The Red Chairs Mystery

by L. D. Culliford

  ‘It was a riding accident’, she explained. ‘We had been married a couple of years. Jamie had scoured the land for a suitable house and we’d moved into Rose Cottage a year or so earlier. I’ve always ridden, and loved having the stables; and I’d a new hunter to ride: Gulliver. He was a grey; not a large horse, but game, fearless. I loved riding him; and when the local hunt asked to hold a meet here, I decided to ride with them. Perhaps I should have got to know the local terrain better, but I was a confident rider in those days.’

  Holly had taken a notebook from her bag, now sitting beside her on the floor, but she was not writing in it, only listening. Outside, through the glass doors ahead, she could see sunlight and occasional dark cloud shadows passing across the spacious lawn surrounding the massively majestic Cedar of Lebanon. This wonderful tree, she later discovered, had been planted when the country was still at war with Napoleon, when the house’s foundations had also been laid.

  ‘It was March’, Georgina Royle continued. ‘There had been a hard frost in the night and, in the morning sunshine, everything looked sparkling and beautiful. I remember the feeling of exhilaration just to be alive. However, we were disappointed. At first and for ages, nothing much happened…. No foxes! Later on, a bunch of us were milling around by a small copse, thinking of calling it a day, when suddenly we heard the hounds and the bugle far off to the south. I was facing the wrong way and, by the time I got Gulliver turned, there were about thirty horses and riders in front of me, all heading fast for the same small gap in a high hedge between two fields. On impulse I set Gulliver at the centre of the hedge to the left of where everyone else was going. I knew he could jump it, and that if he hit some of the topmost fronds, he would just barrel-charge through. Unfortunately for me, though, as I found out later, some hunt saboteurs had strung strong wires along inside the hedge. These caught Gulliver’s hooves, and he went down with me underneath him. If the ground had been softer, I might have been alright, but it was still firm as concrete. My pelvis was smashed and my lower spine broken beyond repair. I don’t remember anything of it, but I was rushed to St Richard’s in Chichester by air ambulance where I had my spleen and a third of my damaged liver removed that afternoon. Both had been ruptured when the horse fell on me. They told me later that I lost a lot of blood and was lucky to get there in time.’

  Holly was impressed with the matter-of-fact way the tale was told, with no sense that the impressive woman recounting it might be feeling sorry for herself, only grateful.

  ‘I was left paralysed from the waist down, as you see’, Georgina Royle went on. ‘But harder to bear, in a way, was that I lost the pregnancy I was carrying. It was still early days, and I hadn’t even told Jamie about it, but I was sure, and the surgeons confirmed it after also removing my badly damaged womb… It took me a long time to get over that.’

  Although this was not what Holly had come to hear, she later somehow felt glad that this was where their conversation had begun. Her interviewee’s disability was the most obvious topic. She had not thought much about having children herself at any point, but realised forcefully now what a blow it would be if that option were suddenly closed off. Although the woman across from her was not looking for sympathy, Holly experienced immediate heartfelt compassion for her nonetheless.

  At this point, Mrs Royle stretched across the table between them, picking up the small hand-bell resting there. When she raised and rang it, more or less instantly, robot-like, the grey apparition re-appeared above them.

  ‘Monica, dear’, said her employer, ‘Please bring us some tea.’

  Turning back to Holly, she explained, ‘That’s Monica… Miss Kidd. She is my assistant. I know she doesn’t say much. We think she’s probably on the autistic spectrum, Asperger’s syndrome or something like that. All the same, I don’t know what I would have done without her help all these years… After the accident, when I was in hospital recovering from the operations, and afterwards in the rehabilitation centre where I spent three months, Jamie had people come here and adapt the house for a wheelchair user. There’s a lift now, so I can still get upstairs, and the stable block was partly converted to house a small hydrotherapy pool and a mini-gym for my use. This extension was done later. He also hired a physio to come twice a day, every day, to put me through my paces; and Monica came at the same time, to live in and manage the household. She’s been with me ever since.’

