Jack and Kate were waiting patiently for her to get over her tirade.
“Sorry,” Sara whispered, and looked off into the distance.
Kate spoke up. “I saw that the attics are full. Bet an Antiques Road Show person would love to go through them. Maybe Sean was selling something of value he found.”
“You think the stable guy was allowed to wander through the house?” Jack asked.
“Didn’t Puck say that Sean knew Bertram sat in his office every night and got drunk?” Kate said. “How’d he know that if he wasn’t upstairs sometimes? At night?”
“Maybe he was having an affair with a pretty maid,” Sara began.
“Or Diana,” Kate said. “They both loved horses.”
“Yet again, you two are plotting a romance novel,” Jack said. “How about we take photos and figure out what we actually know?”
“With no romance?” Kate said with a sigh. “How boring.”
“I’m here,” Jack said. “Anytime you want romance, I can—”
“Boooo,” Sara and Kate said in unison.
Jack tried to act offended but he was glad that some of the horror of what they’d seen that morning was being dispelled.
“I know where we need to go,” Sara said. “And I’ve been dying to see it.” She started down the road at a rapid pace, doing what she called her “New York walk.”
“Where?” Kate asked Jack.
“I’m not sure but I believe ‘dying’ is the key word.”
Since the cemetery was behind them, Kate knew where her aunt was going.
Jack led the way. He’d become familiar enough with the layout of the property that he could take them to the front of the big house in a roundabout way. There were few people inside the house, but all it took was one glance outside to see the three of them moving through the trees.
The private chapel in front of the house was a rectangle with a steep roof and a little covered porch jutting out on one side. One end had a tower with a tall cone of a roof.
They approached from the long side so they were hidden from the house. There was a narrow door with a lock on it. The women looked at Jack in expectation.
“We’re going to get into trouble for this,” he murmured, then pulled a knife out of his pocket. It had a tiny awl blade that he used to open the lock.
Sara was looking up at the chapel. “This is a Victorian mishmash. Wonder where they got the pieces to put it together?”
As Jack pushed open the door, they heard the rusty hinges scraping. It had been a while since the door had been opened.
Inside, they gasped. The long, narrow and very tall interior was paneled in walnut in a design of squares inside squares. There was a header of carvings of sheep and their shepherds. The ceiling was beamed, with carved corbels. The end wall, from head height up, was an enormous arched window of stained glass. Each of the twelve panels showed a story from the Bible.
“So tell us all,” Jack said as he looked at Sara. He knew that in researching her historical novels she’d learned a lot about period architecture.
“The original building is old, probably thirteenth century, but it’s been changed. I think the tower was added later, mid-1400s would be my guess. That big window is relatively new, definitely Victorian.” She turned full circle. “Somebody did some collecting and brought it all here and pieced this together like a puzzle. And whoever did it had taste and a whole lot of money.”
“Not Bertram,” Jack said.
Sara smiled. “I don’t see a horse anywhere, so no, not him.”
Jack went to the front, then grinned broadly. “Look what I found.” He lifted the oak cover to a piano. “It’s an upright grand,” he said. “It’s all iron inside.” When he played a few chords, they echoed through the room. The acoustics were excellent. He looked around in awe. “You could play a harmonica in here and it would be as loud as kettle drums.”
The center aisle was flanked by oak benches with pretty cushions. Sara sat down on one of them, and Jack put the camera bag next to her.
She reached into her bag and took out a notebook. As a writer, she surrounded herself with pens and paper. This notebook had a drawing of a camera with colored thread sewn on the outline. She didn’t usually mix up her thoughts, and her camera book was for photo-related subjects only. But this was an emergency. “I want to go over what we’ve learned,” she said.
Jack was running his hands over the woodwork. As a craftsman, he appreciated all that had gone into the carving. “You mean who had a reason to kill Sean?”
“Exactly,” Sara said.
Kate was using her phone to photograph the big window. “Everybody had a reason.”
“Bertie liked Sean,” Jack said.
“As long as he worked here,” Sara said. “What if he said he was going to quit? And I’m not discounting your Puck.” She waited for a reaction from Jack.
“I thought of that,” he said. “Killer clearing her conscience. But she was only fourteen and—”
Kate interrupted. “I still think it’s possible that Sean left the night of the party, then came back years later and someone killed him. We don’t have a date of death.”
“Returned for what?” Jack asked.
“Maybe Sean killed Nicky,” Kate said. “Returned, fixed the brakes on Nicky’s car, then Sean was killed by Mrs. Aiken. She and Bertie hid the body.”
“It seems everyone had the opportunity,” Sara said. “And lots of little reasons but—”
“What does that mean?” Jack asked. “‘Little’ reasons?”
“Jealously,” Sara said. “You love her more than me, that sort of thing. But what about big reasons, like ownership of this place?”
“It was falling down. Who wanted it?” Jack knew about the expense and agony of renovating.
“Maybe Nadine,” Sara said. “Or certainly her father. He was a success in business but was looked down on for his lowly origins.”
“Diana was going to marry for it. Maybe Sean threatened that,” Kate said.
