by S M Hardy
I made for the kitchens. Walking along the corridor I could hear the murmur of low voices. The door was ajar, so it wasn’t difficult to make out what was being said. I heard my name mentioned and this was enough to make me pause outside.
‘What on earth happened?’ I heard Mrs Walters say.
‘I have no idea, but he knew, somehow he knew,’ a masculine voice said, and from the Irish lilt I was guessing it was Dan.
‘Just as well. If you hadn’t found the poor woman …?’
‘I’ve never liked the poolroom,’ a younger, feminine voice said. ‘It gives me the creeps.’
‘You have too much imagination, young lady,’ Donald Walters said.
There was a sniff. ‘And why’d you suppose that’d be?’ she said. ‘This place is enough to have anyone jumping at their own shadow.’
‘Now then, Maddy,’ Mrs Walters said, ‘I’ll have none of that talk.’
‘I’m only saying what we’re all feeling,’ the girl muttered.
As interesting as it was listening to the servants gossip, I didn’t want to be found eavesdropping, so I took a few steps back and tramped along, making a bit of noise.
I popped my head around the door and all eyes were immediately upon me. ‘I thought I ought to let you know the doctor’s gone now and he said my wife will be as good as new in a day or so. She just has to take things easy.’
Mrs Walters bustled over to me. ‘I am so relieved,’ she said. ‘If there’s anything we can do, you’ve only to ask.’
I muttered my thanks and glanced at Dan. ‘I didn’t get the chance to say earlier, what with all that was going on, but thank you. If it hadn’t been for you, I’m not sure the outcome would have been so good.’
He smiled and gave a slow shake of the head. ‘I did nothing you wouldn’t have.’ His eyes met mine and I could see a question in them, one he didn’t want to ask in front of the others.
Mrs Walters cast a disapproving look his way but made no comment other than to ask me about lunch. ‘Shall I have it served at one as usual?’ she asked. ‘I can take a tray to Mrs Cummings.’
‘Thank you. You are most kind. All of you are.’ I gave everyone the best smile I could muster, muttered another ‘thank you’ and left them to it. I would take a trip to the stables and try and catch Dan a little later.
Lunch was a rather subdued affair, which wasn’t surprising in the circumstances. I had knocked on Laura’s door, but there had been no answer and when she appeared at the table, she was pale-faced and her eyes puffy. She said hardly a thing while lunch was being served and as soon as the servants had left the room I understood why.
‘I couldn’t find my shirt,’ she said as the door closed behind Maddy. ‘Someone in this house must have taken it.’
I would have liked to have been able to say they wouldn’t have, but unfortunately there was no other explanation.
‘I think I have to phone the police,’ I said.
‘But it’s so awful. How can I accuse one of the staff? I’ve only been here five minutes.’ She paused, laying down her knife and fork. ‘I can’t, I really can’t.’ Her expression became slightly panicked. ‘And how about what happened to Emma? Oh God, it was all my fault.’
I frowned at her. ‘How could it have been your fault?’
A tear overflowed and trickled down her cheek. She wiped it away with an angry swipe of her fingers. ‘She mentioned the pool at breakfast and how she didn’t have a costume. I said she could borrow one of mine. I got Maddy to take it to her.’
I hadn’t given it a thought. Of course, Emms had told me she hadn’t brought a costume – why would she? We hadn’t known there’d be a pool.
‘Laura, it wasn’t your fault. It was …’ I was about to say an accident, but couldn’t bring myself to say the word, it would’ve been a lie. I certainly couldn’t explain what had really so nearly happened. ‘It was just unfortunate,’ I finished lamely, seeing her expression.
I think she was about to enquire more, but Mrs Walters appeared by the table, giving a discreet cough to get my attention. ‘I have Mr Simon on the phone for you,’ she said to me.
‘He’s awake?’ Laura asked.
The housekeeper shot her an exasperated look.
‘Evidently he is,’ I said, excusing myself from the table and wondering why he hadn’t called my mobile, then remembered he probably wouldn’t have the number.
