‘What about that door, sir – was it locked?’
Martius turns and glares in the direction indicated.
‘What? Yes – no – I don’t know – I locked it.’
‘You don’t sound sure, sir.’
With a scowl Martius wipes perspiration from his upper lip.
‘I can’t remember – it might already have been locked – I checked it and I know it was locked when we left the room – when Edgar returned from the lobby I told him to go round the whole place and make sure all the entrances were secured.’
‘Then what did you do?’
‘I took a shotgun and we gathered in the drawing room. It wasn’t so long after that you made your dramatic entrance. Lucky for you I didn’t have it to hand when you kicked in the door.’
Skelgill does not respond to this latest slight.
‘Thwaites tells us there are no spare keys – in particular for this study.’
‘I wouldn’t have the faintest idea – thankfully I only visit the damned place once in a blue moon.’
Now Skelgill affects surprise.
‘I’d have thought you’d be looking to take over, sir – as the eldest of the family.’
Martius recoils, his expression instantly belittling.
‘Don’t make me laugh, Inspector – have you the first idea about estate management? Crummock Hall barely washes its face – the electricity bill alone probably exceeds your salary.’
There is another twitch from Skelgill’s left hand and his eyelids momentarily droop. Perhaps he sees in his mind’s eye a little fantasy – if so, it seems to placate him sufficiently to terminate the encounter, surely for the benefit of them both. He moves across to the study door and opens it, standing aside to indicate that the man should depart.
‘Be good enough to keep us informed if you intend to leave the country – that will be all for now, Mr Regulus-O’More.’
‘It’s just Regulus, I’ll have you know – Martius Regulus.’
7. CASSANDRA
Monday 11am
‘You okay, Guv?’
‘Aye.’
But Skelgill is sullen; DS Jones hesitates.
‘You just look a bit... peaky.’
Uncharitably, he shrugs off her concern.
‘I could murder a cuppa.’
‘It’s on the table by the fire, Guv.’
Skelgill inclines his head in acknowledgement but makes no move in that direction. Instead he saunters across to the grand piano where the family photographs are arrayed. He selects another group portrait; the children are older in this, ranging from an imperious Martius at perhaps sixteen down to impish Perdita at ten. It would likely have been the final year that they came. The photographer has induced cheesy grins, but there is a certain strain in their eyes; only young Perdita seems truly at ease, and Edgar does not even smile.
‘Memory lane, Daniel?’
Skelgill swings round. Rosy blotches begin to break out at his cheekbones. Enter Cassandra.
Although it is yet mid-morning she carries a half drunk aperitif in her left hand and a cigarette trailing smoke in her right. Before Skelgill can speak she has accosted him – he still holds the framed picture, two-handed, defensively – but she is long-limbed for a woman, almost his height, and before he can react she leans in and plants an air-kiss on either cheek, while he stands stiffly to attention, as though immobilised by her fragrance. DS Jones, who has correctly interpreted Skelgill’s implied command to pour his tea, gazes with some amazement – such that Cassandra throws her a line of explanation.
‘One never forgets one’s first crush, darling.’
DS Jones instinctively returns the woman’s amiable grin – but she becomes aware of a glowering Skelgill and ducks back into her duties. Skelgill mutters under his breath, a rejoinder intended for Cassandra’s ears only.
‘I shouldn’t like to have overstepped the mark.’
‘Oh yes you would, Daniel!’ Now Cassandra lets loose a peal of liquid laughter. ‘But I shall spare your blushes – I can see your colleague already has ample ammunition to embarrass you back at your headquarters.’
