face me. ‘Can’t you see it?’ Her mischievous tone made me realize that I wasn’t meant to.
‘No.’ I couldn’t see much of the top floor from here but the walls seemed normal; the floor, the ceiling, its wooden supporting beams all looked as I assumed they should. ‘Where is it?’
‘You’re very warm,’ she said, so I took a step closer, advancing up the stairs towards her. ‘Warmer,’ she told me, then ‘warmer still’ as I reached the step she was sitting on. I walked past her to the landing then took a couple of paces down the corridor. ‘Cold,’ she told me, so I turned around and walked back the way I had come. I was about to go along the other end of the corridor when she said ‘colder … colder still.’ So I stopped. I was getting a bit tired of the game. I just wanted her to show me this secret room.
‘I can’t see it, Lucy. I give up. Where is it?’
‘Here,’ and she knocked on the step below, then the stair she was sitting on and finally the top step. The sound this one made was very different to the solid wood she had knocked on before. It was hollow.
Excited again now, I urged her to show me, and she lifted up the top stair as if it were the lid on a wooden box. There was a good-sized space behind it. I later learned that it was six feet in length and five feet across.
‘It’s quite roomy,’ I said.
‘A priest might have to stay in it for days. Some houses have tiny rooms, but this one was big enough to stand up in. They could put food and drink in there too.’
‘It’s amazing that you have one.’
‘One? We have three. There’s rumoured to be a fourth but we’ve never found it.’
‘Can I see the others?’
‘When everyone is out.’ Lucy’s parents were back by now but they more or less ignored the two of us, except at mealtimes, which were formal affairs where hardly anyone ever spoke at all. Lucy’s father was quite fierce and none of his children dared break the silence his presence warranted at mealtimes. It was all very strange. ‘They are smaller and I don’t go in them when Father is around because he doesn’t like it. He thinks I’ll get stuck. I only showed you this one because it’s bigger and at the top of the house. No one ever comes up here.’
‘Did you just say you can go in them?’
‘Do you want to?’
I could have passed out with excitement. This was like something out of the Famous Five or Secret Seven mysteries. They always had secret passageways, hidden caves or smugglers’ coves, but this was the real thing.
Lucy slid over the step and lowered herself down. She was now standing in the hole, her eyes level with the step. She moved to let me do the same but I was much less graceful and, as I was coming down, she grabbed my hips to slow me then lowered me more gently. I turned and was face to face with her for a moment. ‘Thanks,’ I managed.
‘Don’t close it yet,’ Lucy warned, ‘or we’ll be in darkness.’ She bent lower and reached behind her then brought up a box of matches and two metal candlesticks containing half-burned candles. Once she had lit them both, she beckoned me to sit on the cold stone floor with my back to one of the walls, placed the candles between us and closed the hatch over our heads. I experienced the contrasting emotions of excitement and claustrophobia in such a confined space. What if the catch stuck and we couldn’t get out again? Would anyone hear us from the top of the house, even if we screamed? Lucy seemed completely relaxed, however, and had obviously been doing this for years.
‘This is my sacred place,’ she explained. ‘I come here whenever I have to get away.’
‘What from?’
‘Anything. Everything,’ she said vaguely then became more specific. ‘Father,’ she said, without explaining what it was about him that she was forced to escape from. Then she added brightly, ‘Next time we’ll bring cushions and sandwiches and cake. I’ll pinch a bottle of wine from the cellar.’
I could not even imagine her doing that but I smiled at the illicit notion. ‘Did you come up here with Freddie when you were little?’ I asked.
She frowned at me then and I wondered if I had been too clumsy in mentioning her brother, betraying my interest in him. ‘Years ago, but we don’t come in here together any more. Freddie can be …’ she thought for a moment, ‘… unpleasant, and Oliver too.’
‘Well, they are boys,’ I said, ‘and they are all unpleasant.’
‘And how would you know, Evie? What experience of boys have you had?’ She was teasing me now.
‘Absolutely none, but I have read about them in books,’ I intoned solemnly, ‘and they seem full of mischief.’
‘They are. I wouldn’t advise going into a priest hole with Freddie. Who knows what he would do to you?’ Then she laughed, ‘Though by the look on your face you might not be fully against the idea.’
‘I have no wish to be trapped in a confined space with a young man who has no sense of shame,’ I retorted, trying to make light of it.
‘Yes, you’ve already seen far too much of Freddie,’ she agreed.
‘I’m surprised it doesn’t get in the way,’ I said, ‘you know, when they walk around, sit down or ride a bike.’
She laughed at that notion before saying, ‘Well, I don’t think he has to wrap it around the handlebars.’