I took the call on an extension in the office. ‘Simon?’
‘Jed, I need you to come and see me this afternoon. Can you get away?’
‘Of course. I’m pretty sure visiting hours are at four. Do you want me to bring Laura?’
There was a sharp intake of breath. ‘She came?’
‘Of course she came.’
There was a shuddery exhalation. ‘I was hoping she might not.’
I glanced at the calendar on my watch. ‘You told me yourself, under the terms of the will she had to move in here by the end of the month. Today is the twenty-sixth.’ There was a moment’s silence. ‘Simon?’
‘I need to speak to you.’
‘Simon—’
He interrupted before I had a chance to speak further. ‘See you at four,’ and he rang off.
I stood staring at the phone for a moment. Simon had sounded scared. What had happened the night he was attacked?
Laura was still sitting at the table when I returned to the dining room. She had pushed her plate to one side and was frowning into thin air.
‘How was he?’ she asked as I sank back onto my seat.
I pulled a face. ‘He sounded worried,’ I said. ‘He wants us to go and see him. I’m wondering whether perhaps we should delay phoning the police until we’ve spoken to him.’
She lifted the coffee pot. I nodded and she poured me a cup and then one for herself. ‘You’re right. Let’s talk to him first. Then we can make a decision. Did he say what happened the night he was attacked?’
‘No, he was more anxious that we go and visit him this afternoon.’
‘What time?’ she asked over the rim of her cup before taking a sip.
‘Visiting hours are at four,’ I said, adding cream to my cup. ‘It’ll probably take us a good forty minutes to get there and parking’s usually a nightmare at those places so’ – I checked my watch – ‘if we leave here at about ten past three?’
‘It’s not the ideal place to meet one’s only surviving family, but I would like to see him.’ She bit her lip. ‘Just in case.’
I didn’t ask what she meant or even try to reassure her. A dark cloud was fast settling over Kingsmead and I could sense the inevitability of another death looming ever closer. Simon and Emma had both been spared, for the moment. Next time one of us might not be so lucky.
Emma was asleep when I went back to our room. She had barely tasted her food. I removed her tray and left it outside the door so she wouldn’t be disturbed if Maddy came calling for it, then sat down by the bed and watched her sleep.
For the first time, for as long as I’d known her, Emma looked vulnerable, her complexion so pallid I could see the tiny purple veins criss-crossing her eyelids and, with her short blonde hair tousled and unbrushed, she reminded me of a small sleeping child. I had to swallow back a sob. I couldn’t lose her. I just couldn’t.
I took her hand in mine and was shocked by how icy it felt and for a split second I thought it had all been some horrible joke and we hadn’t got there in time and she was dead. I felt something warm trickle down my face and when I raised my head to wipe the tear away it was to find blue eyes looking into mine.
‘Hello,’ she said, her voice low and husky.
‘Hi,’ I said, my own not much better than a croak.
Her brow wrinkled as she studied my face. ‘Jed, what’s wrong?’
‘I was worried about you, that’s all.’
She squeezed my fingers. ‘I’m fine.’ I swallowed hard, wondering whether I should ask. Wondering if I dare ask. She beat me to it. ‘There’s something wro
ng with the poolroom,’ she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. ‘Something terrible happened there.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘We’ll talk about it tomorrow.’
Her eyes began to flutter shut, but she struggled to keep them open. ‘Look after Laura,’ she said. ‘None of it is her fault.’
‘I know.’
She managed a small smile. ‘I think I’ll have a little sleep now,’ she said, despite having only just woken.
I leant forward to kiss her on the forehead. ‘I’m going to see Simon. I’ll be back soon.’
‘Hmm,’ she muttered, though I wasn’t sure she had heard me. I kissed her again and crept out of the room.
I had twenty minutes to spare before I was due to meet with Laura and, as Dan had made it clear he had something to say to me, I decided to search him out.
