Murder at Honeychurch Hall: A Mystery

by Hannah Dennison

“You’re making me feel terrible—”

  “The hospice is somewhere between Totnes and Dartmouth. I’m driving down tomorrow. Why don’t I come and see you and we can talk about what to do about your mother. Sound like a plan?”

  “Okay,” I said. “Yes. Look, I’m sorry. Of course you must see Hugh. You could stay here but—”

  “And risk your mother’s wrath?” said David. “Don’t worry. I’ll find a local pub.”

  We said our good-byes and I switched off my mobile. Talking about Trudy always unsettled me and much as I wanted to confide in Mum, I knew she’d have very little sympathy.

  It was unbearably stuffy in this small room. I opened a window and climbing into bed, my thoughts turned to the squabbling couple. True, Vera had recognized me but it was Eric who had been rifling through the dustbins. I wondered what on earth he had been looking for.

  I was utterly exhausted and at a loss as to what to do about my mother. I could hardly let her stay here in this backwater alone.

  I’d promised Dad that I would keep an eye on Mum. I’d hoped that helping me run the shop would have meant she’d meet new people—perhaps even a nice widower.

  Somehow I had to find a way to make her change her mind.

  Chapter Six

  It took me ages to fall asleep. I wasn’t used to the silence. Living so close to Putney Bridge tube station, I no longer heard the last train rumbling out or the first train screeching in. Yet here, in the middle of nowhere, the quiet seemed—loud—apart from the occasional burst of scrabbling claws overhead that I was convinced were rats.

  David’s insistence that I stick with Fakes & Treasures really bothered me. I wished I could make him understand that I wasn’t like Trudy. I’d never sought fame and I hated it. I was still haunted by the most humiliating moment of my life known as “The Big Sneeze” that continued to fly around the Internet on YouTube. Just thinking about it made me feel hot with embarrassment.

  I must have drifted into dreamland because the next thing I heard were voices under my window. According to my old pink alarm clock, it was almost eight-thirty in the morning. I scrambled out of bed and peered outside where Mum and William in Wellington boots, stood ankle deep in a pool of muddy water.

  William—sleeves rolled up—was rotating a long iron rod that was stuck into the ground. Presumably this was the infamous water valve that Eric loved to tamper with.

  “Thanks, William,” I heard Mum say. “And thank you for making me a cup of tea. Katherine’s never been an early morning person. It was impossible getting her out of bed when she was a teenager.”

  It was true, I was not a morning person but even so I threw open the window and yelled, “It was because I had glandular fever,” and slammed it shut, rather enjoying their startled expressions.

  I had suffered quite badly—enough to fall behind in school, delay taking my A-levels, and in the end, I didn’t bother to go to university. Instead, I started working for a French antique dealer and never looked back.

  After getting washed and dressed, I met Mum coming up the stairs. “You’re a bit of a grumpy puss this morning.”

  Ignoring that remark, I said, “Shall I help you put on some clothes? I’m sure you don’t want to wear your poncho to meet his lordship.”

  “I’ve got nothing to wear,” moaned Mum. “This is the extent of my entire wardrobe—pajamas and a poncho.”

  “I’ve got an idea. But first, let’s get you in the bath.”

  I ran the water and Mum produced a plastic bag and some tape which I helped her slide over her cast. “Now, don’t get it wet.”

  “I won’t get it wet,” she snapped. “I’ve managed to get myself in and out of the bath before you arrived, you know.”

  “It’s too early for naked flesh,” I said, pulling the poncho over her head. “I promise I won’t look.”

  “I don’t care. You can look all you like. We all get old.” Mum placed a block of Post-it Notes and a pen on the stool. “In case I think of something.”

  “Are you getting Alzheimer’s? Should I be worried?”

  “It’s a bit cold in here,” said Mum. “Can you turn on the electric heater?”

  I pulled the cord, slightly anxious that it seemed to wobble a little off the wall. “You can’t use this. It’ll fall into the bath and you’ll get electrocuted. You’ll just have to freeze.”

  No sooner had I turned away, there was loud splash. The entire fixture fell into the bath.