She understands that she should be seated opposite DS Jones, and she floats across the carpet marooning Skelgill like a tardy cockle picker consumed by the flood tide, uncertain which direction offers a sure footing. She flicks her cigarette into the fire and declines graciously as DS Jones motions the offer of tea. Of an age with Skelgill she has worn well, as the saying goes, and sports the smooth sun-kissed skin and glossy hair that speak of a privileged lifestyle. In her features there is a marked likeness to brother Martius, though she lacks his incipient corpulence, and in consequence her proportions seem more regular and appealing. Her hair is shoulder length, blonde streaked with gold and bronze highlights, natural enough looking, but exposed as an expensive coiffure by the photograph, which reveals her at fourteen to be a brunette. She settles back into the familiar curves of the sofa, seemingly unconcerned that her cocktail dress rides up to reveal more of her tawny thighs.
There could now be some cause and effect at play, for Skelgill wrenches himself free of his inertia. Rather uncharacteristically he seems self-conscious about his attire – his faded ski trousers and creased lumberjack shirt of his rescue mission yesterday – and he wades ponderously to sit beside DS Jones. But Cassandra pays no heed to such trivia, and engages him expectantly, her lips parted to signal her anticipation. He lifts his cup without the saucer and takes a couple of big gulps. Then he wipes his mouth on his cuff. He seems lost for somewhere to begin. DS Jones is looking at him – also willing him, it seems, to make the first move. At last he appears to realise he is still clinging to the photograph. Now he raises it rather absently.
‘I believe it’s some time since you were in these parts.’
That he omits his customary ‘Madam’ – but also refrains from using her name – is a further indication of his discomfited state.
‘A good decade – I last visited Crummock Hall with my first husband, the late Freddy Remington-Smythe.’ She takes a decorous sip of her drink. ‘He was trampled by his horse, poor fellow.’
Skelgill looks none the wiser. DS Jones has placed the notes from DS Leyton’s initial interviews on the table between them, and now he leans to squint at the top sheet.
‘We have you down as Cassandra Goodchild – I take it that’s from your second marriage?’
Now she regards him rather coyly.
‘Third, actually.’ She tips her head briefly to one side – it is a gesture of mea culpa – and raises her glass in a ‘cheers’ motion. ‘I don’t mind admitting – in town it’s a name that opens doors – and comes with an account at Harrods – so I’ve hung onto this one – if not the husband.’ She winks ostentatiously, and the detectives would be forgiven for thinking the cocktail is not her first of the morning.
‘You’re more at home in London.’
Skelgill’s remark is bland, but she looks puzzled – as if she has never seriously considered the idea.
‘Oh, I don’t know – when I think back to our salad days. Nanny read us Swallows and Amazons and we believed it was about us.’ She turns earnestly to DS Jones – politely acknowledging that she is the newcomer to the situation. ‘Until the accident: a rather unpalatable dose of reality. And such bad luck – Daddy came so rarely.’
There is a silence, until Skelgill finds a few words of commiseration.
‘Can’t have been easy – for children to understand.’
She tosses her hair and simultaneously closes her eyes, as if the action will dislodge a long-filed memory.
‘In some respects it was not so difficult. I was only seven and had already been despatched to prep school. Up until then I saw more of Nanny than my parents – what with Mummy treading the boards so successfully, she was often working away. And Daddy was home even less so – he had an apartment near his office and a regular seat on Concorde.’
Skelgill is gnawing pensively at a thumbnail.
/> ‘What happened after – the accident?’
‘In spite of this place the O’Mores were forever on their uppers – while the Regulus clan had oodles of cash. So we were nominally brought up in London under the eye of a maiden aunt – though a good part of the year was spent at boarding school. We still came here for summer – but there arrives the day when the lure of London society trumps the joy of squelching about in soggy wellingtons – notwithstanding the local attractions.’
Now she casts a conspiratorial glance at DS Jones, who in turn looks at Skelgill – but he is pretending to read the notes, and indeed rather disjointedly he jumps to matters of the present.
‘Your great uncle was definitely attacked. Can you think of any reason why someone might have done that?’
‘Miss Scarlett with a candlestick in the study.’
Her glib retort catches him off guard. He looks up with a jolt, but Cassandra is already sipping demurely at her drink, a mischievous glint in her eye.
‘Come again?’