  That same person, the subject of discussion, now re-entered the room, manoeuvring a tea trolley efficiently down the ramp, bringing it close to the table nearby the other two women. As she began to pour the dark aromatic liquid through a strainer into the elegant white bone china cups, Holly heard her hostess explain, ‘This is orange pekoe tea, Detective Angel. I hope you like it. It’s a strange name, I know; and not one that I can explain because, unlike Earl Grey, which has a citrus fruit extract added called ‘bergamot’, it does not taste remotely of oranges. This one is from Sri Lanka, a simple black tea of top quality, made only from the ‘pekoe’; that’s the tender-most new leaf buds. It can be made strong, as some people prefer, but I like a more delicate flavour. I also drink it neat, sometimes with lemon, but you can have it with milk if you like.’

  After putting milk in and tasting it, Holly would have liked half a spoonful of sugar to offset the bitterness, but hardly dare ask. Miss Kidd had, in any case, already gone back up the steps.

  ‘I went there once’, her hostess was talking again. ‘It was still called Ceylon in those days. That’s when I developed an abiding taste for this tea. I was visiting a school friend whose parents managed a plantation in the beautiful Ceylonese hills. We often watched the native women picking the delicate leaves, as they did every day on the estate; and we were given a tour of the factory where the young buds were dried and processed. Did you know that in India and Sri Lanka, what most people in England drink, the stuff that goes into most of the tea-bags people buy, is known simply as ‘dust’? That’s the lowest grade of tea, almost the leftovers; so this is one thing I do admit to being a snob about… How do you find it?’

  Holly, who would quite happily have enjoyed basic builder’s tea, did not know how to reply. The tea, to her, was fine, now that she was getting used to its unusual flavour, perhaps even a taste she could acquire, but drinking it was not an experience she would be in a hurry to repeat. ‘What happened to the horse, Gulliver?’ she asked, changing the subject as a ploy to avoid further awkwardness.

  ‘He was unharmed, thankfully. Soon afterwards, he was sold, along with the other horse and two ponies I kept at the time’, Georgina sniffed sadly. ‘I never saw him again… But we did re-open the stables eventually. The pool and gym weren’t getting as much use, and there was still room anyway for a few stalls, so we bought a mare and three more ponies. I don’t ride, of course, but we invited the charity ‘Riding for the Disabled’ to get involved, and they have been visiting twice a week now for almost ten years. They have their own animals too, which they bring along for people to ride as well as ours. This is one of the big things that keeps me going, the feeling that, disabled as I am, I can still do something for others.’

  Holly, the tea ordeal over, had started absent-mindedly fingering her notebook.

  ‘But you want me to tell you about my husband, don’t you, Detective?’ Georgina enquired, noticing her impatience.

  ‘Yes’, said Holly, taking her cue. ‘This is a very unusual investigation. It may well have nothing at all to do with Mr Royle, but we are in the dark and anything we learn may help solve this mystery. When and how did you meet?’

  ‘I was about nineteen. Jamie was twenty-two, the same age as my brother, Patrick. It was Paddy who introduced us, at one of his parties. They had met as undergraduates in Oxford where they were both reading law. Jamie had excelled at maths and physics at school, but his father had been a high court judge and insisted he take a classical subject while there. Then, obedient to his father, as I say, at Exeter
College he read law. He and Paddy instantly became great mates. It was all a bit ‘Brideshead revisited’, I must say. They did everything together: studied, played golf, partied… everything; and Jamie loved coming to the house.’

  ‘We are not proper aristocracy, I don’t think, not in the higher echelons of Dukes and Earls, but my father was a baronet: Baronet Ernest Gryllock of Martsey… It used to be spelt ‘”Greylock” a few generations back, according to the records, denoting age and wisdom, of course, but I suspect people started saying it as ‘Gryllock’ and the spelling changed. Who knows? Anyway, Paddy and I come from the Baronet’s second wife, Deborah, after his first wife, Rowena, died. The inheritance and the title all went to our half-brother Richard, but we were still both called ‘Honourable’ in those days. I was ‘The Honourable Georgina Gryllock’, which always sounded to me like a contraction of ‘grill’ and ‘haddock’, something you’d serve up for breakfast… But Jamie was quite taken with it when we first met. He kept calling me “My Lady”. It was very flattering… He was such a terrific flirt.’