  Mum and I shared looks of horror. “Oh my God,” I whispered.

  “Well, that’s another of my nine lives gone,” said Mum lightly but I could tell she was shaken. Her face was ashen. “No harm done.”

  “This time,” I said. “Do you need a bodyguard?”

  “Stop fussing.”

  Leaving Mum in the bath I hunted through her wardrobe. Mum’s clothes were all arranged by color and type. She was right. There was nothing in there that could accommodate a cast.

  I returned to my own bedroom and opened the steamer trunk. The purple harem pantaloons and flowing top might do and she could wrap a scarf around her head. Not exactly a twinset and pearls to meet her so-called gentry but better than a poncho and pajamas.

  Back in Mum’s bedroom I was about to open the top drawer of her dressing table to pick out some undies when I saw the key, tied to a pink ribbon that she had worn around her neck. It was sitting in a Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee coronation saucer. I knew it was wrong but I just had to know what was behind that locked door.

  Slipping the key into my pocket I tapped on the bathroom door first. “Just checking you haven’t drowned in there.”

  “No, still swimming laps,” Mum called out. “Give me another ten minutes. Did you find something for me to wear?”

  “Yes,” I said. “You’ll look very exotic.”

  Even though I felt guilty, my curiosity got the better of me.

  It was pitch black inside. I groped around for a light switch and flipped it on.

  “Good grief.”

  Set against one wall was our old dining room table on which stood Dad’s Olivetti typewriter and various stacks of typewritten pages arranged in neat piles.

  A gray metal filing cabinet five drawers high stood in one corner. In another was the standard lamp from the sitting room in Tooting, Dad’s leather wingback chair, and a hexagonal table holding a book written by Elinor Glyn with a torn dust jacket and a few Country Life and The Lady magazines. But what really caught my attention was a vast corkboard that covered an entire wall.

  Half of it was covered in photocopies of black-and-white photographs of Honeychurch Hall and the formal gardens in what must have been its heyday at the start of the twentieth century—the golden age of the English country house. Later colored photographs dated in the 1950s and early ’60s showed the interior of a shell-lined grotto and the exterior of the Carriage House before it was abandoned for the new stable block.

  Pinned in the top left-hand corner was a newspaper cutting dated six months ago. It showed Lady Edith riding sidesaddle astride the same chestnut horse I’d seen yesterday. HRH Princess Anne was presenting her with a large silver cup. The caption below said:

  DOWAGER COUNTESS LADY EDITH HONEYCHURCH: STILL A CHAMPION AT 84.

  Mum had created a crude family tree that crept across the rest of the corkboard tracing the Honeychurchs back to the 1500s. Post-it Notes were fixed to various family members with random information. Next to Edward Rupert b. 1835–d. 1899 was CRIMEA/MUMMIFIED HAWK. Harold James b. 1840–d. 1905 was EXPLORER/POLAR BEAR. Another family member perished on the Titanic and yet another ran a Turkish harem in London.

  The family tree continued to the present day and ended with Rupert Honeychurch and his two wives—the first being Kelly Jones—then Lavinia, and finally, the current son and heir Harold Edward.

  A few sheets of yellow paper lay facedown on the desk. Turning them over I skimmed the familiar handwriting.

  Shelby the gamekeeper gently took her injured
arm. His callused fingers, hardened by endless hours of cutting wood in the forest, fondled Lady Evelyn’s naked skin. Little quivers of desire ran up and down her body. Slowly, her eyes met his. She found herself gazing into liquid pools of blatant lust.

  Blushing, Lady Evelyn pleaded, “Don’t. Please, don’t.” But her protestations were silenced as Shelby’s full, sensual lips locked onto hers. He kissed her deeply. She felt dizzy, as if she were drowning in a whirlpool of desire.

  “My brother will kill you if he ever finds out about us,” she panted.

  “You want me,” whispered Shelby. “I know you do. You’ve got to keep the circulation going.” Scribbled in red pen in the margin were the words, “Awkward? Chocolate strawberries?”