“Clive,” Jack said. “He felt he deserved Oxley Manor. As for that, why didn’t he inherit when Nicky died?”
“Byon said Clive wasn’t in the line of succession,” Kate said.
“The best ol’ Clive could hope for was to marry rich, bland, kind of creepy Willa,” Jack said.
“That poor woman,” Sara said. “It was horrible that those two people disappeared but what really made Clive dump Willa? The disappearance didn’t affect her money. What made him change his mind?” Sara picked up her pen. “Let’s go over all this and see what we know.”
“I don’t think we know anything,” Kate said. “We have only Puck’s word and what she saw. She was a teenager and she had the serious hots for Sean. If she found out he liked someone else, maybe Puck hit him over the head with a brick.”
“Then hid his body all by her skinny self?” Jack asked.
“She knew everyone’s secrets so who wouldn’t help her?” Kate’s voice was rising. “They all wanted to avoid publicity and notoriety and—”
“They were certainly a pack of misfits,” Sara said.
“Like we are.” Jack’s words broke the tension in the air.
Sara looked around the beautiful chapel. “I vote that we make this our meeting place.”
“Suits me,” Jack said, and Kate nodded in agreement.
They halted at a sound. “Is that a car?” Jack went to a little window that was high up on the side facing the house and looked out. “It’s not a normal car. It’s a Bentley. Beautiful thing.”
The window was above the women’s heads.
“Who’s in it?” Sara asked.
Jack gave a low whistle. “A woman. Older, but she looks good. Very good. She—”
“I bet it’s Nadine,” Kate said. “Let’s get out of here and arrive fr
om the direction of Puck’s house.”
“Jack, can you relock the door?” Sara asked.
“Easier than unlocking it. But one look at those hinges and anyone would know they’ve been used.”
“Can’t be helped.” Sara opened the side door. The old hinges made a lot of noise. They went through the trees so that when they walked across the drive, they didn’t look as though they’d come from the chapel.
But before they reached the car, Jack abruptly left them. He mumbled that he had to do something, then disappeared around the corner.
“We’re on our own,” Kate said to her aunt.
The woman was standing by the car looking up at the house. She was simply dressed in a white silk blouse, black trousers, an Hermès belt. Her earrings, Cartier watch and a simple wedding band were gold. Her skin had that well-kept look that only a life of money and leisure could achieve. She was quite a bit taller than Sara and emphasized it by looking her up and down.
“Have my bags taken to the room to the left at the top of the stairs,” she said to Sara. “I’m Lady Nadine and I’ll be in the blue drawing room. Send Mrs. Guilford to meet me.”
She was at the doorway before Sara caught up to her. “I don’t work here. I’m Sara Medlar.” She had on cotton trousers and a yellow polo shirt. They were dirty from lying on the ground around the pit.
Nadine halted, again looked Sara up and down. Obviously, the name meant nothing to her. “Oh?”
“I’m the one who invited you here.”
“Did you? Yet you don’t consider that working here? How extraordinary.”
Behind them, Kate rolled her eyes. It looked like a Bitch War was about to begin—and she wanted no part of it. She picked up Nadine’s two suitcases and paused behind the woman. “Aunt Sara writes novels and she restored this place.” Kate’s tone showed that she didn’t like Nadine’s attitude. “Nobody’s here so...” She shrugged at the suitcases, then carried them between the women and up the stairs.
The first room on the left was large and beautiful.
Kate dumped the suitcases on the stand, then started to go down to be with her aunt. Instead, she turned away. Let Aunt Sara handle the woman. Kate headed toward the attic.
Downstairs, Sara did her best to smile. “Maybe we should go upstairs and I’ll explain what’s going on.”
“If we must.” Nadine went first. Inside the room, she looked around. “It’s been changed. It’s a bit gaudy now.”
“It’s for the tourists,” Sara said. “They want everything to be more English than the Brits do.”
Nadine’s face had a hint of a frown.
Restylane or Botox? Sara wondered. Something was keeping her glower from wrinkling her face.
“You own Oxley Manor?” Nadine asked.
“No, but I did finance the restoration from the sale of my novels.”
“And what is it that you write?”
“Women’s fiction.” Sara knew it was a cop-out but if she said “historical and contemporary romance” she always—always!—got smirks and dirty looks.
But Nadine wasn’t fooled. She gave a half smile. “The ones with the lurid covers? Sold in every grocery and petrol station on the planet? Those books?”
Sara clamped her teeth together, gave a nod and wondered why she didn’t leave her room.
“How quaint.”
Sara didn’t ask permission but sat down on a chair by the bed. “I’m writing a novel that will be based on the mysterious disappearance of the two people in 1994. I’m here to research.”
Quickly, Nadine turned away, but not before Sara saw the color drain from her face.
Nadine opened her big suitcase. It was a Hartmann, the kind people used twenty years ago: no wheels, no carry strap, no telescoping handle.
Sara watched Nadine pull out a jacket that could only have been made by Chanel and hang it in the big walnut wardrobe. Since she had commandeered the room, Sara guessed it was the one her father had refurbished for her. While the rest of the house rotted. Wonder if that’s the wardrobe where Puck hid? Sara thought.