I could hear the burble of a radio floating across the yard on a waft of hay and horse manure. I followed the music into the stable block and along the stalls. Dan was in the second to last one grooming Satan’s shiny black coat.
He glanced at me from what he was doing and straightened. ‘How’s the missus?’ he asked.
‘Tired,’ I said.
‘She’ll be all right, though?’
‘So the doctor says.’
He turned away, putting the brush he’d been using on Satan to one side. When he looked back at me his expression was inscrutable. ‘How did you know?’ he asked. I leant against the wooden wall of the stall, keeping eye contact. ‘Because you did. You knew something was wrong.’
‘I get feelings sometimes.’
His eyes narrowed slightly and inexplicably he laughed. ‘Feelings? And what did you feel out at that place today? Did you feel anything there?’
I wondered where this was going. ‘Not today – no.’
‘How about when you went there with ald Walters and Mr Simon, did you feel anything then?’
‘What makes you ask?’
‘You did, didn’t you?’ His eyes crinkled at the corners and he laughed some more. ‘My ald grandma was like you. She could tell if something bad had happened to one of the family hours before we got the news and if you ever lost a thing she could tell you where you’d find it. Sometimes she’d get messages from the dead. You’re like her, aren’t you?’
‘Do you know what’s going on in this house?’ I asked him, ignoring the question.
His laughter died away and his expression became serious. ‘No, and I intend to keep it that way. Bad things happen to people who don’t mind their own business around here and I don’t intend to let anything bad happen to me.’
‘Is that why something bad happened to Simon? Is that why something bad happened to Emma?’ and I could hear my voice rising.
He pushed past me to take a quick look outside the stall and, seeing the coast was clear, grabbed me by the arm and drew me alongside Satan and to the back.
‘I don’t know about Mr Simon, but I don’t think anything was meant to happen to yer good lady wife. That was sheer bad luck.’
‘Was it?’
He moved in close to me. ‘If you’d take my advice you’d leave Kingsmead. It’s a terrible place and the people aren’t much better.’
‘What do you mean?’
He leant forward until his lips were practically touching my ear. ‘Some men do evil things to get what they want out of life – the Pomeroys are such men. If you don’t believe me, look into the family history. Violent death being the least of it.’
‘Ah, there you are,’ a voice said, making Dan spin around.
Maddy was standing at the entrance to the stall, a knowing smile on her lips and her eyes glittering with one of the baser emotions, if I was any judge of women and their wiles. Then she saw me, and it instantly fell away and gone was the lascivious woman to be replaced by the meek and downtrodden maid.
I raised an eyebrow in Dan’s direction, and he gave me an unrepentant smile. ‘Be seeing yer, Mr Cummings,’ he said.
I took the hint and left, but not before muttering under my breath, so only he could hear, ‘Be sure of it.’
It took longer than I expected to drive to the hospital. It had been a fairly quiet journey, both Laura and I being lost in thought, me thinking about my conversation with Dan, and who knows what was on Laura’s mind? She certainly wasn’t full of the cheer of someone about to inherit a huge fortune. The words ‘it’s not much good to you if you’re dead’, floated through my mind and I wondered if this was what she was thinking.
‘Why is someone doing these things?’ Laura suddenly asked.
I gave her a sideways glance. ‘I don’t know,’ was the only answer I could give her.
‘Did whoever attacked Uncle Simon mean to kill him? I mean – why would they?’
I pondered on it for a moment. ‘It was probably a matter of him being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Let’s hope he can shed a bit more light on it when we see him.’
She shifted in her seat so she was facing towards me. ‘One of the servants must be in on it,’ she said. ‘Otherwise, how did someone get into the house to thump Uncle Simon? There’s no other way they could have got hold of my shirt.’
I kept my eyes on the road. I had a suspicion she was right and it was an unsettling feeling, knowing the person who had served you breakfast or made your bed could possibly be working against you. ‘I suggest you don’t trust a soul and lock your bedroom door when you go to bed at night,’ I said.