  A peculiar sensation washed over me as I inspected the neat piles of typewritten pages. Each bore the header STORM/FORBIDDEN (WORKING TITLE). A binder clip held more handwritten yellow pages marked with a Post-it, KAT TO TYPE but the word “Kat” had been crossed out with red pen.

  I was beginning to feel a little light-headed—especially when I realized that half the bookcase was filled with hardback copies of Gypsy Temptress. On the second shelf stood a crystal statuette of Cupid embossed with the name, KRYSTALLE STORM and hanging on the wall behind the door was a gaudy gilt-framed pink certificate with a gold embossed heart—WINNER: KRYSTALLE STORM.

  I couldn’t get to the bathroom quick enough and barged straight in without knocking. Mum was standing there stark naked.

  “Do you mind?” she squeaked as she grabbed a towel with one hand and clumsily clutched it to her damp bosom.

  “You’re Krystalle Storm, aren’t you?” I cried.

  “So what if I am?” Mum sounded defiant.

  “I’m just…” I was speechless.

  “How else could I afford to buy this?” she said, going on the attack. “Did you seriously think I’d spend your father’s money?”

  “But … but … why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I tried to but you wouldn’t have it. That’s right. I tried. Many times. Just like I tried to tell you I do not want to live above a shop. Ever.”

  My mother swept past me, dripping water from her plastic-encased cast. “Excuse me. I have to get dressed.”

  “Mum, wait!” I trailed after her to the bedroom. “Did Dad know?”

  “Of course not,” she snapped. “Can you imagine what his friends and their stuck-up wives would say—let alone his dreary colleagues at the Inland Revenue? Well? Are you going to be difficult about this?”

  “I’m just—well … stunned. Gobsmacked. But impressed. I mean, how did you pull it off? How long have you been writing?”

  “Years.” Mum picked up the purple harem outfit off the bed and said, “Oh yes, very Barbara Eden.”

  “How did you do it?”

  “I used to read romance books from the library and I thought, why not write one? It was a joke to begin with. I was lonely. You were at the riding stables—”

  “Not all the time.”

  “Well, you weren’t exactly good company as a teenager, Kat,” she said. “I remember one time you demanded that I breathe differently because you said the sound grated on your nerves.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Frank was always busy. I was bored, I suppose.”

  “So that’s what you were doing all those years in a dark room when you told me you had a migraine.”

  “Sometimes I had a migraine.”

  “But how did you get published?”

  “I wrote a few short stories and sent them off to magazines. Then, I entered Gypsy Temptress into a competition run by Goldfinch Press. I won. I’ve been longing to tell someone.”

  “Mum, I’m thrilled. Really I am.” And I was. I was proud of her.

  I went to give her a hug but she yelped, “Pins!”

  “Just today, three people told me what a great book Gypsy Temptress is.” I told her about the woman at the motorway service station and of course, Vera and Muriel at the general store and post office. “They’re very excited that you are writing more. What are you writing exactly?”

  “It’s called erotic suspense.”

  I had thought as much and groaned. “Oh God, Mother.”

  “Apparently Elinor Glyn—who used to visit Honeychurch Hall in what was known as the naughty nineties—was the first to write erotica.”

  “I saw one of her books in your office.”

  “Elinor Glyn was supposedly the original ‘It girl.’”

  “It meaning what?”

  “You know, whether you have ‘It’ or not. Sex appeal,” said Mum. “Angelina Jolie does, poor Lavinia doesn’t—nor do you, unfortunately, but you might if you tried harder.”

  “Thanks, Mum, you’ve made my day.”

  “I still think I’ve got it,” said Mum, studying the harem pantaloons.

  I gestured to the family tree. “If you’re basing your erotic stories on the family here, you really should be careful.”

  “No one recognizes themselves in a book,” said Mum dismissively. “It’s just a starting-off point, that’s all. Besides, I’m setting Forbidden in Edwardian times.”

  “And changing the names, I hope.”

  “And that’s where you come in,” Mum went on. “I have to finish this manuscript in three weeks. I’m on a tight schedule. I’d already typed out the first one hundred and fifty pages before I broke my hand. But the rest is in longhand.”