‘Well – the study is correct, at least – but, seriously, Inspector,’ (she puts emphasis upon his title) ‘I haven’t a clue – aren’t you the expert in these parts? Surely you have a suitable village idiot you can scapegoat?’
Skelgill deposits the photograph and notes on the coffee table and sits back rather woodenly.
‘Happen we haven’t ruled that out.’ He darts a sideways look at DS Jones, as if he seeks corroboration. ‘But there’s no evidence it was an intruder, I’m afraid.’
‘Then I suggest you look among the domestics – Thwaites has always been a shifty character.’ But she makes a doubting click of her tongue. ‘Though he hardly has the strength to mix a gin and tonic – so he might be eliminated. However, I don’t imagine the prospect of Great Uncle Declan as master of the hall filled the staff with glee, no matter how short lived his tenure was to be.’
Her somewhat blasé acceptance of the idea that the crime is an ‘inside job’ is in marked contrast to her elder brother’s indignation, and seems to contribute further to Skelgill’s unusually tense manner.
‘What will become of the place now?’
She appears surprised that he asks this, and regards him more closely, as though she suspects some disingenuousness on his part.
‘Oh – we have to decide – don’t you know? Stick or twist.’
He looks rather pained.
‘And what’s your inclination?’
‘Oh, I’m not the gambler in the family.’ She chuckles mysteriously. ‘But it doesn’t matter what I think, Inspector – I’m sure Martius will have his way – whatever that turns out to be.’
Skelgill nods. He already has a good idea of what Martius Regulus-O’More thinks of the financial viability of Crummock Hall. Meanwhile Cassandra drains the last of her cocktail, and then slides the glass onto the table, a slow, deliberate movement that draws his eye. In bending forwards she exposes sufficient of her cleavage to suggest that her bra – if she even wears one – is of a decidedly low cut variety. Somewhat languidly she stretches and reclines into the sofa, like a cat that has determined to make itself comfortable beside the hearth. There is a healthy blaze burning in the grate and, while the room is cool, the radiated heat warms them. Skelgill is overdressed – although it may not be the sole cause of his flushed complexion.
Indeed, now he rises and restores the photograph to its place on the grand piano by the window. He turns and rather formally addresses Cassandra.
‘I think that will be all for now.’
Again he drops ‘Madam’ or ‘Miss’ or some version of her name, and she seems amused by this omission. With a degree of reluctance she rises and straightens her hem. She nods politely to DS Jones, and begins to move away from the settee, leaving her empty glass upon the table. She stops at the point of equidistance between the exit and Skelgill.
‘I shouldn’t imagine you have finished with me yet, Inspector.’
Her tone hints at disappointment – and there is a certain regal insistence that she expects him to take her statement as a command. Skelgill clears his throat.
‘What are your travel plans?’
She shrugs casually.
‘Oh, I expect Edgar has arranged the train up to London – though of course we shall need to return for the second funeral.’
Skelgill nods – he seems a little relieved that she provides this get-out.
‘We’ll keep that in mind, then.’
She smiles with satisfaction and gives a little bow of her head, maintaining eye contact as she slowly turns and drifts towards the door. She begins to hum a tune, and then – just before the click of the latch cuts her off – she breaks into song, a pleasant voice, clear, almost angelic – and there comes the line, “Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow.”
DS Jones glances at Skelgill; she catches his expression – at once sheepish and remorseful.
‘What is it, Guv?’
Now he glowers and turns to stare out of the window.
‘Danny Boy.’
8. THE TWINS
Monday 11.15am
Skelgill’s first impression of Brutus is coloured by DS Jones’s reaction, which it is plain she tries to suppress. Shock and awe overtakes her features and she sinks onto the settee – whereupon she scrabbles for their papers and buries her head in an exaggerated pursuit of some point. Skelgill becomes immediately suspicious. Certainly the fellow is handsome, despite bearing something of the family resemblance – however, in contrast to his elder brother and sister his physiognomy is altogether more sculpted; beneath dark wavy hair worn boyishly, angled brows, high cheekbones and an aquiline nose combine with tanned skin and a carefully cultivated five-o’clock shadow to create a Mediterranean appearance. Yet it is a look strikingly offset by piercing powder-blue eyes that seem to penetrate the thoughts of those upon whom they settle. His physique is trim, his musculature revealed by informal but expensive attire, a skin-tight black merino pullover, and snug stressed skinny jeans that do not leave a great deal to the imagination. Despite heeled boots he is probably an inch or two below average height – but it is no impediment to his self-confidence, and he carries himself with a certain swaggering narcissism.