  Holly watched as Georgina, a smile hovering, closed her eyes in reminiscence.

  ‘He had lots of girlfriends’, she continued. ‘I always knew that… But we had something special, which I can’t explain. We were always so good together, not only in bed… And we made each other laugh. I think that was the real key… I say in bed but, to be honest, we had sex everywhere, indoors, outdoors, in the stables, in the attic, you name it! We were just so hungry for each other. The first time, I remember, was during a party at Martsey House, in the swimming pool after I’d had too much champagne. Jamie was always one to spot an opportunity; but it would have happened anyway. It was the seventies. ‘Love was in the air’, with a whiff or two of marijuana thrown into the mix, I dare say. “Mandies make you randy” and all that! I was on the pill. It was a great, carefree time. Lots of couples came together and broke apart on a weekly basis, more or less, in those days; but somehow we eventually, after orbiting each other for a year or two, finally stuck together. Jamie and Patrick were in business together by then, and they were beginning to become seriously rich young men. I think that was also an important factor. When you are rich like that for the first time, it helps to have someone around who knows how to help you spend it, and I was good at that then.’

  ‘How did they get rich?’ Holly asked.

  ‘One of the bonds between Jamie and Paddy, and me to some extent, was that our fathers both died at roughly the same time. When the judge died, Jamie immediately gave up reading law. He switched to engineering, for which he was better suited, and in particular to electrical engineering. One day, apparently, on a trip to the College library, he came upon Alex Kachaturian, or ‘Catch’ as Jamie always called him. Alex was another, very gifted, electrical engineer, a year or two older than Jamie. The story goes that they got chatting and Jamie discovered firstly that Alex was flat broke. He was Armenian, and for some reason he didn’t get a student grant. I suppose his family were poor too. Anyway, he couldn’t even afford to heat a room at his digs on the other side of town, which is why he came into college every day, camping out in the library to stay warm. He was also always hungry, so Jamie immediately offered to take him round the corner to the pub for a meal and a pint. It was there that he also found out that Alex had just invented a wizard little gismo for computers which, of course, were still in the early stages of development back then.’

  Holly, scribbling a note in her notebook, was still listening.

  ‘It was still at the theoretical stage’, Georgina continued. ‘Alex was in despair because he couldn’t afford to develop the idea, build prototypes and so on, and he couldn’t get a full patent until this happened. Obviously, he didn’t want to sell the idea, even if he could. It wouldn’t have been worth much without further testing anyway. So that’s when Jamie contacted Patrick and together they made him an offer. Both had inherited some money, and Jamie was in the process of selling off his father’s big house somewhere near Ewhurst, so the three of them formed a company – JAP, from their initials: Jamie, Alex, Patrick – and took the idea into development. I think it helped that people thought JAP came from Japan, where electronic wizardry was commonplace. Anyway, they completed their testing, got their patent and went into production, with the result that the latest version of Alex’s gizmo is now in every computer and every mobile phone on the planet. That’s how those boys; who still work together, by the way – Regal, for example, is a subsidiary of the original JAP. Anyway, that is how they got rich.’

  Coming back from these memories to the present, the older woman began apologising. ‘I’m sorry’, she said to Holly, ‘I didn’t ask if you’d like more tea.’

  When Holly declined, she leaned down and released the brake, moving her wheelchair slightly. ‘Come on, then’, she said cheerfully, ‘I’d like to show you something.’

  Holly got up, stowed her notebook and lifted her bag onto her shoulder while her disabled hostess worked the electric wheelchair’s controls, propelling herself gradually forward towards the glass doors, which slid open in response to a hidden trigger. ‘There are electronics everywhere in this house’, she said, gliding to a halt. ‘But let me introduce you to Henry.’ She had stopped in front of a full suit of armour from the Tudor period, standing incongruously on the laminate floor amid the tasteful collection of contemporary furniture. ‘I keep him as a reminder of the days, not so long ago, when everything was mechanical.’