  “Don’t you think typing up these racy pages might be bad for my health?” I said dryly. “You’ve got to keep the circulation going?”

  “I thought that line a tad jarring,” said Mum.

  “Is William supposed to be Shelby the gamekeeper in your new book?”

  “No,” she said, a little too quickly. “The real Shelby—well … never mind.”

  “How could Dad not know about this?” I was still in shock. “I mean, presumably you must have gotten paid by the publishers?”

  Mum reddened and refused to meet my eye. “It’s complicated.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I write under a pseudonym.”

  “Krystalle Storm.”

  “No,” said Mum. “That’s not what I meant. I submitted the manuscript under my maiden name.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? What do you mean, why? I didn’t want your father to find out. It didn’t occur to me that I’d actually make money,” said Mum, adding with a hint of pride, “A lot of money.”

  “Hence why you were able to buy the Carriage House.”

  “For cash.”

  Something didn’t add up. Mum sat in front of the mirror at the dressing table and started rearranging her silver brushes.

  “The publisher paid you in cash?” I said, puzzled. “I didn’t think they did that.”

  “I didn’t say they did,” said Mum.

  “Well, how—?”

  “Frankly, it’s none of your business, Katherine.”

  “Are you doing something illegal?” I demanded.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “How ironic! And you, married to a tax inspector.”

  “It’s not funny,” said Mum crossly. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  Silently she handed me her makeup bag. A few minutes later I stepped back to admire my handiwork, pleased that I’d managed to tone down the livid bruise on Mum’s jaw.

  Mum got to her feet. She inspected her reflection in the mirror and gave a grunt of satisfaction. “I made this costume, you know.”

  “Aren’t you pleased I kept it?”

  “I’ve always wanted to live in the country again, Kat,” said Mum. “I’m not a city person. I never have been.”

  I realized Mum was serious. “You really want to stay, don’t you?”

  She nodded. “I know the place is falling down but I’m happy here.”

  “A writer can write anywhere,” I pointed out. “At least move closer to London. There are lots of leafy s
uburbs.”

  “All my life I’ve had to please other people,” said Mum. “Now it’s my turn.”

  “But what about Dad’s dying wish?” I protested.

  “Don’t play that emotional card with me, Katherine,” Mum said coldly. “My mind is made up and there is nothing you can say or do that will change it.”

  “We’ll see about that,” I muttered.

  “Move down to Devon if you’re that worried.”

  “My life is in London.”

  “And mine is here.” Mum glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece.

  “We should start walking to the Hall,” I said wearily. “We don’t want to be late for his lordship.”

  Chapter Seven

  We stepped out into the bright sunshine of a beautiful summer morning.

  Mum raised her hand and stopped. “Wait.”

  “Are you okay?” I said. “Does your ankle hurt?”

  “No, I told you it was just a sprain.” She inhaled deeply. “Can’t you smell it?”

  I sniffed gingerly. “What am I supposed to be smelling? Manure?”

  “The fresh air, silly!” Mum inhaled deeply again. “Wonderful, isn’t it? Such a change from all the pollution in London.”

  We walked on a few steps and Mum paused again. “Listen. Can you hear it?”

  “What?” I said irritably.

  “The sound of birds singing.”

  “We get birds in London.”

  Suddenly, the ground began to vibrate. I clutched Mum’s arm. An engine exploded into life with a heavy throb and chatter followed by an ear-splitting screech and deafening crunch of grating metal on metal. A vast cloud of oily black smoke mushroomed into the sky.

  “What the hell is that?” I shouted.

  Mum’s expression was thunderous. Despite her limp, she practically propelled me out of the courtyard, wrenched open the latch-gate and pushed me into the muffled silence of the pinewoods.

  “What on earth is it?” I said.

  “The crusher.” Mum was trembling with rage. “Pugsley is not supposed to use it on the weekends.”

  My jaw dropped. “Crusher?”

  “Please don’t start.” Mum seemed close to tears. “No, I didn’t know about it when I bought the place.”