Indeed, his natural expression is pre-set at the hint of a smirk, and it is thus that he regards DS Jones, while paying lip service to Skelgill’s introduction. Once seated, his gaze unashamedly wanders to appraise her, apparently intrigued that she could be a police officer. He is further amused when she wriggles out of her leather jacket and twists her slender waist to lay the garment over the back of the sofa. She fans herself with the sheaf of notes, and casts a resigned glance towards the hearth.
It is possible, of course, that Skelgill’s antennae have become over-sensitised: engaging in quick succession with Perdita, Martius and then Cassandra he has ridden a testing rollercoaster – and first impressions of Brutus offer little prospect of respite. However, he seems more than content to follow the undulating pattern and dispense with any niceties as far as Brutus is concerned.
‘You gave Sergeant Leyton an account of your movements yesterday – basically that you were in bed until you went to the drawing room at 2.30pm.’
Skelgill’s tone is loaded with doubt – but Brutus merely yawns, as if theatrically to illustrate his response.
‘I’m in the Guinness Book of Records for late afternoon lies, Inspector.’ He flashes an insouciant glance at DS Jones. ‘I imagine the lack of company eventually drove me downstairs.’
Skelgill declines to acknowledge the lascivious insinuation.
‘So you’re not in a position to corroborate the movements of other members of the household – prior to the discovery of your great uncle’s body?’
Brutus’s smirk extends upwards from the corners of his mouth.
‘Surely you wouldn’t expect me to snitch on one of my siblings?’
‘I’d expect you to tell me the truth, sir – it’s an offence to obstruct an investigation, as I�
��m sure you’re aware.’
‘I am being facetious, Inspector – I don’t for a moment believe my family had anything to do with Great Uncle Declan’s death.’
He leans forwards and regards Skelgill with a certain curiosity – as if he is assimilating the details of his character for a future role – a rather slow-witted country detective, blind to the shortcomings of his parochial existence.
Skelgill obligingly conforms to this stereotype.
‘Who might you suggest then, sir?’
Again there is a conspiratorial glance from Brutus at DS Jones – an invitation to join a game of bluff for their mutual entertainment. He flexes his biceps, and tilts backwards, hands behind his head, leaning against the threadbare silk antimacassar in order to contemplate the ornate ceiling – though its gilt paintwork is in need of restoration. Then he jerks upright, articulating at the waist, demonstrating impressive abdominal control. His features are quite transformed – perhaps it is the actor’s practised malleability – for now he presents a most forthcoming countenance, a little excited even.
‘What about old Gilhooley? I saw him and that hideous wife of his gloating from their pew at Grandpa Sean’s funeral – perhaps he thought he’d sneak in and finish the job. Wasn’t there a family feud – generations back?’
Skelgill looks irked – and perhaps it can be deduced that here is a fragment of local knowledge of which he ought to be in possession (but is not). Indeed, his next question, couched with casual indifference, could be a crafty attempt to appear better informed.
‘What do you know about it?’
Brutus gives a flick of his hair and grins at DS Jones; she responds with an encouraging nod.
‘As youngsters we were warned not to stray onto their land – up through the oak woods. The story rang like something out of Brothers Grimm – the old crone was barren and on the lookout for a child to misappropriate.’
Skelgill shakes his head dismissively.
‘More likely you were told that because there’s a dangerous pit up there – Lanthwaite zinc mine. To scare you away.’
Detective Inspector Skelgill Boxset 2 Page 59