* * *
“Mystery?” Nadine said, her back to Sara. “There was no mystery. Not even a disappearance, at least not in the true meaning of the word.”
“Then what did happen?”
Nadine turned around and the color was back in her face. “I thought Byon was going to be here.”
“He’s coming. You’re the first. They’re all coming.”
“What does that mean?”
“Clive, Willa, Byon and you. Mrs. Aiken and Puck are already here.”
Nadine was looking at her in disbelief. “And this is for...for...?”
“A reunion,” Sara said. “But also to talk about what happened that night when the people disappeared.”
“For your little books?” Nadine’s lip curled.
Sara stood up. “I think this was a mistake. I’ll talk to the others. Perhaps you’d like to leave. I can arrange—”
“No!” Nadine said. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. It’s just that it wasn’t a mystery.”
“Then what was it?”
“It was the end of...” She pulled a dress from the suitcase. “The end of something wonderful, and as we knew we must, we separated. We went our own ways. It’s just that Diana didn’t tell us where she was going.”
“Wasn’t she engaged to Nicky? And there was another engagement, wasn’t there?”
Nadine shrugged. “Broken engagements are something that happen.” She glanced at the bed and her mind filled with memory.
It was in this bed that Willa was screaming and threatening to kill herself.
Nadine looked back at Sara. “Isn’t a broken engagement something called a ‘plot device’? My guess is that a year later Willa married. She probably has three children by now.”
“I don’t know what’s happened in her life,” Sara said. “But she’ll be here soon and we’ll ask her.”
“Yes, let’s do.”
Sara was trying to dampen her dislike of the woman, but it wasn’t easy. Maybe she should go in a different direction. “All of you seemed to be good friends. Parting must have hurt.”
“It did. Those were the best years of my life.” Nadine sat down, a blouse on her lap. “This house was so shabby then. My father worried that the roof would cave in on us. But we didn’t mind. Thanks to Willa, we had wonderful food. Byon entertained us endlessly and Nicky charmed us.” She closed her eyes for a moment.
One of Byon’s little “entertainments” was mocking them all. He portrayed Nicky as a useless fob; Willa was begging for anyone to love her; Clive was an inferno of hatred; Nadine was a low-class slut with money. Byon was madly talented, but too often he was despicably cruel.
“What about Diana?”
Nadine opened her eyes and smiled. “She was the sensible one. We were all dreamers. If we had food and drink, we were happy. Diana kept the roof patched. Before she came, we just put down buckets to catch the rainwater. I used to wash my hair in it.”
She could hear Diana shouting at them for their laziness and self-centeredness.
“What about Clive?”
With a groan, Nadine got up and put the blouse in the wardrobe. “Clive wasn’t really one of us. He wanted to be, but...”
“But what?”
“All Clive thought about was money. I wonder what he does now?”
“He’s a banker.”
“Of course he is. Locked away from clients, I hope. He could never get along with anyone.”
Clive rarely spoke to them—which was worse than Diana’s shouting and Bertram’s cursing. Clive just sneered at them in contempt.
“Did you say Puck is here?”
“Yes.”
“That poor thing. Her mother was a beast to her. We tried to protect her, b
ut Mrs. Aiken was stronger than all of us. What does Puck do now?”
“She owns the house by the cemetery. She—”
“That house? It was derelict. But it had the most enormous bathtub in it. Is it still there?” Memories came to her.
Naked in that tub. A bucket of hot water being poured over her head. She could feel the slickness of the soap, feel the hands on her skin.
“I have no idea,” Sara said.
“I’ll have to go exploring. I guess Puck works for the estate.”
“She makes herbal wreaths and sells them in London.”
“How lovely.” Nadine had finished unpacking.
“And what about Sean?” Sara asked.
Nadine looked confused. “Who?”
“Worked in the stables? You took riding lessons from him? He left the night of your party and was never seen again.”
“Oh yes. Him. I didn’t last long on those lessons. Horses terrify me—unless there are hundreds of them under the bonnet of a car. Do you have any more questions? If not, I’d like to change.”
“Of course,” Sara said.
Nadine had already opened the door and she closed it firmly behind Sara. The lock clicked loudly.
* * *
Sara hurried down the hall to the narrow stairs that led up. As she’d hoped, Kate was in the attic, seated on an old chair, her lap full of papers. Sara plopped down on an ancient sofa across from her.
“There’s enough info here for a thousand books,” Kate said. “Diaries from the Victorians, finances from the Georgians. I found some things from Queen Anne’s time. Someone really should look at all this and value it.” She looked at her aunt. “What did you find out from Lady Nadine?”
“Absolutely nothing. Everyone and everything was great and wonderful and good. No one had a bad thought—except about poor Clive. He was a monster.”
“If there was so much love, why did they break apart and not speak to each other for twenty years?”
“According to her royal highness,” Sara said with a sneer, “they left to... I want to get this right...‘go their own ways.’ The end. Broken up and that’s it.”
A Forgotten Murder Page 10