  Statue-like, Henry was adorned frivolously with a long turquoise feather boa wrapped once around his neck, the longer end trailing down to his knees. Holly, stepping forward, raised his visor to peer into the dark empty cavity within. ‘Nobody seems to be home’, she said, for some reason wanting to giggle.

  ‘And I know a few people like that’, Georgina Royle replied. ‘Don’t you?’

  The two women were still laughing as they emerged, side by side, onto the terrace moments later.

  ‘You need a sense of humour in this life,’ Georgina said thoughtfully, as they recovered from their fit of mirth. ‘But I can’t get Monica to laugh, no matter how hard I try. Jamie is the only one who can do that.’

  ‘Do you see him often?’ Holly asked.

  ‘No. After the accident, things changed. We became more like brother and sister than lovers, of course. We tried once or twice, but it was no good. With no movement and no sensation below the waist, I couldn’t respond to him. And knowing I couldn’t get pregnant, he must have been wondering, “What was the point?” He tried not to show it, but I think his self-esteem took a massive blow.’ She paused, thoughtfully. ‘He must have wanted a son and heir. Men do, don’t they? These were dark days; and I suspect something else was going on, something Jamie never told me about; but sitting around with nothing to do, day by day, eventually did something for me that was beneficial. It made me much more sensitive to other people, to how they are feeling. I think that’s a great blessing… Sometimes, it is as if I know even better than they do if they’re sad or angry, anxious or ashamed. You’ve no idea how much sadness people carry around that they are not properly in touch with… And anger! It can be awkward at times, this secret knowledge about a person, but I do value it… Nevertheless, as I say, we had to go through some dark times to get there.’

  Georgina was leading Holly down another ramp, running from the terrace to the west side of the great lawn. Then they moved forward along paving stones towards the entrance of a brick-walled enclosed garden. Entering it first, Holly’s eyes met an extravagant scene, a feast for her eyes, and for her sense of smell too. Spreading before her was a beautiful, multi-coloured rose garden, the fragrant blooms radiant in the continuing sunlight. ‘Oh’, she exclaimed, ‘This is heaven!’

  ‘These roses were what saved my sanity, and probably my life’, said Georgina. ‘The soil here is excellent for them. I have gardeners, of course. But the development planning, hybrid creation, and quite a l
ot of the actual work, the dead-heading and end of season pruning, I do myself. This one here, for example’, she said, rolling forward a few yards and pointing to a bush at her shoulder height bearing multiple clusters of tightly furled crimson and white striped blooms. ‘It’s called the ‘Martsey Damsel’, one of our successes. Smell it! You rarely get a hybrid that maintains the strength of fragrance of the original plants, but this one exceeds them, and regularly wins prizes to prove it.’

  Holly was impressed. The scent of the roses was delightfully heady. ‘Congratulations!’ she said.

  The two women moved up one smooth pathway between the beds and started down another when something out of place, a particularly bright patch of greenery in the corner, caught Holly’s vigilant eye. ‘Is that what I think it is?’ she asked, pointing.

  ‘Oh dear… You’ve caught me!’ exclaimed the rose expert. ‘Yes. It’s cannabis sativa, “Sweet Mary Jane”. I don’t expect you to believe me, but I grow it for medicinal purposes. I get such painful cramps in these useless, withered old legs of mine, especially at night. It’s weird, because I can’t feel anything down there most of the time, only when they go into spasm. But I have found that if I smoke a little pot before bedtime, it really helps… Are you going to arrest me now?’

  ‘No fear!’ Holly replied. ‘I’m not from the drugs squad; and you’re alright with me, as long as I don’t catch you selling it. And that goes for your staff as well.’

  ‘What a relief, Sister!’ Georgina was smiling. ‘I’m too old and decrepit to go to prison now. And the staff here know that they all face the sack if any one of them either tells on me or harvests any of the plants for themselves. I may lose a few seeds every year, if one or other of them want to grow a plant or two at home, but I can’t be held responsible for that, can I?’

  Holly decided it was better to stay silent on the matter. She did not approve of recreational drug use under any circumstances, but this was not the moment to say so. ‘Don’t these roses need to be in a greenhouse?’ she asked by way of a diversion.