‘Don’t worry, I intend to.’ She hesitated, still sitting slightly askew in her seat. ‘You won’t leave yet? I mean before Uncle Simon is allowed home?’
I flashed a quick smile her way. ‘Not if you want us to stay.’
‘I would very much appreciate it if you did,’ she said.
It took a while to find somewhere to park and I began to wish we’d started out earlier, but by the time we entered the hospital itself it was only five past four. The place was a labyrinth of identical corridors and we went wrong twice before Laura asked for directions and we finally found ourselves on the right floor.
We started along yet another corridor, which ended with a set of double doors and a sign telling us this should be where we would find Simon’s ward. It had taken us ten minutes or more to get this far.
There were only six beds, all were occupied. Only one patient had a visitor, a young chap in about his mid twenties. His eyes were open, wide and staring at the ceiling from a chalk-white face. His fear was palpable and his wife or girlfriend clung onto his hand as if her tight grip was the only thing anchoring him to this world. From the grim-faced wraiths surrounding him I sadly surmised it probably was.
The other residents were old boys, probably in their seventies and eighties. Their heads turned towards us as we walked in, eyes alight with hope, which died as soon as they saw we were strangers.
Simon’s bed was in the far corner by one of the two windows overlooking more hospital buildings and a car park.
Laura’s expression was anxious. I gave her an encouraging smile and guided her towards his bed. Engrossed in a copy of The Times spread out in front of him, he was completely oblivious to our arrival. He had never been a big man like me, but seeing him sitting there, surrounded by pillows bolstering him upright, he looked diminished and so very frail. Fine, silver hair stuck to his crown giving it the appearance of being sparser than it really was, and his pallor was bordering on jaundiced, his complexion mottled. Liver spots I hadn’t noticed before, stained, vein-knotted hands that were practically skeletal.
When he eventually glanced our way, a smile creased his face and, with forced joviality, I introduced him to possibly his last living relative.
‘Laura, this is your Uncle Simon. Simon, this lovely young lady is your grandniece Laura.’
His eyes regained some of their sparkle as he took hold of her offered hand. ‘My dear, I am so pleased to meet you at last, and I’m only sorry I wasn’t at Kingsmead to welcome you to your new home.’
I mo
ved a seat towards the top of the bed so she could sit down close to him and pulled one to the other side for me to park myself while they made small talk.
‘How are you feeling?’ I asked once they’d got over the introductions.
He pulled a face and leant towards me. ‘I can’t wait to get out of this damned place,’ he said sotto voce. ‘It’s like being in a room full of geriatrics.’
‘Well, hopefully you’ll be coming home soon,’ Laura said.
‘Not soon enough,’ he grumbled. ‘I’ve asked for a private room.’
The door to the ward swung open and an orderly came in pushing a trolley of water pitchers. My attention returned to Simon and it was my turn to lean in close. ‘Simon, do you remember anything about what happened the other night?’
He hesitated a fraction too long before his lips pressed together in a thin line and with a flare of his nostrils he said, ‘Some thieving bastard was turning over Ed’s room.’ He looked down at his hands. The way he was gripping the sheets so hard, bunching the material into tight ropes, made them look like turkey claws. ‘I’d been downstairs looking for a book and when I came back up I heard a noise. The light was on when I opened the door and the place was a mess: books, clothes and papers strewn everywhere.’ He paused, the lines on his forehead growing deeper. ‘I didn’t think, I just walked straight in and then – bam! Someone hit me on the head and everything went black.’
I looked at him long and hard. It had been a practised speech. He was lying or holding something back. On the phone he had sounded scared. ‘Simon,’ I said, ‘you asked me to come here for a reason and it wasn’t to tell me you’d been knocked on the head by a burglar.’ His eyes shifted to Laura and back to me. ‘Laura has a fair idea of what’s going on, so you might as well spill it. She’s quite possibly in more danger than you are now she’s arrived at Kingsmead.’
‘Has something happened?’ he asked.
